Catholic News 2

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday during his General Audience highlighted that on November 20th Universal Children's Day will be observed.

The Pope appealed to the conscience of all, institutions and families, to ensure  that children are always protected and their welfare is secure, so that they never fall into “forms of slavery, recruitment into armed groups and mistreatment.”

The Holy Father expressed the hope that the international community would be vigilant about their lives, to ensure that every child has the right to school education, so that their growth is serene and they can look confidently to the future.

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(Vatican Radio) During his last General Audience before the close of the Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis drew inspiration from the spiritual work of mercy, to bear wrongs patiently, telling the faithful in St Peter’s Square during his catechesis that exercising patience was a virtue.

Listen to Lydia O'Kane's report: 

He said that, “in showing patience to those who wrong us and, by extension, to those we find irritating, we imitate God’s own patience with us sinners.” 

The Pope added, “it also happens at times that annoying people are the ones closest to us…” Among relatives there is “always someone”, he said. “There are also people who irritate us in the workplace and even in our spare time.”

Pope Francis went on to say that in the Bible there are many examples of God’s patience and recalled the patience Jesus had during the three years of his public life.

Exercising patience with others, the Pope said, “challenges us to reflect on our own conduct and failings.  He also noted, the patience shown by the many parents, catechists and teachers who, he said, “quietly help young people to grow in faith and knowledge of the important things in life.” 

At the end of his Audience Pope Francis  remembered the victims of the recent earthquake in Central Italy, saying, “we pray for them and the families and continue to offer our solidarity to those who have sustained damage.”

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis renewed his call for prayerful solidarity with the victims of the recent earthquake in central Italy on Wednesday. The Holy Father’s appeal came in remarks to sick people and newlyweds, whom he greeted following the catechetical portion of the weekly General Audience.

“Let us pray for the victims and for their families,” he said, “and let us continue to be good neighbors to all those, who have suffered damage to property and livelihood.”

In his greetings, Pope Francis also recalled how the month of November is especially devoted to prayerful remembrance of all the dead.

“Let us not forget those, who have loved us and who have gone before us in the faith, along with all those, whom no one remembers,” said Pope Francis. “Suffrage in the Eucharistic Celebration is the best spiritual help that we can offer to their souls,” he went on to say. 

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis highlighted the role of dignified work in the integral development of society on Wednesday. His remarks came during the weekly General Audience, in words of greeting to Italy’s Federazione Maestri del Lavoro – an organization of veteran laborers and professionals over the age of 50 with at least 25 years’ experience in their respective fields, who have shown exemplary skill, diligence, and moral character throughout their careers.

The Federation is celebrating the 60^th anniversary of its founding.

“Let this recurrence contribute to the encouragement of social and economic inclusion, especially among the weakest levels of the population,” Pope Francis said.

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Rome, Italy, Nov 16, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA).- When it comes to talking about women and their role in the Church, discussion tends to focus almost exclusively on getting ordained or being placed in high ranking, decision making positions.

However, amid all the buzz, it's easy get lost in the debate and miss the fact that the entire discussion is rotating around the wrong axis.

In simply addressing ordination or curial positions – a line that reduces both women and the discussion about them to clericalism – everyone on both sides of the issue has overlooked that the question is actually much larger, and demands a much greater involvement on the part of the laity.

Ana Cristina Villa, a consecrated laywoman with the Marian Community of Reconciliation who works in the office for women of the new mega-dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, told CNA that what a woman does in the Church is “not just a role, but a vocation...it’s what God calls women to do in the Church.”

She said that as it stands, women don't really have a big presence in important or decision making positions, “so that should be promoted, and current Canon Law allows this in a good number of ways,” but she also cautioned that the discussion surrounding women in the Church is wider, involving the laity as a whole.

Villa, who is from Colombia but has lived in Italy for close to 20 years, said she sees that many people in their daily lives still move forward with the attitude that “the Church should do this,” but when they refer to the Church, they “are speaking of the clergy.”

“I think that is a big distortion for the vocation of women, because women are obviously not the clergy,” she said, explaining that “when you get into this discussion about women in the Church you have to understand that there is a wider context.”

In her view, Catholic faithful need to grow in their understanding that, “according to their own vocation,” all “baptized are the Church and all baptized are called to feel the Church as their own and to contribute to the Church.”

“It's the laity in the Church,” she emphasized, “and the laity have to grow in their sense of responsibility which comes from their baptism, and their baptism makes them full members of the Church.”

