St. John's Catholic Church

The Vatican held four different public conferences from Oct. 9 and 16, 2024, in Rome to explain the “theological undertone of the synodal process,” according to a conference moderator and expert at this month’s Synod on Synodality.  / Credit: Hannah Brockhaus/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 18, 2024 / 10:55 am (CNA).

Four different theology conferences, held publicly Oct. 9 and 16 in Rome, explain the “theological undertone of the synodal process,” according to a conference moderator and expert at this month’s Synod on Synodality.

The evening forums gave a platform to 17 handpicked theologians and canonists who spoke for about 10 minutes each on the topics of papal primacy, the people of God, the bishop’s authority, and the relationship between the local Churches and the universal Church — all in the context of how to make the Church more synodal.

One of the few novelties of the second session of the Synod on Synodality, the forums revealed some of the theological underpinnings of synodality — according to the experts who were writing about the concept years before Pope Francis launched the three-year synodal process — and the concrete proposals for the future of the Catholic Church.

Klara A. Csiszar, a moderator of two of these forums, an expert at the Synod on Synodality, and a Romanian-Hungarian-Austrian theologian, said at an Oct. 16 briefing for journalists that the conferences “help to better understand the theological undertone of the entire synodality process, especially the theology of the people of God, which is seen as the subject of the mission.”

“This is a fundamental theme that, in my opinion, should be translated into practical application with all its implications,” she continued, adding that “theology helps with this by learning not only to teach, so to speak, but also by listening a lot, sitting in the hall, and trying to understand what is really at stake” during the Oct. 2–27 Vatican assembly.

Other participants agreed that the goal of the forms was to examine some of the issues and concrete proposals being debated inside the Vatican synod hall in a deeper theological way.

Archbishop Roberto Repole of Turin and Susa, Italy, told CNA at a briefing earlier this week that while the forums were a way to make some of the synod debates more open to the public, they were also a good opportunity “to grasp the stakes of some possible changes” to the Catholic Church and to see the journey the Church has made to arrive at synodality since the Second Vatican Council.

“Synodality,” Repole said, “has to do with a way of living together, being Church, of deciding as Christians on the basic issues. But it also asks for some deepening on theological issues that cannot remain on the sidelines of the journey that is being made.”

At the forums, Repole and many of the meetings’ speakers drew heavily on the Church’s dogmatic constitution from Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, in their defenses of synodality, insisting that the theological concept has its roots in the council.

Cardinal Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, speaking at the same Oct. 15 briefing as Repole, explained the impetus for organizing the theological-pastoral forums.

The Brazilian cardinal said that at the end of the first session of the Synod on Synodality in October 2023, theologians expressed a desire to have a more integral and prominent part in the synodal discussions.

It was important for theologians to “participate more in the synod,” Steiner said. “And in this sense, the synod has identified a new path, a new way to consider what has been proposed.”

“Last year it was said that theology was not granted sufficient attention,” Csiszar said. “The theological and pastoral forums provide an answer and open a space in which theology, on the one hand, is learning to articulate its role in a synodal Church, and on the other, is making a substantial contribution to the development of a new synodal style, a new synodal culture.”

The four topics of the forums, she continued, “help provide orientation where there are blockages, motivate where possibilities are perhaps no longer seen, and address exhaustion when it sets in as well as offer criticism where many responses indicate that a certain path might be the wrong one.”

A group of 15 theological experts is participating in the Synod on Synodality as advisers, but they are not delegates and do not take part in voting during the Oct. 2–27 assembly.

Some of the forums’ panelists were chosen from among these over two dozen theologians and canonists. Others were chosen by synod organizers “mainly from among those who participated in the various phases of the synodal process,” Father Riccardo Battocchio, the synod’s special secretary, told the National Catholic Register in an email interview.

“Some [of the speakers] are members of the theological commission established in 2021, others were added during the preparation of the first and second Instrumentum Laboris, others were involved for their specific expertise and experience,” Battocchio explained.

He said the presenters “were asked not to privilege, in their presentation, a particular theological school but to convey, even in the short time available, the scope of the individual questions, the possible different answers offered by Catholic theology, helping the participants in the forums to grasp the different aspects of each theme and to ask questions.”

Elena Guerra, Marie-Léonie Paradis, and Giuseppe Allamano are among the Blesseds whom Pope Francis will canonize on Oct. 20, 2024.  / Credit: Oblates of the Holy Spirit; centremarie-leonieparadis.com; and Unknown photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Vatican City, Oct 17, 2024 / 18:10 pm (CNA).

Among the 14 people who will become the Catholic Church’s newest saints on Sunday is a priest whose intercession led to the miraculous healing of a man mauled by a jaguar, a woman who convinced a pope to call for a worldwide novena to the Holy Spirit, and 11 men killed in Syria for refusing to renounce their faith and convert to Islam.

