St. John's Catholic Church

Cardinal Kurt Koch speaks to journalists at the Synod on Synodality press briefing held at the Vatican’s Holy See Press Office on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 10, 2024 / 15:50 pm (CNA).

Three fraternal delegates — non-Catholic representatives of Christian churches participating in this year’s session of the Synod on Synodality — took center stage at Thursday’s Synod on Synodality press briefing held at the Vatican’s Holy See Press Office.

According to Cardinal Kurt Koch, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, the imperative for all Christian churches to journey, pray, and cooperate is Jesus’ own priestly prayer recorded in Chapter 17 of St. John’s Gospel: “So that they may all be one.” 

“Jesus doesn’t command unity but he prays for it,” Koch told journalists on Thursday. “So if Jesus has prayed for unity, what can we do? We must do what Jesus did.”

In June, the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity released “The Bishop of Rome,” a book that examines the fruits of various ecumenical dialogues between the Catholic Church and other churches regarding the “Petrine ministry” — the role and ministry of the pope — over the last 30 years.

During the press conference, Metropolitan Job of Pisidia, the Eastern Orthodox co-president of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, highlighted the significance of the “convergence” found in the Roman Catholic Church’s various bilateral dialogues with the Orthodox and other Christian churches surveyed in “The Bishop of Rome.”

“What strikes me in this book — and I advise you to read it — is to see the convergence among all these bilateral dialogues,” he shared with journalists. “This means that we are not just looking for an agreement or just some compromise with another church.”

The metropolitan also stated that ecumenical dialogue is not solely aimed at reconciliation and fraternity among churches but has the potential to “also bear fruit in the internal [and] domestic life of every church.”

Speaking about “the great importance of relationality” among Christian churches, Anglican Bishop Martin Warner of Chichester, co-chair of the English-Welsh Anglican-Roman Catholic Committee, spoke about the “sense of family” that has developed between the Catholic Church and the Church of England, particularly during the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II.

“She, I think, lived throughout the duration of five popes,” he said. “These [meetings] create a sense of a family which has a history and a past.”

Warner also commented that both Anglicans and Catholics view authority as a “gift.” He said the primacy of love and service — underscored in Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Ut Unum Sint — are the “solid foundations” on which both churches are built upon. 

Anne-Cathy Graber, secretary for ecumenical relations of the Mennonite World Conference, told journalists that the Synod on Synodality has given the ecumenical movement a new “dynamism” but that more “visible signs” of Christian unity are needed.

“It’s true that sometimes there are no symbolic signs that the world can understand. What we are lacking is symbolic gestures of reconciliation,” she said.

Synod on Synodality delegates and participants will attend an ecumenical prayer service at the Vatican on Friday, Oct. 11.

Matthew Lee, Taiwan's ambassador to the Holy See, speaks at a celebration of Taiwan’s 113th National Day at a reception organized by the Embassy of the Republic of China to the Holy See in Vatican City, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. / Credit: Fabio Gonnella/EWTN

Vatican City, Oct 10, 2024 / 12:50 pm (CNA).

Taiwan’s ambassador to the Holy See, Matthew Lee, emphasized the importance of the Vatican-Taiwan partnership, particularly in promoting peace and religious freedom, in a recent interview with CNA.

“Taiwan has enjoyed diplomatic relations with the Holy See for 82 years. That’s very important because it means the Holy See recognizes Taiwan as a country that values religious freedom and its communion with the universal Church,” Lee told CNA at a reception ahead of Taiwan’s National Day, which is celebrated each year on Oct. 10.

The Oct. 2 event held near St. Peter’s Basilica drew cardinals, bishops, and diplomats accredited to the Holy See, underscoring the democratic island’s ties with the Vatican, one of only 12 remaining nations in the world that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

“In Taiwan, the Catholic people [number] about 3%, but it’s very powerful,” the ambassador said. Taiwan’s National Eucharistic Congress on Oct. 5 drew more than 10,000 people, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was the fifth Eucharistic congress held in Taiwan since 2011.