Although a lot of headway has already been made in this area, Villa said the Church “still needs to go much more down that path.”

She emphasized the need for stronger mutual cooperation, “because when laity and clergy collaborate on a mission they bring each other's gifts to problems or situations they need to face, and it is mutually enriching and it makes the Church more present.”

If it is always priests in the Church and never a layperson, and if priests “are always taking responsibility for things where laity are competent, then this mentality that the Church is priests keeps growing and expanding,” she said, noting that this is more common in countries with stronger traditional Catholic roots such Italy and as those in South America.

However, on the other hand, Villa noted that when it comes to women specifically, they are already doing a lot in the Church, most of which is largely unknown.

Women, she said, “are already doing a lot and many times they do it in silence, just responding to God's vocation wherever God puts them...but there is always a lot happening,” especially in mission territories.

Just because a woman teaching catechesis or caring for the sick in a poor country isn't visible to the rest of the world, it “doesn’t mean she isn’t there and that the Church isn’t growing because of her daily work and giving of herself,” Villa said.

It’s important to know that these things are already happening, she said, but cautioned that while on one hand it’s good to make them visible, “on the other hand you wonder, is it really necessary to make them visible? For whom?”

“God knows. God calls them, they are responding and the Church is growing because of them,” she said, explaining that not all women are meant to be in the global spotlight.

“When they come out to the public like Mother Teresa, that’s wonderful, but not all of them are called to have a public dimension to their vocation,” she said, and pointed to the example of women contemplative orders, who are “always hidden,” but sustain the Church constantly with their daily prayer and devotion.

“They are there in the monastery living their daily fidelity...they sustain the Church and nobody knows about it,” she said, explaining that this is part of the beauty of how women serve, and that this must be valued.

Villa’s instinct that a dangerous and largely unrecognized clericalism often drives the discussion on women, as well as her insistence that those who adopt this attitude have got it wrong, mirror Francis’ own take on the issue.

When Pope Francis told journalists on the way back from Sweden Nov. 1 that women will never be ordained priests, he was likely acting against “the ‘disease’ of clericalism, and the danger of clericalism setting the tone for discussions of women in the Church,” John Allen of Crux wrote.

“Despite the fact that he stands today at the apex of the clerical pecking order, there's a sense in which Pope Francis is the most anti-clerical pontiff in Catholic history,” Allen said, adding that “one has the sense when he uses the word 'clericalism' that he's virtually talking about the sin against the Holy Spirit.”

Pope Francis' innate disdain toward clericalism, particularly surrounding women, can be seen from almost the beginning of his pontificate. In an interview with Vatican Insider in December 2013, Francis responded to a question on whether or not he'd ever consider naming a woman a cardinal.

In his answer the Pope said that “I don’t know where this idea sprang from. Women in the Church must be valued not 'clericalised.' Whoever thinks of women as cardinals suffers a bit from clericalism.”

Throughout the three years since, Francis has consistently called for a more “incisive” feminine presence in the Church, yet has refrained from limiting this presence to a mere position.

In a May 16, 2015, speech to men and women consecrated of the diocese of Rome, the Pope said that when people tell him “women must be dicastery heads,” his immediate thought is “Yes, they can, in certain dicasteries they can; but what you are asking is simple functionalism.”

Simply putting a woman in charge of a department “is not rediscovering woman’s role in the Church. It is more profound,” he said, explaining that while women are certainly able to hold leadership positions and that this is happening more often, “this is not a triumph.”

“This is a great thing, (but) a functional thing,” he said, noting that “what is essential to the woman’s role is – speaking in theological terms – acting in a manner which expresses the feminine genius.”

“When we face a problem among men we come to a conclusion, but when we face that same problem with women the outcome will be different. It will follow the same path, but it will be richer, stronger, more intuitive,” he said.

“For this reason women in the Church should have this role, they must clarify, help to clarify the feminine genius in so many ways.”

When we look at what Pope Francis says, it’s obvious that what he envisions for women is not just structural insertion into the Church, but involves opening doors so that the very fiber of what makes a woman “womanly,” her most unique and innate qualities, can flourish.

One of these qualities Francis has never ceased to bring up with praise and adulation is that of intuition and maternity; i.e., that natural maternal instinct each woman has no matter her state or position in life.

In his speech to the men and women consecrated of Rome, the Pope pointed to maternity, saying it isn’t just having children, but involves accompanying people in their growth: “maternity is spending hours next to a sick person, a sick child, a sick brother; it is spending one’s life in love, with that love of tenderness and maternity.”

