Inside the Vatican magazine January-February 2025

PHOTO - GRZEGORZ GALAZKA

JANUARY- FEBRUARY 2025 $10 / EUR 10 / £8

BISHOP ATHANASIUS SCHNEIDER

CARDINAL FRIDOLIN A. BESUNGU

BISHOP THOMAS PAPROCKI

ARCHBISHOP STEPHEN A. M. MULLA

BISHOP ROLANDO ÁLVAREZ

EDUARDO VERASTEGUI

ThE DOOrs Of ChrisT ArE ALwAys OPEN

SR. PAULA K. PHONPRASERTRUKSA

HARRISON BUTKER

TOP TEN PEOPLE 2024 As wE ENTEr ThE JubiLEE B

TRACEY ROWLAND

ISHOP MOUNIR KHAIRALLAH

C OMPELLiNG S TORiES OF COURAGEOUS CATHOLiC LEADERS

◆ FATHER JOSEPH FESSIO, S.J. California Blackrobe

◆ GEORGE CARDINAL PELL Pax Invictus

his in-depth, page-turning biography of the founder of Ignatius Press is written by one of Fessio’s earliest Jesuit mentors, historian Fr. Cornelius Buckley, S.J. Raised in the Bay Area after World War II, the bold Joe Fessio entered the Society of Jesus at age twenty and, by divine providence, studied for six years under three of the greatest theological minds of the 20th century—Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). He returned from Europe and started the St. Ignatius Institute at USF, and Ignatius Press. Over the decades, he has become one of the most powerful forces in the American Catholic Church, designing the Catholic Great Books program at USF and founding one of the largest Catholic publishing houses in the world.

This robust yet unsentimental study of Fessio’s unique life, cut with Buckley’s trademark wit, shows what effective Christian missionary work can look like in the age of media.

Includes 32 pages of photos. FRFH . . . Sewn Hardcover, $27.95

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“No one has impacted the Catholic Church in America and beyond like Father Fessio. This delightful biography is a must-read.”

—Most Rev. James Conley, Bishop, Lincoln NE

“George Pell, was a giant — on the football field, as a bishop leading the flock in Australia, as a brilliant intellect, and in his love of Jesus whom he served with vigor every day of his extraordinary life.”

— Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York

“Essential reading to appreciate Fr. Fessio’s undaunted character, sense of mission, and the impact of his work on the global Catholic scene.” — Scott Hahn, Author, Rome Sweet Home “As the light of Christian faith flickers across the West, one American priest leads on with inimitable brilliance, Joseph Fessio, S.J.” —Mary Eberstadt, Author, Adam and Eve after the Pill

his definitive biography of the great Australian Cardinal by veteran journalist Tess Livingstone traces his life from childhood in Australia to his role as the Vatican treasurer; through his trials, unjust imprisonment, and exoneration, to his untimely passing away in January 2023.

His huge legacy includes rebuilding Church precincts in Melbourne and Sydney, revitalizing seminary formation, founding Catholic universities, leading Australia’s Catholic foreign aid agency, and heading World Youth Day 2008. From a weekly column in Australia’s largest Sunday newspaper to bestselling books and scholarly lectures, he has left a trove of writings. This book includes snippets of some of the best of them and captures his ideas, wit, and personality.

In his role as Vatican treasurer, his efforts to reform the Church’s finances met with resistance from an entrenched “old guard’’. Through it all, he retained his dignity and integrity as a faithful successor to the apostles. GCPBH . . Sewn Hardcover, $29.95

“Cardinal Pell was extraordinary in every sense: a man of sacrificial faith, superior intelligence, and tremendous evangelical energy. Livingstone has captured all these qualities, in this marvelous biography.”

—Francis X. Maier, Author, True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church

www.ignatius.com P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, CO 80522

(800) 651-1531

EDITORIAL by Robert Moynihan

“Hope Calls Us” “Hope calls us – as St. Augustine would say – to be upset with things that are wrong and to find the courage to change them.” —Pope Francis, Christmas Eve, December 24, 2024, Opening the Jubilee Year of Hope Monday, December 30, 2024, Rome — In Rome on Christmas Eve, as the “Jubilee of Hope” began — it was an absolutely frigid evening in St. Peter’s Square — I had three great hopes: (1) for the coming of peace in Ukraine and in the Middle East; (2) for the coming of peace in families everywhere; (3) for the restoration of peace and unity in the Church, the mystical body of Christ.