In his remarks at the event, Lee highlighted how Taiwan and the Vatican have worked “hand in hand” to provide humanitarian aid and contribute to the international community.

“In the future, Taiwan will continue to cooperate with the Holy See and like-minded democracies to jointly safeguard regional peace and stability, protect religious freedom, and create a society of greater justice and peace for humanity,” Lee said.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, Cardinal Silvano Tomasi, Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio, and other Vatican officials attended the celebration. Re offered a blessing for the food at the event held on the feast of the Guardian Angels, praying that angels may always protect Taiwan so that it may “always live in peace.”

Amid Taiwan’s National Day celebrations, the Chinese military put pressure on the democratic island by sending 15 planes across the median line of the Taiwan Strait, according to the Associated Press.

The ambassador emphasized Taiwan’s commitment to Pope Francis’ call to promote peace in the world, especially in the Taiwan Strait. 

After taking office on May 20, Taiwan’s new president, Lai Ching-te, echoed that call for peace, urging China to “stop intimidating Taiwan politically and militarily,” Lee said.

“President Lai also constantly called for dialogue over confrontation, exchange over containment, and peaceful engagement with the legal government chosen by Taiwanese people,” he added.

Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China, has maintained formal diplomatic relations with the Holy See since 1942. The Vatican does not have diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. 

The ambassador noted that the embassy organized a “novena for peace” in response to Pope Francis’ call for peace.

Bishop Norbert Pu of Taiwan spoke to CNA at the event about the significance of the Vatican’s recognition for Taiwanese Catholics. 

“We hope we can always maintain this formal and good relationship with the Vatican. Because for Taiwan, this is very important. We hope that the world will see this because Taiwan is a democratic and free country, respected by other nations,” Pu said.

Cardinal Dieudonné Nzapalainga, the archbishop of Bangui in the Central African Republic, also spoke at the event, giving thanks for Taiwan’s donation of a computer classroom at the Major Seminary of St. Mark.

Lee highlighted how Taiwan has “provided humanitarian assistance and carried out concrete projects to help many countries.”

“The Taiwan Embassy has joined forces with several religious congregations this year to deliver humanitarian assistance to those in need,” he said.

Brazilian Archbishop Jaime Spengler, OFM, speaks at a Synod on Synodality briefing on Oct. 8, 2024, at the Vatican. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 10, 2024 / 12:20 pm (CNA).

Brazilian Archbishop Jaime Spengler, OFM, one of the 21 men chosen by Pope Francis to become a cardinal in the next consistory on Dec. 8, confirmed plans for a trial run of an Amazonian rite of the Mass and urged “openness” to the idea of married priests to serve certain communities facing a shortage of priests.

The 64-year-old is a prominent figure in the Church in his home country and throughout South America, heading both the Catholic bishops’ conference of Brazil and the Latin American bishops’ conference (CELAM).

A descendant of German immigrants, Spengler has been a member of the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor for more than 40 years and a priest for almost 34 years. 

After serving as auxiliary bishop of Porto Alegre for two and a half years, Pope Francis tapped him in 2013 to lead the archdiocese, making him the youngest archbishop in Brazil at the time, having just turned 53.

The Archdiocese of Porto Alegre, which covers the capital city of the southernmost state of Brazil, serves over 2 million Catholics spread across more than 13,000 square kilometers (more than 5,000 square miles), according to 2021 Vatican statistics.

With just 300-some priests, the archdiocese has had to explore ways of overcoming the challenges posed by a priest shortage — a problem faced by much of the Catholic Church in Latin America.

Spengler once again indicated he is open to ordaining married men, so-called “viri probati,” to serve as priests — a subject much debated during the Vatican’s Amazon synod in 2019.

The archbishop and future cardinal said at a briefing for the Synod on Synodality at the Vatican Oct. 8 that his archdiocese is “investing in permanent deacons: Maybe in the future these married men could also be ordained as priests for a specific community.”

The issue of the priestly ordination of married men — currently not allowed by Church discipline in the Latin rite — is “delicate,” Spengler noted. “I don’t know if it could be the best solution to the shortage of priests, but we need frankness and openness to deal with it. It’s a journey.”

