Day: 30 January 2023

Pope Francis entrusts trip to Congo and South Sudan to Blessed Virgin Mary

Pope Francis entrusts trip to Congo and South Sudan to Blessed Virgin Mary

Catholic News Agency, News, Vatican

Pope Francis visits the Basilica of St. Mary Major on Monday, Jan. 30, 2023, to entrust his upcoming trip to Africa to the Blessed Virgin Mary. / Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Jan 30, 2023 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis visited the Basilica of St. Mary Major on Monday to entrust his upcoming trip to Africa to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The pope will depart Rome on Tuesday morning for the capital city of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country home to more than 52 million Catholics.

It will be the first papal trip to Congo in 37 years, since John Paul II visited Kinshasa in 1985 when it was the capital of Zaire.

Pope Francis will visit Kinshasa Jan. 31-Feb. 3 before traveling to Juba, the capital of South Sudan, Feb. 3-5.

Francis has called his visit to South Sudan “an ecumenical pilgrimage of peace.” The pope will travel together with the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the moderator of the Church of Scotland, Iain Greenshields.

Pope Francis will be the first pope to visit South Sudan, the world’s newest country, which declared independence from the Republic of the Sudan in 2011.

The pope’s trip to Congo and South Sudan was scheduled to take place last year but was postponed for six months for health reasons.

A stop in the eastern Congolese city of Goma was cut from the pope’s updated schedule amid a resurgence of fighting between the army and rebel groups. 

Earlier this month, Islamic State claimed responsibility for a deadly bombing of a church service in the eastern Congolese town of Kasindi that killed at least 14 people. Another armed rebel group, the M23, executed 131 people “as part of a campaign of murders, rapes, kidnappings, and looting against two villages,” the U.N. reported in December.

The pope is scheduled to meet with victims of violence from eastern Congo on Feb. 1 in Kinshasa following a Mass that is expected to draw 2 million people.

South Sudan’s security situation also poses significant challenges to the papal trip. The U.N. reported last month that an escalation in violent clashes in South Sudan’s Upper Nile state had killed 166 people and displaced more than 20,000 since August.

Pope Francis has been personally involved with South Sudan’s peace process, inviting formerly warring leaders for a spiritual retreat at the Vatican in 2019. Tens of thousands of people were killed in South Sudan’s civil war, which ended with a peace agreement in 2018.

The pope asked people to pray for his trip to Congo and South Sudan, his first apostolic journey of 2023, in his Sunday Angelus address ahead of the trip.

Pope Francis greets South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir at the Vatican on March 16, 2019. Vatican Media.
Pope Francis greets South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir at the Vatican on March 16, 2019. Vatican Media.

“These lands, situated in the center of the great African continent, have suffered greatly from lengthy conflicts. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, especially in the east of the country, suffers from armed clashes and exploitation. South Sudan, wracked by years of war, longs for an end to the constant violence that forces many people to be displaced and to live in conditions of great hardship,” he said.

“In South Sudan, I will arrive together with the archbishop of Canterbury and the moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Together, as brothers, we will make an ecumenical pilgrimage of peace, to entreat God and men to bring an end to the hostilities and for reconciliation,” Pope Francis said. “I ask everyone, please, to accompany this journey with their prayers.”

German bishops’ president rebukes Pope Francis for criticism of Synodal Way 

German bishops’ president rebukes Pope Francis for criticism of Synodal Way 

Catholic News Agency, Europe, News

Bishop Georg Bätzing, chairman of the German bishops’ conference, meets with Pope Francis at the Vatican, June 24, 2021. / Vatican Media.

CNA Newsroom, Jan 30, 2023 / 11:45 am (CNA).

Bishop Georg Bätzing has criticized Pope Francis and dismissed the pope’s recent words that the controversial German Synodal Way is unhelpful, damaging, and ideologically poisoned, saying the Germans had “fundamentally different views of synodality” than Rome. 

In an interview published Jan. 27, the president of Germany’s Bishops’ Conference said he considered the pope’s “way of leading the Church by way of interviews” as “extremely questionable,” reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner. Bätzing was referring to comments Pope Francis made about the Synodal Way, among other subjects, in a wide-ranging interview last week with the Associated Press. 

