Friday's Saint of the Day; good Saint Pope John 23rd

 

St. John XXIII

Feastday: October 11
Patron: of Papal delegates, Patriarchy of Venice, Second Vatican Council
Birth: 1881
Death: 1963
Beatified: 3 September 2000 by Pope John Paul II
Canonized: 27 April 2014 Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City by Pope Francis

The man who would be Pope John XXIII was born in the small village of Sotto il Monte in Italy, on November 25, 1881. He was the fourth of fourteen children born to poor parents who made their living by sharecropping. Named Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the baby would eventually become one of the most influential popes in recent history, changing the Church forever.

Roncalli's career within the Church began in 1904 when he graduated from university with a doctorate in theology. He was ordained a priest thereafter and soon met Pope Pius X in Rome.

By the following year, 1905, Roncalli was appointed to act as secretary for his bishop, Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi. He continued working as the bishop's secretary until the bishop died in August 1914. The bishop's last words to Roncalli were, "Pray for peace."

Such words mattered in August 1914 as the world teetered on the brink of World War I. Italy was eventually drawn into the war and Roncalli was drafted into the Italian Army as a stretcher bearer and chaplain.

Roncalli did his duty and was eventually discharged from the army in 1919. Free to serve the Church in new capacities he was appointed to be the Italian president of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, handpicked by Pope Benedict XV.

Then in February 1925, Roncalli was summoned to the Vatican and given a new mission. This time he was sent to Bulgaria as the Apostolic Visitor to that country. Later, he was appointed aspostolic delegate to Turkey and Greece and made archbishop of Mesembria.

Beginning in 1935, racial tensions and anti-Jewish sentiment began to explode into actual acts of violence against the Jews and other ethnic minorities. Roncalli started using his influence to save what people he could from the depredation of both local authorities and later the Nazis. During his tenure as archbishop, Roncalli saved thousands of Jews, enough that he was named a "Righteous Gentile" following the war.

In late 1944, the Church was anxious to remove clergy in France that had collaborated with the Nazis in various forms. Roncalli was appointed as the new papal Nuncio and sent to France to negotiate the retirement of bishops who were involved with the Nazis.

In 1952, Roncalli was offered a new position, this time as Patriarch of Venice. At the same time he assumed his new title, Roncalli became the Cardinal-Priest of Santa Prisca. He assumed his new responsibilities on March 15, 1953.

Roncalli's papal predecessor died on October 9, 1958 and he was soon summoned to Rome where he was to participate in the process of selecting a new pope. The College eventually settled on Roncalli for election and he accepted, saying "I will be called John," a surprising choice because of that name's association with schism.

As Pope John XXIII, he immediately began to change the culture in the Vatican. On Christmas, 1958, he resumed the papal practice of making visits to the community within the official Diocese of Rome. He visited the sick, the poor, and prisoners. He apologized for episodes of anti-Semitism within the Church carried on by some of his predecessors.

It was originally expected that Pope John XXIII would only serve a short time before passing away and that he would make no significant changes to Church practice. However, Pope John XXIII was a man of great mercy and kindness and much like Pope Francis of today, he did many things that created sensation in the streets and pews.

Perhaps his most influential decision was the call for an ecumenical council which would be known as Vatican II. As a result of this council, many practices of the classic Church would be altered with a new emphasis on ecumenism and a new liturgy.

Pope John XXIII addressed several topic of importance to Catholics around the world. He prohibited the use of contraceptives which interfere with the procreative will of God. He upheld the traditional view that married couples may not divorce. He also moved to protect the Church from scandal, ordering confidentiality when dealing with matters of clergy accused of the sexual abuse of children. How his request to the bishops of his time was interpreted remains subject to debate.

By late 1962, Pope John XXIII has executed most of the work for which he would be known. He was, like his own sister before him, diagnosed with stomach cancer, which was a terminal diagnosis for that time.

In his last months, he offered to negotiate peace between the Soviet Union and the United States, then at the height of the Cold War. The offer, although declined, was popular in both countries. In the wake of the news, John XXIII was the first pope to be honored as the Time Magazine Man of the Year.

Pope John XXIII did the best he could although his health and doctors were failing. On June 3, 1963, Pope John XXIII died in his bed at age 81.