“I don’t have prepackaged answers,” he continued. “We can and must face the issue with courage, keeping in mind theology but also grasping the signs of the times.”

Spengler, who has a doctorate in philosophy from the Pontifical University Antonianum in Rome, was born in Gaspar in the state of Santa Caterina, just north of where he now lives in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Santa Caterina is the source of a lot of Brazil’s priestly vocations and also the birthplace of two of the most influential figures in liberation theology: the late archbishop of São Paulo, Paulo Evaristo Arns, OFM, and theologian Leonardo Boff, a former Catholic priest and one of the founders of the movement, which gained popularity in the 1970s and emphasized freedom from poverty and oppression as the key to salvation.

Spengler has also supported an Amazonian rite of the Mass, something that has been under study since the 2019 Amazon Synod. A three-year experimental phase of an Amazonian rite will begin before the end of this year, according to Father Agenor Brighenti, a priest leading the Amazonian bishops’ (CEAMA) study of an Amazonian rite. 

Brighenti, one of the Synod on Synodality’s theology experts, is also the new head of the theological-pastoral team of CELAM.

Responding to a question, Spengler confirmed at the Oct. 8 Vatican briefing that there is a group in the Amazon bishops’ conference working on creating an Amazonian rite of the Mass but added that he thinks it could also be easier to explore ways of inculturating the Latin rite of the Mass instead.

The Brazilian cardinal-designate tied the need to have a Mass that reflects Amazonian culture in some way to a lack of access to the Eucharist in some remote areas of the Amazon. 

“Today in the Latin Church we have the Roman rite, and the Roman rite must be inculturated in the different realities,” he said. “Personally I think we can explore this possibility in a more in-depth manner ... Of course, this requires a special sensitivity and attention on the part of the involved parties, and also a readiness to find a way, a journey.”

The future cardinal also said a challenge for the Church in traditionally Christian countries such as Brazil is how to present the faith to the next generation.

The remarks echoed comments Spengler made during a different synod, the 2018 synod on young people, faith, and vocational discernment. As a delegate to the youth synod, Spengler told journalists he thought the question of transmitting religious values to young people was at the foundation of all the bishops’ debates.

In the context of the current synod, Spengler is among those who see deep connections between the Second Vatican Council and the push for a more synodal Church. 

The Synod of Synodality is “an opportunity to rescue the main lines of the Second Vatican Council,” the archbishop said in a letter to the Brazilian bishops’ conference this week.

“In truth, it is about developing the intuitions of the council fathers and finding viable ways to implement them,” he wrote to the bishops, noting that they should not fear controversies, which are only “part of the process.”

German film score composer and record producer Hans Zimmer performs during the “Hans Zimmer Live North American Tour 2024” at Scotiabank Arena on Sept. 19, 2024, in Toronto. / Credit: Mathew Tsang/Getty Images

Vatican City, Oct 10, 2024 / 09:15 am (CNA).

The Vatican announced Thursday that Oscar-winning film composer Hans Zimmer will conduct a special concert for the poor and homeless at a Vatican City venue.

Zimmer, known for his scores of films like “Gladiator,” “The Lion King,” “Interstellar,” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” will conduct some of his most memorable movie melodies at the event.

The legendary composer will take center stage at the Vatican’s “Concert with the Poor” on Dec. 7 in the Paul VI Hall.

Three thousand people in need, cared for by volunteer organizations around Rome, will be invited to enjoy the live performance. At the end of the concert, they will receive a takeaway dinner and other necessities.

The Vatican event seeks to elevate those often left on the margins of society, offering them not just a world-class performance but an experience that acknowledges their dignity and worth.

Zimmer has won Academy Awards for composing original scores for “Dune” and “The Lion King” as well as 22 Grammy nominations for films including “Inception,” “The Prince of Egypt,” and “The Dark Knight.”

Joining him will be Grammy-nominated cellist Tina Guo and Italian priest and composer Monsignor Marco Frisina, who has composed both sacred music and scores for numerous religious films in Italy.

