Vatican

Vatican City, Mar 10, 2017 / 08:21 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican announced Friday that Pope Francis will make a six-day trip to Colombia in September with four cities on his itinerary, almost a year after the government and FARC rebels signed a major peace agreement.

“Accepting the invitation of the President of the Republic and the Colombian bishops, His Holiness the Pope Francis will make an Apostolic Trip to Colombia from 6 to 11 September 2017,” a March 10 communique from the Vatican read.

While the official schedule is expected to be released shortly, the Vatican confirmed that Francis will visit the cities of Bogotá, Villavicencio, Medellín and Cartagena.

The trip will mark the third time Francis has visited his native South America since becoming Pope, with the first taking place in July 2013 when he traveled to Rio de Janiero for World Youth Day. The second tour took place in July 2015, with stops in Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay.

In August 2016 a peace accord between the Colombian government and the country’s largest rebel group, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), was finally reached following four years of negotiations in Cuba.

Since 1964, as many as 260,000 people have been killed and millions displaced in the civil war.

According to Human Rights Watch, with more than 6.8 million people forcibly displaced due to the conflict, Colombia has the world’s second largest population of internally displaced people, with Syria in first place.

However, the August agreement was narrowly rejected in a referendum Oct. 2, with many Colombians claiming that it was too lenient on FARC, particularly when it came to kidnapping and drug trafficking.

A revised agreement was signed Nov. 24, and sent to Colombia’s Congress for approval, rather than being submitted to a popular vote. The reformed accord was approved Nov. 30, with revised features including the demand that FARC hand over assets to be used for reparations, a 10 year time limit for the transitional justice system, and FARC rebels’ providing information about their drug trafficking.

In December Pope Francis met with Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón and former president Senator Álvaro Uribe Vélez, at the Vatican, encouraging them to continue working for peace.

When the deal was initially reached, the Pope praised the move, voicing his support “for the goal of attaining the peace and reconciliation of the entire Colombian people, in light of human rights and Christian values, which are at the heart of Latin American culture.”

The Pope’s trip was officially presented in the country March 10 by Bishop Fabio Suescún Mutis, head of Colombia’s military diocese and who is in charge of the preparation committee for the trip.

During presentation, Bishop Suescún said the Pope’s visit “is a moment of grace and joy to dream with the possibility of transforming our country and taking the first step,” according to the Colombian Bishops Conference website.

“The Holy Father is a missionary for reconciliation,” he said. “His presence helps us to discover that yes, it’s possible to re-unite as a nation in order to learn to look at ourselves again with eyes of hope and mercy.”

He pointed to the logo of the trip, which in yellow and white pictures Pope Francis walking next to the thematic phrase “Demos el primer paso,” meaning “Let us take the first step.”

To take the first step, Suescún said, means “to again draw near to Jesus, to meet again the love of our families, to disarm words with our neighbor and to have compassion with those who have suffered.”

According to the Colombian Bishops Conference, after receiving the official confirmation of the Pope’s visit, Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos expressed his joy saying “we will receive (Francs) with open arms and hearts, as a messenger of peace and reconciliation.”

He noted that on many occasions Pope Francis “gave courage and impelled” the peace process in the country, adding that “he is a messenger of love and faith; he’s a forger of bridges and not walls.”

The president pointed to the fact that the Pope’s trip will be made exclusively to Colombia, whereas there are typically multiple countries included in international papal trips.

“To have the Pope with us for four days, to know that he’s traveling exclusively to give a voice of encouragement and faith to Colombians, is a privilege that fills us with gratitude,” Santos said.

The Pope’s visit, he said, is an “encounter with the teachings of Jesus, the encounter among ourselves, as a society, as compatriots, as human beings and as children of God.”

He voiced his hope that the visit would help Colombians to unite around the “building of a more just and equitable country, with peace and more solidarity.”

“We have already begun to prepare and will continue to prepare so that this apostolic journey of Pope Francis in Colombia will bear the greatest of fruits of harmony and unity in our country.”

(This article was updated at 5:06p.m. local time in Rome with the words of Bishop Fabio Suescún Mutis and Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos).

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Vatican City, Mar 10, 2017 / 05:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After spending a week in Ariccia with members of the Curia for their annual Lenten spiritual exercises, Pope Francis returned to the Vatican Friday with words of gratitude and his own brief reflection.

Shortly before leaving the Casa Divin Maestro retreat house in Ariccia, the Pope voiced his gratitude to Franciscan priest Giulio Michelini, who led the meditations for the week, saying “I want to thank you for the good you have wished us to have and for the good you have done us.”

