Category Archives: Vatican

‘Pilgrims of Hope’: Vatican prepares to welcome millions for Holy Year

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By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The celebration of a Holy Year every 25 years is an acknowledgment that “the Christian life is a journey calling for moments of greater intensity to encourage and sustain hope as the constant companion that guides our steps toward the goal of our encounter with the Lord Jesus,” Pope Francis wrote.
Opening the Holy Door to St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve, the pope will formally inaugurate the Jubilee Year 2025 with its individual, parish and diocesan pilgrimages and with special celebrations focused on specific groups from migrants to marching bands, catechists to communicators and priests to prisoners.

A cloth barricade reading “Rome Jubilee 2025” surrounds a construction site at the beginning of the broad boulevard leading to St. Peter’s Square and St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 4, 2024. The city of Rome is preparing for the Holy Year with hundreds of roadworks and restoration projects. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

Inside the Vatican basilica, the door had been bricked up since Nov. 20, 2016, when Pope Francis closed the extraordinary Holy Year of Mercy.
Dismantling the brick wall began Dec. 2 with a ritual of prayer and the removal of a box containing the key to the door and Vatican medals. The Holy Doors at the basilicas of St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major and St. Paul Outside the Walls were to be freed of their brickwork in the week that followed.
In January 2021, as the world struggled to return to some kind of normalcy after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pope Francis announced that he had chosen “Pilgrims of Hope” as the theme for the Holy Year.
“We must fan the flame of hope that has been given us and help everyone to gain new strength and certainty by looking to the future with an open spirit, a trusting heart and farsighted vision,” the pope wrote in a letter entrusting the organization of the Jubilee to Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the then-Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization.
A holy year or jubilee is a time of pilgrimage, prayer, repentance and acts of mercy, based on the Old Testament tradition of a jubilee year of rest, forgiveness and renewal. Holy years also are a time when Catholics make pilgrimages to designated churches and shrines, recite special prayers, go to confession and receive Communion to receive a plenary indulgence, which is a remission of the temporal punishment due for one’s sins.
Crossing the threshold of the Holy Door does not give a person automatic access to the indulgence or to grace, as St. John Paul II said in his document proclaiming the Holy Year 2000. But walking through the doorway is a sign of the passage from sin to grace which every Christian is called to accomplish.
“To pass through that door means to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord … It is a decision which presumes freedom to choose and also the courage to leave something behind, in the knowledge that what is gained is divine life,” St. John Paul wrote.
Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed the first Holy Year in 1300 and decreed that jubilees would be celebrated every 100 years. But just 50 years later, a more biblical cadence, Pope Clement VI proclaimed another holy year.
Pope Paul II decided in 1470 that holy years should be held every 25 years, which has been the practice ever since – but with the addition of special jubilees, like the Holy Year of Mercy in 2015-16, marking special occasions or needs.
Pope Francis, in his bull of indiction for the 2025 Holy Year, said churches are places “where we can drink from the wellsprings of hope, above all by approaching the sacrament of reconciliation, the essential starting point of any true journey of conversion.”
The pope also asked Catholics to use the Jubilee Year to nourish or exercise their hope by actively looking for signs of God’s grace and goodness around them.
“We need to recognize the immense goodness present in our world, lest we be tempted to think ourselves overwhelmed by evil and violence,” he wrote. “The signs of the times, which include the yearning of human hearts in need of God’s saving presence, ought to become signs of hope.”
Even in a troubled world, one can notice how many people are praying for and demonstrating their desire for peace, for safeguarding creation and for defending human life at every stage, he said. Those are signs of hope that cannot be discounted.
As part of the Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis has announced the canonization of Blessed Carlo Acutis April 27 during the special Jubilee for Adolescents and the proclamation of the sainthood of Blessed Pier Giorgi Frassati Aug. 3 during the Jubilee for Young Adults.
The lives of the two men, active Catholics who died young, are emblematic of Pope Francis’ conviction that hope, “founded on faith and nurtured by charity,” is what enables people “to press forward in life” despite setbacks and trials.
Pope Francis, in the bull of indiction, told Catholics that “during the Holy Year, we are called to be tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind.”
In addition to individual acts of charity, love and kindness like feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger or visiting the sick and the imprisoned, Pope Francis has continued his predecessors’ practice of observing the jubilee by calling on governments to reduce the foreign debt of the poorest countries, grant amnesty to certain prisoners and strengthen programs to help migrants and refugees settle in their new homes.
Archbishop Fisichella, the chief Vatican organizer of the Jubilee Year, said in late November that the Vatican had commissioned a university to forecast the Holy Year pilgrim and tourist influx. They came up with a prediction of 32 million visitors to Rome.
The multilingual jubilee website – www.iubilaeum2025.va/en.html – has been up and running for months and includes the possibility of reserving a time to pass through the Holy Door at St. Peter’s and the other major basilicas of Rome.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also has a special section on its website – www.usccb.org/committees/jubilee-2025 – with information about traveling to Rome for the Holy Year and for celebrating the special jubilees in one’s own diocese or parish.

Briefs

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NATION
MALVERN, Pa. (OSV News) – More than a million people descended upon Logan Circle on a beautiful autumn day in Center City Philadelphia Oct. 3, 1979, for a Mass celebrated by St. John Paul II, the Polish cardinal who had been elected pope less than a year earlier. At the center of it all, above a covered fountain on the city’s Eakins Oval, the pope celebrated Mass on an expansive altar in the shadow of an enormous 34-foot-tall white cross. In the days after the papal visit, the cross, a symbol of one of the greatest Catholic gatherings in North America at that time, was taken to the outskirts of the city and erected on the grounds of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. It has been on display at the busy intersection of Lancaster and City avenues the last 45 years. Earlier this year, St. Charles Seminary moved to another part of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and the seminary grounds were sold. On Nov. 11, the refurbished cross was unveiled at its new place of honor at Malvern Retreat House, where Father Douglas McKay, the rector, offered prayers for a gathering of about 100 people. The priest was a seminarian in 1979 and was a cross bearer at the Mass with the pontiff. Founded more than 100 years ago, Malvern Retreat House is billed as the oldest and largest Catholic retreat community in the nation.

