There is an "inner continuity" between his pontificate and Francis's, Benedict says in a letter published by Mgr Dario Edoardo Viganò, prefect of the Secretariat for Communication.

The letter also says Francis is a "man of profound philosophical and theological formation".

Benedict wrote the letter in thanks for having received an advance copy of a series of books on Pope Francis's theology.

He says the publications "... help to see the inner continuity between the two pontificates, even with all the differences in style and temperament."

Benedict's letter also says it "contradicts the foolish prejudice of those who see Pope Francis as someone who lacks a particular theological and philosophical formation, while I would have been solely a theorist of theology with little understanding of the concrete lives of today's Christians."

The 11-book series "La Teologia di Papa Francesco" (The Theology of Pope Francis) was written by international theologians and edited by Father Roberto Repole, president of the Italian Theological Association.

The books were published by the Vatican's publishing house.

Translations of the series into English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Polish and Romanian have been commissioned.

Source

• Catholic Herald
• National Catholic Register
• Image: Crux Now

It refers to the experience of seeing first-hand the reality of the Earth in space. From space, national boundaries vanish and the planet is seen in its entirety, as an organic and panoramic whole.

Badilla's use of the expression in this article, first coined by Frank White in 1987, has a very precise purpose here: it refers to perceptual effects as a whole, including emotions, feelings, empathy and the way each individual elaborates perceptions.

Three years on since the start of Francis' pontificate, an overview effect is perhaps now possible. "Gliding over" the first 33 months of his pontificate, we have put together a list of key aspects which is not, however, exhaustive:

(1) Doctrine and reform

Under Francis' reign, the Catholic Church is going through a crucial moment and along its current trajectory, it could be tracing the main elements that will characterise it in the upcoming decades.

Pope Francis has set in motion a gradual but firm reform process, which, if steered towards certain points of no return, will turn the process currently underway into an irreversible historical change.

This "plan" is not based on some Bergoglian model or project. The end goal and the path towards it are simple: a return to the essential, to Jesus and his Gospel.

Francis put it like this: "Christian doctrine is not a closed system incapable of generating questions, doubts, interrogatives - but is alive, knows being unsettled, enlivened. It has a face that is not rigid, it has a body that moves and grows, it has a soft flesh: it is called Jesus Christ." (Florence, 10 November 2015).

This is the true meaning of Pope Francis' reform and if this is not perceived globally, in its entirety, it is impossible to understand Francis' pontificate; in fact there is a risk of heading down misleading paths, making statements of minor importance; above all, there is a risk of confusing form with actual substance. Continue reading

Sources

• Vatican Insider, from an article by Luis Badilla, lead editor of the blog site Il Sismografo.
• Image: Catholic World Report

This year Easter remains the spiritual linchpin, but in popular terms it's more like a warm-up act for next Sunday's double-play canonisations of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II.

This will be the first time two popes have been declared saints in the same ceremony, and although projections vary, well over a million people could turn out in Rome to watch history being made, with millions more following the event on TV or over the Internet.

Here are five things to know about the biggest Vatican happening of early 2014.

First, putting these two popes together amounts to a call for unity between the church's liberal and conservative wings.

In the Catholic street, John XXIII is an icon of the left, remembered as the pope who launched the reforming Second Vatican Council and opened the Church to the modern world.

John Paul II is a hero to the right, the pope who brought down Communism, who fought what he called a "culture of death" behind liberalising currents on abortion and other life issues, and who insisted on strong Catholic identity vis-à-vis secular pressures to water down the faith. Continue reading.

Source: The Boston Globe

Image: Jeunes-Cathos