The Nova Opera Orchestra, featuring 70 musicians from across Europe, and the 250-member Choir of the Diocese of Rome will also participate, marking the choir’s 40th anniversary.

Pope Francis will meet privately with Zimmer and the other artists ahead of the concert. 

First held in 2015, the “Concert with the Poor” has become a Vatican tradition. Past editions of the event have featured luminaries such as the late composer Ennio Morricone, a legend in Italian cinema history, and Nicola Piovani, who won the Academy Award for best original score for Roberto Benigni’s film “Life Is Beautiful.”

The concert is under the patronage of the Vatican Dicastery for the Service of Charity, the Dicastery for Culture and Education, and the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music. 

The concert capacity is 8,000 attendees, including 3,000 special guests from Rome’s poorest communities. These guests are invited through various charitable organizations such as Caritas, the Order of Malta, and the Community of Sant’Egidio.

Tickets for the general public will be available starting Nov. 18 through the event’s official website.

The Vatican has announced that the completed restorations on the soaring baldacchino over the central altar of St. Peter’s Basilica designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini will be unveiled on Oct. 27, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 9, 2024 / 14:35 pm (CNA).

The Vatican has announced that the completed restorations on the soaring baldacchino over the central altar of St. Peter’s Basilica designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini will be unveiled on Oct. 27.

Journalists donned hard hats on Tuesday to get a sneak peek of the nearly finished restorations, climbing the scaffolding all the way to the top of the 94-foot-tall canopy.

The lofty vantage point revealed how the baldacchino’s intricately decorated Baroque angels, cherubs, bees, and golden laurel branches — formerly darkened by centuries of dust and grime — have now been restored to their bright gilded glory.

While the cherubs holding the St. Peter’s keys and the papal tiara at the top of the structure may appear as small details from the ground 94 feet below, up close the chubby cherubs are actually colossal in size, standing nearly as tall as a full-grown adult.

Pope Urban VIII commissioned Bernini in 1624 to design and build the enormous canopy over the Papal Altar of the Confession, located directly over the tomb of St. Peter the Apostle. The  construction took Bernini nine years with considerable help from his architectural rival, Francesco Borromini.

The public will be able to see the 400-year-old twisting bronze columns of the large canopy for the first time since the restoration when Pope Francis presides over the closing Mass for the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 27.

At that time, the scaffolding that has surrounded the central altar for the past eight months will finally be removed.

Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, said the restorations manifest “the beauty and glory that the Church should reflect.” He added that revealing the restorations at the Mass is an opportunity to “announce hope as we walk toward a Jubilee of hope.”

An art restorer’s perspective

Giorgio Capriotti is one of the Vatican Museums’ art restorers who meticulously worked on these details on the massive canopy.

Capriotti said that despite more than a century since the last restoration, the restorers found that the baldacchino is in overall good shape. He explained that his task was largely removing the materials, like oil, waxes, and resins, that art restorers had used that unintentionally altered the hue of the historic gold leaf on the baldacchino.

In some places the baldacchino’s gold leaf became “dark and then almost black” because of oxidation due to the humidity, pollution, and dust in the air.

“So we had to remove these substances using solvents … area by area,” Capriotti said.

“Now we will see it as it was when it was built between 1624 and 1635,” he added.

While working atop the canopy, Capriotti and the other restorationists found objects left by the artists and workers who preceded them from past centuries, including old coins, small drawings, and even a 17th-century shopping list, a collection of items he described as almost “a small museum of cultural anthropology.”

“Everything will be archived and studied and set aside as a testimony of the life, the real life of generations of restorers who have followed one another,” Capriotti said.

Restorers also found places where previous workers had signed their names, including signatures from 1685 and 1725.

After visiting St. Peter’s Basilica in 1873, novelist Henry James described his encounter with the baldacchino: “You have only to stroll and stroll and gaze and gaze; to watch the glorious altar-canopy lift its bronze architecture, its colossal embroidered contortions, like a temple within a temple, and feel yourself, at the bottom of the abysmal shaft of the dome dwindle to a crawling dot.”

