The Justice and Peace Commission of the Holy Land recently issued a document condemning the misuse of this concept which is deeply rooted in Catholic doctrine.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin echoed these concerns, noting that the theory is being revised.

Parolin said "We know that on the question of just war. There is a lot of discussion today, because this was a concept of social doctrine.

"There is just war, the war of defence, but today with the weapons that are available, this concept becomes very difficult" he said. "In fact, it's being discussed. I don't think there is a definitive position yet, but it's a concept that's in revision."

'Just War' theory being weaponised

The Justice and Peace Commission's document argues that political actors in Israel and abroad are weaponising the "just war" theory to legitimise the ongoing violence in Gaza.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church outlines strict conditions for a war to be deemed just:

• the harm caused by the aggressor must be severe and certain,
• all peaceful alternatives must have been exhausted,
• there must be serious prospects of success,
• the use of arms must not cause greater harm than the evil being addressed.

Cardinal Parolin stressed that with modern weaponry, the "just war" concept becomes increasingly difficult to justify. "It's never a just war." He emphasised that a war can be just only in the context of defence, a standard neither side meets in the Gaza conflict.

The Justice and Peace Commission criticised the indiscriminate targeting of civilians and the disproportionate use of force. This has resulted in a catastrophic Palestinian death toll which has disproportionately affected women and children.

Cardinal Parolin reiterated that universal peace is a good that concerns everyone.

Even if diplomatic efforts sometimes seem to produce small results, "we must never get tired or give in to the temptation of resignation" he said.

"Peace is the duty of everyone" and begins "in our daily lives, in our cities, in our countries, in the world" Parolin remarked.

Sources

Crux Now

Vatican News

Agenzia Fides

CathNews New Zealand

It is now undergoing a legal review by the Church's canon lawyers, he says.

How the Catholic Church continues to deal with the clergy sex abuse crisis, bioethical issues in society and the upcoming Vatican maxi-trial on financial corruption are all important issues today, Parolin says.

It is important that Catholics be able to make their voices heard, with arguments based on their faith, even in such sensitive debates.

Even if the law has already been passed, Catholics can make their views known in the name of defending the dignity and value of every human life.

But this must always remain a debate of reason, and not drift into ideology.

For several months, the pope has been pleading for us to take advantage of the COVID-19 crisis to change our model, but the temptation to return to the "world before" is very strong.

It is true that one can have the impression of going backwards, Parolin says.

"It is a sign that some people have a very short memory, as if they have forgotten the experience we have just gone through.

"As the pope said in Fratelli Tutti, we are all part of the same human family and we have a duty to care for one another.

"But I believe that we must also be able to accept real changes, to make certain sacrifices. We cannot continue to live the same lifestyle, exploiting our world as we have done until now. It is this change that will allow us to achieve a happy life," Parolin says.

Noting the pope has instigated a great many reforms since the beginning of his pontificate, Parolin points to the economy as an example.

"In the economic field, for example, we have transferred the management of funds to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic and to the Secretariat for the Economy.

"Now it is time for us to start implementing the constitutional reform. In a complex and multi-secular organization like the Roman Curia, change can cause certain difficulties. But there is a real will to make it an instrument at the service of the Holy Father for the good of the Church."

The reformed Roman Curia must from now on avoid anything that may have obscured the image of its services in the past.

Just when the new constitution be published is as yet unclear. That depends on the pope, Parolin says.

The text, which aims to give a coherent framework to all the reforms already undertaken, is currently being examined by canonists to adapt the terminology to the juridical character of the document.

Source

• La Croix
• Image: Vatican News

"Right now, we're facing a man-made disaster of global scale," Attenborough said on Monday, just two months after a UN report underlined the need to keep global warming below 1.5C degrees.

"Our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change. If we don't take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon."

Among those addressing the Summit is the Vatican's Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

There is a moral imperative to act, for we all bear the responsibility to protect and to value creation.

The international community also has a moral responsibility to address climate change, he noted.

"The scientific consensus is rather consistent and it is that, since the second half of the last century, warming of the climate system is unequivocal.

"The Holy See has often stressed that there is a moral imperative to act, for we all bear the responsibility to protect and to value creation for the good of this and future generations," he said.

