NATION WASHINGTON (OSV News) – “Wonder,” a five-part documentary series from Word on Fire set for release Feb.13-17, shows that “the war between faith and science is untrue,” said Word on Fire founder Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota. Narrated by actor Jonathan Roumie, the episodes explore the nature of light, Trinitarian traces in the cosmos, human and animal language, St. Augustine and evolution, and even theology of salvation suggested by the geometry of Chartres Cathedral’s North Rose Window in Chartres, France. Director Manny Marquez, who said his own faith was deepened by the project, told OSV News the films are “an opportunity to make a difference in the conversation” between faith and science.
WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory of Washington urged “ordinary people of color” to “vastly improve our world with an understanding of the strength of character that resides within the souls of our people.” In his homily during a Feb. 5 Mass in honor of Black History Month, the cardinal said, “We are chosen by none other than the Lord, the light of the world himself; we have no choice but to be an example to the world.” In the day’s Gospel reading from Matthew (5:13-16), Jesus refers to his disciples as the salt of the earth and the light of the world. “Many have suffered martyrdom as the price of their witness and those who do become salt and light may become the subject of ridicule,” Cardinal Gregory said. “But we need ordinary faith-filled people like yourselves to allow your lights to shine – however small … to illuminate the darkness of this world.”
VATICAN VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis expressed his “spiritual closeness” and “solidarity” with those affected by a pair of powerful earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria Feb. 6. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake as measured by the U.S. Geological Survey hit southern Turkey before dawn Feb. 6 wreaking havoc in large areas of neighboring Syria. It was followed by what the geological survey said was a separate 7.5 magnitude earthquake, less than 12 hours later some 60 miles away. The day after, ABC News was reporting that more than 7,000 people were killed while hundreds remained trapped under the rubble of toppled buildings. The Catholic charity Aid to the Church in need said a Catholic priest was among the dead in Syria. Father Imad Daher died in the collapse of the residence of retired Melkite Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart of Aleppo, who was injured and hospitalized, the charity said. Pope Francis was “deeply saddened” to learn of the “huge loss of life” caused by the disaster and offered his “heartfelt condolences” to those mourning losses, wrote Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, in telegrams to the Vatican’s ambassadors in Turkey and Syria. The pope also prayed that emergency personnel would “be sustained in their care of the injured and in the ongoing relief efforts by the divine gifts of fortitude and perseverance.”
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The principal task of the continental assemblies and the assemblies of the Synod of Bishops in 2023 and 2024 is to learn and strengthen a process of listening as a church to the Holy Spirit and not to address all the issues being debated in the church, top officers of the synod said. The theme that Pope Francis has chosen for the general assembly “is clear: ‘For a synodal church: communion, participation, mission.’ This is therefore the sole theme that we are called to explore in each of the stages within the process,” their letter to bishops said. “Those who claim to impose any one theme on the synod forget the logic that governs the synod process: we are called to chart a ‘common course’ beginning with the contribution of all,” said the letter, published Jan. 29, and signed by Cardinals Mario Grech, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, and Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, relator general of the synod. Addressed to the world’s bishops, the letter focused on the current “continental” stage of the synodal process, and the role of the bishop in the synodal process. The bishops, “in your particular churches, are the principle and foundation of unity of the holy people of God,” they said, and “there is no exercise of ecclesial synodality without exercise of episcopal collegiality.”
This is the logo for World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, which takes place Aug. 1-6, 2023. One issue surrounding every WYD perpetually makes headlines months before the event: that of costs. (OSV News photo/CNS file, Holy See Press Office)
WORLD LISBON, Portugal (OSV News) – One issue involving World Youth Day perpetually makes headlines months before the event: that of costs. The event taking place Aug. 1-6, 2023, in Lisbon, Portugal. As reported by Reuters, Lisbon’s mayor, Carlos Moedas, was sharply criticized on Portuguese social media after it was revealed his office would spend over over $5.4 million (5 million euros) to build a 54,000-square foot altar for the final Mass of the August event. The expensive altar is not the only aspect that created controversy. In October, the Portuguese government announced that public institutions would spend around $190 million in WYD. On Jan. 31, after the uproar about the altar, the government led by socialist prime minister António Costa announced a reduction of the initial figure. But these costs may not be as astronomical as they seem? WYD is a major international event of the Catholic Church – one that brings together millions of young people from around the world to pray, learn and meet with the current pope for a handful of days every few years – and major events necessarily come with a significant price tag.
By Cindy Wooden VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis will soon pack his bags for his first foreign trip of 2023, a year that promises to be as busy as ever.
The pope, who celebrated his 86th birthday Dec. 17, can move quickly – in a wheelchair – and keeps saying in interviews that a functioning head and heart – not a well-functioning knee – are essential to the exercise of the papacy.
And, so, his appointment book for 2023 is starting to fill up, although he usually agrees to appointments with the caveat of “God willing.”
Several events are already inked in: – A pastoral visit to violence-torn Congo Jan. 31-Feb. 3, followed by an ecumenical pilgrimage for peace to South Sudan Feb. 3-5 with Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury and the Rev. Iain Greenshields, moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. – Pope Francis celebrates his 10th anniversary as pope March 13. – He is scheduled to join perhaps 1 million young people from around the globe for World Youth Day Aug. 1-6 in Lisbon, Portugal. – And the first session of the world Synod of Bishops meeting on “synodality” is scheduled for Oct. 4-29 at the Vatican.
His constant pleas for peace in Ukraine will not end until the war does.
Pope Francis gives a thumbs up as he rides in a wheelchair during his general audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican Dec. 7, 2022. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
And while Pope Francis indicated Dec. 21 that he had reached, or at least was reaching, the end of a series of general audience lessons about spiritual discernment – what it is, how it is done and how the results are judged – his emphasis on teaching Catholics how to listen to the Holy Spirit when making decisions individually or communally will continue as the synod process does.
