"Make the Mass Latin Again" - the Pope Francis backlash comes home

Kaya Oakes
Religion Dispatches
January 4, 2017

On December 3, 2016, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone confirmed sixteen Catholics, both young and mature adults, at Mary Star of the Sea Church in San Francisco.

There would be nothing notable about an Archbishop performing a confirmation ceremony except for this: according to the Traditional Latin Mass Society of San Francisco, it was the first confirmation in San Francisco performed in Latin—the “Extraordinary Form” of the Catholic Mass—since the reforms of Vatican II in the 1960s.

The San Francisco diocesan newsletter ran only a small blurb about the event, stating that the people being confirmed had been undergoing instruction in Catholicism from Rev. Bill Young at Saint Monica church, which is one of two parishes in San Francisco that regularly offer a Latin Mass. The confirmation class made a special request of the Archbishop in 2014 that they would be confirmed in the Extraordinary rite.

Cordileone has long had an interest in reviving the Latin Mass. In 2014, just a year after Pope Francis was elected, Cordileone told Latin Mass Magazine that when he chose to celebrate Mass in Latin, he was promoting the vision of the recently resigned Pope Benedict: “to make this form of the Mass more easily available” and “to promote it” as a “useful tool of evangelization.” When asked if Latin Mass would continue to appeal to small groups of people “at odd hours in out of the way locations,” Cordileone said that younger Catholics who might be drawn to Latin Mass “did not go through liturgy wars” after Vatican II and “are not jaded by that.”

When Cordileone was installed as Archbishop of San Francisco in 2012, the principle co-consecrator was Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, who has mentored Cordileone for many years and is also an enthusiast for the pre Vatican II form of worship. And just a few weeks before Cordileone performed the Latin Mass confirmation, Burke was among four cardinals who announced to the media that they had filed a “dubia”—a request for formal clarification—with Pope Francis regarding Amoris Laetitia, the pope’s recent exhortation on families.

Particularly, the four cardinals were concerned about actions perceived to be “intrinsically evil,” including communion for the divorced and remarried. When they failed to get a response from the pope, they alerted the media. The Catholic Herald noted it is highly unusual for cardinals to “go public like this.”

But “going public” is long what Cardinal Burke has tended to do. Known for his love of silk, brocade, lace, and other forms of Catholic clerical fashion, Burke, who was created cardinal by Pope Benedict in 2010, rose to prominence as one of the American church’s “culture warriors,” stating that the “feminized” church has a “man crisis,” suggesting families should not allow their children to have contact with “evil” gay family members, stating that Catholic politicians John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi should be denied communion, and serving on the advisory board to the Human Dignity Institute, which invited Steve Bannon to a conference at the Vatican in 2014.

More recently, Burke has remained in the public eye for his repeated criticisms of Pope Francis’ attempts at church reform. Francis has responded in kind by demoting Burke from the highest Vatican court in 2014 and demoting him again from the Congregation for Divine Worship in 2016. Burke is currently the prefect of the Knights of Malta, which is under investigation for dismissing an official. Burke was at the meeting where the official was asked to resign and claimed the pope was behind the request for resignation, which turns out to be a lie.

Meanwhile, in October of last year, Pope Francis elevated three Americans to cardinals, including Chicago’s Archbishop Blaise Cupich and Indiana’s Joseph Tobin. In both cases, the new cardinals represent Francis’ vision for the church, not Burke’s or Cordileone’s. Both have made immigrant rights a top priority; Tobin battled Mike Pence on the issue, and Cupich asked the USCCB to make immigration a key priority (America magazine’s Mike O’Loughlin notes that “[Cupich’s] request was denied”). Cupich is also a vocal supporter of the activist priest Fr. Michael Pfleger, who has fought back against gun violence in Chicago. Tobin, who worked at the Vatican during the investigation of American women religious and criticized the investigation, is also an open supporter of women’s ordination to the diaconate.

Cordileone, meanwhile, who was considered to be a rising star in the church under Pope Benedict, has mostly gone quiet since the controversy he created in 2015. At that time, he tried to re-classify Catholic school teachers as ministers who would have to abide by church teaching on marriage and same sex relationships, even if those teachers were not Catholic. Cordileone also failed to reverse Fr Joseph Illo’s ban on altar girls at Star of the Sea parish in the same year. This followed his earlier role in getting Proposition 8 passed and his joking statement in 2015 that “more genders will be invented” as time goes on. Those actions resulted in a full page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle signed by 100 Catholics, asking Pope Francis to remove Archbishop Cordileone.

Instead of removing Cordileone, the pope elevated San Francisco’s auxiliary bishop Robert McElroy to bishop of San Diego, Cordileone’s former diocese. McElroy, like Cardinals Cupich and Tobin, is a “social justice” bishop who said in a talk last year that being judgmental is a “cardinal sin for religion,” and he has frequently put poverty, not abortion or same sex relationships, at the forefront of the issues he thinks Catholics should be most concerned about.

Turmoil in the San Francisco seminary, however, reveals how smaller-town power players like Cordileone can have an impact even when they’re unlikely to receive a red hat. St. Patrick’s seminary has been run by the religious order of the Sulpicians since 1898. Like most dioceses, San Francisco has seen a precipitous drop in the number of seminarians in formation, and there are currently only 93 students enrolled. The Sulpicians were informed in October of last year “that we are no longer invited to provide Sulpician administrative leadership to St Patrick’s,” and the rector, Fr. James McKearney, was forced to resign, in a decision that “just came out of the blue for reasons that are still not clear.”

Cordileone appointed new seminary staff from among the higher ups in the dioceses of San Francisco and San Jose, including Jesuit Fr. John Piderit as the seminary’s vice president for administration. Piderit is the former president of Loyola University in Chicago, and in 2000, he stepped down from that position after budget crises at Loyola brought the university nearly to the breaking point and calls for his removal were heard from faculty, staff and students. As professor Paul Jay put it at the time, “people will be very relieved to have the nightmare over.” Piderit’s biography at the San Francisco archdiocese’s website, however, mentions only that he “induced significant cost-cutting at Loyola.”

Cordileone also announced in 2014 that the seminary would be the home to the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music, where lay people could be formed for ministering in the church, with a special emphasis on the Extraordinary Rite and Gregorian chant. However, the institute’s website two years later still says “full site coming soon,” with a video featuring stock music rather than chant, and its Facebook page has not been updated since 2014.

Articles about the turmoil at the seminary repeatedly mention that Cordileone intends for a greater focus on Latin in priestly formation. But only two parishes in San Francisco continue to offer Latin Mass, leaving an open question: if the archbishop intends to train more priests in the Extraordinary Rite, where will they serve, and whom will they serve?

When it comes to continued calls for more availability of Latin Mass from Burke, Cordileone and other prelates, Pope Francis is paying attention. In July of last year, after Cardinal Robert Sarah called for priests to return to consecrations “ad orientum,” facing away from the people, Francis told Antonio Spadaro S.J. that Pope Benedict’s call for recognizing a return to old forms of worship was “right and magnanimous.” However, Francis, who called any attempt to return the church norm to Latin mass “an error,” was more pointed in his criticism:

I always try to understand what is behind persons who are too young to have experienced the preconciliar liturgy but who nevertheless want it. At times, I find myself in front of persons who are very rigid, an attitude of rigidity. And I ask myself: How come such rigidity? This rigidity always hides something: insecurity, or at times something else…. Rigidity is defensive. True love is not rigid.

Even former Catholic-turned-Orthodox conservative writer Rod Dreher admitted last year that Americans may have reached “peak Latin Mass”; attendance rose for a bit when it was offered in more parishes, then appeared to flatline. Dreher says the risk is similar to that of American Orthodox churches, and that Latin Mass has become a “boutique niche.”

For right now, however, Latin Mass has become one more chess piece in the war for Catholic cultural identity in America. On the one side, Pope Francis is making his moves, elevating bishops like Cupich and Tobin, keeping an eye on the “rigid” and “defensive” Catholics calling for a return to old ways of worshipping. On the other side, Cardinal Burke and the others are using tactics like the dubia to try and force the Pope to bend to their will, while many US bishops stubbornly refuse to recognize the fact that they increasingly lead a church of immigrants who could care less about brocade or lace when their very existence in this country is being threatened by the president-elect and his cabinet.

The white, elderly, conservative leaders of the American church are a vocal minority, as are those who insist that Latin mass will somehow make a miraculous comeback leading to the salvation of the rapidly shrinking American Catholic church. The seminarians who learn to perform it will stand in front of parishes that are increasingly made up of speakers of Spanish, Tagalog, and multiple Asian and African languages.

Yes, at one point Latin was a universal language in the church. But that point is long gone. If “Make America Great Again” was based on a return to a glorious but largely mythological past, “Make the Mass Latin Again” is likewise a callback to a mythological past of Catholicism. There’s beauty in mythology, to be sure. But there is also grave danger in believing mythologies can save broken institutions. They are merely bandages covering bleeding wounds, and Jesus, who knew Latin only as the language of the empire that killed him, would probably agree.

While Francis frustrates foes with silence, Fr. Antonio Spadaro nails them with tweets

David Gibson
Religion News Service
December 27, 2016


Since the moment he was elected in 2013, Pope Francis has sought to steer the Catholic church away from a focus on doctrinal rules and formulas and toward a more pastoral ministry — a campaign that has sparked widespread hand-wringing among traditionalists and unusually public opposition to the pontiff.

