MondayVatican
Pope Francis will hold a consistory to create new cardinals on the 14 and 15th of February. The announcement came at the end of a busy week: Pope Francis has granted an important interview, has personally reshaped the synod narrative against the media narrative during a general audience, and has taken part [...]
Last Monday, Pope Francis was the first Pope to deliver the inaugural speech of the General Assembly of the Italian Bishops’ Conference. The Pope asked the Italian bishops to change the statutes, to make them more democratic, being this Conference the only one in the world whose president is directly elected by the [...]
The clock starts today for a very important week for the reform of the Church. The Council of Cardinals will begin its three-day meeting today. After that, informal meetings, until February 20 and 21, when the cardinals will gather in an ordinary public consistory. On Saturday, February 22 there will be a consistory [...]
The Roman Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls has been entrusted to Benedictines for 1300 years. There was such a strong tradition of ecumenical dialogue there, that Benedict XVI ultimately decided to give the basilica a specific mandate to promote ecumenism. Popes have been concluding the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity [...]
The evolution of Vatican communication under Pope Francis can eventually “rehabilitate” the Benedict XVI’ pontificate, which had been at least undermined by a certain kind of media narrative. There are two peculiar examples on how the Vatican communication became more pro-active, handling problems in the most proper way and trying [...]
The February 22 consistory will start shaping the future Church. The numbers are clear. From now to 2017, 32 cardinals will turn 80, thus losing the right to vote in a future conclave. And from now to Feb. 22, there will be 106 cardinal electors, so Pope Francis had in fact 14 “red [...]
It was probably not by chance that Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the Pontifical Household, dedicated the first of his Advent presentations to the Roman Curia to the theme of the reform of the Church. He did so from a particular angle: that of Francis of Assisi, of his extraordinary conversion and [...]
The most recent proposal floating is that of creating a Congregation for the Laity. After all – Cardinal Oscar Andrés Maradiaga has maintained – there is a Congregation for the Clergy and one for Bishops, but there is not one for the lay people, who are the biggest part of the Church. [...]
Ultimately, is an upstairs/downstairs exercise. Go up a number of steps and then come down a few and meet in the middle. Tawadros II, the new Coptic-Orthodox Patriarch of Egypt, had to go up three steps during his enthronement ceremony. At every step, one of his titles was proclaimed: bishop of bishops, [...]
The appointment of Benedict XVI’s personal secretary, Georg Gaenswein, as Prefect of the Pontifical Household fills the last vacant post of the Pontifical family’s organization chart, and at the same time gives more weight and importance within the Sacred Walls to Msgr. Gaenswein. This takes place notwithstanding the fact that he [...]
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