“On this path we will find even more the woman’s role in the Church. Mary’s love and the love of the Church is a concrete love! Concreteness is the quality of this maternity of women.”

In a speech to theologians in 2014, after appointing several women to the Vatican’s International Theological Commission, an advisory body which assists the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in examining questions of doctrine, he said women have the ability to prompt reflections that men cannot.

“By virtue of their feminine genius, women theologians can take up, for the benefit of all, certain unexplored aspects of the unfathomable mystery of Christ,” he said, and urged commission members to take “full advantage” of the specific contribution that women give to “the intelligence of faith.”

In a 2015 address to the Pontifical Council for Culture, Francis said that women “know how to incarnate the tender face of God, his mercy, which translates into availability to give time more than to occupy spaces, to welcome instead of excluding.”

While speaking to journalists on board his return flight from Sweden Nov. 1, the Pope said that when it comes to theology and the mysticism of the Church, Mary’s role is more important than that of the Apostles on the day of Pentecost.

Women, he said, “can do so many things better than men, even in the dogmatic field,” but he clarified how it is still a separate dimension from that of priests and bishops in the Petrine dimension.

Again and again Pope Francis has repeated the same message that Villa herself expressed: women are more than just what position they hold, and the discussion on them is much wider than what it’s been reduced to.

While the question still looms as to what he will do with the female deaconate, having formed a commission to study the issue and its relevance in modern Church life, it’s clear that he won’t proceed with a “clerical” vision in mind, yet is open and willing to investigate what the different options for women might be.

So, all in all, it’s safe to say that the discussion on women in the Church has so far been fairly limited, and it’s clear that a shift in focus in needed. It seems that we’re only beginning to scratch the surface of what the debate should really entail, and with Francis at the helm, we’re guaranteed to have a few surprises.

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Vatican City, Nov 16, 2016 / 04:21 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The spiritual works of mercy – especially teaching the faith and putting up with the annoyances of others – are very important, Pope Francis said Wednesday, but first we must examine our own conscience to see if we are practicing the things we preach.

“The need to advise, admonish and teach should not make us feel superior to others, but first of all obliges us to return to ourselves to see if we are consistent with what we ask of others,” he said Nov. 16.

“Do not forget the words of Jesus” from Luke chapter six, he said: “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?”

The Pope’s catechesis for the general audience in St. Peter’s Square focused on several of the spiritual works of mercy, specifically counseling the doubtful, admonishing the sinner, instructing the ignorant, and bearing the wrongs of others patiently.

“To accompany the search for the essential is beautiful and important,” he said, because it helps us to share the joy found in knowing the true meaning of life.

Often we come across people who focus on the superficial because they have not met anyone who helped them to see the truly important things in life, Francis said.

To teach someone “to look to the essentials” is important, he said, especially in a time like now, where the world seems to have “lost its bearings,” and is always chasing “short-sighted satisfaction.”

To help people “find out what the Lord wants from us and how we can respond to it means putting (people) on the path to grow in their vocation, the path of true joy.”

Pope Francis praised catechists, who he said go to a “great effort” to help people grow in their faith, particularly mothers and religious, who “give their time to teach children.”

“How much effort” they go through, he acknowledged. “Especially when the boys prefer to play rather than listen to the catechism!”

But this mission, he emphasized, can only be carried out when we assume responsibility for our own actions, as well. Particularly when we are tempted to be annoyed by the people around us, or when we complain about the shortcomings of others, such as gossiping.

In these situations, he said, the first step must be to examine our own consciences “to see if we, at times, can be annoying to others.”

“It’s easy to point fingers at the flaws and failings” of others, he said, “but we should learn to put ourselves in others’ shoes.”

Jesus is an excellent example of bearing wrongs patiently, the Pope noted. “How much patience he had to have in the three years of his public life!”

God is also merciful in bearing with our complaints. In the Book of Exodus, for example, the Israelites “are really unbearable,” Francis stated. First they cry because they are slaves in Egypt, then God delivers them and they complain that there is no food in the desert.

Even after God sends quail and manna to them, they continued to complain, but he was patient with them and therefore teaches Moses, the Israelites, and all of us that an “essential dimension of faith” is to bear wrongs patiently.

“We are all very good at identifying a presence that is annoying,” Pope Francis said. Frequently, it is the people closest to us such as our relatives and coworkers. “What should we do?” he asked.

We should pray and examine our conscience, and “the Holy Spirit will help us to be patient in enduring and humble and simple in advising.”

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