In recent weeks, however, the critics have grown bolder and more demanding than ever as several conservative cardinals and various pundits have issued warnings that Francis may be leading the church into heresy and schism.

They have openly speculated about how Francis could be disciplined, or if he should resign for incompetence — basically, the sort of topics that haven’t been bandied about in Catholic circles in the last 1,000 years or so.

So far, Francis himself has declined to engage his foes directly, preferring to let his writings, periodic interviews and daily sermons speak for themselves.

Yet Francis is hardy without champions in what some are calling a “Catholic civil war,” with perhaps the most prominent and vocal among them a soft-spoken Italian priest, Fr. Antonio Spadaro.

Indeed, Spadaro is so ubiquitous in his mission to defend the pontiff that critics like to call him “the pope’s mouthpiece” — a label seemingly designed to undermine Francis by denoting Spadaro as a kind of papal puppet master, as well as making Spadaro a target in his own right.

The "mouthpiece" epithet is one that makes Spadaro smile. “The pope doesn’t need anyone to speak for him,” he said in lightly accented English during a late November interview at the Villa Malta, headquarters of La Civilta Cattolica, the Vatican-approved magazine Spadaro has edited since 2011.

'I am only doing my job'

Spadaro certainly comes off as an improbable paladin in this crusade. A Jesuit like Francis, he has a winsome affect and the bookish look of a scholar; he holds degrees in theology and philosophy.

But Spadaro, a 50-year-old Sicilian, is anything but reticent. Nor is he a head-in-the-clouds intellectual.

On the contrary, he is intense, always in motion, and dogged in mixing it up on Twitter with both critics and trolls, which should not be surprising given that he also has a degree in social communications and curates a blog called CyberTeologia, “understood,” as its mission statement reads, “as the intelligence of faith in the age of the Internet.”

In keeping with that digital focus, Spadaro has even begun to turn Civilta Cattolica from a rather staid journal that hadn’t changed format much since its founding in 1850 to a more accessible publishing venture with a robust online presence in various languages. (One recent feature was Spadaro's lengthy interview with Martin Scorsese, director of the new movie “Silence,” about 17th-century Jesuit missionaries in Japan.)

Spadaro’s own office reflects the different eras he inhabits — a simple room with contemporary furnishings on the ground floor of an enormous old Italianate palazzo sitting on a hill across Rome from the Vatican.

What hasn’t changed about the Jesuit-run magazine in all these years is its loyalty to the pope, whoever he might be.

From the archconservative Pius IX (who reigned from 1846-1878) to the social justice pontiff Leo XIII (1878-1903) to the anti-modernist Pius X (1903-1914) and every pope since, Civilta Cattolica has vigorously defended papal teachings — even if some of those later proved embarrassing. In the past, popes personally reviewed its articles before publication, and a draft of the magazine is still given the once-over by senior Vatican officials.

Since the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s launched the church on a path of reform and opened Rome to the world, the journal has also become more engaged — and engaging — though it still aims to reflect the Vatican's views rather than counter them.

“In reality I am only doing my job as director” of the magazine, Spadaro wrote in a follow-up message in December as the criticisms of Francis continued to mount. “All of the popes throughout history have been attacked, in one way or another. And ours has always been a simple and humble service.”

Two Jesuits, one opinion

The other reality is that Spadaro is particularly close to Francis. They are both Jesuits (Francis is the first member of the Society of Jesus ever to become pope) and it was Spadaro whom Francis called out of the blue on a May morning before 7 a.m., two months after Francis was elected.

Spadaro had not known Cardinal Bergoglio before he became Pope Francis, and when his cellphone rang he hesitated on seeing an unknown number.

"I was wondering whether to pick it up because I was in a hurry. In the end, I decided to pick up and was going to ask the calling person to call back later. Then I heard: 'Good morning, this is Pope Francis speaking,'" Spadaro told the Catholic website Aleteia last July.

"After a moment of complete shock, like, ‘Oh, my God!,' I said perhaps a little incredulously: 'His Holiness?' Then I asked, how do I respond to the Holy Father. And he said: 'There is nothing to be alarmed about,' and we began to talk freely."

During that conversation, Francis agreed to Spadaro's request to give his first extended interview. That took place in August 2013 and set out many of the themes and tropes that have become familiar hallmarks of Francis’ pontificate, and it forged a strong bond between the two men.

Spadaro is now a regular visitor to the Casa Santa Marta, the pope’s residence inside the Vatican, and is frequently seen consulting with Francis and networking with many of the other power players in the church who live in Rome or regularly pass through the Eternal City.

The priest and the pope also recently collaborated on a collection of the pope’s homilies from the years he was Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, archbishop of Buenos Aires in Argentina (Francis is also the first pope from Latin America, and the first from outside the European orbit).

But to those who follow all things Catholic, it is Spadaro’s efforts to champion the pope’s ideas and blunt the latest round of attacks on Francis that draw the most attention.

The spark for this recent, and possibly most serious, furor is a document Francis published in April that offered his summation of the deliberations of two major Vatican gatherings — called synods — of cardinals and bishops from around the world to discuss the realities of modern families. The meetings, each three weeks long, were aimed in part at figuring out how and whether the Catholic church could accommodate those who don’t conform to the ideal of the catechism.

Francis asked the church leaders to be honest and frank in their talks; many of them were all that and more, especially conservatives who reacted sharply against proposals to welcome families led by gay couples, for example, or to approve ways that Catholics who have divorced and remarried without an annulment could receive Communion in some cases.

In his apostolic exhortation delivering a definitive papal take on the synods, titled Amoris Laetitia, Latin for “The Joy of Love,” Francis delivered a wide-ranging reflection on family life, recognizing the myriad challenges but pledging that the Catholic church would accompany families of whatever form and size and in whatever situation they found themselves.

Conservatives wished that the pope’s exhortation had been stronger in emphasizing traditional church doctrine on sexual morality and marriage. But they were especially concerned, and then increasingly angry, as it became clear that one element of the document could in fact be seen as allowing pastors latitude to give divorced and remarried Catholics Communion.

Such a development, the critics said, would undermine Jesus’ own teaching on the indissolubility of marriage and would in effect “Protestantize” (a favorite characterization) Catholicism if it were allowed to stand. This crisis, some have claimed, is as serious as the fourth-century debates over the nature of Jesus Christ — as both God and man — that deeply divided Christianity; they were only resolved over several decades through the development of a common creed.

'He is the vanguard in taking down the critics'

The attacks on Francis over Amoris Laetitia mounted along with conservative frustration, and in November four leading conservative cardinals — including the Rome-based U.S. churchman Cardinal Raymond Burke, a chief papal gadfly — finally released a letter demanding that Francis answer five yes-or-no questions, known in Latin as “dubia.” They said answering those questions would clarify whether Amoris Laetitia contravened church doctrine or not. By implication, the answers could also determine whether Francis was promoting heresy.

The publication of the letter came just days before Francis was to create a new batch of cardinals, ensuring that it would generate maximum publicity, and controversy.

The yes/no format of the “dubia” was also seen as a trap, and one that Francis apparently hopes to avoid. He has made it clear he sees the issue as a pastoral matter for Catholics and their priests to resolve and he is not going to try to give a one-size-fits-all response that conservatives could use to shortcut that process.

Spadaro, however, is happy fill the silence.

“He has become the vanguard in taking down the critics of Amoris Laetitia or even anyone who would question the thinking here,” Raymond Arroyo, a popular host on the conservative Catholic cable network EWTN, said during a recent interview with Burke (who also took the opportunity to blast Spadaro as “in error”).

Indeed, in these past weeks Spadaro has been everywhere, physically and virtually. A sought-after speaker, he has given talks on Francis’ pontificate in Spain, South Korea and elsewhere; given interviews; and penned a firm rejection of the cardinals’ questions for CNN’s website.

And, of course, he has been all over social media. “The Pope has ‘clarified,’” he tweeted in mid-November. “Those who don't like what they hear pretend not to hear it!”

Which is of course the sort of response that, in turn, has made Spadaro as big a target as Francis himself.

But in their eagerness to take down the pope’s apologist, the passion of the critics sometimes outstrips their facts.

A case in point: A Spadaro critic on Twitter compared the priest and the pope to Grima Wormtongue and Saruman, a pair of evil characters from the “Lord of the Rings” epics. Rather than taking it too seriously, Spadaro tweeted a video clip of Gandalf, another Tolkien protagonist, declaring that he refused “to bandy crooked words with a witless worm” — a joking reference to his critic’s view of Spadaro himself as Wormtongue.

The critics, however, overlooked the original tweet comparing Spadaro to Wormtongue and instead saw Spadaro’s video clip as a villainous attack on the four cardinals who were demanding answers from Francis. Thus a viral meme was born — that a top papal adviser was calling the pope's enemies, and cardinals to boot, "witless worms."

It got to the point that even New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, a conservative Catholic who has been one of the pope’s most persistent foes, recycled the false slam in a piece about the pontiff's standoff with the four cardinals.

Spadaro did not sit still for that, and on Twitter pressed Douthat for a correction; the columnist eventually complied, and apologized.

