Pope Francis gives a blessing to participants at the conclusion of the Synod on Synodality at the Vatican, Oct. 26, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Oct 27, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

On Saturday, Pope Francis made the unprecedented decision to accept the final document from the Synod of Synodality as authoritative Church teaching. 

The 52-page text includes a theological reflection on the nature of synodality, which it says is the fulfillment of the reforms of Vatican II, as well as proposals for how to apply synodality to relationships, structures, and processes within the Catholic Church. 

The end goal is to make the Church more effective at evangelization by making it more participatory and inclusive. 

Here are answers to the big questions about the Synod on Synodality’s final document: 

1. How did Pope Francis make this document magisterial?

Pope Francis immediately approved the final document after synod members voted on it. According to reforms he made in 2018, the Synod on Synodality’s final text is therefore part of his ordinary magisterium.

This decision is a break from previous practice, which usually sees the pope use a synod’s final document as a basis for drafting his own apostolic exhortation on the topic (think Amoris Laetitia after the 2015 Synod on the Family). The fact that a synod body whose membership was 27% non-bishops just produced a magisterial text will certainly leave theologians and canonists with much to talk about. 

2. How does the document relate to Vatican II? 

The document says that the Synod on Synodality was the product of “putting into practice what the council taught about the Church as mystery and the Church as people of God.”

Therefore, the document says, the synodal process “constitutes an authentic further act of the reception” of Vatican II, “thus reinvigorating its prophetic force for today’s world.”  

3. What does the final report say about the role of women in the Church (including so-called “deaconesses”)? 

The final text says that women “continue to encounter obstacles” in living out their “charisms, vocation, and roles” in the Church.

The synod calls for women to be accepted into any role currently allowed by canon law, including leadership roles in the Church.  

Regarding the question of “women’s access to diaconal ministry,” the text says the question “remains open” and that “discernment needs to continue.” A separate Vatican study group is currently considering that topic, with its final report expected in June 2025.  

4. What does the text say about “decentralization?” 

The document calls for episcopal conferences to play a greater role in enculturating the faith in their local context and asks for clarification about their current level of doctrinal authority. However, it does emphasize that bishops’ conferences cannot override a local bishop’s authority nor “risk either the unity or the catholicity of the Church.” 

The document also calls for more plenary and provincial councils, and for the Vatican to accept these bodies’ conclusions more speedily. 

5. Does the text mention LGBTQ inclusion? 

While it does condemn the exclusion of others because of “their marital situation, identity, or sexuality,” the text doesn’t use the term “LGBTQ.”

6. What does the final document say about changes in Church decision-making? 

The final document calls for a “synodal” reform of canon law, including removing the formula that consultative bodies have “merely a consultative” vote. It calls for the greater participation of lay people in “decision-making processes” and to do so through new synodal structures and institutions. 

Church authorities, the document states, may not ignore conclusions reached by consultative, participatory bodies.

7. What does the document say about the “sensus fidei”? 

The document describes the “sensus fidei” as the “instinct for truth of the Gospel” received through baptism. It also notes that the people of God cannot err “when they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals.” 

Interestingly, the final document does not include additional language about the need for “authentic discipleship” to maturely exercise the sensus fidei, which was included in last year’s synthesis document and is found in an important Vatican document on the subject.

8. In what concrete ways might the Church change after the Synod on Synodality?  

Depending on how it’s implemented, the synod’s final document could concretely impact everything from how bishops are selected to how governance decisions are made in parishes, dioceses, and the Vatican, with a greater emphasis on widespread consultation. It could also create new synodal bodies, like continental assemblies and a council of Eastern Catholic leaders to advise the pope. 

9. Which paragraphs received the most pushback? 

Over 27% of delegates voted against continuing to explore the possibility of women deacons.  

Thirteen percent voted against the paragraph emphasizing the significance of episcopal conferences, which also appears to bind a bishop to decisions made by his conference. 

Twelve percent voted against establishing a study group to look into making liturgical celebrations “more an expression of synodality,” including what may be a reference to lay preaching during the liturgy. 

And 11% of delegates opposed the proposal to revise canon law “from a synodal perspective.”

10. One more time: What does synodality mean? 

The final document describes synodality as “a path of spiritual renewal and structural reform that enables the Church to be more participatory and missionary, so that it can walk with every man and woman, radiating the light of Christ.”  

The model of synodality, the document states, is Mary because she “listens, prays, meditates, dialogues, accompanies, discerns, decides, and acts.”

Lawyer Laura Sgro, left, sits with Gloria Branciani, center, and Marjiam Kovač during a press conference in Rome on Feb. 21, 2024. Branciani and Kovač allege that they were subjected to spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse by famous mosaic artist Father Marko Rupnik. / Credit: Matthew Santucci/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 27, 2024 / 05:00 am (CNA).

One year after the Vatican announced it would open a canonical case on Father Marko Rupnik — an artist and former Jesuit accused of spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse — victims say they feel disappointment and betrayal at the Church’s lack of response and transparency.

Rupnik has been accused of abusing adult women who were under his spiritual care as part of a religious community he helped found in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Some of these accusations became public through the media in early December 2022, although the priest’s superiors and officials at the Vatican were aware even several years earlier.

While the investigation and trial of Rupnik is still pending, the priest remains free to exercise his ministry in the Diocese of Koper, Slovenia, where he was accepted in 2023.

A year ago on Oct. 27, days before the close of the 2023 assembly of the Synod on Synodality, the Holy See Press Office published a statement saying that Pope Francis had waived the statute of limitations, allowing the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) to open a disciplinary case against the now-disgraced priest.

“The pope is firmly convinced that if there is one thing the Church must learn from the Synod [on Synodality] it is to listen attentively and compassionately to those who are suffering, especially those who feel marginalized from the Church,” the Vatican communication said.

A full year later, as the second session of the Synod on Synodality concluded, its final report published Oct. 26 called for “healing, reconciliation, and the rebuilding of trust” in light of the scandal of different kinds of abuse.

Rupnik’s case is still open in the DDF’s disciplinary section, which handles a wide array of Church cases, from the sexual abuse of minors to excommunications for schism, as in the matter of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò this summer.

A person working inside the section, who asked to not be named, told CNA that the DDF does not usually comment on open cases but is looking at the merits of Rupnik’s case and examining the procedural steps that can be taken and “the mechanism by which justice can be served.” 

The DDF wants to be “sensitive, respecting the process that we’re doing,” the person said, highlighting that all of the DDF’s abuse cases are treated with equal care and attention.

Response of victims

However, some of Rupnik’s alleged victims, and advocates for victim survivors of abuse, have indicated that a lack of transparency around Rupnik’s case and its progress is causing pain and scandal.

Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, an expert on abuse prevention, told CNA via email from Bogotá, Colombia, that he had no information on Rupnik’s case at the DDF, but “uncertainty, lack of information, or lack of transparency in any kind of procedure creates much discomfort and potentially a lot of anxiety in victims of trauma as it triggers the memory of the hurtful experience.”

Anne Barrett Doyle, a director of Bishop Accountability, a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to helping victims of clerical abuse, told CNA: “The Vatican’s delay in issuing a verdict in the Rupnik case inflicts further harm on his victims and scandalizes the faithful.”

“We hope Pope Francis orders a resolution soon,” she said. “This is not the transparency he has promised nor the efficient process that mercy demands. Justice delayed is justice denied.” 

Two former religious sisters, ex-members of the Loyola Community Rupnik co-founded, shared their testimony and identities publicly for the first time at a press conference earlier this year.

Gloria Branciani, an alleged victim, told CNA via email Saturday that she feels “betrayed once again” that she has not received a response from the Vatican a full year after the investigation began and that “once again no one is taking responsibility for the very serious abuse I suffered.”

Branciani, who is from Italy, submitted her story twice to the Vatican; the second time she did so together with four other alleged victims in April.

“I first denounced Rupnik in 1993,” Branciani said. “In 2021, the Church asked me again to give testimony about the abuse I suffered; both times [there was no] response from the Church authority.”

She said she hopes for “a clear stance [from the Church] in favor of the victims without further ambiguity causing further suffering and discredit.”

“I hope that the just words of condemnation of the scourge on the abuse of nuns will finally be followed by concrete actions, lacking to date, for me and all the other victims of Rupnik,” Branciani added.

Mirjam Kovač, another alleged victim who went public in February, told CNA via email Oct. 26 that, “for now,” she thinks there is a lack of transparency from the Vatican on Rupnik’s case.

“When I think of what my sisters have gone through, and to some extent me too, I still feel pain and disappointment, both for the abuse and the way in which it was handled by the authorities,” the Slovenian-born former religious said. “I hope the institution and those who represent it will try with all the means possible to build relationships on truth and justice. Not with words alone, but above all with the facts.”

Rupnik’s status

In August 2023, Rupnik was accepted for priestly ministry in the Diocese of Koper, in his native Slovenia, after he was expelled from the Jesuit order for disobedience.

Asked about the priest’s current whereabouts and the status of his priestly ministry, the Koper Diocese referred CNA to a press release from October 2023, which says he was accepted into the diocese “on the basis of the fact that the bishop of Koper has not received any documents of Rev. Rupnik having been found guilty of the alleged abuses before either an ecclesiastical tribunal or civil court.”

The press release also stated that “as long as Rev. Rupnik has not been found guilty in a public trial in court, he enjoys all the rights and duties of diocesan priests.”

The Holy See Press Office did not respond to CNA’s request for information about Rupnik’s status, where he is living, at what point the canonical process at the DDF is, and if there are restrictions to his ministry while he is under investigation.

There were calls for a Vatican investigation into Rupnik at the time accusations against him became public, at the end of 2022, but the doctrine dicastery said at the time he could not be investigated because too much time had passed since the alleged abuse.

Pope Francis lifted the statute of limitations nearly one year later, and the DDF’s investigation into Rupnik began.

Decisions about Rupnik’s artwork

Rupnik’s case has garnered massive public attention due his already-existing notoriety as a popular Catholic mosaic artist and founder of an art and theology school in Italy.

The priest’s works, and works in the same style from students of his art school, adorn hundreds of churches, shrines, and chapels around the world.