He thanked the friar first of all for his openness and for being “natural” during the preaching, sharing himself “without artifice.”

Francis also gave thanks for all of the work Michelini put into preparing the meditations. “It’s true, there is a mountain of things to meditate on,” he said, but noted that as St. Ignatius says in the Exercises, when one encounters feelings of consolation or desolation, you must “stop there” to meditate on it.

Surely everyone has found one or two things to deeply reflect on after hearing Fr. Michelini’s meditations this week, the Pope continued, saying the rest “will serve for another time.”

“Sometimes, the simplest words are the ones that help us, or the more complicated ones: to everyone, the Lord gives the right word,” he said.

Concluding his remarks, the Pope voiced his hope and prayer Fr. Michelini can “continue to work for the Church, in the Church, in teaching, in so many things that the Church entrusts to you. But above all, I wish you to be a good friar.”

Pope Francis returned to the Vatican Friday with members of the Roman Curia at the conclusion of their March 5-10 Lenten spiritual exercises. He began the tradition of leaving the Vatican for the retreat after his election, choosing instead to spend it in Ariccia, just a short ways outside of Rome.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”><a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/PopeFrancis?src=hash”>#PopeFrancis</a> is back from Ariccia after a week of <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/prayer?src=hash”>#prayer</a> &amp; reflection for <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/lent?src=hash”>#lent</a> – welcome back <a href=”https://twitter.com/Pontifex”>@Pontifex</a>! <a href=”https://t.co/L4kkuTkcIN”>pic.twitter.com/L4kkuTkcIN</a></p>&mdash; Elise Harris (@eharris_it) <a href=”https://twitter.com/eharris_it/status/840157590554255360″>March 10, 2017</a></blockquote>
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According to a Vatican communique, after offering the final March 10 Mass for Syria, the Pope and members of the Curia left, arriving back at the Vatican just before 11:30a.m.

At the conclusion of the Mass, Pope Francis sent 100,000 euro to the poor in Aleppo, thanks to a contribution from the Roman Curia.

For this year’s spiritual exercises, the Pope chose personally chose Fr. Michelini, a Franciscan of the Seraphic Province of the Friars Minor of Umbria, to do the preaching.

The meditations for each day were focused on the story of Christ’s Passion as recounted in the Gospel of Matthew. Each day included two meditations, each on a different part of the story.

For example, reflecting on Jesus’ silence in the face of his accusers, Fr. Michelini spoke about the different kinds of silence: the good kind, such as silence in prayer and the bad kind, which is remaining silent in the face of wrongdoing, because we are worried what others will think of us.

Reflecting on Christ’s passion, Fr. Michelini in one meditation said, “I wonder if I have the courage to go all the way to follow Jesus Christ, taking into account that this brings to bear the cross.” As Jesus said, “‘if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.’”

[…]

Vatican City, Mar 9, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Barbara Jatta, the newest director of the Vatican museums, and the first woman to hold the position, said that working with art was a natural path for her to follow – and she can’t imagine a better place to do so.

On her extensive background in art, Barbara Jatta told CNA: “I don’t think I chose it.” Her mother and sister are both restorers, her grandmother was a painter and her grandfather was an architect, she said. “All my family is in the art world…”

“So I grew up in art, looking at art, going to museums with my family. It was really something so natural for me to choose this,” Jatta said.

“I don’t feel I have a career, I have the privilege of working with what I like. With what I really think is important for me to do and I’m doing it in the best place I can ever imagine.”

Asked what she thinks will be the greatest challenge in her new position, she said bringing “harmony in to this place.” She wants to “give the visitors the idea that they are in a privileged place with privileged people that work here.”

“I mean, all the people working here know that they work for the Pope, they work for a mission, rather than just having a simple work. And I would like to focus on this more and more,” she said.

Another challenge Jatta faces is balancing preservation of the art in the museums with accessibility to the public.

“I do think that it’s very important to preserve what we have received from the past,” she said, “and at the same time, sharing it is one of our focuses. So it’s important also to share the beauty in what we have here.”

The museums have recently made other changes as well, including launching an updated website at the end of January that is more user-friendly and includes an “Explore” section, where website visitors can view museum content right from their homes.

Expanding accessibility to the extensive collections of the museums, whether through the website or for in-person visitors is a major focus, Jatta said.