SANTA FE, N. M. (OSV News) – The incoming Trump administration should “rethink” its plans to carry out mass deportations, the bishops of New Mexico wrote in an open letter. President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on hardline immigration policies, including his call for mass deportations, arguing in a September presidential debate that those without legal status “destroyed the fabric of our country, and has since indicated willingness to use military force for a mass deportation program. While Trump has not offered specifics on how he would carry out such a program, in principle, mass deportations run contrary to the Second Vatican Council’s teaching in “Gaudium et Spes” condemning “deportation” among other actions, such as abortion, that “poison human society,” a teaching St. John Paul II affirmed in two encyclicals on moral truth and life issues. In their letter, the border state’s bishops – Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, Bishop Peter Baldacchino of Las Cruces and Bishop James S. Wall of Gallup – said immigration “remains a complicated and challenging issue for the country.” “While removing those who cause harm to us is necessary, deporting immigrants who have built equities in our communities and pose no threat is contrary to humanitarian principles and to our national interest,” they said. “We urge the new administration to rethink this proposed deportation policy and instead return to bipartisan negotiations to repair the US immigration system.

Workers erect a giant cross Nov. 11, 2024, at Malvern Retreat House in Malvern, Pa. The 34-foot-tall was at the center of a Mass celebrated by St. John Paul II Oct. 3, 1979, in Center City Philadelphia. The Mass drew more than a million people. (OSV News photo/Joseph P. Owens, The Dialog)

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The world is in great need of hope, Pope Francis said. “Day by day, let us fill our lives with the gift of hope that God gives us, and through us, let us allow it to reach everyone who is looking for it,” the pope said in a video explaining the intention he would like Catholics to pray for during the month of December. The pope’s message encouraging prayers “for pilgrims of hope” was released by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network Dec. 3. The network posts a short video of the pope offering his specific prayer intention each month, and members of the network pray for that intention each day. In the video, the pope said, “Christian hope is a gift from God that fills our lives with joy. And today, we need it a lot. The world really needs it a lot!” “Hope is an anchor that you cast over with a rope to be moored on the shore,” the pope said, and people of faith must hold on to that rope tightly. “Let’s help each other discover this encounter with Christ who gives us life, and let’s set out on a journey as pilgrims of hope to celebrate that life,” he said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Anyone interested in Catholic Church can now see a detailed, interactive breakdown of the body that will elect the next pope. The Vatican launched a “dashboard” for the College of Cardinals Dec. 5, allowing users of the web page to see a comprehensive list of the church’s cardinals and sort them by age, rank, country of origin, electoral status and religious order. Initially it was available only in Italian. The dashboard, created with Microsoft Power BI – an AI tool designed to visually organize data – was published on the Vatican press office’s public website just two days before Pope Francis was scheduled to create 21 new cardinals Dec. 7. The page –https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/documentation/cardinali–-statistiche/dashboard-collegio-cardinalizio.html – allows users to see a map of where current cardinals are from, as well as the percentage of cardinals from each region who are under the age of 80 and eligible to vote in conclave. As of Dec. 5, for example, 47.8% of cardinals from Europe are eligible to vote in a conclave while 100% of cardinals from Oceania are eligible electors. Cardinals lose their right to vote in a conclave on their 80th birthday or when they lose the rights and privileges of a cardinal. Previously, the Vatican website only offered separate lists of cardinals, organized alphabetically by name, by country, by age or grouped according to the pope who appointed them.

WORLD
KHARTOUM, Sudan (OSV News) – Sudanese Catholic Bishop Yunan Tombe Trille Kuku Andali of El Obeid Dec. 2 described having survived execution in his country, where he has remained with the faithful amid a deadly war between the Sudan Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The bishop was returning to his diocese after attending a Eucharistic congress in Juba, the South Sudanese capital. The congress on Nov. 24 was organized to mark 50 years – or golden jubilee – of the Sudan and South Sudan Catholic bishops’ conference. In a message to fellow bishops and obtained by OSV News, Bishop Andali said that after arriving in El Obeid from the gathering, he encountered – in separate incidents – the army and, immediately afterward, the paramilitary. “Guns (were) given to the lads and (they were) instructed to carry out their usual business,” which clearly was execution, the bishop said in his message. “Thanks to the prayers of the church,” he was saved, he emphasized: A leader of the paramilitary had emerged from his office and ordered the gunmen to free the church people. But the bishop suffered “heavy blows on the neck, the face and the sides of the head.” On Nov. 21, the bishops in Sudan and South Sudan expressed deep concern over the deteriorating conflict in Sudan. The bishop said war was continuous and there was no chance for dialogue between the two fighting sides.

JERUSALEM (OSV News) – Christmas this season in the Holy Land will be celebratory despite ongoing bloodshed and war, the Holy Land’s patriarchs said. And while visiting Germany, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, encouraged pilgrims to return to the birthplace of Jesus. On Dec. 3, he said he is counting on a rapid normalization of pilgrimage tourism, especially during the Christmas season, following the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Pilgrimages and religious tourism are an important economic factor for many Christians in the region, but tourists disappeared and stores across pilgrimage sites have remained closed since Oct. 7, 2023. This year, the patriarchs and heads of the churches in Jerusalem, said the war this year won’t stop the joyful celebration of Christmas in the land of Jesus. Last year, to stand in solidarity with “the multitudes suffering” amid “the newly erupted war,” the patriarchs made “a mutual decision” to call on their congregations “to forego the public display of Christmas lights and decorations” and related festivities. But they said their intentions were misinterpreted, leading “many around the world” to say they had called for a “’Cancellation of Christmas’ in the … very place of our Lord’s Holy Nativity.” Christmas “was diminished not only around the world, but also among our own people,” they wrote Nov. 22. This year, the patriarchs encouraged all “to fully commemorate the approach and arrival of Christ’s birth by giving public signs of Christian hope.”

8 ways to celebrate Jubilee 2025 without leaving your diocese

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By Maria Wiering

(OSV News) – As many as 35 million visitors are expected in Rome in 2025. Many of them will be pilgrims for the upcoming jubilee, a holy year the church celebrates every quarter-century. While numerous events are planned in Rome and at the Vatican to mark the Jubilee 2025, this Holy Year is for the whole church. Here are some ways to celebrate without traveling farther than your local cathedral.

  1. Go to reconciliation.

The idea of a jubilee or holy year is rooted in the jubilees marked by the Israelites, who saw every 50th year as a special time for forgiveness and reconciliation with God and others. They would leave their fields fallow, replenishing the soil, allow those under slavery to regain their freedom, return land to its former owners, and forgive debts that could not be repaid. Reconciliation and righting relationships are also at the heart of the church’s holy years, making the sacrament of reconciliation a key component of this year. In the papal bull announcing the year, Pope Francis called the sacrament of reconciliation “the essential starting-point of any true journey of conversion.” During the Jubilee, in local churches “special care should be taken to prepare priests and the faithful to celebrate the sacrament of Confession and to make it readily available in its individual form,” he said. Expect many dioceses to hold a period of round-the-clock confessions for the Lenten initiative 24 Hours for the Lord March 28-29, 2025.

