On Sunday the Vatican published a personal letter Pope Francis wrote to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople suggesting the leaders' gathering.

That same day Cardinal Kurt Koch — who heads the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity — hand-delivered the letter to Patriarch Bartholomew during his visit to Istanbul for the Orthodox Church's patronal feast of St Andrew.

"The now imminent 1,700th anniversary ... will be another opportunity to bear witness to the growing communion that already exists among all who are baptised in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" Francis wrote to Bartholomew.

Reflecting on six decades of Catholic-Orthodox dialogue while looking ahead to future possibilities for unity, Francis was positive.

He acknowledged the progress made since Vatican II's Unitatis Redintegratio decree marked the Catholic Church's official entry into the ecumenical movement 60 years ago.

Koch is firm that efforts toward unity must focus on "the innermost centre of self-revelation in Jesus Christ".

There must be an "ecumenism of blood" he says.

"Christians are not persecuted because they are Catholic, Lutheran or Anglican but because they are Christian."

Building peace in a time of war

While celebrating the "renewed fraternity" which Catholic-Orthodox communities had achieved since Vatican II, Francis also wrote in his letter to Bartholomew that full communion, particularly sharing "the one Eucharistic chalice", remains an unfulfilled goal.

Speaking of contemporary global tensions, Francis pointedly connected ecumenical efforts to peace-building.

"The fraternity lived and the witness given by Christians will also be a message for our world plagued by war and violence" his letter says. He specifically mentioned several war-torn countries by name, including Ukraine, Palestine, Israel and Lebanon.

He also highlighted Orthodox representatives' recent participation in October's Synod on Synodality.

The traditional Catholic-Orthodox exchange of delegations occurs twice a year. Catholic representatives travel to Istanbul for St Andrew's feast on November 30 and Orthodox delegates visit Rome for the feast of Sts Peter and Paul on June 29.

The delegation participated in the Divine Liturgy at the Patriarchal Church of St George, Phanar. It also held discussions with the synodal commission charged with relations with the Catholic Church.

Source

• CNA

The Pope took this and a number of issues off the agenda because he wanted the synod to focus on synodality and not be distracted by controversial and complicated issues.

Discussions about bishops

The Synod on Synodality is meeting in Rome during October, with bishops and lay people discussing how to make the Church more transparent and accountable and less clerical.

They are looking for ways to encourage respectful listening in the Church so Catholics can discern together where the Spirit is leading the Church.

The delegates, however, understand that synodality will not happen unless it is supported by bishops in their dioceses.

Too many bishops see synodality as a threat to their authority or simply a waste of their time. The transparency, listening and accountability required of synodality are time-consuming and don't allow bishops to do whatever they want.

A debated issue

The selection of bishops has been a debated issue since apostolic times. There is no perfect way to select bishops. Every procedure has its plusses and minuses.

In earliest times, the process was very democratic. When a bishop died, the faithful would gather in the cathedral, look around and ask, "Who will be our leader?"

In ideal circumstances, the people reached consensus in their choice of leader. But if there was no consensus, factions formed to support different candidates. That is an inevitable result of democracy.

Too often, in the early days of the Church, divisions in the community led to disagreements that became violent. In 217, pagan soldiers had to break up public brawls among the Christians in Rome fighting over who would be their bishop.

The soldiers arrested both candidates (Callixtus and Hippolytus) and sent them to the tin mines of Sardinia.

Eventually, to avoid the laity fighting over who would be bishop, the electorate was limited to the clergy or part of the clergy, for example, the cathedral chapter.

Pope Leo I (440-461) said that to have a legitimate bishop, he had to be elected by the clergy, accepted by the people and consecrated by the bishops of the region.

The clergy would meet in the cathedral and elect someone. They would bring him out to the people and if they cheered, the clergy could present him to the regional bishops.

If the people booed, the clergy would have to try again. If the bishops of the region refused to ordain him a bishop, the clergy would need to find a new candidate.

This was a checks-and-balances system that would have been loved by the writers of the Federalist Papers.

As the Church got richer, interference in the selection of bishops by kings and nobles became common. They would use the threat of violence to force clergy to elect their candidate, who could be a relative or political supporter.

The papacy also gave kings the right to appoint bishops in exchange for political or financial support. In a few instances, the kings used their power to reform the Church, but the usual result was a very corrupt episcopacy, which prepared the Church for the Reformation.

The great reform of the 19th century was to take the appointment of bishops away from political leaders and give it to the pope, who would be more concerned about the welfare of the Church than government officials. This was possible because Napoleon had destroyed most of the Catholic monarchies.

Leaving the selection of bishops to the total discretion of the Pope led to its own problems when the Vatican placed its interests over the needs of the local church.

After the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI looked for pastoral candidates in the United States, especially ones who got along with their clergy. They contrasted with earlier bishops who were more like bankers and builders.

John Paul II, on the other hand, was shocked by the rejection of "Humanae Vitae," the 1968 encyclical forbidding artificial contraception, by many theologians and even some bishops.

As a result, he looked for candidates who as bishops would enforce his positions on Church issues. Benedict XVI continued John Paul's policies. Loyalty took precedence over pastoral qualities.

Francis is once again looking for pastoral bishops, especially ones who are close to the poor. He is more comfortable with discussion and debate in the Church.

The current selection process is highly dependent on the nuncio, the pope's representative to the local church and government of a country.

He presents three candidates for an open diocese to the Dicastery for Bishops along with a report on the diocese and a dossier on each candidate. He ranks them first, second and third choice.

The nuncio can consult with whomever he wants about the candidates, including bishops, clergy and lay people. He uses a confidential questionnaire to gather information on the candidates.

The Dicastery for Bishops makes a recommendation, which the prefect, or head of the dicastery, takes to the pope. The pope can choose one of the three candidates or tell the prefect to come back with a new list.

No public discussion of candidates is allowed under this system, which makes it difficult to have much lay involvement in the selection process.

The hierarchy fears that public disclosure of the names of the candidates would lead to lobbying efforts and divisive campaigns, but keeping the laity out of the process is an example of clericalism and contrary to synodality.

The people of the diocese can be publicly consulted on what type of person they want, but they are forbidden to mention names publicly. This consultation is rarely done today, although it was more common in the time of Paul VI.

The description of the ideal bishop by the laity in most dioceses was often unrealistic. As one observer noted, "They wanted Jesus Christ with an MBA from Harvard."

Synodality

Synodality demands there be more transparency and consultation with the laity about the appointment of bishops. The Catholic Church could also learn by studying how leaders are chosen in other denominations. If other Churches can successfully choose leaders in a more public process, why can't the Catholic Church?

Although in many parts of the world (like China), lay and clergy involvement would be exploited for political ends, there are places where the church is free to experiment with new methods.

For example, the nuncio could ask the diocesan priests' council to submit three names to him as candidates for bishop. Or he could share the names of his three candidates with the priests' council and get their response. The same could be done with the diocesan pastoral council to involve laity in the process.

Involving more people in the selection process could be divisive. Those who think more democracy is needed in the Church need to recognize democracy does not always work that well in the political realm, even in America.

But including more people in the selection would result in bishops who are embraced by their clergy and people. There are risks in opening up the process, but they are worth taking.

