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Vatican City, Jul 12, 2017 / 09:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Gerhard Müller has strenuously denied media reports alleging Pope Francis asked the German prelate five pointed questions before informing him that his term as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was not being renewed.

The claims have been widely reported on social media.

Citing an unnamed German source, who in turn claims to have received the information from another person, the US-based news site One Peter Five and Italian Vaticanista Marco Tosatti have reported that Pope Francis, when meeting Cardinal Müller June 30, allegedly asked the then-prefect five questions about his views on a range of topics, including the introduction of a female diaconate and priesthood, the abolition of clerical continence, his stance regarding Amoris laetitia, and his stance on Francis sacking three members of staff in the congregation.

According to these reports, after hearing the German cardinal's answers, Francis then informed him his mandate was ending and left the room, leaving behind a patiently waiting Cardinal Müller, who was expecting the Holy Father to be retrieving a token of gratitude, until an embarrassed Archbishop Georg Gänswein, prefect of the Papal Household, told the stumped cardinal that the meeting was in fact over.

Now Cardinal Müller has told Vaticanista Guido Horst that none of these claims are true. Writing in a guest editorial published at CNA Deutsch, Horst describes personally meeting the German clergyman the morning of July 11 in Rome.

The journalist, chief correspondent of the "Tagespost" newspaper, describes showing a surprised cardinal a printout of the reports: Müller himself had not seen the reporting on the Internet (his secretary, who provides the 69-year-old with online access, is on leave).

The cardinal was "flabbergasted to read this description of his meeting with the Pope", Horst writes, quoting Cardinal Müller as stating: "This is incorrect".

In fact, the whole meeting had run very differently Cardinal Müller asserted, and the claims made by the "anonymous German source" were quite false.

The comments echo a brief email sent by the Director of the Holy See Press Office, to both One Peter Five and Marco Tosatti yesterday. In it, Burke states that the claimed "reconstruction is totally false" and requests that the story be updated.

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Vatican City, Jul 12, 2017 / 02:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In a message sent to catechists from all over the world, Pope Francis stressed the need to not only make Christ the center of their lives, but to be creative and adaptable in finding ways to reach the people in their area.

“The catechist is creative; they search for different means and forms of announcing Christ,” the Pope said in his July 12 message.

Believing in Jesus is “beautiful,” he said, because Jesus is the way, truth and life “who fills our existence with joy and gladness.”

“This quest to make Jesus known as supreme beauty leads us to find new signs and ways of transmitting the faith,” he said, noting that while the means might be different, what's important is to imitate “the style of Jesus, who adapted to the people he had before him in order to make them close to the love of God.”

To change and adapt oneself in order to make the message closer to the people is necessary, he said, but stressed that at the same time, the message being transmitted is “always the same, because God doesn't change, but renews all things in him.”

Pope Francis said that in the quest of making Jesus known to the world, “we must not be afraid because he precedes us in this task. He is already in the man of today, and there awaits us.”

The Pope sent his message to participants in the First International Symposium on Catechesis, which is taking place July 11-14 in Buenos Aires.

The event is being offered through the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina (UCA), and is organized by the Episcopal Commission for Catechesis and Biblical Pastoral Care.

Pope Francis opened his message, sent in Spanish, by referencing a quote from his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi.

He noted that at a certain point, when one of St. Francis' followers asked to be taught how to preach, the saint responded by saying: “Brother, when we visit the sick, help children and give to the poor, we are already preaching.”

“In this beautiful lesson is enclosed the vocation and task of the catechist,” he said, explaining that catechesis is not simply a job or a task external to the person of the catechist.

Rather, “their whole life revolves around this mission,” he said, noting that to be a catechist is “a vocation of service in the Church, which is received as a gift on the part of the Lord and must in turn be transmitted.”

To do this, one must return to the first encounter with Christ that changed their life. This moment, Francis said, is “the fundamental announcement that must resonate again and again in the life of the Christian, and even more in the one who is called to announce and teach the faith.”

The Pope then pointed to the importance of respecting popular piety in the people, saying it's important to “care for the potential of piety and love that popular religiosity holds so that they transmit not only the contents off the faith, but a true school of faith is created which cultivates the gift of the faith that has been received.”

A catechist is also someone who journeys both from and with Christ, he said. “They are not a person who starts from their own ideas and preferences, but who allows themselves to look to him, to this gaze that makes their heart burn.”

The more that Jesus is the center of our lives, the more he teaches us to go out of ourselves, Francis said, adding that we are then “decentralized” and able to be close to others.

“This dynamism of love is like the movement of the heart,” and Jesus himself gives us an example of how to live this when he retreats to pray, and then “immediately goes to the encounter of those who are hungry and thirsty for God in order to heal and save them.”

“From here arises the importance of the 'mystagogical' catechesis, which is the constant encounter with the Word and with the sacraments, and not something merely occasional prior to the celebration of the sacraments of Christian initiation,” he said.