The world mourned John XXIII and he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Johnson in December 1963.

Pope John XXIII generally maintained a good reputation among those who remembered him and he was often titled "the Good."

On September 3, 2000, Pope John Paul beatified him. Miracles were attributed to him and his body was found to be in an uncorrupted state, a phenomenon consistent with sainthood. His body was put on display for the veneration of the faithful.

Pope Francis approved John XXIII for canonization on June 3, 2013, the 50th anniversary of his death.

Bl. Pope John XXIII will be canonized on April 27, 2014 alongside Bl. Pope John Paul II in a historic ceremony to be presided by Pope Emeritus Benedict and Pope Francis. It will be a historic ceremony with two living men with the title of pontiff presiding together.

Pope John XXIII's feast day will be October 11, as opposed to the day of his death, which is June 3. This special feast day is intended as a commemoration of the opening of the Second Vatican Council on October 11, 1962.

Continue reading about St. John XXIII

At the Synod: a healthy discussion on the diaconate

 

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Synod briefing – Day 7: The diaconate

Synod interventions on Tuesday and Wednesday focus on the themes of ecclesial discernment and Christian initiation; and speakers at the daily press briefing highlight the vocation of the diaconate.

Alessandro Di Bussolo and Giampaolo Mattei

De Cubber: A post-synodal encounter for deacons?

Deacon De Cubber repeated what he had said in the Synod Hall: the deacon is a ‘bridge-builder’ in the family, with other families, in the community, and also with wider society. This, he said, “can be really useful in a secularized society” like Belgium, which the Pope visited at the end of September after a brief stop in Luxembourg.

The deacon’s task, De Cubber added, is to go out and “go where the Church does not go, to those who have no voice and are marginalized by the Church itself and by society and bring them back into the Church.”

In a Church where the faithful are often tired and elderly, and where “if we do not walk in a synodal way the Church will not survive,” the Belgian deacon sought to bring synodality to the youth, uniting the youth ministries of all the Flemish-speaking dioceses in the effort.

Prompted by a journalist’s question, he admitted that deacons could have been better represented at the synod, and that he knows that deacons in the US, for instance, “where the ministry is very strong,” are “not very happy that we are so few.”

He thus proposed a post-synodal meeting of deacons in the future, as was done this year with parish priests.

“Being a deacon,” De Cubber concluded, “is not for me at all a preparation for the priesthood, I do not have this vocation. Ours is a ministry exclusively of service.”

Chile and the richness of the permanent diaconate

The Archbishop of Puerto Montt, Chile, Luis Fernando Ramos Pérez, was asked about the experience of the permanent diaconate in his country, which has seen many permanent deacons ordained in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Today, he said, permanent deacons outnumber priests and religious, and their contribution – including collaborating with pastors in the administration of parishes – is “extraordinary and appreciated.”

At the same time, the Archbishop emphasized that deacons are not “miniature priests.”

For his part, Archbishop Inácio Saure, Archbishop of Nampula, Mozambique – the president of his country’s Episcopal Conference and a member of the Missionaries of the Consolata – explained that there are no deacons in his particular Church at the moment, because limited resources are already being used in the formation of priest. He noted, however, that in the future, if the opportunity arises, permanent deacons would certainly be ordained.

At the same time, he highlighted the need to prepare the parish communities, helping understand the difference between deacons and priests.

Synod discuses the "we" of the church; the people of God

 

The theological pastoral forum on "The People of God as the Subject of the Mission" at the Jesuit General Curia  (Ctruongngoc)

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Synod Forum: the People of God as the protagonist of mission

At a theological-pastoral forum held in the Jesuit General Curia, participants expressed the hope that the synodal bodies of the future would be representative of the entire ecclesial body, taking into account professions, competencies, and characteristics of the local Churches.

By Antonella Palermo

“The People of God is never simply the sum of the baptised; rather, it is the ‘we’ of the Church, the communitarian and historical subject of synodality and mission”: this quote, from Instrumentum laboris of the Synod was the starting point for the Forum “The People of God as Subject of the Mission”, which took place on the afternoon of 9 October at the General Curia of the Jesuits, in Rome.