Since no system is perfect, we need to find something with checks and balances like the system proposed by Pope Leo I that involved clergy, laity and the college of bishops under the leadership of the pope. Whether we have the spiritual maturity to pull it off remains to be seen.

Synodality has shown that if we respectfully listen to one another in a prayerful setting, we are more likely to see where the Spirit is leading the Church. It can also help us see who should be the best synodal leaders as bishops.

• First published by RNS
• The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest, is a Senior Analyst at RNS.

Threat of schism

"I pray that there will be no schism," the Pope told the Vatican press corps, "but I am not afraid."

Since then, the threat of a formal split of dissident Catholics from the Church or the creation of a separate sect has grown to be a major theme of Francis' pontificate.

Conservative and progressive Catholics alike have publicly challenged the authority of the Pope and the Vatican, openly or implicitly hinting at an irreparable fracture in the Church.

Recently the Pope has moved against his critics on the right, excommunicating former U.S. papal nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò for the crime of schism.

He forced Cardinal Raymond Burke, the informal dean of the dissident right, from his Vatican post and removed Bishop Joseph Strickland from his seat in Tyler, Texas, for his anti-Francis agitation, mostly on social media.

For these and other conservatives, the Pope has done too much to reconcile the Church with modern social trends: opening its doors to women who want leadership roles and the LGBTQ+ faithful, restricting the saying of the Old Latin Mass and accommodating Beijing's influence on the Church in China.

Liberal Catholics, meanwhile, claim Francis has done too little to promote inclusivity and accountability in the Church, calling on him to allow women to become deacons and blessings for same-sex couples and to do more to solve the issue of clergy sexual abuse.

These issues have motivated the German church's Synodal Path, a years-long movement to answer popular drift away from the Church with progressive, and largely unsanctioned, reforms.

Schisms are part of Church history

Schism is nothing new in the Church, starting with the Great Schism of 1054, which created the divide between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism before the Protestant Reformation fragmented the Western Church in the 16th century.

The most recent faction to fall into schism was the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, founded in 1970 by the French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who rejected the changes of the Second Vatican Council and consecrated his own bishops, for which he was excommunicated

Viganò is thought to come the closest to provoking a similar split.

In 2019, as Francis addressed the disastrous aftermath of the clerical abuse crisis in Ireland, Viganò published a fiery document accusing the Pope of covering up the abuse of minors by ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and calling for him to resign.

Since then, he has called Francis "a heretic" and a "tyrant" and condemned the reforms of the Second Vatican Council while drawing closer to conspiratorial and radical wings of the Church.

Setting himself up at the hermitage of St. Antonio alla Palanzana, about an hour from Rome, Viganò drew a crowd of discontented Catholics: evicted nuns, wealthy Italian aristocrats and reactionary priests.

He created an organisation, Exsurge Domine, with the goal of offering help and financial support to clergy who claim to have been persecuted for their traditionalist views.

What now?

Experts say Francis has skillfully dealt with critics on both sides by waiting for the right moment to act and by issuing documents clarifying his most controversial pronouncements.

Massimo Borghesi, a philosopher and author of the 2022 book "Neoconservatism vs. the Field Hospital Church of Pope Francis," Viganò can no longer be considered a representative voice of the conservative opposition to the Pope.

"I don't think that Viganò's excommunication implies a schism," Borghesi told Religion News Service on Monday (July 15).

"It might still concern an absolute minority of traditionalists who believe that the Church in Rome has betrayed the tradition of the Church following the Second Vatican Council," he said, but he has reached the apex of his following in the United States, where he had seen the most support.

"I don't think this interests the majority of the American Church," said Borghese.

According to an April 2022 survey by the Pew Research Center, a three-quarter majority of Catholics in the U.S. view the Pope favorably.

Even though the country's political polarisation is a factor in their opinion — almost nine in 10 Catholic Democrats support Francis, compared to 63 percent of Republican faithful — conservative Catholics recognise that the Pope's election was legitimate, even if they dislike his policies, Borghesi said.

"The conditions for the schism are not there. They are simply awaiting the next Pope," he said.

If Francis had gone after the archbishop in 2019 or 2020, Borghesi believes, he might have created a deeper split.

Instead, he allowed time for tensions to pass and for many of his reforms to be assimilated into Church life.

In the meantime, Viganó's increasingly radical positions have served to alienate his staunchest American supporters, who have stayed mostly quiet since the Vatican's sentence in early July.

"These processes have cooled spirits and allowed more clarity within the Church," he said.

German Synodal Path

Similarly, Vatican chroniclers say, Francis has come through the direst threat from the left, as the German church's Synodal Path has retreated from its most radical positions.

In 2022, German theologian Katharina Westerhorstmann announced she was resigning from the synodal commission that was studying relationships and sexuality because the Synodal Path's rejection of official Catholic doctrine had drifted dangerously toward schism.

"For me there were some discussions that crossed the line, especially the notion where they seemed to have already decided where this was going and that those opinions that didn't fit into that direction, shouldn't really count," Westerhorstmann said.

She and a group of theologians believed that while reforms were necessary to ensure safeguarding for children and vulnerable adults in the Church, certain doctrinal aspects should remain unchanged.

Westerhorstmann told RNS that while a schism was a definite possibility between 2020 and 2021, that is no longer the case today, despite a flare-up last year, when priests in Germany began blessing same-sex couples in violation of Rome's ban on the practice.

"Right now, it seems that the negotiations with the Vatican are going well; there is more openness maybe on both sides," she said.

"In fact, I would say that there is no risk of a schism in the German church anymore at all."

Both extremes now await the next conclave and the future Pope, where the future of the Catholic Church will once again be decided.

Do we care?

Some observers say the greatest threat to the Church today is not passionate dissent but disinterest.

Aurelio Porfiri, author of "The Right Hand of the Lord Is Exalted: A History of Catholic Traditionalism from Vatican II to Traditionis Custodes," warned that while a full-blown schism is unlikely, a different kind of split is already underway.

"Some Catholic circles, not just conservatives, are drawing away from the Church" said Porfiri.

"I would describe this as a schism of indifference, where some Catholics are leaving the Church, not because they object to one particular aspect or issue, but because they are no longer engaged."

• First published in RNS
• Claire Giangravé is an author at Religion News Service.

He was the papal nuncio in Washington from 2011-2016.

In 2018 Viganò reportedly hid after alleging Pope Francis and other senior clerics knew of US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's sexual misconduct for years and did nothing about it.

He called for the Pope to resign, saying Francis was a "false prophet" and a "servant of Satan."

Summoned to the Vatican

The Vatican rejected the 83-yer old Viganò's accusations of a Vatican cover-up of sexual misconduct. It summoned him to answer charges of schism and of denying the pope's legitimacy.

On Friday, the Vatican doctrinal office said Viganò's public comments showed he refused "to recognise and submit" to the Pope.

Viganò had also rejected the Second Vatican Council's liberal reforms. They were not legitimate, he claimed.

"At the conclusion of the penal process, the Most Reverend Carlo Maria Vigano was found guilty of the reserved delict (violation of the law) of schism" the Vatican said in a statement.

He has been excommunicated from the Church the Vatican announced.

