There are two commentaries very much related, one from Cardinal Fernandez and the other from Bishop Robert Mutsaerts although Mutsaerts’ commentary is very coherent and specific!
Cardinal Fernandez says this according to Infovaticano:
The prefect attributes the scant interest in the document to the priorities that, in his view, predominate in different ecclesial sectors.
According to Fernández, more progressive bishops pay greater attention to structural changes and dialogue with society, while conservative sectors concentrate especially on the transmission of sexual morality. (My comment: While “conservatives” might seem to focus on sexuality, my experience of “conservatives” is that they focus on the 10 Commandments in general—but indeed, sexuality is vey personal and intimate to their own lives, be it a grace-filled moment or one of sin and guilt. But it is personal to them, from them, whereas social issues like war and peace, ways to care for the poor and the displaced are other than them and many feel helpless to solve these social problems apart from political affiliations or activism. It’s like the progressives who focus only on things external to them, rather than on Christ who is intimate with them and should be the center.)
The cardinal believes that both orientations relegate the proclamation of Jesus Christ and the personal experience of faith to a secondary place.
In this context, he maintained that Pope Francis’s call to renew the missionary proclamation of the kerygma has not produced significant changes in the pastoral projects of dioceses and movements.
In his opinion, this lack of response explains why the new document has not aroused particular enthusiasm either.
READ THE ENTIRE INFOVATICANO ARTICLE HERE.
Copied from Rorate Caeli, press title or read more for full great, common sense article, common sense so lacking in certain places in the Vatican and in chanceries:
The Catholic Church prides (herself) on its universality, cherishes an impressive diversity of liturgical traditions, and regards that diversity as an expression of its riches. A Catholic may attend the divine liturgy according to the Byzantine tradition, the Maronite tradition, the Armenian tradition, or the Chaldean tradition. No one finds this in itself a threat to ecclesial unity. But the moment a Catholic wishes to attend Mass as it was celebrated for centuries in Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, and virtually the entire Latin Church, certain ecclesial authorities in Rome begin to grow uneasy.
While Bishop Mutsaerts is more specific and coherent about it, Cardinal Fernandez also indicates that focusing in on the horizontal rather than the vertical is the problem in today’s Church.
When you understand the TLM, you realize that the focus is completely vertical, contemplative and other-worldly where the focus is on Christ—which then leads to the horizontal in the world—love of God and neighbor as the Church teaches the laity should carry out in the world, but the liturgy is other-worldly.
Not so, in many celebrations of the post-Vatican II Bugnini Mass. Often it is celebrated as though it’s a 1960’s Kumbaya Mass. There’s nothing transcendent about it. The problem is the Missal’s ambiguous General Instruction and the manipulation of the scant rubrics and rituals of the Mass by the priest and the laity during its celebration, such as casualness, clowning around and making Mass into a convivial “Sacred Meal” rather than the Holy Sacrifice it is. Revising the Bugnini Mass by giving it the TLM’s Order and rubrics would completely solve that problem without changing the vernacular or any of the prayers of the Mass (except the Introductory Rites).
Fernandez also indicates that progressive leaning bishops and dioceses think that more meetings, more structure, more talking (all horizontal by the way) are more important than a transcendent encounter with Christ who is the center of one’s life, not meetings! The disconnect for Cardinal Fernandez is that the synodal thingy, that no one likes and few care about, except that it is instrumentalized to make the Catholic Church like the Anglican Communion, is what the Vatican has been promoting for the last 14 years!
And let us thank God for the return to sanity for this poor parish after having suffered such insanity at the hands of design experts!
The anthropology of Catholic ordination hinges on the difference between male and female, husbands and wives, the masculine and feminine especially as it relates to marriage as well as ordination.
Those political lobbies in the Church, instrumentalizing synodality as a parliament, want to do away with this anthropology or act as though it doesn’t exist and in the modern world is irrelevant.
You can see how this is related too, with political lobbies of synodlaity wanting to do away with sexual sins or ignore them for other sins more devious, in order to eventually get to same sex or whatever sex is claimed, marriage and ordination. It effectively, too, does away with Humanae Vitae and the Catholic Church’s reliance on natural law.
However, this is what Artificial Intelligence says about Pope Francis’ position on the subject of ordination, all three elements that form a whole, deacons, priests and bishops:
If only, if only, if only, Pope Leo had reestablished Ecclesia Dei as it was before Summorum Pontificum, it would have solved all the problems of this year’s Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage.