  1. Read the jubilee document.

Issued in May, “Spes Non Confundit” is the papal bull of indiction Pope Francis promulgated for the 2025 Jubilee Year. With the Holy Year’s theme being “Pilgrims of Hope,” it includes a scriptural reflection on hope, as well as an explanation of the meaning of a jubilee year; ideas and encouragement for Christians living out the Holy Year; appeals for accompaniment, mercy and charity for various people in need; and some of the key events and anniversaries the Holy Year will observe.

Among Pope Francis’ words of wisdom is a reflection on patience, which he calls “both the daughter of hope and at the same time its firm foundation,” but which, he said, “has been put to flight by frenetic haste” in an age of “now.” “Were we still able to contemplate creation with a sense of awe, we might better understand the importance of patience” which “could only prove beneficial for ourselves and for others,” he wrote. “Patience, one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, sustains our hope and strengthens it as a virtue and a way of life.”

  1. Make a pilgrimage.

In “Spes Non Confundit,” Pope Francis counts among the Jubilee Year’s “pilgrims of hope” those “who, though unable to visit the City of the Apostles Peter and Paul, will celebrate it in their local Churches.” “Pilgrimage is of course a fundamental element of every Jubilee event,” he wrote. “Setting out on a journey is traditionally associated with our human quest for meaning in life. A pilgrimage on foot is a great aid for rediscovering the value of silence, effort and simplicity of life.” While traditional pilgrimage routes to Rome and in Rome itself are expected to be well trod during the Holy Year, Catholics can also make pilgrimages to local holy sites, or even their own parishes, for prayer, confession or Mass. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also provides special formularies and readings for a Mass for the Holy Year approved by the Holy See.

Many U.S. dioceses have designated particular parishes or holy sites to serve as pilgrimage sites during the Holy Year. These sites provide the opportunity for pilgrims to receive the Jubilee Indulgence, a grace that remits the temporal punishments of sin. The plenary indulgence can also be received through pious visits to sacred places and through performing works of mercy. Details about the indulgence are outlined in a special decree Pope Francis issued May 13.

  1. Visit your cathedral.

Unlike the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy 2015-2016, diocesan cathedrals will not designate Holy Doors to correspond with the traditional Holy Doors in Rome and at the Vatican. However, cathedrals are where diocesan bishops will officially open the Holy Year locally with Mass Dec. 29, the feast of the Holy Family. They will also be where bishops close local Holy Year celebrations Dec. 28, 2025. In the meantime, cathedrals are likely sites for diocesan Jubilee events. The Diocese of Grand Rapids, Michigan, for example, is planning seven pilgrimages to its Cathedral of St. Andrew over the course of the Holy Year for different groups, such as youth, parents and grandparents, and the Vietnamese and Hispanic communities.

  1. Pray the Jubilee prayer.

Pope Francis has issued a special Jubilee prayer. At 139 words in English, the prayer is easily incorporated into the daily prayers of an individual or a family. Among its stanzas is the phrase, “May the grace of the Jubilee reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope, a yearning for the treasures of heaven.” It can be found by searching “Jubilee Prayer” at usccb.org.

  1. Perform works of mercy.

In “Spes Non Confundit,” Pope Francis asks Catholics “to be tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind.” He specifically mentions prisoners, a group he has highlighted by designating a Jubilee Holy Door at Rome’s Rebibbia Prison. He also mentions signs of hope are needed by the sick, the young, migrants, the elderly and grandparents, and the poor. The Holy Year should inspire Catholics to increase their exercise of the corporal works of mercy — feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick, visiting the imprisoned and burying the dead.

  1. Review the resources.

The Vatican, the USCCB and many dioceses have online resources with information about the church’s global and local celebrations of the Jubilee. They include information about the Jewish roots of jubilee years, their history in the Catholic Church, and how to spiritually prepare to receive the Jubilee Indulgence. The Vatican website (iubilaeum2025.va) includes a video of a choir performing “Pilgrims of Hope,” the Jubilee’s official hymn. With text written by Msgr. Pierangelo Sequeri, an Italian theologian and musicologist, the refrain focuses on the theme of hope: “Like a flame my hope is burning, may my song arise to you: Source of life that has no ending, on life’s path I trust in you.”

  1. Practice hope.

In “Spes Non Confundit,” Pope Francis underscores that the hope the Jubilee offers is for the universal church. “In the heart of each person, hope dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring,” he wrote. Hope, he said, comes from Christ, and Christians deepen their hope through prayer, the sacraments and growing in virtue. “For everyone, may the Jubilee be a moment of genuine, personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, the ‘door’ (cf. Jn 10:7.9) of our salvation, whom the Church is charged to proclaim always, everywhere and to all as ‘our hope’ (1 Tim 1:1),” he wrote.

(Maria Wiering is senior writer for OSV News.)

NOTES: The direct link to the Jubilee Prayer is: https://www.usccb.org/prayers/jubilee-prayer

A link to the Jubilee 2025 papal bull “Spes Non Confundit” is here: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/bulls/documents/20240509_spes-non-confundit_bolla-giubileo2025.html

A link to Pope Francis’ May 13 decree on granting the Jubilee Indulgence is here: https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2024/05/13/240513f.html

Other USCCB resources are here: https://www.usccb.org/jubilee2025

Joy, gratitude over news of Acutis and Frassati canonization dates

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By Gina Christian
PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) – News that canonization dates have been set for Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati, who have become popular patrons for teens and young adults, is being met with joy and gratitude by a number of Catholics in the U.S.

Pope Francis announced Nov. 20 that he will elevate Acutis and Frassati, both currently titled “blessed,” to sainthood in 2025, when the universal Catholic Church will mark a jubilee year. Acutis will be canonized April 27, during the April 25-27 Jubilee for Adolescents in Rome. Frassati’s canonization will follow amid the July 28-Aug. 3 Jubilee of Young People in Rome.

“This news ushers in great celebration for the Universal Church and especially for young Catholics,” said Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez of Philadelphia in a Nov. 20 statement. “Both of these saintly young men reflect the call for today’s youth and young adults to live out their Catholic faith with courage, compassion, and divine love.”

Pope Francis recognized May 23, 2024, the second miracle needed for the canonization of Italian Blessed Carlo Acutis, who died of leukemia in 2006 at the age of 15. He is pictured in an undated photo. (CNS photo/courtesy Sainthood Cause of Carlo Acutis)

“What a wonderful gift to the church militant both of these new saints will be,” Christine Wohar, president of FrassatiUSA – a Nashville-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting Frassati’s canonization, in collaboration with the Associazione Pier Giorgio Frassati in Rome – told OSV News in a Nov. 20 email.
Wohar, whose organization is planning a pilgrimage to the canonization, said that the canonizations are timely.

“Our culture so desperately needs Catholic models of courage, devotion to the Eucharist and Our Lady, true manhood and fidelity to the church,” she said.