As I listened to the words of Pope Francis, 88, after he opened the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica, I heard him express similar hopes in a Christocentric way. “Sisters and brothers, this is our hope,” he began. “God is Emmanuel, God-with-us. The infinitely great has made himself tiny; divine light has shone amid the darkness of our world; the glory of heaven has appeared on earth. And how? As a little child. If God can visit us, even when our hearts seem like a lowly manger, we can truly say: Hope is not dead; hope is alive and it embraces our lives forever.”

So hope has come into our world. Hope for peace, not war.

Hope for families to be united, not divided. Hope for the Church to be healed by mutual forgiveness.

“This is our task,” Francis said. “To bring hope into the different situations of life... Hope calls us to become pilgrims in search of truth, dreamers who never tire, women and men open to being challenged by God’s dream, which is of a new world where peace and justice reign.” Francis continued: “Sisters and brothers, this is the Jubilee... All of us have received the gift and task of bringing hope wherever hope has been lost, lives broken, promises unkept, dreams shattered and hearts overwhelmed by adversity.”

The next day — Christmas Day — speaking from the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, the Pope continued in the same vein.

“Brothers and sisters, the door of God’s heart is always open; let us return to Him! Let us be reconciled with Him!... I wish everyone a serene and blessed Christmas.”

That same day, the excommunicated Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 83 (84 as of January 16), issued his own Christmas sermon, “Sicut in cœlo et in terra” (“On earth as it is in heaven”).

Viganò also spoke in a Christocentric way. He began: “‘Dixit Dominus Domino meo: ‘Sede a dextris meis; donec ponam inimicos tuos scabellum peduum tuorum’” (Ps 109:1). The Church repeats this Psalm at Vespers on every Sunday and feast day: ‘The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’ The Eternal Father, in the eternity of time, addresses the Eternal Incarnate Word, sanctioning His Eternal Lordship — ‘Sit at my right hand’ — and His definitive victory over Satan and his servants...”

Viganò then speaks about the entrance of evil into the world, about the fall of man and of the angels: “In the eternity of time, according to some of the Church Fathers, the Angels were put to the test by showing them the Mystery of the Incarnation, decreed by the Holy Trinity to repair the temptation to which our Progenitors would succumb when tempted by the Serpent. It was before this prodigy of infinite and divine Charity and Mercy, before the Word who becomes flesh and assumes our human nature, that the

pride of Satan and the apostate angels refused to bow to the will of God, and launched their cry ‘Non serviam’ [“I will not serve”] in response to the ‘Ecce, venio’ [“Behold, I come”] of Incarnate Wisdom, to the ‘Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum’ [“Let it be done to me according to they word”] of the Mother of God, to the ‘Quis ut Deus?’ [“Who is like God?”] of the Archangel Michael and the faithful Angels. Obedience and disobedience. Humility and pride. Adoring gratitude and arrogant rebellion.”

Viganò then focuses even more completely on Christ: “The cosmos is Christocentric,” he writes. “Omnia per ipsum facta sunt, et sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est (Jn 1:3). Everything was made through Him. Per ipsum, cum ipso, et in ipso.

Through him, with him and in him... And the Holy Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ the Head, is the new Jerusalem, the new Israel, the people of the eternal Covenant that guards on its altars Emmanuel, God-With-Us, in the Most Holy Sacrament, until the end of time... Everything refers to Christ; everything announces His coming, His Incarnation, His Birth, His Preaching, His Passion and Death, His Resurrection...”

Viganò then denounces “the hatred of the enemies of Christ” which, he stresses, “is born of pride, that Luciferian pride which refuses to recognize in the Man-God He... to Whom the Divine Order necessarily imposes one to bow and kneel, because it cannot be otherwise, and because by not recognizing Christ as Lord one ends up erecting the creature as an idol, as a simulacrum, in that blasphemous subversion of the κόσμος [“cosmos”] which is the χάος [“chaos”] that is, the Revolution, the infernal soul of the rebellion against God.” And Viganò speaks of the “ontological and indefectible necessity” of exalting the name of Christ above every name, a necessity which finds its reason “in the obedience and humility of Christ”, factus obœdiens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis [“having been made obedient unto death, even unto the death of the cross”] (Phil 2:8), and in the evangelical precept: Si quis vult venire post me, abneget semetipsum et tollat crucem suam quotidie, et sequatur me [“If anyone wishes to follow me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily, and follow me”] (Lk 9:22). He adds: “And Christ was the first, both in the eternity of time as the Word of the Father and in history as the God-Man, to give the example of this self-denial, this obedience, this humility.”