In the wake of the allegations made against him, a debate was sparked about whether the artist’s works ought to be covered, removed, or — in the case of photos or prints online — no longer used out of respect for victims of clerical sexual abuse.

The Vatican’s own communications dicastery has come under fire for continuing to feature Rupnik art on its webpages for saints’ feast days.

This summer, the lay Catholic fraternal order the Knights of Columbus announced its decision to cover the floor-to-ceiling Rupnik-created mosaics in the two chapels of the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., and in the chapel at the Knights’ headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut — at least until the completion of a formal Vatican investigation into the Slovenian priest’s alleged abuse.

Just days before the Knights’ announcement, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes in France said while he personally believes the Marian shrine’s Rupnik mosaics should be taken down, he is waiting to make a final decision on their removal in the face of “strong opposition.”

As a “first step,” the French bishop said Rupnik’s mosaics would no longer be lit up during the Lourdes’ nightly rosary procession.

Participants of the Synod on Synodality gather for a group photo on Oct. 26, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Oct 26, 2024 / 16:48 pm (CNA).

In a significant departure from previous synods, Pope Francis adopted the final document of the Synod on Synodality on Saturday, forgoing the traditional apostolic exhortation in favor of direct implementation of the assembly’s conclusions.

The 52-page document, approved by 355 synod members in attendance, outlines substantial proposals for Church renewal.

The proposals include expanded women’s leadership roles, greater lay participation in decision-making, and significant structural reforms.

Key developments

The document emerges from a two-year consultative process that began in 2021, incorporating 1,135 amendments from both collective and individual submissions.

Compared with its 2023 predecessor, the text presents more concrete recommendations and clearer structural guidelines.

The final document is organized into five main sections and calls for five forms of conversion: spiritual, relational, procedural, institutional, and missionary.

Structural reforms

Among the most significant proposals is a call for strengthening pastoral councils at parish and diocesan levels.

The document advocates for regular ecclesiastical assemblies across all Church levels — including continental — and heightened ecumenical dialogue.

The text introduces the concept of synodal authority while acknowledging that in “a synodal Church, the authority of the bishop, of the episcopal college, and of the bishop of Rome in regard to decision-taking is inviolable.”

“Such an exercise of authority, however, is not without limits,” the document adds.

On this view, the text calls for a revision in canon law, “clarifying the distinction and relation between consultation and deliberation and shedding light on the responsibilities of those who play different roles in the decision-making process.”

Women’s leadership

In a notable development, the document explicitly states there is “no reason or impediment” to prevent women from assuming leadership roles in the Church.

Furthermore, “the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open,” and that discernment should continue.

The text advocates for increased female participation in clergy formation and broader involvement in Church decision-making processes.

Lay participation

The document significantly expands the role of lay faithful in Church governance. It calls for their increased presence in synodal assemblies and all phases of ecclesiastical decision-making.

New procedures for selecting and evaluating bishops and expanded lay participation in diocesan leadership and canonical processes are proposed.

Implementation phase

While Pope Francis has declared the synodal path “completed,” the document emphasizes that a crucial implementation phase lies ahead. This next stage will focus on integrating synodality as a “constitutive dimension of the Church.”

The text also addresses accountability measures, calling for enhanced financial transparency and protocols for abuse prevention, declaring: “The need within the Church for healing, reconciliation, and the rebuilding of trust has resounded at every stage of the synodal process.”

Background

The document represents the culmination of one of the most extensive consultative processes in Church history, building on both the 2023 assembly’s work and the broader synodal journey initiated by Pope Francis in 2021.

The exercise aimed to balance traditional Church teaching with contemporary pastoral needs while promoting greater inclusivity and transparency in Church governance.

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

In a surprising move at the conclusion of the Synod on Synodality on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, Pope Francis ratified the final report, approved its immediate publication, and said he will not publish a separate postsynodal document. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Oct 26, 2024 / 16:10 pm (CNA).

In a surprising move at the conclusion of the Synod on Synodality on Saturday evening, Pope Francis ratified the final report, approved its immediate publication, and said he will not publish a separate postsynodal document.

The pope is permitted in canon law to ratify the final document of a Synod of Bishops, giving more power to the assembly’s “guidelines” — something that has never been done before.

“I want, in this way, to recognize the value of the completed synodal journey, which through this document I hand over to the holy faithful people of God,” the pope said in a livestreamed address to synod participants in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall on Oct. 26.

“That is why I do not intend to publish an apostolic exhortation; what we have approved is enough,” he said. “There are already very concrete indications in the document that can be a guide for the mission of the Churches, on the different continents, in the different contexts: that is why I am making it immediately available to everyone, that is why I said it should be published.”

In 2018, Pope Francis decreed in the apostolic constitution Episcopalis Communio that reformed the Synod of Bishops that the pope has the authority to approve and promulgate the final document, at which time it participates “in the ordinary magisterium.” The authority is also stipulated in Canon 343 of the Code of Canon Law. 

“What Pope Francis said after approving the document is in compliance with what is provided by Episcopalis Communio,” Father Riccardo Battocchio, the synod’s special secretary, affirmed at a press conference presenting the final document Oct. 26. 

The Synod of Bishops was founded in 1965 by Pope Paul VI as a way to bring bishops from around the world together to discuss important issues for the Church and to give advice to the pope.

A novelty of the 2023 and 2024 sessions of the Synod on Synodality was the inclusion of laymen and laywomen not only as “auditors,” as formerly done, but also as delegates with full participation alongside bishops, including the right to vote on synod matters and on the assembly’s final document.

The Synod on Synodality is the fifth synod of Pope Francis’ pontificate. It marks the first time he has chosen to forgo writing a postsynodal apostolic exhortation in favor of adopting the text drafted by the synod participants.

“There are and there will be decisions to be made,” Francis said in his final speech on Saturday, shortly before the assembly prayed the Te Deum to mark the end of the Synod on Synodality’s discussions.

The monthlong gathering will formally close with a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 27. 

The pope said for some of the document’s indications — and the topics being examined by the 10 study groups, “which must work with freedom to offer me proposals” — “time is needed to arrive at choices that involve the whole Church.”

“I, then, will continue to listen to the bishops and the Churches entrusted to them,” he continued. “This is not the classic way of postponing decisions indefinitely. It is what corresponds to the synodal style with which even the Petrine ministry is to be exercised: listening, convening, discerning, deciding, and evaluating.”

The pontiff added that the general secretariat of the synod and the Vatican’s dicasteries will assist him in this task.

The synodal Church “now needs shared words to be accompanied by deeds,” he said.

Pope Francis meets with other delegates of the Synod on Synodality at a roundtable discussion in Paul VI Hall at the Vatican on Oct. 17, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Oct 26, 2024 / 11:00 am (CNA).

As the second session of the Synod on Synodality draws to a close, several of the U.S. bishops serving as delegates to the synod shared their insights and experiences in a series of interviews this week with EWTN News hosts Catherine Hadro, Matthew Bunson, and Father Thomas Petri, OP.

“We walk together and, of course for us, we walk together with Christ,” Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told EWTN News. “We’re really all in charge; we all make up the Church, we’re all the living stones.”

Broglio, who is also the archbishop of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, stressed that this co-responsibility must begin at the parish level before it can effectively manifest at the diocesan level.

Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, USCCB vice president, emphasized that synodality primarily concerns the Church’s “interior culture” and how Catholics discern God’s will together.

“It’s more about ... listening to the Lord and to his word, and to the Church and to tradition; listening to one another [and] understanding what authentic aspirations are,” Lori explained.

Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas, described synodality as requiring a “conversion to a sense of the style and manner of Jesus.” At the same time, Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, emphasized that synodality serves the Church’s fundamental mission of evangelization.

“The end is the mission — it’s bringing the truth and beauty of the Gospel, this message of salvation in Christ — to the world,” Rhoades said. “Synodality is not the end. It’s a means towards the end.”

Global perspective

The bishops highlighted how their interactions with delegates from around the world deepened their appreciation for the universal Church’s challenges and vitality.

Broglio described enlightening discussions with a bishop from Nepal, where Christians face significant restrictions, including requirements for conversion affidavits.

During a break in the synod, Lori visited Ukraine, meeting with war widows and mothers who lost sons in the conflict. Despite tremendous suffering, he witnessed “tremendous faith and resiliency.”

Looking ahead, the bishops emphasized practical applications of synodality in their dioceses. Lori noted that while cultural change doesn’t happen overnight, many dioceses have already begun implementing more collaborative approaches to Church governance.

Rhoades pointed to existing structures like parish pastoral councils and presbyteral councils as vehicles for implementing a more synodal approach. “It’s about really taking these councils seriously,” he said.

Cardinal-elect Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi speaks to CNA on Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in Rome. / Credit: EWTN News

Vatican City, Oct 26, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The archbishop of Tokyo shared in an interview with CNA what qualities he is looking for in the next pope as he faces the possibility of participating in a future papal conclave after being named one of the Catholic Church’s new cardinals.

“If a conclave happens very soon, I think what we need is somebody to succeed the policy of Pope Francis,” Cardinal-elect Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi said.

“Because he started this synodal way to create the synodal Church, and if somebody comes in with … a different agenda, then what we have been doing is just in vain, just to disappear.”

Kikuchi, who is in Rome this month as a delegate in the Synod on Synodality, said one of the difficulties facing the newly appointed cardinals — who come from sees of Tehran, Iran; Turin, Italy; and Toronto, among others — is getting know the soon-to-be 140 voting members of the College of Cardinals.

“After the announcement was made, after a few days, I went through the website to look for all the names of the cardinals under 80 years old — so those who are eligible to vote in a conclave at this moment. And, I know some of them, but I don’t know many of them,” he said.

The 65-year-old archbishop underlined that he thinks it is important for the new cardinals especially to get to know the “senior cardinals” to learn “who they are, what they are thinking, and what their abilities are.” 

“Otherwise, it will be very difficult to choose somebody as a pope,” he added.

One of the many ways that Pope Francis has transformed the College of Cardinals in his 11-year pontificate is by more than doubling the number of cardinal-electors from Asia. When Pope Francis was elected in 2013, there were nine voting cardinals from Asia. After the upcoming consistory there will be 22.

“There are quite a number of cardinals from Asia and I think that among the Asians we know each other quite well,” Kikuchi said, crediting in part the annual meeting of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences.