The discussion was moderated by Klara A. Csiszar, professor of pastoral theology at the Faculty of Theology of the Catholic University of Linz, in Austria, and a member of the Culture-Religion-Society doctoral school of the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj, in Romania.

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Synod Forum: Bishops 'called to be 'brothers and friends'

On mission by attraction, without exclusion and in freedom

Thomas Söding holds a doctorate in theology, and teaches New Testament at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum Catholic Theological Faculty. He was a member of the International Theological Commission 2004-2014 and currently, in addition to being a Consultant of the German Bishops” Conference Faith Commission, he is Vice-President of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) and of the Synodal Way of the Catholic Church in Germany.

In his address, Dr Söding, with an exegetical, hermeneutical and very emphatic perspective on ecumenism, said that mission is the horizon of the Church,  

He said it is not the task of Jesus’ disciples to control the people’s faith, but to make it possible.

Further, he claimed, it is not the competence of the twelve apostles to exclude anyone from the missionary community, because Jesus’ mission always requires an outstretched hand.

He pointed to St Peter and St Mary Magdalene, but also the housewife in the parable of the yeast as examples of missionary faith. “There is only one mission,” Söding pointed out, “and that is to proclaim the coming kingdom of God. Mission through attraction is the key.”

According to St Paul, he continued, missionary growth is all the more effective the more one is filled with faith, a faith that can never be taken for granted. “One must empathise with others in order to involve and encourage even the weak,” the professor insisted, noting that the apostle “does not make believers dependent on himself but proclaims freedom in Christ.”

Theological competence, he said, is not a privilege of bishops, who are a gift to the Church to the extent that they stimulate new forms of participation in Church life.

Finally, Söding highlighted that expectations have increased on the part of the lay faithful who wish to contribute actively and maturely to the life of the Church: “They expect to be listened to and they ask for more transparency.”

The Church, sacramental subject, interpreter of the Gospel here and now

Ormond Rush is a priest, associate professor and reader at the Australian Catholic University, Brisbane campus. Elected president of the Australian Catholic Theological Association for three terms, he has served as an expert in the two assemblies of the Australian Plenary Council and is a consultant to the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops.

In his speech, Rush emphasised the inclusive sense of the Church, understood as the entire body of the faithful, in which the hierarchy is included.

He illustrated four aspects of this understanding: the people of God as an interpreting subject; the people of God as a subject conditioned by time; the people of God as located in a place that is important for incarnating the Gospel; the people of God as a sacramental subject.

By virtue of these connotations, Rush spoke of how the early Christian communities needed to interpret the Gospel in order to apply it in the various local churches that gradually emerged. Various canons surfaced but were considered faithful to the message of Christ.

“This Synod is an interpreting subject that seeks the guidance of the Spirit for the meaning of the living and full Gospel,” Rush stated. Time and space are obviously data that shape the Church and the Gospel itself.

Finally, Rush noted an analogy between paradigmatic 5th century Council of Chalcedon, and the Second Vatican Council. In Lumen gentium, Vatican II emphasised the complex divine and human reality of the Church, similar to the divine and human natures of Christ defined in the earlier Council. Lumen gentium, he said, indicates that downplaying the divine can lead to seeing synodality as a merely democratic process (the majority wins); on the other hand, downplaying the human element can lead to seeing synodality as a merely consultative process (only the hierarchy can decide).

In conclusion, Rush said, “we must avoid the double risk” and look to Vatican II to maintain a balance.

Rediscovering the link between law, theology, and life

“We must rediscover the link between law, theology and life,” said Donata Horak, professor of Canon Law at the Alberoni Theological Study in Piacenza, affiliated with the Pontifical University Angelicum and at the School of Theological Formation in Piacenza. She is a member of the Presidential Council of the Coordination of Italian Theologians (CTI) and secretary of the Coordination of Italian Theological Associations (CATI).

Dr Horak’s contribution offered an examination of the exercise of power and representation in a synodal Church, with the premise that “whatever reform we do, we will do it to rediscover what is the authentic original will of the founder.”

The goal and the way is to make the Gospel credible for just relations and a human coexistence in which we all find ourselves brothers and sisters.

