Rome, Italy, Oct 3, 2014 / 05:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Transitional deacons ordained this week in St. Peter’s Basilica shared their experience of overwhelming joy in serving God, which stems from a life of sacrifice that’s worth giving everything to live. “I went to George Washington University in D.C. and met great priests, friends and mentors, and they taught me that priesthood is something joyful, and wonderful and worth giving your life for,” Deacon Conrad Murphy of the Archdiocese of Washington D.C. told CNA after his ordination on Oct. 2. “Of course, it’s full of ups and downs, you have your good days, your bad days, but there’s a joy that’s there throughout it all.” Dcn. Murphy was one of 43 young men from the Pontifical North American College in Rome to be ordained to the transitional deaconate by Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington D.C. yesterday in St. Peter’s Basilica. The new deacons will continue their studies this year, assisting in parishes and in administering the sacraments until their ordination to the priesthood next spring. Explaining how he discovered his vocation to the priesthood, Dcn. Murphy said that he had originally thought about becoming a priest when he was little, but the idea left him when he was in high school. After having a positive experience in college with his faith, he entered Mount St. Mary’s seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland and after two years was sent to the North American College in Rome. “I can't believe I’m ordained a deacon now. It happened so fast,” he said. “Even on the toughest days, the worst days (when) you’re struggling through classes, the car splashes mud on you, you still have that joy in knowing that you’re where God wants you to be.” “Here the joy of studying, the joy of prayer, growing in your life of prayer is unbelievable. It’s such a total gift, I can’t believe they let me do this. It’s absolutely incredible.” The new deacon also voiced his excitement for his eventual ordination to the priesthood, saying that what he is most looking forward to is being with people their whole lives. “Being with them when they’re joyful from baptism on to as they grow, teaching them the faith, and being with them to take them to the Lord when they die; to give them the Blessed Sacrament as they’re dying and going to the Lord.” “The whole life of a priest is just so appealing. To be able to give yourself for others, I can't imagine a better way to live…words can’t express it, I can’t get the smile off my face!” Also ordained a deacon was Fernando Camou from the Diocese of Phoenix, where he was born and raised. Dcn. Kamu expressed his thankfulness for his vocation upon his ordination.  “The word is gratitude. I just feel so very blessed. By the grace of God my whole life just seems to be coming together in this really profound way (and there is) just tremendous joy.” Walking out of the sacristy with his classmates as the Mass began “felt so unreal,” he said, “like I was walking into what my whole life was pointing toward, and it was a dream.” Camou said his vocation was fostered at home, through the example and teaching of his parents and older sisters, but it was in high school “when the vocation started to grow as I began to encounter the Lord in a personal level.” After having a strong experience with Jesus in the Eucharist, Dcn. Camou explained that that’s when he told the Lord: “Whatever you want.“ "And within months the priesthood was just bubbling up and I couldn’t say no.” So far in his six years in seminary the deacon said he has experienced “the greatest struggles of my life, but also the greatest joys of my life.” “The whole time the Lord was pruning and molding my heart into the priest that he wants me to be,” he continued, noting how classes in philosophy were particularly hard to get used to after playing the bass and electric guitars in a rock band and studying engineering. “It really challenged me to make the effort to realize that if following the Lord’s call means working hard, the gifts of that have just been abundant,” he said. “So the little sacrifices are nothing compared to the joy of ordination.” From the Diocese of Rockville Center, Long Island, New York hails newly ordained Deacon James Hansen, who discovered that despite having solid friends and getting good grades in school, something was missing. After being encouraged by his parish priest numerous times to consider the priesthood without much interest, Dcn. Hansen said that when he realized something was lacking in his life, he had a feeling that “the Lord was possibly calling me to something more.” “So I decided to change and leave some of that, try something new, entered the seminary, and it’s been an amazing journey.” “One of the greatest things about being here in Rome studying at the North American Collage is being able to visit all the churches,” the deacon observed. “You can’t walk down a single block without bumping into two or three, and those churches usually have Saints,” he continued, noting how he has developed a particularly strong devotion to St. Catherine of Siena and St. Philip Neri, whose bodies reside in separate parishes in Rome. When asked what he would say to other young men considering the priesthood, Dcn. Hansen said he would tell them to keep praying.  “Don’t be afraid to talk about it with people. Ask your pastors or parish priests about what it’s like being a priest, and stay open to the will of God because it’s there that we’re going to find our true happiness and peace.” Read more