In October, saying he did not want to rush the process of discerning how the Holy Spirit is calling the church to grow in “synodality,” the pope announced that the assembly of the Synod of Bishops would take place in two sessions. The gathering scheduled for 2023 is only the first session. Having published his constitution reforming the Roman Curia in June, Pope Francis is expected to make some changes in the top positions of Curia offices in the coming year.
The normal retirement age for cardinals and bishops working in the Curia is 75, but the pope has often kept cardinals who are prefects of dicasteries in place beyond their 75th birthdays.
The two cardinals likely to retire in 2023 are: Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, who will be 79 in April and has been in office since 2017; and Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Vatican tribunal, who turned 78 in September and has led the office since 2013.
Four other cardinals continue to serve past the age of 75. Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, celebrated his 76th birthday in July. Cardinal Joao Bráz de Aviz will turn 76 in April. Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life, turned 75 in September. Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, celebrated his 75th birthday Dec. 22.
In 2023 Pope Francis also will hear continuing calls to address the clerical sexual abuse scandal and, especially, to ensure greater consistency in dealing with abusers and greater transparency in how the Vatican has handled the cases.
The case of Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik, the Slovenian artist, will continue to make headlines; in late December the Jesuits asked victims to come forward and published a timeline that showed the Vatican’s doctrinal office in May 2020 confirmed the priest had incurred automatic excommunication for granting sacramental absolution to a woman with whom he had had a sexual relationship. After he formally recognized his abuse and expressed repentance, the excommunication was lifted the same month.
In 2021 another allegation of abuse was made by several women who belonged to the Loyola Community he served as a spiritual adviser in Slovenia; the doctrinal office ruled that the statute of limitations had passed and closed the case. News of his previous excommunication came out only after the second case was dismissed, raising questions about why the statute of limitations was not waived and about whether Pope Francis knew about and was involved in lifting the previous excommunication.
Returning to Rome from Bahrain in November, Pope Francis told reporters that over the past 20 years, the Catholic Church had made huge efforts to stop hiding abuse cases and simply shuffling abusive priests to new assignments – “an ugly habit,” he said – and “we are moving forward.”
NATION WASHINGTON (OSV News) – A songwriting competition aims to inspire new Catholic music as a part of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ National Eucharistic Revival initiative. The Eucharistic Revival Musical Competition, sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Evangelization and Catechesis, seeks entries from Catholic composers, poets and songwriters for Catholic music, with a particular emphasis on the church’s teachings on the real presence of the Eucharist and the church’s unity as the body of Christ. Marilyn Santos, associate director of the USCCB’s Secretariat of Evangelization and Catechesis, said music is a beautiful way of “expressing our faith” and that she hoped the contest would “discover these new evangelists who use music as their medium of conveying the message.” Submissions are due April 21 with winners announced June 9.
DEDHAM, Mass. (OSV News) – Lawyers for Theodore McCarrick want the criminal sex abuse case against the disgraced cleric dismissed, claiming the 92-year-old former cardinal is incompetent to stand trial. In a motion filed in the Dedham District Court Jan. 13, lawyers for McCarrick claimed an independent evaluation shows the laicized cleric in steep mental and physical decline. Prosecutors are expected to seek their own evaluation, and a Massachusetts judge will ultimately decide if McCarrick can stand trial. He is charged with three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over the age of 14. The outcome of the competency hearing will not stop the many civil cases now pending against McCarrick, who was removed from ministry in 2018 following a credible allegation of abuse of a minor, as well as wide-spread reports that he abused young men, going back decades. He was laicized in 2019.
VATICAN VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis asked Cubans “to make present in their hearts” the actions and words of St. John Paul II during his visit to their nation 25 years ago to “give a new push to building the country’s future with hope and determination.” In a letter to the Cuban people, released at the Vatican Jan. 14, the pope marked the anniversary of St. John Paul becoming the first pope to visit the island nation. The visit began with Cuban President Fidel Castro welcoming the pope Jan. 21, 1998, to begin a five-day visit. Upon landing in Havana, St. John Paul called for Cuba to “open itself up to the world” and for the world to “open itself up to Cuba.” Pope Francis reminded Cubans that St. John Paul had asked them to return to their “Cuban and Christian roots” to face the country’s challenges while remembering that each person “is primarily defined by their obligation to others and to history.” Twenty-five years later, the pope said those roots of the Cuban people have grown and flourished through “work and sacrifice each day, not only for your families, but also for your neighbors and friends, for the whole people, and in a special way for those most in need.” Pope Francis told them, “Thank you for this example of collaboration and of mutual assistance that unites you and reveals the spirit that characterizes you: open, welcoming and supportive.”
Sister André, a French Daughter of Charity who was the world’s oldest known person, is pictured in an undated photo. Sister André died Jan. 17, 2023, at age 118 in a nursing home in Toulon, France. (OSV News photo/courtesy EHPAD Sainte Catherine Labouré)
WORLD TOULON, France (OSV News) – Sister Andre, a Daughter of Charity and the world’s oldest known person, died at age 118, a spokesman of the nursing home where she died told AFP agency on Tuesday. “There is great sadness but … it was her desire to join her beloved brother. For her, it’s a liberation,” David Tavella, speaking for the Sainte-Catherine-Laboure nursing home, told AFP. Sister Andre, a Catholic convert raised in a Protestant family, was born Lucile Randon Feb. 11, 1904. It was 10 years before World War I, Theodore Roosevelt was president of the United States, New York opened its first subway line and U.S. Army engineers began work on the Panama Canal. She also lived through the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic and through 10 pontificates. Sister Andre died Jan. 17 in her sleep at her nursing home in Toulon, on France’s Mediterranean coast, Tavella said. An avid listener of Vatican Radio, the French nun sent well wishes to the radio operation on the occasion of its 90th anniversary in 2021. Sister Andre, who was blind, was a “dedicated listener of the radio that offers her a window of the world” and supports her prayer life, Vatican News reported Feb. 11, 2021.