“The idea is to let the people and the visitors arriving spread out in the different museums…and so let them go into the different part of the museums that are not as often visited. We have wonderful parts of the museum that visitors generally do not go to, do not visit,” she said.

And the number of visitors to the museums continues to grow. In 2016, six million people visited the Vatican, she said, but that number is predicted to be even greater in 2017.

In Jan. and Feb. of 2017, “we had an increase of 18,000 people in the two months, compared to the other years,” she noted.

The large number of visitors is excellent for the museums, but not always great for protecting the artworks themselves.

Because of this, “we have a very important program for preservation of the entire spaces of the museum,” Jatta said, “which costs a lot in effort and money, but we do think that it’s a very important part of our organization.”

Why should someone visit? The Vatican museums are a unique place, she said. For instance, it isn’t just one museum, but in fact many, all joined together. “So it’s not only a museum of archeology – you have many other archeology museums in Rome or in other parts of Italy.”

What makes the Vatican museums unique is “the idea of having the different witnesses of the culture, art and faith, that’s an important part, a fundamental part of this museum.”

For example, the ethnological museum has more than 80,000 pieces, from different continents, and all witnessing to the faith, she said. This museum is comprised of pieces that were given as gifts to the popes, especially Pius XI.

“But it really is an ongoing museum that is still receiving items from all over the continents and that’s probably the most important aspect of our museums. The idea that they preserve witnesses of faith.”

Jatta was vice-director of the museums starting in June 2016, but before that, since 1996, she worked and led the prints section of the Vatican Library. “So I was always an art historian working within the Vatican walls,” she said.

She met Pope Francis while in her former job when she presented him with a work of art for the Jubilee of Mercy. “For sure, Pope Francis is very interested in art,” she continued, highlighting how he brought homeless to visit the Sistine Chapel because “he thought that they would never have the opportunity to see it and this is very important.”

He speaks “about art very often, and the sense that beauty and art link people is something very, very important that he tells us…and it’s one of my ideas in leading these museums,” she said.

Mary Shovlain contributed to this story.

[…]

Vatican City, Mar 8, 2017 / 12:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In a newly-released interview Pope Francis discussed the shortage of vocations to the priesthood, saying the first response must be prayer. He also mentioned working with youth, the low birthrate, and the ordination of married men.

“The first [response]  – because I speak as a believer – the Lord told us to pray. Prayer, prayer is missing,” Pope Francis said in an interview with German weekly Die Zeit published March 8.

He called the lack of priests, to the point that some parishes are cared for by female “community leaders” in Switzerland, “a problem that the Church must resolve.”

After prayer, he recommended working “with youth who are seeking orientation. And this is very difficult, the work with youth, but it must be done because they ask for this: the youth are the great discarded ones in modern society, because they have no work in many countries.”

“For vocations, there is also another problem,” he said, “the problem of the birthrate. If there are no young men there can be no priests.”

He repeated his caution against “proselytism,” saying, “You can’t gain vocations with proselytism. ‘Proselytism’ – as if it were a charity society that makes you a partner.”

Without priestly vocations “the Church is weakened, because a Church without the Eucharist doesn’t have strength: the Church makes the Eucharist, but the Eucharist also makes the Church. The problem of vocations is a serious problem.”

Turning to the question of relaxing permissions for the ordination of married men and the requirement of priestly celibacy, he said that “optional celibacy is discussed, above all where priests are needed. But optional celibacy is not the solution.”

His interviewer asked if the permission for the ordination of viri probati – older married men – to the diaconate could be expanded to the priesthood.

While saying making celibacy optional for priests is not the solution, Pope Francis also signalled an openness to discussing the possibility.

“We must think yes, viri probati are a possibility. But then we must also consider what tasks they could perform, for example in isolated communities.”

The interview opened with a discussion of Pope Francis’ devotion to Our Lady, Untier of Knots, and also touched on faith, populism, the Roman Curia, and his international trips.

Regarding faith, he said that “one can’t grow without crisis … crisis is part of the life of faith; a faith which doesn’t enter into crisis to grow, remains juvenile.”

Turning to populism, he expressed his concern over the movement’s expansion in Europe. “Populism is evil and ends badly, as the past century has shown … Behind populism there is always a messianism: always.”

He reminded people that he is imperfect, saying: “I am a sinner, I am limited. We must not forget that the idealization of a person is a subtle form of aggression, it’s a way to subtly attack a person. And when I am idealized, I feel attacked.”

Pope Francis also discussed international trips he hopes to take, and mentioned that he won’t plan to go to Germany this year, or the next.