Responding to a contribution from the audience observing that mission is not something irenic and made palatable, but often has to do with a dimension of real struggle with evil, Horak said the reforms must not aim at “self-preservation, imposing ourselves, reiterating, or defending ourselves from the world, but must be for Him, for Christ who sought to liberate lives.”

She reaffirmed that the Church is a people composed of women and men who all bear the priestly, prophetic, and kingly function of Christ. All are co-responsible for the mission and equal in Christ.

She dwelt on the ownership of power which, she said, “is a knot that the law will have to resolve.”

It is necessary, according to the professor, to unravel the contradictions where “a kind of double ecclesiology seems to emerge on certain fundamental questions.” We must rediscover the foundation of the rehabilitation of each person in the exercise of power, she explained, pointing out that the Canon Code is currently unclear on this point.

Overcoming the dichotomy between consultation and decision making

“The current discipline of synodal institutes and participatory bodies reveals a minimalist vision of consultation,” Horak said.

She recalled that in the law of the Latin Church, a rigid dichotomy has taken root that contrasts Synods – always and “only” consultative – with Councils, which instead have deliberative power. This rigid distinction is unknown in the law of the Eastern Churches.

“There is a resistance to the participation of the people of God, which even goes beyond the limits of the law,” she said. “If the Code were at least executed in all its possibilities, we would have a much more vital and participative Church; for example, the particular councils (plenary and provincial), which have deliberative power, have remained almost unused.”

Horak expressed the “need to rediscover some dynamics of shared deliberative voting, distributed to different subjects, to pluri-ministerial bodies, because of the competence in the matter or the ecclesial situation in which a decision must be made. The hierarchical principle must therefore be included in the dynamics of complex and asymmetrical ecclesial relations, where charisms, ministries, offices, and competences are variously distributed, always in the communion guaranteed by the bishops, who can attribute deliberative vote to consultative bodies, Synods, or pastoral commissions”.

The knot of representation

The synodal bodies of the future will have to be representative of the entire people of God, taking into account professions, skills, and characteristics of the territory, the jurist insisted. She called for a recovery of “the authentic sense of consultation that is truly the condition of ecclesiality in the exercise of authority.”

Horak added that deliberative power, even if it is formally legitimate, makes sense if it is the result of community discernment, because the Church cannot be a monarchy.

In conclusion, she asked how can we proceed with the reforms of Canon Law that are required of us in the present time, so that the law is at the service of the life and mission of the Church?

Going into the specifics, “a first step,” she observed, “would be to improve the language of the Code by eliminating contradictory expressions with respect to contemporary ecclesiology, to make the opinions expressed by the consultative bodies obligatory ad validitatem, to equip each council with regulations on elections and candidacies, and to introduce new synodal institutions. There are so many possibilities that the current system would allow, if fully implemented or reformed.”

Canonology has a bolder vision

We could go even further, Horak said: “At a time when codifications are in crisis, the Church’s order could rediscover the vitality that belongs to its tradition, overcoming the formal rigidities that have taken hold in the last century.”

The study of canon law, “which has been too complacent about the exegesis of the Code, is today called upon to have a bolder and more ‘catholic’ (universal) vision”.

She specified that this could mean providing the Churches not with new codes, but with more streamlined instruments that include procedural rules so that the Churches can legislate autonomously and give themselves those reforms necessary for the proclamation of the Gospel to be credible in their concrete cultural context.

Universal law would increasingly have the task of fostering a “healthy decentralisation” and a healthy differentiation of the discipline of institutes, ministries, and ecclesiastical structures, always without prejudice to the communion that is the fundamental right/duty of every baptised person in the People of God.

The Church is not master of the mission, but its servant

Bishop Lúcio Andrice Muandula of Xai-Xai, Mozambique, had the task of supplementing the debate with a biblical-pastoral reflection. President of the Episcopal Conference of his country and first vice-president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (Secam), he exhorted the people of God to a mission that does not come from man but from the Father.

He invited people to go out of themselves in a Church that “is not missionary master but missionary servant.” He also reiterated that the Church cannot close itself up in a self-referential attitude: “It is not just a matter of performing a service of maintenance of the Christian community but of engaging in dialogue with the world.” This, he said, is an attitude that must grow from the Christian initiation of each person, as happens in southern Africa, where parish life is grafted onto the practical needs of the territories.