Pope Francis greets retired Pope Benedict XVI at the retired pontiff’s Vatican residence Dec. 23, 2013. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)Pope Francis prays with retired Pope Benedict XVI at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, March 23, 2013. Shortly after his election, Pope Francis traveled by helicopter from the Vatican to Castel Gandolfo for a private meeting with the former pontiff. (CNS photo/Vatican Media via Reuters)Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger greets Pope John Paul II upon the pontiff’s arrival to West Germany in 1980. Pope Benedict died Dec. 31, 2022, at the age of 95 in his residence at the Vatican.(CNS photo)Pope Benedict XVI and U.S. President Barack Obama clasp hands as they exchange gifts in the pontiff’s private library at the Vatican July 10, 2009. The president was accompanied by his wife, first lady Michelle Obama, right. Pope Benedict died Dec. 31, 2022, at the age of 95 in his residence at the Vatican. (OSV News photo/Grzegorz Galazka, Catholic Press Photo pool)Pope Benedict XVI, who had an impressive record as a teacher and defender of the basics of Catholic faith, is likely to go down in history books as the first pope in almost 600 years to resign. He is seen among pilgrims during a general audience at the Vatican Nov. 21, 2007. Pope Benedict died Dec. 31, 2022, at the age of 95 in his residence at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)Pope Benedict XVI is pictured with U.S. President George W. Bush at the White House April 16, 2008. (CNS photo/Nancy Wiechec)Pope Benedict XVI carries a candle during the Easter Vigil Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican April 7, 2012. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)Pope John Paul I greets Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Munich and Freising, the future Pope Benedict XVI, during the pontiff’s inaugural Mass in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican Sept. 3, 1978. Pope Benedict died Dec. 31, 2022, at the age of 95 in his residence at the Vatican. (CNS photo/KNA)
(OSV NEWS) – Like any bona fide cat lover, Pope Benedict XVI’s face would light up and his hand would reach out at the sight of a fluffy feline – even when that soft bundle of fur was a squirming, feisty lion cub brought to the Vatican by visiting circus performers.
His comments about how animals must be respected as “companions in creation” earned him high marks with animal welfare groups, including the Humane Society of the United States and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
As cats are known to sense approaching cat lovers, Vatican kitties would apparently swarm around him. For example, one day after celebrating Mass at a small church near St. Peter’s Basilica, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger went to the church’s cemetery, which was full of cats, Konrad Baumgartner, an eyewitness and theologian, told Knight Ridder in 2005. “They all ran to him. They knew him and loved him.”
Pope Benedict XVI looks at a lion cub held by a performer of the Medrano Circus during his weekly general audience at the Vatican Jan. 28, 2009. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano via Reuters)
A fellow cardinal who worked under the future pope at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith portrayed him as a kind of Dr. Doolittle.
“I tried to understand the language he used with cats, who were always enchanted when they met him. I thought maybe it was a Bavarian dialect, but I don’t know,” Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone told Vatican Radio in 2005.
While the pope never owned a cat, it was reported he fed the strays that lurked around the building he lived in as a cardinal in Rome.
Being pope, however, prevented him from such daily encounters. And yet he kept a white ceramic cat – crouched next to a silver icon of Our Lady – on his large desk in the papal apartments.
He and his brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, also collected plates with images of cats.
His love for creatures and nature, the pope said, came from growing up in the Bavarian countryside. In the small town of Aschau am Inn, his childhood home, “I experienced the beauty of creation,” he said. He would hike and bike the surrounding hills and mountains and play with the many animals his neighbors kept.
Pope Benedict XVI pets Pushkin the cat, held by Father Anton Guziel, at the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Birmingham, England, Sept. 19, 2010. The pope visited the oratory after beatifying Cardinal John Henry Newman. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano)
“I even herded cows,” which “brought me closer to nature, and it was important for me to have had this first experience with God’s creatures and to bond with animals,” he said.
When he later built a home in Pentling, near Regensburg, he became fast friends with the neighbor’s orange cat, Chico, who often wandered into his garden.
The neighbor, Rupert Hofbauer, said he also had a dog, Igor, who frequented the garden, “but the cardinal prefers Chico. There are dog and cat people in the world, and he is definitely a cat person.”
When Chico’s friend became famous as pope, the German “katz” became the ersatz narrator of a papal biography in the children’s book, “Joseph and Chico: The Life of Pope Benedict XVI as Told by a Cat.”
After the pope’s retirement, living at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in the Vatican Gardens meant moving to kitty haven.
The good number of friendly, well cared for cats in the area – including Contessina, an often-photographed black-and-white female – meant finally being back among his feline friends.
By Msgr. Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo VATICAN – The shield chosen by Pope Benedict XVI is very simple: it is in the shape of a chalice. In each of the upper corners there is a “chape” in gold. The “chape” [cape] is a symbol of religion. It indicates an idealism inspired by monastic or, more specifically, Benedictine spirituality.
The principal field of the coat of arms is the central one which is red. At the point of honor of the shield is a large gold shell that has a triple symbolism.
Pope Benedict XVI chose the motto “Cooperatores Veritatis” (Cooperators of the Truth) for his coat of arms. The design of the shield takes inspiration from the monastic and Benedictine traditions of spirituality. Read the full description of his Coat of Arms on the Vatican’s website: https://bit.ly/PopeBenedictCoatofArms.