Unrepentant Viganò

In a message on X, Viganò remained unrepentant, publishing the full text of the decision against him, which warned that he could be expelled from the Roman Catholic priesthood if he persisted in his stance.

He urged Catholic faithful to voice their support for him, quoting Jesus in the New Testament: "If they keep quiet, the stones themselves will start shouting".

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernandez, head of the Doctrine of the Faith office, and its secretary Father John Joseph Kennedy, signed the Vatican ruling.

Although - as is usual in such cases - the Pope did not sign the announcement, it is said to be "highly unlikely that the punishment was meted out without his approval.

Attacking the pope

Viganò, who mostly communicates via the X social network, announced last month that he had refused to take part in the Vatican disciplinary proceedings.

"I do not recognise the authority of the tribunal that claims to judge me, nor of its Prefect, nor of the one who appointed him," he said, referring to Fernandez and Francis.

Viganò referred to Francis only by his surname "Bergoglio" and accused him of representing an "inclusive, immigrationist, eco-sustainable and gay-friendly" Church.

The Church has strayed from its true message, he wrote.

Francis has angered many conservatives with his attitude to divorcees and the LGBT community. Mercy and forgiveness should come before the strict enforcement of Catholic doctrine, he says.

Conservatives and traditionalists are also disturbed by Francis' championing of migrant rights, fighting climate change and condemning capitalism's excesses.

Source

• NBC

This could lead to his excommunication and removal from the clerical state.

On 20th May, senior officers of the Vatican's Dicastery opened an extrajudicial penal trial against Viganó.

The decree states that this process was deemed appropriate without prior investigation, as the evidence was already collected and publicly available.

Archbishop Viganó, a former nuncio to the United States, is accused of making public statements that deny elements necessary to maintain communion with the Catholic Church.

The statements include rejecting the legitimacy of Pope Francis, breaking communion with him and rejecting the Second Vatican Council. Such actions are defined as schism under Canon 1364 of the Code of Canon Law. This mandates automatic excommunication for such offences.

The trial is set to follow Canon 1364, which also allows for additional penalties if the gravity of the offence warrants them, including dismissal from the clerical state.

If Viganó is convicted, the penalties will require papal confirmation.

Pope's leadership a "cancer"

Archbishop Viganó was summoned to the Vatican to respond to the charges and presented himself on 20th June. He submitted a written defence, later published on a supporter's blog, describing the charges as an "honour".

In the letter, he referred to Pope Francis by his given name, Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Viganó also referred to his leadership as a "cancer" within the Church.

"It is no coincidence that the accusation against me concerns the questioning of the legitimacy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and the rejection of Vatican II: the Council represents the ideological, theological, moral and liturgical cancer of which the Bergoglian ‘synodal church' is necessary metastasis" the archbishop wrote.

Vigano considers himself as a successor of the apostles and in full communion with the Church, however he rejects the "neo-modernist heresies of the Second Vatican Council".

A canon lawyer who reviewed Viganó's defence noted that his statements affirm the charges of schism, calling it a clear declaration of separation from the Church. This reinforces the prosecution's case.

The extrajudicial procedure is expected to conclude swiftly. If Viganó is found guilty, his excommunication will be publicly declared and remain in force until he repents. The penalties, including potential dismissal from the clerical state, would then await the Pope's confirmation.

According to Vatican News, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said on Thursday in reaction to the news: "Archbishop Viganò has taken some attitudes and some actions for which he must answer."

Parolin added: "I am very sorry because I always appreciated him as a great worker, very faithful to the Holy See, someone who was, in a certain sense, also an example.

"When he was apostolic nuncio he did good work."

Sources

America Magazine

The Pillar

AP News

Catholic News Agency

CathNews New Zealand

Instructions from the Syro-Malabar Church head, Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil, and from the archdiocesan administrator Bosco Puthur, were supposed to be read at Masses last week.

The synod required that Mass be celebrated facing the people during the Liturgy of the Word and facing the altar during the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

Priests were warned in writing they would be excommunicated if they were to conduct any Mass other than in the synodal form after 3 July. Nor would parishioners attending such a Mass fulfil the Sunday obligation.

Defying the warning, clergy and parishioners from 321 churches in the archdiocese refused to do so.

They say they intend to stick to the full people-facing Mass even after the deadline.

Protests and verbal assaults

Protesters have set the archbishop's instructions on fire, thrown them into water and binned them.

At the Udayamperoor synodal church, some of the laity started an argument over the Archbishop's instructions during Mass..

Churchgoers reportedly pushed and shoved at each other over the issue.

Police had to intervene (see image) to maintain law and order.

Why defy the instructions

Clergy refused to read the instructions because they said facing the people throughout the celebration of the Mass represented their local tradition. It is also more in keeping with the liturgical teachings of the Second Vatican Council, they argued.

Over 450 priests and every parish committee in the archdiocese have stated multiple times before the Synod and the Vatican that they will offer mass only where the priest faces the congregation throughout the ritual. So says a "Lay People to the Fore" protest group spokesman.

"But the Church leadership has never considered the stand of the diocese or intervened to find a solution and instead has always tried to impose its agenda."

Abominable clericalism

One priest wrote to all the bishops in India.

"Archbishop Andrews Thazhath misused his power as the Apostolic Administrator and has obviously misguided and misinformed Pope Francis on the liturgical issues of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly.

"His unethical acts and reports have snowballed for the worse, which significantly is a minor issue of a rubric to a serious issue of ecclesial communion.

"This is, to say the least, utterly un-Christian and against the basic Gospel principles."

It was "abominable" he says.

Another priest says Thazhath was once the strongest proponent of the Mass versus populum (facing the people), "while now he has shamelessly backtracked by contending that the narrative and the theology is erroneous".

"One cannot miss the cruel, irresponsible and wild allegations ... in the latest circular ... which has pronouncedly condemned the people of the Archdiocese to be eternal victims of hierarchal apathy and highhandedness."

Source

• Times of India
• Crux Now

In an interview with Austrian newspaper "Kleine Zeitung" Halik emphasised the need for the Church to move away from a perceived attitude of arrogance and exclusivity.

"The Church must shed the pride and arrogance of those who possess the whole truth" Halik stated.

He advocated for a shift towards a more open and receptive approach.

"We must be a listening church, not only a teaching church but above all a learning church" said Halik.

Msgr Halik believes a move towards inclusivity should accompany what would be a radical transformation.

He envisions the Church becoming "a house for all", fostering dialogue within Christianity (ecumenism) and across religious and cultural boundaries.

According to Halik, this vision necessitates a heightened awareness of the Church's ecological responsibility for the planet.

"It is necessary to find a way out of the structure of its closed confessional clerical system towards universality in the sense of a deeper and broader ecumenism" said the religious sociologist.

Renewed hope

The philosopher acknowledged attempts at reform in the past, citing the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) as a step in the right direction. However he believed these efforts yielded "only partial results".

Halik said he finds renewed hope in the ongoing synodal process initiated by Pope Francis, which aims to increase collaboration and dialogue within the Church.

According to Halik, the future will bring many different forms of Christianity. However, this presupposes the development of a culture of respect and mutual recognition.

