Katholisch

Cardinal Müller becomes cardinal priest – promotion after ten years

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(Katholisch)

German Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller has been promoted from cardinal deacon to cardinal priest. On Monday, the consistory led by Pope Francis decided to elevate Müller to the class of cardinal priest upon his request, the Vatican announced . Müller’s titular deaconry, Sant’Agnese in Agone, will be temporarily elevated to a titular church during his term of office (“pro hac vice”). After ten years in office, cardinal deacons have the right to ask the Pope for elevating them to cardinal priest and for a titular church (“optatio”). Müller was admitted to the College of Cardinals on February 22, 2014. Following his retirement as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Müller is now a judge at the Apostolic Signatura , the Church’s highest court.

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Cardinal Marx warns: European Union could fall apart again

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(Katholisch)

Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx is concerned about the European Union (EU). This peace project is threatened by “ethnic nationalism,” warned the Archbishop of Munich and Freising on Sunday evening during a service in Munich’s St. Boniface Basilica. The service was held in memory of the journalist Fritz Gerlich (1883-1934), who was murdered in the Dachau concentration camp 90 years ago.

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Bishop Voderholzer prohibits ordinations of Pius Brothers in Zaitzkofen

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(Katholisch).

Regensburg Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer has banned the ordinations of deacons and priests of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X (FSSPX) announced for Saturday in their seminary in Zaitzkofen, Bavaria. As the Diocese of Regensburg announced on Wednesday, Voderholzer stressed in a letter to the rector Pascal Schreiber that the ordinations were being administered without permission. The Pius Brotherhood is ignoring the necessary legal conditions of the Roman Catholic Church for the ordination. “Due to this behavior, I once again feel compelled to protect the order of the Church and, as Ordinarius loci (local bishop, editor’s note), to prohibit the unauthorized ordinations for the area of ​​the Diocese of Regensburg, as I have done in previous years,” Voderholzer said in his letter.

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Woman rejected as deacon: Archbishops must pay compensation

Posted on by Catholic Radar Al

(English.katholisch).

Only men can be ordained as deacons in the Catholic Church. A Belgian court does not want to change this – yet it has awarded compensation for discrimination to a woman who wanted to complete a diaconate course.

The incumbent and emeritus archbishops of Mechelen-Brussels must pay a woman compensation of 1,500 euros each because they did not admit her to deacon training. 

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Victims of abuse renew calls for Bishop Meister to resign

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(Katholisch).

Those affected by abuse have reiterated their call for the resignation of Hanover’s regional bishop Ralf Meister and rejected an offer of talks from the Protestant bishop. “We will not accept the invitation,” the initiative declared in an open letter in Hanover on Friday. “We have not asked Bishop Meister for an audience.” From the perspective of those affected, resignation is more than ever “the only responsible option.” The initiative had already called for the 62-year-old’s resignation at the beginning of June, before the Synod’s deliberations. He must accept the consequences of the church’s inadequate handling of cases of abuse, it said at the time

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For true ecumenism, the Pope must also clean up his church

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(Katholisch.de. FELIX NEUMANN)

Even popes have realistically assessed what the papacy means for ecumenism. Paul VI described his office as the “greatest obstacle” on the path to church unity. With the primacy of jurisdiction and infallibility, the First Vatican Council drove in stakes that are almost impossible to circumvent, and whose status as dogma cemented what was already pretty entrenched. Even below this highest level of formally proclaimed dogma, however, it is not just the papacy in general that is an obstacle to ecumenism, but also many of the decisions of the incumbent pope – despite all the signs, from the cordial dialogue with Orthodox and Anglicans to the inclusion of Coptic martyrs in the Catholic calendar of saints to the reinstatement of the title of Patriarch of the West. The Anglican Ordinariates are still committed to the return to ecumenism, which has long since been overcome with regard to the Eastern Churches. Recognition of Anglican ordinations is not up for debate. The reason for declaring them null and void in the 19th century was questions about the ordination rite – today the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith makes the wording of sacraments so strong that the validity of the sacraments in separate churches is called into question.

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Breakthrough seems to be here – Years-long liturgical dispute likely to be settled

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(Katholisch).

A liturgical dispute that has lasted for years in the Syro-Malabar Church, which is linked to Rome, could now possibly be ended after concessions from both sides. “Subject to the approval of the Vatican, the conflict has been resolved,” an unnamed bishop told the Asian news portal “Ucanews” (Thursday). An official announcement will be made in a day or two. The compromise states that priests in the Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly can continue to celebrate Mass as traditional, said the clergyman, who wished to remain anonymous. “But they must celebrate a uniform Mass in their parishes on Sundays, as approved by the Synod.”

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Söding to absent bishops: Door to Synodal Committee is open

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(Katholisch).

