(CNA. AC Wimmer).
Just one day after the news that hundreds of thousands of Catholics left the Church in Germany in 2023, the Vatican met with representatives of the German Synodal Way to discuss the controversial plans for a permanent synodal council.
The meeting on Friday resulted in Rome demanding the Germans change the name of the body and agree it cannot have authority over — or be equal to — the bishops’ conference, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.
(Crux. Eduardo Campos Lima).
After a Brazilian archbishop criticized a legal argument aiming to limit land claims by indigenous groups, a Brazilian congressman introduced a motion to censure the prelate for allegedly promoting a leftist political agenda during a celebration of faith. Congressman Evair Vieira de Melo, one of the leaders of the opposition to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government and the head of the Chamber of Deputies’ agriculture committee, introduced his petition on June 10, one day after a Mass marking the 10th anniversary of the canonization of Saint Joseph of Anchieta.
(New Ways Ministry).
The U.S. bishops’ spring meeting is generally not a newsmaker, and indeed, has sometimes just been a private retreat. This June, however, was far more controversial than usual, and often for LGBTQ-related reasons. Today’s post provides updates on some of the speeches and votes relevant to gender and sexuality issues. Study on Transgender Vowed Religious Convened Responding to news that Lexington’s Bishop John Stowe, OFM, Conv., had received the vows of a transgender diocesan hermit, Br. Christian Matson, the chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance said the committee would prepare a study of the issue of transgender vowed religious. Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illiniois, the committee chair and one of the episcopal conference’s most LGBTQ-negative members, told Our Sunday Visitor that the issue “is now on our agenda” as some bishops have requested “a clear analysis that will give the doctrinal and canonical guidelines.” Already, a “preliminary discussion” by the committee had found an “initial consensus” that “it’s not really possible for a (transgender) person to be admitted to the role of a hermit or consecrated life if they are not repentant of what they’ve done.” Paprocki denied this study was related to any particular bishop’s actions.
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai said on Sunday that parliament’s failed attempt to elect a president on Wednesday was a “cold-blooded violation of the constitution.”
He called the session a “farce” and urged every official to “admit their mistakes and correct them” after nearly eight months of presidential vacuum in Lebanon.
(Crux. Ngala Killian Ciimptom).
As South Sudan gears up for general elections in December, Catholic bishops in the world’s newest country say they are disappointed at the government’s lack of preparedness. It will be the first ever election conducted in the country since it obtained independence from Sudan in 2011. In a June 29 pastoral message at the end of a two-day meeting in the capital Juba, the bishops said an election isn’t a one-off affair but a process, and blasted the government for failing to live up to the bidding of such an undertaking. “Like all South Sudanese, we look forward with hope to the day when free and fair elections can be held in our country, but we are disappointed at the government’s lack of preparation,” they said.
(John Burger. Aleteia).
The Mother of Mercy in the Nuba Mountains has seen a sharp increase in the number of internally displaced people and cases of malnutrition, but it is moving forward.
(CNA. Hannah Brockhaus).
At a July 3 appeal hearing, lawyers for former Vatican auditor Libero Milone and his recently deceased former deputy Ferruccio Panicco will argue that Cardinal Angelo Becciu acted as an official of the Vatican, not as a private individual, when he put pressure on the two men to resign their posts in 2017 under threat of prosecution. “For me, Ferruccio’s family, and my family this is tremendously important,” Milone told journalists at a June 19 briefing about his appeal, claiming he and Panicco were “threatened and expelled for doing our jobs” and he is now essentially un-hireable due to the damage to his reputation. Milone is preparing to go before the Vatican’s appeals court after his lawsuit was rejected earlier this year by a lower court for a “misplaced claim” against the Secretariat of State. Judges said the Secretariat of State was not liable for his ousting because he was employed by the pope and Becciu was acting alone when he forced the auditor from his job and accused him of “spying” on his personal finances.
(THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Joy Pullman).