“The whole thing is ridiculous,” Spadaro later told the Catholic news site Crux. "And deeply offensive, that anyone should believe that I could ever refer to a cardinal as a ‘worm.’ I might not agree, or make a light-hearted joke, but offense is something else together.”

Critics in media outlets that are less susceptible to persuasion than the Times continue to repeat the story, however. Some also went on to accuse Spadaro of being a “sock puppet” — using a fake online identity to promote his own views anonymously — when he tweeted from a little-used personal account to say that the “4 cardinals sounds like the title of a rock and roll band from the early 1960s that sang trite songs.”

Once again, outrage ensued, and Spadaro rolled his eyes. “If I had really wanted to throw stones from an anonymous account I would never, obviously, have re-tweeted it,” Spadaro told Crux. “And why should I feel any need to hide?”

'To follow the pope up close is a profound joy'

So how does it feel to be the designated spear catcher for such a controversial pope?

Spadaro insisted that it’s not about engaging in online spats but is instead about advancing a much larger, and more crucial, narrative — one he is also privileged to witness firsthand.

“I feel that we are living through an important phase in the history of the world and the church,” he told RNS. “It is not an easy moment and it is full of contradictions and risks. Francis’ outlook is profoundly evangelical, prophetic and open: He is one of the few figures who gives hope. To follow the pope up close is a profound joy that overcomes all possible problems along the way and all possible attacks by the critics.”

Spadaro also downplays the number of critics, even if they have an outsized profile, especially in the English-speaking world where the opposition seems most vocal.

“The problem is that some opponents make a lot of noise, especially on social media,” he said. “They create an echo chamber. But you can hear the noise only inside the sacristies” — the rooms in a church where priests and bishops change into their vestments. “If you get out of the sacristies you can’t hear anything. So only the people inside the sacristies can hear this big noise.”

He reiterated that Francis “likes opposition,” likes to hear different opinions and critiques because tensions means the church is alive, and differing views can lead to the discernment of the best way forward.

“This is the meaning of the Incarnation — the Lord took flesh, which means we are involved with real humanity, which is never fixed or too clear. So the pastor has to get into the real dynamic of human life. This is the message of mercy. Discernment and mercy are the two big pillars of this pontificate.”

Spadaro said Francis also distinguishes between the constructive criticism of those who “really want, in good conscience, the good of the church” and “another kind of opposition, which is just imposing one’s own view, which is ideological opposition.”

“The pope listens to the first and is open to learning. But he doesn’t pay too much attention at all to the second kind.”

Besides, for those opponents the pope has Antonio Spadaro.

Conservatives launch civil war against Pope Francis

Phillip Wilan
The Times (UK)
December 20, 2016


The Pope is facing an unprecedented smear campaign designed to undermine his three-year pontificate. It has been orchestrated by cardinals angry about his sympathy for homosexuals and divorcees.

The campaign amounts to “a subterranean civil war” within the church, Marco Politi, an expert on the Holy See, said. He added that the smear campaign from within the Vatican included books, articles and letters contesting, in particular, the Pope’s teaching that divorced and remarried Catholics can “in certain cases” receive communion.

Politi said that the criticisms of the Pope constituted an attack that was unprecedented in modern times. In an article published by Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper to mark the Pope’s 80th birthday last Saturday, Politi said: “It’s a systematic campaign of delegitimisation, which questions the very authority of the pontiff and the rightness of his guidance.”

A longstanding observer of Vatican affairs and author of the book Pope Francis among the Wolves, Politi said that the ideological battle resembled the one fought in the 1960s over the modernising reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

While Vatican factions had long fought among themselves, they always accepted the role of the Pope as referee, he said. “It’s absolutely new that the attacks should be levelled at the Pope.”

Last month four cardinals, including the conservative American Raymond Burke, wrote to the Pope asking him to clarify his guidance, which was published in a footnote to Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), a teaching document issued last April. Some Catholics regard the apparent change in papal attitudes as overturning centuries of Christian moral teaching to fall into line with a secular world.

Politi wrote that the four cardinals represented a significant portion of the clergy who were resolutely opposed to changes in the church’s teaching on divorce, homosexuality and the role of women in the church.

Speaking yesterday, Politi compared the efforts to undermine the Pope’s authority to those of the Tea Party movement in the United States. “They kept trying to delegitimise Obama,” he said. “Of course they couldn’t topple him, but they did succeed in influencing the succession. A similar process is at work here and the aim is to prevent the election of another reformer.”

The Pope’s opponents see themselves as victims of persecution. Journalists from the conservative Catholic website lifesitenews.com said that they encountered an unprecedented climate of paranoia when they visited senior Vatican officials last month. “Many were afraid of being removed from their positions or of encountering severe public or private reprimands and personal accusations from those around the Pope or even from Francis himself,” the website wrote last week. “They are also anxious about the great damage being done to the Church and being helpless to stop it.”

Robert Mickens, editor of La Croix International and an experienced Vatican watcher, said the Pope’s critics were well organised but did not represent a significant Catholic constituency: “People in the pews are delighted with what the Pope is doing. His approval ratings are about 85 per cent.”

The conservatives would not be able to derail the Pope’s modernising reforms, he predicted. “People in parishes are not concerned about the church being too merciful.”

The church should not strive for 'false clarity'

Michael O'Loughlin
America
December 9, 2016


Archbishop Mark Coleridge thinks some of his fellow prelates are afraid of confronting reality.

As the head of the Archdiocese of Brisbane on the east coast of Australia, the archbishop was a delegate to the synod of bishops in Rome in 2015. There, he said, he witnessed healthy disagreement about issues important to families during the two-week meeting—prompted by Pope Francis’ call for open and honest dialogue. That debate has continued more than a year after the synod came to a close, with some bishops calling for greater clarity from the pope.

But Archbishop Coleridge told America that uncertainty is simply part of modern life.

“At times at the synod I heard voices that sounded very clear and certain but only because they never grappled with the real question or never dealt with the real facts,” he said in a recent interview. “So there’s a false clarity that comes because you don’t address reality, and there’s a false certainty that can come for the same reason.”

The archbishop, who worked in the Vatican’s secretary of state’s office in the late 1990s, was responding to a question about critics of Pope Francis who have taken issue with his apostolic letter, “Amoris Laetitia,” in which the pope calls for a pathway to Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics.

Critics of the pope have stepped up their attacks on the document in recent months, emboldened by a letter sent to the pope by four cardinals in September asking for yes or no answers to five questions about the document. They say the pope is sowing confusion in the church on questions settled by previous popes, including St. John Paul II.

But the pope’s supporters, including Archbishop Coleridge, say Francis is simply asking the church to confront challenging questions.

“I think what Pope Francis wants is a church that moves toward clarity and certainty on certain issues after we’ve grappled with the issues, not before,” he continued. “In other words, he wants a genuine clarity and a genuine certainty rather than the artificial clarity or certainty that comes when you never grapple with the issues.”

During the 2015 synod, Archbishop Coleridge blogged about his experience as a synod delegate, offering Catholics a window into a process that, aside from occasional interviews with participants, was conducted in private.

He is a proponent of church leaders using social media, and he tweets on an eclectic range of topics from @ArchbishopMark [2]. In recent weeks, he’s tweeted his thoughts on the unification of Italy [3], his desire for a heavenly dinner with Leonard Cohen and Fidel Castro [4] and the mental fortitude of Australian professional athletes [5].

Archbishop Coleridge said he agrees with a fellow Aussie, Cardinal George Pell, who said in London recently [6] that some Catholics are “unnerved” by the debate about “Amoris Laetitia.”

“I think that’s probably the right word, and I sensed in the words of the four cardinals men who were unnerved,” Archbishop Coleridge said. “Clearly, they had been spoken to by a lot of people who were unnerved. I can understand that.”

But where Cardinal Pell went on to suggest the pope needed to offer clarity on the issue, Archbishop Coleridge said Francis is simply acting like a pastor.

The pope, he said, is “bringing out into the very public setting of the papacy what any pastor does in his parish or diocese.”

He noted that pastors are “very often dealing in a world of grays and you have to accompany people, listen to them before you speak to them, give them time and give them space, and then speak your word perhaps.”

Ultimately, individual believers have to discern where God is at work in their own lives—a process that doesn’t always lend itself to simple yes or no answers.

“Some people expect from the pope clarity and certainty on every question and every issue, but a pastor can’t provide that necessarily,” he said.

He said Francis is moving the church from a static way of doing business to one that is kinetic, something those used to a different kind of papacy are finding difficult.

“But there are still people who are more comfortable, for various reasons, with a more static way of thinking and speaking,” he said. “And there are people who are perhaps more comfortable in a world of black and white and who find the process of discernment, which deals in shades of gray, messy and unnerving.”

As for how Pope Francis is handling the criticism, Archbishop Coleridge said not to worry.

“I can’t imagine that Pope Francis is deeply anguished over some of the opposition that he faces,” he said. “He’s a man who doesn’t seem rattled by that sort of thing.”