The Vice President of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), Thomas Söding, has appealed to the bishops of Eichstätt, Cologne, Regensburg and Passau to still take part in the Synodal Committee. “The door is still open, but they have to go through it,” said Söding on Monday in an interview with domradio.de . The absence of the four bishops creates an unpleasant situation. However, he hopes that through the “further constructive work of the Synodal Committee and through coordination with the World Synod” this gap in the Bishops’ Conference can ultimately be bridged.

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Media: UND human rights complaint against Vatican judiciary

Posted on by Catholic Radar Al

(Katholisch).

Late last year, ten defendants were tried in the Vatican for financial crimes. Nine of them were convicted, among them Cardinal Becciu. Now the former director of the facilities of the Secretariat of State has filed a complaint against the Vatican.

Investment manager Raffaele Mincione, at the center of the London property scandal and the Vatican trial against him, has filed a formal complaint with the United Nations. According to media reports, Mincione claims that he has been denied his rights in the ongoing proceedings against the Vatican. Mincione also criticizes alleged procedural violations during the investigation, which lasted more than three years.

The Italian worked as an investment manager for the Vatican Secretariat of State from 2014 to 2018. According to the Internet portal “El Pilar”, the complaint to the office of the UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers also contains a repetition of previous legal criticism of the search warrants approved by Pope Francis in 2019 that were used to conduct the investigation. These included four executive acts, the so-called rescripts, which allowed the electronic surveillance of certain suspects by the Gendarmerie Corps for a limited but renewable period. This was intended to guarantee the protection of the research results.

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Mara Klein on Synodal Committee: Hope to have symbolic effect

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(Christoph Brüwer. Katholisch).

Mara Klein is now one of the best-known faces of the Synodal Path. Recently, the non-binary person also joined the steering committee of the Synodal Committee. In an interview with katholisch.de, Mara Klein talks about her*his work on the committee and the pressure she*he is under.

Mara Klein was the only diverse person to stand out at the synodal meetings in Frankfurt. He*she was also elected to the Synodal Committee by the assembly. He*she has now been given a prominent role ahead of the committee’s second meeting: Together with Bishop Georg Bätzing, Irme Stetter-Karp and Bishop Peter Kohlgraf, Mara Klein forms the Presidium of the Synodal Committee. In an interview with katholisch.de, he*she talks about the work of the committee and the hope for change in the Church.

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Cardinal Koch: In principle there is already a consensus on papal primacy

Posted on by Catholic Radar Al

(Katholisch).

For centuries, the Pope claimed clear primacy for all Christian churches. Now new sounds are coming from Rome that might also be acceptable to other church leaders. Curia Cardinal Kurt Koch comments in an interview.

The Vatican has presented a document with proposals for an ecumenical honorary primacy for the Pope. In an interview, Curia Cardinal Kurt Koch of the Dicastery for Christian Unity explains what could happen next.

Question: Cardinal Koch, the Anglican representative in Rome, Archbishop Ian Ernest, called the document a great success. What is this success due to?

Koch: The papal office, which has long been seen as the greatest obstacle to Christian unity, is now becoming an important opportunity to promote this unity and make it more visible.

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Abuse investigation into German Franciscan Minorites presented

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(Katholisch).

On Monday, the Franciscan Minorites were the first order in Germany to present an externally supervised, independent investigation into sexual violence . In it, two lawyers document and evaluate 152 pages of allegations against nine known members of the order since the 1960s. One brother describes assaults on 20 different people.

“One special feature was that a number of those affected had joined the order or had already been there, and there are still affected brothers,” say the authors Petra Ladenburger and Martina Lörsch. Many of those affected reported serious consequences, some of which still affect them today. Some of the accused brothers were charismatic personalities and highly respected. One had built up real “power enclaves” where he was “little or not at all controlled.”

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Oldest manuscript of the Gospel about Jesus’ childhood discovered

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(Katholisch)

Papyrus experts have deciphered a manuscript fragment as the earliest surviving copy of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. They dated the manuscript to the 4th or 5th century, as the Institute for Christianity and Antiquity at the Humboldt University (HU) in Berlin announced on Tuesday . The gospel tells of the childhood of Jesus and is one of the so-called apocryphal writings . These were not included in the Bible, but their stories were very popular and widespread in antiquity and the Middle Ages.

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Report: More hostility towards Christians in Israel

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(Katholisch. ANDREA KROGMANN)

The number of attacks against Christians has increased alarmingly in the past year, according to the Jerusalem-based Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue. On Tuesday, the interfaith organization presented its 2023 annual report on “Attacks on Christians in Israel and East Jerusalem” at the ecumenical Tantur Institute. In it, it calls for urgent action, but also better mechanisms for collecting relevant data.