Rome, Italy, Oct 3, 2014 / 02:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Despite media expectations for the upcoming synod of bishops, Pope Francis will make his final decisions in his legitimate role as Pope, and will certainly carry forward a line of renewal in continuity, an archbishop and historian has said. Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, secretary emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, said to CNA Oct. 1 that “Pope Francis cannot be a revolutionary; he cannot walk that path.” “Pope Francis' line cannot be other than that of reform within continuity,” he added. Archbishop Marchetto underscored that because of the necessity of reform within continuity, “the Italian writer Antonio Socci is wrong in thinking that Pope Francis has been elected for some revolutionary purpose,” and he is even “more wrong in supposing that Pope Francis' election was not valid.” In his book “Non è Francesco” (“He is not Francis”), which is to be released Oct. 3 in Italian, Socci suggested that Bergoglio's election as Bishop of Rome is invalid because he “would have been elected at the fifth ballot after a series of procedures that would invalid the election.” Socci refers to the reports of Elisabeta Piqué, an Argentine journalist who wrote that on March 13, 2013, an error led to the fourth vote of the day – the fifth of the conclave – being cancelled. Archbishop Marchetto responded, however, noting that “article 68 of Universi Dominici Gregis, the apostolic constitution regulating conclaves, says that 'if the number of ballots does not correspond to the number of electors, the ballots must all be burned and a second vote taken at once,' and this had been done.” “Pope Francis is the Pope, and this is beyond any doubt.” The claim “(t)hat Pope Francis is going to revolutionize doctrine has yet to be demonstrated,” Archbishop Marchetto emphasized. Socci's book has renewed debate about the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Family, taking place Oct. 5-19, as has an Oct. 1 article by historian Roberto de Mattei appearing in the Italian daily Il Foglio. In the article, de Mattei wrote that “the subject of communion for the divorced (and remarried) is only the vector of a discussion that focuses on rather complex doctrinal concepts, such as human nature and the natural law,” according to a translation by Francesca Romana at Rorate Caeli. According to Archbishop Marchetto, “the debate over the synod echoes the debate over the Vatican Council, so we should rely on what happened at the Second Vatican Council to understand the synodal debate.” “It is not that changes will not take place,” he emphasized. “I say, though, that changes will be in continuity with the Church’s tradition, as happened at the Second Vatican Council.” Archbishop Marchetto, who retired five years early from his curial position so that he could pursue his passion for the history of Vatican II, has written several books championing what Benedict XVI referred to, in his 2005 Christmas address to the Roman curia, as “the 'hermeneutic of reform', of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us.” Archbishop Marchetto's approach to Vatican II critiques the so-called “Bologna school” of interpretation, led by Giuseppe Alberigo, which the archbishop has said views the council as a “Copernican revolution” which led to “another Catholicism,” and which is a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture. Pope Francis has personally praised Archbishop Marchetto's approach to Vatican II, calling him “the best interpreter of the Second Vatican Council” in a letter sent to the archbishop for the presentation of his collection of papers on the topic. “The issue at stake (at the synod) is that of the pastorality of doctrine, and so of the opportunity to have a 'pastoral translation' of doctrine,” Archbishop Marchetto commented. “But there is no authentic and true pastoral care against doctrine,” he added. Regarding the debate over the admission of the divorced and remarried to Communion, Archbishop Marchetto said, “the focus will not be on the indissolubility of marriage, but on whether a marriage is valid or null.” “It seems to me that the Holy Father himself has introduced the debate on these criteria, creating, very recently, a commission on the matter, to speed up the procedure,” Archbishop Marchetto said. In his article, de Mattei wrote that “according to Kasper’s program, the spirit of the Gospel whose values need to be communicated ‘in a comprehensible way to the man of today’ contrasts the natural law.” de Mattei also noted that Cardinal Kasper wrote that “the Catholic Church is 'where there is no selective Gospel', but everything is expanded in an all-encompassing manner, in time and space,” and that “the mission of the Church is to ‘step out of Herself’ to regain a dimension that renders her truly universal.” de Mattei emphasized that the “inevitable consequences of this new idea of morality which the Synod Fathers will have to discuss” will be the overturning of the concept of natural law, and an eventual renewal in matters of sexual ethics – which would in turn lead to a yes to contraception, premarital relations, and the recognition of homosexual couples, as is claimed by the Italian theologian Vito Mancuso. Archbishop Marchetto does not describe the situation in such terms. He maintains, rather, that “we are facing the pastoral desire to give responses that are not against doctrine, but at the same time would permit us to face brand new peculiarities.” On the other hand, Archbishop Marchetto is well aware of influence of media on the synod of bishops. “Stretching back to 19th