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Pope Francis ‘excommunicates’ mafia

Michael Otto — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 21:05:02 +0000

Vatican Radio — Pope Francis concluded his one-day trip to the southern Italian region of Calabria with strong words against the Calabrian mafia, calling it “adoration of evil and contempt for the common good.”
“Those who in their lives have taken this evil road, this road of evil, such as the mobsters, they are not in communion with God, they are excommunicated,” he said to applause.
The Pope made these statements on Saturday during the feast-day Mass he presided for Corpus Domini on the plains of the small town of Sibari, a once-important city in the Hellenistic period of Calabrian history.
Organizers planned for 200,000 faithful to attend. They gathered under the hot sun, with temperatures flirting around the 30-degree mark. Sitting in the first rows of the assembly were those with illness and disability, rather than local dignitaries—a decision the local bishop chose to underline ahead of the Pope’s trip.
The Pope’s visit to the region, marked by violence and corruption and renowned for mafia activity, was highly anticipated by the locals, who in recent months were rocked by the murder of Fr. Lazzaro Longobardi, as well as the death of a three-year-old boy, the innocent victim of a mafia homicide.
In his homily, the Pope spoke about the evils that can occur when adoration of God is replaced by adoration of money.
“Your land, which so beautiful, knows the signs of the consequences of this sin,” he told those assembled. “This evil must be fought, must be expelled.” He called on the local Church to expend itself even more “so that good can prevail”.

“Our children ask this of us,” he added.

He said faith can help in responding to these demands. He called the faithful of the Church in Calabria to be brothers and to show each other practical solidarity, noting signs of hope in local families and in the Church. He also urged young people not to allow themselves to be robbed of hope.

He told the faithful his trip was intended to express his support for the local Church, to confirm the people in faith and charity, and to encourage them in their journey with Jesus Christ.

“Today,” he continued, “we ask the Lord to enlighten us and to convert us, so that we truly adore only him and we renounce evil in all its forms.”

He concluded, saying that in adoring Christ and following him, parishes will grow in faith and charity and they will be places where people walk alongside each other and support, help and love each other, even in difficult moments.

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Vatican guidelines to discourage showmanship, entertainment at Mass

Michael Otto — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 22:25:26 +0000

The Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship is preparing guidelines for priests on how to celebrate Mass properly, the Zenit news agency reports.
In a January 15 address, Cardinal Antonio Canizares, the prefect of the Congregation, disclosed that the guidelines will be issued in a booklet that “will help to celebrate well and to participate well”. He said that he hoped the booklet would be ready for publication in mid-2013.
Offering a preview of the subjects to be addressed in the document, the Spanish cardinal said that the liturgical reforms of Vatican II “must be understood in continuity with the tradition of the Church and not as a break or discontinuity”. He also stressed that the liturgy is God’s gift to the Church, rather than the invention of individuals. “God wants to be adored in a concrete way,” he said, “and it’s not up to us to change it.”
Cardinal Canizares said that the guidelines would discourage “showmanship” by the celebrant and novelties introduced to make the liturgy “entertaining” to the people. He underlined the importance of creating a sense of solemnity and mystery in the liturgy, encouraged moments of silence, and said that the understanding of the Mass as Christ’s sacrifice should be paramount.

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NZ Anglican prelate appointed to Rome and Vatican roles

NZ Catholic Staff — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 19:43:06 +0000

by NZ CATHOLIC staff
HAMILTON — The Anglican Archbishop of New Zealand, Archbishop David Moxon, is heading to Rome as the Anglican Communion’s chief representative to the Roman Catholic Church.echo $variable;

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Vatican could consider Lutheran ordinariate structure

Michael Otto — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:52:04 +0000

VATICAN CITY (CWN) — The president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity said in an interview that the Vatican would entertain a hypothetical proposal by Lutherans to establish ecclesial structures modeled on the ordinariates developed for Anglican communities that wish to enter into full communion with the Holy See.
“Anglicanorum coetibus was not an initiative of Rome, but came from the Anglican church,” said Cardinal Kurt Koch, referring to the 2009 papal document that established the ordinariates.
“The Holy Father then sought a solution and, in my opinion, found a very broad solution, in which the Anglicans’ ecclesial and liturgical traditions were taken into ample consideration. If similar desires are expressed by the Lutherans, then we will have to reflect on them. However, the initiative is up to the Lutherans.”
Cardinal Koch also said that both “’progressives and traditionalists suffer from the same ailment”: a refusal to interpret the Second Vatican Council with a hermeneutic of “renewal in continuity”.
“Both see the Council equally as a break, even if in a very different way,” he said. “The Holy Father has questioned this understanding of the conciliar hermeneutics of the break and proposed the hermeneutics of reform, which unites continuity and renewal.”