And he concludes: “Let us follow the example of the Shepherds and the Magi, dear brothers and sisters: let us kneel in adoration before the Infant King.”

And I found myself agreeing with the archbishop, who calls on us to kneel in adoration before the Infant King.

And I found myself agreeing also with Francis, who calls upon us to “bring hope wherever hope has been lost, lives broken, promises unkept, dreams shattered...”

And as I passed through the Holy Door, I prayed that these two men might find a way to forgive each other, and give a sign to the world and the Church that would astonish all, restoring what has been lost: the unity of faith in Christ the Lord.m JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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CONTENTS JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 Year 33, #1

v EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Robert Moynihan ASSOCIATE EDITOR: George “Pat” Morse (+ 2013) ASSISTANT EDITOR: Christina Deardurff CULTURE EDITOR: Lucy Gordan CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: William D. Doino, Jr. WRITERS: Anna Artymiak, Alberto Carosa, Giuseppe Rusconi, David Quinn, Andrew Rabel, Vladimiro Redzioch, Serena Sartini PHOTOS: Grzegorz Galazka LAYOUT: Giuseppe Sabatelli ILLUSTRATIONS: Stefano Navarrini CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: Deborah B. Tomlinson ADVERTISING: Katie Carr Tel. +1.202.864.4263 kcarr@insidethevatican.com

v EDITORIAL OFFICES FOR MAIL: US: 14 West Main St. Front Royal, VA 22630, USA Tel +1.202.536.4555 Rome: Inside the Vatican via delle Mura Aurelie 7c, Rome 00165, Italy Tel: +39.06.3938.7471 Fax: +39.06.638.1316 POSTMASTER: send address changes to Inside the Vatican PO Box 1320 Front Royal, VA 22630, USA Tel: +1.800.789.9494 Fax: +1.202.536.5409 Subscriptions (USA): Inside the Vatican PO Box 1320 Front Royal, VA 22630, USA www.insidethevatican.com Tel. +1.800.789.9494

v INSIDE THE VATICAN (ISSN 1068-8579, 1 yr subscription: $ 49.95; 2 yrs, $94.95; 3 yrs, $129.95), provides a comprehensive, independent report on Vatican affairs published bimonthly (6 times per year) with occasional special supplements.

Inside the Vatican is published by Urbi et Orbi Communications, PO Box 1320, Front Royal, VA 22630, USA, pursuant to a License Agreement with Robert Moynihan, the owner of the Copyright. Inside the Vatican, Inc., maintains editorial offices in Rome, Italy.

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4 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

Year 33, #1

LEAD STORY ROUNDTABLE/ What the Trump Win Might Mean

by ITV staff/CNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 ROUNDTABLE/What Trump Must Understand About China

by Aurelio Porfiri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 ROUNDTABLE/ Trump’s War on the Administrative State Matters for Catholics

by Darrick Taylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 ROUNDTABLE/Trump’s Economic Proposals and Catholic Social Teaching

by Michael D. Greaney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 ROUNDTABLE/Should Catholics Support the President-Elect?

by Regis Martin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 NEWS DIGEST/New Mayan rite; controversial Papal Preacher; the ‘Gospel of Xi’; possible ban of Latin Mass at pilgrimage; LGBTQ at Jubilee

by ITV staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 SPECIAL: TOP TEN PEOPLE OF 2024 Despite a difficult year, “Behold, I make all things new” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo: Fighting Western imperialism–cultural and financial . . . . . . . . .23 Bishop Thomas Paprocki: The “Holy Goalie” speaks out for Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 Bishop Rolando Álvarez: Defending the Church against government persecution . . . . . . . .25 Sr. Paula Kwandao Phonprasertruska: Fighting human trafficking in Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 Harrison Butker: Fearlessly champions Catholic ideals in the popular culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 Bishop Athanasius Schneider: A touchstone in troubling times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 Archbishop Stephen Mulla: Bringing Jesus to a nation torn by war and corruption . . . . . . . . . . .29 Eduardo Verastegui: Actor/producer/presidential candidate knows “God is the Fire” . . . . . . . . . .30 Tracey Rowland, Ph.D.: Theologian and Benedict XVI expert “knows how the battle ends” . . . . .31 Bishop Mounir Khairallah: Lebanon can only be healed by forgiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32 CULTURE INTERVIEW/New cardinal of Palestinian descent says Gaza “Borders on horror”

