Catholic News 2

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis led an in-depth discussion on Thursday about the role of women in the Church, saying he wants to set up a commission to study the possibility of reinstating female deacons. His conversation was part of a question and answer session with some 900 heads of female religious orders and congregations who form part of the International Union of Superiors General, or UISG.

Philippa Hitchen reports: 

Pope Francis spoke off the cuff during his closed door encounter with the sisters, who are currently holding their General Assembly in Rome this week, marking the 50th anniversary of the foundation of their organisation.

During the hour and a half long conversation about the mission and ministry of women in religious life, the Pope responded to several delicate questions, including one about the history of female deacons. He said understanding about their role in the early Church remained unclear and agreed it would be useful to set up a commission to study the question.

Women deacons in the early Church

Up to the 5th century, the Diaconate flourished in the western Church, but in the following centuries it experienced a slow decline, surviving only as an intermediate stage for candidates preparing for priestly ordination. Following the Second Vatican Council, the Church restored the role of permanent deacon, which is open to single and married men. Many experts believe that women should also be able to serve in this role, since there is ample evidence of female deacons in the first centuries, including one named Phoebe who is cited by St Paul in his letter to the Romans.

More women in leadership positions

Pope Francis reiterated that he wants to see an increase in the number of women in decision-making positions in the Church, saying women’s perspectives are very important for both the elaboration and the carrying out of such decisions. The integration of women into the life of the Church has been “very weak”, he said, adding that “we must go forward”.

Asked about the possibility of women preaching the homilies during Mass, the Pope said it’s important to distinguish between other types of liturgies, where the sermon can be preached by consecrated or lay women, and the Mass, where the homily is connected to the role of the priest serving “in persona Christi”.

Changes to Canon Law

Questioned about the prospect of changes to Canon Law which would facilitate the reform process being undertaken by many women’s congregations, the Pope said such changes could be possible, providing they were the result of a process of discernment by the competent authorities.

Service not servitude

Finally Pope Francis spoke about the vital work of the sisters who care for the poor and marginalized. He said this is a vocation of service to the Church and must never be confused with servitude, which is sometimes still asked of them. They should not fear being labelled as ‘activists’, in their service to the needy, he said, but they should also find time for rest and for listening to older or sick members of their communities who are a precious source of wisdom and memory. 

Full Article

Acts 2:1-11; 1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13; Jn 20: 9-23 

A ship strayed off course near San Diego some years back. It became stuck in a reef at low tide. Twelve tugboats were unsuccessful in their attempts to budge it. Finally, the captain instructed the tugs to go back home. He sighed, "I'll just be patient and wait." He waited until high tide. All of a sudden the ocean began to rise. What human power could not do, the rising tide of the Pacific Ocean did. It lifted that ship and put it back into the channel. Something like that happened to the early Church on the Day of Pentecost. They were all together in one place – confused, unmotivated and fearful – when suddenly the tide of Holy Spirit rolled in.

Introduction: The Jewish Pentecost: Both the Jews and the Christians now celebrate Pentecost.  Along with the Feast of the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles, Pentecost was one of the major feasts of the Jews.  During these three great Jewish festivals, every male Jew living within twenty miles of Jerusalem was legally bound to go to Jerusalem to participate in the feast.  The word Pentecost is Greek for pentecostes which means “fiftieth.” The feast received this name because it was celebrated fifty days after the Feast of the Passover.  Another name for the Jewish Pentecost is Shebuot or "The Feast of Weeks."  It was originally a day of thanksgiving celebrated seven weeks (a Sabbath of Sabbaths), after the beginning of the harvesting for the completion of the harvest.  During Passover, the first omer (a Hebrew measure of about a bushel), of barley was offered to God.  At Pentecost, two loaves of bread were offered in gratitude for the harvest.  Later, the Jews added to the Feast of Pentecost the element of Yahweh’s covenant with Noah, which was made fifty days after the great deluge.  Still later, this feast  became an occasion to thank God for His Sinaitic covenant with Moses, which occurred fifty days after the beginning of the Exodus from Egypt.