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Vatican says it is willing to be patient with SSPX in reconciliation bid

Vatican City (CNS) — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 02:37:09 +0000

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — “Patience, serenity, perseverance and trust are needed” as the Vatican continues talks aimed at full reconciliation with the traditionalist Society of St Pius X, said a statement from the Vatican commission overseeing the discussions.
The Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei,” in a statement released on October 27, said the leadership of the SSPX had requested “additional time for reflection and study” before responding to Pope Benedict XVI’s latest efforts to reintegrate them into the Church.
“A culminating point along this difficult path” was reached June 13 when the commission gave the SSPX a final “doctrinal declaration together with a proposal for the canonical normalisation of its status within the Catholic Church”, the statement said.
The Vatican initially presented what it described as a “doctrinal preamble” to SSPX leaders in September, 2011. While it never released the text, the Vatican had said it outlined “some doctrinal principles and criteria for the interpretation of Catholic doctrine necessary to guarantee fidelity” to the formal teaching of the Church, including the teaching of the Second Vatican Council.
The SSPX gave the Vatican its response in April. The Vatican, in turn, gave the SSPX the doctrinal declaration to sign in June and also presented a proposal to establish for SSPX members a “personal prelature”, which is a church jurisdiction without geographical boundaries. Currently, the Church’s only personal prelature is Opus Dei.
The Vatican said that “after 30 years of separation, it is understandable that time is needed to absorb the significance of these recent developments”.
The statement called the efforts a “dramatic manifestation” of the Pope’s ministry “to foster and preserve the unity of the Church by realising the long hoped-for reconciliation”.
Just three days before the Vatican statement was published, the SSPX announced it had ousted British Bishop Richard Williamson, one of the four bishops ordained by SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without papal approval in 1988.
Bishop Williamson opposed the reconciliation talks with the Vatican and had caused great embarrassment for the German-born Pope Benedict. On the same day in 2009 that the Vatican announced Pope Benedict had lifted the excommunication of Bishop Williamson and three other of the society’s bishops, a Swedish television station aired an interview with Bishop Williamson in which he denied the extent of the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews.
In a statement emailed to subscribers of his newsletter on October 27, Bishop Williamson said many people thought his presence in the SSPX was “the single biggest obstacle” to the SSPX’s reconciliation with Rome.
While he said he didn’t know if his expulsion was a condition set by the Vatican, “it certainly favours” the reconciliation talks.
“Archbishop Lefebvre founded the SSPX to resist the (Second Vatican) Council’s destruction of the Catholic faith by its 16 documents, and of the practice of that faith by the new Mass above all,” he wrote. “To undo a thing’s nature is to undo the thing,” he said, explaining why he opposed the talks with Rome.

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Vatican acts to protect Pope Benedict’s privacy

Michael Otto — Fri, 25 May 2012 03:00:44 +0000

VATICAN CITY (Zenit) — The Vatican is trying to protect the Pope’s right to privacy after more Holy See documents and private correspondence between the Pope and his collaborators have been published.
“The fresh publication of Holy See documents and of private documents of the Holy Father no longer appears as a questionable — although obviously defamatory — journalistic initiative, but clearly assumes the characteristics of a criminal act,” a statement from the Vatican press office asserted on May 21.
On Saturday, Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi released a book titled His Holiness, which publicises confidential correspondence to and from the Holy Father and his personal secretary.
This was an added affront, after a previous series of leaked documents, which led the Pontiff in April to establish a commission of cardinals to investigate the issue.
“The Holy Father and a number of his collaborators, as well as the senders of messages addressed to him, have had their individual rights to privacy and freedom of correspondence violated,” the Vatican said in a statement.
“The Holy See will continue to investigate the various aspects of these violations of the privacy and dignity of the Holy Father — both as an individual and as the supreme authority of the Church and of Vatican City State — and will take the steps necessary to ensure that those responsible for the theft, handling and release of secret information, and the commercial use of private documentation, illegitimately acquired and held, answer to justice for their acts.
“To this end it will, if necessary, request international collaboration.”

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Report slams leadership of most US religious sisters

Michael Otto — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 06:13:48 +0000