Father Francesco Maria D’Amico, pastor of St. William Parish in Philadelphia who served as interpreter and guide for Acutis’ mother, Antonia, during her U.S. speaking tour in 2023, also sees these saints as particularly relevant.

“God is the Lord of history, and I think that nowadays, he sees youth being attacked by different ideologies, by secularization, by the false promises of technology,” he said. “So I think that God, by raising these two youth and young adults as saints, is showing fatherly concern … because they (youth and young adults) are the future of the world.”

Born 90 years apart, Frassati and Acutis both lived brief but faith-filled lives that saw them devoted to Christ, particularly in the Eucharist, and to those around them.

Dubbed the “Man of the Eight Beatitudes” by St. John Paul II, Frassati – born in Turin in 1901 to an influential family – began receiving daily Communion at a young age, while serving the poor through the St. Vincent de Paul Society and evangelizing his friends.

A lay Dominican, Frassati also participated in demonstrations to defend his faith against the Communist and Fascist parties in Italy. His passion for outdoor activities such as mountaineering has made him a patron of athletes. Frassati died in 1925 at age 24, having contracted polio, which doctors speculated he may have contracted from serving the sick. Pope St. John Paul II beatified Frassati in 1990.

Almost a century later, Acutis in many ways mirrored his predecessor’s qualities. The sunny-faced teen – who was born in London in 1991 and grew up in Milan, Italy – displayed an early attraction to the spiritual life, reciting the rosary and attending Mass daily, serving as a catechist, volunteering at a church soup kitchen and tutoring children with their homework. At the same time, Acutis was known for his enthusiasm for typical teenage interests, such as video games, pets, soccer and music.

Acutis died of leukemia in 2006 at age 15, having lived a brief life of extraordinary holiness that was marked by a profound devotion to Christ and the Eucharist. His desire to foster awareness of the Blessed Sacrament, along with his formidable computer skills, led him to create a database of Eucharistic miracles throughout the world. Pope Francis beatified him in 2020.

Italian Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati was a struggling student who excelled in mountain climbing. He had complete faith in God and persevered through college, dedicating himself to helping the poor and supporting church social teaching. He died at age 24 and was beatified by St. John Paul II in 1990. Pope Francis said he will canonize him in 2025. He is pictured in an undated photo. (CNS file photo)

Michael Norton, president of the Malvern Retreat Center in Malvern, Pennsylvania – home to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Blessed Carlo Acutis Shrine and Center for Eucharistic Encounter – told OSV News he has seen firsthand how Acutis offers a relatable vision for holiness to kids and young adults.

“Students are absolutely fascinated and drawn to Carlo,” Norton told OSV News Nov. 20. “It’s like, ‘Wow, he looks like me. I’m just like him. … He lived in our lifetime.’ He talks their language – he’s a computer programmer, he played soccer. And so the kids are really drawn to him.”

Similarly, Frassati has had a profound effect on students at a high school in Texas named in his honor.

“For us, this is yet another special grace upon our community, which has really been under the intercession of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati,” said Tim Lienhard, director of enrollment, marketing and communications at Frassati Catholic High School in Spring, Texas.

Lienhard told OSV News Nov. 20 that the school has “really felt his spirit on our community, and you see that through our growth. We’ve grown from 46 students in our beginning year, 2013, to 350 today, and we continue to grow.”

The school is planning to send some 20 students to Italy during spring break in March 2025 for a pilgrimage that will trace some key places in Frassati’s life, Lienhard said.

Actor Jeromy Darling, who played Frassati in a 2021 play of the same name at Open Window Theatre in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, told OSV News that encountering the saint-to-be through pre-production research had a profound effect on him.

“It changed my life completely,” said Darling, who as a convert to Catholicism said Frassati’s bold witness to the faith was personally inspiring, as the actor navigated rejection experienced for his decision to become Catholic.

“He’s an enormous, enormous part of my life,” Darling said. “He’s one of my best friends. I talk to him every day.”

Many Catholics have been inspired by an Italian phrase Frassati wrote on a well-known photo of him mountaineering: “Verso L’Alto,” which means “to the heights.”

“As St. Frassati reaches his ultimate summit, we pray he will guide each of us on our journey to the top,” said Wohar. “We also share in the joy of all those with a devotion to Blessed Carlo Acutis who likewise offers great inspiration to today’s youth.”

(Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @GinaJesseReina)

Briefs

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For the image on the 2024 religious Christmas stamp, the U.S. Postal Service has selected this 17th-century “Madonna and Child” painting that has been in the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art since 1938. (OSV News photo/courtesy U.S. Postal Service)

NATION
INDIANAPOLIS (OSV News) – Mary with the Christ Child has long been an iconic Christmas image for cultures and peoples around the world. Starting more than 60 years ago, the U.S. Postal Service began annually issuing Christmas stamps featuring various classic artistic portrayals of the image. This year, the USPS selected as the image for this stamp a painting that has been in the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields in Indianapolis since 1938. The “Madonna and Child” was created in the workshop of the Italian artist Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato in the 17th century. Belinda Tate, the Melvin and Bren Simon director of the museum, said she and the staff were “deeply honored” by having one of its paintings chosen for a Christmas stamp this year. “This selection brings a beloved piece from our collection to a broad audience, allowing us to celebrate its beauty, historical significance and the spirit of the season,” Tate added. A broad audience indeed. The USPS has produced 210 million stamps featuring this painting.

FAIRFAX, Va. (OSV News) – Pro-life organizers aim to inspire pro-life youth attending the national March for Life in Washington Jan. 24 with the merger of two pre-march youth events, announced Nov. 14. The Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, and host of Life is VERY Good since 2009, and the Knights of Columbus and the Sisters of Life, co-hosts of Life Fest since 2022, are joining forces to create one big pro-life rally called Life Fest. The two-day pro-life event will be held Jan. 23-24 at EagleBank Arena on the campus of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, 20 miles southwest of the National Mall and the March for Life. Life Fest 2025 will begin with a night of praise, held the evening before the March for Life with speakers, live music and Eucharistic adoration. The following day, a morning rally and Mass will be held hours before the March for Life. Attendees will have the chance to go to confession and to venerate the relics of Pope St. John Paul II, Blessed Carlo Acutis, the recently beatified Ulma family and Blessed Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus. Organizers hope to attract some 8,400 participants to the event each day.