“I can’t go to Russia because I would also have to go to Ukraine,” he added.

“The important one would be to go to South Sudan, which I don’t think I’ll be able to do – it was in the schedule to go to the two Congos: with Kabila [president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo] things aren’t going well, I don’t think I’ll be able to go; but I will go to India and Bangladesh, for sure, to Colombia, and then a day in Portugal, in Fatima, and then I think that there’s another trip being studied, to Egypt: it seems like a full calendar, no?”

[…]

Vatican City, Mar 8, 2017 / 06:13 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday the Vatican announced Pope Francis’ appointment of Fr. Roy Edward Campbell, Jr., a former vice-president for Bank of America, as an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Washington.

“All of us in the Archdiocese are deeply grateful that our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has named Father Roy Campbell to be an auxiliary bishop in our Church of Washington,” Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, said in a statement March 8.

Father Campbell, who was born, raised and who has worked and served in the archdiocese, “brings to his new ministry recognized talent and demonstrated ability. He also bears witness to the great cultural and ethnic richness of the Church of Washington reflected in all of the faithful, lay, religious and clergy.”

“Personally I look forward to continuing to work closely with our new auxiliary bishop, who over the years has made significant contributions to the pastoral life of this archdiocese,” he said.

Fr. Campbell, 69, had a 33-year long career with Bank of America, beginning as a teller and working his way up to vice president and “Project Manager” before taking an early retirement in 2002 to follow a priestly vocation.

Born on Nov. 19, 1947, in southern Maryland, the Campbell was raised in D.C. and was interested in the priesthood as a child, but never committed to entering the seminary.

After high school he attended and graduated from Howard University in 1969 and later received a master’s degree in banking from the University of Virginia, working in the retail banking industry in the Washington-Baltimore area until taking an early retirement in 2002.

He was an active Catholic both in parishes and the broader Washington-area community, serving as a lector and usher and as a member on the Pastoral and Finance Councils at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart.

An encounter with a homeless man in December 1995, prompted him to reflect on his relationship with Jesus, and as a result he entered the archdiocese’s permanent diaconate program in 1999. He entered the seminary in January 2002, and was ordained a priest May 26, 2007.

Since his ordination, bishop-elect Campbell has been parochial vicar and pastor at several parishes. He said in a video interview for the Archdiocese of Washington that “the Lord himself has bestowed upon me through the Holy Father,” a great honor by the appointment.

“The only thing I was looking forward to doing in answering our Lord’s call is to be a priest for his people. To love and serve those who he’s called me to,” he continued.

“And if he’s calling me to serve on a larger scale than a parish, as a bishop, then I know I will have his grace, his direction, and his love to help me do so. So, outside of that, what it will entail, I will find out.”

[…]

Vatican City, Mar 8, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A new advisory group for the Pontifical Council for Culture is being hailed as the beginning of a greater representation of women in leadership at the Vatican.  

On March 7 the Council presented their 37-member “Women’s Consultation Group,” which they established in 2015 as a way to give women a voice in places where it can frequently be lacking in the Vatican.

Member Donna Orsuto, director of the Rome-based Lay Center, called the the group “a good start.”

“I think there are many other ways, or in the future there will be many other ways in which women can be more present, more involved in the Church, especially in the Roman Curia,” she told CNA, “but I think this is a very good start.”

Orsuto voiced her hope that as they carry out their work, the group would be able to “work together…as women, but also with the council.”

“This idea of men and women working together for the good of the Church and society” is key, she said, adding that she’s “very pleased that the focus isn’t just on women and women’s issues.”

Council president Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi said that like many other Vatican departments, “inside of my dicastery, I didn’t have any women at the management level. They were only there in an administrative sense as secretaries.”

And while the women who are part of the consultative group aren’t necessarily department managers, the presence of the group serves as a response to “this lack of the presence of women in the Roman Curia.”

Ravasi said he didn’t form the group to recriminate those who were angry about the lack of women, and nor did he want the women to be “a ‘cosmetic’ element in the sense that they were (only) a symbolic presence” or a mere viewpoint on “an only male horizon.”

Instead, the cardinal said he simply wanted “a feminine perspective” over every activity the dicastery does, including official documents.

A woman’s viewpoint, he said, “can see beyond our gaze” and offers a perspective that’s different and at times unexpected.

“It’s a question about interpretation, of prospective, of analysis, of judgment, above all, and also of proposal,” he said, explaining that the group will participate actively in both the preparation and duration of the council’s next plenary meeting.