While not household names, the 14 soon-to-be saints each exemplified heroic virtue and witnessed to holiness within their unique vocations, including two married men — a father of eight and a father of five, respectively — and three founders of religious orders who have generations of spiritual children who have continued their spiritual legacy throughout the world.

Pope Francis invited all Catholics this week to get to “learn about these new saints and ask for their intercession” in anticipation of the canonization in St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 20.

“They are a clear testimony of the Holy Spirit’s action in the life of the Church,” the pope said.

Mother Elena Guerra (1835–1914)

Known as an “apostle of the Holy Spirit,” Blessed Elena Guerra helped to convince Pope Leo XIII to exhort all Catholics to pray a novena to the Holy Spirit leading up to Pentecost in 1895.

Guerra is the foundress of the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, a congregation of religious sisters recognized by the Church in 1882 that continues today in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America.

A friend of Pope Leo XIII and the teacher of St. Gemma Galgani, Guerra is remembered for her spiritual writings and her passionate devotion to the Holy Spirit.

“Pentecost is not over,” Guerra wrote. “In fact, it is continually going on in every time and in every place, because the Holy Spirit desired to give himself to all men and all who want him can always receive him, so we do not have to envy the apostles and the first believers; we only have to dispose ourselves like them to receive him well, and he will come to us as he did to them.”

For much of her 20s, Guerra was bedridden with a serious illness, a challenge that turned out to be transformational for her as she dedicated herself to meditating on Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers. She felt the call to consecrate herself to God during a pilgrimage to Rome with her father after her recovery and went on to form the religious community dedicated to education.

During her correspondence with Pope Leo XIII, Guerra composed prayers to the Holy Spirit, including a Holy Spirit Chaplet, asking the Lord to “send forth your spirit and renew the world.”

Father Giuseppe Allamano (1851–1926)

Blessed Giuseppe Allamano remained a diocesan priest in Italy his entire life yet left a global legacy by founding two missionary religious orders — the Consolata Missionaries and the Consolata Missionary Sisters — that went on to spread the Gospel in Kenya, Ethiopia, Brazil, Taiwan, Mongolia, and more than two dozen other countries.

Allamano told the priests in the order he founded in northern Italy in 1901 that they needed to be “first saints, then missionaries.”

“As missionaries then, you must not only be holy, but extraordinarily holy. All the other gifts are not enough to make a missionary! It takes holiness, great holiness,” he said.

Allamano set the example by “combining the commitment to holiness with attention to the spiritual and social needs of his time,” Pope John Paul II said at his beatification. “He had a deep conviction that ‘the priest is first and foremost a man of charity,’ ‘destined to do the greatest possible good,’ to sanctify others ‘with example and word,’ with holiness and knowledge.”

He was deeply influenced by the spirituality of the Salesians and St. John Bosco, who served as his spiritual director, as well as the witness of his saintly uncle, St. Joseph Cafasso.

Allamano is being canonized after the Vatican recognized a unique medical miracle attributed to his intercession — the healing of a man who was attacked by a jaguar in the Amazon rainforest.

Sorino Yanomami, an Indigenous man who lived in the Amazon rainforest, was mauled by a jaguar in 1996, fracturing his skull. Due to his remote location, it took eight hours before he could be airlifted to a hospital. While he was being treated in the ICU, six Consolata missionary sisters, as well as a Consolata priest and brother, waited with the man’s wife, praying with a relic of Blessed Allamano for his intercession. The sisters also prayed a novena to Allamano asking for the man’s healing, and 10 days after his operation he woke up without any neurological damage and suffered no long-term consequences of the attack, according to the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.

Fifteen Consolata missionaries are bishops today, mostly in Africa and South America, including Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, the apostolic prefect of Ulaanbataar, Mongolia.

More than 1,000 members of the Consolata orders are traveling to Rome for their founder’s canonization, Father James Lengarin, the order’s superior general, told CNA.

Mother Marie-Léonie Paradis (1840–1912)

Canadian sister Blessed Marie-Léonie Paradis founded the Little Sisters of the Holy Family. 

Born Virginie Alodie in the Acadian region of Quebec, the blessed founded her institute, whose purpose was to collaborate with and support the religious of Holy Cross in educational work, in 1880 in New Brunswick.

Before founding her religious order, Paradis also spent eight years in New York serving in the St. Vincent de Paul Orphanage in the 1860s before moving to Indiana in 1870 to teach French and needlework at St. Mary’s Academy.

At the request of the bishop of Montreal, Paradis founded the Little Sisters in 1880. An important part of the the spirituality and charism of the order is support for priests through both intense and constant prayer, but also through taking care of the cooking at laundry in seminaries and rectories in “humble and joyful service” in imitation of “Christ the Servant” who washed the feet of his disciples.

Today her sisters work in over 200 institutions of education and evangelization in Canada, the United States, Italy, Brazil, Haiti, Chile, Honduras, and Guatemala.