Halik argued for liberation from "the zeal and fanaticism of revolutionaries and inquisitors" who seek to achieve an ideal state by their own means. He also urged freedom from the temptation to be satisfied with the current state of the Church and religious knowledge.

"Theology must not become an ideology. In our theology there must always be room for mystery, for further seeking, questioning and silent adoration" concluded Halik.

Sources

Katholisch

Vatican News

CathNews New Zealand

Speaking at a lecture in Salzburg, Kasper highlighted the need for adaptation amidst ongoing synodal changes and decentralisation within the Church.

He suggested revitalising the early Church tradition of provincial and plenary councils to accommodate cultural diversity better.

Kasper proposed a new function for cardinals.

He envisioned them serving as presidents of plenary councils in their respective regions, representing the churches within those areas.

This proposal would establish a bicameral system comprising the Synod of Bishops and the Council of Cardinals.

Kasper presented these ideas during the "Benedictines as Cardinals" symposium at St Peter's Archabbey in Salzburg.

Cardinals became curia officials

During his lecture "Cardinals in the Service of the Church and the Papacy", Kasper traced the evolution of the cardinalate. He noted its fluctuating responsibilities and increasing politicisation over time.

Kasper noted that in the late Middle Ages, the cardinals were "increasingly drawn into the decline and decadence of Rome".

Then, in modern times, cardinals increasingly became curia officials - in parallel to the prince-bishops who continued to exist.

Kasper explained that Pope John XXIII through the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) rediscovered an earlier ecclesiastical leadership function that had been sidelined.

According to Kasper, it is necessary to return to the origins of the College of Cardinals. That is evangelisation and celebrating the Eucharist in communion with the Bishop of Rome.

"Both communion in the Word and communion in the sacrament were given as a guiding principle by the Second Vatican Council in its communion ecclesiology.

"We hope to keep Francis for a few more years; his successors will conclude his reforms" remarked Cardinal Kasper, underscoring the urgency of the proposed reforms.

Sources

Katholisch

Il Messaggero

CathNews New Zealand

Sadly, in many parts of the world there is a Eucharistic famine, precisely because there are no priests to celebrate the Eucharist. This problem has been going on for decades and is only getting worse.

Last year, the Vatican reported that while the number of Catholics worldwide increased by 16.2 million in 2021, the number of priests decreased by 2,347.

As a result, on average there were 3,373 Catholics for every priest in the world (including retired priests), a rise of 59 people per priest.

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate reports that in 1965 there were 59,426 priests in the United States. In 2022, there were only 34,344 .

Over much the same period, the number of Catholics has increased to 72.5 million in 2022, from 54 million in 1970.

Priests are also getting older. In 2012, a CARA study found that the average age of priests rose to 63 in 2009, from 35 in 1970.

When a Jesuit provincial, the regional director of the order, told Jesuits at a retirement home not long ago that there was a waiting list to get in, a resident wag responded, "We are dying as fast as we can."

In many rural areas of the United States, priests no longer staff parishes but simply visit parishes once a month or less frequently. In 1965, there were only 530 parishes without priests. By 2022, there were 3,215 according to CARA.

All of these numbers are only going to get worse.

In the early 1980s, the archbishop of Portland came to a rural parish to tell them they would no longer have a priest and that most Sundays they would have a Scripture service, not a Mass.

A parishioner responded, "Before the Second Vatican Council, you told us that if we did not go to Mass on Sunday, we would go to hell.

After the Council, you told us that the Eucharist was central to the life of the Church. Now you are telling us that we will be just like every other Bible church in our valley."

Many American bishops have tried to deal with the shortage by importing foreign priests to staff parishes, but Vatican statistics show that the number of priests worldwide is also decreasing.

New U.S. immigration rules are also going to make it more difficult to employ foreign priests in the United States.

The Catholic hierarchy has simply ignored the obvious solution to this problem for decades.

Under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the discussion of married priests was forbidden. Leaders in the hierarchy tended to live in large cities where the shortage had less of an impact than in rural areas.

Even Pope Francis, who expressed his respect for married clergy in Eastern Catholic churches, did not respond positively when the bishops meeting at the Synod for the Pan-Amazon Region voted 128-41 to allow married deacons to become priests.

At the recent meeting of the Synod on Synodality, the issue of married priests was hardly mentioned.

The decline in the number of vocations has many explanations depending on whom you ask. Conservatives blame the reforms coming out of the Second Vatican Council.

Certainly, the council did emphasise the holiness of marriage and the vocation of the laity. Priests seemed less special after the council.

Prior to the council, only a priest could touch the consecrated host. Today, lay ministers of Communion do so at nearly every Mass.

However, sociologists note that vocations decline when families have fewer children and when children have greater educational and employment opportunities.

Thus, in a family with only one or two children, the parents prefer grandchildren to a son who is a priest.

And, in the past, priests were the most educated person in the community and therefore had great status. Today, parishes can have many lawyers, doctors and other professionals, and becoming a priest does not confer the status it used to.

Those who point to the continued increases in vocations in Africa and Asia need to listen to the sociologists.

Already, there are fewer vocations in urban areas of India where families have fewer children and more opportunities for education are available.

Africa and Asia are not the future of the church. They are simply slower in catching up with modernity.

Anti-clericalism has also impacted vocations, first in Europe and now in America. Priests are no longer universally respected. They are often treated with ridicule and contempt. Being a priest is counter-cultural.

Despite this, there are still many Catholics who are willing to take up this vocation. People are being called to priesthood, but the hierarchy is saying no because those who feel called are married, gay or women.

A 2006 survey by Dean Hoge found that nearly half of the young men involved in Catholic campus ministry had "seriously considered" ministry as a priest, but most also want to be married and raise a family.

Having a married clergy will not solve all the church's problems, as we can see in Protestant churches.

Married ministers are involved in sex abuse, have addictions and can have the same clerical affectations as any celibate priest. But every employer will tell you that if you increase the number of candidates for a job, the quality of the hire goes up.

Nor is allowing priests to marry simply about making them happier. For the Catholic Church it is a question of whether we are going to have the Eucharist or not.

At the Last Supper, Jesus said, "Do this in memory of me." He did not say, "Be celibate."

• First published by Religion News Service
• Thomas J. Reese is a Jesuit priest, is a Senior Analyst at Religion News Service. Previously he was a columnist at the National Catholic Reporter (2015-17) and an associate editor (1978-85) and editor in chief (1998-2005) at America magazine.

In the terminology used in the survey questions, young U.S. Catholic priests tend to be theologically traditional and politically conservative, particularly compared to older priests. Meanwhile, U.S. Catholics as a whole are becoming politically more liberal.

Amid fear in some corners of the church that the Second Vatican Council is being undone or glee in others that orthodoxy will always triumph, there is a strong temptation to view this dynamic as a contest in which one side is winning and another losing, to follow the "us versus them" logic that pervades American society.

But a more sober view would recognise that we are divided and fractured in ways that hurt all of us. And this is precisely what the Synod on Synodality is calling us to address in the coming year.

All Catholics, but perhaps priests most of all, should see this data as a mandate to heal the scandal of division within our own church.

Pope Francis' call to synodality is an opportunity for U.S. Catholic priests to name divisions and seek reconciliation, and in the process draw synodality deeper into the mystery of Christ's priesthood.