The Knights of Columbus funded the baldacchino restoration, which was originally estimated to cost 700,000 euro (about $768,000).

“It’s Bernini’s baldacchino … It’s a singular masterpiece of sacred art — one which is instantly recognizable and impressive,” Patrick Kelly, the head of the Knights of Columbus, said at a press conference when the restoration was first announced.

“But, if that weren’t enough, this project also fits very well with our mission and with our history of service to the Church, and, especially, the successors of St. Peter.”

Restoration of the ‘Cathedra of St. Peter’

Restoration work is also being carried out on Bernini’s massive bronze monument at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica, called the “Cathedra of St. Peter.”

The massive sculpture depicts four doctors of the Church holding up the throne of St. Peter with gilded angels high above the petrine throne surrounding the oval stained-glass window of the “Dove of the Holy Spirit.”

Art restorers have also been cleaning the massive statues of St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, and St. John Chrysostom, which are currently covered by scaffolding. 

Bernini built the monument over the course of 10 years in the mid-17th century to protect a historic relic — a wooden throne symbolizing Petrine primacy with ivory plaques dating back to the Carolingian age in the ninth century. 

The restorations are also providing the chance for the public to see the historic relic of St. Peter’s chair up close. The relic will be on display for visitors to St. Peter’s Basilica from Oct. 27 to Dec. 8.

Pope Francis during the weekly general audience at St. Peter's Square on Oct. 9, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Oct 9, 2024 / 13:05 pm (CNA).

In the first general audience since the opening of the second session of the Synod on Synodality, Pope Francis on Wednesday told pilgrims that Catholics should be aware of the “prohibitions of the Holy Spirit” to ensure the unity and universality of the Church is not compromised.

Continuing his catechesis on the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the Church, the pope emphasized that unity cannot be “achieved on the drawing board” but only through the will and action of the Holy Spirit.

“The unity of Pentecost, according to the Spirit, is achieved when one makes the effort to put God, not oneself, as the center,” the pope said at the end of his address. “Christian unity is also built in this way.”

Addressing hundreds of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square, the Holy Father encouraged his listeners to become “instruments of unity and peace” moved by the Holy Spirit instead of being driven by “one’s own point of view.”

“We all want unity. We all desire it from the depths of our heart and yet it is so difficult to attain that,” he said. “Unity and concord are among one of the most difficult things to achieve, and even harder to maintain. The reason is that, yes, everyone wants unity but based on one’s own point of view.”

In order to achieve unity within the Catholic Church, Pope Francis said it is necessary to also consider the “surprising prohibitions of the Spirit.”

Holy Father cites experience of St. Paul

Referring to the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Father spoke about how even St. Paul and his disciples had to listen to the “prohibitions” of the Holy Spirit about where to preach the Gospel.

“Paul, we read again in Acts, wanted to proclaim the Gospel in a new region of Asia Minor, but it is written that they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit,” the pope said. “The following night, the apostle received in a dream the order to pass into Macedonia. Thus the Gospel left its native Asia and entered into Europe.”

Pope Francis also spoke about the synodal “movement of the Holy Spirit” at the Council of Jerusalem, which discussed whether pagan converts to Christianity needed to adopt customs of the Mosaic Law such as circumcision.

“The Holy Spirit does not always create unity suddenly, with miraculous and decisive actions, as at Pentecost. He also does so — and in the majority of cases — with discrete work, respecting human time and differences, passing through people and institutions, prayer and confrontation. In, we would say today, a synodal manner,” the Holy Father said.

Following the catechesis, the Holy Father greeted the crowds of international pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square and encouraged them to continue to pray for peace and unity in the world.

Before concluding the audience with the prayer of the Our Father in Latin, Pope Francis asked his listeners to also turn to Our Lady and pray the rosary during the month of October.

Cardinal John Henry Newman. / Credit: John Everett Millais, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Newsroom, Oct 9, 2024 / 11:15 am (CNA).

Differing from the traditional practice, the feast day of Cardinal John Henry Newman is not celebrated on the day of his death. Instead, in his memory the Church celebrates his feast on the day he converted to Catholicism.

