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“Today’s Angelus prayer is a little strange” — Pope delivers Angelus message via video due to coronavirus precautions…
Vatican City, Mar 8, 2020 / 07:30 am (CNA).- In a video streamed live to St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis prayed for those suffering from the “coronavirus epidemic” and encouraged Catholics to live through this trial with the strength of faith. “I join my brother bishops in encouraging the faithful to live this difficult moment with the strength of faith, the certainty of hope and the fervor of charity,” Pope Francis said March 8. “The season of Lent helps us all to give an evangelical sense also to this moment of trial and pain,” he added. The pope led the Sunday Angelus prayer via video filmed in the library of the Apostolic Palace in response to ongoing concerns about the spread of coronavirus in Italy and Vatican City. Traditionally, the pope leads the Angelus from the pala...
Diocese of Rome cancels all public Masses until April 3, announces day of fasting and prayer…
Rome, Italy, Mar 8, 2020 / 01:30 pm (CNA).- The Diocese of Rome has canceled all public Masses until April 3 in response to the coronavirus outbreak. The announcement by the vicar general of the diocese, published Sunday evening, follows a decree by the Italian government suspending all public religious ceremonies. “The Church of Rome … assumes an attitude of full responsibility towards the community in the awareness that protection from contagion requires even drastic measures, especially in interpersonal contact. Therefore, until the same date of April 3, the communal liturgical celebrations are suspended,” Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, vicar general of Rome, said in a statement March 8. “The season of Lent helps us to live this great trial evangelically. I bless you by entrusting you all ...
Pope Francis’ cold (not coronavirus) beckons thoughts on papal health scares…
ROME – A mini-panic broke out in Rome Tuesday following an article in the Roman newspaper Il Messaggero by veteran Vatican reporter Franca Giansoldati, who reported that Pope Francis has undergone a test for the coronavirus and the results were negative. Prompting the ferment is the fact that Francis has been suffering from what’s been described by the Vatican as a “light cold,” which has caused him to cancel several public engagements over the last week and to restrict himself to appointments within the Domus Santa Marta, the hotel on Vatican grounds where he’s chosen to reside since his election in 2013 – the anniversary of which will be marked in just a few days. Francis also was forced to bail on the annual Lenten retreat for the Roman Curia held in Ariccia, a town nestled in the hills...
Vatican confirms first coronavirus case as Pope recovers from cold…
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican confirmed the walled city-state’s first case of the new coronavirus Friday and closed some offices as a precaution while Pope Francis continued recovering from a cold. Vatican City’s health clinic, which is used by Vatican employees and their families, was shuttered for sanitizing following the positive test result received Thursday, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said. Separately, a Vatican official was put into a protective quarantine after a priest from France’s Catholic church in Rome tested positive for the virus. The official isn’t showing symptoms of COVID-19 disease but came into contact with the infected priest. In another precaution, the Vatican Apostolic Library said Friday it would keep its doors shut all next week. The library welcomes scholars ...
The clerisy of the concrete-and-glass box freaks out…
Several years back, the estimable Father Paul Scalia observed, of some cultural idiocy or other, “Who knew the end of civilization would be so amusing?” I detected a subtle theological point within that mordant comment: a point worth reflecting upon during Lent. Christians are the people who know how history is going to turn out — God is, finally, going to get what God intended from the beginning, which is the Wedding Feast of the Lamb in the New Jerusalem. (The trailer, so to speak, is in Revelation 21.) So Christians can afford to relax a bit about the vicissitudes and traumas of history. To be sure, faith that God’s purposes in creation and redemption will ultimately be vindicated ought not lead to insouciance about here-and-now; we have responsibilities within history and we shou...
Audiences with the Pope are always agreeable occasions…
Pope Francis received in a private audience at the Vatican members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Region XIII for their “ad Limina Apostolorum” visit on Jan. 27. 2020. (Vatican Media) COMMENTARY: It is extremely rare to find anyone who emerges from an audience with the Holy Father without a highly favorable impression and without thinking that the Holy Father shares his position. Father Raymond J. de Souza The U.S. bishops recently concluded their ad limina visits to Rome, in which each of 15 groups of bishops spent several hours in an extended conversation with Pope Francis. Those colloquies got superlative reviews from one and all, with many bishops marveling at how frank, engaged, generous and wise the Holy Father was. Which confirms one of the key stories of...