Pope John Paul II called Paradis the “humble among the humble” as he beatified her during his visit to Montreal in 1984, the first beatification to take place on Canadian soil.

“She was not afraid of the different forms of manual work, which are the burden that falls to so many people today, while it was held in honor in the Holy Family, in the very life of Jesus in Nazareth. There she saw the will of God for her life. With the sacrifices inherent in this work, but offered out of love, she knew a profound joy and peace,” John Paul II said.

“She knew she was referring to the fundamental attitude of Christ, ‘who came not to be served, but to serve.’ She was completely pervaded by the greatness of the Eucharist: This is one of the secrets of her spiritual motivations,” he added.

The miracle attributed to Paradis’ intercession involved the healing of a newborn baby girl who suffered from “prolonged perinatal asphyxia with multi-organ failure and encephalopathy” during her birth in 1986 at a hospital in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Canada, according to the Vatican.

Martyrs of Damascus, Syria (m. 1860)

The Church will also gain 11 new martyr saints who were killed for refusing to renounce their Christian faith and convert to Islam. The “Martyrs of Damascus” were murdered “out of hatred for the faith” in the Franciscan Church of St. Paul in Damascus, Syria, on July 10, 1860.

Eight of the martyrs are Franciscan friars — six priests and two professed religious — all missionaries from Spain except for Father Engelbert Kolland, who was from Salzburg, Austria.

The three others are laymen who were also killed in the raid on the Franciscan church that night:  Francis, Mooti, and Raphael Massabki, who were all brothers from a Maronite Catholic family.

Francis Massabki, the oldest of the brothers, was a father of eight children. Mooti was a father of five who visited the Church of St. Paul daily for prayer and to teach catechism lessons. The youngest brother, Raphael, was single and was known to spend long periods of time praying in the church and helping the friars.

Their martyrdom took place during the persecution of Christians by Muslims and Shia Druze in Lebanon to Syria in 1860, which resulted in thousands of victims.

Late at night extremists entered the Franciscan convent, located in the Christian quarter of Bab-Touma (St. Paul) in the Old City of Damascus, and massacred the friars: Father Manuel Ruiz, Father Carmelo Bolta, Father Nicanor Ascanio, Father Nicolás M. Alberca y Torres, Father Pedro Soler, Kolland, Brother Francisco Pinazo Peñalver, and Brother Juan S. Fernández.

ACI Mena, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, provided an account of the martyrdom of the three Massabki brothers who were also in the church that night: The assailants told Francis Massabki that his life and the lives of his brothers would be spared on the condition that he denied his Christian faith and embraced Islam, to which Francis replied: “We are Christians, and in the faith of Christ, we will die. As Christians, we do not fear those who kill the body, as the Lord Jesus said.” 

He then looked at his two brothers and said: “Be courageous and stand firm in the faith, for the crown of victory is prepared in heaven for those who endure to the end.” Immediately, they proclaimed their faith in Christ with these words: “We are Christians, and we want to live and die as Christians.”

Upon refusing to renounce their Christian faith and convert to Islam, the 11 martyrs of Damascus were brutally killed, some beheaded with sabers and axes, others stabbed or clubbed to death.

Every year on July 10, the liturgical calendar of the Custody of the Holy Land commemorates these martyrs. In the Syrian capital, the Latin and Maronite communities often celebrate this day together.

Cardinal Charles Bo speaks with journalists at a Synod on Synodality press briefing on Oct. 17, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 17, 2024 / 17:10 pm (CNA).

The head of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference (FABC), Cardinal Charles Bo of the Archdiocese of Yangon, Myanmar, said diocesan synods are an effective means to “build a vision and mission” for local Churches.

The high-ranking prelate from Myanmar told journalists on Thursday that synodality on a diocesan level is not a new concept for the Catholic Church.

“When I was made a bishop in 1990, one thing that attracted me in canon law is that about the diocesan synod,” Bo stated at a Vatican press briefing.

“All these years as a bishop — I have been in seven dioceses — I have conducted diocesan synods four times: in ‘92, ‘96, 2004, and 2014.”

Speaking from more than two decades of experience with diocesan synods, the 75-year-old cardinal said collecting feedback “from the farmers, from the villages, from parishes, and from workers, religious, and prisoners” has proven to be a worthwhile process.

According to Bo, the reports generated from synodal consultations with Catholic faithful in dioceses have provided solid foundations for the growth of local Churches in his home country of Myanmar.

The Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar is one of 22 active members of the FABC led by Bo. Earlier this year, the FABC held its synodality workshop — which was attended by 38 delegates from local Churches spread across 17 countries — in Bangkok, Thailand, from Aug. 5–8. 

During the regional meeting, the need for unity and harmony were identified as key for the growth of the Catholic Church in a largely non-Christian region. 