Newman died in 1890 and was canonized a saint on Oct. 13, 2019.

During the Eucharist celebration at Birmingham’s Cofton Park when he was beatified on Sept. 19, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed that Newman’s feast is to be celebrated on Oct. 9.

In general the feast days of blesseds and saints are marked on their “dies natalis” — the day they died. In his case, despite the fact that he died on Aug. 11, 1890, the Church decided to select the day he converted to Catholicism, Oct. 9, 1845, as the day to celebrate his feast.

At the time of the announcement, the Vatican spokesman at the time, Father Federico Lombardi, joked that the Church already celebrates too many great saints in August so placing the date in October seemed like a good idea to him.

The Church also celebrates Sts. Denis and John Leonardi on Oct. 9, while Aug. 11 is the feast of St. Clare of Assisi.

This article was originally published on Sept. 10, 2010, and has been updated.

Rome Bishop Baldassare Reina presides at the closing of the diocesan phase of the investigation into the life and virtues of Chiara Corbella Petrillo in Rome on Friday, June 21, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 9, 2024 / 10:30 am (CNA).

When Pope Francis announced on Oct. 6 that he would create 21 new cardinals later this year, he also gave the Rome Diocese its new vicar general.

As he listed the names of the new cardinals, the pope named “His Excellency Monsignor Baldassare Reina, who will be, from today on, vicar general for the Diocese of Rome.”

From May 2022, Reina has gone from a priest of Agrigento, Sicily, serving in the Dicastery for the Clergy at the Vatican, to an archbishop and cardinal in charge of the diocese of the bishop of Rome — the pope.

Cardinal-designate Bishop Baldassare Reina has been temporarily in charge of the Diocese of Rome in the absence of a vicar general after Pope Francis transferred Cardinal Angelo De Donatis to a post as head of the Vatican’s apostolic penitentiary in April.

Reina, 53, was Rome’s vice regent, the second in command, from January 2023, when the diocese was restructured under a new constitution.

The promotion came less than one year after Reina had been appointed an auxiliary bishop of Rome with responsibility over the “western sector” of the city.

Reina’s background also includes nine years as rector of the major seminary of Agrigento in the southern part of the Italian island of Sicily.

He also taught classes on sacred Scripture at several educational institutions after receiving a master’s-level degree in biblical theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1998.

The archbishop has been a priest for 29 years. He will be made a cardinal on Dec. 8.

In an Oct. 7 letter to Catholics in Rome, Reina wrote that Pope Francis’ “dedication to the universal Church and the prophecy he has given us in these years of pontificate urge me to work for a transparent and poor Church, capable of releasing and spreading the fragrance of the Gospel.”

Now, Pope Francis will need to nominate a vice regent, the figure who assists the cardinal vicar in the management of the diocese, which he has also recently reconfigured.

In an Oct. 1 document published Tuesday by the Diocese of Rome, the pontiff said he had decided to incorporate the central sector of the diocese into the other four sectors.

Francis explained in the motu proprio La Vera Bellezza (“The True Beauty”) that with the exodus of residents from the historic center, the number of Catholic parishes in that geographic zone has dwindled to 35, many with few parishioners. The high influx of tourists has also had an impact on the pastoral needs of the area.

The Diocese of Rome was divided into five sectors with each of the five sectors being divided into prefectures. Now, the five prefectures of the central sector will be part of the northern, eastern, southern, and western sectors.

“In this view, there is no longer an isolated center and a periphery divided into separate parts but, in a dynamic vision that envisions not walls but bridges, the Diocese of Rome will be conceived as a single center expanding through the four cardinal points,” he said.

The pope added that he hopes this change will dissolve “the bilateral tension that has been ingrained in social and ecclesial perception over time between the historic center and the peripheries” of Rome.

He said the Jubilee Year in 2025, more than just an occasion to welcome pilgrims from around the world, should also be a time of pilgrimage for Romans themselves and an opportunity to rediscover the spiritual riches found in the churches and religious traditions in Rome’s city center. 