Faith groups inspired by Laudato Si' including Caritas Internationalis, CIDSE, and the Global Catholic Climate Movement are urging the Summit to ensure the 2015 Paris Agreement is implemented.

Caritas Internationalis's delegation said the talks "will have to curb climate change for the coming decade and tackle its devastating effects on human life, ecosystems, food and water security.

"The cost of increased disasters and hazards is now unbearable for communities already facing poverty," a delegate said.

CIDSE, an umbrella organisation for Catholic development agencies from Europe and North America, said "Our partners on the ground are already threatened by global warming.

"We are one human family and we all have a moral responsibility to stop climate change as we are all contributing to it."

The Summit will run for two weeks until 15 December.

Source

• Crux Now
• Zenit
• The Tablet
• Live Science
• Image: jpratt27

The department will oversee papal diplomats' selection and work, career advancement and working conditions.

Named the "Section for the Diplomatic Staff of the Holy See", the new department will be led by Archbishop Jan Romeo Pawlowski.

About 300 priest diplomats will be overseen by the department.

The move is part of Pope Francis's Roman Curia reform.

In part it is seen as a sign of his appreciation of Vatican diplomacy and its ambassadors' work.

It is also suggested that two recent allegations of diplomats' sexual misconduct and other cases of ambassadors misrepresenting the pope influenced the decision.

Francis wrote to the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, about the new department.

He said he needs to "assure more fraternal attention and prompter human, priestly, spiritual and professional accompaniment to [diplomats]."

Vatican diplomats include heads of mission and collaborators.

Francis's letter also said the department will help priests preparing for diplomatic work at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy.

Graduates may be posted outside the Vatican or may remain at the Secretariat of State before being ordained as archbishops.

Those ordained as archbishops can serve as papal nuncios.

The role of papal nuncios is another item being reviewed by Francis and his advisory body of cardinals.

Within this, finding better ways of supporting the nuncios is being considered.

At present, nuncios' work includes representing the Pope in any given country and helping draw up shortlists for appointing bishops.

Source

• The Tablet
• Vatican Radio
• Image: YouTube

The Australian delegation - which included Denis Hart, Archbishop of Melbourne, Mark Coleridge, Archbishop of Brisbane and Justice Neville Owen of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council - discussed "the restoration of trust" amid sex abuse allegations.

Current allegations before the court in Australia involve Australian cardinal George Pell, a top adviser to the pope.

Pell is currently on leave of absence from his position as the Vatican's chief financial officer, facing historical sex abuse charges. He has steadfastly denied his involvement in any sex abuse.

A press release from the Holy See says a number of topics were covered at the Australian bishops' meetings. They included the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the relationship between the Church and society at large, the restoration of trust, and greater participation of the laity in decision-making roles in the Church.

Source

• Vatican Radio
• Washington Post
• Image: YouTube

Archbishop Pietro Parolin, who took over as the Vatican's secretary of state Oct. 15, said the pope and the group of eight cardinals advising him on church reform have made clear they are looking at reforms to his office.

"I don't know if it's a different name or if they want to give it a new structure," Parolin told members of the press Wednesday.

"The important thing is for it to become a structure that is at the service of the pope as it has always been, but that it can be enhanced," the National Catholic Reporter said in a report.

Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, said during a briefing Wednesday morning that Parolin had met with the eight cardinals and the pope briefly Tuesday afternoon.

While the meetings of the cardinals' group are happening behind closed doors, reform of the Vatican's Secretariat of State has come up frequently in conversations with Vatican officials and prelates in recent months, the NCR's online report said.

Parolin's predecessor in the role, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, had come under criticism for some of the gaffes of the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI, which culminated with the arrest of Benedict's butler in 2012 for leaking sensitive Vatican documents.

Parolin, who has nearly 30 years of experience in the Vatican's diplomatic corps, previously served as the apostolic nuncio to Venezuela.

SOURCE

National Catholic Reporter
Image: NCR Online

The reason for the surgery was not made known at the time, but a Vatican source later said the 58-year-old archbishop — seen as the key person to implement the reform of the Roman Curia — had appendicitis.