The data

The data, part of a survey released in October 2022 by The Catholic Project at the Catholic University of America, reveals striking trends about the U.S. church.

The finding that is attracting the most attention is that a large majority of young priests ordained since 2005 consider themselves politically conservative and theologically orthodox.

The most surprising numbers? These young priests generally value the approval of Pope Francis.

While they value being held accountable to the Holy Father slightly less than do priests ordained before 2000, the difference across generations is not great. Other data, however, as well as oceans of anecdotes, suggest that there are tensions between the U.S. church and the Holy Father.

The most disturbing revelation from the data? The lack of trust in bishops. As the initial analysis of this survey showed, many U.S. priests do not trust their bishops.

This lack of trust is exacerbated in larger dioceses, where those priests might not feel known by their bishops. That lack of trust also arises in places where priests do not feel politically or theologically aligned with their ordinary.

Each diocese has its own history and circumstances, but the big picture is that trust is down from surveys in 2001 and 1993.

Battlefield or field hospital?

One interpretation of this data is alarm that theologically conservative priests are taking over and that Vatican II is being undone.

Another is joy at the perception that orthodoxy and traditionalism will always win in the end, despite the best efforts of wily Jesuits or radical nuns.

Both of these positions assume that the church is a battlefield with winners and losers.

But the full picture is much worse.

The actual data foreshadows not a world with winners and losers, but one where we all lose.

To be sure, not all differences amount to divisions. We should both expect and respect diversity of all kinds in the church. The church, after all, is supposed to be universal.

Yet the survey does indeed paint a picture of multiple levels of estrangement: younger priests from older priests, younger priests from congregations and a great many priests from their bishops. The mistrust and dysfunction are everywhere and in almost everyone.

Therein, however, lies an opportunity we have to seize.

Because such disunity is not the church. As Pope Francis reminded us in a speech during the synod, the church is "God's faithful people, saint and sinner, a people convoked and called with the force of the beatitudes and of Matthew 25."

Jesus was aware of the "political schemes of his time," the pope said, but in fidelity to the Father, he chose to build something different: the "simple and humble people who walk in the presence of the Lord."

The U.S. church, in other words, has a lot of work to do.

Synodality toward communion

Thankfully, the next stage of the synodal process gives us an opportunity to do just that.

The data points to the kind of work that might be done between now and the second gathering of the synod in Rome in October 2024.

Priests need to speak to each other within and across generations. Congregations and priests need to talk to each other. Bishops need to win back the trust of their priests.

And all of this needs to take place with a serious concern for the pathologies of political polarisation within the church, the crisis of authority across all aspects of social life in the United States and, above all, the clerical sex abuse crisis.

What if the U.S. church organized synodal conversations and activities around these tattered bonds that bind us?

What if this became a focal activity for Catholic parishes, religious orders and universities? Many proposals in the synthesis report of the 2023 Rome meeting of the synod would be relevant to that undertaking.

If the reaction to the survey data has been unsettling, at least we are perhaps now in a space where we can begin to name our common reality.

Reconciliation cannot happen without truth-telling. If Catholics could speak openly and honestly to each other, that would be an important step in uniting charity and truth.

Such truth-telling would be the beginning of rebuilding trust, of turning down the temperature on our conflicts as we re-humanize each other as persons with gifts.

It would help us remember what we often know about our friends but not of our enemies: that we are so much more than our politics, that we are made for love, not division. Read more

• Bill McCormick, S.J., is a contributing editor at America and a visiting assistant professor at Saint Louis University in the departments of political science and philosophy.

The fractures are most obvious on social media where even priests, bishops and cardinals preach from cyber pulpits all along the theological (or, more correctly, the ideological) spectrum.

Pope Francis recently moved against the latest online episcopal celebrity from the doctrinally rigid end of that spectrum when he relieved Bishop Joseph Strickland from his duties as head of the Diocese of Tyler.

Appointed to the small Texas see in 2012 by Benedict XVI, Strickland has been one of the most vocal critics of the current pope, whom he has publicly accused of undermining the Deposit of the Faith.

Francis like John Paul II and Benedict XVI

The bishop marked his 65th birthday on Halloween by joining other like-minded traditionalists at a conference in Rome where he quoted a letter accusing Francis of being an "usurper".

Using the words of someone else to even suggest the current pope is illegitimate is huge, even by Texas standards. Doing so in the pope's own diocese was a huge and lethal mistake.

Strickland has since gained a few more supporters from among the various anti-Francis critics and crackpots, including non-Americans who probably had never heard of him before he was removed from Tyler on November 11th.

If anybody in the pope's inner circle thought this might in any way lead to a cessation of hostilities towards Francis, they miscalculated.

The pro-Strickland crowd that uses social media as its preferred battleground, have called the pope every name in the book. Dictator is one of their favorites.

Interesting how they have forgotten that Benedict XVI and John Paul II also removed a number of bishops in their days.

The snipers have also attacked Francis and his "magic circle" - including the papal nuncio to Washington, Cardinal Christoph Pierre - for lack of transparency and for refusing to state the reasons why Strickland was removed.

The Roman Pontiff is under no obligation to do so. Benedict and John Paul never did so, either.

No one can hold a candle to Archbishop Viganò

Bishop Strickland is only the most recent high profile Catholic to rail against the current temporal head of the Catholic Church. But he is certainly not the only one.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former nuncio to the United States, was one of the first to really veer off the reservation.

And he did so in a spectacular and unprecedented way in August 2018 when he issued an excoriating open letter urging Francis to resign, accusing him of covering up abuse committed by the former cardinal and now defrocked priest Theodore McCarrick.

No one (at least up till now) can hold a candle to the 82-year-old Viganò, who lobs his deranged rantings and conspiracy theories like bombs in order to discredit the Jesuit pope.

He does this from a secret hiding place, no less, so much does he have the courage of his convictions. It's not too difficult for most reasonable people to see that the attention-seeking Viganò is more than a bit of a "nutter".

We'll have to see if Bishop Strickland, who also seems to like the limelight, intends to follow him down that same road.

After all, he was the first bishop to publicly vouch for Viganò's credibility the very morning the former nuncio issued his open letter attacking the pope.

More credible critics of the pope

But if a loose cannon like Viganò can be easily dismissed, other fierce critics of Francis cannot be.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller immediately comes to mind.

The German theologian and former bishop of Regensburg, who turns 76 on New Year's Eve, is not stupid.

One can disagree with his theological and ecclesiological views, but he represents some of the most classic positions on issues concerning Catholic faith and morals, issues that Francis — legitimately — has opened up for review and reformulation.

Müller, of course, is also the former head of what is now called the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF). Benedict XVI appointed him to the post in July 2012, just months before resigning the papacy.

Francis kept him as head of the doctrinal office after being elected pope in March 213, made him a cardinal in February 2014 at the first consistory of the new pontificate, but then decided not to reappoint him DDF prefect in 2017 when Müller completed his first five-year term of office.

The German cardinal has criticised Francis openly and publicly, most thoroughly in a book-length interview with Italian journalist Franca Giansoldati of the Rome-based daily, Il Messaggero.

He's been more or less respectful in tone, while not hiding his bewilderment at the way the Argentine pope has broken with longstanding Vatican protocols and business-as-usual practices - the same reason why many Francis supporters express their jubilation.