Its first meaning is theological. It is intended to recall a legend attributed to St. Augustine. Meeting a child on the beach who was trying to scoop up the sea into a hole in the sand, Augustine asked him what he was doing. The child explained his vain attempt and Augustine took it to refer to his own futile endeavour to encompass the infinity of God within the confines of the limited human mind.
The scallop shell, moreover, has been used for centuries to distinguish pilgrims.
Benedict XVI wanted to keep this symbolism alive, treading in the footsteps of John Paul II. The design of large shells that decorated the chasuble he wore at the solemn liturgy for the beginning of his Pontificate, Sunday, April 24, was most evident.
The scallop is also an emblem that features in the coat of arms of the ancient Monastery of Schotten near Regensburg (Ratisbon) in Bavaria, to which Joseph Ratzinger felt spiritually closely bound.
In the corner is a Moor’s head, the ancient emblem of the Diocese of Freising, founded in the eighth century, which became a Metropolitan Archdiocese with the name of München und Freising in 1818, subsequent to the Concordat between Pius VII and King Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria (June 5, 1817).
A brown bear is portrayed in the other corner of the shield, with a pack-saddle on its back. An ancient tradition tells that the first Bishop of Freising, St. Corbinian, set out for Rome on horseback. While riding through a forest he was attacked by a bear that tore his horse to pieces. Corbinian managed to tame the bear and make it carry his baggage. This explains why the bear is shown carrying a pack.
The shield carries the symbols connected to the person who displays it, to his ideals, traditions, programmes of life and the principles that inspire and guide him. The various symbols of rank, dignity and jurisdiction of the individual appear instead around the shield.
It has been a venerable tradition for the Supreme Pontiff to surround his shield with crossed keys, one gold and the other silver, in the form of a St. Andrew’s cross: these have been variously interpreted as symbols of spiritual and temporal power.
Matthew’s Gospel recounts that Christ said to Peter: “I will entrust to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you declare bound on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt 16:19). The keys are therefore the typical symbol of the power that Christ gave to St. Peter and his Successors.
The Papal mitre shown in his arms, is silver and bears three bands of gold (the three powers: Orders, Jurisdiction and Magisterium), joined at the centre to show their unity in the same person.
There is also a completely new symbol in the arms of Pope Benedict XVI: the “pallium.” It is not part of the tradition, at least in recent years, for the Supreme Pontiffs to include it in their arms. It stands for the Pope’s responsibility as Pastor of the flock entrusted to him by Christ.
In general, it is customary to place a ribbon or cartouche below the shield, bearing a motto or a heraldic device. It expresses in a few words an ideal or a programme of life.
In his Episcopal arms, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had chosen the motto “Cooperatores Veritatis.” This remains his aspiration or personal programme but does not appear in his Papal arms, in accordance with the tradition common to the Supreme Pontiffs’ arms in recent centuries.
Pope St. John Paul II would often quote his motto, “Totus Tuus,” although it did not feature in his Papal arms. The absence of a motto in the arms implies openness to all ideals that may derive from faith, hope and charity.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Benedict XVI “spread and testified to” the Gospel his entire life, Pope Francis told tens of thousands of people gathered Jan. 5 for his predecessor’s funeral Mass.
“Like the women at the tomb, we too have come with the fragrance of gratitude and the balm of hope, in order to show him once more the love that is undying. We want to do this with the same wisdom, tenderness and devotion that he bestowed upon us over the years,” Pope Francis said in his homily.
The Mass in St. Peter’s Square was the first time in more than 200 years that a pope celebrated the funeral of his predecessor. Pope Pius VII had celebrated the funeral of Pius VI in 1802 when his remains were returned to Rome after he died in exile in France in 1799.
Pope Benedict, who had retired in 2013, had requested his funeral be simple; the only heads of state invited to lead delegations were those of Italy and his native Germany.
However, many dignitaries – including Queen Sofia of Spain and King Philippe of Belgium – and presidents and government ministers representing more than a dozen nations were in attendance, as were most of the ambassadors to the Holy See.
Pope Benedict XVI poses in Alpeggio Pileo near his summer residence in Les Combes, at the Valle d’Aosta in northern Italy, July 14, 2005. Pope Benedict died Dec. 31, 2022, at the age of 95 in his residence at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Reuters/Vatican Pool)
Members of the College of Cardinals sat on one side of the casket, while, on the other side, sat special guests, including the late pope’s closest collaborators and representatives of the Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant and U.S. evangelical communities. Jewish and Muslim organizations also sent delegations.
Pope Francis presided over the Mass and Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, was the main celebrant at the altar. Some 120 cardinals, another 400 bishops and 3,700 priests concelebrated. The vestments and stoles were red in keeping with the color of mourning for deceased popes.
Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, who turns 91 Jan. 13, was allowed to leave China to attend the funeral of Pope Benedict, who had made him a cardinal in 2006. The retired cardinal was arrested in May and fined in November together with five others on charges of failing to properly register a now-defunct fund to help anti-government protesters.
More than 1,000 journalists, photographers and camera operators from around the world were accredited to cover the funeral in St. Peter’s Square.
An estimated 50,000 people filled the square for the Mass, and a number of visitors told Catholic News Service that banners and flags were being confiscated by security upon entrance. Of the few flags and banners that did make it past security was a white cloth with “Santo Subito” (“Sainthood Now”) written in red and a “Thank you, Pope Benedict” written in light blue in German.
Just as Pope Benedict dedicated his pontificate to directing the faithful’s focus to the person of Christ, Pope Francis dedicated his homily to Christ’s loving devotion and suffering witness as the “invitation and the program of life that he quietly inspires in us,” rather than on a summary of his predecessor’s life. Pope Francis spoke of Jesus’ grateful, prayerful and sustained devotion to God’s will and how Jesus’ final words on the cross, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” summed up his entire life, “a ceaseless self-entrustment into the hands of his Father.”