Dean of Rota warns Pope could strip Cardinal Burke & others of their cardinalate

Deacon Nick Donnely
EWTN UK
November 29, 2016

Archbishop Pio Vito Pinto, Dean of the Roman Rota, told a conference in Spain that Cardinal Burke and the three cardinals who submitted the dubia to Pope Francis "could lose their Cardinalate" for causing "grave scandal" by making the dubia public. The Dean of the Roman Rota went on to accuse Cardinals Raymond Burke, Carlo Caffarra, Walter Brandmüller and Joachim Meisner of questioning the Holy Spirit. Archbishop Pio Vito Pinto made his astounding accusations during a conference to religious in Spain.

Archbishop Pio Vito's indictment against the four cardinals, and other people who question Pope Francis and Amoris Laetitia, was that they not only questioned one synod of bishops on marriage and the family, but two synods, about which, "The action of the Holy Spirit can not be doubted.".

The Dean of the Roman Rota went on to clarify that the Pope did not have to strip the four senior cardinals of their "cardinalate", but that he could do it. He went on to confirm what many commentators have suspected that Pope Francis' interview with Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops, was the Holy Father's indirect response to the cardinals' dubia:

During the conference, Pius Vito made clear to those present that the Pope did not respond directly to these four cardinals, "but indirectly told them that they only see white or black, when there are shades of color in the Church."

The Dean of the Roman Rota, the highest canonical court responsible for marriage in the Catholic Church, went on to support Pope Francis' innovation of allowing divorced and "remarried" to receive Holy Communion. In response to a question asking if it was better to grant divorced and civily remarried couples nullity of marriage so they can marry in the Church before they receive Holy Communion Archbishop Pio Vinto expressed preference for Pope Francis's "reform":

Pope Francis' reform of the matrimonial process wants to reach more people. The percentage of people who ask for marriage annulment is very small. The Pope has said that communion is not only for good Catholics. Francisco says: how to reach the most excluded people? Under the Pope's reform many people may ask for nullity, but others will not.

Pope fires back at his critics over 'Amoris' and discusses ecumenism

Ines San Martin
Crux
November 18, 2016

Pope Francis has fired back at his critics over the document Amoris Laetita, suggesting they suffer from “a certain legalism, which can be ideological.” The critics now include a group of four cardinals who’ve accused the pontiff of causing grave confusion and disorientation and even floated the prospect of a public correction.

“Some- think about the responses to Amoris Laetitia- continue to not understand,” Francis said. They think it’s “black and white, even if in the flux of life you must discern.”

The pope’s comments came in a wide-ranging interview with the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire published on Friday, in response to a question about his Jubilee Year of Mercy and its relation with the 1960s-era Second Vatican Council.

“The Church exists only as an instrument to communicate to men God’s merciful design,” he said, adding that during the council, the Church felt the “need to be in the world as a living sign of the Father’s love.”

The Council, particularly the document Lumen Gentium, according to Francis, moved the axis of the Christian conception “from a certain legalism, which can be ideological,” to God himself, who through the Son became human.

It’s in this context in which he talked about the responses to Amoris Laetitia by those who continue “not to understand” this point.

Although he gives no names, it’s not a stretch to imagine the pope was thinking about the dubia or “doubts” about the apostolic exhortation presented to him by four cardinals, including American Raymond Burke.

The pope told the prelates he wasn’t going to respond, which is the reason why the cardinals went public with their questions earlier in the week.

In a follow-up interview with the National Catholic Register, Burke said they had done it out of charity towards the pope, and in an attempt to end the “tremendous division” caused particularly by chapter eight. In it, Francis seemingly opens the doors, in case-by-case situations, for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive the sacraments.

Burke, an expert in canon law, said that if the pope doesn’t provide the “clarification of the Church’s teaching” they are asking for, then they’d consider making a formal act of correction of the Roman Pontiff.

But the “legalists” responses to Amoris are far from being the only matter addressed by Pope Francis in his interview with Stefania Falasca, a journalist from Avvenire, the official newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference.

The two central issues throughout the three-page long interview are the Holy Year of Mercy, which will conclude on Sunday, and ecumenism, meaning the press for greater Christian unity.

Falasca asked the pope about his inter-Christian meetings, saying that there too, he finds critics in the form of those who believe he’s “selling out” Catholic doctrine. “Some have said you want to ‘Protestantize’ the Church,” she asks. But Francis is not too worried about this criticism either: “I’m not losing sleep over it. I’ll continue on the path of those who proceeded me, and I follow the Council.”

Opinions, he said, have to be distinguished according to the spirit with which they’re voiced. “Where there’s not a nasty spirit, they can help you on the path,” he said. “Other times, you see quickly that criticisms taken here and there to justify pre-existing positions aren’t honest, they’re formed with a nasty spirit in order to sow division.”

These rigorisms, Francis argued, “are born from something missing, from trying to hide one’s own sad dissatisfaction behind a kind of armor.”

To illustrate his point and this “rigid behavior,” the pope recommended the 1987 movie “Babette’s Feast.”

Proselytism among Christians is sinful

Talking about Christian unity, the pope said it’s “a path” that leads to a walking together with Jesus, and that despite the theological differences, a “practical ecumenism” is possible and it can take different forms, such as Christians working together to help the poor.

Unity, he insisted, is built in this walking together, and it’s a “grace” that has to be asked for. It’s for this reason that he repeats: “every form of proselytism among Christians is sinful. The Church never grows from proselytism but ‘by attraction,’ as Benedict XVI wrote.”

“Proselytism among Christians, therefore, in itself, is a grave sin,” he said.

The journalist then asked, “Why?”

“Because it contradicts the very dynamic of how to become and to remain Christian,” he said. “The Church is not a soccer team that goes around seeking fans.”

Francis also spoke about his friendship with Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, sharing that during the trip the two took to the Greek island of Lesbos to bring attention to the refugee and immigrant crisis, the Orthodox leader had his pockets full of candies, making him a favorite among the children.

This, the pope said, is Bartholomew, a man capable of leading the Great Orthodox Council, talking about high-level theology and being with children.

“When he came to Rome he would stay in the room where I am now,” Francis said, referring to room 201 of the Santa Marta, a hotel within Vatican grounds where he’s lived since the beginning of his pontificate. “The only thing [Bartholomew] reproached me for is that he had to change rooms.”

The cancer of the Church is giving glory to each other

Never one to go easy with his own people, the pope once again spoke about the “spiritual disease” some Catholics have, in believing that the Church is a “self-sufficient human reality, where everything moves according to the logic of ambition and power.”

“I continue to think that the cancer of the Church is giving glory to each other,” the pope told Falasca.

“If one doesn’t know who Jesus is, or has never met him, you always can meet him; but if one is in the Church, if one moves in it because it’s precisely in the ambit of the Church that one cultivates and feeds one’s hunger for power and self-affirmation, you have a spiritual disease.”

Francis argued that Martin Luther, a key figure in the Protestant Reformation, realized this: “the refusal of an image of the Church as an organization that can go ahead ignoring the grace of the Lord, or considering it as a possession to be taken for granted, guaranteed a priori.”

“This temptation to build a self-referential Church, which leads to opposition and therefore to division, always comes back,” the pontiff said.

Francis refuses to fall into trap set by Cardinal Burke and allies over 'errors' in Amoris Laetitia

Christopher Lamb
The Tablet
November 16, 2016

Pope believes questions posed on divorced and remarrieds are designed to force him into debate on cardinal's terms

One of Pope Francis’ most prominent critics has upped the ante. In an interview with the National Catholic Register United State’s Cardinal Raymond Burke has said the pontiff is “teaching error” by suggesting divorced and remarried Catholics can receive communion and has threatened to make a “formal act of correction.”

He and three other retired cardinals have written to Francis calling on him clear up the confusion which are contained in the Pope’s family synod document, Amoris Laetitia which they claim is causing “grave disorientation and great confusion” among Catholics. And they have put five questions to him - known as Dubia - which demand a “yes or no” answer.

But the Pope has not responded so the group - including Joachim Meisner, retired leader of Cologne, Carlo Caffarra, retired leader of Bologna, and Walter Brandmüller, formerly in charge of the Vatican’s historical sciences committee - have gone public with their concerns.

So why is the Pope staying silent? Francis believes their questions are a trap and has opted not to engage in a debate which seems on the cardinals' terms and designed to make him restate old rules. He has also definitively endorsed the Argentinian bishops’ position which is that communion can be given to remarried Catholics in some cases - and he is leaving it up to individual bishops in general to make the call.

For the conservatives this is the crux of the problem. It is not so much “confusion” about the document but that the Pope has ruled in favour of personal conscience, discernment and power to the local churches. That is scary for them because it means throwing off the comfort blanket of clean, clear unequivocal papal teaching.

But the truth is that when it comes to marriage and divorce a “one size fits all” solution doesn’t work, and Francis knows it. He also knows that most Catholics agree and that Amoris Laetitia reflects the reality of countless numbers of parishes. And he may be sceptical of the claim that the faithful are “confused” from a group of cardinals not currently engaged in front-line pastoral work.

Anyone watching the new Netflix series “The Crown” might have been struck by the similarity between this debate and the Church of England’s refusal to allow Princess Margaret to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend, on the grounds he was a divorced man.

The proposed marriage between Margaret and Townsend, the senior bishops tell the young Queen in one scene, cannot happen as it would threaten the sacrament of marriage. Those events took place more than half a century ago and the Church of England has since changed its position on the issue.