The Synod's way of describing the divisions

There are arguably scores (or more) of bishops and untold numbers of priests who are more sympathetic with some variation of Müller's point of view than with the pope's.

And the lay faithful are all probably over the board. It is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the divisions. But, for sure, the Church is deeply divided.

However, you probably would not draw that conclusion if your first introduction to present-day Catholicism was the "Synthesis Report" that the Synod of Bishops issued on October 28 at the end of the first session of its two-pronged assembly on synodality.

Just take the 42-page text and do a simple word search.

You will find "division" only once in the context of the Church. It's in a section that is listed as number 8, "Church is Mission". In paragraph "f", one finds the following:

In all contexts, there is a danger, that was expressed by many at the Assembly, of "clericalising" the laity, creating a kind of lay elite that perpetuates inequalities and divisions among the People of God.

It would be a stretch to say this is any sort of reference to the current divisions mentioned above.

Similarly, words like "disagreements", "fractures", and "factions" do not appear.

And, for obvious and good reasons, the Synthesis Report - which is inspirational in many ways, but also rather anodyne - avoids naming any sort of "liberal" ("progressive") vs. "conservative" ("traditionalist") tensions or divisions that are, perhaps with the use of more appropriate "labels", a glaring reality in the Church today.

"Labels" is actually found in a section 15 on "Ecclesial Discernment and Open Questions" where it states that, in the Gospels, Jesus "never begins from the perspective of prejudices or labels, but from the authenticity of relationship...".

Meanwhile, the word "controversial" is found six times - three times in reference to "matters", twice regarding "issues", and once for "questions".

Bishops, cardinals, and the next conclave

As for the divisions with the hierarchy the document says this:

"Some bishops express discomfort when they are asked to speak on matters of faith and morals where full agreement within the Episcopate is lacking.

"Further reflection is needed on the relationship between episcopal collegiality and diversity of theological and pastoral views (section 12, paragraph "h")."

Our Catholic leaders, we're told, don't feel comfortable talking about matters about which they disagree.

Once again, this does not seem to properly reflect the reality of what is happening in the Church right now. And that, in and of itself, is alarming.

But divisions there are and, in fact, not a few bishops are publicly giving voice to them, from one side or another (and everywhere in between).

So... what will all this mean when the cardinals are finally called together to elect Pope Francis' successor?

Will they adopt the method of the Synod assembly's Synthesis Report and refuse to acknowledge straightforwardly and descriptively the divisions that exist?

More importantly, on what side of the divide (or where along the spectrum) do the cardinals who will be casting ballots for the next pope line up?

Francis, who will be 87 in a few weeks' time, has named more than 70 percent of the cardinal-electors.

But don't be fooled into thinking they will pick someone who will continue leading the Church along the path he has mapped out.

It may sound strange, but a good number of these cardinals could hardly be called "Francis bishops" in the sense that this term has come to mean.

It is more than likely that they will be forced to choose a compromise candidate. Whether that will be enough to heal the Church's divisions, however, is anyone's guess.

• Rome-based Robert Mickens is La Croix International Editor. He regularly comments on CNN, the BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and writes a weekly column, Letter from Rome.
• First published in La Croix International. Republished with permission.

The working document for this first assembly is to be unveiled to the press on June 20 and the names of those who will be participating in next October's gathering are also expected to be made public soon.

This is a momentous time in the life of the Church and the expectations of many Catholics are very high: in some ways they are comparable to those for a conclave to elect a new pope, certainly not those for previous assemblies of the Synod of Bishops.

Looking back from an historical perspective, when we try to figure out such expectations for the synodal process and, in the long run, synodality, an immediate and natural term of comparison is the Second Vatican Council.

Joan Chittister, the well-known Benedictine Sister and author from the United States, addresses exactly this issue in a column published on June 9 in National Catholic Reporter.

She looks at the relationship between synodality and Vatican II, not in theological language or concepts, but in terms of results.

The title — "Nothing really changed after Vatican II. But synodality may make a difference" — captures the argument Chittister tries to make.

"Whatever changes the people had wanted from the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council were, it seemed, formless, silent, lost in the bustle of a busy church frozen in a medieval mind.

"Instead, after 400 years without a council of reform, the kinds of changes the people had expected from this council lay yet in Rome, drying in wet ink there and largely ignored here," Chittister says.

Synodality: the vehicle that finally delivers?

She blames John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and the bishops for the failure to implement Vatican II, but argues that the undermining of the council started even before these two popes began making episcopal appointments:

The bishops from around the world who attended Vatican II voted yes for all of its documents, but once back on home soil, many simply ignored them, that's why.

Even more to the point, few, if any, priests taught the council documents to their congregations.

Few if any priests admitted that they themselves had not bothered to read the documents either.

Oh, a few churches redesigned their confession boxes and a few more took down the altar rails, but really, other than that and the move to the vernacular in all liturgical events — nothing much did happen. Most of the changes were window dressing.

But Chittister says synodality may be the vehicle that finally brings about all the changes that Vatican II promised but never delivered.

This time, Pope Francis is having the faithful themselves become part of the agenda-making process before the synod even convenes. The laity has been invited into the intellectual theology of the church rather than simply poised to bring pious concern to the event.

This time, the laity themselves have been deemed to determine what topics must be considered — married priests, genderism, marriage theology, equality, women priests, whatever.

They will be allowed to speak to what 99% of the church rather than the 1% of the church, its clerics, allow to be heard.

Mistaken and misleading from an historical and theological point of view

I have the greatest respect for Joan Chittister. Not many have done what she has done to keep the trajectories of Vatican II alive. She has changed a lot of lives for the better.

I also experienced, first-hand, the warm welcome of her religious community, the Benedictine Sisters of Erie (Pennsylvania), when I was invited to speak about Pope Francis a few years ago.

Chittister makes a number of valid points:

• the disappointments about ecumenism,
• the dismissal of the role of women in the Church,
• the absence of lay ministerial life in many of our churches.

Much of this is painfully true in many places, especially in the United States.

At the same time, her reading of Vatican II (at least as she describes it in her latest article) is profoundly mistaken and misleading from both an historical and theological point of view.

This carries serious risks as we approach a key moment in the "synodal process".

Historically, the council did change Catholicism, despite the shortcomings in its implementation.

It's a very complicated picture, and one that is still being drawn: what worked and did not work on a global scale; different stages in the council's reception in different parts of the world (or even in the same country); failures that cannot be attributed solely to the papacy or the clergy; the time span needed to measure the effects of a council like Vatican II.

An excessive focus on a narrow set of issues

The widespread impression from the Anglo-American point of view is that, while Vatican II changed Catholicism's relationship with other Christian denominations, world religions, and the secular world, it failed to fundamentally change the Church's internal dynamics and institutional structures of power.

But Vatican II also changed the Church internally, from a theological point of view, in ways that we now often minimize or take for granted.

The simple verdict that Vatican II was a failure is, in some ways, the flip side of arguments made by neo-conservative and neo-traditionalist Catholics in the United State.

Both sides place an excessive focus on a narrow set of issues and are dismissive of what the council meant for Catholics of other countries and even many American Catholics.