According to the report, cases of spitting , verbal and physical harassment, serious damage to property and desecration of graves have increased . Based on information from victims, witnesses, churches and police as well as media reports, the center recorded, among other things, 32 cases of attacks on church property, seven cases of violence against Christians and around 30 spitting attacks in 2023 , including against foreign Christian pilgrims.

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Major Archbishop wants to settle liturgy dispute with special synod

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(Katholisch).

The Syro-Malabar Major Archbishop Raphael Thatill has called his church’s synod to a special meeting to discuss the dispute over the liturgical form. The bishops were informed yesterday by Thatill that the synod would be called on June 14, the Syro-Malabar Church announced on Tuesday. The only topic of the two-hour meeting was “questions relating to the holding of the Unified Holy Mass in the Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly”. There have been protests in the archdiocese for years, some of them violent, against the liturgical form decided by the synod. The Eastern Catholic Church did not provide any further information about the planned consultations.

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Auxiliary Bishop Karrer: Diaconate is also possible for women

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(Katholisch).

Rottenburg’s auxiliary bishop Matthäus Karrer has spoken out in favor of allowing women to become deacons. For him, the office of permanent deacon includes pastoral care and the many charitable tasks in the church, not service at the altar, he said at the Catholic Convention in a conversation with the “Women’s Diaconate” network, as the Rottenburg-Stuttgart diocese reported on its website ( Thursday ). “That is why this important office is also possible for women,” said Karrer. Rome’s rejection of the diaconate for women can only be explained by the church leadership’s understanding that the diaconate is an intermediate step to the priesthood. And Rome is blocking this development because a door that has been opened once cannot be closed, said the auxiliary bishop.

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Bätzing: “The Holy Father is open to change”

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(Katholisch).

Bätzing insists on the creation of synodal councils
The president of the German Bishops’ Conference, Georg Bätzing, believes that the creation of synodal councils in the Catholic Church is possible despite the current Vatican ban. He is firmly convinced that a culture of consultation can be achieved in cooperation between the Church and the laity, the co-president of the Synodal Path stated on Thursday during a round table at the 103rd German Catholic Day in Erfurt. The church will always remain an Episcopal church, even when addressing the laity. That’s what defines her.

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CHRISTIAN MEETING IN THE MIDDLE OF GERMANY – RECIPES AGAINST CRISES

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“This Catholic Day is not a home game“

(CHRISTOPH ARENS. Katholisch).

Can prayers change the world? The 103rd German Catholic Congress in Erfurt wants to show this. In view of the many crises and wars, the Christian meeting is looking for different solutions on the first day of substantive debates.

It sounds like the glory of the Catholic Day: the Federal President, Chancellor and Vice Chancellor are coming, the AfD is staying at home – these are the times of the future when the election campaign is taking place. The Erfurt Cathedral Hill, as well as the baroque squares and the more than 20 churches in the city center, form a perfect stage for events, singing together, celebrating and meeting people. At the start of the five-day Christian meeting, the Gloriosa even rang from the Erfurt Cathedral – the largest free-swinging medieval bell in the world.

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Cardinal Marx: Renunciation of Christian traditions promotes radicals

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(Katholisch).

When it comes to integration , Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx criticizes the way in which our own traditions are handled. “As a society with Christian roots, we are facing an integration challenge. We have all underestimated this,” Marx told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (Wednesday). “For example, the fact that people do not celebrate St. Martin or St. Nicholas in kindergarten because it is Christian is fodder for the radicals.” The Archbishop of Munich and Freising added: “You could also say that this is part of our tradition, this rigid omission is not integration.”

Marx warned: “You have to stand by your own and then be curious about what’s new. You can celebrate both: St. Nicholas and Eid al-Fitr. The churches should also take the lead in these meetings. But unfortunately, interreligious dialogue has become very difficult after the Hamas attack

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Bishop Bätzing irritated by Pope’s statement against women’s ordination

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(Katholisch).

The chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK), Georg Bätzing , is surprised and “somewhat irritated” by Pope Francis’ recent negative interview statements on the ordination of women in the Catholic Church . “I have never heard him speak like that before and have often spoken to him personally about these issues,” said the Limburg bishop on Monday evening in Frankfurt. “Let me say: for me, what the Pope says in interviews is not what he does in teaching – but what he decides to do and puts it down in official documents.”

In an interview with the US broadcaster CBS at Pentecost, the presenter asked the Pope whether a Catholic girl would ever have the opportunity to become a deacon and thus a member of the clergy. Francis’ answer was a simple “no”. When asked, he explained: “If they are ordained deacons, then no. But women have always, I would say, taken on the duties of a deacon without being a deacon. Women are great at serving as women – but not at serving with ordination.”

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