Cardinal Ravasi stood beside some 20 of the 37 women who are currently part of the group at its official March 7 presentation. Coming from different cultures and professional backgrounds, the women serve a three-year term and meet three times annually to discuss ideas and possible projects.

Initially started in June 2015, the group was born from the Pontifical Council for Culture’s Feb. 5-7 plenary assembly that year, which was dedicated to the theme “La Cultura Femminile,” or, “The Feminine Culture.”

Several women were asked to help prepare for the plenary, and worked in two separate groups with members of the council to organize the event and define specific topics of conversation.

After the plenary, Ravasi decided to establish the group as a permanent entity. He invited the women who prepared the plenary to stay, and reached out to several others from various professions, including ambassadors, journalists, doctors, professors, actresses and teachers, among others.

In their annual meetings, the group focuses their discussion on proposals surrounding the dicastery’s work in the fields of artificial intelligence, neuroscience, sport and human anthropology.

Consuelo Corradi, coordinator of the Women’s Consultation Group and vice rector for research and international relations at the LUMSA University of Rome, told journalists that they waited to present the group because they wanted to be able to show something that was already well established and running.

The theme that links all of the members together, she said, is “the female difference,” because “there’s a perspective from women (and) there’s a way of living human life that’s specific to women.”

“It’s not a theological discourse, what we do inside the group. One can have an ideological discourse on feminine and masculine, but we try to avoid it,” she said. Instead, the women seek to bring their concrete experience as wives, mothers, friends and professionals in order to discuss “universal themes from a feminine perspective.”

Released during the official presentation of the group was their first project – a magazine titled “Cultures and Faith” including contributions from various members of the group in different languages that reflect on a variety of different topics.

Group members from various fields and cultures who attended the presentation – including Irish ambassador to the Holy See Emma Madigan – voiced their hope that the group would provide a platform to generate creative ideas given their professional backgrounds, and to foster greater collaboration with men on important issues.

In her comments to CNA, Orsuto said the variety of backgrounds and expertise of the members is “an enrichment for the Council,” especially given the fact that there were no women in senior positions in the dicastery beforehand.

Since last year’s plenary, the women have had a chance to evaluate various projects of the council and “and give some insight into doing things with a ‘feminine touch,’” she said, explaining that for her, the group is a concrete example of Pope Francis’ call for a more “incisive” feminine presence in the Church.

Italian psychologist and psychotherapist Dr. Laura Bastianelli touched on the necessity of collaboration between men and women as “a creative process.”  

“We want to set up a process that is really cooperating” with one another, she said. “This is a way to build together, not trying to compete.”

“Competition is not the key to the resolution of solving problems between women and men. It’s a cooperation, so we want to co-create starting from the group in the dicastery and then to print a model that can be replicated.”

Bastianelli said she also sees the establishment of the group as a direct response to Pope Francis’ call for a greater inclusion of women in the life of the Church, and is hoping to use her background in psychology to help shape the council’s projects.

Currently a professor at Salesian university, Bastianelli trains psychotherapists and specializes in youth psychology. She is the founder of an association dedicated to working with youth and preventing diseases in children and young people.

“It’s a big work, it’s very demanding, because there’s a lot to do,” she said, explaining that the consultation group’s magazine includes an article from her on youth culture in which she reflects on difficulties today’s youth face.

Specifically, she delved into the topic of neuroscience and what it says about “the use and abuse of the internet (and) what the impact of these technologies on our youth is.”

“This is a big problem,” she said, explaining that the result of the current expansion of technologies among youth will start to be visible in the coming years.

But in addition to speaking just about the challenges, Bastianelli said she also explored the “richness” of today’s youth, “because we have young people very rich and full of competencies, but they can’t find space and they can’t develop because of many bad influences.”

She also spoke during the 2015 plenary for the Council for Culture, focusing on the topic of “generativity (procreativity) as a symbolic code,” meaning how we generate life without necessarily giving birth.

Bastianelli said her greatest hope for the consultation group is that it would spread to other realities even outside of the Church so the “richness of this experience can be replicated. It’s like leaven.”

Emma Madigan, Irish Ambassador to the Holy See, told CNA that she also hopes to use her diplomatic experience to help foster dialogue and open channels within the Vatican.

As an ambassador, “you want to understand better your interlocutors,” she said, explaining that for a diplomat, “dialogue is a core value and activity.”