“His were hands of forgiveness and compassion, healing and mercy, anointing and blessing, which led him also to entrust himself into the hands of his brothers and sisters,” he said.
“Father into your hands I commend my spirit,” the pope said, is the plan for life that Jesus quietly invites and inspires people to follow.
However, he said, the path requires sustained and prayerful devotion that is “silently shaped and refined amid the challenges and resistance that every pastor must face in trusting obedience to the Lord’s command to feed his flock.”
“Like the Master, a shepherd bears the burden of interceding and the strain of anointing his people, especially in situations where goodness must struggle to prevail and the dignity of our brothers and sisters is threatened,” said the pope.
“The Lord quietly bestows the spirit of meekness that is ready to understand, accept, hope and risk, notwithstanding any misunderstandings that might result. It is the source of an unseen and elusive fruitfulness, born of his knowing the One in whom he has placed his trust,” he said.
“Feeding means loving, and loving also means being ready to suffer. Loving means giving the sheep what is truly good, the nourishment of God’s truth, of God’s word, the nourishment of his presence,” Pope Francis said, quoting his predecessor’s homily marking the start of his pontificate April 24, 2005.
“Holding fast to the Lord’s last words and to the witness of his entire life, we too, as an ecclesial community, want to follow in his steps and to commend our brother into the hands of the Father,” he said of Pope Benedict. “May those merciful hands find his lamp alight with the oil of the Gospel that he spread and testified to for his entire life.”
“God’s faithful people, gathered here, now accompany and entrust to him the life of the one who was their pastor,” the pope said. “Together, we want to say, ‘Father, into your hands we commend his spirit.'” “Benedict, faithful friend of the Bridegroom, may your joy be complete as you hear his voice, now and forever!” he concluded, as the crowd prayed in silence.
Pope Francis touches the casket of Pope Benedict XVI at the conclusion of his funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican Jan. 5, 2023. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
Among the people in the crowd was Georg Bruckmaier who traveled nearly 10 hours by car to come to the funeral from his home in Bavaria, not far away from where the late pope was born.
Wearing a Bavarian flag around his back, he told CNS, “There are a lot of Bavarians here today, I’ve seen people I know from university. I wanted to be here for the atmosphere.”
“People felt very close to him, because he is a Bavarian, so this is a really big event to be here,” Bruckmaier said, adding that being able to pay his last respects before the pope’s remains in St. Peter’s Basilica, “is a different thing than seeing it on television. It’s something I won’t forget in my whole life.” Fiona-Louise Devlin told CNS she and her companions were wearing scarves from the late pope’s visit to Scotland in 2010. She said they traveled to Rome from Scotland specifically for the funeral, booking their flight the day the pope passed away.
“He’s the pope of our generation. Like, how so many people say that John Paul II was their pope, he was mine. I’ve traveled around the world to go to celebrations that he’s been a part of, so I wanted to be here for this,” she said.
As the day began, the thick morning fog obscuring the cupola slowly began to lift as 12 laymen emerged from the basilica carrying the pope’s casket. The crowd applauded as the cypress casket was brought into the square and placed before the altar.
The pope’s master of liturgical ceremonies, Msgr. Diego Giovanni Ravelli, and Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the late pope’s longtime personal secretary, together placed an opened Book of the Gospels on the casket. The simple casket was decorated with his coat of arms as archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany, which depicts a shell, a Moor and a bear loaded with a pack on his back.
The Bible readings at the Mass were in Spanish, English and Italian, and the prayers of the faithful at the Mass were recited in German, French, Arabic, Portuguese and Italian.
The prayers included petitions for “Pope Emeritus Benedict, who has fallen asleep in the Lord: may the eternal Shepherd receive him into his kingdom of light and peace,” followed by a prayer “for our Holy Father, Pope Francis, and for all the pastors of the church: may they proclaim fearlessly, in word and deed, Christ’s victory over evil and death.”
The other prayers were for justice and peace in the world, for those suffering from poverty and other forms of need, and for those gathered at the funeral.
At the pope’s funeral, like any Catholic funeral, Communion was followed by the “final commendation and farewell,” asking that “Pope Emeritus Benedict” be delivered from death and “may sing God’s praises in the heavenly Jerusalem.”
Pope Francis prayed that God have mercy on his predecessor, who was “a fearless preacher of your word and a faithful minister of the divine mysteries.”
While the funeral was based on the model of a papal funeral, two key elements normally part of a papal funeral following the farewell prayer were missing: there were no prayers offered by representatives of the Diocese of Rome and of the Eastern Catholic churches, since those prayers are specific to the death of a reigning pope, who is bishop of the Diocese of Rome and is in communion with the leaders of the Eastern-rite churches.
A bell tolled solemnly and the assembly applauded for several minutes – with some chanting “Benedetto” – as the pallbearers carried the casket toward St. Peter’s Basilica.
Pope Francis blessed the casket and laid his right hand on it in prayer, then bowed slightly in reverence before it was taken inside for a private burial in the grotto of St. Peter’s Basilica, in the same tomb that held the remains of St. Pope John Paul II before his beatification.
The evening before the funeral Mass a small assembly of cardinals, officials of St. Peter’s Basilica and members of the late pope’s household gathered in St. Peter’s Basilica to witness Pope Benedict’s body being placed into a cypress casket and closed. The ceremony took place Jan. 4 after about 195,000 people had paid their respects to the pope over three days of public viewing.
The “rogito,” a document rolled up and placed in a tube, was placed in the casket with the body. In addition to containing his biography, the legal document, written in Latin, also attested to his death and burial. Medals and coins minted during his pontificate also were placed in the casket.