The Christian Pentecost: Pentecost marks the end and the goal of the Easter season.  For Christians, it is a memorial of the day the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and the Virgin Mary in the form of fiery tongues, an event that took place fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus.  The Paschal mystery of the Passion, the Death, the Resurrection, and the Ascension of Jesus is completed in the sending of the Holy Spirit by the Father at the request of the Son upon his disciples. The feast also commemorates the official inauguration of the Christian Church by St. Peter’s apostolic preaching, which resulted in the conversion of 3000 Jews to the Christian faith that very day.  Pentecost is thus the official birthday of the Church. But This Rock Magazine reports that there are now 34,000 Protestant denominations which means that, on the average, more than sixty-nine new denominations have sprung up every year since the beginning of the Reformation in 1517.  So whose birthday is it anyway?  You could say, "Pentecost is the birthday of the Church Jesus established nearly 2,000 years ago." Today’s Scripture readings remind us that Pentecost is an event of both the past and the present.  The main theme of today’s readings is that the gift of the Holy Spirit is something to be shared with others.  That is, the readings remind us that the gift of the Holy Spirit moves its recipients to action and inspires them to share this gift with others.

The first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1-11), describes in detail the miraculous transformation that took place during the first Christian Pentecost, thus fulfilling Jesus’ promise to his Apostles.   There was first “a noise like a strong, driving wind.”  Then there were “tongues as of fire” resting on the disciples, and each of them was filled with the Holy Spirit.  The first manifestation of their reception of the Holy Spirit came when the Apostles rushed out to the street and began to proclaim the good news of Jesus, and everyone there (regardless of their many different native languages), was able to understand them “in his own tongue.”  The Jews in the crowds came from sixteen different geographical regions.  The miracle of tongues on Pentecost thus reverses the confusion of tongues wrought by God at the Tower of Babel, as described in Genesis 11.  Later, the Acts of the Apostles describes how the Holy Spirit empowered the early Christians to bear witness to Christ by their sharing love and strong faith.  This "anointing by the Holy Spirit” also strengthened the early Christian martyrs during the period of brutal persecution that followed.  

In the second reading (I Cor 12:3-7, 12-13), St. Paul explains how the sharing of the various spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit enriches the Church.  He refers to the varieties of gifts given to the Church as coming from the same Spirit who activates all of them in Christians for the common good.  They are described as the gifts, fruits and charisms of the Spirit.  They may take different forms like prophecy, teaching, administration, acts of charity, healing and speaking in tongues, and they may reside in different persons like Apostles, prophets, teachers, healers and so on.  Paul lists the fruits of the Spirit in his Letter to the Galatians “What the Spirit brings is … love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (5:22).  He continues, “Since the Spirit is our life, let us be directed by the Spirit” (5:25).  Paul insists that these spiritual gifts are to be used in the present time for the benefit of others, for the common good and for the building up of the body of Christ.

Today’s gospel relates how the risen Jesus gave his Apostles a foretaste of Pentecost on the evening of Easter Sunday by appearing to them  and entrusting to them the continuance of the mission given him by his heavenly Father.  He then empowered them to do so  by breathing upon them and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  On the day of Pentecost, Jesus fulfilled his promise to send the Advocate or Paraclete. The gift of the Spirit would also enable them to fulfill Jesus’ commission to preach the gospel to all nations.  Today’s gospel passage tells us how Jesus, at the same time on that first Easter Sunday, gave to the Apostles the power and authority to forgive sins.  “Receive the Holy Spirit.  For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.”  These wonderful words which bind together inseparably the presence of the Holy Spirit and the gift of forgiveness are referred to directly in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  But they have a much wider meaning.  Those words indicate the responsibility we are all given of being the agents of forgiveness in the world of today, which is often fiercely judgmental and vengeful.  

Exegetical notes: Role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer and of the Church: How beautiful is the thought that the Holy Spirit lives within us!  Saint Paul reminds the Corinthian community of this fact when he asks, "Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?" (I Corinthians 3:16).  It is the Holy Spirit who develops our intimacy with God.  "God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Gal 4:6).  "God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Romans 5:5). "No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit" (I Corinthians 12:3).  Moreover, we know that it is the Holy Spirit who teaches us to pray (Romans 8:26).  By the power of the Spirit, we also know the Lord Jesus through his Church.  Pentecost Sunday is the birth date of the Church.  It is the Holy Spirit who enlivens, enlightens, guides, and sanctifies the Church. The Psalm refrain for this Sunday says it so well: “Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.”  We know Jesus through the Sacramental Mysteries of the Church, and Holy Spirit is at the heart of the sacramental life of the Church.  Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders are the Sacramental Mysteries through which people receive the seal of the Holy Spirit.  It would be impossible for us to receive Jesus in the Eucharist without the descent of the Holy Spirit at the Epiclesis of the Divine Liturgy.  Even the forgiveness of sins comes through the Holy Spirit (John 20:21-23).  The Holy Spirit both confirmed the Apostles in Holy Orders as priests and empowered them to forgive sins by His power, a work which He continues today in each of our priests.