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – There are no second-class Christians, Pope Francis said. The laity, including women, and the clergy all have special gifts to edify the church in unity and holiness. “The laity are not in last place. No. The laity are not a kind of external collaborator or the clergy’s ‘auxiliary troops.’ No! They have their own charisms and gifts with which to contribute to the mission of the church,” the pope said Nov. 20 at his general audience in St. Peter’s Square. Continuing a series of talks on the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church, Pope Francis looked at how the Holy Spirit builds up the Body of Christ through the outpouring of charismatic gifts. The Holy Spirit “distributes special graces among the faithful of every rank. By these gifts, He makes them fit and ready to undertake the various tasks and offices which contribute toward the renewal and building up of the church,” he said, quoting from the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, “Lumen Gentium.” A charism is “the gift given for the common good, to be useful for everyone. It is not, in other words, destined principally and ordinarily for the sanctification of the person. No. It is intended, however, for the service of the community,” Pope Francis said. “They are ordinary gifts. Each one of us has his or her own charism that assumes extraordinary value if inspired by the Holy Spirit and embodied with love in situations of life,” he said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis, who will celebrate his 88th birthday in December, has approved simplified liturgical rites for the death of a pontiff. His body will rest in a zinc-lined wooden casket, according to the new rites. Recent popes had been buried inside a cypress wood coffin surrounded by another coffin made of lead, which was then covered by a third wooden coffin. Vatican News carried a story Nov. 20 about the second edition of the “Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis” (“Funeral Rites of the Roman Pontiff”); the book updates the rites originally approved by St. John Paul in 1998, technically published in 2000, but released only when St. John Paul died in 2005. Modified versions of the rites were used after Pope Benedict XVI died Dec. 31, 2022. Archbishop Diego Ravelli, master of papal liturgical ceremonies, told Vatican News the revised edition was needed, “first of all because Pope Francis asked, as he himself stated on several occasions, to simplify and adapt some of the rites so that the celebration of the bishop of Rome’s funeral would better express the church’s faith in the risen Christ.”

WORLD
SAN SALVADOR (OSV News) – El Salvador has ordered a former president to stand trial for the 1989 murders of six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her 16-year-old daughter – a notorious crime from the Central American country’s civil war, which has languished in the realm of impunity. A judge in San Salvador issued a Nov. 18 decision ordering former president Alfredo Cristiani, a former congressman and nine others to stand trial as the intellectual authors of the attack on the Jesuits. Cristiani, who was president between 1989 and 1994, was charged with murder, conspiracy and terrorism in 2022. His whereabouts remain unknown, according to media reports. The priests were killed by soldiers in their residence on the campus of the Jesuit-run Central American University – an institution they accused of being infiltrated by guerrillas. The university has long rejected that accusation and demanded justice for the eight victims. Catholics in El Salvador expressed mixed feelings on the decision to bring Cristiani to trial. The judge’s decision came just two days after the 35th anniversary of the Jesuit martyrs’ murders, marked with a Nov. 16 memorial Mass. The slain priests’ memory continues to inspire Catholics in El Salvador and beyond. “The memory of the martyrs is very much alive,” said Jesuit Father Jeremy Zipple, who traveled with a group from Belize for the memorial.

PARIS (OSV News) – Miraculously missed by burning beams falling from the roof on April 15, 2019, and waiting for five years to make it back to Notre Dame Cathedral, the 14th-century statue of the Virgin of Paris returned home Nov. 15, accompanied by thousands of Parisians praying, singing and lighting candles as they walked their Virgin to Paris’ most iconic church, restored after the fire. Since the fire, the statue, also referred to as Virgin and Child, or the Virgin of the Pillar, has been housed near the Louvre in the Church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, from where the procession started at 6 p.m. local time. Transporting the real statue of the Virgin on foot was out of the question for security reasons. Instead, everyone was able to witness her departure by truck, before setting off, with candles and singing, behind a replica, illuminated and decorated with white flowers. The procession followed along the banks of the Seine River toward the Île de la Cité, one of two Parisian islands and home to Notre Dame Cathedral. Arriving in front of the cathedral at around 7 p.m., the pilgrims were greeted by the singing of the Maîtrise Notre Dame, the cathedral’s choir. The archbishop blessed the original statue, with the crate carrying it opened so that it could be seen. The truck then entered the cathedral’s construction site so the original statue could be installed inside the cathedral.

Hegseth controversy compounds Vatican institution’s concerns over religious symbols’ misuse

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By Gina Christian and Kate Scanlon
(OSV News) – Amid controversy over religious-themed tattoos sported by President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary Pete Hegseth, a U.S. office of a Vatican lay institution for the church in the Holy Land has expressed concern regarding the misuse of its historic insignia beyond strictly religious purposes.

The Jerusalem Cross and the phrase “Deus (lo) vult” (Latin for “God wills”), the elements of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, are symbols for an organization that “is set up to be a … visible presence of Christ and the people of Christ in the Holy Land,” and “of peace … of loving thy neighbor as thyself,” Deacon John Heyer, executive director of the order’s Eastern Lieutenancy, told OSV News Nov. 21.

The Equestian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem has responded to public speculation about tattoos with the order’s symbols worn by Pete Hegseth, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, amid accusations that the symbols may represent Christian nationalism. (OSV News photo/courtesy Eastern Lieutenancy)

The order – a lay institution under the protection of the Holy See with an estimated 30,000 members in close to 40 countries – aids the work of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, especially through efforts connected to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which encompasses Cyprus and Jordan as well.

But the Jerusalem Cross (a square cross inset with four smaller crosses) and particularly the Latin phrase that comprise the order’s insignia have drawn intense media scrutiny, as Hegseth – an evangelical Christian – has them tattooed on his chest and arm respectively.

Hegseth, a 44-year-old combat veteran and former Fox News host, is among Trumps’ more controversial nominees, as he has also been accused of sexual assault stemming from a 2017 incident he claimed was consensual, although he later paid the unnamed woman as part of a 2020 nondisclosure agreement.

The “Deus vult” tattoo prompted Hegseth’s fellow National Guardsman Sgt. DeRicko Gaither to flag Hegseth as a possible “insider threat” during President Joe Biden’s inauguration. In a 2021 email to Maj. Gen. William Walker ahead of the event – days after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol – Gaither described the image as “quite disturbing,” since the phrase “is associated with Supremacist groups,” both white and Christian. Army policy bars members from having tattoos deemed extremist, indecent, sexist or racist.
Several experts have cited the use of “Deus vult” by extremist groups. The phrase – attributed to Pope Urban II ahead of the First Crusade in 1095, which sought to regain Christian control of the Holy Land from Muslim rule – has become an online hashtag, and has also appeared in anti-Muslim graffiti, with two Arkansas mosques defaced in 2016 with the text.

OSV News reached out to Hegseth through the press office of the Trump-Vance transition team but did not immediately receive a response.

