Mexico City, Mexico, Oct 22, 2018 / 11:59 am (CNA).- An auxiliary policeman was shot and killed Sunday defending the home of Cardinal Norberto Rivera, the retired Archbishop of Mexico City.
The guard died on his way to hospital shortly after the shoot… […]
Vatican City, Oct 22, 2018 / 10:16 am (CNA).- The 15th ordinary Synod of Bishops is meeting now to discuss young people, the faith, and vocational discernment. Many have referred to this nearly month-long meeting as the “Youth Synod.” This … […]
Vatican City, Oct 22, 2018 / 08:43 am (CNA/EWTN News).- John Paul II spent much of his papacy speaking to youth. Now some of those youth are bishops.
On the feast of Saint John Paul II, one synod bishop reflected on how the Polish pope inspired generations of young people, including himself, to pursue holiness.
“Catholic youth want to implement ‘the civilization of love’ that was promised by John Paul II,” French Archbishop David Macaire said at a Vatican press conference Oct. 22.
The archbishop of Saint-Pierre and Fort-de-France in Martinique is in Rome for the 2018 Synod of Bishops convened Oct. 3-28 to discuss young people, the faith, and vocational discernment.
“I attended my first World Youth Day when I was 19 years old in Santiago de Compostela,” Macaire said in French.
The 1989 World Youth Day in Spain was the fourth global meeting for young people established by the John Paul II, who went on to celebrate a total of 19 World Youth Days in his pontificate with millions of young people from all over the world.
“John Paul II guided me through my youth,” Archbishop Macaire said.
Synod fathers should convey the Gospel, he continued, because “young people will receive this legacy.”
Earlier in the day, Pope Francis prayed at the tomb of Saint John Paul II in St. Peter’s Basilica. In April 2014, Pope Francis canonized John Paul II along with Pope John XXIII.
The Synod of Bishops did not meet Monday, while committees complete writing the draft of the final document and the synod letter to young people.
The draft document of the post-synod apostolic exhortation will be presented Oct. 23 and synod fathers will be able to propose their changes individually or as groups, Paolo Ruffini, Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Communications, announced.
It is up to Pope Francis to decide when the document will be made available to the public, Ruffini added.
As the synod nears its close, Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut said Monday that bishops and other diocesan leaders need to bring “synodality” to the local level.
“The document that we will receive tomorrow … is an attempt to speak to a global community,” Caggiano said.
“Let’s be realistic, young people in Bridgeport have a very different experience from young people in Nairobi or young people in Caracas,” he continued.
One unique experience was shared by a young girl from Guinea, Henriette Camara, who told the synod her story of growing up in a Muslim family. Camara converted to Catholicism, despite parental disapproval, through the witness and community that she encountered in a Catholic scouting group.
“The pursuit of holiness is recognizing the will of God and choosing to do it,” said Bishop Caggiano. “This entire synod has been an ecclesial exercise to unlock that pursuit of holiness.”
Vatican City, Oct 21, 2018 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- A bishop from Lebanon shared at the 2018 Synod of Bishops how his online catechesis program in Arabic has helped him to unite young Catholics across the Middle East.
“Thanks to the web I am able to connect many young people from the Middle East. We’ve also had conversions of young people who have recognized Jesus through our social presence,” Bishop Joseph Naffah said at the a Vatican press conference Oct. 19.
Synod fathers from Africa, South America, and the Middle East spoke Friday about their hopes for the future of evangelization and catechesis in a digital age.
Bishop Naffah is the auxiliary bishop of the Maronite Catholic eparchy of Joubbé, Sarba, and Jounieh in Lebanon.
For five years Naffah has been running an online catechetical program that connects over 500 Arabic-speaking Catholic students in conversations about the faith.
Students in the online program include youth in prison, as well as young people with disabilities.
“I’ve been moved in particular by one person who is totally paralyzed,” Bishop Naffah said.
While positive about the potential of online catechesis, the Maronite bishop also expressed concern that there are websites that contain false Catholic teaching online.
Naffah sees a need for a mechanism for Vatican approval of catechesis and teaching shared online, such as a special office to monitor Catholic webpages and then certify sites that accurately reflect the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Bishop Kofi Fianu of Ho, Ghana has also found success connecting with young people in Africa through the daily online Bible reflections that he shares with them.