As the president of Caritas Internationalis — the successor to Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle in that role — Kikuchi has had the chance to meet many cardinals and bishops from different parts of the world, but added: “But I don’t know … who they are.”

The Japanese cardinal-elect noted that the synod assembly this month provided the opportunity for the leadership of the federations of bishops’ conferences of Asia, Africa, and Latin America to meet together in Rome, and expressed hope that future collaboration between these federations will help build relationships.

“We call ourselves the Global South bishops’ conferences,” he added.

A missionary heart for China

Like nearly half of the new cardinals recently selected by Pope Francis, Kikuchi is a member of a religious congregation. 

Kikuchi entered the Society of the Divine Word (SVD), a missionary order founded in 1875 to evangelize China, as a minor seminarian. He recalled being inspired as a young boy by the story of Cardinal Thomas Tien Ken-sin, the first cardinal from China who was a member of the Divine Word order.

“He was the archbishop of Beijing in the 1940s … and he was expelled from China in the 1950s and he died in Taiwan. I knew that story when I was in minor seminary. I really admired his courage to try to maintain his presence in Beijing when the Communist [Party] was taking over the country,” Kikuchi recalled.

“We also had many missionaries escaping from China who came to Japan for refuge. And we met many of them, and they are really inspiring for how to be a strong missionary,” he added.

Cardinal-elect Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi during an interview with CNA on Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in Rome. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

After his priestly ordination in 1986, Kikuchi had his chance to become a missionary serving in Ghana, where he ministered for eight years, becoming the first Japanese priest to serve as a missionary in Africa.

Now as the archbishop of Tokyo, he oversees a diverse flock that includes Catholics from mainland China who have shared with him both their tribulations and their efforts to spread the faith in their homeland.

“We have a number of Catholics from mainland China residing in Tokyo,” he said, highlighting a Chinese parish with many members from the mainland.

Regarding the Vatican’s provisional agreement with Beijing on bishop appointments, Kikuchi pointed to the need for clarity on diocesan boundaries. He explained that the current dioceses in mainland China do not align with historical diocesan boundaries established before the rise of communist rule.

“Officially speaking, the present dioceses in mainland China are not the real dioceses. The real dioceses date from before Communist China,” he said.

Kikuchi also spoke about the significance of the diplomatic relationship between the Holy See and Taiwan to the Church in the region.

“We are always watching carefully to see what will be the relationship between the Holy See and Taiwan,” he said. “The future of this relationship … will really affect the future of the Church in that area.”

The archbishop also sees the presence of 42,000 Filipinos residing in Tokyo as a potential evangelizing force in secular Japan. He recounted Tagle’s visit to Tokyo, where he encouraged Filipinos to view their presence in Japan as part of a divine plan to spread the Gospel.

“You have your own reasons … but it is the plan of God to spread the good news to Japanese society,” Kikuchi said.

“I’m not known in the Church for being a closed-minded medieval, am I? So you can be sure that I have an open heart to see where the Holy Spirit leads us,” said the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News

Vatican City, Oct 25, 2024 / 16:50 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Victor Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, announced that the female diaconate will be the subject of a more in-depth study under the impetus of the proposals sent to the commission assigned to this task. He also stated that this question, although Pope Francis considers it not “mature,” is not a “closed issue.”

To delve deeper into the differences between holy orders and authority in order to be able to entrust laywomen with leadership functions in the Church is, according to Fernández, the objective of the work of the group he leads at the Synod on Synodality to reflect on the role of women in the Church at the request of the Holy Father.

Fernández made the statement during a meeting on Thursday afternoon with about 100 members, guests, and experts participating in the synod to hear their questions and proposals regarding the work of group 5.

This meeting was called at the initiative of the cardinal in response to some members being frustrated by his absence from a meeting scheduled for last week.

According to reports and the audio shared after the meeting, Fernández emphasized that the majority of women want to “be heard and valued,” are asking to “have authority” and to be able to develop their charisms without specifically requesting the female diaconate, since they do not want to be “clericalized.”

“I am thinking of women theologians who in some parts of the world have no opportunity for development or real freedom for theological work ... of women who have gifts for leading communities ... or of women who have great capacity to advise like the best of consultants or spiritual directors but who are not accepted because they don’t have holy orders,” he added.

The cardinal was also asked about the possibility of this matter being the main theme of the next synod. “I don’t know what the procedures are for proposing the next themes, it’s not my job, but perhaps it will be one of the themes proposed” at the end of this synod, he replied.

Fernández also noted that “the experience of the Amazon” is “very important” for this study because of the existence, he said, “of an experience of communities led by women without any priests.”

“This experience is very important for us and we have already consulted some women” who belong “to groups of laypeople who constantly visit the communities.”

The idea of ​​the ministries, he continued, “is not a decision of the bishop who chooses a woman friend for an important position, but there is a need in the community and that there is in some persons a gift that responds to that need.”

“We must be careful with this so as not to create a structure that ultimately remains dependent on [having] authority,” he said. 

In this regard, the DDF prefect said it is possible to “have a significant consensus” regarding the leadership roles of women in the Church while noting that “very concrete steps will be taken in this regard.”

“If it turns out that in the past women preached during the celebration of the Eucharist or exercised authority without having been ordained deacons, does this count for less?” the cardinal asked the members of the synod.

With the aim of carrying out a more open consultation following a “synodal style,” the Argentine cardinal renewed his invitation to send contributions and proposals to the Vatican dicastery.

“Honestly, we need to receive ideas and proposals because we try to interpret the needs and possibilities that women see, but not being a woman I don’t have their experience. So we need to understand where we can go on these concrete paths for women’s empowerment.”

To do this, the cardinal said that “the help of concrete proposals with which we can take real steps forward is really needed. What I’ve heard today seemed very, very interesting to me and it has opened my mind a little to other ideas.”

“I’m not known in the Church for being a closed-minded medieval, am I? So you can be sure that I have an open heart to see where the Holy Spirit leads us and we move forward,” he added.

The female diaconate will be studied ‘more intensively’

Although the female diaconate has been removed from the central debates of the synod, the cardinal insisted that those who “are convinced that it is necessary to go deeper” into this question can also send their considerations to the commission chaired by Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi to further explore the subject.

He said that this body, established by the Holy Father in 2020, will resume its work with even “more effort” under the impetus of the proposals sent by the members of the synodal assembly and from other parts of the world.

Also, regarding Pope Francis’ position on the question of the diaconate, which he said was “not mature,” Fernández pointed out that this does not mean that Francis wants to “close the issue.”

This reflection will also continue, according to the cardinal, because “the conclusions of the commission’s work are not without ambiguity and there are historians who say that in the past there were cases of women being ordained as deaconesses,” while other historians claim that it was “a blessing and not a true ordination.”

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

Pope Francis drinks mate while in Paraguay in July 2015. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Mariana Moreno

Vatican City, Oct 25, 2024 / 16:20 pm (CNA).

“Buon pranzo e arrivederci!” (“Have a nice lunch and see you later!” ) — just hearing the way Pope Francis concludes his message to the faithful at the end of the Angelus every Sunday tells you something about the importance he attaches to food.

The Holy Father has made reference to food in a humorous tone on several occasions. During a press conference on his return from one of his apostolic journeys, he jokingly mentioned that his next destination would depend on the country’s gastronomy.

Always with a smile when addressing journalists who accompany him on his world trips, he usually wishes them a good lunch as well. On his return from Budapest last year, he laughed as he suggested in an ironic tone that he was not sure whether there would be dinner on the plane “or something to trick the stomach.”

On that occasion, he also said he had only understood two words in the Hungarian language: “goulash” (a typical Hungarian dish made mainly with meat, onions, peppers, and paprika) and “tokaji” (a typical Hungarian wine).

It has become almost a tradition for him to stop the popemobile in St. Peter’s Square when a pilgrim offers him one of the drinks he most enjoys, mate. And “chipa,” a traditional food in some Latin American countries made from manioc starch and cheese, is also one of the foods that Pope Francis likes the most. “Where’s the chipa?” he asked once during a meeting with Paraguayans at St. Peter’s.

On his trip to Luxembourg he stopped “as a surprise” at a café. He has even invited the owner of his favorite ice cream shop, Padrón, to the Vatican, and we know that his favorite sweets are the El Nazareno brand of Argentine “alfajores” (a traditional Latin American dessert).

In the “The Vatican Cookbook,” published in 2014, the Holy Father also referred to other recipes such as meat empanadas or mozzarella pizza with fainá (a chickpea pancake).

Spaghetti and sword featured in the Vatican Cookbook. Credit: Katarzyna Artymiak

His appreciation for food is so well known that leaders or prelates who visit him in the Vatican often bring gifts that can be tasted. But without a doubt, his favorite dish, which he was able to enjoy with his family on the occasion of the 90th birthday of his cousin Daniela di Tignlioi, is the so-called “bagna calda,” well known in the Italian region of Piedmont, which is usually prepared with anchovies, oil, and garlic and used as a sauce for vegetables.

However, pleasure and enjoyment are not the only reasons why the Holy Father has extolled the value of food and nutrition. Throughout his pontificate, he has also given it a pastoral focus and highlighted its spiritual significance.

Going no further than his recent encyclical Dilexit Nos, released Oct. 24, Pope Francis recalls that when he was a child, for carnival “my grandmother used to make a pastry using very thin batter.”

“When she dropped the strips of batter into the oil,” the pope continues, “they would expand, but then, when we bit into them, they were empty inside. In the dialect we spoke, those cookies were called ‘lies’… My grandmother explained why: ‘Like lies, they look big, but are empty inside; they are false, unreal’” (Dilexit Nos, 7)

In the same document he states that “no algorithm will ever be able to capture, for example, the nostalgia that all of us feel, whatever our age, and wherever we live.”

“When we recall how we first used a fork to seal the edges of those little homemade empanadas that we helped our mothers or grandmothers to make ... It was a moment of culinary apprenticeship, somewhere between child-play and adulthood, when we first felt responsible for working and helping one another,” the Holy Father writes (Dilexit Nos, 20).

Italian theologian Bishop Bruno Forte explained that this encyclical “offers us the key to understanding the entire magisterium” of Pope Francis. Thus, there could not be missing some reference to food.