Bätzing, the bishop of Limburg, noted that the German bishops had their ad limina visit with Pope Francis in November.

“Why didn’t the pope talk to us about this when we were with him in November?” Bätzing asked. “There would have been the opportunity, but he did not take the opportunity for discussion then.”

Previously, Bätzing’s co-president of the German Synodal Way accused the Vatican of “snubbing” German Catholics by raising “fundamental criticism” of the controversial process and resolutions at the November meetings.

In the interview published Friday, Bätzing said Pope Francis understood synodality to mean “a broad gathering of impulses from all corners of the church, then bishops discuss it more concretely, and in the end there is one man at the top who makes the decision.” 

This was not “the kind of synodality that is viable in the 21st century,” Bätzing added.

Pope Francis and other Church leaders have expressed serious concerns about plans to create a permanent synodal council for the German Church. Such a body would function “as a consultative and decision-making body on essential developments in the Church and society,” according to a Synodal Way proposal.

More importantly, it would “make fundamental decisions of supra-diocesan significance on pastoral planning, questions of the future, and budgetary matters of the Church that are not decided at the diocesan level.”

In response to warnings from Rome about taking such a step, Bätzing suggested he would pursue a “fallback option.”

“We in Germany are looking for a way of truly deliberating and deciding together without overriding the canonical regulations that affect the authority of the bishop,” the German prelate said.

“In Germany, we have already had the so-called Joint Conference since the 1970s, in which the Bishops’ Conference and the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) consult with each other, i.e. laypeople and bishops,” he continued. “This Joint Conference has been given certain tasks. So the fallback option is: We stay with this model and just add important tasks to it that are feasible under Church law.”

As to the objections raised at the meetings in the Vatican — and confirmed in the January letter approved by Pope Francis — Bätzing repeated his public dismissal of these concerns — and vowed the Synodal Way would continue pursuing its controversial agenda in the face of these.

‘This is not Catholic’

Confirming the Vatican’s warnings, the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, said in no uncertain terms that the German push for a synodal council was unacceptable, CNA Deutsch reported. 

“If this is to be the way the Church in Germany is to be governed in the future,” he said, “I have already told the bishops very clearly [during the ad limina visit in November]: This is not Catholic.”

Speaking to the Spanish magazine Omnes, Ouellet said a synodal council “may be the practice of other churches, but it is not ours.” 

Such a German council would “not correspond to Catholic ecclesiology and the unique role of bishops, which derives from the charism of consecration and which implies that they must have the freedom to teach and to decide.”

Regarding attempts to bring German bishops to “renounce” voluntarily their authority to a new council or other overseeing body, Ouellet said: “The truth is that this is not possible; it would be a renunciation of the episcopal office.” 

On Jan. 30 the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had accepted Ouellet’s resignation at the age of 78, more than three years past the usual retirement age for bishops. He will be succeeded by Bishop Robert Francis Prevost, 67, effective April 12. How Prevost will handle the German controversy remains to be seen. The American prelate has served as a bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru since 2015. As prefect he will lead the Vatican office responsible for evaluating new members of the Catholic Church’s hierarchy.

‘The brink of schism’

Cardinal Walter Kasper also warned the German bishops that they could not sidestep “the authority of the pope and ultimately the Second Vatican Council” or be undermined by “tricky reinterpretation.” 

A bishop cannot “subsequently renounce, in whole or in part, the authority conferred sacramentally in the succession of the apostles” by binding himself to a synodal council “without violating the responsibility conferred on him personally,” Kasper emphasized, according to CNA Deutsch. 

“Resistance to the letter from Rome, or attempts to slyly reinterpret and avoid it, despite all well-intentioned protestations, inevitably lead to the brink of schism and thus plunge the people of God in Germany into an even deeper crisis.”

According to Ouellet, it was now important for the Holy See to continue the dialogue with the German bishops. 

“We will see how the dialogue will continue,” the cardinal said, adding it was now the obligation of Bätzing to respond to the letter approved by Pope Francis.

