(Catholic Culture. Phil Lawler).
At his regular weekly audience on Wednesday, Pope Francis once again prompted howls of protest when he said that efforts to repel immigrants were “a grave sin.”
Background: World Day of Prayer for Creation
(Catholic Culture)
In 2015, Pope Francis established September 1 as the annual World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation in the Catholic Church.
Leading South African prelate deplores Olympic parody, lends support to married priesthood
(Catholic Culture)
In a wide-ranging address to his brother bishops, the president of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference deplored “the blasphemous depiction of Jesus and the disciples at the Last Supper as drag queens.”
Vatican newspaper ignores international reaction to Last Supper parody
(Catholic Culture)
In its July 29 edition, the Vatican newspaper took no note of the disapproval and outrage expressed by Catholic bishops around the world following the drag parody of the Last Supper during the opening ceremony on July 26
Vatican-affiliated scholar sees Biden withdrawal as end of ‘conciliar Catholicism’
CWN Editor’s Note
An Italian theologian, Marcello Neri, argues that the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the 2024 presidential marks the demise of “conciliar Catholicism” in the US.
Transferring primatial see, Pope names new Primate of Argentina
(Catholic Culture).
Pope Francis has raised the Diocese of Santiago del Estero, Argentina, to the dignity of an archdiocese and has transferred the nation’s primatial see from Buenos Aires to Santiago del Estero
Vatican press office provides unprecedented billing for Sostituto
(Catholic Culture).
En un gesto sin precedentes, la Oficina de Prensa de la Santa Sede ha publicado, en sus últimos boletines diarios, un discurso y una homilía pronunciados por el arzobispo Edgar Peña Parra durante un
viaje a Honduras , otorgándole así un protagonismo típicamente reservado a los Romanos Pontífices.
(Catholic World News).
The Vatican issued a brief statement in Italian on July 14 following the attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump: The Holy See expresses its own concern about last night’s episode of violence, which wounds people and democracy, causing suffering and death. It is united to the prayer of the bishops of the United States for America, for the victims, and for peace in the country, so that the motives of the violent may never prevail. The statement, which omitted the former president’s name, was excerpted in Vatican News’s coverage of the assassination attempt (English, Italian). It came only in response to journalists’ queries and was not included in the daily bulletin of the Holy See Press Office.
(Catholic Culture. Dr. Jeff Mirus).
It is one of the odd—but in the long run potentially fruitful—features of the current pontificate that a great emphasis on synodality in theory has emerged under a Pope who tends to act unilaterally. This is not particularly surprising since we humans so often tend towards failure when it comes to living out in practice the principles we hold in theory. This characteristic is expressed most clearly in Proverbs 24:16, which notes that “the just man falls seven times a day” (though of course he “rises up again”). But it is seen not just in our simple weaknesses, but in our very human inconsistency, for we often simply do not practice what we preach. Moreover, it is almost axiomatic that what annoys us most in another is precisely the kind of bad behavior we do not recognize in ourselves. Nonetheless, Pope Francis has consistently advocated a more synodal Church, even if “synodality” has not been clearly defined, and even if synodality will, in the West at least, almost always be first interpreted as something very like democracy, making the concept fair game for those who want to change the perennial teachings of the Church Christ founded. Nonetheless, the concept of synodality can bear very good fruit if it is properly understood not as democracy but as each Catholic actively fulfilling the obligations of his or her state in life in a harmonious participation in the full life of the Church. This concept bears upon a great many things. The root meaning of the word “synodality” is “a way together”. As manifested in Church history, the concept has expressed itself in “synods”, that is, in meetings of the bishops of particular regions to address the spiritual problems of those regions. This has offered the opportunity for a joint exercise of the episcopal office of teaching, ruling and sanctifying, in addressing the particular spiritual deficiencies in a region, especially problems arising from specific errors which were leading people astray and creating unrest among the faithful. By exercising their episcopal authority in this “synodal” way, the bishops of a region could add weight to their decisions, especially if it became necessary to combat errors of one or more particularly wayward bishops.
(Catholic World News).
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has released its national synthesis report for the interim stage of the synod on synodality.
The synod’s interim stage followed the October 2023 session of the Synod of Bishops. In December, the Synod of Bishops asked episcopal conferences to hold listening sessions; the USCCB, in turn, suggested that dioceses hold listening sessions during Lent.
76% of US dioceses submitted reports on over 1,000 listening sessions in which 35,000 people participated.
(CWN Editor’s. Catholic Culture).
“The realization that there are people in our country who are cruelly murdered or abducted and disappear for political reasons or other macabre interests makes one shudder,” the bishops said. “If a person is arrested by the competent authorities, justice must be administered in accordance with the law; the person must be held in a place that is known and accessible to family members.”
In 2022, Human Rights Watch stated that “Burundi’s national intelligence services, police, and ruling party youth members have killed, arbitrarily detained, tortured and harassed people suspected of belonging to opposition parties.” The nation’s president, Évariste Ndayishimiye, has been in office since 2020.
The African Great Lakes nation of 13.2 million (map) is 94% Christian (65% Catholic), 3% ethnic religionist, and 2% Muslim.
(Catholic Culture).
Pope Francis, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, 30 Nobel Peace Prize laureates, economist Jeffrey Sachs, and Fiat CEO Olivier François are among the participants in the meeting, entitled #BeHuman. The event will conclude with a concert in St. Peter’s Square featuring country music singer Garth Brooks and other performing artists.
“We must bring intelligence back to discussing the human person in a world that is dissolving and marked by financial capitalism, by a technology that has become an end rather than a means, and by greed,” said Cardinal Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, OFM Conv, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica and president of the Fratelli Tutti Foundation.
(Catholic Culture).
The Vatican newspaper decried Tunisian President Kais Saied’s decision to expel hundreds of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa (map).
In “Il deserto dell’umanità” (“The Desert of Humanity”)—the most prominent front-page article in its May 7 edition—L’Osservatore Romano editorialized, “Abandoned in the desert, without water or food: this is the dramatic fate of hundreds of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa whom the Tunis authorities have forcibly deported to Jendouba, on the border with Algeria. Their ‘fault’? Being irregular migrants. As if irregularity were synonymous with the nullity of the person.”