For the Holy Father, food is also a key element of human dignity. He has repeatedly advocated for a fair distribution of food. In fact, he has even warned that to waste food “is to snatch it from the hands” of the poor.

With the poor, the most needy, he shares a feast in the Vatican every year during the World Day of the Poor. There was even a rumor in Rome that some nights, years ago, he would dress incognito and distribute food to the homeless he found around St. Peter’s.

For the Holy Father, food also has a meaning of fraternity, even of love. In his homily at the World Day of Families in 2015 in Philadelphia, the Holy Father noted that “faith opens a ‘window’ to the presence and working of the Spirit. It shows us that, like happiness, holiness is always tied to little gestures.”

“These little gestures are those we learn at home, in the family; they get lost amid all the other things we do, yet they do make each day different. They are the quiet things done by mothers and grandmothers, by fathers and grandfathers, by children, by brothers and sisters. They are little signs of tenderness, affection, and compassion. Like the warm supper we look forward to at night, the early breakfast awaiting someone who gets up early to go to work.”

However, the Holy Father’s fundamental teaching regarding food is that which refers to the essential nourishment, the Eucharist: “Those who receive the body and blood of Christ with faith not only eat but are satisfied,” he said after the Angelus prayer in June 2022.

“To eat and to be satisfied: These are two basic necessities that are fulfilled in the Eucharist,” he affirmed.

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

Painting of the Sacred Heart found in Rome’s Church of the Gesù, the mother church of the Society of Jesus, more commonly known as the Jesuits. On Oct. 24, 2024, Pope Francis released a new encyclical, “Dilexit Nos” (“He Loved Us”), in which he calls on Catholics to rediscover the love and compassion found in the heart of Jesus Christ. / Credit: Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 25, 2024 / 15:20 pm (CNA).

In his newly released encyclical, Dilexit Nos (“He Loved Us”), Pope Francis calls on Catholics worldwide to rediscover the love and compassion found in the heart of Jesus Christ.

The encyclical, issued on Oct. 24, examines the transformative power of Jesus’ heart as a font of healing for a divided world. The theologically expansive text draws from the Catholic Church’s traditional devotion to the Sacred Heart as a source of inspiration for centuries of saints, popes,  and theologians.

Here are seven takeaways from Dilexit Nos on the human and divine love of the heart of Jesus Christ:

1. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ

The title of the encyclical, Dilexit Nos, comes from the end of chapter 8 of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans:

“What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? … No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:35, 37-39).

2. The power of the heart in a fragmented world

The pope critiques what he calls the “liquid” nature of contemporary life marked by superficiality and consumerism. He says “we find ourselves immersed in societies of serial consumers who live from day to day, dominated by the hectic pace and bombarded by technology, lacking in the patience needed to engage in the processes that an interior life by its very nature requires.” 

“Amid the frenetic pace of today’s world and our obsession with free time, consumption, and diversion, cellphones and social media, we forget to nourish our lives with the strength of the Eucharist,” he adds.

In contrast, he writes, the heart represents the “profound unifying center” for each person and for society. The encyclical quotes Pope Benedict XVI, who said:

“Every person needs a ‘center’ for his or her own life, a source of truth and goodness to draw upon in the events, situations, and struggles of daily existence. All of us, when we pause in silence, need to feel not only the beating of our own heart, but deeper still, the beating of a trustworthy presence, perceptible with faith’s senses and yet much more real: the presence of Christ, the heart of the world” (Angelus, June 1, 2008).

 3. The cross as the ultimate expression of Christ’s love

The encyclical states that “the pierced heart of Christ embodies all God’s declarations of love present in the Scriptures.”

Pope Francis writes about how great consolation can be found in contemplating the heart of Christ in his suffering and self-surrender even to death for our salvation.

“Our sufferings are joined to the suffering of Christ on the cross. If we believe that grace can bridge every distance, this means that Christ by his sufferings united himself to the sufferings of his disciples in every time and place. In this way, whenever we endure suffering, we can also experience the interior consolation of knowing that Christ suffers with us,” he says.

The pope adds: “As we contemplate the heart of Christ, the incarnate synthesis of the Gospel, we can, following the example of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, ‘place heartfelt trust not in ourselves but in the infinite mercy of a God who loves us unconditionally and has already given us everything in the cross of Jesus Christ.’”

4. Love as a missionary impulse

Pope Francis also writes about “the communitarian, social, and missionary dimension of all authentic devotion to the heart of Christ,” adding that Christ’s heart not only leads us to the Father but also “sends us forth to our brothers and sisters.”

“Jesus is calling you and sending you forth to spread goodness in our world,” he writes. “His call is one of service, a summons to do good, perhaps as a physician, a mother, a teacher, or a priest. Wherever you may be, you can hear his call and realize that he is sending you forth to carry out that mission.”

Pope Francis also encourages parishes to focus less on structures and bureaucracies as means of evangelizing, warning against “communities and pastors excessively caught up in external activities, structural reforms that have little to do with the Gospel, obsessive reorganization plans, worldly projects, secular ways of thinking, and mandatory programs.”

The encyclical points to the missionary examples of saints like St. Thérèse and St. Charles de Foucauld. By returning to this Sacred Heart, he writes, Catholics can find a renewed energy to address social and spiritual challenges through love.

The pope writes about how the fire of the Holy Spirit fills the heart of Christ, quoting St. John Paul II’s letter on the 100th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s consecration of the human race to the divine heart of Jesus: “The heart of Christ is alive with the action of the Holy Spirit, to whom Jesus attributed the inspiration of his mission.”

5. Acts of reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

In the encyclical, Pope Francis discusses the Catholic tradition of making acts of reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, writing that “reparation entails the desire to render compensation” for the injuries inflicted on the Lord who is love.”

“The reparation that we offer is a freely accepted participation in his redeeming love and his one sacrifice,” he explains. “Acts of love of neighbor, with the renunciation, self-denial, suffering, and effort that they entail, can only be such when they are nourished by Christ’s own love. He enables us to love as he loved, and in this way he loves and serves others through us.”

“Sisters and brothers, I propose that we develop this means of reparation, which is, in a word, to offer the heart of Christ a new possibility of spreading in this world the flames of his ardent and gracious love,” Pope Francis said.

6. Saints and the Sacred Heart

In Dilexit Nos, Pope Francis shares insights from the saints and frequently cites the magisterium of his papal predecessors. He describes how St. Charles de Foucauld “consecrated himself to the Sacred Heart, in which he found a love without limits” inspiring his austere life in imitation of Christ, and how St. Thérèse placed her trust in the Sacred Heart’s infinite mercy. 

He also points the reader to the spiritual experiences of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, who experienced a remarkable series of apparitions of Christ between the end of December 1673 and June 1675. 

In the first apparition, Jesus told Alacoque: “My divine heart is so inflamed with love for men, and for you in particular, that, no longer able to contain in itself the flames of its ardent charity, it must pour them out through you and be manifested to them, in order to enrich them with its precious treasures which I now reveal to you.”

Francis notes how Pope Leo XIII called for the world’s consecration to the Sacred Heart in response to the secular challenges of his time and Pius XI regarded the Sacred Heart as a “summa” of the experience of Christian faith. He also describes how St. John Paul II presented the growth of this devotion in recent centuries as “a response to the rise of rigorist and disembodied forms of spirituality that neglected the richness of the Lord’s mercy” and “as a timely summons to resist attempts to create a world that leaves no room for God.”

The encyclical also draws on thinkers like novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky and German philosopher Martin Heidegger to highlight the heart’s wider human relevance.

7. The wounded heart of Christ as a wellspring of peace and unity

As modern society faces what Francis calls a “wave of secularization” and division, he sees “the heart” as a source of unity.

“It is only by starting from the heart that our communities will succeed in uniting and reconciling differing minds and wills, so that the Spirit can guide us in unity as brothers and sisters. Reconciliation and peace are also born of the heart. The heart of Christ is ‘ecstasy,’ openness, gift, and encounter. In that heart, we learn to relate to one another in wholesome and happy ways, and to build up in this world God’s kingdom of love and justice. Our hearts, united with the heart of Christ, are capable of working this social miracle,” he writes.

The pope affirms that “the wounded side of Christ continues to pour forth that stream which is never exhausted, never passes away, but offers itself time and time again to all those who wish to love as he did.”

Pope Francis offers a prayer in the encyclical that the wounded world may regain its heart, writing: “In the presence of the heart of Christ, I once more ask the Lord to have mercy on this suffering world in which he chose to dwell as one of us. May he pour out the treasures of his light and love, so that our world, which presses forward despite wars, socioeconomic disparities, and uses of technology that threaten our humanity, may regain the most important and necessary thing of all: its heart.”

Father Enrique “Kike” Figaredo on Oct. 23, 2024, presents Pope Francis with a wheelchair made by land mine survivors in Cambodia. / Credit: Courtesy of Father Kike Figaredo

Vatican City, Oct 25, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Jesuit priest and apostolic prefect of Battambang in Cambodia Father Enrique “Kike” Figaredo this week presented Pope Francis with a wheelchair made by land mine survivors in Cambodia.

The Spanish missionary traveled to Rome from the Southeast Asian country with a special gift for the Holy Father: a Mekong wheelchair, characterized by having three wheels and made of wood.

Figaredo, who is in the Eternal City to participate in the Synod on Synodality, had the opportunity to meet with the pontiff early in the morning of Oct. 23.

“It was a wonderful encounter; Pope Francis amazes me. When he saw me, he asked me: ‘Kike, what did you bring me?’” the priest shared with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

According to the missionary, the Holy Father “was surprised to see the wheelchair and said it looked great.” Later, Figaredo showed the pope some of its features “and he listened very attentively.” The priest made the point that the craftsmen are not “disabled” but rather have “special abilities.”

“I invited him to sit down in it, he got up from his chair and sat on the Cambodian chair and said: ‘how beautiful.’” He also expressed his desire to use it, which for Figaredo would be “a symbol for the people injured by war.”

The apostolic prefect also stressed that this gesture holds great meaning: “That Pope Francis has a wheelchair made by the people for whom he prays and advocates, so that they might have peace.”

“The people who are victims of war are the ones who are giving [the wheelchair] to him through me. They give the pope a wheelchair, who is now disabled, so that he can continue to be the leader of the Church and the world for peace,” he added.

