MondayVatican
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. [...]
Pietro Parolin was discharged from the hospital and should arrive in Rome after a short convalescing period at home. This is the first piece of news released about the new Secretary of State’s health. Parolin could not take part in the ceremony by which he formally assumed his new position because he needed [...]
The absence of Msgr. Pietro Parolin at the ceremony of his taking possession as Secretary of State was certainly not a good thing. Struck by gallstone (or appendicitis according to other sources), Msgr. Parolin had to undergo an urgent, albeit not grave, surgery operation. During the ceremony, Pope Francis, after thanking the outgoing Secretary [...]
Next Oct. 15 the awaited change at the top of the Vatican Secretariat of State will take place. Tarcisio Bertone will leave his post to Pietro Parolin, who had been Bertone’s number four until 2009. That year, Parolin was promoted archbishop and sent as Papal nuncio to Venezuela.
The change is awaited for two reasons.
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Pope Francis said it during the trip back from Brazil: «I feel a nostalgia for the Curia of the old days.» With every major appointment, it is becoming more clear who is that Pope Francis is referring to, when he mentions the old days’ Curia. There are no groundbreaking appointments. Pope [...]
No doubt about it: every gesture by Pope Francis is a political signal. The time when his choices could be considered those of a naïve or inexperienced Pope is over. Every decision Pope Francis makes is signaling in which direction he wants to move the Church.
The eight cardinals charged with advising the Pope [...]
The one-and-a-half hour Eucharistic adoration that concluded the vigil of the prayer for peace, which the Pope called for September 7, will be remembered as one of the most impressive and intense moments of Francis’ pontificate. The words Pope Francis addressed to the crowd have stirred the world’s conscience. And yes, the [...]
Pope Francis has started to form his team. And he has done so from the very top. As Secretary of State, Pope Francis has decided to appoint Pietro Parolin, an Italian hailing from Veneto and born in 1955, who until now was Papal Nuncio in Venezuela. He is an experienced diplomat whose career [...]
For the first time since 1977, Pope Benedict XVI will not take part in the annual meeting of his former students. To them, he explained that «as Pope Emeritus, I intended not to take part in public events.» And so he will not be at the Ratzinger’s Schulerkreis meeting. The gathering (to be [...]
Pope Francis did not speak in political terms. After the violence and the deaths in Cairo, he merely chose to add a prayer for violence to stop in Egypt. In fact, Benedict XVI did not speak in political terms either when he issued last year the post-synod document Ecclesia in Medioriente. [...]
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