“From this apostolate of digital reflections I have been in contact with many of the youth,” said Bishop Fianu. “They interact with me. They ask questions about what I have written in the reflection.”
“All of us, first of all, we the bishops, clergy need to be real ministers of the word. When we are able to drink deeply into the word of God, when we are on fire for this word, we can transmit it faithfully and more actively to the youth and the rest of the members of the Church,” Fianu continued.
Father Valdir Jose Castro from Brazil said that young people know the language and the grammar of the world of social media and are crucial in assisting the Church to reach out and open the doors.
“The Church needs to study in depth and improve its understanding of technology and the internet in particular so as to discern how she should live there and where fertile soil can be found,” Father Castro said.
The internet is a venue where the Church can encourage young people to be “protagonists in evangelization, not just the beneficiaries.”
Vatican City, Oct 21, 2018 / 05:24 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The throne of Jesus Christ is the cross upon which he gave his life for the world, and those who wish to follow him must be prepared to sacrifice everything, Pope Francis said Sunday.
“The … […]
Vatican City, Oct 21, 2018 / 04:00 am (CNA).- St. John Paul II used the occasion of his first homily as pope to offer a fervent prayer that God would make him, first and foremost, a servant.
The former Cardinal Karol Wojtyla delivered the first homily of his 26-year pontificate before a packed assembly in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Oct. 22, 1978— 40 years ago this week.
His election was a few days before, on Oct. 16.
John Paul II began his homily by reaffirming the words that had once been uttered by the apostle Peter in the presence of Jesus: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
“Yes, Brothers and sons and daughters, these words first of all,” the newly-elected pope said. “He who is infinite, inscrutable, ineffable, has come close to us in Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary in the stable at Bethlehem.”
The pope exhorted those seeking God, those who already believe, and those struggling with doubt to pay attention to Peter’s profession of faith in Jesus. Peter’s faith and obedience to a higher calling led him to leave his simple way of life as a fisherman and journey to Rome.
“What else but obedience to the inspiration received from the Lord guided him and brought him to this city, the heart of the Empire?” the pope said. “Perhaps the fisherman of Galilee did not want to come here. Perhaps he would have preferred to stay there, on the shores of the Lake of Genesareth, with his boat and his nets. But guided by the Lord, obedient to his inspiration, he came here!”
“Son of Poland”
On the day he began his new mission as Bishop of Rome, Pope John Paul admitted he was “a bishop full of trepidation, conscious of his unworthiness.”
As a self-proclaimed “son of Poland,” John Paul was the first non-Italian pope in more than 400 years. In this moment, as he took over the See of Peter, he proclaimed that the unbroken tradition of the papacy had made him a Roman, too.
“Inscrutable is the design of Divine Providence!” he said. “How could one not tremble before the greatness of this call and before the universal mission of this See of Rome!”
To his fellow Polish Bishops and to the many Polish pilgrims present, John Paul II said:
“Everything that I could say would fade into insignificance compared with what my heart feels, and your hearts feel, at this moment. So let us leave aside words. Let there remain just great silence before God, the silence that becomes prayer…Remember me today and always in your prayers!”
Humility and service
John Paul II chose not to wear a papal tiara, or crown; the last pope to be crowned was Paul VI in 1963. He said he didn’t want to return to “an object considered, wrongly, to be a symbol of the temporal power of the Popes,” but rather to immerse himself in “humble and devout meditation on the mystery of the supreme power of Christ himself.”
The “power” exercised by the popes is service, John Paul II said; service to help all the people of God share in the mission of Jesus as Priest, Prophet, and King. This power expressed itself in “charity and truth” rather than in “the language of force.”
“Brothers and sisters, do not be afraid to welcome Christ and accept his power,” the saint said. “Help the Pope and all those who wish to serve Christ and with Christ’s power to serve the human person and the whole of mankind.”
“Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development. Do not be afraid.”
Though his homily was in Italian, John Paul II— a famous polyglot— also offered greetings to pilgrims in French, English,German, Spanish, Portuguese, Czechoslovakian, Russian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian, asking all of them for prayers.
Vatican City, Oct 20, 2018 / 08:47 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As the youth synod wrapped up its third week, the bishops and auditors discussed the sexual abuse crisis in parts of the world and how to respond to young people experiencing same-sex attraction.