Archbishop Gänswein and Msgr. Ravelli extended a white silk cloth over the deceased pope’s face. The pope was wearing a miter and the chasuble he wore for Mass at World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008; between his clasped hands were a rosary and small crucifix.
After the funeral Mass, the pope’s casket was taken to the chapel in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica where he was to be buried.
Although the burial was private, images supplied by Vatican Media showed Cardinal Re leading prayers and blessing the remains during the burial rite attended by a small number of senior cardinals, the retired pope’s closest aides and others.
The cypress casket was wrapped with red ribbon, which was affixed to the wood with red wax seals, then placed inside a zinc casket soldered shut and put inside a larger casket made of oak. The tops of both the zinc and oak caskets were decorated with a simple cross, a bronze plaque with the pope’s name and dates of birth, papacy and death, and his papal coat of arms.
His tomb is located between the only two women buried in the grotto under the basilica: the 15th-century Queen Charlotte of Cyprus and the 17th-century Queen Christina of Sweden.
The burial ceremony ended before 1 p.m. but Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said he thought the crypt would not be open to the public until Jan. 8.
(Contributing to this story was Justin McLellan at the Vatican. available to all of us through the sacraments and in loving union with one another.)
Children dressed as the Three Kings carry offertory gifts as Pope Francis celebrates Mass on the feast of Mary, Mother of God, in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Jan. 1, 2023. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
NATION WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will allow retail pharmacies to offer abortion pills in the United States for the first time, the agency announced Jan. 3, prompting criticism from Catholic and pro-life groups. The Biden administration’s rule change comes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last year in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that struck down its previous ruling in Roe v. Wade, prompting many states to either attempt to restrict or expand access to abortion. The regulatory change will permit the retail sale of mifepristone, the first of two drugs used in a medication or chemical abortion. The drug could previously only be dispensed only by some mail-order pharmacies, doctors, or clinics. The new FDA rules will still require a prescription, but will permit a wider range of pharmacies to sell the drugs. Dr. Marie Hilliard, co-chair of the Catholic Medical Association’s ethics committee, and Dr. Lester Ruppersberger, former CMA president, told OSV News in a statement the new rule will “put the health of women, and their true informed consent, at risk.”
WASHINGTON (OSV News) – After a report dubbed 2022 “the year of the botched execution,” Catholic activists renewed their calls for an end to the practice. Despite declining public support for the practice, and a campaign promise from President Joe Biden, a Catholic Democrat, to repeal the federal death penalty, a bill to do so gained little traction last Congress, when Democrats still controlled both chambers. The Catholic church opposes the death penalty as morally “inadmissible” in the modern era – a teaching Pope Francis changed the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018 and expounded on the change in the 2020 encyclical “Fratelli tutti.” The Catholic church is committed to death penalty abolition worldwide.
EL PASO, Texas (OSV News) – In this first trip to the border since he took office, Biden, who is Catholic, sought to “assess border enforcement operations” and talk to those helping to manage “the historic number of migrants fleeing political oppression and gang violence in Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua and Cuba,” according to the White House. Biden’s visit – which lasted a few hours – came amid criticism over how he is handling the humanitarian crisis at the southern border. During his nearly four-hour visit to El Paso, Biden did not meet with migrants or deliver public remarks. Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso shared his concerns, as did other migrant advocates, with the president and his aides. At a news briefing, Sister Norma Pimentel of the Missionaries of Jesus, who heads Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, said the president’s presence at the border was significant. The sister stressed the need to come together as a community – including the city government, Border Patrol and faith-based communities – to safeguard people’s dignity while creating policies to face the issue of migration. After the short visit, Biden traveled to Mexico City, where he and the presidents of Mexico and Canada gathered for a Jan. 9-10 North American leaders’ summit.
VATICAN ROME (OSV News) – In what looks like a continuation of pontifical legacy, Pope Benedict XVI was buried in the crypt where his Polish predecessor, St. John Paul II, was first buried. St. John XXIII also was buried there prior to his beatification. The place of burial is unique for many that knew the fond relationship of St. John Paul and Cardinal Ratzinger. The two popes had a unique intellectual friendship throughout John Paul’s papacy. And even if their characters seemed a world away, Cardinal Ratzinger was similar to St. John Paul II in many aspects as pontiff. The Holy See Press Office predicted the crypt where Pope Benedict was laid to rest will be ready for the faithful to visit after Jan. 8.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The disappearance 40 years ago of Emanuela Orlandi has haunted her family, fueled conspiracy theories and provided grist for a recent Netflix series. Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said Jan. 9 that Alessandro Diddi, Vatican City’s chief prosecutor, was opening a new file on the case, although he provided no details about the direction the investigation was expected to take. The Italian news agency ANSA said Diddi’s decision was in response to requests by Pietro Orlandi, Emanuela’s brother. Vatican investigators will begin by “analyzing the acts and documents related to prior investigations,” of which there have been many, ANSA said. Pietro Orlandi told the television RaiNews24 that he had received copies of WhatsApp messages exchanged in 2014 by “two persons very close to Pope Francis that talk about documents” related to the case that never have been published. He said he was certain someone in the Vatican knew more about what happened to his sister. Pietro and Emanuela are the children of a Vatican employee and grew up in an apartment inside the Vatican. Emanuela disappeared in Rome June 22, 1983, when she was 15.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The way individual Catholics and their parishes care for the sick offers a precise measure of just how much they either are part of or are fighting the “throwaway culture” that ignores or discards anyone seen as flawed or weak, Pope Francis said in his message for the World Day of the Sick. The care of those who are ill shows “whether we are truly companions on the journey or merely individuals on the same path, looking after our own interests and leaving others to ‘make do,’” the pope said in the message, which was released by the Vatican Jan. 10. The Catholic Church celebrates the world day Feb. 11, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. “Experiences of bewilderment, sickness and weakness are part of the human journey,” the 86-year-old pope wrote. But, he said, the Bible makes clear that “far from excluding us from God’s people,” those situations of vulnerability “bring us to the center of the Lord’s attention, for he is our Father and does not want to lose even one of his children along the way.” Those who profess belief in God, he said, should do likewise, placing the sick at the center of their attention.