Remember when gay activists told us that they just wanted tolerance—and that their agenda wouldn’t affect the rest of us?
They lied.
What was sold as tolerance for a small minority of Americans who just wanted to quietly live their lives has become a new, mandatory civil religion. The Pride flags fly over us like the banners of a conquering army, and we are supposed to shut up and do as we are told: bake the cake, use the pronouns, repeat the creeds (e.g. “trans women are women”), allow men into women’s space, and—especially—allow them to catechize and claim our children.
(AP News).
Female suicide bombers targeted a wedding, a funeral and a hospital in coordinated attacks in northern Nigeria that killed at least 18 people, local authorities said Sunday. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the the attacks in Borno state, which has been heavily affected by the insurgency launched in 2009 by Boko Haram. The extremist group previously has used women and girls in suicide bombings, prompting suspicions that some attackers come from the many thousands of people the militants have kidnapped over the years, including schoolchildren. The first suicide bomber detonated a device during a marriage celebration in the northeastern town of Gwoza, Barkindo Saidu, director-general of the Borno State Emergency Management Agency, told reporters.
(Vatican Monday. ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI)
The appointment of Archbishop Georg Gänswein as nuncio to the Baltics closes a circle. Pope Francis had asked Benedict XVI’s former secretary to return to his diocese of Fribourg without assignment after announcing the termination of his role as prefect of the Papal Household. After a year and a half, Francis assigned Gänswein to a nunciature—a job Gänswein has never done—thereby getting Benedict’s man even further away from Rome. Based as it is in Vilnius, the nunciature to the Baltics may appear peripheral. It would be, if it weren’t for the fact that the Baltic countries now find themselves on the border with Russia and in close contact with the conflict in Ukraine. That probably has little to do with why Pope Francis sent Archbishop Gänswein there to be his ambassador. The first rumors about Gänswein’s appointment spoke of an act of mercy by Pope Francis. Francis, after having suffered Archbishop Gänswein’s accusations in a book published just after the death of Pope Emeritus and after having dismissed the archbishop, leaving him without office, would have decided to give him a new assignment and forgive him for his mistakes. But can Pope Francis’ decision be defined as an act of mercy, or was it instead an act of opportunity?
(National Catholic Reporter. Christopher White).
When Pope Francis tapped Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández to head the Vatican’s doctrinal office on July 1, 2023, he wasn’t just naming his longtime Argentine theological adviser to one of the church’s most powerful roles. He was also reenvisioning how that department would operate in the modern world and attempting to ensure that his reforms might outlast his own papacy. Accompanying the announcement of Fernández’s appointment in the Vatican’s daily bulletin was a letter articulating that as prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, he should actively promote the work of theology and new ways of evangelization rather than replicating past “immoral methods” that sought to control or punish theologians. “The text of the letter that the pope wrote to the new prefect is in some ways an epoch-making event,” Italian theologian Andrea Grillo told the National Catholic Reporter. “It marked the official beginning of a new understanding of the function of the dicastery, moving away from the inquisitorial and censorious styles of the past.”
(AP News).
Bulgaria’s Orthodox Church on Sunday elected Daniil, a 52-year-old metropolitan considered to be pro-Russian, as its new leader in a vote that reflected the divisions in the church and wider society since Russia invaded Ukraine more than two years ago. Growing divisions between pro-Russian and anti-Russian factions within the senior clergy began after some of them attempted to warm relations with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople in 2019. Russian and most other Orthodox patriarchs refused to accept the designation that formalized a split with the Russian church.mUnlike his late predecessor, who in his last prayers criticized Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, Daniil has taken the side of the Moscow Patriarchy in its dispute with the Ecumenical Patriarch over the independence of Ukraine’s Orthodox Church.
(Crux. Elise An Allen).
