1. Vatican to Expand Management Roles for Women, By Francis X. Rocca, The Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2022, Pg. A12
A new Vatican constitution published on Saturday opens the way for women to run some offices at the Catholic Church’s universal headquarters that have always been run by men.
The change is the latest move by Pope Francis to expand the presence of women in the senior management of a church with an all-male clergy.
The new constitution of the Roman Curia, the Catholic Church’s central administration at the Vatican, stresses the need “for the involvement of laywomen and laymen, even in roles of government and responsibility.”
It also states that “any member of the faithful can preside over” an office of the Curia, if compatible with the office’s specific function and area of authority.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-francis-expands-potential-role-of-women-in-vatican-bureaucracy-11647709244?
___________________________________________________________
2. Cardinal to lead U.S. Catholic prayers for Ukraine, Russia, Pope to ‘consecrate’ nations to the Virgin Mary, asks world’s bishops to join, By Mark A. Kellner, The Washington Times, March 21, 2022, Pg. A12
Cardinal Wilton Gregory, archbishop of Washington, is set to hold on March 25 a noon Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception consecrating the warring nations of Russia and Ukraine “to the Immaculate Heart of Mary,” following a request from Pope Francis.
The Masses are part of a global effort led by the 85-year-old pontiff to pray for peace in the three-week-old Russian invasion of Ukraine.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/mar/18/cardinal-gregory-lead-us-catholic-prayers-russia-u/
___________________________________________________________
3. With New Charter, Pope Realigns Vatican, By Jason Horowitz, The New York Times, March 20, 2022, Pg. A8
Pope Francis on Saturday issued a new constitution, nearly a decade in the making, to govern the bureaucracy that runs the Roman Catholic Church.
The constitution, running 54 pages, newly stipulates that baptized lay Catholics, including women, can lead departments traditionally headed by cardinals and increases institutional efforts to protect minors by incorporating the pope’s clergy abuse commission into the church’s government.
The new text — titled “Praedicate Evangelium,” or “Proclaiming the Gospel” — concluded a process that has, over the years, introduced in dribs and drabs overhauls regarding Vatican finances and the consolidation of Vatican offices. It reflects Francis’ emphasis on a more pastoral and ground-up church, and leaves a concrete mark on the church’s workings.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/19/world/europe/pope-constitution-vatican.html
___________________________________________________________
4. Meet Pope Francis, the traditionalist by his own lights, By John L. Allen Jr., Crux, March 20, 2022, Opinion
Pope Francis is set to consecrate Russia, as well as Ukraine, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and has asked all the bishops in the world to join him in the act on March 25, which is the Marian feast of the Annunciation, in keeping with a request of Mary delivered at Fatima in 1929.
…
Whatever its geopolitical or theological significance, the March 25 consecration is also a reminder that for all the ways he comes off as a maverick, a disrupter, and a revolutionary, there are nonetheless senses in which Pope Francis is also extremely traditional, perhaps even more than his two immediate predecessors.
For sure, the conventional Catholic traditionalism with which we’re all familiar, with its devotion to the old Latin Mass, smells-and-bells liturgical style, and taste for florid clerical garb, along with an extremely conservative approach to doctrine, is not for history’s first Latin American pontiff. However, just as there’s more than one way to skin a cat, there’s also more than one way to be a traditionalist.
…
By now, “traditionalism” and “traditionalist” – along with its derogatory derivative, “traddie” – have become brand names in Catholicism for a certain cluster of dogmatic and liturgical convictions, and the people described by those terms generally are no fans of Francis.
“Tradition,” however, in the Catholic sense, is still a many-splendored thing – and, at least by his own lights, Pope Francis turns out to be remarkably traditional himself.
https://cruxnow.com/news-analysis/2022/03/meet-pope-francis-the-traditionalist-by-his-own-lights
___________________________________________________________
5. Pope Francis launches Vatican restructure aimed at flexibility and collaboration, By The Pillar, March 19, 2022
After years of anticipation, Pope Francis issued Saturday a plan to restructure the Roman Curia, the central administrative offices and institutions charged with assisting the pope in leading the Catholic Church, and referred to commonly as the Vatican.
…
The pope’s March 19 publication of Praedicate evangelium came as a surprise to most Vatican watchers, even while the text’s eventual promulgation has been expected for most of the Francis papacy, which began in 2013.