WORLD SÃO PAULO (OSV News) – The National Conference of Brazilian Bishops is said to be “perplexed by the serious and violent occurrences” that erupted Jan. 8 in Brasilia, the nation’s capital. Thousands of protesters invaded the country’s Congress, Supreme Court building and the presidential palace, enraged about newly sworn-in president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The protesters are supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was defeated by Lula, as the new president is popularly known. They demand the removal of the new president, stating that the October elections were illegitimate and are asking Brazil’s military to take over. Bishops’ conference officials called for the immediate cessation of “criminal attacks on the democratic rule of law.” “These attacks must be immediately contained and their organizers and participants held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Citizens and democracy must be protected,” said the message in the conference’s social media accounts. Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer of São Paulo also condemned the events stating that what happened in Brasília “was unacceptable.”
WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Catholic immigration advocates are hailing the extension of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, to war-torn Yemen, where more than 23 million face what the United Nations has called “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” The decision, announced Jan. 3 and set to begin March 4, will safeguard protections for TPS program participants through Sept. 3, 2024. With Yemen deemed by the United Nations as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, the extension “will provide real relief for many,” said Anna Gallagher, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., or CLINIC. “This decision duly recognizes the needs of Yemenis in the U.S. who cannot return home.”
TIONKUY, Burkino Faso (OSV News) – Father Jacques Yaro Zerbo, 67, Malian-born Catholic priest, was laid to rest Jan. 5 at the Cemetery of Pastoral Agents in Tionkuy, 150 miles west of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. The priest was killed Jan. 2 by unidentified armed men in what his bishop, Bishop Prosper Bonaventure Ky, who heads the Diocese of Dédougou, called “cold-blood murder.” Father Zerbo was on his way to Tona to accomplish a mission for his bishop when he was intercepted by unidentified armed men in the village of Soro in Gassan township found in the northwestern region of Boucle du Mouhon – one of Burkina Faso’s 13 administrative regions and a flashpoint of jihadist extremism. After killing the priest, the killers escaped with his car, leaving his lifeless body by the roadside. Bishop Ky expressed “profound sorrow” at the killing of the priest and hoped he would find peace in the Lord. The killing added to a long list of persecution of Christians and other civilians and underscored the continued spread of terrorism in Burkina Faso and across the Sahel region.
NATION MENDOTA, Minn. (CNS) – A small article in a Christian magazine caught Bob O’Connell’s eye in 1982. It described a national program that provides Christmas presents to children who have a parent in prison. O’Connell was looking for a way to apply the Gospel message by serving the poor and suffering. “I had been in the charismatic movement … for seven, eight years,” said O’Connell, 78, a member of the Church of St. Peter in Mendota. “I was restless. I was itchy for doing something. I was just kind of bored. ‘OK, I’ve got a full-time job, but when it comes to doing some ministry, something for the Lord, I’m not doing anything.’ So, I thought, ‘What can I do?’” The article described a ministry called Project Angel Tree. It was started by a woman who had been incarcerated herself: Mary Kay Beard of Alabama. She had been hired by an organization called Prison Fellowship and was asked to come up with a Christmas project. She decided to erect Christmas trees at two local shopping malls and attach paper angels with the names of boys and girls who had a parent in prison. On the angels were gift ideas, and Beard coordinated a team of people to deliver gifts to these children of inmates. O’Connell started doing this in the Twin Cities that same year. He has done it every year since, coordinating the program from his Burnsville home. It has expanded to include northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and North and South Dakota. This year, Missouri was added to the list.
LANSING, Mich. (CNS) – A Catholic parish in the Diocese of Lansing has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court to protect its right to hire parish employees and staff for its grade school who uphold the tenets of the Catholic faith. The filing follows a July 28 ruling by the Michigan Supreme Court that reinterpreted a state civil rights statute’s definition of sex to include gender identity and sexual orientation without any exemption for religious organizations. Filed Dec. 5 in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan-Southern Division, the suit names state Attorney General Dana Nessel, the Department of Civil Rights and the Civil Rights Commission. Becket, a Washington-based religious liberty law firm, is representing the plaintiff, St. Joseph Catholic Church in St. Johns, Michigan. Founded in 1857, it is the only Catholic parish in town. Its elementary school opened in 1924. The state Supreme Court’s “new understanding” of the civil rights statute “would make it illegal for St. Joseph to operate in accordance with the 2,000-year-old teachings of the Catholic Church on marriage and sexuality,” Becket said in a statement. “This threatens the school’s right to hire staff who will faithfully pass on the tenets of the faith to the next generation,” it said.
Bishop Jacinto Vera of Montevideo, Uruguay, who lived in the 1800s, will be beatified, Pope Francis announced in a series of decrees for sainthood causes released Dec. 17, 2022. (CNS photo/Archdiocese of Montevideo)
VATICAN VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Decrying what he described as “hostile times” when antisemitism and violence against Christians are on the rise, Pope Francis said a renewed commitment to Catholic-Jewish dialogue is needed. “The path we have traveled together is considerable,” but the work clearly is not done, the pope told members of the Amitié Judéo-Chrétienne de France, a dialogue and education group founded in 1948 by Jules Isaac, a French historian who worked to improve Christian-Jewish relations after World War II and met with Popes Pius XII and John XXIII. “We must give thanks to God” for the progress, the pope said, especially “given the weight of mutual prejudices and the sometimes-painful history that must be acknowledged. The task is not finished, and I encourage you to persevere on the path of dialogue, fraternity and joint initiatives. This beautiful work, which consists in creating bonds, is fragile, always to be resumed and consolidated, especially in these hostile times in which attitudes of closure and rejection of the other are becoming more numerous, including with the worrying reappearance of antisemitism, particularly in Europe, and of violence against Christians.”