“You’re basically furthering the bonds between the two countries, or in this case with a global religion, and seeing what you can bring to the table from your experience,” she said, noting that she has worked in a number of different fields where she’s had to encounter the problems people face on a daily basis.

When it comes to the Vatican, “you’re interacting with priests, dealing pretty much with the pastoral issue. You can understand some of what they’re going through,” she said, explaining that she also tries to present and discuss issues important to Ireland and to share information in order to foster greater mutual understanding.

Madigan said she was invited to join the group by Cardinal Ravasi around the same time as the 2015 plenary when he was thinking of establishing it, and initially had reservations about joining for fear of appearing to advise the Church on what they were doing.

However, since it was specifically working with one dicastery in particular, she said yes, since it speaks to people from all walks of life, including Catholics, non-Catholics and even non-believers.

“That’s something I’m really interested in,” she said, noting that she’s been invited to join “because of my position, but I’ll be representing my own perspective.”

“I do feel it was courageous in bringing this up,” she said, explaining that to have 37 women gather around the same table can get “a bit chaotic,” as each one brings their own experience and contribution.

Madigan said that when she initially came to Rome, she thought she would be the only woman ambassador, but quickly found out that wasn’t the case, and “already it means you’re not the only woman in the room.”

For the Vatican, “it is a leadership that is male, but it is changing,” she said, noting that especially when working with the Vatican, women “naturally gravitate towards other women to be interlocutors, share experiences.”

There is “still plenty of room for growth in this area,” she said, but recognized the group as “a practical example of saying ‘we want a woman’s perspective.’”

While many say that “we value women and want to bring them into the fold,” the group “is actually a practical sign that that’s happening. It’s a beginning. You have to start somewhere.”

[…]

Vatican City, Mar 7, 2017 / 08:54 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican announced Tuesday that Pope Francis has chosen Msgr. Mark S. Rivituso, currently the archdiocese’s Vicar General, to be the next auxiliary bishop of St. Louis under Archbishop Rob… […]

Vatican City, Mar 6, 2017 / 05:05 pm (CNA).- To mark International Women’s Day, the Vatican invited women from across the globe to discuss not only their work as peacemakers in a conflict-filled world, but their contributions to the Church as well.

“Women understand, intuitively and by experience, that other people need their attention,” Dr. Scilla Elworthy, co-founder of the organization “Rising Women, Rising World,” told CNA March 6.

This intuition is seen concretely in how women interact with their children, their families and the communities they are a part of, she said. This ability “is what makes them such incredible peacemakers and peacebuilders: that ability to step into the shoes of the other in compassion, and to actually listen.”

“You’ll notice that some women have this lovely presence that makes them very alive and very engaged and engaging,” which isn’t just the result of their intuition, but also of the five characteristics of what she called “feminine intelligence.”

A term coined by Elworthy and her organization, feminine intelligence, or, as she calls it, “FQ,” is something that represents the specific qualities that stand out in women, but that men can learn through observation and practice.

Defined by Elworthy, “feminine intelligence” first of all consists of compassion, as well as inclusivity, referring to the sense that “no one is left out.”

Another quality is nurturing, which means “looking after (and) caring for” people, she said. Finally, the characteristic that stands out for Elworthy as the most important is the ability to really listen to others.

“We all think we’re good listeners, but most of us are not,” she said, adding that “that’s the greatest gift we can give to another person, is to hear them, and it’s the fastest, most effective way to resolve conflicts.”

“To listen to the person we’re in conflict with, feed back to them what they’ve said, check if they’ve got it right, and then ask them to do the same with us” is one of the most secure ways to end misunderstandings and confrontations, she said.

Elworthy was one of four panelists at a March 6 press conference on the Vatican’s annual Voices of Faith (VoF) women’s conference, held every year on March 8 to coincide with International Women’s Day.

First held in 2014, the VoF conference was established in response to Pope Francis’ call to “broaden the space within the Church for a more incisive feminine presence.”

Gathering women from around the world, this year’s VoF will take place at the Vatican’s Casina Pio IV and will gather women from around the world, including Syria and Burundi, to highlight the role women play in building a culture of peace within a world at conflict.

In her comments to CNA, Elsworthy, who is not Catholic but will be a panelist for a discussion on the topic of “Building Effective Leadership for Peace,” said the unique qualities women have at times risk of being lost in a society which, at various levels, often pushes them to be more like men.

“In corporate life, women are definitely expected to adopt a male, aggressive, competitive (attitude) and it doesn’t suit them, they get very stressed,” Elsworthy said, noting that “a lot of them are packing it in, they don’t like it.”