Figaredo has spent more than 40 years giving his life to the service of those most in need in Cambodia, especially to people maimed by anti-personnel mine explosions.

Over the years, Figaredo has promoted various action projects for the disabled. In 1991, he founded a school for disabled children in Phnom Penh, where they also build wooden wheelchairs known as the Mekong, in reference to the river that crosses Cambodia and five other Asian countries.

There they take in vulnerable street children, orphans, and disabled people. In Battambang there is also the Arrupe Center, where different projects for children’s education and adult training are carried out.

They also have an agricultural and livestock area, a restaurant called the Lonely Tree Café, a cafeteria, a hotel, a textile center where they make Kromas — the traditional Cambodian scarf — and the Mutitaa clothing brand, where they sell garments that can be purchased online from Spain. All of these, according to the Spanish priest, are “small models of social integration.”

Volunteers from different countries come to the mission every year. Many come to help during the summer and the adults usually stay longer, around a year. There are others who initially plan to come for only a few months but end up staying, because these people have something that “captivates you.”

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

A smiling Pope Francis is depicted on a sign outside the APEC Haus in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, on the occasion of the pontiff's visit, Sept. 7, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 24, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).

Here are some of the most inspiring quotes from Pope Francis in his new encyclical Dilexit Nos on the divine and human love of the heart of Jesus Christ:

1. “Mere appearances, dishonesty, and deception harm and pervert the heart. Despite our every attempt to appear as something we are not, our heart is the ultimate judge, not of what we show or hide from others, but of who we truly are. It is the basis for any sound life project; nothing worthwhile can be undertaken apart from the heart. False appearances and untruths ultimately leave us empty-handed” (No. 6).

2. “If we fail to appreciate the specificity of the heart, we miss the messages that the mind alone cannot communicate; we miss out on the richness of our encounters with others; we miss out on poetry. We also lose track of history and our own past, since our real personal history is built with the heart. At the end of our lives, that alone will matter” (No. 11).

3. “The heart of Christ is ‘ecstasy,’ openness, gift, and encounter. In that heart, we learn to relate to one another in wholesome and happy ways, and to build up in this world God’s kingdom of love and justice. Our hearts, united with the heart of Christ, are capable of working this social miracle” (No. 28).

4. “In the presence of the heart of Christ, I once more ask the Lord to have mercy on this suffering world in which he chose to dwell as one of us. May he pour out the treasures of his light and love, so that our world, which presses forward despite wars, socio-economic disparities, and uses of technology that threaten our humanity, may regain the most important and necessary thing of all: its heart” (No. 31).

5. “If we find it hard to trust others because we have been hurt by lies, injuries, and disappointments, the Lord whispers in our ear: ‘Take heart, son!’ (Mt 9:2), ‘Take heart, daughter!’ (Mt 9:22). He encourages us to overcome our fear and to realize that, with him at our side, we have nothing to lose” (No. 37).

6. “Whenever we feel that everyone ignores us, that no one cares what becomes of us, that we are of no importance to anyone, he remains concerned for us” (No. 40).

7. “I ask, then, that no one make light of the fervent devotion of the holy faithful people of God, which in its popular piety seeks to console Christ. I also encourage everyone to consider whether there might be greater reasonableness, truth, and wisdom in certain demonstrations of love that seek to console the Lord than in the cold, distant, calculated, and nominal acts of love that are at times practiced by those who claim to possess a more reflective, sophisticated, and mature faith” (No. 160).

8. “Christ asks you never to be ashamed to tell others, with all due discretion and respect, about your friendship with him. He asks that you dare to tell others how good and beautiful it is that you found him” (No. 211).

9. “In a world where everything is bought and sold, people’s sense of their worth appears increasingly to depend on what they can accumulate with the power of money. We are constantly being pushed to keep buying, consuming, and distracting ourselves, held captive to a demeaning system that prevents us from looking beyond our immediate and petty needs. The love of Christ has no place in this perverse mechanism, yet only that love can set us free from a mad pursuit that no longer has room for a gratuitous love. Christ’s love can give a heart to our world and revive love wherever we think that the ability to love has been definitively lost” (No. 218).

10. “The wounded side of Christ continues to pour forth that stream which is never exhausted, never passes away, but offers itself time and time again to all those who wish to love as he did. For his love alone can bring about a new humanity” (No. 219).

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

Theologian Myriam Wijlens, a Synod on Synodality consultant, speaks at an Oct. 23, 2024, press briefing, where she emphasized that Pope Francis has called for “reconfiguring the Church in a synodal way.” / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 24, 2024 / 14:30 pm (CNA).

A year ago, at the end of the Synod on Synodality’s first general assembly, electronic versions of a draft of the confidential summary report were circulated among the media and others, as inevitably happens, in the days leading up to the delegates’ last amendments and final vote.

This year, apparently to discourage such leaks, synod organizers only provided participants with hard copies of the draft report, which aren’t as easily disseminated.

The irony is that there may not be much to share.

Internally and externally over the past several weeks, the assembly has come under intense pressure to change the Church’s governing structures and even some of its basic doctrines.

Theologian Myriam Wijlens, a synod consultant, emphasized at an Oct. 23 press briefing that Pope Francis has called for “reconfiguring the Church in a synodal way.” Doing so would require changes to canon law to, for example, make parish or diocesan councils mandatory.

But bigger changes, such as opening the diaconate to women or allowing exceptions to priestly celibacy, to cite two issues that were promoted publicly this month, appear off the table.

According to sources who have spoken to CNA, what’s left is a draft report that is generating disappointment in progressive quarters but very little buzz.

Titled “Communion, Mission, and Participation,” it’s a short document — 152 paragraphs, for the time being, covering about 47 pages. According to synod sources, it is divided into five parts.

The first part deals with the shared understanding of synodality and its theological principles. The second concerns what is called a “relational conversion.” The third part speaks of ecclesial discernment, decision-making processes, the culture of transparency, accountability, and evaluation. The fourth part seeks to understand how to cultivate the exchange of gifts in new ways. Finally, the fifth part speaks of formation in and for missionary synodality.

The synod’s final document, one delegate told CNA, appears to be strongly borrowed from the document on synodality that the International Theological Commission published in 2018, titled “Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church.”

After reviewing it the synod delegates can propose amendments, which the assembly will discuss and vote on this Saturday.

Two-thirds of the assembly must approve a paragraph for it to be retained. In the past, if a paragraph did not reach even two-thirds, it would not be published. It was said that it did not represent synodal communion. Pope Francis has instead wanted each paragraph of the final document to be published and that votes for or against be indicated together with the paragraph. 

Beyond the talks about healthy decentrality, the draft document addresses how this decentralization should be addressed. In particular, there is a paragraph that says that in a synodal Church, the decision-making competence of the bishop and of the bishop of Rome is “inalienable” while proposing some good practices to make the diocesan and parish council representative of all the people of God, women included.

Some describe the document as interlocutory rather than definitive. One bishop observed that “the document allows everyone to manage things as they wish.” But, he added, showing some disappointment, “So what were we discussing?”

If these are the results of two synodal stages in Rome and a three-year journey of dialogue and listening before that, it’s clear that many will be disappointed. There are no revolutions, but rather a call for a change of mentality in the Church grounded in the idea that synodality has always been present in the Church.

This will be the starting point for Saturday’s concluding session.

After the publication of the final document we will have to wait for Pope Francis to act. The Holy Father could decide to adopt the final document in full as a postsynodal exhortation or he could draft a postsynodal exhortation himself, either before or after the various study groups of experts deliver their final reports in May.

In the end, everything depends on the pope.

Cardinal Robert Prevost speaks to members of the media during a Synod on Synodality briefing on Oct. 23, 2024, at the Vatican. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 24, 2024 / 13:30 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, on Wednesday cited some of the “gifts” that candidates for bishops must have, a decision reserved to the Holy Father but whose selection process will increasingly involve the participation of the “people of God.”

At the beginning of his Oct. 23 address to journalists in Rome at the daily Synod on Synodality briefing, the cardinal said the question of the selection process for bishops in each episcopal conference and the way in which it is carried out has been one of the issues discussed during the synod.

“The question is: How can this process of searching for candidates be made more synodal and include the greatest participation not only of bishops but of priests, religious, and laypeople?” Prevost said.

One of the most important functions of the apostolic nuncios is to participate in this selection process. The Vatican “ambassadors” play a crucial role in the selection of candidates.

This new approach oriented toward a “synodal” style requires, according to the cardinal, that the nuncio “know the people well” during pastoral visits and that they not just be “received by the parish priest” and participate in the ceremonies.

It is also necessary to “get in touch with parish groups” to listen to their problems and reflect on the ways in which the Church can be strengthened.

The criteria for selecting a bishop

Asked about the “criteria” necessary for selecting bishops, Prevost emphasized both their universal character and, at the same time, their specificity due to the particular areas in which they are carried out.

“We ask the nuncios to draw up reports that will then be sent to the dicastery and subsequently presented to the Holy Father,” which include a series of aspects about the candidate.

Among some of these requirements, the prelate mentioned the candidate’s “worthiness” in addition to the study on whether he has had “serious problems that no one knows anything about,” certain health problems, “or if there are other aspects” in his background “that would make him not a good candidate.”

“But we also look at the specific dioceses and their needs. That’s why the apostolic nuncio is in charge of reporting not only about the bishops but also about the priests, laypeople, and religious. To know what the diocese is like, its needs, and what bishop they need,” he added.

The cardinal pointed out that this closeness to the people of God should exist as long as the apostolic nuncio “does his job correctly” — that is, studying the local situation, speaking with the people, and looking for ways to find the best candidate.

He noted that Pope Francis has spoken many times about these criteria, highlighting “the smell of sheep” that bishops must have as a result of walking alongside the people of God and even “suffering with them.”

In addition, he pointed out that a candidate must also have the gift of leadership, sometimes even in “communities that have many good priests,” but without a good leader, “they’re going nowhere.”

‘Shepherds who walk with the people of God’

Prevost spoke about the pastoral duties of bishops, who are not “business administrators only dedicated to organizations and structural and ceremonial matters.”

“They have to be shepherds who walk joyfully with the people of God,” he said.

The prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, which is responsible for everything related to the constitution and provision of the particular Churches and the exercise of the episcopal function in the Church, emphasized that prelates are also called to be “judged and evaluated” on their actions and attitudes. For the cardinal, “the tension of being pastors and being evaluated is what it means to be bishops.”

In this regard, he quoted the Holy Father, recalling that the only authority of bishops “is to serve,” and he insisted on the importance of “changing the entire dynamic and paradigm of the structure of power,” with an eye to the service that a bishop must exercise toward all the members of his diocese.

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

Archbishop Bruno Forte speaks to journalists at the presentation of the encyclical “Dilexit Nos” on Oct. 24, 2024, at the Vatican. / Credit: Julia Cassell/EWTN News

Vatican City, Oct 24, 2024 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

A prominent Italian theologian and archbishop has called Pope Francis’ new encyclical on the Sacred Heart “the key to his entire pontificate” and “the inspiring motive of [his] whole ministry and magisterium.”

Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto presented Dilexit Nos (“He Loved Us”) at a press conference at the Vatican on Oct. 24.

A prolific spiritual writer, Forte, who became a member of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in June, called the encyclical “extremely timely” for its attention to “the centrality of God’s love in Jesus Christ” and to the “dramatic challenges of the present time.”

Pope Francis released Dilexit Nos on Thursday, calling for a renewed understanding of devotion to the Sacred Heart in the modern era and its many pressing challenges.

Press conference for the presentation of the encyclical "Dilexit Nos" at the Vatican, Oct. 24, 2024. Credit: Julia Cassell/EWTN News

Forte said Pope Francis’ magisterium is “far from being … restricted to social issues, as it has sometimes been clumsily understood,” and his message “to the entire human family stems from a single spring, presented here in a more explicit, clear way: Christ the Lord, his love for humanity.”

“It is the truth on which Jorge Mario Bergoglio has staked his whole life and continues to spend it passionately as bishop of Rome, pastor of the universal Church,” the archbishop added.

He emphasized that the encyclical “can really be considered a compendium of everything that Pope Francis, the pope that God gave the Church in these not-easy years, wanted and wants to say to every brother and sister in humanity.”

Archbishop Bruno Forte and Sister Antonella Fraccaro speak to journalists at the press conference for the encyclical "Dilexit Nos" at the Vatican on Oct. 24, 2024. Credit: Julia Cassell/EWTN News

Forte presented the encyclical together with Sister Antonella Fraccaro, superior general of the Disciples of the Gospel (Discepole del Vangelo), who said: “The encyclical calls us to be missionaries.”

We are called to be “missionaries,” she added, “who transmit love, who love therefore with witness, with presence alone, with words when needed, without the need to engage in proselytism.”

Father “Kike” Figaredo with one of the disabled children he helps in Cambodia. / Credit: Courtesy of Father Kike Figuredo

Vatican City, Oct 24, 2024 / 11:30 am (CNA).

“Don’t go crazy. If you want to know me, I live with others. My face is that of people. If you look for me, look for me in people.”

This was what Enrique “Kike” Figaredo — known as the “wheelchair bishop” — discerned when, at just 16 years old, he prayed to God to enlighten him and thus discovered his vocation.

Since that “special enlightenment” during a Holy Thursday spent in a Taizé monastery, when he was “looking for Jesus like a madman,” everything changed. Now a Jesuit priest and the apostolic prefect of Battambang, Cambodia, Figaredo, a native of the Asturias region of northwestern Spain, shared with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, the witness of his life dedicated to those most in need.

While not a bishop, Figaredo as apostolic prefect has certain administrative faculties of a bishop. 

“That day I began to ‘see’; I came out of that prayer enlightened — that is, happy. I began to see people differently, I no longer saw them as strangers and I felt that they were going to talk to me about God.”

What Figaredo didn’t yet know was that his missionary soul would take him far from his home in Gijón, Spain, to a country in Southeast Asia that he barely knew how to find on a map: Cambodia.

After being ordained a priest, he arrived at the Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand through the Jesuit Refugee Service and later moved to the Cambodian city of Battambang.

Figaredo dedicated his life to caring for the disabled, especially those maimed by anti-personnel mine explosions, a legacy of the genocide perpetrated in the 1970s by troops of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, better known as the Khmer Rouge, whose aftermath is still felt.

From that first day of his new life more than 40 years ago, FIgaredo clearly remembers having seen “the face of God in the children” and how the fear he felt when he arrived “was transformed into peace” when he saw the joy of the children playing, “happy, smiling, barefoot. There was life there, there was God,” he said.

Father Kike Figaredo and others accompany a disabled child. Credit: Courtesy of Father Kike Figaredo

He also described, as if time had not passed, the person in charge of the place, who was missing an eye and a leg. “He told me that for everything they needed, they would ask me. From that afternoon on, I was never afraid again; the Lord asked me to trust in him through the language of faith.”

Figaredo told ACI Prensa that these people are not “disabled” but people with “different abilities.” However, he pointed out that “they have special needs” and that caring for them is essential.

‘Pray more and think less’

In a predominantly Buddhist country, Catholics are only “insignificant” in number, but they are very present in social and religious life. Regarding the faith of those he evangelizes, he emphasized above all their simplicity and deep spirituality, “influenced by aspects that come from Buddhist culture.”

“We come from a more functional society, where we seek results. They know how to enjoy the presence of God in silence, because they believe that reality is inhabited by God, and that is very beautiful,” he explained.

Although, he noted, “the problem in Cambodia is that they believe in too many spirits, including evil ones that can dominate people. That’s why my motto is ‘pray more and think less.’”

Physical and spiritual help

The missionary noted the importance of helping these people physically, although, he said, “the decisive thing is to touch their hearts … when you touch their hearts with faith, there is a change.”

Regarding the Catholic faith, he highlighted two elements that especially help conversion. On the one hand, the Passion and Resurrection. “We have passion, but it’s not the last word. After the Passion there is resurrection, and that helps them a lot.”

On the other hand, the Spirit of the Lord “is liberating, it makes us free.” For the apostolic prefect, this “has an impressive force. And there are seeds of faith already in the people. When we tell them these things, the Holy Spirit is at work.”

The conversion of Vary

Figaredo could help but be moved as he remembered the conversion of Vary, a Cambodian girl who belonged to a family and an “extremely Buddhist” background but who nevertheless attended catechism classes and prayed with the missionaries.

One day, she went to the Virgin with a special request: that the director of the center for the disabled could get pregnant after a long time trying.

“Within three days, she was pregnant. So then this girl was baptized with the name Catalina and now she’s a catechist. She went to pray with faith, looking for a sign from God, and she committed herself to him,” Figaredo recalled.

The priest added that the new infant was named Karuna, which means “compassion,” since “she was born through an act of compassion from the Virgin.”

Projects for those in need

Over the years, Figaredo has promoted various action projects for the disabled, starting with the NGO Sauce, dealing “with the urgent” and gradually growing with initiatives for development, education, and social integration of the most disadvantaged people.

In 1991, he founded a school for disabled children in Phnom Penh, where they also build wooden wheelchairs known as the Mekong, in reference to the river that crosses Cambodia and five other Asian countries. Here they take in vulnerable street children, orphans, and disabled people.

In Battambang there is also the Arrupe Center, where different projects for children’s education and adult training are carried out.

Father Kike Figaredo with a child on the grounds of the mission. Credit: Courtesy of Father Kike Figaredo

They also have an agricultural and livestock area, a restaurant called the Lonely Tree Café, a cafeteria, a hotel, a textile center where they make Kromas — the traditional Cambodian scarf — and the Mutitaa clothing brand, where they sell garments that can be purchased online from Spain. All of these, according to the Spanish priest, are “small models of social integration.”

Volunteers from different countries come to the mission every year. Many come to help during the summer and the adults usually stay longer, about a year. Then there are others who come only for a few months and end up staying because they say the people have something that “captivates you.”

A call to personal conversion

Since the beginning of October, Figaredo has been in Rome to participate in the Synod on Synodality, where he has had the opportunity to help many people “learn to point to Cambodia on the map.”

He also expressed to ACI Prensa his desire that the synodal process “makes real changes.” According to the Jesuit, the synod “is calling us to pastoral conversion” and, above all, “personal conversion.”

Figaredo explained that this conversion also requires putting the Holy Spirit in the center, “and not oneself,” in order to also be able to “go out on a mission.” He also emphasized that the Church “cannot be defined by institutions” and that “listening” is essential in this process.

“The day when we all know how to put God’s mercy at the center, we will see that what defines the synodal Church is the Trinity, the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Until we have this model embedded in our hearts, there will be no synodal Church.”

He thus pointed out that Jesus “spoke of the kingdom of God and spoke of the mission, and then came the Church.”

“If we have all these conversions, going through personal conversion, conversion in relationships, and conversion to the Trinity, then I think there will be a before and after,” he added.

He also referred to this event as “a paradigm shift,” where we go from “the static to the dynamic.” “The Church is a people that is on a journey and we must accompany her. And this will not change in a day; we need time in order to think more about the churches and less about the institutions, which are a support, but not the identity of the Church. Identity is the mission inspired by the Trinity.”

A special gift for Pope Francis

The missionary has traveled to the Eternal City with a special gift for the Holy Father: a Mekong wheelchair, characterized by having three wheels and made of wood. “The pope already knows that he has a wheelchair waiting for him,” Figaredo said.

Two disabled youth in "Mekong" wheelchairs. Credit: Courtesy of Father Kike Figaredo

However, he pointed out that the gift is full of meaning. “This wheelchair was invented in Cambodia; it is made with local materials and the wheels are made of rubber bicycle wheels, designed especially for the countryside, not for the city.”

“I think it’s very beautiful for Pope Francis to be sitting in a chair made by disabled people who have survived the war and who have made wheelchairs for other disabled people.”

Figaredo confessed to ACI Prensa his desire: “That the pope sit in this chair and preach for peace from there. He is a disabled person, since he has not been able to walk easily for some time, and he is the world’s great leader for peace. The fact that he should sit in the wheelchair for the disabled and preach from there has great meaning.”

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

Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, on the set of EWTN News live from at the Synod on Synodality, Oct. 22, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 24, 2024 / 10:15 am (CNA).