Life messages:  1) We need to permit the Holy Spirit to direct our lives:  a) By constantly remembering and appreciating His Holy Presence within us, especially through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation.  b) By fortifying ourselves with the help of the Spirit against all types of temptations. c) By seeking the assistance of the Spirit in our thoughts, words, and deeds, and in the breaking of our evil habits.  d) By listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us through the Bible and through the good counsel of others e) By fervently praying for the gifts, fruits and charisms of the Holy Spirit. f) By asking the Holy Spirit to renew our lives through a fresh anointing. g) By living our lives in the Holy Spirit, with His help, as lives of commitment, of sacrifice, and of joy.  We are called to love as Jesus loved, not counting the cost. As Saint Paul exhorts us, "Walk by the Spirit and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.  If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit" (Galatians 5:16, 25). 

2) We need to cultivate the spirit of forgiveness.  The feast of the Pentecost offers us the chance of looking at the role which forgiveness should play in our dealings with others.  Thus, we are challenged to examine our sense of compassion, our patience, tolerance and magnanimity.  Learning to forgive is a lifelong task, but the Holy Spirit is with us to make us agents of forgiveness.  If we are prepared on this day of Pentecost to receive the Holy Spirit into our lives, we can have confidence that our lives will be marked by the Spirit of forgiveness.

3) We need to observe Pentecost every day.  "It will always be Pentecost in the church," affirmed Oscar Romero, Archbishop of El Salvador, on Pentecost Sunday 1978, "provided the church lets the beauty of the Holy Spirit shine forth from her countenance.  When the church ceases to let her strength rest on the power from above which Christ promised her and which he gave her on that day, and when the church leans rather on the weak forces of the power or wealth of this earth, then the church ceases to be newsworthy.  The church will be fair to see, perennially young, attractive in every age, as long as she is faithful to the Spirit that floods her and she reflects that Spirit through her communities, through her pastors, through her very life." [The Violence of Love, (Farmington, PA:  The Plough Pub. Co., 1998).] Archbishop Romero’s declaration reminds us -- as does today’s Gospel -- that Pentecost is not just one day, but every day.  Without breath, there is no life.  Without the Spirit, the Church is a field of dry, dead bones.  Fulton J. Sheen once said about the Church, "Even though we are God's chosen people, we often behave more like God's frozen people--frozen in our prayer life, frozen in the way we relate with one another, frozen in the way we celebrate our faith."  Today is a great day to ask the Holy Spirit to rekindle in us the spirit of new life and enthusiasm, the fire of God's love.  Let us repeat Cardinal Newman’s favorite little prayer, “Come Holy Spirit:”

“Come Holy Spirit
Make our ears to hear
Make our eyes to see
Make our mouths to speak
Make our hearts to seek
Make our hands to reach out
And touch the world with your love.  AMEN.”

It happened in Galveston, TX. A woman was cleaning the bottom of the cage of her parrot Chippie with the canister vacuum cleaner. She was not using an attachment on the tube. When the telephone rang, she turned her head to pick it up, continuing to vacuum the cage as she said, "Hello," into the phone. Then she heard the horrible noise of Chippie being sucked into the vacuum. Immediately she put down the phone, ripped open the vacuum bag, and found Chippie in there, stunned but still alive. Since the bird was covered with dust and dirt, she grabbed it, ran it into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and held the bird under the water to clean it off. When she finished that, she saw the hair dryer on the bathroom sink. She turned it on and held the bird in front of the blast of hot air to dry him off. A few weeks later, a reporter from the newspaper that originally published the story went out to the house to ask the woman, "How’s Chippie doing now?" She said, “He just sort of sits and stares." Today’s gospel tells us that it was what happened to the apostles. They all were traumatized by the arrest and crucifixion of their master and bewildered by his post-resurrection appearances and his command to prepare for the coming of his Holy Spirit.   Many of us can identify with Chippie and the apostles. Life has sucked us up, thrown cold water on us, and blown us away. Somewhere in the trauma, we have lost our song. Hence, we, too, need the daily anointing of the Holy Spirit to keep us singing songs of Christian witnessing through agápe love.

