Vatican City, Apr 4, 2017 / 05:53 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Tuesday Pope Francis approved a way for the Church to recognize marriages celebrated by priests of the Society of St. Pius X, which before now were not considered valid by Church authorities. Through a letter published April 4, the Pope has given diocesan bishops, or other local ordinaries, the authorization to grant priests of the SSPX the ability to licitly and validly celebrate the marriages of faithful belonging to the Society. The authorization is granted under the condition that a diocesan, or otherwise fully regular priest, is delegated to hear and receive the consent of the parties during the marriage rite itself, which can then be followed by the celebration of the liturgy by a priest of the Society. Francis approved this authorization following a proposal by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei,” as a way to ensure the validity and lawfulness of the Sacrament and to “reassure the conscience of the faithful,” the commission’s letter explains. “Despite the objective persistence of the canonical irregularity in which for the time being the Society of St. Pius X finds itself, the Holy Father…has decided to authorize Local Ordinaries the possibility to grant faculties for the celebration of marriages of faithful who follow the pastoral activity of the Society,” the letter states. If the first provision is not possible, or if no priests of the diocese are able to receive the consent of those marrying, then the Local Ordinary, most commonly the bishop of the area, may then grant the priest of the Society presiding over the Mass the necessary faculties to receive the consent in the marriage rite. In this case, the priest of the Society is obliged to then send the relevant documents to the Diocesan Curia as soon as possible. Signed by Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the congregation, and by Archbishop Guido Pozzo, secretary of the commission, it explained the effort as part of the Church’s ongoing initiatives “to bring the Society of St. Pius X into full communion.” The most recent of these initiatives was the September 2015 announcement by Pope Francis that the faithful would be able to validly and licitly receive absolution from priests of the SSPX during the Jubilee Year of Mercy. This ability was later extended indefinitely by Francis in his apostolic letter “Misericordia et misera” published Nov. 20, 2016. The SSPX was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 to form priests, as a response to what he described as errors that had crept into the Church after the Second Vatican Council. Its relations with the Holy See became particularly strained in 1988 when Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer consecrated four bishops without the permission of Pope John Paul II. The illicit consecrations resulted in the excommunication of the bishops involved. The excommunications of the surviving bishops were lifted in 2009 by Benedict XVI and since then negotiations “to rediscover full communion with the Church” have continued between the Society and the Vatican. In remitting the excommunications, Benedict noted that “doctrinal questions obviously remain and until they are clarified the Society has no canonical status in the Church and its ministers cannot legitimately exercise any ministry.” The biggest obstacles for the Society's reconciliation have been the statements on religious liberty in Vatican II's declaration Dignitatis humanae as well as the declaration Nostra aetate, which it claims contradict previous Catholic teaching. Read more

Vatican City, Apr 3, 2017 / 11:23 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican has taken in three new Syrian families, some members of which were ISIS prisoners before gaining freedom and fleeing the country. According to an April 3 Vatican communique, the families – two of whom are Christian – took the place of the families welcomed by the Vatican last year, who with the help of various organizations have now become independent, and have moved out of their Vatican apartments. The decision to welcome them was made in response to the Pope's Sept. 6, 2015, appeal for all European parishes, religious communities, monasteries and shrines to house one refugee family. At the time, the Pope said the two Vatican parishes – St. Peter's Basilica and St. Anne's parish – would also be hosting one family each. St. Peter's Basilica provided an apartment for an Eritrean family, consisting of a mother and her five children. The family hosted by St. Anne's parish was a Christian Syrian family, consisting of the parents and two children, who fled from the Syrian capital of Damascus and arrived in Italy the same day Pope Francis made his appeal. Both families had made their way to Greece, their homes having been bombed, and made it to Italy with the help of the “Humanitarian Corridors” project run by the Sant'Egidio Community and the Federation of Evangelical Churches in Italy to provide refugees safe passage without risking their lives in the Mediterranean. Numbering 13 people in total, the new families taking their place arrived at different times: one in February 2016 and two in March of this year. Of the two families who arrived in March, both suffered “kidnapping and other types of discrimination” because of their Christian faith. The first family is composed of a mother and her two adolescent children, their grandmother, an aunt and another Syrian woman who lives with them. The second family consists of a young couple and their newborn daughter, Stella, who was born two weeks ago in the apartment they are now living in. According to the communique, the mother had been a prisoner of ISIS for “several months,” but now, after arriving in Italy, “has again found peace.” The third family, who arrived to Italy in February 2016, is Muslim and consists of parents and their two daughters, the eldest of whom is ill. However, the family has begun a process of integration in which both children attend school and their mother is enrolled in a graduate course for Intercultural Mediators,entering just a few days ago a program for career training. To date some 70 families, including those hosted by the Vatican, have arrived to Rome with the help of the Humanitarian Corridors project, totaling 145 people between them. Apart from the assurance of a warm welcome through various parishes, communities and associations, the families are accompanied after arriving by volunteers, who help them in the integration process, beginning with learning the Italian language. In addition to the families hosted by the Vatican, an additional 21 Syrian refugees – who came back with the Pope after his 2016 trip to Lesbos – receive economic assistance from the Holy See, and in some cases are hosted by religious or private families. Read more

Vatican City, Apr 2, 2017 / 09:41 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Sunday Pope Francis encouraged people from earthquake-damaged communities to continue the process of rebuilding with courage and strength, never losing hope in God’s steadfast love. “Y... Read more