by JOHN-HENRY WESTEN
WASHINGTON(LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has launched a five-year reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the association of the leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United States representing more than 80 per cent of the 57,000 women religious (nuns) in the country.
Based on a 2008 investigation into the nuns, the Vatican evaluation was candid, noting, “The current doctrinal and pastoral situation of the LCWR is grave and a matter of serious concern”.
The CDF doctrinal assessment, released on April 18, criticised positions espoused at LCWR annual assemblies and in its literature, as well as the absence of support from LCWR for Church teaching on pro-life issues, women’s ordination and homosexuality.
The CDF said that the documentation “reveals that while there has been a great deal of work on the part of LCWR promoting issues of social justice in harmony with the Church’s social doctrine, it is silent on the right to life from conception to natural death, a question that is part of the lively public debate about abortion and euthanasia in the United States”.
“Further,” the CDF report said, “issues of crucial importance in the life of the Church and society, such as the Church’s biblical view of family life and human sexuality, are not part of the LCWR agenda in a way that promotes Church teaching. Moreover, occasional public statements by the LCWR that disagree with or challenge positions taken by the bishops, who are the Church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals, are not compatible with its purpose.”
The CDF said: “The assessment reveals serious doctrinal problems which affect many in consecrated life,” calling it a crisis “characterised by a diminution of the fundamental Christological centre and focus of religious consecration.”
The document listed the principal findings of the LCWR doctrinal assessment.
On LCWR annual assemblies, it said: “The talks, while not scholarly theological discourses per se, do have significant doctrinal and moral content with implications which often contradict or ignore magisterial teaching.”
On formation of religious superiors and formators, the CDF said: “Many of the materials prepared by the LCWR for these purposes (Occasional Papers, Systems Thinking Handbook) do not have a sufficient doctrinal foundation. These materials recommend strategies for dialogue, for example when sisters disagree about basic matters of Catholic faith or moral practice, but it is not clear whether this dialogue is directed towards reception of Church teaching.”
The Vatican said that it has appointed Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle as its Archbishop Delegate for the initiative. Bishop Leonard Blair and Bishop Thomas John Paprocki also were named to assist in this effort.
The Vatican is attempting to present the measure as a friendly renewal. However, even the initial announcement of the assessment in 2008 was greeted with severe hostility by leftist nuns in the US. The sternly-worded assessment document is not likely to be received with any greater enthusiasm.
The Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal William Levada, noted that the assessment is “aimed at fostering a patient and collaborative renewal”.
The intransigence and betrayal of many of the women religious in the United states towards Catholic values have been keenly felt in recent months by Catholic bishops — particularly in the fight over religious freedom and abortion funding in President Obama’s healthcare law, in which religious sisters have played a key role, in Obama’s favour.
That betrayal has also been registered in the Vatican. Cardinal Raymond Burke head of the Vatican’s highest court, the Apostolic Signatura, in speech earlier this year, denounced “the public and obstinate betrayal of religious life by certain religious”.
Burke asked: “Whoever could have imagined that religious congregations of pontifical right would openly organise to resist and attempt to frustrate an apostolic visitation, that is, a visit to their congregations carried out under the authority of the Vicar of Christ on earth, to whom all religious are bound by the strongest bonds of loyalty and obedience?
“Who could imagine that consecrated religious would openly, and in defiance of the bishops as successors of the Apostles, publicly endorse legislation containing provisions which violate the natural moral law in its most fundamental tenets, the safeguarding and promoting of innocent and defenceless life, and fail to safeguard the demands of free exercise of conscience for healthcare workers?” he added.

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Archbishop’s comments on civil unions create shock waves

Michael Otto — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:52:27 +0000

LONDON (LSN) — According to The Tablet of London, the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, has publicly expressed support for homosexual civil unions, a move that appears to put him at odds with a clear Vatican decree against supporting such unions confirmed by Pope John Paul II and then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) in

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Pope urges world leaders to act for the environment

Vatican City (CNS) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 03:07:02 +0000

by JOHN THAVIS
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI urged international leaders to reach a credible agreement on climate change, keeping in mind the needs of the poor and of future generations.
The Pope made the remarks at his noon blessing at the Vatican on November 27, the day before officials from 194 countries were to begin meeting in Durban, South Africa, to discuss the next steps in reducing greenhouse gases and stopping global temperatures from rising.
“I hope that all members of the international community can agree on a responsible, credible and supportive response to this worrisome and complex phenomenon, keeping in mind the needs of the poorest populations and of future generations,” the Pope said.
The meeting, which runs until December 9, is the latest in a series to consider follow-up action to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which obligated industrialised countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a specific amount. The Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of 2012.
The goal of the talks organised by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is to cut greenhouse gases by 50 per cent by 2050 and prevent temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius.
Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, president of Caritas Internationalis, was leading a 20-person Caritas delegation to the Durban talks to press for an agreement on behalf of poor countries that have been severely impacted by climate change.
Before leaving for Durban, Cardinal Rodriguez took several thousand young Italian members of a Franciscan environmental group to the Vatican for a lively encounter with the Pope.
The Pope told them that the Church’s teaching on the environment follows from the principle that men and women are collaborators with God and his creation. “In fact, it is by now evident that there is no good future for humanity or for the earth unless we educate everyone towards a style of life that is more responsible toward the created world,” he said.
He said education towards environmental responsibility must begin in families and schools and must reflect the Church’s teaching that respect for the human being — in all stages of life — goes hand in hand with respect for nature.
In a pastoral letter, the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference asked people to urge South Africa’s government, which is chairing the Durban meeting, to support resolutions “based not on immediate economic needs only, but on the survival needs of future generations”.
The bishops also called on people “to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by using your own properties productively to grow trees that will absorb carbon dioxide, to grow vegetables and crops organically to reduce the use of chemical-based fertilisers, and to share the food thus grown with the hungry and malnourished”.

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Doubts and farce in papal conclave

Nevil Gibson — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 04:32:40 +0000

by NEVIL GIBSON The secular entertainment industry has a paradoxical view of the Vatican, the pope and the Church in general. On one side it has long exploited religion and the faith of billions in popular films that go back to the industry’s origins. At their best these are uplifting and enlightening. Indeed, in 1995

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