… […]
Vatican City, Oct 19, 2018 / 09:44 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As the Church prepares to celebrate World Mission Day on Sunday, the head of the Vatican’s evangelization congregation said the timing of the day with the youth synod provides an opportunity… […]
Vatican City, Oct 19, 2018 / 08:22 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a new testimony Friday, Archbishop Carlo Vigano charged that Pope Francis has been negligent in his responsibilities to the Church, and responded to efforts to refute allegations he has made in recent months about Archbishop Theodore McCarrick and other ecclesiastical leaders.
Vigano also denied charges that he is in rebellion against Pope Francis.
Responding to an Oct. 7 letter from the Vatican’s prefect for the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Vigano said he is not urging anyone to “topple the papacy,” and that he prays for Pope Francis daily — more than he has for any other pope — urging the pontiff to “admit his errors, repent.”
However, Vigano’s Oct. 19 statement also defended his decision to “bear witness to corruption in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church,” which he called a painful decision. He said he believes his further silence would cause damage to souls and “certainly damn” his own.
Responding to the charge that he has created confusion and division in the Church with his testimony, Vigano said “impartial observers” know there was already an excess of both, a situation which he blames at least partially on Pope Francis.
Confusion and division, he said, “is inevitable when the successor of Peter is negligent in exercising his principal mission, which is to confirm the brothers in the faith and in sound moral doctrine. When he then exacerbates the crisis by contradictory or perplexing statements about these doctrines, the confusion is worsened.”
“Therefore I spoke. For it is the conspiracy of silence that has wrought and continues to wreak great harm in the Church — harm to so many innocent souls, to young priestly vocations, to the faithful at large.”
Vigano’s statement outlines the principal claims he made in his original Aug. 25 testimony about Archbishop Theodore McCarrick and the knowledge he says the Vatican and Pope Francis had regarding of the ex-cardinal’s sexual abuse of seminarians.
Vigano’s latest testimony also summarizes what he considers Ouellet’s main arguments.
“In brief, Cardinal Ouellet concedes the important claims that I did and do make, and disputes claims I don’t make and never made.”
Refuting a claim by Ouellet, that the Holy See was only aware of “rumors” about Archbishop McCarrick and nothing further, Vigano said that “to the contrary, that the Holy See was aware of a variety of concrete facts,” and has documentary proof in the appropriate archives, where “no extraordinary investigation is needed to recover them.”
“The crimes reported were very serious, including those of attempting to give sacramental absolution to accomplices in perverse acts, with subsequent sacrilegious celebration of Mass.”
The attempted sacramental absolution of an accomplice in a sin of sexual immorality is a “grave delict” in the Church’s canon law, for which a priest can be punished with excommunication.
Vigano conceded a statement from Ouellet’s letter that there were not canonical “sanctions” against Archbishop McCarrick (as claimed by Vigano in his original testimony) but that there were “conditions and restrictions” against him.
He said that he believes “to quibble whether they were sanctions or provisions or something else is pure legalism. From a pastoral point of view they are exactly the same thing.”
The archbishop argued that the public criticism against him following his August testimony was silent on two topics: the situation of the victims and the “corrupting influence of homosexuality in the priesthood and in the hierarchy.” It is not a matter of politics or “settling scores,” he said, but “about souls.”
He said it is “an enormous hypocrisy” to condemn abuse and feel sorrow for victims, but not denounce the “root cause” of much sexual abuse: homosexuality within the clergy. He also accused homosexual clergy of “collusion,” and called clericalism an instrument of abusers, but not the “main motive.”
“I am not surprised that in calling attention to these plagues I am charged with disloyalty to the Holy Father and with fomenting an open and scandalous rebellion,” for calling attention to “homosexual corruption,” he said.
Vigano ended his testimony by asking any priests or bishops who have access to documents, or who have other knowledge, to testify to the truth of his statements.
“You too are faced with a choice,” he charged. “You can choose to withdraw from the battle, to prop up the conspiracy of silence and avert your eyes from the spreading of corruption” or choose to speak, he said.
Vatican City, Oct 18, 2018 / 03:56 pm (CNA).- The 2018 Synod of Bishops has elected a group of eight participants to begin drafting a message from the synod to the youth of the world.
The text will be put to the entire assembly for approval before it … […]
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