If that pilgrimage had been coordinated by Ecclesia Dei and renamed the Ecclesia Dei Pilgrimage, the scandal of the “visuals” of the Vatican slamming the door in the face of Traditionalists would not have happened!
The Curial bishop or cardinal, the prefect for the reestablished Ecclesia Dei would have coordinated all events, made sure that there wasn’t any instrumentalization by those in the Traditionalist movement and the Prefect would have selected the celebrant for the Mass at St. Peter’s and all other events in the basilica.
Here’s an AI description of the Ecclesia Dei established by St. John Paul II:
The first photo photo op is probably one of those events where nothing more should have been said. But two bishops who are there and praying over and blessing President Trump have apologized for doing so. Yes, you read that correctly. They accepted an invitation to the Oval Office and to meet the president. Most people would jump at the chance for that kind of experience and they did.
Of course, evangelical minister Paula White initiated the prayer and being Post Vatican II Catholics embracing unbridled ecumenism, the Catholic bishops were happy to display their ecumenical mindset and joined in very quickly. Could you imagine if they hadn’t? The ecumenists would have crucified them!
Anyone who knows President Trump knows that he, a politician like all politicians, but unique in his own way, would instrumentalize for political purposes anyone praying over him, especially Catholic bishops.
Why did they go if they didn’t want to be instrumentalized.
After the fact, maybe less said is more and only two apologizing while the others did not put on sackcloth and ashes really draws even more attention to what bishops should be doing, praying for and over people and offering blessings.
The attention given to this really plays into President Trump’s favor, no?
I will be one of many con-celebrants. Knowing that parking will be difficult on Hutchinson Island, across the Savannah River from downtown Savannah, I booked a room at the Westin Hotel next door to the Convention center.
But this is an email that we just received overnight!:
Dear Monsignors and Fathers,
Bishop Parkes has asked me to share with you that the registrations for the beatification of the Georgia Martyrs has been exceptional – in fact, registrations have exceeded the capacity of the Savannah Convention Center!
While this is wonderful news, we ask that you please share the following with your parishioners at the Masses this weekend:
The Diocese of Savannah has been blessed with an overwhelming number of registrations for the Beatification of the Georgia Martyrs, and the Savannah Convention Center will be at capacity during the event.
For those of you who registered, please note that the event is expected to be standing room only. If you did not register, please do not plan to attend as you will likely be turned away. We encourage you to instead watch the livestream on EWTN or at diosav.org.
Press title for full Sileri non possum commentary:
Eric Sammons writes this (copied from a longer commentary HERE):
How has (traditional Catholicism) changed for the better? In many ways, traditional Catholicism has become more accepted, more normalized. Whereas for a long time traditionalism was a fringe movement within the Church, now traditionalists are part of the wider Church in ways unimaginable just a decade ago. Young Catholics in particular don’t look askance at traditionalism, and in fact they often embrace it in disproportionate numbers.
But how has traditional Catholicism changed for the worse? It’s become more internally divided. Perhaps that was inevitable. Success bred complacency, and Francis’s death removed the common focal point. There’s no question in my mind that there’s far more infighting among traditionalists today than five years ago. Under Francis, there was a unifying force among traditionalists: resisting the anti-traditional agenda of the Argentine pope. Now, however, with Pope Leo, there are real disagreements among traditional voices as to how to best proceed
My comments:
I see myself as an orthodox Catholic and priest. That means that I am obedient to the Church and her popes and bishops even if I dislike this, that or the other in terms of discipline and change.
While I loved the option of having two forms of the one Roman Rite freely allowed, it isn’t anymore. I dislike that but as an orthodox priest, I am obedient to the new rules.
I see that both forms could have benefited from cross-fertilization leading to a new single Roman Missal. But for the time being that isn’t on the table anymore.
I embraced Summorum Pontificum in a literal way, meaning the Bugnini Mass is the normal, regular, ordinary Mass of the Roman Rite while the 1962 Missal and ancillary liturgies are not the usual, ordinary or regular liturgies of the Roman Rite—these are out of the ordinary, the exception not the rule.
I am not opposed to girls and women allowed to serve the altar, distribute Holy Communion and read the Scriptures. And I accept and wish that the formal ministries of lector and acolyte for adults become the norm and those who serve these without benefit of these official ministries would be suppressed.