In spite of the challenges the Church faces in Asia, including the region’s geographical vastness and “deep-rooted cultures and traditions” that are resistant to change or view Christianity as foreign, Bo believes this month’s global synodal talks will be a “valuable opportunity” to bring “renewal” in local parishes.

The FABC aims to play a critical role in “guiding the Church in Asia toward a synodal mission” by placing greater attention on the participation of women, youth engagement, the poor and marginalized, and migrants at the parish level.

“It [FABC] serves as a platform for collaboration among local Churches and promotes shared pastoral priorities,” Bo said on Thursday. 

“The [synodal] process has brought renewed energy and hope for the future, and the Church in Asia is committed to building a Church that includes everyone and listens to everyone,” he added.      

With the final global session of the Synod on Synodality coming to a close on Oct. 27, Bo hopes the 272 bishops participating in this year’s discussions will open diocesan synods in their own dioceses.

“I wish also to encourage all bishops and all the dioceses that — based on the fruits that we gather in this Synod on Synodality — we don’t start and stop with this meeting [in the Vatican] but is a continuous effort that we try in all Churches,” Bo said during the Oct. 17 press briefing.

Cardinal Leonardo Steiner is archbishop of Manaus, Brazil. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News

Vatican City, Oct 17, 2024 / 11:55 am (CNA).

Cardinal Leonardo Steiner, the archbishop of Manaus in Brazil who is participating in the Synod on Synodality, said during a daily press briefing at the synod on Tuesday that “many of our women are true ‘deaconesses’” and pointed out that Pope Francis “has not closed the question” of the ordination of married men.

The cardinal is known for being a defender of the poor, Indigenous people and is also considered “pro-LGBTQ.” In the past he has stated that “there will be a way” to end mandatory priestly celibacy.

At the 2019 Synod on the Amazon, the Brazilian cardinal also emerged as a staunch defender of the ordination of married men, an issue on which Pope Francis has not given a definitive word, according to what the prelate said Oct. 15. 

During the briefing held at the Holy See Press Office, the 74-year-old cardinal said that during that day’s session, corresponding to the third module of the Instrumentum Laboris (working document), the participants of the synod reflected on “the places of the Church.”

The cardinal also commented that the Church must be open “to listening to cultures and religions” so that the Gospel can be “inculturated.”

In Manaus there are nearly 2.3 million people, of which 71,713 (3%) are Indigenous. In total there are 753,357 Indigenous people in the whole Amazon, according to official data from Brazil.

Taking these figures as an example to highlight the cultural differences between the West and the inhabitants of his diocese, the cardinal said that despite the fact that for “more than a hundred years there has been no priests” in the communities, they have organized themselves and continued to pray “with different ways of praying.”

Steiner emphasized that “women participate a lot” and that they are in turn “leaders of our communities.”

‘Why not restore the ordained female diaconate?’

The Brazilian cardinal emphasized that he wishes “that some more distant communities could celebrate some sacraments, for example baptism, without the presence of a priest.”

He continued by saying that “many of our women are true ‘deaconesses’ without this being official.” He also stressed that they would like to call them “deaconesses,” since they are “for all purposes,” although he preferred not to use this term “so as not to create confusion with the ordained ministry.”

For the cardinal, “unfortunately we do not have an adequate word” for their role, but “what they do and their responsibility within our Church is admirable.”

“There are many women who lead the community, who make the word of God known, who gather the community in a moment of prayer and who are active, for example, in prison ministry, in catechesis, in Caritas activities. They are the ones who carry out this activity, they are active alongside street people, they are the ones who represent our Church in many places,” he said.

Steiner emphasized his position in favor of the ordination of women to the diaconate and pointed out the existence of a commission that is “charged with studying this issue.” 

“Why not restore the ordained female diaconate? We have already had a Church like this, with this face,” he said, referring to deacons.

“The permanent diaconate for men can go forward with that of women. I think we must reflect a lot on these questions, we must go deeper and we must remember the essential and fundamental role of women in the Church.”

He also stated that “the door should not be opened to a question of gender” but rather that it is “a question of vocations in the Church. The vocation of women within the Church and within our community.”

Responding to one of the journalists present at the press conference, the cardinal pointed out that the Synod on the Amazon “opened the possibility” of holding the Synod on Synodality.

Regarding this “process,” he commented that “a path has been opened from which there is no turning back” since “there is no point of return.”

“It is essential that we all enter into the interior of a movement that is the Church” and to feel the responsibility of the mission through baptism and the grace of God, he said.

The Holy Father ‘has not closed the question’ of ordaining married men

Asked about the ordination of married men, an issue that has “disappeared” from the study groups of this second and last session, the cardinal emphasized that after the Synod on the Amazon “there was disappointment on this subject.”

He nevertheless emphasized that “the Holy Father has not closed the issue” and assured that “in some circumstances it would not be a difficulty.”

He also expressed his hope that Pope Francis “has the capacity to move forward” while indicating that he has not wanted to do so yet due to “his great sensitivity.”