In the exchange of questions with those present at the Forum, the need emerged to clear the field of the concern that to speak of the People of God while not emphasising that one is speaking of the “Body of the Church,” is to “lapse” into a sociological category that neglects the divine datum.

A theologian and missionary asked the question: Where is this missionary people if there are so few people in the Church? “The engine of everything,” he said, “of getting to know each other and making synods is to create joy.”

Perhaps, he suggested it is precisely this trait of joy, which seems to have been somewhat lost lately, that must be recovered “through a more solid and continuous Christian formation.”

Synod explores the role of the Bishop in a Synodal Church

 

Panelists at the Synod's Pastoral Theological Forum on “The Role and Authority of the Bishop in a Synodal Church”   (Ctruongngoc)

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Synod Forum: Bishops 'called to be 'brothers and friends'

The General Assembly of the Synod on Synodality hosts a theological-pastoral forum on “The Role and Authority of the Bishop in a Synodal Church.”

By Edoardo Giribaldi

“The Role and Authority of the Bishop in a Synodal Church” was the title of one of the two theological-pastoral forums organised in the context of the Synod that took place Wednesday evening, 9 October.

At the Pontifical Patristic Institute Augustinianum in Rome, Professor Anna Rowlands, member of the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development and holder of the St. Hilda Chair in Catholic Social Thought and Practice at the University of Durham, UK, moderated the interventions of the various speakers, who are all taking part in the General Assembly of the Synod on the theme of synodality.

The panel was comprised Cardinal-elect Roberto Repole, Archbishop of Turin and Bishop of Susa; Sister Gloria Liliana Franco Echeverri, O.D.N.; Professor Carlos Maria Galli, professor at the Faculty of Theology of the Catholic University of Argentina; Professor Matteo Visioli, priest in the diocese of Parma; and Professor Gille Routhier, professor of Ecclesiology and Practical Theology at Université Laval, in Québec, and at the Institut Catholique in Paris.

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Synod Forum: the People of God as the protagonist of mission

Working ‘in’ and ‘for’ the Church

Rowlands introduced the first guest, Professor Galli, who framed the figure of the bishops in terms of “brothers” and “friends,” noting what he called a “novelty” of the Second Vatican Council: seeing “in the episcopate, in the ‘we of the people of God,’ the realisation of the Church in its pilgrimage in the world.”

This is a foundation, for Professor Galli, that contemplates the episcopal figure committed “in” and “for” the Church, with the same “filial dignity” as its people.

“Presiding,” according to Professor Galli, implies various functions, above all “proclamation” and “witness.”

The ultimate goal must remain that of “discerning the charisms of individuals and communities, at the service of the evangelical mission.”

The model of the episcopal figure is always Jesus, capable of “governing by serving.” The ecclesiastical authority, therefore, does not possess “he totality of charisms,” Galli said. The bishop can “watch over” but not “do everything.” The ability to delegate is therefore also seen as necessary, without hiding the presence of one’s own, personal weaknesses.

Professor Galli concluded his speech with two questions: “Bishops have advisors for complex practical matters, but do they have theological advisors?” and “Bishops are accountable to God for their ministry, how can they be accountable to the people of God as a whole?”

Always dependent on the people of God

Archbishop Repole followed Professor Galli, with an intervention citing the conciliar texts, which are capable of framing the ordained ministry in “precise terms” and as “service to the Church.”

Ordained ministry, however, “does not entail his independence from the portion of the people of God assigned to him.”

The Archbishop of Turin agreed with Professor Galli in portraying the figure of the bishop as one who is “capable of gathering every gift that the Spirit infuses”.

Although such statements might almost be “taken for granted,” and yet materialised thanks to the Second Vatican Council, which marked the passage “from the priesthood that had as its exemplar the priesthood directed to the Eucharist” to the “conception of the ordained ministry divided into three degrees and aimed at proclamation, celebration and pastoral guidance.

This, Archbishp Repole noted, is a “fundamentally Ignatian” model, referring to St Ignatius of Antioch. However, he continued, it represents “the model of a bishop in a small Church,” which can be interpreted in the figure of one who “daily presides over the Eucharist.”