On Nov. 20, Deacon Heyer’s New York-based office issued a press release, noting the controversy over Hegseth’s tattoos and stressing the order’s political neutrality. While acknowledging that reports have asserted its symbols “have been embraced by what have been described as Christian and white nationalists,” it did not accuse the defense secretary nominee of espousing those views.

“The Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem is a non-partisan Catholic organization under the direct protection of the Holy See and as such does not express partisan political opinions on the qualifications or associations of the cabinet nominee, who is not a member of the order,” said the release.

Deacon Heyer’s office also clarified in its statement that “in today’s context, ‘Deus vult’ or ‘Deus lo vult’ (God wills) – once used to rally crusader knights in the Middle Ages to reclaim the Christian places in the Holy Land – reminds believers God alone has dominion over all, and commands us to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’”

The Jerusalem Cross itself “has been part of Christian iconography for more than a millennium and has been an inspiration to Christian pilgrims who no longer see it as a banner for crusades and war but of the passion and death of Jesus and his empty tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem,” said the release, adding, “For centuries, Christian pilgrims from around the world have had the Jerusalem Cross inked on their skin as an indelible reminder of their pilgrimage to the Holy City and of their faith in Christ.”

The symbolically rich image, with five crosses corresponding to the five wounds of Christ, “is particularly important as it reminds Christians of Jesus’ sacrifice to die for the salvation of the entire world, so that we ‘may have life and have it abundantly,’” said the order in its release, quoting John 10:10.
Deacon Heyer told OSV News he has seen “there are groups that have taken over this symbol … or rather are using the symbol in a way that is evocative of what they consider a Christian crusade to be.”

Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth speaks with the media as he departs a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington Nov. 21, 2024. The Equestian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem has responded to public speculation about tattoos with the order’s symbols worn by Hegseth, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, amid accusations that the symbols may represent Christian nationalism. (OSV News photo/Nathan Howard, Reuters)

“You often have to look at what is the motivation,” he added. “Are we using the church, are we using the faith to justify our political aspirations, or is our faith informing our decisions? Two very different things.”

The Jerusalem Cross is also the emblem of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and in the press release, Deacon Heyer’s office highlighted the widespread use throughout Jerusalem and the Holy Land.
The cross “is really meant to be not a symbol of war at all, but really a symbol of the sacrifice of Christ as well as his Gospel message of love,” Deacon Heyer told OSV News. “And so anything that goes beyond that is in strict contradiction … to the Gospel and to what that symbol represents.”

As of Nov. 21, it was not yet clear whether Hegseth would earn the requisite number of votes to be confirmed to the position by the U.S. Senate should he undergo a confirmation hearing in January. Republicans will have a 53-47 majority in the new Senate as of January, meaning each of Trump’s nominees could only afford to lose three Republican votes – with Vice President-elect JD Vance’s tiebreaking vote – without earning any Democratic support.

Several Pentagon officials have also questioned whether Hegseth’s resume shows enough experience for the role.

(Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @GinaJesseReina. Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News based in Washington. Follow her on X @kgscanlon.)

Briefs

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NATION
WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group that advocates for the abolition of capital punishment in line with Catholic teaching, issued a statement Nov. 6 urging President Joe Biden to take action on the practice during the remainder of his presidency while 40 lives on death row “hang in the balance.” Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, CMN’s executive director, noted in a statement that Biden became the first U.S. president in 2020 to have campaigned on an openly anti-death penalty platform. After Biden was elected, his administration declared a moratorium on federal executions, but some activists say he should have gone further to end the practice. Vaillancourt Murphy argued the nation’s second Catholic president should follow through with concrete action in the post-election lame-duck period before President-elect Donald Trump, who has sought to expand the uses of capital punishment, returns to the White House. “As faithful anti-death penalty advocates, we know lives hang in the balance,” Vaillancourt Murphy said. She said CMN would “redouble its efforts to urge President Biden to commute the sentences of all 40 men currently on federal death row before he leaves office in January.” The group invited Catholics to sign a petition, hosted at catholicsmobilizing.org, calling on Biden to do so.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ $880 million abuse claims settlement, announced Oct. 16, brings the total payouts of U.S. Catholic dioceses for abuse claims since 2004 to more than $5 billion – and possibly more than $6 billion – OSV News has found. An aggregated total from two decades of reports issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops shows the nation’s dioceses and eparchies paid some $4.384 billion to settle claims between 2004 and 2023. Data for fiscal year 2024 is still pending; however, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ $880 million settlement and a $323 million settlement announced Sept. 26 by the Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, account for $1.2 billion within the span of less than a month. Those two settlements, plus the USCCB total for 2004-2023, add up to $5.59 billion. The USCCB 2004-2023 total does not appear to include a $660 million settlement announced in 2007 by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles which, along with the Oct. 16 settlement, brings that archdiocese’s total to at least $1.54 billion in abuse-related costs over the past two decades. An archdiocesan official told OSV News the archdiocese was looking into how that settlement data was reported. The overall national total of diocesan settlement payouts for the past two decades could exceed $6.24 billion, if the USCCB data does not already include the 2007 Archdiocese of Los Angeles payout. Data from the USCCB’s reports does not include any settlements that dioceses reached with victims prior to 2004.

The Christmas tree is lighted in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican Dec. 9, 2023. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – A local Italian group launched an online petition urging Pope Francis, the Vatican and others to stop the “fir tree-icide” of cutting down a 200-year-old red pine to decorate St. Peter’s Square for Christmas. The Bears and Others Association, a land and wildlife conservancy group located in the northern Italian province of Trento, launched the petition on change.org Oct. 13. It had gathered more than 49,800 signatories by midday Nov. 15. Citing the pope’s teachings on caring for creation, the group said, “It is necessary to give clear and concise signals” to change people’s attitudes toward respecting nature, especially given the rapidly evolving climate change. The Christmas tree “is a pagan tradition and has nothing to do with the birth of Christ,” the petition said. Renato Girardi, mayor of Ledro, told the Italian state television network, RAI, that the donated tree comes from a certified sustainable working forest that follows strict forest management practices, which include thinning out towering, older trees to open up the canopy and facilitate the growth of multiple younger trees below. Renato Girardi, mayor of Ledro, said the tree was actually 60 years old, according to Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, Nov. 19.


WORLD
MEXICO CITY (OSV News) – The Mexican bishops’ conference expressed deep concern over an initiative in the Mexico City assembly “which seeks to completely eliminate legal protection for life in gestation” and could lead to the further removal of limits on abortion across the country. “This initiative, which seeks the total decriminalization of abortion in Mexico City, and which will probably be extended to other states in the Republic, would not only eliminate the current limit of twelve weeks of gestation, but would also open the door to the termination of pregnancy at any time,” the bishops’ said in a Nov. 6 statement signed by the conference president, Archbishop Rogelio Cabrera López of Monterrey, and its general secretary, Bishop Ramón Castro Castro of Cuernavaca. “As pastors, we cannot remain silent in the face of a measure that, under the pretext of defending rights, in reality ignores the most fundamental human right: ‘the right to life from conception to natural death,’ and abandons women to decisions that can dramatically affect their lives.” A pair of commissions in the Mexico City assembly voted Nov. 4 to eliminate abortion from the criminal code, along with any limits on how late an abortion could occur during pregnancy. Punishments of three to six months in prison or 100 to 300 days of community service for women who abort were also scrapped.