Jesuit Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, hopes the legacy of the Synod on Synodality launched by Pope Francis will be the renewal of the Catholic Church as the people of God who walks together to “better carry out the mission that Christ entrusted us” in modern-day society.

“The central insight of Vatican II is that we are all enjoying equal dignity as Christians by our baptism,” the Canadian cardinal shared with EWTN News hosts Catherine Hadro and Matthew Bunson.

“It is as the people of God that we walk together — who are ordained, or in authority, or both — are at the service of God’s people,” he elaborated. “This kind of service needs to be refreshed and, in a certain sense, brought up to date.”

Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, talks with Catherine Hadro and Matthew Bunson on the set of EWTN News live from the Synod on Synodality in Rome, Oct. 24, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

To “more effectively, more flexibly, [and] more generously” respond to the “great hunger and thirst” of people, Czerny stated that synodality is intended to confirm the authority and tradition of the Catholic Church.

“If you want to sum up the synod, we are seeking ways and means to assure that kind of authority so that the Church will be able to carry out its mission and not be handicapped or distracted by sins and mistakes which, in fact, consume and eradicate authority,” he told EWTN News.

Focusing on the servant leadership of Jesus Christ, Czerny stated that he and other ordained leaders in the Church — particularly the new cardinals-elect — have to recognize their explicit mission and role to support the Holy Father and of “giving our lives” to serve the Catholic faithful. 

On the topic of the participation of women in the Church, the cardinal said the different ministries of women can be better “integrated” within Church structures so as to provide better “recognition, authority, formation, [and] recompense” for the work they carry out at the service of God and others.

In spite of the “enormous challenges of our times” — such as forced migration or conflict — Czerny said many of the Catholic faithful living on the margins or peripheries are witnesses of a “hopeful Church” and are therefore an example for others. 

“Migrants are not only our deep concern in terms of solidarity and support and evangelization. But they’re also a sign of the mobility and the courage that the Church needs,” Czerny said. 

“They’re not lacking in hope, they’re not lacking in resourcefulness, and they’re not lacking in missionary creativity. So I would say, as much as they win our concern and sympathy, they also win our admiration,” he added.

According to the prelate, the impact and legacy of synodality will go beyond the Catholic Church and reach out to the secular world. 

“I think many of us are recognizing, experiencing that synodality would go a long way to helping make this world more peaceful, more human, more just, and finally more Christian,” he said.

“That encourages us. We’re not just doing intra-Church housekeeping. We are actually preparing effective and important proposals for the world community.”

Pope Francis speaks at the general audience in St. Peter's Square on Oct. 23, 2024. An altar painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Francesco de Rhoden inside the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Rome, Italy. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA [L] CNA file photo [R]

Rome Newsroom, Oct 24, 2024 / 06:01 am (CNA).

Pope Francis released a new encyclical Dilexit Nos  (“He Loved Us”) on Thursday, calling for a renewed understanding of devotion to the Sacred Heart in the modern era and its many pressing challenges.

In the document, the pope argues that the spirituality of the Sacred Heart offers a vital response to what he calls a “liquid society” dominated by technology and consumerism.

Pope Francis writes: “Living as we do in an age of superficiality, rushing frenetically from one thing to another without really knowing why, and ending up as insatiable consumers and slaves to the mechanisms of a market unconcerned about the deeper meaning of our lives, all of us need to rediscover the importance of the heart.”

Subtitled “Letter on the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ,” the document is the first papal encyclical dedicated entirely to the Sacred Heart since Pope Pius XII’s Haurietis Aquas in 1956.

Throughout the document, Francis weaves together traditional elements of Sacred Heart devotion with contemporary concerns, presenting Christ’s heart as the principle unifying reality in a fragmented world.

The document’s release fulfills an announcement made by the pope in June, when he noted that meditating on the Lord’s love can “illuminate the path of ecclesial renewal and say something meaningful to a world that seems to have lost its heart.”

At a press conference presenting the document on Thursday, Italian Archbishop Bruno Forte said the encyclical expresses “in a profound way the heart and the inspiring motive of the whole ministry and magisterium of Pope Francis.”

Archbishop Bruno Forte speaks to journalists at the presentation of the encyclical Dilexit Nos, Oct. 24, 2024. Credit: Julia Cassell/EWTN News

The theologian added that in his opinion, the text is “the key to understanding this pope’s magisterium.”

Forte, who is a member of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, presented the encyclical together with Sister Antonella Fraccaro, superior general of the Disciples of the Gospel (Discepole del Vangelo).

From Scripture to AI: inside the pope’s vision

The approximately 30,000-word encyclical draws extensively from Scripture and tradition, featuring insights from St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Francis de Sales, and St. Charles de Foucauld.

Released as the Synod on Synodality is concluding its monthlong deliberations in Rome, the document emphasizes both personal spirituality and communal missionary commitment.

Francis develops his vision across five chapters, beginning with a philosophical and theological exploration of “the importance of the heart” before moving through reflections on Christ’s actions and words of love, the theological meaning of Sacred Heart devotion, its spiritual dynamics and social implications.

Algorithms in the digital world

“The algorithms operating in the digital world show that our thoughts and will are much more ‘uniform’ than we had previously thought,” Francis writes, arguing that technological solutions alone cannot address the deeper needs of the human heart.

He emphasizes that the meaning of the word “heart” is not sufficiently captured by biology, psychology, anthropology, or any other science.

“In this age of artificial intelligence, we cannot forget that poetry and love are necessary to save our humanity. No algorithm will ever be able to capture, for example, the nostalgia that all of us feel, whatever our age, and wherever we live,” Francis writes.

The pope emphasizes that devotion to the Sacred Heart is not merely a private spiritual practice but has profound implications for social life and human relationships.

“The world can change, beginning with the heart,” he writes, connecting individual transformation with broader social renewal.

Sacred Heart teaching from Pius XII to Francis

The encyclical builds on centuries of Catholic devotion to the Sacred Heart while offering fresh insights for modern challenges. Francis cites extensively from previous papal teachings, particularly from St. John Paul II.

“Devotion to the Sacred Heart, as it developed in Europe two centuries ago, under the impulse of the mystical experiences of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, was a response to Jansenist rigor, which ended up disregarding God’s infinite mercy,” the late pope writes.

“The men and women of the third millennium need the heart of Christ in order to know God and to know themselves; they need it to build the civilization of love.”

Heidegger, goosebumps, and the heart

In a significant theological and philosophical development, the encyclical engages deeply with modern thought, particularly through its discussion of German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s understanding of human emotion and understanding.

The pope cites Heidegger’s insight that “philosophy does not begin with a pure concept or certainty but with a shock,” as “without deep emotion, thought cannot begin. The first mental image would thus be goosebumps.”

For Francis, this is where the heart comes in as it “listens in a non-metaphoric way to ‘the silent voice’ of being, allowing itself to be tempered and determined by it.”

‘A new civilization of love’: the path forward

“The heart is also capable of unifying and harmonizing our personal history, which may seem hopelessly fragmented,” the pope writes, “yet is the place where everything can make sense.”

“The Gospel tells us this in speaking of Our Lady, who saw things with the heart.”

The document calls for a renewal of traditional Sacred Heart practices on this understanding while emphasizing their contemporary relevance.

“Our communities will succeed in uniting and reconciling differing minds and wills, so that the Spirit can guide us in unity as brothers and sisters. Reconciliation and peace are also born of the heart. The heart of Christ is ‘ecstasy,’ openness, gift, and encounter.”

The pope concludes by connecting this spiritual vision to the Church’s broader mission in the modern world, calling for what he — following St. John Paul II — terms a “civilization of love” built on the foundation of Christ’s love.

This vision also connects directly to previous social encyclicals by Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti, presenting Christ’s love as the foundation for addressing and solving contemporary challenges.

Hanna Brockhaus contributed to this report.

Bishop Dominique Rey (left), and Coadjutor Bishop François Touvet of Fréjus-Toulon, France. / Credit: Claude Truong-Ngoc via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0) and G.Garitan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Vatican City, Oct 23, 2024 / 11:10 am (CNA).

The Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon in the south of France will ordain six men to the transitional diaconate on Dec. 1, ending a Vatican suspension on diocesan ordinations to the priesthood or diaconate that has lasted over two years.

Ordinations were halted by the Vatican in June 2022 following a fraternal visit to the diocese by Archbishop (now Cardinal) Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseille.

The ordinations of six seminarians from the traditionalist community Missionaries of Divine Mercy will take place in the Collegiate Church of Saint-Martin in Lorgues, according to an Oct. 21 announcement from Bishop François Touvet.

Pope Francis appointed Touvet a coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon in November 2023, putting him in charge of religious communities and of the training of priests and seminarians.

As coadjutor, Touvet is serving alongside Bishop Dominique Rey, who has led the French diocese since 2000. Touvet will succeed Rey upon Rey’s 75th birthday.

Touvet said this week the Dec. 1 ordinations “are the fruit of a trusting and peaceful dialogue maintained with the superior of the community [of the Missionaries of Divine Mercy] and the Dicastery for Divine Worship.”

While the Missionaries of Divine Mercy recognize the validity of the post-Vatican II liturgy, one of its three charisms is the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.

The group, which was founded under diocesan law, is also dedicated to the missions of mercy and evangelization, especially among Muslims.

Touvet wrote that while the statutes of the community, founded in 2005, indicate that priests and deacons should use the liturgical books from prior to the reform of the Second Vatican Council, the community’s members “recognize the validity of the current missal and have sought, since their foundation almost 20 years ago, a true insertion in diocesan life under the authority of the bishop.”

The diaconate ordinations scheduled for later this year are a “favorable outcome” of exchanges with the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Touvet said, since permission to offer the Traditional Latin Mass “can only be granted to a recently ordained priest by the Holy See” since the 2021 promulgation of Traditiones Custodes.

The bishop invited prayers for the soon-to-be deacons and “so that the liturgy is not a place of combat but of communion in Jesus Christ the savior.”

Suspension of ordinations

The Vatican requested the suspension of ordinations in the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon in summer 2022 due to “questions that certain Roman dicasteries were asking about the restructuring of the seminary and the policy of welcoming people to the diocese,” according to an announcement by Bishop Dominique Rey at the time.