“Then we will see how to continue the dialogue, because it is obvious that we must continue it, also to help them remain in the Catholic channel,” Ouellet stressed.

Nuncio in Spain explains the Holy See’s position on the UN’s Agenda 2030

Nuncio in Spain explains the Holy See’s position on the UN’s Agenda 2030

Catholic News Agency, Europe, News

The apostolic nuncio in Spain, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, together with the Grand Chancellor of the Abat Oliba CEU University, Alfonso Bullón de Mendoza. / Credit: Abat Oliba-CEU

CNA Newsroom, Jan 30, 2023 / 11:15 am (CNA).

The apostolic nuncio of the Holy See in Spain, Archbishop Bernardito Cleopas Auza, explained the Holy See’s position on the United Nations Agenda 2030, from the preliminary discussions to its application.

The reflection on the role of the Holy See regarding Agenda 2030 took place during a ceremony held at the Abat Oliba CEU University in Barcelona on the occasion of the Jan. 25 feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, patron saint of the academic center.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is “the most comprehensive blueprint to date for eliminating extreme poverty, reducing inequality, and protecting the planet,” according to the United Nations website.

Auza detailed how the Holy See participated “very intensely” in the preliminary discussions held in 2013 and 2014 for the preparation of Agenda 2030.

However, he stressed that “by its own choice” the Holy See has not voted for the adoption of the document that contains the 16 Sustainable Development Goals.

Main objections

In addition, the nuncio highlighted that among the many caveats raised by the Holy See is the consideration that the declared goals are too numerous and that they entail “excessive idealism,” even more so when they have to be met in 15 years, since they were approved in 2016.

Auza noted that Pope Francis himself has criticized the “declarationist nominalism” found in Agenda 2030, which involves the risk of “assuaging consciences with solemn declarations.”

The Holy See also points out that the formulation of the Sustainable Development Goals often poses “an a priori solution, a response to all challenges in all countries.”

This implies that the will of the donors prevails over the real needs of the countries receiving aid.

The nuncio in Spain also recalled that the Holy See has identified as problematic the risk of having a common document but that each country should make its own interpretation, as well as the issue of ideological colonization.

“The Holy See has promptly and clearly made known its reservations about some aspects of the Agenda 2030,”  the prelate stressed, noting that “there are many people who think that the Holy See is completely in agreement with the Agenda 2030. Not so, of course.”

However, he pointed out, “it must be recognized that the goals of Agenda 2030 are widely shared. Who is not going to share the issue of ending poverty or hunger, providing education to all, strengthening peace and justice, strengthening dialogue, saving the planet, etc.?”

Controversial concepts

Archbishop Auza pointed out that “although the Holy See agrees with most of the objectives and goals listed in the agenda,” in accordance with its “nature and particular mission” it has made clarifications and made reservations about some concepts.

These are mainly those referring to man, his nature and dignity, sexuality, the right to life, the family and the importance of the foundations of international law in the interpretation and implementation of Agenda 2030.

To illustrate it, the prelate addressed some relevant issues such as the concept of gender, the idea of empowerment and the so-called right to sexual and reproductive health.

Gender

Auza recalled that there is an “old debate” on the use of the term “gender” that goes back to the Conference on Development held in Cairo in 1994 and the Conference on Women in 1995 that took place in Beijing.

The nuncio explained that in its note expressing its reservations, the Holy See “emphasizes that any reference to gender, gender equality, and the empowerment of women and girls is understood according to the generally accepted common use of the word gender based on biological criteria.”

Empowerment

The nuncio also explained that “by using the term promotion instead of empowerment, the Holy See seeks to avoid a disordered vision of authority as power instead of service.”

The apostolic nuncio in Spain, who was the representative of the Holy See to the U.N. for seven and a half years, explained that the term empowerment has only been used since the 1990s.

Right to reproductive and sexual health

Auza acknowledges that the term sexual and reproductive health “is one of the most controversial because it implies abortion.”

This was used for the first time in 1995 at the Women’s Summit in Beijing. There, the prelate recalled, “there was a great struggle between the Holy See” especially with the United States, whose delegation was headed by Hillary Clinton.