I would love to see the Order of the 1962 Mass be an option for the Bugnini Mass to include ad orientem and kneeling for Holy Communion—those two things should not be viewed with suspicion by clergy or laity, to include popes and bishops.
I would love to see the changing parts of the 1962 Mass celebrated in the vernacular as an option and the Liturgy of the Word, using the 1962 lectionary, offered as in the Bugnini Mass and with lay lectors, male or female—the same for altar servers.
All of this makes me orthodox not heterodox and that is the distinction that everyone should embrace be they on the right or the left, traditionalists or revisionists. Always orthodoxy seeking unity and never heterodoxy pouring gasoline on disunity.
Well, when you challenge the Supreme Pontiff and the Second Vatican Council, what do you expect? If only traditionalists were like Pope Benedidict XVI. He never stopped celebrating the Bugnini Mass although he would have preferred a reform in continuity. If he had been pope for 10 more years, maybe that would have happened. Only God knows.
But Bishop Schnieder and others of his ilk have managed to set back the reform in continuity by be so stupid and so Protestant, neo-protetstantism that is.
Pope Benedict XVI pray for
POOR ARCHBISHOP JAMES GOLKA IS GETTING CRUCIFIED BY THE HETERODOX RIGHT FOR SILENCING A CELEBRITY EXORCIST AND BY THE HETERODOX LEFT FOR TAKING FIDUCIA SUPPLICAN TO ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSION!
Trump's campaign X account and a White House communications staffer posted a video on Thursday, Oct. 22, that shows a number of Catholic bishops, including Denver Archbishop James Golka, praying over President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
For a pontiff experiencing a life and death situation due to cancer or some other “maybe” terminal condition, it might mean distancing himself from His Holiness’ immediate predecessor’s more controversial decisions and penchant for creating polarization in the Church, division rather than unity, creating broken bridges rather than pontiffs.
Am I the only one who found it odd that Pope Leo chose not to close his much touted meeting on Amoris Laetitia and instead chose to have lung surgery that more than likely could have taken place the day after His Holiness celebrated the closing Mass outdoors in St. Peter’s Square? And His Holiness chose not to issue his own musings on that meeting until later, after His Holiness had studied all of the incessant talking and listening that goes on “ad nauseam” in today’s Vatican and Church.
And now, just today, October 23, we learn that Pope Leo will not close the controversial Interfaith Meeting in Assisi. The reason? He can’t fly due to His Holiness’ lung surgery. But, but, but, it’s only a two hour car ride to Assisi from Rome or, better yet, why not use the train station that is inside the Vatican Complex, and quite lovely, I’ve seen it, and take the train to Assisi? How cool would that be?
Maybe, like Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Leo wants to distance His Holiness from this meeting.
And then, almost like the Amoris Laetitia “footnote” the document, not dogmatic, but more pastoral, that was issued by the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith yesterday, speaks of allowing the full tradition of the Church’s liturgical heritage to shine forth as a part of dealing with the crisis of faith that new cultural realities have created. (Let’s not forget how interpreting Vatican II in discontinuity with everything that preceded Vatican II was the “camel’s nose in the tent” that opened the Church to all the nonsense that has happened since Vatican II and then shifting the blame to culture and secularism!).
As I read that, it means allowing what Summorum Pontificum made explicit—that’s my interpretation of that “Laetitia Amoris-like footnote” in yesterday’s document and certainly the only interpretation of it!
Am I reading all these tea leafs wrong??? Or am I clairvoyant—and does that make me a pagan and do I need an exorcism?
Catechesis. The Documents of the Second Vatican Council. IV. Constitution Gaudium et Spes. 6. Commitment to the family in today’s society (GS, 47–52)
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome!
The first think I would like to say is thank you!. Thank you for the support of your prayers. Thanks be to God for His generosity. Let us all renew our trust in God’s goodness and mercy.
The pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (GS) of the Second Vatican Council, having illustrated in the first part the dignity of the person and his or her vocation in the world, goes on to consider, in the second part, “in the light of the Gospel and of human experience”, some of the most pressing contemporary issues (cf. GS, 46). It focuses primarily on marriage and the family, in the conviction that “the well-being of the individual and of human and Christian society is intimately linked with the healthy condition of that community produced by marriage and family” (GS, 47).