Steiner reiterated that “we must continue to talk” about this issue and that “we must go deeper into the ministerial role,” since “sufficient steps” have not yet been taken.

“In some cultures celibacy is a great difficulty. That’s what I feel,” he explained.

Speaking last Saturday at Fátima, Steiner said he “lays hands” on all those women who exercise the ministry of baptism or other sacraments.

“These are very tense issues in the Church. We must not stop discussing and reflecting. And if at some time we come to the conclusion that in the past there was a female diaconate, why not reintroduce it as the permanent diaconate was reintroduced?” the cardinal reiterated.

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

The Apollo Belvedere is displayed at the Pio-Clementine Museum on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. / Credit: Julia Cassell/EWTN News

Vatican City, Oct 16, 2024 / 14:15 pm (CNA).

The Vatican Museums this week unveiled one of its most celebrated acquisitions, the “Apollo Belvedere,” after years of intensive restoration work by Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums (PAVM) on the ancient marble statue.

Following the discovery of the statue in Rome in 1489, Pope Julius II requested the Apollo Belvedere to be brought to the Vatican in the early 16th century to be part of a papal collection known as the Courtyard of Statues in Belvedere, which highlighted the mythical origins of ancient Rome.

Monsignor Terence Hogan, PAVM coordinator and a priest of the Archdiocese of Miami, said the restoration of Apollo Belvedere is “significant because it gives us an insight into the early history of Rome” before the rise of Christianity. 

“It gives us an insight into culture and also faith and history,” Hogan said in an interview with EWTN News. “We [the Vatican Museums] are the oldest museum in the world and so people from all around the world now can appreciate the faith, the art, the history, the culture of so many centuries.” 

The restoration of Apollo Belvedere, directed by the Vatican Museums’ Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, faced several challenges before its official unveiling on Oct. 15, including the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019, which delayed the project.

“We closed on Christmas Eve 2019; however the actual work on the sculpture — between the research project and the actual study and restoration — has been just over two years,” said Claudia Valeri, curator of the Greek and Roman antiquities department.

“The preciousness of this sculpture is infinite because it is an iconic statue among classical sculptures,” she added.

According to Valeri, a significant archaeological discovery in northern Naples in the 1950s recovered the original plaster casts of the missing left hand of the Apollo Belvedere.

The cast was used by the Vatican’s restoration teams to create the marble copy of the hand now seen on the newly unveiled statue.

Valeri also said further study analysis of the statue of the ancient Roman god indicates that the all-white marble statue once had golden hair.

“Analysis detected traces of gold. We imagine that Apollo’s hair was golden, and by the way the Greek poets describe him to us as ‘radiant Apollo,’” Valeri told EWTN News.

Almost 500 years have passed since the last restorative works were carried out by Italian sculptor and architect Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli between 1532 and 1533.

EWTN Vatican Bureau intern Angelina Martsisheuskaya contributed to this report.

Cardinal Willem Eijk. / Credit: Bohumil Petrik/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 16, 2024 / 12:20 pm (CNA).

A Dutch cardinal has cautioned against misguided reform efforts within the Catholic Church, warning that regional solutions to contentious issues could undermine the Church’s credibility.

Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk, archbishop of Utrecht, emphasized the importance of maintaining unity with the universal Church.

“We must walk a common path and not deviate from the world Church,” he said, reflecting Pope Francis’ 2019 letter to German Catholics.

“If unity in proclamation is lost, the Church loses its credibility,” Eijk told the magazine.

Offering a sobering perspective from a heavily secularized nation, the Dutch prelate drew parallels between the current Synod on Synodality in Rome and the Dutch Pastoral Council of the late 1960s in an interview with the German-language magazine Communio.

The 71-year-old archbishop warned that regional solutions to contentious issues could undermine the Church’s credibility.

“If unity in proclamation is lost, the Church loses its credibility,” he asserted, highlighting the Netherlands’ negative experience with ambiguity over the past 50 years.

He added: “People had the impression that the Church itself didn’t really know where it stood.”

Less traction for alleged reform ‘backlog’

Reflecting on the ongoing Synod on Synodality, Eijk said controversial topics, such as gender and women’s ordination, have gained less traction than some anticipated.

“The votes at last year’s assembly showed that the majority of participants were not enthusiastic about topics like gender or women’s ordination,” he remarked.

The Dutch prelate also challenged the idea that addressing a “reform backlog” would bring people back to the Church.

“You can learn from the Church in the Netherlands that this is a mistake,” Eijk stated. “Those who create confusion alienate people from the Church. You won’t bring anyone back this way.”

Instead, Eijk advocated for a Christ-centered approach and sound catechesis.

“In parishes where the faith is well proclaimed and the liturgy is celebrated with dignity, the churches are full,” he observed. “It’s about putting Christ at the center.”

Eijk also addressed lay participation in Church decision-making, recognizing its importance but acknowledging limits.