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Celebrating Christmas is important and beautiful, Pope Francis said, but he asked people to spend less on their celebrations this year and donate the savings to help the people of Ukraine. As he has done at his general audiences since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the pope asked pilgrims and visitors Dec. 14 to express their “closeness to the martyred Ukrainian people, persevering in fervent prayer for these brothers and sisters of ours who are suffering so much. Brothers and sisters, I tell you, they are suffering so very, very much in Ukraine,” the pope said. “I want to draw your attention to Christmas, which is coming, and to the festivities,” he said. “It’s beautiful to celebrate Christmas and have parties, but let’s reduce the level of Christmas spending a bit; let’s have a simpler Christmas with more modest gifts.” And, the pope said, “let’s send what we save to the people of Ukraine, who are suffering so much.” People in the country are hungry and cold, he said.
WORLD MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (CNS) – Uruguay, South America’s most secular country, is poised to get its first homegrown saint. Bishop Jacinto Vera, the first bishop of Montevideo, was declared venerable in 2015 and on Dec. 17 the Vatican announced that he would be beatified, after Pope Francis formally signed off on a miracle attributed to the future saint. Bishop Vera’s path to sainthood not only reflects the country’s history, but also the new path for the church in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay under the stewardship of Pope Francis, an Argentine. “The image of a saint like Jacinto Vera, someone with such important meaning for our country and our history, is of great benefit for Catholics. He walked our country. There is not a place you go where he has not been,” said Father Gabriel González, a professor at the Catholic University of Uruguay who has written extensively about the life and work of Bishop Vera. Jacinto Vera was born at sea in 1813 to parents who set sail from Spain’s Canary Islands with the goal of reaching farmland in Uruguay, which was still a Spanish colony. He gravitated to the church early in life and studied with the Jesuits in neighboring Argentina until his ordination in 1841 as a diocesan priest. As bishop of Montevideo, he invited the Jesuits to return to Uruguay and brought in several congregations of women religious to reestablish order to a church on the fringes of the continent. González said the local church was in disarray, but that changed with Bishop Vera.
YANGON, Myanmar (CNS) – A Christmas of darkness, silence and fear awaits thousands of Christians in camps for internally displaced persons in Myanmar, where carols, decorations and illuminations are banned because of ongoing conflicts. The sounds of gunfire, fighter jets and artillery shelling have replaced those of carols and celebrations in predominantly Christian Kachin, Kayah, Karen and Chin states, reported ucanews.com. Thousands of Christians have been forced to take refuge in churches, makeshift camps and in forests following military attacks against civilians. Ucanews.com talked to some people in the camps, but, at their request, changed their names to protect their identities. Ucanews.com reported that Josephine Pho Mu, 42, said this is the second time since 1988 she has had to flee her home in Kayah state. “I thought we would be temporarily displaced and go back home. But we have been away from home and sheltering at this camp for 19 months,” said Pho Mu, who has taken refuge at a church-run camp in Loikaw, capital of Kayah state, after leaving her village in Demodo township in May 2021. The mother of three said this will be her second Christmas in the camp. “It is a mix of joy and sorrow when Christmas approaches. We are joyful about welcoming Jesus Christ’s birthday, but we are sorrowful as we are in the camp due to the conflict and don’t know when we will be able to return home.”
Un fragmento del Partenón que representa la cabeza de un niño, que se encuentra en los Museos Vaticanos, se encuentra entre los tres fragmentos antiguos que el papa Francisco entregará al arzobispo Ieronymos II de Atenas y de toda Grecia. Según el sitio web de los Museos Vaticanos, los fragmentos llegaron a su posesión en el siglo XIX. (Foto CNS/Museos Vaticanos)
Los jugadores de fútbol se ayudan mutuamente durante un partido amistoso en el Estadio Al Thumama en Doha, Qatar, el 12 de diciembre de 2022. La experta en civismo Christine Porath, profesora asociada de la Escuela de Negocios McDonough de la Universidad de Georgetown, dice que los pequeños gestos de amabilidad pueden ayudar a revertir la creciente tendencia a la falta de civismo en el lugar de trabajo y en la sociedad en su conjunto. (Foto del CNS/Ibraheem Al Omari, Reuters)
Una mujer en Kenosha, Wisconsin, entrega flores a un miembro de la Guardia Nacional de Wisconsin el 28 de agosto de 2020. La experta en civismo Christine Porath, profesora asociada de la Escuela de Negocios McDonough de la Universidad de Georgetown, dice que los pequeños gestos de amabilidad pueden ayudar a revertir la creciente tendencia a la falta de civismo en el lugar de trabajo y en la sociedad en su conjunto. (Foto del CNS/Brendan McDermid, Reuters)
Una monaguilla cerca de Managua, Nicaragua, balancea un incienso antes de la misa en esta foto de archivo de 2008. Durante una audiencia en la Cámara de Representantes de los EE. UU. sobre la represión de Nicaragua contra los trabajadores de la iglesia y los católicos, el copresidente de la comisión de derechos humanos de la Cámara llamó al Papa Francisco el 15 de diciembre de 2022 a “hablar enérgicamente” contra la situación. (Foto CNS/Oswaldo Rivas, Reuters)
Un árbol de Navidad se encuentra en la Plaza del Pesebre frente a la Iglesia de la Natividad en Belén, Cisjordania, el 15 de diciembre de 2022. La iglesia está construida en lo que se cree que es el lugar donde nació Jesús. (Foto del SNC/Debbie Hill)