VIENNA (OSV News) – With new reports of human rights organizations in Europe, it is clear that anti-Christian discrimination is a hot-button issue in the old continent, and on the rise. The Vienna-based Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe revealed widespread intolerance and discrimination against Christians in Europe in its Nov. 15 report, published in cooperation with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE, and its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. OIDAC Europe identified 2,444 anti-Christian hate crimes which were documented by police and civil society in 35 European countries in 2023, including 232 personal attacks on Christians, such as harassment, threats and physical violence. These figures include data requested from governments, which found 1,230 anti-Christian hate crimes recorded by 10 European governments in 2023, up from 1,029 recorded by governments in 2022. While only 10 European governments submitted data on anti-Christian hate crimes in 2023, civil society reported incidents from 26 European countries. The report was published ahead of Nov. 16 observance of International Day for Tolerance, which was established in 1996 by the United Nations General Assembly.

Pope says he’ll canonize Acutis, Frassati, host meeting on child’s rights

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By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis announced that he will canonize Blesseds Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati next year and that the Vatican will host a world meeting on the rights of the child Feb. 3.
The pope will canonize Blessed Acutis April 27, during the Jubilee for Adolescents in Rome April 25-27 and Blessed Frassati during the Jubilee of Young People in Rome July 28-Aug. 3.

The pope made the announcement during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square Nov. 20, which is World Children’s Day.

The annual celebration marks the date when the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959 and when the assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.

Pope Francis recognized May 23, 2024, the second miracle needed for the canonization of Italian Blessed Carlo Acutis, who died of leukemia in 2006 at the age of 15. He is pictured in an undated photo. (CNS photo/courtesy Sainthood Cause of Carlo Acutis) Editors: best quality available.

“On the occasion of the International Day of the Rights of the Child and Adolescents that is celebrated today,” the pope said he wanted to announce holding a world meeting at the Vatican.

The World Leaders’ Summit on Children’s Rights will be dedicated to the theme of “Let’s love them and protect them,” and it will include experts and celebrities from different countries, the pope said.

“It will be an occasion to pinpoint new paths directed at better assisting and protecting children still without rights who live in precarious conditions. They are exploited and abused and suffer the dramatic consequences of wars,” he said.

A small group of children involved in preparing for the Feb. 3 meeting joined the pope for a photograph after the announcement along with Franciscan Father Enzo Fortunato, coordinator of the church’s first World Children’s Day, which was held in Rome May 25.

Pope Francis also established a new papal committee for World Children’s Day and named Father Fortunato its president.

The new committee, he said, will ensure that “World Children’s Day does not remain an isolated event” and that “the pastoral care for children increasingly becomes a more qualified priority in evangelical and pedagogical terms,” he said in the decree, also known as a chirograph, published by the Vatican Nov. 20.
The aim of the world day, he said, is to make a concrete contribution toward carrying out “the church’s commitment to children” by giving voice to children’s rights and making sure the church’s pastoral activities have the same kind of care and attention toward children Jesus had.

Other goals include helping the Christian community become more of “an educating community capable first of all of being evangelized by the voice of the little ones” and helping the church become more “like children” and let go of “signs of power” in order to become “a welcoming and livable home for all, starting with children,” the decree said.

Pope Francis said he wants the day to be celebrated at the universal, regional, national and local levels and, therefore, the committee will help promote and organize those celebrations with the universal event held “possibly every two years.”

“I entrust the preparation of World Children’s Day to the regional and national bishops’ conferences that will institute local organizing committees,” he said.

Synod calls for quick steps to involve more people in church life

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By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Parishes and dioceses must move quickly to give life to the consultative bodies and broad participation in mission and ministry already foreseen by church law if the Catholic Church is to have any hope of becoming a more “synodal” church, members of the Synod of Bishops said.

“Without concrete changes in the short term, the vision of a synodal church will not be credible and this will alienate those members of the People of God who have drawn strength and hope from the synodal journey,” the members said in the final document they approved Oct. 26.

Pope Francis convoked the synod in 2021 and called on parishes, dioceses and bishops’ conferences to hold listening sessions before the first synod assembly in Rome in 2023. The current assembly, including most of the same members, began with a Mass at the Vatican Oct. 2.

Members voted on each of the 155 paragraphs of the document, which made suggestions and requests to Pope Francis that included long-term projects, such as continuing discernment about the possibility of women deacons, the need to reform seminary training and the hope that more lay people would be involved in the selection of bishops.

Pope Francis speaks to members of the Synod of Bishops on synodality after they approved their final document Oct. 26, 2024, in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

But they also included actions that could and should be implemented immediately, including hiring more women and laymen to teach in seminaries or having bishops make pastoral councils mandatory for every parish and pastors ensuring those bodies are truly representative of the parish members and that he listens to their advice.

Synod officials said all the paragraphs were approved by the necessary two-thirds of synod members present and voting; 355 members were present and voting, so passage required 237 votes. A paragraph devoted to increasing women’s profile in the church received, by far, the most negative votes of any paragraph with 97 members voting no and 258 voting yes. The paragraph, which required 66% of the votes, passed with 72%.

“In simple and concise terms,” members said, “synodality is a path of spiritual renewal and structural reform that enables the church to be more participatory and missionary, so that it can walk with every man and woman, radiating the light of Christ.”

In a synodal church, the document said, members have different roles, but they work together for the good of all members and for the mission of the church.

Like the synthesis report from the first assembly of the synod in 2023, the final document did not use the term “LGBTQ” or even “homosexuality” and spoke only briefly about the need to reach out to people who “experience the pain of feeling excluded or judged because of their marital situation, identity or sexuality.”

The document repeatedly referred to the “equal dignity” of men and women by virtue of their baptism and insisted the Catholic Church needed to do more to recognize women’s contributions to the life and mission of the church and their potential to offer more.

“Women continue to encounter obstacles in obtaining a fuller recognition of their charisms, vocation and roles in all the various areas of the church’s life,” it said. “This is to the detriment of serving the Church’s shared mission.”

Members of the synod called for the “full implementation of all the opportunities already provided for in Canon Law with regard to the role of women,” and said, “there is no reason or impediment that should prevent women from carrying out leadership roles in the Church. What comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped.”