Such a vision, he said, when applied “to different Church models, can create short circuits that this Synod can dissolve.”

‘Get to it!’

Sister Gloria Liliana Franco Echeverri took the floor next, with an intervention in which she told the bishops present in the hall that their call makes them “our servants and brothers.”

She invited them to pray “that you may succeed in configuring yourselves to the style of Christ.”

Sister Gloria asked the pastors for greater inclusion in their agendas, “without wasting time on bureaucratic matters.”

“Don't cover up, don't bury anything,” the nun said about the dramatic scourge of abuse, adding “no abuse of any kind” must “extinguish the voice of the Pastor.”

The bishop, Sister Echeverri continued, is invited to lower himself to whisper to the members of his community, “You exist, you are important.”

Another point touched on was that of the Church authority’s knowledge of the reality in which it operates. “Be humble, have the humility of the one who learns,” she said.  

There will also come a time “when you will feel outdated,” Sister Gloria continued. Nonetheless, she encouraged the bishops to “try to foster networks, bonds, relationships.”

Sister Gloria concluded her remarks by returning to the concept of the bishop as “brother”: “No one will stop you from more loving than us,” she said. “So get to it!”

‘In the midst’ of the assembly

The fourth guest speaker was Professor Routhier, with a message focusing on the nature of the bishop as “brother among brothers.” Speaking of the bishops’ functions, several prepositions are used, but rarely “with,” “in,” or “in the midst of,” (referring to the Christian people), according to the professor. The bishop’s position “is therefore very complex. However, he is never separated from the community he presides over.”

Lumen gentium, Routhiernoted, “presents first the people of God, and then tells us about the bishops.” Such must be “the structure of the Church: an assembly within which the bishop figure is inserted.”

When the bishop prays, he does so not “in his own name,” but inclusive of the whole assembly.

The need for transparency

Finally, Professor Matteo Visioli took the lectern in the Aula Magna. His speech focused on the concept of “power,” divided into the dimensions of “order” and “jurisdiction”: the former referring to sacramental acts, the latter to the functions of government.

This distinction has three consequences, Visioli maintained. “Beyond the doctrine to be adopted,” it is necessary “to think of the ministry as a shared government.” Consequently, it should not tend to “monarchical” tendencies despite the conferral of “the fullness of the sacrament of Orders.”

Secondly, the bishop “can and must” delegate to the suitable members of the lay faithful “tasks of responsibility in the government of the Church.” “Can and must,” Visioli repeated, insisting that “power” cannot not hold bishops “back from having to account for their actions according to a logic of transparency.”

Questions from the audience

Space was then given to questions from the audience. Professor Galli recalled a book, written by an “unknown ecclesiologist” in 1940 entitled Ecclesiologo in divenire [“Ecclesiology in the making”], which foresaw how Lumen gentium would bring “unforeseeable and enormous consequences for the future of the Church.” One of them is precisely the experience of the Synod, based on “mutual listening.”

In this sense, Galli noted the presence of “tension between listening to God and listening to others.” A fracture that must not exist. “We must discern in prayer, in our conscience. In this sense there is much to be done.” The final example brought by Galli was the double canonisation of John XXIII and John Paul II by Pope Francis.

Being transparent, being able to take a step back

On the sidelines of the forum, when asked by Vatican Media about one of “transparency,” Professor Visioli explained that there are two aspects to be taken into consideration: “One is to tell, to give an account of what one does, also of the motivations as well as the choices of government. The other, more hidden aspect that, in my opinion, deserves to be rediscovered, is the right and duty of any believer to ask the bishop or those who govern for an account of the reasons for his choices.”

“And this,” the professor clarified, “not to put him under investigation or make him feel uncomfortable, but, on the contrary, to remove him from that solitude in taking decisions that a bishop so often feels about himself.”

In the same vein, the priest pointed to “engagement and dialogue with other bishops” as a way for a pastor to understand when to delegate and take a step back. “Discernment,” Visioli said, “is never done alone, this Synod teaches us that, and therefore all questions regarding ‘when can I’ must be brought to an appropriate forum for discernment, which is that of ecclesial communion: bishops among bishops, bishops with the people of God.”

“The answer,” Visioli concluded on a hopeful note, “will certainly come.”