The term was introduced in the final document, but with an interpretation that “thanks to the support of many other countries” could remain in the document and which Auza noted “does not imply abortion.”

This consideration is reflected in the text of the agreement and “is not an interpretation,” the nuncio pointed out.

“It does not include the right to abortion and even less abortion as a fundamental right,” the archbishop said and then “emphasized that no United Nations document has ever mentioned abortion as a right.”

What happens, he argued, is that many countries and U.N. agencies like the World Health Organization and UNICEF do take it this way.

Thus, some nations “have given 67% to 70% of their aid for the implementation of Agenda 2030 only for this term: the right to sexual and reproductive health. This means promoting population control,” he said.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Synod organizers tell Continental Assemblies not to ‘impose an agenda’ on discussions

Synod organizers tell Continental Assemblies not to ‘impose an agenda’ on discussions

Catholic News Agency, News, Vatican

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, archbishop of Luxembourg, (left) and Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Jan 30, 2023 / 09:18 am (CNA).

Cardinals organizing the Synod on Synodality have written a letter to all of the world’s bishops sharing urgent considerations for the Continental Assemblies, seven of which are set to take place by the end of March.

In the letter published by the Vatican on Jan. 30, Cardinal Mario Grech and Cardinal Jean Claude Hollerich stressed that the Synod of Bishops is not meant “to address all the issues being debated in the Church.”

“There are in fact some who presume to already know what the conclusions of the synodal assembly will be. Others would like to impose an agenda on the synod, with the intention of steering the discussion and determining its outcome,” the cardinals wrote.

“However, the theme that the pope has assigned to the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops is clear: ‘For a Synodal Church: communion, participation, mission.’ This is therefore the sole theme that we are called to explore in each of the stages within the process.”

The cardinals added that “those who claim to impose any one theme on the synod forget the logic that governs the synod process: we are called to chart a ‘common course’ beginning with the contribution of all.”

While the North American Continental Assembly has already begun to meet virtually, other continents are hosting in-person meetings in February and March:

  • Europe and Oceania will both begin their Continental Assemblies on Feb. 5.

  • Two hundred delegates will meet in Prague, Czech Republic, for the first part of the European Continental Assembly Feb. 5-9 followed by a meeting of the 39 European bishops, who each serve as the president of his country’s bishops’ conference, from Feb. 9-12 with an additional 390 delegates participating online (10 for each bishops’ conference.)

  • Bishops from Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea will join together with delegates from other parts of Oceania for a five-day meeting in Suva, Fiji, for the Oceania Continental Assembly Feb. 5-9.

  • The Middle East Continental Assembly will take place in Beirut, Lebanon, Feb. 12-18, with the participation of clergy from at least seven Eastern Catholic Churches.

  • Bishops and delegates from across Asia will meet in Bangkok, Thailand, Feb. 24-26 for the Asian Continental Assembly with 100 expected participants.

  • The African Continental Assembly will take place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with the participation of 95 laypeople, 12 religious sisters, 18 priests, 15 bishops, and seven cardinals, a total of 155 delegates, March 1-6.

  • The Latin American and Caribbean Continental Assembly will be held as four separate meetings across the region. The first will be in El Salvador Feb. 13-17 with participants from Mexico and Central America. The second for the Caribbean is in the Dominican Republic Feb. 20-24. The third is in Quito, Ecuador, Feb. 27-March 3, and the fourth is in Brasilia, Brazil, March 6-10.

The General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops describes these Continental Assemblies as a meeting to “reread the journey made and to continue the listening and discernment … proceeding in accord with the socio-cultural specificities of their respective regions.”

The discussion at the Continental Assemblies will be guided by a 44-page working document officially called the DCS (Document for the Continental Stage).

The text calls for “a Church capable of radical inclusion” and says that many local synod reports raised questions about the inclusion and role of women, young people, the poor, people identifying as LGBTQ, and the divorced and remarried.

In the letter signed by Grech and Hollerich on Jan. 26, the cardinals stressed that the themes proposed in the document guiding the synod’s continental phase discussions “do not constitute the agenda” for the Synod of Bishops assembly in October 2023.