To this end, it does not merely reaffirm their values and aims, but proposes a renewed conception of marriage as an “intimate partnership of married life and love” (GS, 48). By incorporating the legal dimension of marriage as a contract, the foundation of this union is recognized in the “conjugal covenant”, understood as the “human act whereby spouses mutually bestow and accept each another” (ibid.). The mutual self-giving of man and woman, such that ‘they are no longer two but one flesh’ (Mt 19:6), underlies the requirement for “total fidelity” and the “unbreakable oneness” of the spouses, finding vivid expression in the procreation and upbringing of children (cf. GS, 48). As a reflection of the Divine Trinity, conjugal and parental love, through the Sacrament of Marriage, is “governed and enriched by Christ’s redeeming power”, so that spouses may love one another “just as He loved the Church and handed Himself over on her behalf” (ibid.).
Having shed light on the reality of marriage in the light of Christ’s love, which is the truth of both human and divine love, Gaudium et Spes turns its attention to conjugal love and marital fruitfulness. Not limited to erotic attraction, which it nonetheless encompasses, conjugal love involves the entire will of the spouses, enlivening the affections of their hearts and expressing itself through sentiments and gestures of tenderness (cf. GS, 49). Embracing the good of the whole person of both man and woman, who are equal in dignity, this love pervades the entire life of the spouses, finding expression in acts proper exclusively to marriage (cf. ibid.). Whilst signifying integral love from person to person, the unique intimacy between the spouses fosters their mutual self-giving and enriches their shared joy (cf. ibid.).
Furthermore, the fruitfulness of conjugal love is expressed in the procreation of children, “the supreme gift of marriage” (GS, 50). By transmitting and educating human life, which must never be rejected, spouses become “cooperators with the love of God the Creator, and are, so to speak, the interpreters of that love” (ibid.). Called to this human and Christian responsibility, they are bound to allow themselves to be guided by a sound judgement regarding their own good and that of their children, whether already born or yet to be born. Such a judgement, which, in the final analysis, the spouses themselves must form before God, requires that their conscience conform to divine law, as interpreted by the Magisterium of the Church in the light of the Gospel (cf. ibid.).
The emphasis on loving communion and procreative fruitfulness within marriage leads the Council to rule out the possibility of there being “a true contradiction … between the divine laws pertaining to the transmission of life, and those pertaining to authentic conjugal love” (GS, 51) and to affirm, instead, that “when there is question of harmonizing conjugal love with the responsible transmission of life”, one must “preserve the full sense of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love” (ibid.). From this it follows both that “from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care”, renouncing “abortion and infanticide”; and that “the acts themselves which are proper to conjugal love and which are exercised in accord with genuine human dignity must be honoured with great reverence” (ibid.).
The teaching of Gaudium et Spes on the conjugal and family community thus goes on to highlight the social function of the family, defined as “a school of deeper humanity” and “the foundation of society” (GS, 52), calling upon all those with social responsibilities, especially in the political and cultural spheres, to fulfil their duty to “work efficiently for the welfare of marriage and the family” (ibid.).
Dear friends, this task is more urgent than ever before. The Church is well aware of this, as shown by the pastoral concern of the Popes who have succeeded one another since the last Council, right up to the two Synodal Assemblies convened by Pope Francis, which were addressed again in recent days by the Heads of the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Presidents of the Episcopal Conferences. May the Holy Family of Nazareth enlighten us on our journey and protect families throughout the world.
Blessed Fulton Sheen was a celebrity bishop in the 1950’s and until he died having had a prime time television show on ABC TV in the 1950’s. But he was about it, rare and safe His Beatified was.
A famous celebrity exorcist, yes, you read that correctly, a celebrity exorcist, has been asked and he has consented to “fast” from publicly speaking for a year, especially on social media. Thank God he was obedient to his bishop’s request as all priests make promises of obedience to their bishop and also that of celibacy. Religious priests make a vow of poverty too.
I think exorcists should be very circumspect about becoming celebrities. Am I wrong?
Traditional, orthodox Catholics should be applauding the celebrity exorcist for obeying his bishop’s order to “shut-up” for a year. Heterodox Catholics will not do that and scream bloody murder that the celebrity exorcist is obeying his bishop. I guess they would applaud the exorcist priest if he were breaking his promises/vows of celibacy and poverty.
