Vatican City, Nov 11, 2014 / 11:10 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis established on Tuesday a new judicial body within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with responsibility for dealing with clerical sex abuse, thus confirming the Holy See’s continuing response to the crisis. The new body, which is known as a college and which goes into effect Nov. 11, was established “due to the number of appeals and the need to guarantee that they are examined more rapidly and following detailed reflection.” The decision was taken by Pope Francis during a Nov. 3 audience with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State, and issued in a rescript. The department will be composed of seven members appointed by the Pope from among cardinals and bishops, and will be entrusted with examining appeals by clergy accused of commiting ‘delicta graviora', or 'more grave crimes', in order to lighten the work of the ordinary session of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The department's members do not have to be members of the congregation. The ordinary session is the plenary meeting of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and it meets once a month, on Wednesday – hence the name of ‘feria quarta’ to label the meeting, ‘feria quarta’ being the Latin name for Wednesday. According to Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See press office, the “feria quarta had to examine 4-5 appeals a month, of priests who were deemed to have been wrongly accused” of sex abuse. “The Pope’s decision has been welcomed, and has been considered a good solution in order to facilitate the Congregation’s work and avoid an accumulation of appeals to be processed,” explained Fr. Lombardi. The new commission will examine solely the appeals of clergy accused of 'delicta graviora'. 'Delicta graviora' are the most serious crimes in the Church, and most notably include offenses against morality: the sexual abuse of a minor by a cleric, or the acquisition, possession, or distribution of child pornography by a cleric. Aside from sexual abuse of minors, 'delicta graviora' include crimes against the sacraments – including those against Eucharist, such as profaning a consecrated Host; against Confession, such as violating the seal; and against Holy Orders, such as the attempted ordination of a woman. At the moment, only one member of the new college has been appointed: Archbishop José Mollaghan was on May 19 appointed a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to be responsible for a commission to deal with delicta graviora which was then still being established. It is yet to be known how the new office will work, how often it will meet, and if its judgement on each case will be always accepted by the feria quarta or if the feria quarta will be able to overturn the college's judgements. The rescript simply reads that the work of the commission will juxtapose the work of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which will maintain its competences. It should be up to the congregation itself to entrust the new office with a certain numbers of appeals which are usually examined during the ordinary session. However, when a bishop is accused of graviora delicta, his case will be examined by the whole body of members of the congregation – the ordinary session – which may also examine other specific cases upon papal request, and/or examine cases referred to it by the newly created college, according to the rescript. The rescript also requires the commission to periodically inform the ordinary session of its decisions; there may be other special provisions, but these have not yet been made official. Fr. Lombardi stressed that “there is no other news than the rescript,” and that “we will be able to know about the college's procedures and competencies once the Pope will appoint the members of the college and the college will give itself an internal regulation.” “Examining the appeals is challenging, especially when the appeals are about the abuse by clergy of minors, and processing all the cases would absorb the whole work of the ‘feria quarta’”, since “many members of the clergy appeal against their sentence for abuse,” Fr. Lombardi underscored. Efforts to combat clerical sex abuse began in earnest in 1988, when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sent a letter to St. John Paul II shedding light on how the procedures laid out in canon law made it difficult for bishops to laicize abusive priests. In Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela, a 2001 motu proprio, St. John Paul II transferred authority for investigating abuse cases from the Congregation for Clergy to Ratzinger’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, so that they could be dealt with more speedily. And in July 2010, under Benedict XVI, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith presented modifications to canon law that detailed how the dicastery would examine and punish instances of clerical abuse. Read more

Vatican City, Nov 11, 2014 / 09:34 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his homily on Tuesday Pope Francis said that Jesus’ service to others has no boundaries, and warned of those who put limits on how much they give because they are lazy, or want to control the situation. “His path was this attitude of service; He is a servant. He presents himself as a servant, the one who came to serve and not to be served,” the Pope told mass-goers gathered in the chapel of the Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse on Nov. 11. But “Laziness distances us from work and leads us to this ease, this selfishness. Many Christians are like this – they are good, they go to Mass, but only serve to a certain point.” The Roman Pontiff centered his reflections on the day’s Gospel reading from the 17th chapter of Luke, in which Jesus tells the parable of a servant who, after a long day of work, serves his master dinner and responds that he is unworthy, and merely did his duty. While there are some who would tell this servant “to go to his trade union for some advice on how to deal with a boss like that,” what Jesus is telling us through the parable is that “service is total,” the Pope explained. Through his