“Of course, people are involved in decisions,” he said, citing examples of parish-level input. However, he cautioned that this approach “doesn’t always work,” particularly with major structural changes.

Earlier, an influential canon lawyer speaking at an official Synod on Synodality event argued that the Catholic Church should be governed by synods that are balanced according to gender, among other factors, and empowered to make decisions, not merely recommendations.

Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher, OP, speaks to EWTN News in Rome on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. / Credit: EWTN News

Vatican City, Oct 16, 2024 / 10:20 am (CNA).

We cannot “reinvent the Catholic faith” or “teach a different Catholicism in different countries,” Australian Archbishop Anthony Fisher, OP, of Sydney and a delegate at the Synod on Synodality said in an interview this week.

As the synodal assembly debates part 3 of the Instrumentum Laboris on “places,” the bishops and laypeople are considering questions such as the future of synodality and the role and authority of national bishops’ conferences, the archbishop told “EWTN News Nightly” on Oct. 15 in an interview to be broadcast Friday.

Should bishops’ conferences “have the authority to teach a different Catholicism in different countries or to decide a different liturgy in different countries or different Mass for different countries? Do they bring their own local culture to questions in the area of morals, for instance?” Fisher told “EWTN News Nightly” Associate Producer Bénédicte Cedergren. 

“Could we, for instance, envision a Church where you have ordination of women in some countries but not in other countries, or you have same-sex marriages in some countries but not in other countries, or you have an Arian Christology in some countries and a Nicene Christology in others?” he continued. “You might guess, I think no.”

The Dominican archbishop leads one of Australia’s largest archdioceses by number of Catholics. Sydney serves around 590,000 Catholics and has a population of nearly 5.3 million people.

As one of 15 bishops on the ordinary council of the Synod of Bishops for the Synod on Synodality, Fisher attended the first session of the synodal assembly in October 2023 and is back in Rome this month for the second session.

After three years of consultations at the local and universal level, at the end of this month the Catholic Church will conclude a process of discernment about how to become more synodal and more missionary.

Fisher told “EWTN News Nightly” he is “very concerned” that Catholics “hold on to the deposit of faith, the apostolic tradition, that we don’t imagine, in the vanity of our age, that we are going to reinvent the Catholic faith or the Catholic Church.”

“In fact, this is a tremendous treasure that we’ve received from generation after generation before us, all the way back to Our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles. And we are here to transmit that faithfully to the next generations after us,” he said.

The archbishop acknowledged that our understanding of the deposit of faith has developed over time and will continue to develop, and added that he thinks it is an exciting feature of the Church that “we’ve managed to have a great variety of cultures and different ways of praying and different ways of evangelizing, and yet we hold together as one in Christ.”

“But it is the one faith, and it’s important to me, coming from the peripheries of the Church in Australia, about as far away as you can be from Rome in the world,” he said, that “it’s the one Church, it’s the one faith and we want to keep celebrating that even amidst our cultural diversity.”

Changes being debated

Fisher said one of the important questions the synod is debating this week is what is “the scope and what are the limits of the local and the cultural” in the universal Catholic Church.

The Synod on Synodality is discussing the third and final part of the Instrumentum Laboris, or working document, Oct. 15–18. The last week of the gathering, which ends Oct. 27, will be dedicated to drafting and revising the final document.

In paragraph 91 of the third part, the document notes that there are structures such as parish councils, deaneries, and dioceses already regulated in canon law that “could prove to be even more suitable for giving a synodal approach a concrete form.”

“These councils can become subjects of ecclesial discernment and synodal decision-making …,” the document continues. “Therefore, this is one of the most promising areas on which to act for a swift implementation of the synodal proposals and orientations, leading to changes with an effective and rapid impact.”

A little further in the same part of the working document, it also says: “Episcopal conferences are fundamental instruments for creating links and sharing experiences between the Churches and for decentralizing governance and pastoral planning.”

“From all that has been gathered so far during this synodal process, the following proposals emerge: (a) recognition of episcopal conferences as ecclesial subjects endowed with doctrinal authority, assuming sociocultural diversity within the framework of a multifaceted Church and favoring the appreciation of liturgical, disciplinary, theological, and spiritual expressions appropriate to different sociocultural contexts,” the text says in paragraph 97.

Interculturality in the Church

In the context of these ideas, Fisher said he thinks “we need to have the same faith, the same morals, the same Church order, and essentially the same liturgy.”

“But we do make space for the different ritual traditions in the Church and for different cultural adaptations and for different ways of evangelizing in different places,” he added.

The archbishop noted that in his Archdiocese of Sydney, for example, they have many different Catholic ritual traditions, such as the Maronites, Melkites, Chaldeans, Ukrainians, and Syro-Malabars.