There’s a Jesuitical celebrity priest who promotes ideologies that irk a lot of people, especially the orthodox Catholics among them. I guess it will take more courage for his bishop to silence him, given that particular ideology and I think that bishop would be the bishop where the Jesuitical celebrity priest lives—that bishop is responsible or am I wrong?
I do believe, though, that if that Jesuitical priest were silenced, he would be obedient and I would applaud that and the bishop who silenced him.
Pope Leo is appointing a variety of theologians of various theological factions for the listening Church that eventually filters. This appointee needs a listen about TC!
Press the title for the complete article, money byte below it;
The 2021 article appeared on July 22 in the Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung(NZZ), six days after the publication of the motu proprio, under the title “No to the Old Mass: Pope Francis repeals a decision of his predecessor and thereby endangers the authority of the office.” Tück recalled that Francis had once remarked that he might go down in history as the pope of division, and wrote that “last Friday he almost made that word come true,” because with the decree he had withdrawn “without blinking” the license granted by his predecessor. In his view, by openly correcting Benedict XVI instead of striving for coherence and consistency in the magisterium, the Pope gave many the impression that a pontiff can correct and revise the teaching of his predecessors at will, and that irruption of contingency into magisterial statements, visible to all, threatened to undermine papal authority.
The text acknowledged that there are partial tensions between the ecclesiology of the Council and the Tridentine Mass, and occasional overlaps with the milieu of the political right, but maintained that the argument of instrumentalization applied globally only to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X. To the Fraternity of Saint Peter and the other groups that expressly recognize the Council and the primacy, he wrote, precisely they were being deprived of “the papal protective roof,” so that they were being punished for their fidelity to the Pope “by the Pope himself.” He also criticized the requirement of Roman authorization for new priests as contradicting the “healthy decentralization” that Francis himself preached, and that leaving the matter to each bishop would produce a mosaic of permissions and prohibitions. “A ban on the old Mass is ultimately an expression of weakness,” he concluded, because it does not trust that the renewed liturgy will impose itself as the best option. At the same time, Tück defended the liturgical reform of the Council, calling it its most visible fruit and, in his judgment, something that “cannot and must not be called into question,” and ended by warning that excluding that tradition ignores its cultural strength and is “tendentially prone to division.”
Prior to Vatican II, the Leonine Prayers were officially imposed upon the Mass’s ending for Low Masses only. You heard the “Go in Peace” and then received the blessing and then had to wait for the quiet reading of the Prologue of John’s Gospel and then you had to wait for the Leonine Prayers.
God only knows how all of this negatively affected Catholics. I am sure it was horrible.
The Bugnini Mass cleaned all that up and not even is a recessional hymn prescribed. But, and wait for this and all the havoc of sins it creates in Catholic’s lives, most parishes sing a recessional hymn and expect people to remain until the priest decides to leave! The mortal sins that follow this illicit singing of a recessional hym that is not prescribed in the Roman Missal must be multitudinous! No?
Thank God we have bishops from on high cracking down on those mortal sin-causing post Mass prayers, be it the recovery of the Leonine Prayers, the Saint Michael Prayer and that dreaded non-prescribed recessional sin, I mean, hym!
I can rest assured that bishops who on high micro manage these traumatic post Mass prayers are saving souls. God bless their little hearts!
It is well known that I don’t like intentionally putting two altars, back to back, in churches, especially newly built churches. But that is happening, unfortunately, and decorations are far from art, even bad art.
These are screen shots of a wedding streamed live today October 17 which I happened to come upon by accident, creating this “thanks for the memories” moment! My story below all the screenshots:
I was pastor of the church of these screenshots from 1991 - 2004.
Back in 1996 or so, when I was pastor at the Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Augusta, we did a major renovation and restoration of the building. The major undertaking, among major undertakings, was to dismantle completely the altar you see above in order to separate the altar from the reredos and create enough room for the historic altar of 1863 to become free-standing and to allow for Mass to be celebrated ad orientem or ad populum.
That altar originally was four steps up from where the couple is kneeling. We reduced it to three steps and moved the reredos closer to the back wall. Thus the first step in front of the couple is the historic first step of the altar and the placement of the altar, is basically where it was in 1863, although attached to the reredos.
Moving the reredos closer to the back wall (there is a door behind it to the sacristy) made all the difference in the world.
However, looking at the entire altar piece from the congregation, it appears that nothing was done!