attitude of service Jesus shows his apostles what the path looks like for those who have received faith, the Bishop of Rome noted, saying that this faith can “do wonders” on the path of service. A Christian who receives the gift of faith in baptism but doesn’t use it to go forward on a path of service becomes a Christian “without strength, without fertility,” he said, explaining that because these people live only for themselves, they turn out sad and waste the gifts of the Lord. Pope Francis reiterated that service must be total, saying that we can’t serve two masters, but must choose between serving God and serving riches. One attitude that keeps us from giving ourselves completely in service is laziness, he said, which makes our hearts lukewarm and comfortable. “When I say service, I mean everything: service to God in worship, in prayer, in praise, service to others,” the Pope explained, saying that rather than serving only when we have to, we should imitate Jesus, who gives until the very end. “Jesus is strong in this: So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants.’ (This is) gratuitous service – service that asks for nothing in return.” Another attitude that distances us from this type of service is when we want to “take over control of the situation,” the pontiff noted, and pointed out how the disciples themselves did this when they tried to keep the crowds away from Jesus. They tried to keep people from approaching Jesus so that they could “be at ease,” he said, and by doing this they attempted to take control of the Lord’s time and power because “they wanted Him all for their little group.” Rather than being a community dedicated to serving others, they were turning it into a “power structure,” the Pope observed, explaining that the same dynamic can be seen in the gospel when James and John discuss which of them is greater. When their mother goes to Jesus and asks that one sit on his right and one on this left, she is really asking “for one of her sons to be Prime Minister and the other minister of the economy, with all the power in hand,” he said. Even today this happens in our Christian communities, the Roman Pontiff observed, explaining that it is a great temptation, and that instead of seeking our own self-advancement, we must serve in hope and humility, which is the source of Christian joy. “In life we have to struggle so much against the temptations that try to distance us from this attitude of service,” the Pope explained. “Laziness leads to ease: half-hearted service, (to) taking control of the situation, and to becoming master instead of servant, which leads to arrogance, pride, to treating people badly, to feeling important 'because I am a Christian, I have salvation', and so many things like this.” Pope Francis concluded his reflections saying that the Lord gives us two key graces in fighting these temptations, the first of which is the humility of service with allows us to echo the words of the Gospel’s servant, who calls himself “unprofitable,” but who serves until the very end. The second, he said, is the grace of hope while we are waiting for the end of time, when the Lord will return to us. Read more

Vatican City, Nov 11, 2014 / 12:08 am (CNA).- To act and speak as brothers, despite different confessions, in order to respond to current issue: this is the mission Pope Francis entrusted to the bishop-friends of the Focolare Movement on Friday. “The fact that in many countries lack of the freedom to publicly express their religion and to openly live according to the needs of Christian ethics; persecution of Christians and other minorities; the sad phenomenon of terrorism; the plight of displaced persons caused by war and other reasons; the challenges of fundamentalism and, on the other hand, an exasperated secularism; all of these realities prick our conscience as Christians and as pastors,” the Pope said Nov. 7 in the Vatican's Consistory Hall. He then stressed that these challenges are “an appeal to seek, with renewed commitment, constancy and patience, the path toward unity.” Pope Francis was speaking to the ecumenical convention of the bishop-friends of the Focolare Movement; the group has gathered annually for more than 30 years to foster Church unity. This year’s meeting was the on Eucharist, and gathered 39 bishops coming from 29 countries. Before the papal speech, Archbishop Xavier Kriengsak Kovithavanij of Bangkok underscored that “the lack of unity weakens us, such that we cannot respond in an effective way to today’s challenges such as the persecution of Christians, terrorism, and the plight of displaced persons.” Christian Krause, a Lutheran bishop and president emeritus of the World Lutheran Federation, asked Pope Francis to celebrate together with him the 500th anniversary of the Protestant reformation, which will occur in 2017. This common celebration, he claimed, may be “a witness for all the Christianity on earth.” Bishop Theophilose Kuriakose, a metropolitan bishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church (which is Oriental Orthodox) who is responsible for the Indian diaspora in Europe, mentioned the April 2013 abduction of the Syriac and Greek Orthodox bishops of Aleppo, Yuhanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yazigi. Nothing is known of their whereabouts, or indeed if they are alive, 19 months since their kidnapping near the Syria-Turkey border. “We live this period of extreme obscurity and persecution with a strong faith in the crucified, abandoned, and risen Jesus,” Metropolitan Theophilose said. He also asked the Pope to advocate for these bishops with authorities during his upcoming trip to Turkey, scheduled for Nov. 28-30. “When I went to greet the Pope, the Pope told me that he will personally take care regarding the bishops and he will make all the efforts he can to free them,” Metropolitan Theophilose told CNA Nov. 7. At the end of the three interventions, Pope Francis underscored the “smart awareness of the value, in our troubled world, of a clear testimony of unity among Christians and of an explicit attestation of esteem, respect and more precisely fraternity among us.” “This fraternity is a glaring and attractive sign of our faith in the risen Christ,” the Pope said. Read more