“We know they bring different spiritualities ... a different Mass and different prayer forms, but also often a different understanding of synodality, of the roles of bishops, of the way you choose bishops, they have different canon law and a different Church order while still being part of the one Catholic Church,” he underlined.

“And it is part of the excitement of the Church, I think, that you can go to a Maronite Mass and it’s very different, and yet you also know it’s the same thing: It’s the Lord coming to us under the elements of bread and wine, but he’s really present, his humanity and divinity, for us.”

Bénédicte Cedergren, an associate producer for “EWTN News Nightly,” contributed to this report.

Pope Francis greets pilgrims at his general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 16, 2024 / 09:10 am (CNA).

Pope Francis expressed hope for “reconciled differences” between Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians during his Wednesday general audience, reflecting on the centuries-old “Filioque” dispute that has divided Western and Eastern Christians.

In his catechesis on the Holy Spirit on Oct. 16, Pope Francis reflected on the words of the Nicene Creed: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.” Adopted in its earliest form at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, the Nicene Creed is recited by Catholics during Sunday Mass.

Pope Francis noted that the later addition of the “Filioque,” Latin for “and from the Son” in the creed, sparked a dispute that “has been the reason, or pretext, for so many arguments and divisions between the Church of the East and the Church of the West.”

The pope added, however, that “the climate of dialogue between the two Churches has lost the acrimony of the past and today allows us to hope for full mutual acceptance, as one of the main ‘reconciled differences.’”

Francis underscored the importance of moving beyond past disputes, calling for unity and reconciliation among Christians despite their differences. “I like to say this: ‘Reconciled differences,’” the pope said.

“Among Christians, there are many differences: He follows this school, that one another; this person is a Protestant, that person … The important thing is that these differences are reconciled in the love of walking together,” Pope Francis said in St. Peter’s Square.

Pope Francis’ comments come as his designated peace envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi wraps up a trip to Moscow where he met Tuesday with a top-ranking member of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, the head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations.

More than a dozen Orthodox and Protestant leaders are also in Rome this month as “fraternal delegates” in the ongoing Synod on Synodality assembly, including representatives of the Patriarchate of Alexandria and all of Africa, the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, the Lutheran World Federation, and the World Mennonite Conference.

Pope Francis emphasized that the Holy Spirit is “life-giving” and said that this truth can unite Christians today. “Having overcome this obstacle, today we can value the most important prerogative for us that is proclaimed in the article of the Creed, namely that the Holy Spirit is ‘life-giving,’ the ‘giver of life,’” he said.

In his reflection, the pope described how in the Genesis creation account, God’s breath gave life to Adam, turning a clay figure into a “living being.”

“Now, in the new creation, the Holy Spirit is the one who gives believers new life, the life of Christ, a supernatural life, as children of God,” Francis explained. He quoted the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans 8:2: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.” 

Pope Francis emphasized that the Holy Spirit grants eternal life, which is a source of great hope. 

“Where is the great and consoling news for us in all this? It is that the life given to us by the Holy Spirit is eternal life,” the pope said. 

“Faith frees us from the horror of having to admit that everything ends here, that there is no redemption for the suffering and injustice that reign sovereign on earth.” Citing Romans 8:11, he added: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

“Let us cultivate this faith also for those who, often through no fault of their own, lack it and struggle to find meaning in life. And let us not forget to thank him who, through his death, has obtained this priceless gift for us,” the pope added.

Pope Francis offered greetings to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square from England, France, Brazil, Poland, Denmark, Norway, South Africa, India, Kuwait, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Canada, and the United States.

At the end of the general audience, Pope Francis appealed once again for peace in the world, urging people not to forget to pray for countries at war.

“Let us not forget war-torn Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Myanmar,” he said. “Brothers and sisters, let us remember that war is always, always, a defeat. Let us not forget this, and let us pray for peace and work for peace.”

The pope also offered advice to a group of young people in the crowd who recently received the sacrament of confirmation.

“Dear young people, open your hearts to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit to be courageous witnesses of the Gospel,” he said.

Elisabeth Román is president of the National Catholic Council for Hispanic Ministry. / Credit: Courtesy of the National Catholic Council for Hispanic Ministry

Vatican City, Oct 15, 2024 / 11:22 am (CNA).

“The Synodality Tent” is the title of an initiative promoted by the Amerindia Network and the Latin American Observatory on Synodality, whose objective is to reflect on the presence of Latin America in the Catholic Church as well as to continue promoting the synodal process.

This place for encounter and dialogue, which also aims to offer an experience of faith, opened in Rome in the context of the second session of the Synod on Synodality.

Until Oct. 23, faithful visiting the Eternal City and members of the synod are invited to visit this “tent” where cultural events, panels, discussions, art exhibitions, and presentations of new books, among other activities, will take place.

According to the observatory, different themes will be addressed from a synodal viewpoint, such as the Hispanic world, people of African descent, popular movements, politics, or the laity.