“Additionally, the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open,” they said. “This discernment needs to continue.”

The question of women deacons was among several questions Pope Francis assigned to study groups last spring. Synod members asked the General Secretariat of the Synod “to continue to watch over the synodal quality of the working method of the study groups,” which are supposed to report to the pope in June.

The synod process, members said, was a “call to joy and renewal of the church in following the Lord, in committing to service of His mission and in searching for ways to be faithful.”

But the document repeatedly acknowledged the crime and sin of clerical sexual abuse and abuse of power, and insisted that a commitment to synodality, particularly to learning to listen and to necessary forms of transparency and accountability, were essential to preventing abuse.

Synodality, members said, “will also help to overcome clericalism, understood as use of power to one’s own advantage and the distortion of the authority of the church which is at the service of the People of God. This expresses itself above all in forms of abuse, be they sexual or economic, the abuse of conscience and of power, by ministers of the church.”

Lay men and women have many talents that can and should assist bishops and parish priests in the smooth functioning of their dioceses or parishes, synod members said. Tapping into those talents can help bishops and priests, who often feel overworked.

Where church law requires the bishops to consult their priests’ or pastoral council or pastors to consult the parish council, the document said, they “may not act as if the consultation had not taken place.”
“As in any community that lives according to justice,” it said, “the exercise of authority does not consist in an arbitrary imposition of will.”

Synod members also said listening, consulting, praying and discerning before making a decision is not the end of the process. “It must be accompanied and followed by practices of accountability and evaluation in a spirit of transparency inspired by evangelical criteria.”

Ensuring accountability and regularly evaluating all those who minister in the church’s name “is not a bureaucratic task for its own sake. It is rather a communication effort that proves to be a powerful educational tool for bringing about a change in culture,” synod members said.

One issue that prompted debate during the synod involved the authority of national bishops’ conference, particularly when it came to doctrinal matters.

The synod members, in the final document, called for a study of the theological and juridical status of bishops’ conferences and for a clear definition of “precisely the domain of the doctrinal and disciplinary competence” of the conferences.

(Editor’s note: At press time on Nov. 1, 2024, the final document of the XVI Assembly of the Synod of Bishops was only made available in the original Italian. Visit https://www.synod.va/en.html in the coming days for additional language translations.)

Sacred Heart encyclical hailed as a ‘simple and powerful cure’ to rekindle love

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By Gina Christian
(OSV News) – Pope Francis’ new encyclical on the Sacred Heart of Jesus is being hailed as “a simple and powerful cure” for a fractured world, said the president of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference – and that sentiment was echoed by other experts on devotion to the Sacred Heart.

“Dilexit Nos” was released Oct. 24, following Pope Francis’ announcement in June, a month traditionally dedicated to the Sacred Heart, that he planned to issue a document about the devotion to “illuminate the path of ecclesial renewal, but also to say something significant to a world that seems to have lost its heart.”

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is depicted in a stained-glass window at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church in the Forest Hills section of the Queens borough of New York. (OSV News photo/Gregory A. Shemitz)

“The ills of modern society can read like a litany of uncurable diseases: consumerism, secularism, partisanism,” said Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and head of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, in an Oct. 24 statement. “In his latest encyclical … the Holy Father teaches us that devotion to the heart of Jesus can open our own hearts to renewed ways we can love and be loved.”

Subtitled “On the human and divine love of the heart of Jesus Christ,” the 28,000-word text – available on the Vatican’s website in Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish – draws on Scripture, church teaching and the writings of various saints regarding the devotion, which has a centuries-long history.
The encyclical adds to the numerous papal documents on the Sacred Heart since 1899, and is intended to complement Pope Francis’ previous two encyclicals on social teaching, “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home” and “Fratelli Tutti: On Fraternity and Social Friendship.”

“The present document can help us see that the teaching of the social encyclicals … is not unrelated to our encounter with the love of Jesus Christ,” Pope Francis wrote. “For it is by drinking of that same love that we become capable of forging bonds of fraternity, of recognizing the dignity of each human being, and of working together to care for our common home.”

“We need this timely counsel,” Archbishop Broglio said in his statement.

“In an age where we are at each other’s throats – whether it’s simply disagreeing with positions or even going to war – appealing to the heart of not only of people, but more importantly of Christ, refocuses us on what really matters to being human,” Father Thomas Dailey, a member of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales and author of “Behold This Heart: St. Francis de Sales and Devotion to the Sacred Heart,” told OSV News.

Timothy O’Donnell, president emeritus of Christendom College and author of “Heart of the Redeemer,” said the pope’s new encyclical “could really go a long way to help people get back to what’s really essential in Christianity.

“Devotion to the Sacred Heart really is a summary of the whole mystery of our redemption, as Pope Pius XII and numerous other popes have said,” O’Donnell told OSV News. “And if anything, that call … is even more urgent now in our current times, with the loneliness, the isolation, the sort of secular miasma that we all have to breathe, where oftentimes we are affected far more by this atmosphere of secularity, (rather) than drawing from the riches of a relationship with Christ.

And it is Christ, O’Donnell said, “who brings love to a world that really is starving for it.”

The timing of the document is “intentional,” added Father Dailey, who is the chair of homiletics and social communications, as well as project director of the Catholic Preaching Institute, at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Ambler, Pennsylvania.

He stressed the need to approach others not in terms of “policy to policy, war to war, or nationality to nationality,” but “heart to heart,” since “the heart is what makes us the same.”

The encyclical stands to call attention to “the personhood and the importance of the uniqueness of each individual,” said Father Donald Calloway, a member of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception and author of numerous books, including “Sacred Heart Gems: Daily Wisdom on the Heart of Jesus.”

Father Calloway said that in his initial perusal of the encyclical he was struck by the document’s emphasis on “an aspect of being” that is often neglected in current society.

“Being devoted to the heart is being devoted to the person,” he told OSV News. “I think it’s time to get back to some of these fundamentals. We live in this robotic, technological age where, I think, we’re forgetting that things have consequences. You can be on social media and you crank out a post, not realizing that you’re actually hurting people. You’re hurting hearts, not just some robot or some machine. … It affects people.”

He also stressed the need to attend to “the heart of our God.”

“There’s so much going on in the world right now that I think is offending our Lord’s heart,” Father Calloway said.

“It’s a good time to be reminded of the heart of our God, and that he loves us and wants us even to console him, to make reparation to him for our own sins and the sins of others,” he said.

“Jesus has a heart just like you and I do,” Father Dailey emphasized. “That heart loves just as yours and mine does. That heart breaks; that heart, poured out in love for humanity, is the ultimate sign of God’s love for human beings.”

(Gina Christian is a national reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @GinaJesseReina.)