Politics is another field that can be “very harsh” for women, she said, explaining that women need to look for what she called a “deep inner power of the feminine,” but which is “not feminism.”

Instead, for Elsworthy this “feminine power” involves the five characteristics of her notion of feminine intelligence as well as “also the ability to self-inspect.”

This, she said, is where religion comes in, “because all the great religious traditions…demand that we spend time every day in silence.”

Also present at the news conference was Marguerite Barankitse, founder of the Maison Shalom foundation, which she established in response to the aftermath of the 1972 and 1993 genocides of both the Hutu and Tutsi tribes in Burundi as a means of ending the country’s cycle of violence.

In comments to journalists, Barankitse said that for her, even while the mass killings of Tutsis were taking place in 1993, being a Christian and going to Church “was more important than being Tutsi.”

She recounted that at one point during the genocide she had gone to the archbishop’s house in her village to seek refuge, thinking that because of Christianity’s emphasis on forgiveness, members of her parish community would be more balanced, but instead found that the people were filled with hatred.

After this experience and seeing the prejudice coursing through the country at the time, Barankitse said she decided to become teacher after genocide, because in doing so “I can teach children love and compassion.”

Barankitse said that some 60 percent of her family were killed by Hutus during the genocide, but that instead of retaliating, she wanted to establish the Shalom foundation in order to “create a new generation.”

Chantal Gotz, founder and organizer of VoF, also spoke at the news conference, telling journalists that part of the reason for establishing the organization, in addition to giving women a platform in the Church to highlight their contributions, was to break a somewhat negative image of the Church when it comes to women.

When VoF was founded, she said, a journalist had mentioned to her that while more space needed to be created for women in the Church, particularly when it comes to leadership roles, “we have no idea what Catholic women are doing in the Church.”

“The fact was also that four years ago, the image of the Catholic Church was always viewed in a quite negative way, nothing was highlighted on what is the Church doing in a positive way,” she said, adding that they are hoping to “bring new stories” to light showing what women already do.

Media is key in sharing these stories, she said, explaining that they hope to “highlight the positive, not just in Catholic press, but we also need secular press to spread the message of what women are doing and the great work that they’re already doing.”

Kerry Robinson, founding executive director and global ambassador of the Leadership Roundtable, was also present at the news conference. Founded in 2005 after the sex abuse crisis broke, the roundtable is made up of professionals from various fields and is dedicated to promoting best practices in the fields of management, finances and human resources in the Church.

In her comments to journalists, Robinson said she sees Pope Francis as “a reason to be hopeful” given his emphasis on mercy, the poor and his general closeness to people.

When it comes to women, she said one of the “signature motivations” for work of the roundtable is to ensure that their daughters and other young women have more of a voice and a stronger place in the future.

However, she said the push for women’s priestly ordination (which continues to be advocated for despite the fact that Pope Francis has already definitively closed the door) can be distracting from other initiatives that actually help women.

“The ordination question stops every other creative idea that could be implemented right away and nothing happens,” she said, explaining that “unless we bracket it,” none of the ideas for how to enhance the role of women in the present will be possible.

In her comments, Gotz said that finding ways to highlight the role of women and build them up within the Church is something that everyone should be responsible for, not just Pope Francis.

“We expect a lot from just from one person, from Pope Francis, and he was calling to all of us to bring in ideas of new initiatives,” she said, and pointed to VoF as an example.

The organization has not only enjoyed strong success, but also has the support of the Pope, she said, stressing that “we have to trust and we can support him in bringing in new ideas and not expecting that he has to change all of it by himself.”

Similarly, Barankitse said many wait for Pope Francis to act, “but what are the women doing?”

If we constantly wait for something to come “on a silver platter, we will never get it,” she said, adding that “it’s up to us women to support this extraordinary Pope, who is a blessing for our century, and we stand tall.”

But for Robinson, the discussion limited to just women, but involves the laity as a whole, including lay men, whose presence is also frequently missing from within the Vatican ranks.

She told journalists that as far as the Roundtable goes, it’s primarily a movement “to help the Church leaders, ordained and religious, avail themselves of the talent of laity, and that is very intentionally women and men.”

“That’s really our signature: to recognize that the talent and expertise of lay Catholics is an under-utilized resource that the Church can benefit from.”

In comments to CNA, Robinson said the “diversity” of having men and women work together “is a gift, and often we tend not to ensure that there’s true diversity at the tables of deliberation and decision-making.”