“The decision to restore the DCS to the particular Churches, asking that each one listen to the voice of the others … truly manifests that the only rule we have given ourselves is to constantly listen to the Spirit,” it said.

The synod organizers added that it will be the task of the Continental Assemblies to identify “the priorities, recurring themes, and calls to action” that will be discussed during the first session of the Synod of Bishops Oct. 4-29.

Each Continental Assembly is required to submit a final document of no more than 20 pages providing the region’s response to three reflection questions based on the DCS by March 31:

  1. Which intuitions resonate most strongly with the lived experiences and realities of the Church in your continent? Which experiences are new or illuminating to you?

  2. What substantial tensions or divergences emerge as particularly important in your continent’s perspective? Consequently, what are the questions or issues that should be addressed and considered in the next steps of the process?

  3. Looking at what emerges from the previous two questions, what are the priorities, recurring themes, and calls to action that can be shared with other local Churches around the world and discussed during the First Session of the Synodal Assembly in October 2023?

The final, universal phase of the Synod on Synodality will begin with the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican in October 2023 and continue in October 2024.

The feedback from the seven Continental Assemblies on the Document for the Continental Stage (DCS) will be used as the basis for another instrumentum laboris, or working document, that will be completed in June 2023 to guide the Synod of Bishops’ discussion.

Pope Francis accepts Ouellet’s resignation, appoints American to lead Dicastery for Bishops

Pope Francis accepts Ouellet’s resignation, appoints American to lead Dicastery for Bishops

Catholic News Agency, News, Vatican

Bishop Robert Francis Prevost was named prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Bishops on Jan. 30, 2023. / Credit: Frayjhonattan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Rome Newsroom, Jan 30, 2023 / 07:27 am (CNA).

Pope Francis on Monday named an American as the next prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Bishops to succeed Cardinal Marc Ouellet.

Bishop Robert Francis Prevost will lead the Vatican office responsible for evaluating new members of the Catholic Church’s hierarchy, the Vatican announced Jan. 30.

Prevost, 67, has served as a bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru since 2015. He is a member of the Order of St. Augustine and led the Augustinian order as prior general from Rome for more than a decade after serving as a missionary priest for the order in Peru in the 1990s.

Born in Chicago in 1955, Prevost entered the Augustinian order as a novice at the age of 21. He studied philosophy at Villanova University and theology at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago before being ordained to the priesthood in Rome in 1982.

Prevost earned a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in Rome in 1985.

He helped to establish in 1988 the order’s formation house in Trujillo, Peru, where he went on to serve as prior, formation director, judicial vicar, and a director of seminary studies. He returned to the U.S. in 1999 after being elected prior of the order’s Chicago province.

After becoming a bishop in Peru, Prevost was appointed by the pope as a member of the Dicastery for Bishops and the Dicastery for Clergy.

As the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, Prevost will play a key role in the selection process for diocesan bishops and in the investigation of allegations against bishops.

The ultimate decision in appointing bishops rests with the pope, and he is free to select anyone he chooses. Usually, the pope’s representative in a country, the apostolic nuncio, passes on recommendations and documentation to the Vatican. The Dicastery of Bishops then discusses the appointment in a further process and takes a vote. On being presented with the recommendations, the pope makes the final decision.

Prevost will begin his new post on April 12 and will receive the title of archbishop. He will succeed Ouellet in both the position of prefect and as the next president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

The Vatican announced on Monday that Pope Francis had accepted Cardinal Ouellet’s resignation at the age of 78, more than three years past the usual retirement age for bishops.

Pope Benedict XVI appointed Ouellet as prefect of the Congregation for Bishops in 2010. A member of the Society of the Priests of St. Sulpice (Sulpicians), he was a theology professor, a missionary in Colombia, and secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity before being appointed archbishop of Quebec — and thus primate of Canada — by Pope John Paul II in 2002.

After the cardinal was accused of sexual assault in a civil suit in August 2022, the Vatican conducted a preliminary investigation and concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to begin a canonical investigation against Ouellet for sexual assault.

Ouellet, who strongly denies the allegations, filed a defamation lawsuit in Quebec courts contending that the woman wrongly accused him of sexual assault in the lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Quebec.

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