As you can tell, at the old altar made free-standing, the Mass can be celebrated ad-orientem. I did this based upon my clairvoyance that ad orientem would become more widespread once again in the future.
However, way ahead of my time, our great choir prepared Latin Masses from the great composers and in the late 90’s and early 2000’s I celebrated those specially scheduled Masses ad orientem! Yes, you read that correctly!
Just as an aside, when the altar and reredos were dismantled, the marble pieces laid on the floor on either side of the altar. And then, our architect/supervisor of renovations had to fire the company he hired to do the work due to some in-house shenanigans. I thought it would never be put together again, but the new company did so marvelously! You’d never know that it was completely taken apart!
I asked how their bishop in the Episcopal Church felt about their intimate union. They said she was good with it, no problem.
Then I asked if the bishop would feel the same way about a male priest and a female priestess living together without marriage. They said that wouldn’t be allowed. It would be frowned upon.
Both of them were hired by two different parishes in our town. I asked if there were any problems with their parishioners concerning their living together with benefits. They said no, no problems except for one of the church’s vestry member asked if they would avoid romantic kisses on the mouth, if ever together at a parish Eucharist’s Kiss of Peace.
Double standard? In the eyes of the world, the heterosexual couple seems to be the one being treated like dirt rather than the homosexual couple who is affirmed in their intimate relationship outside of marriage.
It seems that many in the Catholic Church who are pushing for Catholics in a variety of illicit sexual relationships to be able to receive Holy Communion, especially of the LGBTQ+++ type, never see that as a slap in the face to Catholics of the heterosexual type, who are divorced but still in a presumably valid sacramental marriage, and remarried outside the Church. They attend Mass faithfully every Sunday, participate in activities of the Church, such as women’s groups, men’s groups, ushers, choir members, etc but never receive Holy Communion due to their illicit “marriage”.
It seems to me that allowing those of the same sex in illicit union to receive Holy Communion while heterosexuals in illicit unions faithfully do not receive Holy Communion out of fidelity to Christ and His Church, not to mention Scripture and Tradition, is treating heterosexuals like dirt, no?
And this brings me to Bishop Varden who I hope the convalescing Pope Leo XIV elevates to Cardinal and a Vatican Curial position and what he said about the just recently concluded Amoris Laetitia jam sessions of incessant talking and listening:
This is from a post I saw on Facebook, but can’t remember the organization posting it. It is a copy and paste:
How can the Church welcome people whose family situation does not match its teaching, without changing that teaching? One bishop who took part in the Vatican’s recent family meeting has offered a thoughtful answer.
Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim, Norway, wrote on his website on October 15 about his time at the week-long Vatican meeting marking ten years since Amoris Laetitia. AdVaticanum reported on his reflections. He focused on divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, a topic connected to Chapter 8 of the document, which has been debated since 2016.
Welcome without relativizing
Bishop Varden wrote that it can be “liberating” for people in such situations to be in a community where their irregular situation is “acknowledged, not relativised,” and where they are still “embraced with Christian friendship, enabled to contribute to the community.”
He also suggested that those who suffer in their family life can look at their trials in a bigger picture. Pastoral care, he wrote, should help them discover the “potentially productive sense of their troubles, which may serve to lessen selfishness and purify love.”
More than affirmation
The bishop said the goal of pastoral care must always be transformation in Christ, “not merely human affirmation — though we all need a bit of that as well.” He wrote that Christ gave His commandments “to educate us and to liberate us from ourselves,” quoting the Fourth Eucharistic Prayer: that we might “live no longer for ourselves but for him who died and rose again for us.”
A quiet witness
Varden also spoke of faithful Catholics he knows who come forward for a blessing at Communion, Sunday after Sunday, knowing they cannot receive the sacrament, yet trusting in God’s mercy. He said their example “testifies to the vital realism of the sacrament and to the virtue of hope,” and added that “sacramental exile sustained over time can prepare a joyful homecoming.”
About the meeting
Pope Leo XIV called the meeting and it ended on October 14. AdVaticanum reports that Monsignor Philippe Bordeyne, a member of the Final Synthesis Committee, confirmed that the unpublished synthesis report addresses the question of Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, though he said it was “not the centre” of the discussions. Pope Leo will review the report before deciding what is released.
These are the personal reflections of one bishop, and Catholics hold a range of views on how best to accompany people in these situations.
How do you think the Church can balance welcome and truth?