Pope Francis closes his speech by thanking catechists for their work, “above all because you walk with the People of God,” and encouraged them “to be joyful messengers, guardians of the good and the beauty that shines forth in the faithful life of the missionary disciple.”

 

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Washington D.C., Jul 12, 2017 / 03:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Prayers and an exhortation never to forget the sacrifice of military service members were the response of the US military archbishop to a deadly Marine Corps plane crash on Monday.

“I express my heartfelt condolences to the families who lost loved ones in this terrible accident,” Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services said July 11. “My heart also goes out to their colleagues and others who worked with them. They also suffer the loss and ask questions.”

“I ask the faithful to join me in prayer for the repose of those who died and the consolation of their families,” he continued.

A KC-130 Hercules plane crashed in western Mississippi July 10, killing 15 Marines and a Navy corpsman. It had departed from a Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, North Carolina, CNN reports. The cause of the crash is still under investigation.

Six of the Marines and the sailor were from the Second Marine Raider Battalion, an elite unit based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. They were traveling to Arizona for training. The other nine Marines were from Orange County, New York.

The archbishop said he was “shocked and saddened” to hear of the deadly crash.

Archbishop Broglio noted the military was also affected by the recent deaths in the June 17 collision between the U.S.S. Fitzgerald and a cargo ship off the coast of Japan.

“Our men and women in uniform put their lives on the line every day to defend our great nation and the freedoms we cherish,” he said. “We should keep them in our prayers always, and never take their sacrifice for granted.”

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Washington D.C., Jul 12, 2017 / 03:55 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis cannot change Church teaching on contraception, despite the hopes of Melinda Gates.

In a recent BBC interview, Gates has said she is “optimistic” that the Catholic Church will change church teaching on contraception in order to help women in developing countries.

“We work very extensively with the Catholic Church and I’ve had many discussions with them because we have a shared mission around social justice and anti-poverty,” Gates said.

“And I think what this Pope sees is that if you’re going to lift people out of poverty, you have to do the right thing for women,” she said, even though “we have agreed at this point to disagree” on contraception.

Her comments come as her charity, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is currently co-hosting an international summit in London on the issue of access to contraception in the developing world.

She said she was “optimistic” that the Catholic Church would re-examine its teachings on contraception and that they might change over time.

But such change is impossible, said John Grabowski, associate professor of moral theology and ethics at Catholic University of America.

“The Church’s teaching on opposing contraception isn’t a recent teaching, it’s not something made up by Pope Paul VI in 1968,” he told CNA.

In 1968, Pope Paul VI wrote Humanae Vitae, an encyclical “on the regulation of birth” that spells out Church teaching on family planning and contraception as it applies to the modern world.

This teaching is also articulated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states in paragraph 2370 that contraception implies “not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality...The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle...involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.”

But the 1960s was not the first nor the only time the Church has affirmed that the marital act has inseparable unitive and procreative meaning, Grabowski said.

“This has been the teaching of the Church from its beginning, so the Church (including Pope Francis) can’t change constant, universal, authoritative teaching.”

Furthermore, Grabowski added, “Pope Francis has shown no indication that he wants to. He’s been absolutely emphatic in reaffirming the teaching of the Church in this area.”

In his encyclical Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis said that: “From the outset, love refuses every impulse to close in on itself; it is open to a fruitfulness that draws it beyond itself. Hence no genital act of husband and wife can refuse this meaning, even when for various reasons it may not always in fact beget a new life.”

“So he’s been absolutely clear,” Grabowski said.

One of his predecessors, Pope John Paul II, also taught extensively that contraception is not only a violation of natural law, but of sexuality and marriage as revealed to humanity through Scripture, Grabowski noted.

“So if this is a truth entrusted to the Church in revelation, then the Church has no authority to change it,” he said.  

Moreover, scientific data does little to prove that contraception is truly what’s “right for women” as Gates has said, Grabowski added.

“I’d start with physical health - even current low-dose oral contraceptives are a Class 1 carcinogen, they significantly raise women’s chances of suffering from heart attack, stroke, pulmonary embolism. There’s all kinds of health risks associated with most contraceptives,” he said.  

“So, good for women? The data doesn’t support that,” he said.  

Instead of contraception, the Church proposes various methods of fertility awareness, or Natural Family Planning, to help families plan their children in such a way that does not separate the procreative and unitive aspects of sex.

While these methods have been effective in developing countries where it is taught and promoted well, the Church could do yet more to support people who want to follow Church teaching, Grabowski noted.

“Could the Church doing a better job of talking about these methods of fertility awareness and their benefit? Absolutely,” he said.

“We’ve got a culture that is promoting and empowering contraception and the Church (needs to) articulate a clear enough alternative with a vision and how we can realize it.”

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