Theologically, the question is not - in my opinion - whether the council still needs to be implemented and, on some issues, augmented.

Vatican II took place sixty years ago and the papal magisterium itself has built on its teaching in undeniable ways, sometimes going beyond the letter of the council.

The question is how synodality can pick up the thread of Vatican II, together with hierarchical and collegial dimensions in the life of the Church.

A synodal Church will redefine those hierarchical and the collegial aspects, not remove them.

This renewed form of Catholicism is still in part amorphous. It is taking shape before our very eyes, and there is no clear canonical or ecclesiological script for us to follow.

But we know that there is a compass for this journey, and it is the Second Vatican Council - not just what its documents said (or failed to say), but also what the reception of Vatican II has taught us from 1962 right up to our own day.

Preparing for the long haul

To a given reading of what happened at Vatican II and its effects corresponds a set of expectations from synodality.

Those who see the council as a disappointment or a failed revolution are likely to look for a reenactment of that revolution.

But that is even more impossible today as it was back then. On the opposite side, who - with a certain amount of Schadenfreude - see the present situation of the Catholic Church in the secularized West as evidence of the failure of Vatican II, are likely to grab this opportunity to try and abrogate the developments of conciliar teaching, beginning with the liturgical reform.

If we see the council as a failure, and synodality as a chance to repair that failure (or worse, to avenge it), then we are bound to fail for sure. Synodality can change the Church, but not overnight.

The Synod assembly next October - the first of the two on synodality - is not likely to make any groundbreaking decisions. We must be prepared for the long haul.

In a Church that has become an integral part of the global media show business, managing expectations has become much more important than before.

Discernment is needed for expectations too, and this is much more difficult, because their dynamics are very different from the those of a spiritual conversation in a synodal gathering.

The expectations surrounding synodality are a delicate issue for another reason.

When John XXIII died in June 1963, the cardinals elected Paul VI precisely because he was in favor of continuing and completing John's council.

But if too many of the current cardinal-electors are frightened or alarmed by the Synod on synodality, they may vote for someone at the next conclave who is eager to bring Francis' project to a halt.

• Massimo Faggioli is a Church historian, Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University (Philadelphia) and a much-published author and commentator. He is a visiting professor in Europe and Australia.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

Kasper, who is the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity's President Emeritus, points to the Second Vatican Council's path in synodal fellowship.

The Church would have a future only if it continued on that path - a path that the German synodal path "had failed to take," he says.

This won't mean acting like bookkeepers, but "in creative loyalty and synodal fellowship by listening to God's Word and to one another together.

"In my and other people's opinion, the German ‘synodal' gives the impression that it can and feels it has to discover a new Church and must push through its own agenda."

As the German way forward has "unfortunately failed", he says he puts all the more hope in the World Synodal Process Pope Francis has launched.

The Catholic Church's future must concentrate on the Gospel Message and the "wounds of the world", not just itself, he says.

The Council should not be seen as a break with tradition but as a "new departure to a more alive and comprehensive understanding of tradition and catholicity".

To do justice to the Council as a whole, it is necessary to go deeply into the Council's texts and editorial history. This is a theologically challenging and demanding undertaking that is still ongoing, Kasper notes.

At the same time, the Council and its documents had meanwhile become a part of church history, he says.

Francis belongs to a post-Council generation who regard the decisions and documents as facts from which it is necessary to think further.

"And that raises the question of the yet undetected future potentials in the Council texts," Kasper points out.

The question of the Church's relationship to the world must be re-examined, he says.

The corresponding Council document "Gaudium et spes" was determined by an "optimistic outlook" of the time, Kasper recalls.

Since then, secularisation and the priestly sexual abuse crisis have led to a massive loss of trust in the Church. They have also made the "crisis of faith in God" more visible. That was something unforeseen at the time of the Council, Kasper says.

In the Western World today, atheism and widespread indifference to the question of God are common.

This means renewing church structures is "irrelevant for the majority of people and is only of interest for church employees", Kasper says.

It also means regarding the question of God, post-conciliar theology must go "deeper than the Council was able to" and look into the "metaphysical homelessness of modern human beings."

The ongoing debates on church reform would benefit from another look at what the Church constitution Lumen Gentium said on the common priesthood of all the faithful, Kasper says.

The Council highlighted the co-responsibility of the laity, but that did not mean that there was "rivalry or opposition" between lay Catholics and priests and bishops, he stresses.

>Source

• The Tablet

Nevertheless, he insisted that there was no turning back.

Francis said the refusal to accept the reforms of the Second Vatican Council is the major problem facing the Church today.

"In the European Church I see more renewal in the spontaneous things that are emerging: movements, groups, new bishops who remember that there is a Council behind them," said Francis.

He added that those seeking to roll back Vatican II's reforms have gained a strong foothold in the United States.

"The current problem of the Church is precisely the non-acceptance of the Council," the 85-year-old Roman Pontiff said.

"Restorationism has come to gag the Council. The number of groups of ‘restorers' - for example, in the United States, there are many - is significant." He added that he knew some priests for whom the 16th century Council of Trent was more memorable than the 20th century Vatican II.

Vatican II offered a blueprint for contemporary Catholicism by seeking to better connect the Church with the essentials of Christianity and update the methods whereby it would carry out its mission.

Among the reforms of Vatican II, which took place from 1962 to 1965, was the approval of the translation of the liturgy from Latin into vernacular languages. This was an effort to make the Mass more accessible and involve greater participation of the laity.

Restorationists argue that the changes led to a loss of mystery and a sense of transcendence in Catholic worship.

They have become some of Francis' fiercest critics, accusing him of heresy for his opening to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, outreach to gay Catholics and other reforms.

Francis has taken an increasingly hard line against them, including re-imposing restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass. He has taken specific action in dioceses and religious orders where restorationist Catholics have been gagging reforms.

Francis commented to the editors, "It is also true that it takes a century for a council to take root. We still have forty years to make it take root, then!"

Sources

• Religion News
• The Tablet
• National Catholic Reporter

The Vatican's Secretariat of State - which deals with the general affairs of the church - has forbidden Masses to be said by a priest by himself at the basilica.

It also says the extraordinary form of Mass in the Latin rite can only be celebrated at one specific altar in the basilica's crypt.

Venezuelan-born Archbishop Peña Parra, who heads the Secretariat, issued the new instructions.

The instruction strictly limiting the celebration Latin rite in the basilica makes it clear that its usage is not intended to be the norm.

The Lenten season "invites us to return to the Lord with all our heart by giving greater centrality to listening to the Word of God and to the Eucharistic celebration," Parra's instruction begins.

"In this sense, wishing to ensure that the holy Masses in the Basilica of St Peter's are conducted in a climate of recollection and liturgical decorum, from now henceforth the following has been laid down."

The instruction then makes five specific points.

None of them is explained, but their aim appears clear.

Overall, they seek to ensure: there is order in the celebration of the Mass in St Peter's basilica and Masses are celebrated according to the norms and spirit of the Second Vatican Council's liturgical renewal.

The instruction's first point aims to end the practice of "lone" celebrations.

Apparently many priests, including those working at the curia, celebrate Mass at side altars of the basilica.

Often they celebrate Mass alone, frequently in the extraordinary (Latin) form.