Almost three decades after her death, Saint Teresa of Kolkata, commonly and affectionately referred to as “Mother Teresa,” remains an international icon of charity and among the most beloved figures in the world, probably the Catholic Church’s most celebrated 20th century personality who wasn’t a pope. Named Time’s “Person of the Year” in 1975, Mother Teresa also founded a religious order, the Missionaries of Charity, which has become one of the Catholic Church’s most celebrated institutions, almost universally hailed for its service to the “poorest of the poor.”
(National Catholic Reporter. Christopher White).
The antiquated and often secret inner workings of the Vatican’s bureaucracy have been compared to the government of North Korea in its difficulty to make sense of and understand. That challenge, however, is a bit easier now thanks to a new book penned by a true Vatican insider that has made the complicated web of Vatican operations much more accessible to outsiders. In The Roman Curia: History, Theology, and Organization, just out by Georgetown University Press, Msgr. Anthony Ekpo admits that for centuries, the work of the Vatican’s governance has often perplexed Catholics and non-Catholics alike, leaving some to ask: “Can anything good come from the Roman Curia?”
(New Ways Ministry. Gregory Greiten).
Before attending the theater with a friend last March, we enjoyed dinner at the Saint Kate-The Arts Hotel in Milwaukee. As we wandered the lobby, enjoying the art decorating the walls, we stumbled upon an exhibit room entitled, “The Closet.” Taking a peek inside the small room, I lightheartedly said to my friend, “I am going to step back into the closet. Would you take my picture to capture this moment?” As I momentarily stepped into the closet exhibit, my friend snapped the picture. I quickly leaped out of the closet remarking to him, “I spent way too many years of my life locked up in the closet. I don’t ever wish to go back.” After coming out of the closet publicly as a Roman Catholic priest in December 2017, I have finally been able to live authentically and with integrity, no longer being silenced by our Church leaders, but being truthful about who I am. As we end Pride Month, I want to offer love and support to those in the LGBTQ+ community who let their lights shine brightly for others to see, especially to those who may have stepped out of the closet, but also to those who are unable to come out because of the real negative consequences they would have to endure.
(CNA. Kristina Millare).
Flores, Indonesia’s most Catholic island located in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), is set to become an international pilgrim destination following government support to boost religious tourism. Initial efforts will concentrate on attracting tourists to participate in Semana Santa (Holy Week) celebrations held each year in the Larantuka Diocese as well as the annual festivities organized by the Ruteng Diocese in honor of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary from Aug. 10–15. “Flores Island is famous for its history and Catholic heritage. Flores is also often referred to as Missionary Island; this island has extraordinary potential and attraction for religious tourism, especially through the enculturation of the Catholic Church and the local community’s culture,” stated Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno, Indonesia’s minister for tourism and creative economy, during a webinar held in May organized by the Labuan Bajo Flores Authority Implementing Agency (BPOLBF).
(Silas Isenjia. ACI Africa).
Lasting peace in and rebirth of Africa are only possible if Christians and Muslims on the continent go beyond their differences and decide to uphold “mutual respect and cooperation”, John Cardinal Onaiyekan has said.
(Jude Atemanke. ACI Africa).
The spirit of the Synod on Synodality has been introduced in Africa and is spreading across the world’s second-largest and second-most populous continent, an African member of the Vatican Theological Commission of the Synod has said.
(Crux. Nirmala Carvalho).
A Catholic priest in India says “crisis, conflict and violence are becoming the way of life” in the country, after it suffered a rebuke in the U.S. State Department’s 2023 religious freedom report issued this week. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. government is concerned about the increase in anti-conversion laws, hate speech, demolitions of homes and places of worship of members of minority faith communities in India.
(CNA. Diego López Marina).
In the midst of the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza, the patriarchs and leaders of ancient Christian churches in Jerusalem have signed a joint document in which they denounce that four Israeli municipalities have sought to levy municipal taxes on church properties in violation of “centuries” of historical agreements. The church leaders, including Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Catholic patriarch of Jerusalem, and Franciscan Father Francesco Patton, custos of the Holy Land, accuse local authorities of launching a “coordinated attack” against the Christian presence in the Holy Land.