And in the Catholics’ similar debate over communion for divorced and remarried Francis is betting that his teaching will be the one that stands the test of time.

Pope Francis on the correct interpretation of the 'Amoris Laetitia'

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican Insider
September 12, 2016

The “text is very good and fully captures the meaning of chapter VIII of the ‘Amoris Laetitia’. There are no other interpretations”. For the first time, Pope Francis puts his opinion on the correct interpretation of the post-synodal exhortation on the family, in writing, in a letter sent to the bishops of Argentina. As is known, the document in the eighth chapter is about the integration of “wounded” and irregular families and calls for a process of discernment which could lead to readmission to the sacraments depending on each individual case, without venturing into the realm of casuistry or hammering rules into people. The papal document has been subject to a variety of interpretations. Some commentators were quick to claim that previous norms essentially remained unchanged.

The Pope had already given a verbal response to this on the return flight from the Greek island of Lesbos last April. He was asked whether there were any real new possibilities for access to the sacraments that did not exist prior to the publication of the “Amoris Laetitia” encyclical. “I could say “yes” and leave it at that”, Francis had replied. “But that would be too brief a response. I recommend that all of you read the presentation made by Cardinal Schönborn, a great theologian.”

The document which the bishops of Buenos Aires sent to members of the clergy at the start of September was a letter outlining a set of criteria based on the eighth chapter of the exhortation and in particular on the possibility for divorcees who enter a second union to gain access to the sacraments. First of all, it states that it is not proper to “speak about ‘permission’ for accessing the sacraments but rather about a process of discernment under the guidance of a pastor. Along this path, “the pastor should accentuate the fundamental announcement, the kerygma, that stimulates or revives a personal encounter with Christ”. This “pastoral accompaniment” requires the priest to show “the maternal face of the Church”, accepting the honest intention of the penitent and his sincere intention to live his life according to the Gospel and practice charity”. This path “does not necessarily lead to the sacraments but can lead to other forms of greater integration in the life of the Church: a stronger presence of community, participation in prayer or reflection groups, a commitment to different areas of service within the Church.”

In the fifth point made in their document, the bishops of Buenos Aires explain: “Commitment to continence could be considered as an option when the concrete circumstances of a couple allow it, especially when the two are Christians following a path of faith,” leaving “open the possibility of accessing the sacrament of reconciliation in such cases”. This possibility is already present in the teachings of John Paul II. In the following paragraph they explain that in the case “of other more complex circumstances and when it is not possible to obtain a declaration of annulment, the abovementioned option (continence, Ed.) may not be viable. Despite this, a path of discernment is still possible. When there is acknowledgement, in a concrete case, of the existence of limitations that diminish the degree of responsibility and culpability – particularly when a person believes they would commit another mistake that could harm any children born into the new union - ‘Amoris Laetitia’ introduces the possibility of access to the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist.”

“These in turn allow the person to continue to mature and grow through the strength of grace,” the document goes on to say. It is important, however, to ensure that this window is not seen as providing unrestricted access to the sacraments or as if any situation could justify it. What is being proposed is a discernment that adequately distinguishes between cases. Some cases require special attention, for instance, situations where a new union is forged shortly after a divorce or where a person repeatedly falls short of their commitments towards the family. Or in cases where a person defends or brags about their own situation as if it formed part of the Christian ideal.” People need to be guided in placing themselves and “their conscience before God,” especially “when it comes to their behaviour towards their children or towards the abandoned spouse. When there are injustices that remain unresolved, access to the sacraments is particularly controversial.”

Finally, bishops observe that “should access to the sacraments be granted in some cases, it could make sense for this to be kept confidential, especially when conflict is foreseen”. At the same time, however, “the community needs to be given guidance so that it can grow in a spirit of understanding and openness”.

The Pope’s response came on 5 September, praising them for their work, “a true example of the accompaniment of priests”. The key phrase of his letter followed: the document issued by the bishops of Buenos Aires “is very good and fully captures the meaning of chapter VIII of the ‘Amoris Laetitia’. There are no other interpretations. I am sure it will do much good”. Regarding the “path of welcome, accompaniment, discernment and integration,” he said: “We know it is tiring, this is ‘hand-to-hand’ pastoral care, where programmatic, organisational and legal mediation is not enough, albeit necessary”.

Vatican newspaper: Amoris Laetitia is authoritative church teaching

Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
August 23, 2016

Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation on the family is an example of the "ordinary magisterium" -- papal teaching -- to which Catholics are obliged to give "religious submission of will and intellect," said an article in the Vatican newspaper. Fr. Salvador Pie-Ninot, a well-known professor of ecclesiology, said that while Pope Francis did not invoke his teaching authority in a "definitive way" in the document, it meets all the criteria for being an example of the "ordinary magisterium" to which all members of the church should respond with "the basic attitude of sincere acceptance and practical implementation."

The Spanish priest's article in L'Osservatore Romano Aug. 23 came in response to questions raised about the formal weight of the pope's document, Amoris Laetitia ("The Joy of Love"). For instance, U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke has said on several occasions that the document is "a mixture of opinion and doctrine."

Pie-Ninot said he examined the document in light of the 1990 instruction from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the vocation of the theologian.

The instruction -- issued by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now-retired Pope Benedict XVI -- explained three levels of church teaching with the corresponding levels of assent they require. The top levels are: "Infallible pronouncements," which require an assent of faith as being divinely revealed; and teaching proposed "in a definitive way," which is "strictly and intimately connected with revelation" and "must be firmly accepted and held."

A teaching is an example of "ordinary magisterium," according to the instruction, "when the magisterium, not intending to act 'definitively,' teaches a doctrine to aid a better understanding of revelation and make explicit its contents, or to recall how some teaching is in conformity with the truths of faith, or finally to guard against ideas that are incompatible with these truths, the response called for is that of the religious submission of will and intellect."

Amoris Laetitia falls into the third category, Pie-Ninot said, adding the 1990 instruction's statement that examples of ordinary magisterium can occur when the pope intervenes "in questions under discussion which involve, in addition to solid principles, certain contingent and conjectural elements."

The instruction notes that "it often only becomes possible with the passage of time to distinguish between what is necessary and what is contingent," although, as the Spanish priest said, the instruction insists that even then one must assume that "divine assistance" was given to the pope.

Accepting Amoris Laetitia as authoritative church teaching, Pie-Ninot said, applies also to the document's "most significant words" about the possibility of people divorced and remarried without an annulment receiving Communion in limited circumstances.

Archbishop Chaput edict draws mixed reviews; Mayor Kenny calls it 'not Christian'

David O'Reilly
Philadelphia Inquirer
July 6, 2016


Mayor Kenney on Wednesday denounced as "not Christian" Archbishop Charles J. Chaput's insistence that Catholics living in relationships the church considers sinful may not receive Holy Communion or hold positions of responsibility in parishes. The mayor commented on twitter: "Jesus gave us gift of Holy Communion because he so loved us. All of us. Chaput's actions are not Christian."

Kenney's was among the sharper reactions Chaput's decree drew from around the region. Some were swift to denounce the archbishop as an "old white man" whose church was out of touch.

Others, though, hailed the archbishop for upholding traditional church teaching or deferred with a shrug to his authority.

The mayor, who was raised Catholic, has often been sharply critical of Chaput's conservative stances on matters of faith.

On Friday, Chaput posted on the archdiocesan website six pages of guidelines for clergy and other local church leaders on how to implement Amoris Laetitia, a major document on the family Pope Francis issued in April.

Some theologians have said Amoris calls on church leaders to be more welcoming of Catholics who are estranged from parish life because the church disapproves of their sexual relationships.

Chaput was emphatic that this does not mean Francis has reformulated the church's traditional ban on Communion for those Catholics who live in what the church views as sin - such as divorced Catholics who remarry outside the church, sexually active gays, and cohabiting unmarried couples.

In Amoris, Francis "states clearly that neither Church teaching nor the canonical discipline concerning marriage has changed," Chaput remarked in his guidelines.

Holy Communion is a central element of the Catholic faith, which holds that the prayers a priest utters over bread and wine during Mass transform them physically into the body and blood of Jesus.

Barring a person from receiving Communion does not mean that he or she is excommunicated. But many of those barred have complained of feeling shunned, embarrassed, or marginalized.

Many laypeople and clergy had hoped Francis might ease the church's position regarding Communion in Amoris Laetitia, but despite his call for clergy to listen compassionately to the pain of those who feel excluded, he did not make any explicit changes to the teaching.

Chaput's guidelines may be the first of their kind issued by the bishop of any American diocese in response to Amoris Laetitia, Latin for "the joy of love."

Chaput's position did not upset Lydia Carbone, a member of St. Patrick's parish in Center City.

"It's not for me to judge the church's teachings," she said.

Unmarried after a divorce more than 16 years ago, she has led programs at her parish designed to help the newly divorced understand the church's stance that they may not remarry in the faith unless their first marriage is declared invalid by a diocesan tribunal.

But she was pleased, she said, that Pope Francis "seems to be opening dialogue in the gray areas" around divorce and remarriage. "I'm hoping the church will be more open and welcoming."

Others were fuming.

An article on the guidelines in Wednesday's Inquirer generated more than 1,000 comments, most of them harshly critical of Chaput.