century, the First Vatican Council had already experienced the influence of the media. The impact of the media exploded during the Second Vatican Council and it is continually increasing, since it is part of today’s world, a fundamental tool to nurture public opinion and to influence, in a just or unjust way, the discussion to come.” He concluded, saying, “I hope that the synod will not lead to a rebound like that against Humanae vitae.” Paul VI's 1968 encyclical was widely expected to be open to artificial means of contraception, but the Pope, having heard all sides, reiterated the Church's teaching on the regulation of birth, based on natural law. “Pope Francis, regarding certain aspects of the 'theme' of the family, could find himself also in a difficult position, but I hope and pray that he will not face the same critiques and attacks that followed the release of Humanae vitae,” Archbishop Marchetto concluded. Read more

Rome, Italy, Oct 2, 2014 / 03:10 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Donald Wuerl ordained 43 seminarians from the Pontifical North American College in Rome as deacons, reminding them to always be open to God and to live their new ministry with joy. “Dear deacons, never cease to be open to the call. Each day renew your resolve to say 'yes Lord. Here I am, Lord, send me,'” the cardinal told the new deacons during their Oct. 2 ordination Mass. “Your commitment to service will take the form of the many tasks you will be asked to do,” he explained, so “may you always find joy in the attitude, 'Lord, whatever it takes, that is what I offer you and your Church.'” Cardinal Wuerl, who serves as archbishop of Washington D.C., opened his homily by referencing the significance of receiving the sacrament of Holy Orders in St. Peter’s Basilica, where he also was ordained a deacon, priest and bishop. The words “Ibi Petrus,” or “Here is Peter” written on the headstone marking where the apostle’s remains were buried do not just refer to one man, but to “the reality that the Office of Peter and the ministry of his successors…are still alive and thriving.” It is on the “rock” of Peter and “to the service of the people of God” that you will be ordained, the cardinal told the ordinandi present. Reflecting on the qualities needed in order to be good deacon, Cardinal Wuerl turned to the example of Stephen, who “possessed a generosity of heart and a love of Christ and his Church.” “These traits made it possible for each to work gladly and willingly with the apostles,” he said, noting that when the priest or deacon lays prostrate during the right of ordination, it is a sign of “the reality that you are laying down your lives for a friend, the greatest friend, Jesus Christ.” “It is also here where the bones of Peter remind us that our first Pope truly laid down his life for the Lord. To serve means to give whatever it takes to serve Christ.” Cardinal Wuerl continued, saying that in one’s ordination “You are joined to Christ now as Servant – the servant who nurtures, heals and restores – the servant who feeds the hungry, gives drink to the thirsty, clothes the naked, visits the sick and imprisoned.” He then went on the explain how their ordination as a deacon is a concrete call to participate in the New Evangelization, which requires what Pope Francis often coins as a “response to Jesus as missionary discipleship. Each of us is called to share the Good News.” Bringing to mind a homily given by Benedict XVI, the cardinal observed that each of us is called to “‘re-propose’ all over again, a hearing from those who perhaps feel they have already experienced the Gospel and it has no impact in their lives.” “The continuation of the mission of Christ, which began with the Great Commissioning following his death and Resurrection, is what we are engaged in today,” he said. Noting how the synod of bishops on the family will begin this weekend, Cardinal Wuerl explained that “These deliberations and those continuing in the next Synod 2015 cannot help but be a part of the context of your ministry.” He referred to how Pope Francis is slated to beatify Paul VI, who instigated the synods following the close of the Second Vatican Council, at the end of this month, which is now their ordination month. “In Evangelii nuntiandi, (Pope Paul VI) offers this assessment of our own effectiveness: ‘Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.’” “Dear deacons, carry out your ministry in joy,” he said, adding that “A sign of the indwelling Spirit is found in what are known of the fruits of the Holy Spirit,” and “among these we find love, joy and peace, together with patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness and self-control.” The cardinal concluded his homily by quoting the day's gospel in which Jesus tells his apostles that “As the Father loves me, so I also love you…It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you…I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” He spoke of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel,” saying that it serves as a reminder that “the joy of the Gospel that should fill the hearts and minds of all who encounter Jesus.” “Those in holy orders should manifest joy since our proclamation is that Christ is risen and the kingdom of God is at hand.” “May the Holy Spirit who consecrates all the baptized, and who has further blessed you who are to be ordained deacons, continue to inspire you to service,” he prayed. And may he “enrich your liturgical ministry, deepen your life of faith and help you as you, through your ministry, do whatever it takes to build up the whole body of Christ.” Read more