“Leadership Roundtable is about helping Church leaders avail themselves of the talent of laity, whether it’s laity who are CEO’s or captains of industry, or its emerging leaders like the talented young adults who are in colleges all over the world who love the Church and want to continue in a meaningful leadership way,” she said.

She stressed that “in no way would I want just women to be running things,” but instead it ought to be “our collective wisdom and experience that matters. It informs a better discussion and a better outcome.”

However, Robinson said she’s happy to see women “claiming their own” and stepping up in leadership roles in various sectors and professions, but noted that there’s still “a long way to go.”

Particularly in the Catholic Church, she said, opportunities need to be sought which ensure that “women and men together are seen as leaders, contributing to the discussion, being models of faith and excellence for younger generations.”

[…]

Vatican City, Mar 5, 2017 / 05:22 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On the first Sunday of Lent, Pope Francis said if we want to fight against the temptation of sin, we must be familiar with the Word of God – treating the Bible more like how we treat our cell… […]

Vatican City, Mar 4, 2017 / 09:25 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis said Saturday that while liturgical music has often struggled to live up to the quality and beauty the mystery of the Eucharist requires, we can promote its renewal by investing in a solid musical education for clergy and laity.    
 
“Certainly the encounter with modernity and the introduction of the languages spoken in the Liturgy stirred up many problems, of languages, forms, and genres” he said March 4. “Sometimes a certain mediocrity, superficiality and banality prevailed, to the detriment of the beauty and intensity of the liturgical celebrations.”
 
“For this the various actors in this field, musicians and composers, conductors and singers of choirs, liturgical animators, can make a major contribution to the renewal, especially quality, of sacred music and liturgical chant.”
 
The Pope spoke to participants at the end of an international conference on Sacred Music held March 2-4, titled “Music and the Church: worship and culture 50 years after Musicam sacram.”
 
Organized by the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Congregation for Catholic Education in collaboration with the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music and the Pontifical Atheneum of St. Anselm, it looked at sacred music 50 years after the Second Vatican Council.
 
“Half a century after the Instruction of Musicam sacrum, the conference wanted to elaborate, in an interdisciplinary and ecumenical perspective, the current relationship between sacred music and contemporary culture,” Francis noted.  
 
“Of great importance, it was also a reflection on the aesthetic and musical education of both the clergy and religious and the laity engaged in the pastoral life, and more directly in the choirs.”
 
The Church has a great responsibility toward liturgical music, the Pope continued, because it deals with the sacred mystery of the Eucharist, and that sacred music, to that order, must balance the past and present in a way that invites full participation and lifts the congregation’s hearts to God.
 
The “dual mission” of the Church, Francis said, “is, on the one hand, to safeguard and promote the rich and varied heritage inherited from the past, using it with balance in mind and avoiding the risk of a nostalgic vision” that becomes a sort of “archaeology.”
 
On the other hand, we have to also ensure that sacred music and liturgical chant don’t ignore “the artistic and musical languages of modernity.”
 
All those responsible for liturgical music, on whatever level, “must know how,” he said, “to embody and translate the Word of God into songs, sounds, harmonies that make the hearts of our peers vibrate, creating even an appropriate emotional climate, that puts in order the faith and raises reception and full participation in the mystery that it celebrates.”
 
“Active and conscious participation” in the liturgy constitutes being able to “enter deeply” into the mystery of God made present in the Eucharist: “thanks in particular to the religious silence and ‘musicality of language with which the Lord speaks to us,’” he quoted his homily at Casa Santa Marta Dec. 12, 2013.
 
Quoting from the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Pope Francis said that “Liturgical action is given a more noble form when it is celebrated in song…and with the participation of the people.”
 
He highlighted the document’s emphasis on the importance of “active, conscious, full” participation by the entire faithful, quoting that the “true solemnity of liturgical action does not depend so much from a more ornate form of singing and a more magnificent ceremony than on its worthy and religious celebration.”
 
To promote this requires “a proper musical education…in dialogue with the musical trends of our time, with the demands of the different cultural areas,” he said.
 
Concluding, he thanked all of those who participated in the conference for their commitment to sacred music, and asked for the blessing of the Virgin Mary, “who in the Magnificat sang the merciful holiness of God.”
 
“I encourage you to not lose sight of this important goal: to help the liturgical assembly and the people of God to perceive and participate, with all the senses, physical and spiritual, in the mystery of God.”

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