Across the street from the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul, an 18-year-old Catholic questioned the wisdom of the guidelines Wednesday afternoon.

"It's isolating people," said Mia Trotz, a college student in Philadelphia selling water ice at Sister Cities Park.

But Carl Miller, 58 and gay, said he admired Chaput for his stance. "I believe the Catholic Church's teachings are ultimate truth," said Miller.

"I struggle with living it perfectly," said Miller, who attends Mass weekly and receives Communion, "but I think the archbishop is right in restating what the Catholic teaching is." He declined to name his hometown or parish.

A large part of the debate involves just what Francis meant to say about the inclusion in parish life of unmarried but cohabiting Catholics, those in same-sex relationships, and the estimated 4.5 million who are divorced and remarried without an annulment.

"It's being read in different ways by different individuals and different bishops," said John Grabowski, associate professor of moral theology at Catholic University of America.

Grabowski, an authority on Amoris Laetitia, noted that in one place Francis writes that priests have the duty to accompany those who divorce and remarry outside the church "in helping them to understand their situation according to the teaching of the Church and the guidelines of the bishop."

But Grabowski noted that Francis also wrote in Amoris that "I would also point out that the Eucharist 'is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.' "

And for those struggling to reconcile what appear to be Francis' positions, Grabowski pointed to yet more lines from the pope:

"I understand those who prefer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion," wrote Francis. "But I sincerely believe that Jesus wants a Church attentive to the goodness which the Holy Spirit sows in the midst of human weakness, a Mother who, while clearly expressing her objective teaching, always does what good she can, even if in the process, her shoes get soiled by the mud of the street."

"I don't want to say this is murky," said Grabowski, "but it's not crystal clear. So what happens is that people find support for differing positions. So it's going to be up to different bishops to decide how this document should be implemented in their dioceses."

Francis: 'New concrete possibilities' for remarried after family exhortation

Joshua J. McElwee
National Catholic Reporter
April 16, 2016

Pope Francis has affirmed that his recent apostolic exhortation on family life has opened up "new concrete possibilities" for Catholics who divorce and remarry without first obtaining annulments.

In a press conference on his way back from a one-day visit to Lesbos, Greece, a reporter told the pontiff that some had interpreted the language in his exhortation to mean that there were no specific changes to the church's pastoral practice for remarried Catholics while others thought there were.

"Are there new concrete possibilities that did not exist before the publication of the exhortation, or no?" asked the journalist.

"I can say yes," responded Francis. "Period."

The pontiff then suggested that people looking for more information consult the presentation given by Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schönborn at the Vatican April 8, the day the new exhortation, titled Amoris Laetitia ("The Joy of Love"), was released.

In his presentation that day, Schönborn said the document had made some "organic development" of the church's pastoral practice for divorced and remarried couples.

"I recommend to all of you to read the presentation that Cardinal Schönborn made," the pope said Saturday. "He is a great theologian."

"He knows well the doctrine of the church," said Francis. "In that presentation, your question will have its response."

Amoris Laetitia was written by Francis in response to two Synods of Bishops at the Vatican on family life issues in 2014 and 2015.

In the expansive document, the pope touches on many issues and says that Catholic bishops and priests can no longer make blanket moral determinations about so-called "irregular" situations such as divorce and remarriage.

"It ... can no longer simply be said that all those in any 'irregular' situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace," states the pontiff at one point in the document.

"It is reductive simply to consider whether or not an individual’s actions correspond to a general law or rule, because that is not enough to discern and ensure full fidelity to God in the concrete life of a human being," the pope writes later.

Francis was also asked Saturday about a particular footnote in the document, in which the pope says that "pastoral discernment" for divorced and remarried persons "in certain cases ... can include the help of the sacraments."

A journalist asked why the pope had put that decision in a footnote, and if it meant he wanted to indicate the issue was not overwhelmingly important.

"One of the last popes, speaking about the Council, said there were two Councils," Francis responded. "The Second Vatican Council that met in St. Peter's Basilica and the other was the Council of the media."

"When I convoked the first Synod, the great worry of the majority of the media was will they give Communion to the divorced and remarried?" he continued.

"Not being a saint, this annoyed me a bit but also made me a bit sad," said Francis. "The media that say this ... do not see that this is not the important problem of the church. They do not see that the family in all the world is in crisis. And family is the base of society."

Francis spent just under five hours Saturday on Lesbos, a Greek island that has become the waypoint for hundreds of thousands of refugees seeking asylum in Europe. He was joined by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Greek Orthodox Archbishop Ieronymos II.

True defenders of doctrine uphold spirit, not letter of the law

Christine Schenk
National Catholic Reporter
Oct. 29, 2015 Simply Spirit

Like many of you, I have been following the Synod of Bishops on the family with more than usual interest. Despite early accusations from conservatives that the synod was rigged, it saw the most open exchange of differing perspectives of any synod in recent memory. This resulted in "huge support" for Pope Francis among bishops and bodes well for a healthier, more pastorally effective church.

I am delighted that the synod advised use of the "internal forum" in pastoral decision making about fuller participation of the divorced and remarried in Catholic life. The internal forum relies on priests working privately with individuals to discern the extent to which the "external forum" ideal of church law applies to their subjective situations.

Propositions 84, 85 and 86, while never actually using the word "Communion," open a way for divorced and remarried Catholics to return to receiving the Eucharist. Proposition 85 cites an encyclical by Pope St. John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, as well as the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts and past teachings of the church. It says, "The judgment on an objective situation must not lead to a judgment on 'subjective guilt." Further it says, "While upholding the general norm, it's necessary to recognize that the responsibility for certain actions or decisions is not the same in all cases," and that, "Pastoral discernment, taking account of the correctly formed consciences of people, must take up these situations."

Several prelates have confirmed that the synod supported opening a pathway for the divorced and remarried to return to the sacraments.

Of course, Pope Francis has the final word, but as anyone who has been paying attention realizes, his heart is set on the mercy of God rather than judgment.

The synod fathers have now handed him the two-thirds consensus he needs to nuance pastoral practice regarding divorced and remarried Catholics. Note I did not say to change doctrine. The doctrinal ideal of life-long married commitment remains the same. But the pastoral application can and should take into account the complex circumstances of individual believers.

And all of this is important why? Because people -- especially hurting people -- are beloved of God and the privileged place of divine compassion.

I am grateful that the German bishops raised the "internal forum" proposal at the synod. That they did so with the support of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the conservative Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is nothing short of miraculous. Still, the "internal forum" path is not really new. I know a number of U.S. priests who invoked it frequently while accompanying people in complex situations.

I have two friends, both nurses, who suffered greatly over loss of the sacraments when they remarried after a painful divorce. Their stories are as heartbreaking as they are instructive.

"Jane" is a dedicated nurse midwife who married at a young age, raised several children and later divorced. She fell in love with a physician with whom she worked and later married him. Theirs was an unusually happy union.

Jane grew up in the proverbial school of hard knocks, but her Catholic faith was always an important support. I knew she loved God but I had no idea how much she suffered from not being able to receive Communion until one day, with many tears, she told me about it. I suggested she speak to a priest I knew to be a skilled spiritual director and told her about the "internal forum."

Several months later we both attended the funeral of the young son of a beloved physician colleague. Before Mass, someone announced there was a need for Communion ministers, so I volunteered. While distributing Communion, I looked up and there was Jane, eyes streaming and hands outstretched to receive the Body of the Christ she loved so well. It was the first time she had received Communion in 20 years. I still get pretty choked up thinking about it.

My other friend, "Joyce," is a college chum from nursing school days who had undergone a painful divorce and later remarried. At our last reunion, Joyce's college roommate, "Trish," asked me to talk to her and her husband who happens to be a retired Protestant minister. Turns out, Joyce was in considerable pain because she longed to receive Communion but could not bring herself to approach the altar. Her husband suffered with her, knowing full well the heights and depths of God's love for his wife.

I suggested to Joyce that the intensity of her longing was itself a sign that Christ was inviting her to receive. I also told her about the "internal forum" and suggested she seek the counsel of a pastoral priest. Not long afterwards she sent me a joyful email relating that she would soon return to the sacraments.

I am very grateful to God for my small part in assuaging the pain of these wonderful women.

If our church doesn't help people connect with God's unconditional love, then what's the point?

We have become salt that has lost its savor.

Unfortunately, most divorced and remarried Catholics have never heard of the "internal forum".

But, hopefully, not for long.

In his concluding synod speech, Pope Francis had harsh words for those "letter-of-the-law" types who "frequently hide even behind the Church’s teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families."

Rather, said Francis, true defenders of church doctrine, "are not those who uphold its letter, but its spirit; not ideas but people; not formulae but the gratuitousness of God’s love and forgiveness."

Listen up, people. No more straining at gnats and swallowing camels allowed in this church.

God's love and forgiveness rule -- now and forever, amen!

[A Sister of St. Joseph, Sr. Christine Schenk served urban families for 18 years as a nurse midwife before co-founding FutureChurch, where she served for 23 years. She holds master's degrees in nursing and theology.]

Pope, ending synod, excoriates bishops with 'closed hearts'

Philip Pulllela
Reuters
October 25, 2015

Pope Francis, ending a contentious bishops' meeting on family issues, on Saturday excoriated immovable Church leaders who "bury their heads in the sand" and hide behind rigid doctrine while families suffer.