The diocese had seen a record number of ordinations to the priesthood under Rey’s leadership, which began in 2000, but questions were raised about his approach to evaluating candidates for the priesthood. He was also under scrutiny for having welcomed to the diocese a large number of religious orders and lay groups across a wide spiritual spectrum that included both charismatic and traditionalist communities.

Known for his support of the Traditional Latin Mass, Rey had also ordained diocesan clerics using the 1962 Roman Pontifical and had used the same book for the ordinations of religious communities, including the Institute of the Good Shepherd. 

After Pope Francis promulgated Traditionis Custodes, the 2021 motu proprio restricting the celebration of Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, the bishop had highlighted the concerns of some priests and communities present in his diocese who offered Mass according to the old rite. 

Aveline’s fraternal visit to Rey’s diocese took place in early 2022 at the request of the Vatican.

Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Cameroon, and Cardinal Edouard Sinayobye of Rwanda talk with journalists at Synod on Synodality press briefings in October 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

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

As the Vatican draws closer to the end of the global four-year discernment phase of the Synod on Synodality, high-ranking African delegates participating in this year’s meetings shared their perspectives on the journey of “walking together as the people of God” and its impact on the life of the Church in Africa.

Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) told journalists on Tuesday of his satisfaction with this year’s global synodal talks taking place in the Vatican.

“I must say that I am happy with the synod, which had been convened to develop a new way of being Church and not to solve specific issues which exist in the Church,” Besungu said during the Oct. 22 press briefing.

But how has the Synod on Synodality actually impacted the Catholic Church in Africa? And, in turn, how has the Church in Africa impacted the global synodal process, when proportionately few Africans are participating in the Oct. 2–27 session at the Vatican?

Small Christian communities: a grassroots Church 

Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya from Cameroon told journalists at the press briefing that synodality is an “eschatological sign” in the Church today and stressed the importance of small Christian communities as “a very big treasure for Africa.”

“We are going through a moment of a boom of Catholicism in Africa,” the Cameroonian prelate said. “Synodality comes very alive in the small Christian communities because you don’t live in anonymity as a Catholic.”

Father Don Bosco Onyalla, editor-in-chief of ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, told CNA in an interview that the theological concept of synodality “where people come together” is a reality and tradition that is already lived among Catholics across the continent.

“In Africa, the Church has been conceived as a group of families — the small Christian communities,” Onyalla explained. “The structure of the Church in Africa is from grassroots families coming together.”

Onyalla added that “the institution of the family” — which extends beyond the Western concept of the nuclear family — could “be a source of inspiration for other parts of the world.”

Communion, unity, and reconciliation  

According to Cardinal Edouard Sinayobye of Rwanda, the synodal process launched by Pope Francis for the universal Church in 2021 provides the “biblical and theological foundations” for growing in communion and reconciliation with God and others.

Rwanda is on a journey of healing following the genocide 30 years ago that killed approximately 800,000 people belonging to the minority Tutsi ethnic group.

“For us in Rwanda to talk about fraternity and unity is truly a message which is very well received by people — it helps people walk together and journey together — because after everything that’s happened we are learning to be brothers and sisters,” the cardinal told journalists at the Oct. 14 Vatican press briefing. 

“We must accompany the victims and the perpetrators — this is something that we do in all parishes and this synod has helped us considerably,” he added. “It was a space in which we were truly capable of deepening the way in which we can address reconciliation.” 

Care for the poor and vulnerable

Cardinal Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla from South Sudan shared his plea for the Catholic Church worldwide to live in solidarity with the world’s poor and vulnerable living in different countries.

Mulla hopes the Synod on Synodality will promote active dialogue and collaboration among Catholics and help promote the social doctrine of the Catholic Church, including the principles of solidarity, the promotion of peace, and the preferential option for the poor. 

Cardinal Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla from South Sudan talks with journalists during a Synod on Synodality press briefing on Oct. 18, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

“Synodality — going together — should be the way for us to resolve our own problems. And I hope that all of us together can resolve these problems,” the cardinal told journalists at an Oct. 18 Vatican press briefing. 

“The problems that affect Sudan, or South Sudan, or Colombia, or other parts of Mediterranean countries are our problems,” he added. “We are related — interrelated — and dialogue has to happen. We must feel [compassion] about these situations.” 

Aid to the Church in Need International reported that Africa is the priority region for its projects. In 2023, 31.4% of its activities were dedicated to supporting priests and local communities suffering persecution or persistent poverty throughout the continent.

In 1984, Pope John Paul II met in Rome with 300,000 young people from all over the world in a meeting that laid the foundations for today’s World Youth Day. / Credit: Gregorini Demetrio, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Vatican City, Oct 22, 2024 / 05:00 am (CNA).

You probably know that St. John Paul II was the second-longest-serving pope in modern history with 27 years of pontificate, and he was the first non-Italian pontiff since the Dutch Pope Adrian VI in 1523.

But did you know that he also changed the Catholic Church forever during those 27 years? Here are five ways he did that:

1. He helped bring about the 1989 fall of communism in Eastern Europe.

The pope’s official biographer, George Weigel, who for decades chronicled the pope’s engagement with civic leaders, noted that the way Pope John Paul II influenced the political landscape was enormous. His political influence is seen best in the way his engagement with world leaders assisted the downfall of the U.S.S.R.

Just days before President Ronald Reagan called on Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down” the Berlin Wall, he met with the pope. According to historian and author Paul Kengor, Reagan went so far as to call Pope John Paul II his “best friend,” opining that no one knew his soul better than the Polish pontiff who had also suffered an assassination attempt and carried the burden of world leadership.

In the course of 38 official visits and 738 audiences and meetings held with heads of state, John Paul II influenced civic leaders around the world in this epic battle with a regime that would ultimately be responsible for the deaths of more than 30 million people. 

“He thought of himself as the universal pastor of the Catholic Church, dealing with sovereign political actors who were as subject to the universal moral law as anybody else,” Weigel said. 

“He was willing to be a risk-taker, but he also appreciated that prudence is the greatest of political virtues. And I think he was quite respected by world political leaders because of his transparent integrity. His essential attitude toward these men and women was: How can I help you? What can I do to help?”

More than anything, John Paul II understood his role primarily as a spiritual leader.

According to Weigel, the pope’s primary impact on the world of affairs was his central role in creating the revolution of conscience that began in Poland and swept across Eastern Europe. This revolution of conscience inspired the nonviolent revolution of 1989 and the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, an astounding political achievement. 

2. He beatified and canonized more saints than any predecessor, making holiness more accessible to ordinary people.

One of John Paul II’s most enduring legacies is the huge number of saints he recognized. He celebrated 147 beatification ceremonies, during which he proclaimed 1,338 blesseds, and celebrated 51 canonizations for a total of 482 saints. That is more than the combined tally of his predecessors over the five centuries before.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta is perhaps the best-known contemporary of John Paul II who is now officially a saint, but the first saint of the new millennium and one especially dear to John Paul II was St. Faustina Kowalska, the fellow Polish native who received the message of divine mercy. 

“Sister Faustina’s canonization has a particular eloquence: By this act I intend today to pass this message on to the new millennium,” he said in the homily of her canonization. “I pass it on to all people, so that they will learn to know ever better the true face of God and the true face of their brethren.”

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, whom Pope John Paul II beatified in 1990 and nicknamed the “man of the beatitudes,” is another popular saint elevated by the Polish pope who loved to recognize the holiness of simple persons living the call to holiness with extraordinary fidelity. At the time of his death, the 24-year-old Italian was simply a student with no extraordinary accomplishments. But his love for Christ in the Eucharist and in the poor was elevated by John Paul II as heroic and worthy of imitation.

It bears noting that Pope Francis would later surpass John Paul II when he proclaimed 800 Italian martyrs saints in a single day.

3. He transformed the papal travel schedule.

John Paul II visited some 129 countries during his pontificate — more countries than any other pope had visited up to that point.

He also created World Youth Days in 1985 and presided over 19 of them as pope.

Weigel said John Paul II understood that the pope must be present to the people of the Church, wherever they are.

“He chose to do it by these extensive travels, which he insisted were not travels, they were pilgrimages,” Weigel said.

“This was the successor of Peter, on pilgrimage to various parts of the world, of the Church. And that’s why these pilgrimages were always built around liturgical events, prayer, adoration of the holy Eucharist, ecumenical and interreligious gatherings — all of this was part of a pilgrimage experience.”

In the latter half of the 20th century — a time of enormous social change and upheaval— John Paul II’s extensive travels and proclamation of the Gospel to the ends of the earth were just what the world needed, Weigel said.

4. He made extraordinary contributions to Church teaching.

John Paul II was a scholar who promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1992, reformed the Eastern and Western Codes of Canon Law during his pontificate, and authored 14 encyclicals, 15 apostolic exhortations, 11 apostolic constitutions, and 45 apostolic letters.

This is why Weigel said the Church has only begun to unpack what he calls the “magisterium” of John Paul II, in the form of his writings and his intellectual influence.

For example, John Paul’s theology of the body remains enormously influential in the United States and throughout the world, though Weigel said even this has yet to be unpacked.

5. He gave new life to the Catholic Church in Africa.

John Paul II’s legendary evangelical fervor took fire in Africa. 

He had a particular friendship with Beninese Cardinal Bernadin Gantin and visited Africa many times. His visits would inspire a generation of JPII Catholics in Africa as well as other parts of the globe.

“John Paul II was fascinated by Africa; he saw African Christianity as living, a kind of New Testament experience of the freshness of the Gospel, and he was very eager to support that, and lift it up,” Gantin said.

“It was very interesting that during the two synods on marriage and the family in 2014 and 2015, some of the strongest defenses of the Church’s classic understanding of marriage and family came from African bishops. Some of whom are first-, second-generation Christians, deeply formed in the image of John Paul II, whom they regard as a model bishop,” Gantin said.

“I think wherever you look around the world Church, the living parts of the Church are those that have accepted the magisterium ... as the authentic interpretation of Vatican II. And the dying parts of the Church, the moribund parts of the Church are those parts that have ignored that magisterium.”

John Paul II’s influence in Africa and around the globe transformed the world. It also forever transformed the Church.

This story was first published on Oct. 22, 2021, and has been updated.