Editor’s Note: Are there lessons here for all clerical assemblies, no matter what background? Source: The New York Times By LAURIE GOODSTEIN As Pope Francis convened a closed meeting on Tuesday with eight cardinals he appointed to overhaul the Vatican, he used his second revealing interview in two weeks to make a barbed indictment of the failings of the Roman Catholic Church, calling it overly clerical and insular, interested in temporal power and often led by “narcissists.” “Heads of the church have often been narcissists, flattered and thrilled by their courtiers,” he said in the interview, published Tuesday and conducted by one of Italy’s most outspoken…
Browsing: Pope Francis
Source: America – The National Catholic Review Antonio Spadaro, S.J. The exclusive interview with Pope Francis Editor’s Note: This interview with Pope Francis took place over the course of three meetings during August 2013 in Rome. The interview was conducted in person by Antonio Spadaro, S.J., editor in chief of La Civiltà Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal. Father Spadaro conducted the interview on behalf of La Civiltà Cattolica, America and several other major Jesuit journals around the world. The editorial teams at each of the journals prepared questions and sent them to Father Spadaro, who then consolidated and organized them. The…
Source: Catholic News Service By Carol Glatz ROME (CNS) — Recent remarks by Pope Francis about the need for a stronger pastoral approach to marriage and divorced couples, do not signal the church is overturning its laws or practice of denying communion to Catholics who divorce and remarry, said two canon law experts. When Pope Francis made parenthetical reference to the Orthodox churches permitting, in some cases, a second marriage, he was referring to an issue that has been under discussion for decades, said U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature. The pope…
Source: Vatican Information Service [UPDATED – See Related Story at bottom of article] Vatican City, 8 May 2013 (VIS) – From 9 to 13 May, His Holiness Pope Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt, will come to Rome to meet with His Holiness Pope Francis. The Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt has about ten million faithful. This large membership makes the Coptic Church one of the most important elements in the ecclesial landscape of the Middle East where, in recent times, Christian communities are having…
Source: Aljazeera The appeal comes after a Christian group retracted its claim that the clerics had been freed. Pope Francis has called for the release of two Syrian bishops kidnapped by gunmen near Aleppo, after a Christian group appeared to retract its claim that the clerics had been freed. Aleppo’s Greek Orthodox Bishop Boulos Yaziji and Syriac Orthodox Bishop Yohanna Ibrahim were kidnapped on Monday by armed men en route from the Turkish border. Speaking to an audience of around 100,000 at the Vatican on Wednesday, Francis said there were “contradictory reports” about the fate of the bishops and asked…
Source: The Catholic World Report Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew continue the 50-year legacy of Catholic-Orthodox dialogue begun by Paul VI and Athenagoras. by Christopher B. Warner Pope Francis met with fraternal delegates of the Orthodox Churches, other Christian churches, and world religions on Wednesday, March 20. These representatives had come to Rome for Francis’ inauguration Mass on Tuesday. Prior to the Wednesday’s meeting, the Holy Father and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople had a 20-minute private conversation. Father Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, said the discussion was both “beautiful and intense.” Over the past week,…
Source: The Economist by A.C. | LVIV METROPOLITAN Hilarion of Volokolamsk, a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, recently expressed hope that the new pope, Francis, will continue the policy of rapprochement with the Orthodox Church and will not support, what he calls the expansion of the Ukrainian Greek Catholics. “The union is the most painful topic in the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue, in relations between the Orthodox and the Catholics. If the pope will support the union, then, of course, it will bring no good,” he said The metropolitan is worried: it is said that the new pope has an affinity…
Source: The Record ROME — In his most significant break with tradition yet, Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of two young women at a juvenile detention centre — a surprising departure from church rules that restrict the Holy Thursday ritual to men. No pope has ever washed the feet of a woman before, and Francis’ gesture sparked a debate among some conservatives and liturgical purists, who lamented he had set a “questionable example.” Liberals welcomed the move as a sign of greater inclusiveness in the church. Speaking to the young offenders, including Muslims and Orthodox Christians, Francis said…
Source: Catholic World News Three days after Pope Francis received a Marian icon as a gift from Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Pope gave the icon as a gift to Pope Emeritus Benedict. Metropolitan Hilarion, the Russian Orthodox Church’s chief ecumenical officer, presented the icon of Our Lady, Support of the Humble, along with a book, to Pope Francis during a March 20 audience; Pope Francis in turn presented the icon to the Pope Emeritus on March 23. Pope Francis told his predecessor that when he had received the icon, and been told that it…
By Fr. Johannes L. Jacobse Source: Catholic Online Pope Francis is faithful to moral tradition and also appears to be courageous (these days there is no faithfulness without courage). He understands the moral crisis in Christendom and appears to be as committed to the restoration of the Christian foundations of culture as his predecessors were. This portends a good future for Orthodox-Catholic relations and will hopefully make more Orthodox aware of the grave crisis facing us. NAPLES, FL. (Catholic Online) – Several weeks ago I spent a weekend with Catholic and Orthodox scholars in a colloquium titled “Liberty, Society, and…
Source: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America by George E. Demacopoulos, PhD Amid the crush of news reports in the past month that followed Pope Benedict’s unprecedented resignation from the papacy, one of the most intriguing was the decision by His All-Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, to attend Pope Francis’ installation as Bishop of Rome. The occasion is being presented in the media as something that has not happened since the ecclesiastical schism that separated Christian East and Christian West in the eleventh century. But that characterization is almost certainly wrong–this is quite likely the first time in history that a Bishop…
Source: Orthodox Church in America SYOSSET, NY [OCA] – His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon is one of a number of Orthodox hierarchs slated to attend the Inauguration of Pope Francis in Rome on Tuesday, March 19, 2013. Representatives from most of the Orthodox Churches will be present, including His All-Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. Following the Solemn Mass of Inauguration in Saint Peter’s Basilica on Tuesday morning, Metropolitan Tikhon, who is being accompanied by Archpriest Eric G. Tosi, Secretary of the Orthodox Church in America, will attend a lunch for the delegations hosted by Kurt Cardinal Koch, President of the Pontifical…