The pope spoke at the end of a three-week gathering, known as a synod, where the bishops agreed to a qualified opening toward divorcees who have remarried outside the Church but rejected calls for more welcoming language toward homosexuals.

It was the latest in a series of admonitions to bishops by the pontiff, who has stressed since his election in 2013 that the 1.2 billion-member Church should be open to change, side with the poor and rid itself of the pomp and stuffiness that has alienated so many Catholics.

In his final address, the pope appeared to criticize ultra-conservatives, saying Church leaders should confront difficult issues "fearlessly, without burying our heads in the sand."

He said the synod had "laid bare the closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church's teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families".

He also decried "conspiracy theories" and the "blinkered viewpoints" of some at the gathering, and said the Church could not transmit its message to new generations "at times encrusted in a language which is archaic or simply incomprehensible".

The outcome of the gathering, over which the pope presided, marked a victory for conservatives on homosexual issues and for progressives on the thorny issue of remarriage.

The final synod document restated Church teachings that gays should not suffer discrimination in society, but also repeated the stand that there was "no foundation whatsoever" for same-sex marriage, which "could not even remotely" be compared to heterosexual unions.

The 94-article document indicated that the assembly had decided to avoid overtly controversial language and seek consensus in order to avoid deadlock on the most sensitive topics, leaving it up to the pope to deal with the details.

The synod is an advisory body that does not have the power to alter church doctrine. The pope, who is the final arbiter on any change and who has called for a more merciful and inclusive Church, can use the material to write his own document, known as an "apostolic exhortation".

HOPE FOR DIVORCEES

The synod document did offer some hope for the full re-integration into the Church of some Catholics who divorce and remarry in civil ceremonies.

Under current Church doctrine they cannot receive communion unless they abstain from sex with their new partner, because their first marriage is still valid in the eyes of the Church and they are seen to be living in an adulterous state of sin.

They only way such Catholics can remarry is if they receive an annulment, a ruling that their first marriage never existed in the first place because of the lack of certain pre-requisites such as psychological maturity or free will.

The document spoke of a so-called "internal forum" in which a priest or a bishop may work with a Catholic who has divorced and remarried to decide jointly, privately and on a case-by-case basis if he or she can be fully re-integrated.

"In order for this happen, the necessary conditions of humility, discretion, love for the Church and her teachings must be guaranteed in a sincere search for God's will," the document said.

Tally sheets showed that the three articles on the divorced and re-married were the most fought-over, reaching the two-thirds majority needed to remain in the document by only a few votes each. One passed by only one vote.

Progressives have for years been advocating the "internal forum" and some observers said the mere fact that phrase was included in the document was a victory for those promoting merciful change.

During the synod, some bishops said the Church should introduce welcoming and inclusive language regarding homosexuals, such as calling them "brothers, sisters and colleagues" in the document.

But Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna told reporters many of the 270 bishops felt homosexuality was still "too delicate a theme" in their countries. During the meeting, African bishops were particularly adamant in their opposition to welcoming language toward homosexuals, saying it would only confuse the faithful.

At a preliminary meeting a year ago, conservative clerics made sure an interim report deleted a passage they thought was too welcoming to gays.

Pope Francis' plans for inclusiveness divide bishops

Laurie Goodstein and Elisabetta Povoledo
New York Times
October 21, 2015

Pope Francis had encouraged bishops from more than 120 countries to speak freely when they gathered at the Vatican nearly three weeks ago for a broad discussion of family matters to guide the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. And speak freely, they have.

The result has been the most momentous, and contentious, meeting of bishops in the 50 years since the Second Vatican Council, which brought the church into the modern era. The meeting has exposed deep fault lines between traditionalists focused on shoring up doctrine, and those who want the church to be more open to Catholics who are divorced, gay, single parents or cohabiting.

As the bishops face a deadline Saturday to present their report to the pope, it is increasingly clear that Francis is struggling to build consensus for his vision of a more inclusive and decentralized church. The question is whether the pope, who has won the hearts of those in the pews, can persuade the bishops to help create a church that fully welcomes people with the kinds of family situations it now condemns.

“This is a pivotal moment of this pontificate,” said Roberto Rusconi, who teaches the history of Christianity at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, a state school. Pope Francis is sounding out the world’s bishops “to better understand whether they are going to follow his line or not.”

“The risk,” Professor Rusconi said, “is polarization.”

Already the summit meeting — known as a synod — has had to conduct its debate amid a distracting swirl of intrigue that has included the leak in the Italian media of a private letter to Francis from 13 cardinals asserting that he had stacked the 10-member committee drafting the final report with partisans favorable to his vision of change. Then on Wednesday, an Italian newspaper reported that Francis had a treatable brain tumor — a report the Vatican swiftly declared to be “unfounded.”

The synod meetings are closed to the media, but at daily briefings bishops have said that Francis appears serene and quite pleased to have uncorked a genuine debate. On Saturday, the synod’s final report is expected to be published and the 270 participating bishops, known as synod fathers, will vote up or down on each passage.

Progressives, led by the contingent from Germany, are pushing for a church that is more welcoming toward divorced, gay and other parishioners who are not living the Catholic ideal of family. The German bishops have found allies among some prelates from Western Europe, Asia and the Americas.

The traditionalists — whose standard bearers are the African and Eastern European bishops — have resisted any proposals that appear to soften the church’s doctrine that marriage is “indissoluble” and homosexuality is “intrinsically disordered.”

In one indication of their fervor, Cardinal Robert Sarah, who is from Guinea and leads the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship, told the synod, “What Nazi-Fascism and Communism were in the 20th century, Western homosexual and abortion ideologies and Islamic fanaticism are today.”

Bishops from the United States have revealed themselves to be just as divided as their flock back home. Their tensions surfaced here when an Italian newspaper reported last week that Cardinals Timothy M. Dolan of New York and Daniel N. DiNardo of Houston were among 13 who signed the letter to Francis complaining about the drafting committee. On that panel is a fellow American, Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C.

This week Cardinal Wuerl, usually known as a centrist diplomat, fired back in an interview with the Jesuit magazine America, saying the charges that the pope was trying to manipulate the synod’s outcome or undermine church teaching were unfounded.

“I don’t know what would bring people to say the things that they are saying because we are all hearing the pope, and the pope is saying nothing that contradicts the teaching of the church,” Cardinal Wuerl said. “He’s encouraging us to be open, to be merciful, to be kind, to be compassionate, but he keeps saying that you cannot change the teaching of the church.”

“I wonder,” he added, “if it is really that they find they just don’t like this pope.”

The synod can make recommendations, but unlike the three-year Second Vatican Council, it cannot make decisions. That power lies with the pope.

Francis is expected to speak to the bishops this weekend, giving him the last word after the bishops vote on their final report. But it could be many months before Francis issues an official document on the church’s approach to family issues, and it has not been determined what that document will cover and what weight it will have, several Vatican spokesmen have said.

Puerto Rico archbishop calls for path to Communion for remarried

Joshua J. McElwee
National Catholic Reporter
October 19, 2015

Puerto Rico’s representative at the ongoing Synod of Bishops has poignantly called for some sort of penitential path towards taking Communion for Catholics who have divorced and remarried, saying the current practice does not allow them a “full encounter” with Christ.

San Juan Archbishop Roberto González Nieves told the 270 prelates at the gathering that the practice of remarried Catholics entering the Communion line with their arms crossed to indicate they wish to receive a blessing, instead of the Eucharist, demonstrates that “spiritual communion is not enough.”

“This gesture shows and suggests several things,” González said of that practice during his 3-minute address to the synod. “It is a manifestation of the desire of sacramental communion and they humble themselves before the community by making clear to all their illegal status; as if to say: Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!”

Saying he wanted to present proposals to “enter into dialogue with the complexity of the pastoral reality and the salvation of souls,” González suggested to the synod that certain divorced and remarried persons might enter into something akin to an "order of penitents" through participation in "places of encounter with Jesus Christ."

With a citation to Pope John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Familiaris consortio, the archbishop said such a journey would be “gradual and proportionate” and take such persons “step-by-step in the most profound and sincere moral life of faith.”

Each of the participants in the Synod of Bishops is allowed to make at least one short speech during an open meeting of the group. While the speeches are not being published by the Vatican, González has made the full text of his intervention available at his archdiocesan website in Spanish.

One of the discussions known to be taking place at the synod, being held behind closed doors, regards the church's stance towards divorced persons who remarry without obtaining annulments of their first marriages. Such persons are currently prohibited in church teaching from receiving the Eucharist.

Identifying places of encounter with Christ as scripture, prayer, liturgy, Eucharist and the Sacrament of Reconciliation, González suggested a penitential pathway could offer divorced and remarried persons a kind of “second baptism” where they can resolve a “conflict of values” between the indissolubility of marriage, human dignity, and salvation.

Quoting from Pope Francis’ homily during the recent Mass in Washington to canonize 18th-century Franciscan missionary Fr. Junipero Serra, the archbishop said the pope reminded Catholics that Jesus “did not provide a short list of who is, or is not, worthy of receiving his message and his presence.”

“Far from expecting a pretty life, smartly-dressed and neatly groomed, he embraced life as he found it,” González quoted the pope’s homily. “It made no difference whether it was dirty, unkempt, broken.”