“I wish to strengthen the unitary and synodal perception of the Diocese of Rome starting from its geographical configuration, so that it can better explicate the authentic sense of its centrality and beauty,” Pope Francis said.

Cardinals-elect Archbishop Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, SVD; Archbishop Jaime Spengler, OFM; and Archbishop Ignace Bessi Dogbohe discuss the contributions of the Church outside Europe during a Synod on Synodality press briefing on Oct. 8, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 8, 2024 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

Cardinals-designate from three continents said Tuesday the Church in the global south has a lot of nonmaterial gifts to share with the West, including the richness of priestly vocations and a joy-filled faith.

“When the Holy Father is talking about peripheries, I think the peripheries are moving. ... Maybe the peripheries are moving towards Europe,” Tokyo’s Archbishop Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, SVD, said in response to a question from CNA during a press briefing on the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 8.

The Japanese bishop’s comments on the contributions of the Church outside Europe were echoed by Archbishop Ignace Bessi Dogbo of Korhogo, Ivory Coast, and Archbishop Jaime Spengler, OFM, of Porto Alegre, Brazil, who also participated in the press briefing. 

All three men are participants in the synod and will be made cardinals at a consistory on Dec. 8, as announced by Pope Francis on Sunday.

The cardinal-designate from the Ivory Coast, Dogbo, said the Synod on Synodality discussed the theme of the exchange of gifts on Tuesday morning.

“We who come from African dioceses, we can say that they seem to be poor from a material standpoint, but spiritually these dioceses are so rich. And faith is lived with joy,” he said. “And this is something we must share with the universal Church.”

He also mentioned the great grace of many priestly vocations in the Church in Africa.

Kikuchi of Tokyo also pointed out the large number of vocations to the priesthood coming from countries in Asia, though he remarked that Japan is unfortunately not included in this.

“There is a point in [the synodal assembly] in which we discussed the exchange of gifts from one Church to the other — those who have and those who don’t have. Formerly it was understood as rich Churches, those who have money and resources, who support the poor countries like in Asia and Africa,” Kikuchi said. 

With more priestly vocations coming from Asian and African countries, however, “the exchange of gifts is changing ... from the developing countries to the developed countries,” he said.

Spengler, president of the Brazilian bishops’ conference and president of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) since 2023, said Brazil and other Latin American countries are celebrating the anniversary of the arrival of immigrants from Germany, Italy, and other countries to the continent.

“Somehow [these immigrants] promoted a process of evangelization in Latin America in a historical context other than our own, and they did this so well,” he said. “Today, if we have a Christian tradition that is strong and lively [in Latin America] we owe it to immigrants.”

The archbishop said the immigrants were brave to leave their own countries and cross the ocean, in some cases more than 200 years ago, to a continent where there was little at the time. But most importantly, he added, they brought the Catholic faith with them.

He said today’s challenge for the Church in traditionally Christian countries is understanding how to present the faith to the next generation.

Bishop Yao Shun of Jining and Bishop Yang Yongqiang of Zhouchun (right) of the People’s Republic of China at the Synod on Synodality at the Vatican in October 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Oct 8, 2024 / 13:30 pm (CNA).

The Synod on Synodality, meant to be a moment of encounter and dialogue for the global Church, has provided a venue for Catholic bishops from mainland China and Taiwan to meet together.

Bishop Norbert Pu is Taiwan’s first Indigenous bishop. He is a member of the Tsou community and has translated liturgical texts into the Tsou language. The 66-year-old bishop of Chiayi is a delegate in the nearly monthlong synod assembly as a representative of the Chinese Regional Bishops’ Conference of Taiwan.

In an interview with CNA, Pu said he is most looking forward to getting to know the different bishops, cardinals, and synod delegates from other parts of the world gathered at the Vatican for the second session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of Bishops.

Pu noted that he had already met with the two bishops from mainland China taking part in the synod and plans to meet with them again.

“It’s very important to dialogue with them, to respect each other. I think it’s good … not only for the Chinese, for the whole Church,” the Taiwanese bishop said.