The second point of the instruction concerns "the priests and the faithful who go daily to the basilica for holy Mass".

It says they should have the possibility to participate in various celebrations, and goes on to timetable various Masses celebrated each day at St Peter's, as well as making room for feast days and other special Masses.

The focus on larger, shared liturgies rather than many private Masses every day is in accord with the spirit of the liturgical renewal introduced by the Second Vatican Council.

This instruction aims to ensure the liturgy is celebrated according to the council's liturgical reforms. "The celebrations ... should be liturgically animated, with the assistance of lectors and cantors."

The fourth point says "groups of pilgrims, accompanied by a bishop or priests (should) be assured of the possibility of celebrating holy Mass in the Vatican grottoes"; the chapels in the basilica's crypt or around the tomb of St. Peter.

The instruction's fifth and final point sets out the times and place the extraordinary form of the Latin rite of the Mass (essentially the pre-Vatican II Mass) can be celebrated,

The instructions will come into effect on Monday 22 March, 2021.

Source

• The Jesuit Review
• Image: Inside the Vatican Magazine

The announcement has been greeted with disbelief, sadness and anger by the parish community. They launched an online "appeal" to keep the centre open. In the first 48 hours, more than 2,000 people had signed it.

Archbishop Michel Aupetit said he was closing the centre because of the difficult climate at Saint-Merry, especially regarding the people's attitude towards the most recently assigned priests.

"This is the second time in less than three years that the priest of your parish has been forced to leave his mission abruptly in the face of violent attacks against him," said Aupetit, who was installed as Paris's archbishop in January 2018.

In 1975, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), Cardinal François Marty entrusted the centre to a team of laypeople and Father Xavier de Chalendar.

The cardinal, who was Paris archbishop from 1968-1981, entrusted the fledgeling centre with the mission of "inventing new ways for the Church of the future".

Sources

• La Croix International
• Liberation

Commenting on various issues where the Pope is currently under attack from his critics, Arturo Sosa SJ says there is no doubt there's a political fight going on in the church.

This isn't just against Francis and his convictions. He won't change and his critics know it, Sosa says.

"In reality, these [attacks] are a way to influence the election of the next pope."

As Francis is 82, Sosa says his critics are aiming at the succession.

They "...know that it takes a long time, more than 50 years, to really implement the Second Vatican Council."

One of the points of friction is clericalism - that is, a way of understanding the exercise of power in the church.

"Francis is fighting against clericalism and this exercise of power". He "proposes a synodal church," which encourages greater collegiality and participation in decision making," Sosa says.

"Pope Francis is a son of the Second Vatican Council."

As he is a responsible son, Sosa says "Francis puts all his energy and capacity to incarnate it and to make a reality all that this event has dreamed for the church, and it seems to me that this is a great contribution to the church."

Francis believes the church shows "true reform" the "closer it comes to the design of the Second Vatican Council."

There have always been those who support and those who resist the Council's reforms, Sosa notes.

But the 50 years since the Council "is not so much" in terms of implementing its reforms in the church, he says.

Unlike those who criticised Francis's first two synods and the upcoming one on the Amazon, Sosa believes Francis's synodal process "creates unity."

He said he witnessed this at the synod on young people, and he is now seeing it also in the process of preparation for the synod on the Amazon region.

Source

• America Magazine
• Image: Asia News

Pope Francis made this declaration in a speech to Italy's Centre of Liturgical Action.

"We can affirm with certainty and magisterial authority that the liturgical reform is irreversible," he said.

As one commentator noted, " It's not every day that Pope Francis chooses to invoke the full weight of his office.

"This is, after all, the pontiff renowned for his freewheeling, informal style and that famous phrase 'who am I to judge'."

Francis concluded his address by saying, "the liturgy is life, not an idea to be understood."

Liturgical worship "is not above all a doctrine to be understood or a rite to be accomplished.

"It is a wellspring of life and of light for our journey of faith."

While acknowledging that "there is still work to do" in interpreting changes made during the Second Vatican Council, Francis said it is not a question "of rethinking the reform by reviewing its choices, but of knowing better the underlying reasons."

He underlined the fact that "the practical application" of the reform, "guided by the bishops' conferences in the respective countries, is still under way.

"Because it is not sufficient to reform the liturgical books to reform the mentality."

He reminded his audience that over the past 70 years "substantial and not superficial events" have happened in the life of the church and in the history of the liturgy.

He pointed out that the changes began many decades before the council and can be seen in the responses of the different popes in the first half of the 20th century.

Vatican II and the reform of the liturgy are "two events directly linked," and "they did not flower in an unexpected way but were prepared over a long time."

A source close to the pontiff told America Magazine the remarks were intended not only for the Italian liturgists present but the church worldwide.

Click here for text of Pope Francis' speech (in Italian)

Source

• America
• Crux
• RNS
• Vatican Radio
• Image: Vatican Radio

The secretary of the Ecclesia Dei commission, Archbishop Guido Pozzo, told a French media outlet that the Vatican continues to work for reconciliation with the society.

Formal talks between the SSPX and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith broke down in 2012.

But conversations resumed in September this year.

Archbishop Pozzo said that in order to be regularised, the SSPX must accept the doctrinal teachings of the Church, including those of Vatican II.

However, he said, "there is room for further reflection on the reservations the fraternity has expressed regarding certain aspects and the wording of the Second Vatican Council documents as well as some reforms that followed, but which do not refer to subjects which are dogmatically or doctrinally indisputable".

Archbishop Pozzo said a few documents of Vatican II involve doctrinal statements, but others are "authoritative and binding to a different and lesser degree".

The conciliar statements on ecumenism and on religious freedom, which have been most heavily criticised by the SSPX, are in the latter category, he said.

Continue reading

Speaking to 70,000 people at St Peter's Square on October 19, Francis said Catholics must "not fear the new" and must be open to previously "unexpected paths".

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, who was made a cardinal by Paul VI, made a rare public appearance at the Mass.

Francis embraced him and accompanied him to his seat in the front row.

The Mass brought the two-week synod on the family to a close.

Blessed Paul VI established the Synod of Bishops as an institution of the Church designed to help the Pope with his magisterial office.

Francis quoted Blessed Paul VI as saying that the Church must "scrutinise the signs of the times, to try to adapt its ways and methods to respond to the growing needs of our time and the changing conditions of society".

Francis said that the Church must look to the future, healing the "wounds of those that are hurt" and rekindling hope for people who have lost hope.

He said: "God is not afraid of the new".

"That is why he is continually surprising us, opening our hearts and guiding us in unexpected ways."

The Church was not a place to "escape from reality", he said, adding that "Christians must look at the reality of the future, that of God, with both feet planted firmly on the ground, and respond with courage to the numerous new challenges."

Pope Francis called Blessed Paul VI, "the great helmsman" of the Second Vatican Council.

Paul VI was the first pope to travel outside Italy in the modern era, he oversaw the updating of the liturgy from Latin to the vernacular, and dramatically reorganised the Roman Curia.

But the former Cardinal Giovanni Montini is also remembered for his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which banned Catholics from using artificial birth control.

Sources

• The Tablet
• The Tablet (Text of Pope Francis' homily)
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Catholic News Agency