At the site’s opening, Elisabeth Román, president of the National Catholic Council for Hispanic Ministry, reflected on the Hispanic Church in the United States, which constitutes approximately 40% of the Catholic population in the country.

She also noted the decline in the number of young Latino Catholics born in the United States, the relative lack of Latino representation in Catholic leadership, and pointed out the need for their integration into parish life.

According to ADN Celam (news sgency of the Latin American and Caribbean Bishops’ Council), Román also said there are currently approximately 3,200 Latino priests in the United States, accounting for 9% of the country’s clergy.

Upcoming events

With the support of the General Secretariat of the Synod on Synodality, two opportunities for dialogue are also planned. Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and Sister Gloria Liliana Franco, president of the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious Men and Women (CLAR by its Spanish acronym), will present the topic “From the Pan-Amazonian Synod to the Synod on Synodality.”

In addition, there will also be an occasion for dialogue to “discern in the Spirit and in daily life” in which Mauricio López, director of the Amazon University Program, and Sister Daniela Cannavina, secretary general of CLAR, will participate.

The events can be followed in person at the Collegio Internazionale Sant’ Alberto dei Camelitani (on Sforza Pallavicini Street), or through the social media of Amerindia and the Latin American Observatory of Synodality. The complete program can be viewed here.

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

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi (left) arrives at the Vatican for Synod on Synodality meetings on Oct. 10, 2024. The Vatican announced on Monday, Oct. 14, that the cardinal returned to Moscow to meet with Russian authorities as part of the peace mission entrusted to him by Pope Francis. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 14, 2024 / 11:45 am (CNA).

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi returned to Moscow on Monday to meet with Russian authorities as part of the peace mission entrusted to him by Pope Francis.

The cardinal’s trip to Moscow is to “evaluate further efforts to promote family reunification of Ukrainian children and the exchange of prisoners, with a view to achieving the much-hoped-for peace,” according to the Vatican.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni confirmed on Oct. 14 that the Italian cardinal began a visit to Moscow on Monday after Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs published a photo of Zuppi shaking hands with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Pope Francis asked Zuppi to serve as a papal envoy to “initiate paths of peace” between Russia and Ukraine in May 2023. 

The cardinal’s visit to Moscow comes days after Pope Francis met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a 35-minute private audience at the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace on Friday — their third such meeting since the start of the Ukraine war.

It is Zuppi’s second trip to Moscow since the war in Ukraine began. Zuppi also visited the Russian capital for 48 hours in June 2023 in which he discussed humanitarian initiatives with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill as well as government officials, including Yuri Ushakov, a foreign policy adviser to President Vladimir Putin.

During his previous trip to Moscow, the cardinal also met with Maria Lvova-Belova, Putin’s commissioner for children’s rights. Vatican News reported that the focus of Zuppi’s meeting with Lvova-Belova was “the issue of the over 19,000 Ukrainian minors forcibly taken to Russia,” something for which Zelenskyy has asked the Holy See’s help.

The Vatican-owned news outlet noted that “thanks to the channel opened by Zuppi, a certain number of Ukrainian children brought to Russia by the occupation forces were able to return home.” 

While serving as Pope Francis’ peace envoy, Zuppi has made several other diplomatic visits across the world to promote peace between Russia and Ukraine, including stops in Kyiv, Beijing, and Washington, D.C.

Zuppi has strong ties to Sant’Egidio, a Catholic lay association that has been involved in peace negotiations in many countries. Zuppi’s mission does not have mediation as its immediate goal, however, the Vatican has said.

Russia and the Holy See restored full diplomatic relations in 2010 after maintaining limited diplomatic relations since 1990. 

The day after Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Pope Francis met with outgoing Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Avdeyev when the pope paid an unusual visit to the Russian embassy on Feb. 25, 2022. The Vatican said the pope went to the embassy “to show his concern for the war.” 

Later, in September 2022, Pope Francis said he was involved in a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine, which involved calling Avdeyev “to see if something could be done, if an exchange of prisoners could be speeded up.”

Pope Francis has condemned the war and called for peace in Ukraine on numerous occasions but has also occasionally received criticism from Ukrainians for the way he has expressed himself. The Vatican clarified in August 2023 that the pope did not intend to exalt Russian imperialism while speaking off the cuff during a live video conference with Russian youth.

The Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, spoke with Russia’s Commissioner for Human Rights Tatiana Moskalkova via video call on Sept. 16 in which he thanked the Russian ombudsman for her role in the release of two Ukrainian priests, discussed prisoner swaps, and underlined the need to safeguard “the fundamental human rights enshrined in the International Conventions.”

At the end of his Angelus address on Sunday, Pope Francis entrusted Ukraine to the intercession of Our Lady of Fátima and appealed for an end to the war.

“I appeal for the Ukrainians not to be left to freeze to death; stop the airstrikes against the civilian population, always the most affected. Stop the killing of innocent people!” Francis said Oct. 13.