Bishop Antonio Yao Shun of Jining, the first bishop consecrated in China under the terms of the Sino-Vatican agreement, represented the Church in China at the synod assembly in October 2023 along with Chinese Archbishop Joseph Yang Yongqiang before the two suddenly departed early without explanation. 

Yao has said that many of the participants in last year’s synod assembly “showed interest in the development of the Church in China, eager to know more and to pray for us.”

The synod also provided an opportunity for the bishops from the People’s Republic of China to spend time with the bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Stephen Chow. 

During last year’s synod assembly, the cardinal and the two bishops even took a brief trip together to Naples where they offered Mass at the Chiesa della Sacra Famiglia dei Cinesi (Church of the Holy Family of the Chinese), a church built in 1732 as part of an institute founded by Pope Clement XII to train Chinese seminarians and teach missionaries the Chinese language to help with the evangelization of China.

A new synod delegate from China

For this year’s assembly, Yao has been replaced by Chinese Bishop Vincent Zhan Silu of Mindong diocese in China’s southern Fujian province.

Zhan Silu, 63, was formerly excommunicated for having been ordained a bishop without a papal mandate in Beijing in 2000. His excommunication was lifted in 2018 when the Vatican signed a historic provisional agreement with the Chinese government on the appointment of bishops.

When Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich was asked why Yao had been replaced by Zhan Silu, the relator general of the synod replied: “The Secretariat of State communicated the names to us, but we have no other information on the matter,” according to Asia News.

Without Yao, Archbishop Yang, 54, is the synod veteran among the two Chinese bishops. Since participating in last year’s synod assembly, Yang has been transferred to the Archdiocese of Hangzhou, a move that took place “within the framework of dialogue” of the provisional agreement with China, according to the Vatican. The change elevated him to the rank of archbishop.

Yang was ordained a bishop with Vatican approval in 2010 and served as the bishop of Zhoucun in mainland China’s Shandong Province from 2013 to June 2024. 

He participated in the 2023 National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory body that is part of the Chinese Communist Party’s united front system, where it was decided that the Catholic Church should integrate its thought with the party and unite more closely to Xi Jinping, according to the official website of the Catholic Patriotic Association.

Zhan Silu and Yang are among the 368 voting delegates taking part in the second synod assembly at the Vatican Oct. 2–27.

The synod is taking place amid the ongoing dialogue between Beijing and Rome on the appointment of bishops. The Vatican has yet to announce if it renewed its provisional agreement with China, which is expected to have been renewed this fall for the third time since it was first signed in 2018.

Vatican-Taiwan relations

During the first week of the assembly, some synod delegates took a break from the day’s meetings to join in the celebration of Taiwan’s 113th National Day at a reception organized by the Embassy of the Republic of China to the Holy See just down the street from St. Peter’s Basilica.

Vatican City State is the only remaining country in Europe that recognizes Taiwan as a country.

The Holy See has had formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, formally called the Republic of China (ROC), since 1942, while the Church does not have official diplomatic relations with the mainland People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The island of Taiwan, fewer than 110 miles off the coast of China and home to a population of more than 23 million people, has maintained a vibrant democracy with robust civil liberties despite increased pressure from Beijing regarding the island’s status.

Unlike mainland China — where images of Christ and the Virgin Mary have been replaced with images of President Xi Jinping, according to a report released last week — Catholics in Taiwan enjoy religious freedom, which is enshrined in its constitution.

More than 10,000 people attended the National Eucharistic Congress in Taiwan last weekend, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Pope Francis sent a message to the congress, writing that he hoped it would “arouse in the hearts of the Christian faithful a true worship and love of the Eucharist.” The congress in the Diocese of Kaohsiung was the fifth Eucharistic congress held in Taiwan since 2011.

Bishop Pu told CNA that the congress presented an opportunity to let more people in Taiwan know about the Eucharist and its central importance to the Catholic faith.

“We hope we can always maintain this formal and good relationship with the Vatican. Because for Taiwan, this is very important. We hope that the world will see this because Taiwan is a democratic and free country, respected by other nations,” Pu said.