2nd Sunday of Lent: Every round goes higher…
The second Sunday of Lent always features the Transfiguration. This is because we are following the Lord on His final odyssey to Jerusalem, and this journey up Mt. Tabor was one of His stops (with Peter, James, and John). It is commonly held that Jesus did this to prepare His apostles for the difficult days ahead. There’s a line from an old spiritual that says, “Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down, sometimes I’m almost on the ground … but see what the end shall be.” This is what the Lord is doing here: He is showing us what the end shall be. There is a cross to get through but there is glory on the other side. The purpose in placing the account of the Transfiguration here is that it helps describe the pattern of the Christian life, which is the paschal mystery. We are always dying and ris...
Pope Francis announces a 2022 synod on synodality…
Vatican City, Mar 7, 2020 / 05:00 am (CNA).- The next ordinary Synod of Bishops will be a synod on synodality, the Vatican announced March 7. In October 2022, bishops from around the world will meet in Rome to discuss the theme: “For a synodal Church: communion, participation and mission.” The concept of “synodality” has been a topic of frequent discussion by Pope Francis, particularly during the previous ordinary Synod of Bishops on young people, the faith, and vocational discernment in October 2018. Synodality, as defined by the International Theological Commission in 2018, is “the action of the Spirit in the communion of the Body of Christ and in the missionary journey of the People of God.” The term is generally understood to represent a process of discernment, with the aid of the Holy...
Priest saves Blessed Sacrament after tornado hits historic Nashville church…
The tabernacle inside the Church of the Assumption in Nashville, Tennessee. (Ian St France/Twitter) Fr. Bede Price, pastor of the parish, was able to safely retrieve the Blessed Sacrament from the tabernacle, and he was uninjured in the storm. Christine Rousselle/CNA. NASHVILLE, Tenn. — An historic Catholic church in the Nashville neighborhood of Germantown was among several buildings seriously damaged by a tornado Tuesday night. The tornado’s main path struck about 100 yards away from the Church of the Assumption in the Diocese of Nashville. The storm destroyed the parish’s north transept, sacristy, and rectory chimney. The winds also badly damaged the building’s steeple and roof. Fr. Bede Price, pastor of the parish, was able to safely retrieve the Blessed Sacrament from the tabern...
The role of trials in bringing us to spiritual maturity…
We live in a world of unprecedented comfort: electricity, indoor plumbing, heating and air-conditioning, medicine, healthcare, abundant food, myriad consumer products, and entertainment available with the click of a button. Despite this we do not seem more grateful or at ease than our forebears. If anything, we aremoreanxious. For example, though people have never lived so long nor been so healthy, we have never been more worried about our health. One would think that such abundance and comfort would lead us to be exceedingly grateful and to overlook small setbacks, remembering how much more difficult life was for our ancestors—but the opposite seems more often to be the case. We seem to be easily frustrated and to have little tolerance for enduring even the most minor suffering. Our comfo...
With the Pope’s pick, “Francis” comes to Atlanta…
The clear frontrunner through practically the entire 10-month process, upon receiving the most prized appointment on the current US docket, Archbishop-elect Greg Hartmayer made his first appearance as the Pope’s pick for Atlanta just as he did on his debut in Savannah nine years ago: that is, clad in his Conventual Franciscan habit. Here, fullvid of this morning’s relaxed “homecoming” at Smyrna Chancery – the second return of a popular local pastor to a high-profile Stateside post in as many months… [embedded content] …and afterward, an exuberant welcome at the Cathedral Rectory, the former Archbishop’s Residence: Keeping recent custom due to the 1.2 million-member archdiocese’s marked growth, Hartmayer’s installation – set for May 6th ...
German Catholics, California both live up to their billing in Super Tuesday votes…
ROME – There’s a sense in which Germany has become to Church politics what California is on the American scene, meaning a strongly blue state which tends to favor the most progressive choice on any menu. On Tuesday night, California by itself turned what otherwise would have been a Super Tuesday disaster for Senator Bernie Sanders into a mere setback, keeping his Democratic Socialist crusade for the presidency alive. In somewhat similar fashion, Germany’s Catholic bishops went to the polls the day before, and they, too, embraced a progressive as their new leader. To replace Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, who’s served as president of the German bishops’ conference since 2014, they chose Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg. Bätzing, 58, reflects the broadly reform-minded, progressive ethos of...