Though the ceremony was supposed to be a genuine changing of the guard, the focus remained on the retiring secretary, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

The cardinal, who for seven years held the post of head of Vatican diplomacy and effectively "prime minister" of the Holy See, was blamed for many of the gaffes and problems of the papacy of Benedict XVI, including the Vatileaks scandal.

In a short address reviewing his years of service, Cardinal Bertone said he hoped Archbishop Parolin would be able "to untangle the knots that still prevent the Church from being in Christ the heart of the world, the longed-for and incessantly invoked horizon".

He acknowledged the scandals that had beset Pope Benedict XVI, saying the now-retired Pope had "suffered greatly on account of the ills that plagued the Church and for this reason he gave her new legislation in order to strike out decisively the shameful phenomenon of paedophilia among the clergy, without forgetting the initiation of new rules in economic and administrative matters".

Thanking the cardinal, Pope Francis praised "the courage and patience with which you have faced adversities — and there have been many".

Unlike Cardinal Bertone, Archbishop Parolin is an experienced Vatican diplomat. Pope Francis chose him to head the Secretariat of State only days after he was elected — even though he had met the archbishop only once.

"The truth is that I haven't spoken much with him and I think that when I have the chance, I'll ask him why he named me," Archbishop Parolin told Venezuela's El Universal newspaper.

Sources:

The Tablet

Associated Press

Vatican Insider

Catholic News Agency

Image: The Dialog

Archbishop Parolin, 58, is currently the Vatican envoy to Venezuela and served as the Vatican's deputy foreign minister from 2002 to 2009. He has led various Vatican diplomatic delegations in thorny geopolitical negotiations, including talks to improve relations with Vietnam, and has been a prominent voice at numerous international conferences on human trafficking, the climate and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Vatican noted that Bertone, 78, was retiring under a church law that requires cardinals who hold top curia posts to offer their resignations when they turn 75. Pope Benedict XVI had kept him in place, reportedly to the irritation of a rival faction of Vatican bureaucrats loyal to Bertone's predecessor, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a former longtime secretary of state

Archbishop Parolin said he was ready to tackle "a difficult and challenging mission" and pledged to work for "the good of the holy church, and the progress and peace of humanity, that humanity might find reasons to live and to hope."

The secretary of state, the most senior Vatican official after the pope, oversees internal church affairs and guides foreign policy so the pope's choice for the post directly affects the overall management of the Curia, the Vatican's central administration.

But Francis' appointment of various commissions to help him govern suggests that he will be less dependent on a single voice or department when it comes to making decisions. In April, the pope appointed a council of eight cardinals from around the world as an advisory board to help govern the church, and he has set up commissions to advise him as he considers changes to the operation of the Vatican Bank and the management of economic affairs.

Sources

The New York Times

AP/ABC News

Reuters/Huffington Post

Image: AFP/The Guardian

Paolo Gherri, who teaches the theology of canon law at the Pontifical Lateran University, said he believes the Pope has chosen "people with his same kind of approach" and he saw their role as "a sort of think tank working on new guidelines of ecclesiastical policy".

He pointed out that all eight of the cardinals chosen by Pope Francis are residential archbishops, meaning that none of them work in the Roman Curia, and only one is Italian.

In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the secretary of the group of cardinals, Bishop Marcello Semeraro, said the possibility of the secretary of state's powers being diminished "should not be excluded".

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who served as secretary of state under Pope Benedict XVI, is said to have been a divisive figure within the Vatican and was widely seen as the target of the so-called Vatileaks campaign involving confidential Church documents leaked to the press last year.

Bishop Semeraro recalled that it was Pope Paul VI who bestowed "the secretary of state with supervising and co-ordinating" the Vatican bureaucracy known as the Curia during his 1963-78 pontificate.

"But now, nearly half a century has gone by. We must re-adapt these structures according to the needs of the Church today," he said.

The collaborator of a cardinal who took part in the conclave that elected Pope Francis revealed to CNA that "the pre-conclave meetings also dealt with the role and function of the secretariat of state".

Ways to improve the Roman Curia's efficiency were also suggested, since many cardinals had experienced how slowly Rome responds to their requests and how the Curia's bureaucracy can stall procedures for months.

Sources:

Catholic News Agency

ANSA

Image: The Telegraph

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