The norms published Saturday come after previously circulating drafts suggested a more dramatic set of changes than those eventually chosen by Francis — earlier drafts would have seen a far more elevated role for the Secretariat of State than that which Pope Francis ultimately settled upon, along with other proposed changes which did not make the final cut — like a once-proposed assertion of doctrinal teaching authority within national or regional episcopal conferences.
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pope-francis-launches-vatican-restructure?s=r
___________________________________________________________
6. ‘Russian World’ Is the Civil Religion Behind Putin’s War, The Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church see Ukraine as part of a cultural dominion to be protected from the values of an encroaching West., By Francis X. Rocca, The Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2022, Pg. C3
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, recently described the war in Ukraine as nothing less than an apocalyptic struggle between good and evil. Its outcome, he said, will determine “where humanity will end up, on which side of God the Savior.”
Some Ukrainians—those whom President Vladimir Putin claims Russia is liberating with its invasion—have rejected “the so-called values that are offered today by those who claim world power,” the patriarch explained. Those values are exemplified by gay pride parades, he said, which serve as admissions tests “to enter the club of those countries,” by implication the European Union and more broadly the West.
The Russian Orthodox Church has taken an active role in forging the ideology that undergirds Mr. Putin’s geopolitical ambitions. It is a worldview that holds the Kremlin to be the defender of Russia’s Christian civilization, and therefore justified in seeking to dominate the countries of the former Soviet Union and Russian empire. According to the Rev. Cyril Hovorun, a Ukrainian-born theologian and former adviser to Patriarch Kirill, these ideas emerged in the aftermath of communism’s collapse, when the Russian state sought to fill an ideological void at the same time that the long-persecuted Russian Orthodox Church asserted itself in a newly open public square.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-world-is-the-civil-religion-behind-putins-war-11647539958
___________________________________________________________
7. Pope asserts Ukraine right to defense in blasting Russia war, By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press, March 18, 2022, 11:49 AM
Pope Francis on Friday denounced the “perverse abuse of power” on display in Russia’s war in Ukraine and called for aid to Ukrainians who he said had been attacked in their “identity, history and tradition” and were “defending their land.”
Francis’ comments, in a message to a gathering of European Catholic representatives, marked some of his strongest yet in asserting Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign state and to defend itself against Russia’s invasion.
It came just days after Francis told the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, that the concept of a “just war” was obsolete since wars are never justifiable and that pastors must preach peace, not politics.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/pope-asserts-ukraine-right-to-defense-in-blasting-russia-war/2022/03/18/911747c8-a6c6-11ec-8628-3da4fa8f8714_story.html
___________________________________________________________
8. Getting Back to Irish Roots: Catholic Classical School Launches, New endeavor gets boost from upcoming ‘Saints and Scholars’ pilgrimage., By Peter Jesserer Smith, National Catholic Register, March 17, 2022
St. Patrick’s Ireland, the “Land of Saints and Scholars,” preserved the learning of Greece and Rome and spread the Catholic faith that helped bring Europe out of its Dark Ages following the chaotic collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
This July, a new “Saints and Scholars” pilgrimage is empowering Catholics to support St. Patrick’s modern-day successors, as a new movement aims to restore Catholic faith and education in Ireland and eventually Europe, with the creation of the country’s first-ever independent Catholic classical education schools.
“We’ve gone through a heck of a time as a Church, and as a society, in this country over the last 25 years,” Padraig Cantillon-Murphy, founder of Mater Dei Academy in Cork city, told the Register. “For the first time, I see people have dusted themselves off, they’re ready to get up again, and start to fight. And this is part of that fight.”
Independent Catholic classical education schools are spread throughout the United States, but Mater Dei Academy is the first of its kind in Ireland — and so is its classical Catholic curriculum for home schooling.
…
But since Mater Dei Academy and other Catholic schools do not receive funding from the Irish government, they are relying on contributions from those who believe in its vision. The Saints and Scholars Foundation, based in Virginia, is spearheading the raising of funds for Mater Dei Academy, especially since more Irish Catholic classical-education schools will follow in the wake of Mater Dei Academy’s success. The foundation has already provided a grant to send a devout Catholic teacher to teach English grammar at Mater Dei Academy.
https://www.ncregister.com/features/getting-back-to-irish-roots-catholic-classical-school-launches
___________________________________________________________TCA Media Monitoring provides a snapshot from national newspapers and major Catholic press outlets of coverage regarding significant Catholic Church news and current issues with which the Catholic Church is traditionally or prominently engaged. The opinions and views expressed in the articles do not necessarily reflect the views of The Catholic Association. |