(Source: Homilies of Fr. Anthony Kadavil)

Full Article

Vatican City, May 12, 2016 / 10:18 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Thursday Pope Francis said he would be open to the idea of forming a commission to study the historical context of the female diaconate, as well as the possibility of women serving as deacons today.

He spoke to some 800 members of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), who are meeting in Rome May 9-13 for their Plenary Assembly, which focuses largely on the role of women in the Church, and obstacles hindering it.

According to Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, during their May 12 audience with the Pope, Francis, in addition to other topics, spoke about the role of women, both consecrated and lay, which is “still weak both in decision-making processes in the Church” and in preaching.

He briefly touched on the temptations of both feminism and clericalism, as well as the question of the presence of women in the permanent diaconate of the Church, saying it would be “useful to establish a commission to study” the topic.

Part of the Church’s sacrament of Holy Orders, the diaconate is currently only open to men.

However, in the lengthy May 12 question-and-answer session with the plenary participants, one of the religious sisters asked the Pope “Why not construct an official commission that might study the question” of opening the diaconate to women.

In response, Francis said he had spoken some time ago with “a good, wise professor” who had studied the topic of female deacons in the early centuries of the church, and noted that their role was primarily linked to assisting the bishop in full-body immersions of women for baptism.

The Pope said that the exact role female deacons played in the early Church is still unclear to him, and recalled asking the professor “What were these female deacons? Did they have ordination or no?”

He said the precise answer “was a bit obscure,” and questioned aloud the possibility of forming an official commission to study the question.

“I believe yes. It would do good for the Church to clarify this point. I am in agreement. I will speak to do something like this,” he said, adding later that “it seems useful to me to have a commission that would clarify this well.”

CNA asked the Vatican for confirmation of the Pope’s remarks, but did not receive a response by deadline.
 
While Pope Francis has suggested a new commission could be helpful in studying the question further, the International Theological Commission, an advisory body to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, released a document on the diaconate in 2002 in which they addressed the question of whether women might be also be eligible.

The document overwhelmingly concluded that female deacons in the early Church had not been equivalent to male deacons, and had no liturgical or sacramental function.

It reflected what the professor to whom Pope Francis had spoken said, referring to the Constitutiones Apostolorum, or the Constitutions of the Holy Apostles from around 380, which stressed that deaconesses had “no liturgical function,” but rather devoted themselves “to their function in the community which was service to the women.”

The function of a deaconess, the document read, was summed up in the constitutions thus: “The deaconess does not bless, and she does not fulfil any of the things that priests and deacons do, but she looks after the doors and attends the priests during the baptism of women, for the sake of decency.”

While deaconesses were able to carry out the anointing of women in baptism for decency’s sake and to visit sick women in their homes, “they were forbidden to confer baptism themselves, or to play a part in the Eucharistic offering.”

Even in the fourth century, the document read, “the way of life of deaconesses was very similar to that of nuns.”

While history proves that the ministry of female deacons did indeed exist, the text noted that it was “developed unevenly” in the different parts of the Church, and that affirmed that it is clear “that this ministry was not perceived as simply the feminine equivalent of the masculine diaconate.”

Divided into seven chapters and a conclusion, the document’s second to last paragraph addresses the question of the ordination of women to the diaconate today.

While the general tone was that the question needed further study, the document offered two points of reflection for future consideration.

First, it mentioned that the deaconesses referred to in the ancient Church, “as evidenced by the rite of institution and the functions they exercised – were not purely and simply equivalent to the deacons.”

Secondly, it asserted that “the unity of the sacrament of Holy Orders…is strongly underlined by ecclesial tradition, especially in the teaching of the Magisterium,” and stressed the “clear distinction” between the ministry of priests and bishops versus that of deacons.

The document concluded with no clear indication either way, but instead simply stated that the question “pertains to the ministry of discernment which the Lord established in his Church to pronounce authoritatively on this question.”

Full Article

Full Article