“Without going into the details of the moral responsibility towards their children: Would it be right that in a couple one spouse leaves with the pretext to live in chastity?” the archbishop asked the synod prelates.

“Where is the dignity and responsibility towards the person abandoned?” he continued. “If we believe in the efficacy of the penitential sacrament as a sacrament of conversion, then: why deny it to someone, who we can guide to meet the Lord who can convert him/her?”

“This penitential journey, with renewed purpose to bring back to the right path these brothers and sisters, will have the conditions of possibility for which, extraordinarily, they may progressively assume the gifts of God and its requirements,” said the archbishop, quoting again from Familiaris consortio.

“This implies that in the penitential journey these brothers and sisters resume their ecclesiastic union through the Eucharist, when the conditions established by the Church are verified,” said González.

“This will not be a prize because they are good, but it will be their strength in weakness … an aid to help them continue on the journey,” said the archbishop. “The consecrated host is the medicine for the soul, and whoever has a wound looks for medicine, says St. Ambrose.”

Cardinal Pell rejects conservative call for a walkout at Synod of Bishops

John L. Allen, Jr.
Crux
October 16, 2015


Despite an online petition calling on prelates “faithful to Christ’s teaching” to abandon the 2015 Synod of Bishops on the family, due to perceptions of a “pre-determined outcome that is anything but orthodox,” one of the summit’s most outspoken conservatives says “there’s no ground for anyone to walk out on anything.”

Australian Cardinal George Pell, who heads the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, told Crux on Friday that by the midway point of the Oct. 4-25 synod, concerns about stacking the deck circulating in some quarters have “substantially been addressed.”

The online petition calling for a walkout, which can be found at change.org, has garnered roughly 2,300 signatures in two days.

It asks any bishop alarmed by the prospect of progressive changes to Church doctrine to “do his sacred duty and publicly retire from any further participation in the synod before its conclusion,” and suggests that Pope Francis is responsible for promoting “confusion and scandal.”

Pell was among roughly a dozen cardinals who signed a letter to Francis at the beginning of the synod raising doubts about the process, but he says reassurances have been given by Vatican officials that the final result “will faithfully present the views of the synod.”

Among other things, Pell said that Italian Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, the synod secretary, has stated from the floor of the synod hall that voting on a final document will take place “paragraph by paragraph,” providing a clear sense of where the bishops stand on individual issues.

He also said that members of a drafting committee for the final document have vowed to be true to the content of the synod’s discussions, rather than using the text to promote their own views.

“That’s all we want, for whatever the synod says, whether it’s good, bad, or indifferent, to be represented,” Pell said.

“That’s in the long-term interest of everyone, because no matter how it might turn out, people want to feel that the bishops got to that situation fairly,” he said.

Asked if he feels the synod now has a level playing field, Pell said it’s “level enough.”

Overall, Pell said he believes the synod is making solid progress.

“I think a lot of good work has been done on the first two parts of the document,” he said, referring to a working text that’s the basis for synod discussions. “I think there’s generally a good atmosphere in the synod.”

Pell also said that he believes the information flow this time is an improvement on the October 2104 edition of the Synod of Bishops, when there were charges by conservatives that Vatican briefings presented a selective vision that generally favored progressive positions.

“Both sides of the story are getting out this time, I think,” he said.

“In terms of the [synod participants] who are briefing the media, I think they’re getting a mix of left, right, and center …. it’s better than it was the last time, anyway,” Pell said.

Pell said that he believes the final report must deal with sensitive issues, such as proposals to allow divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion, even if there’s no clear consensus among the bishops.

“I don’t think we’ll be in that position,” he said, suggesting that opposition to those proposals represents a strong majority in the synod.

“But even if it actually is 50/50 on some significant point, I think the Catholic world has to know that,” Pell said.

Vatican briefers repeatedly have told reporters that a decision on whether to release the synod’s final document is up to the pope. Pell said he believes it should be released, among other things because it’s destined to leak out anyway.

“I think no matter what happens, it will be public,” he said

Vatican seeks to quell talk of letter to pope on family

Nicole Winfield
Associated Press
October 13, 2015

The Vatican spokesman on Tuesday denounced the leak of a private letter to Pope Francis by conservative cardinals complaining about the way his big family meeting is being run. But he reminded those responsible that the meeting procedures are set and that they're duty-bound to stick with them.

Spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi sought to end discussion about the latest controversy to roil Francis' synod on the family after an Italian journalist published the letter Monday and named 13 cardinals who purportedly signed it.

Four of those said they never signed it. But the Vatican's finance manager, Cardinal George Pell, effectively confirmed he was behind the initiative by fellow conservatives to bring complaints straight to the pope about a perceived lack of openness in the synod process that they felt would create "predetermined results."

The letter, written in English, said the working document for the meeting was problematic and so was the drafting committee for the final document, since its members were appointed by the pope, not elected by the synod's 270 members.

And the letter warned if the synod muddied church teaching about marriage, the Catholic Church risked going the way of "liberal" Protestant churches which, according to the letter, had collapsed because they had abandoned "key elements of Christian belief and practice in the name of pastoral adaptation."

Pell has been at the forefront of conservative resistance to attempts by liberals at the synod to find wiggle room in the church's ban on giving Communion to Catholics remarried outside the church. Catholic teaching holds that without an annulment, these Catholics are committing adultery and cannot receive the sacraments.

Lombardi said Tuesday that Francis had already responded to the complaints and that it wasn't unusual for there to be "observations" and doubts about new procedures for a synod.

"But once they have been established, the (synod fathers) should commit themselves to putting them into practice in the best possible way," Lombardi said.

He said the synod process was going along smoothly in a positive atmosphere and even some of the purported signatories of the letter were moderators for their discussion groups, a sign even they were committed to the process.

German archbishop: church's stance on divorce makes people 'doubt God'

Joshua J. McElwee
National Catholic Reporter
October 9, 2015

One of Germany’s representatives at the worldwide meeting of Catholic prelates on family has pointedly told the gathering that church teaching preventing divorced and remarried persons from receiving the Eucharist makes people “doubt God.” Berlin Archbishop Heiner Koch has used his 3-minute address during the deliberations to directly address one of the issues known to be creating the most disagreement among the prelates, saying he is often asked why remarried couples are barred from the Eucharistic table.

The church’s theological arguments “do not silence the questions in the hearts of people,” Koch told the assembly.

“Is there no place at the Lord’s table for people who experienced and suffered an irreversible break in their lives?” he asked. “How perfect and holy must one be to be allowed to the supper of the Lord?”

“It becomes clear to me every time that the question of allowing divorced and remarried people to the Eucharist is not in the first place a question about the indissolubility of the sacrament of marriage,” said the archbishop.

rectangular-logo.jpgVisit our sister website, Global Sisters Report, for unique content you won't find anywhere else! “Many people question the Church and her mercy in this regard,” he said. “More than a few people concerned leave the Church with their children on the basis of what they see as rejection.”

“Ultimately and most profoundly it is much more about the Christian faith and God and His mercy,” he continued. “For many, the question of admittance to the Eucharist makes them doubt God.”

Each of the some 270 bishops participating in the Oct. 4-25 Synod is being given three minutes to address the entire assembly. While the meetings are not open, and the press is therefore not witnessing each of the statements, some of the bishops are making their remarks public.

Koch released his statement in German at the website of the country’s episcopal conference. Mark de Vries, a Dutch blogger, has released an English-language translation of the remarks.

The German archbishop’s text is notable for the way it directly confronts an issue known to be causing disagreement in the Synod.

While some bishops have expressed an openness to a proposal for some sort of “penitential path” to allow some divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion, others have expressed concerns that such a proposal would put in doubt the church’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage.

Divorced and remarried Catholics are currently prohibited from taking Communion unless they have received annulments of their first marriages.

In a sign of the disagreement on the issue, of the Synod’s organizers opened the event Monday by saying there could be no “graduality” on the matter.

“In the search for pastoral solutions for the difficulties of certain civilly divorced and remarried persons, it is presently held that the fidelity to the indissolubility of marriage cannot be joined to the practical recognizing of the goodness of concrete situations that stand opposed and are therefore incompatible,” said Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdő, who is serving as the Synod’s general relator.

“Indeed, between true and false, between good and evil, there is not a graduality,” he continued. “Even if some forms of living together bring in themselves certain positive aspects, this does not mean that they can be presented as good things.”

Koch, who was appointed as the leader of the Berlin archdiocese by Francis in June, also focused his comments at the Synod on a range of other issues. He spoke in particular about the needs of interfaith marriages, struggles of single parents, of families with many children, of refugees, and a desire to protect the elderly and unborn children

“It is so important that the Holy Father, with us, sends out from this Synod the Gospel of the mystery of marriage, with a new hermeneutic, in a new language, a language of fullness, of blessing, of the richness of life, provocative and inviting for the people,” said the German archbishop.

“What grace is offered to the people, what participation in God’s order of creation and salvation, what depths of mutual love between God and people: Marriage is for us about a life in fullness and in the love of God, even in our brokenness,” said Koch.

“This must be our message in Church and society,” he said. “The Synod cannot give the impression that we mainly fought over divorce and conditions for admittance to the sacraments.”