by Franca Giansoldati (Il Messagero) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33 REFLECTION/The Day Benedict XVI Died

by Anna Artymiak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 ARTS/World-renowned composers, musicians perform Concert for the Poor

by Robert Moynihan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35 INTERVIEW/Archbishop Aldo Cavalli on “the Holy Spirit at work in Medjugorje”

by Christine Mugridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 FOOTSTEPS ON THE WAY/ Pilgrimage in Rome, Then and Now

by ITV Staff/CNA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 SCRIPTURE/I am the Way

by Anthony Esolen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42 SPIRITUALITY BEHIND BARS/A Meditation on Recidivism

by Marcellus Roberts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 URBI ET ORBI: CATHOLICISM AND ORTHODOXY Icon/The Creed: Baptism

by Robert Wiesner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 East-West Watch/The Orthodox and the Catholic Synod on Synodality’s Final Document

by Peter Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 News from the East/ Pope adds Assyrian saint; Russia bans Catholic websites; Orthodoxy “under threat” in Ukraine; India’s Syro-Malabar church troubles deepen

by Matthew Trojacek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 FEATURES Tradition and Beauty/ Liturgical Music and the Reign of Paul VI

by Aurelio Porfiri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 Art/Venice’s Redentore Church opens its “gardens” to the public

by Lucy Gordan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 Lord of the World/“His Domination Was Complete”

by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56 Vatican Watch/A day-by-day chronicle of Vatican events: October, November and December 2024

by Matthew Trojacek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 People/ French churchmen defend freedom of Catholic education; Ratzinger’s collected works published in English; 1 million S. Koreans protest gay “marriage”; TLM prohibited in diocese

by Matthew Trojacek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 Food for Thought/ Planning a Pilgrimage to Italy for the Holy Year Jubilee

by Mother Martha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62

PROFOUND & PROVOCATIVE CONVERSION STORIES ◆ INTO THE DEEP Abigail Favale

◆ THE TWO

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Matthew Wiseman

his book traces one woman’s spiritual odyssey from birthright evangelicalism through postmodern feminism and, ultimately, into the Roman Catholic Church. As a college student, she experienced a feminist awakening that reshaped her life and faith. A decade later, on the verge of atheism, she found herself entering the oldest male-helmed institution on the planet—the last place she expected to be.

With humor and insight, Favale describes her gradual exodus from evangelicalism and surprising swerve into Catholicism. She writes candidly about grappling with wounds from her past, Catholic sexual morality, the male priesthood, and an interfaith marriage. A thoroughly 21st century conversion and compelling account of recovering an ancient faith after a decade of doubt.

IDP. . .Sewn Softcover, $18.95

“There are events in life that leave you changed forever, right down to the very roots and heart of your being, because they go ‘into the deep’. Like this book. The theology is profoundly Christ-centered, the psychology trustworthily honest, and the style winsomely alive.”

—Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., Best-selling Author and Philosophy Professor “A beautifully written story of conversion. In this raw and compelling narrative, Favale reminds us that, in the most mysterious of ways, God’s grace can reach all of us.”

— Carrie Gress, Author, The Anti-Mary Exposed ALSO BY ABiGAiL FAVALE

◆ THE GENESIS OF GENDER

Weaving personal experience with expert knowledge, Favale provides an in-depth yet accessible account of the gender paradigm: a framework for understanding reality and identity that has recently risen to prominence. She traces the genealogy of gender to its origins in feminism and postmodern thought.

GGP . . . Sewn Softfover, $18.95

JERUSALEMS

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he moving story of a young man’s amazing journey to discover the roots of the Christian faith in the Ancient Near East, which led him from Protestantism through the Messianic movement and into the Catholic Church. This journey took him to the rainforest of Papua New Guinea, the Nożyk Synagogue in Warsaw, and the Judean Desert and into the heart of ancient Jewish tradition: the Hebrew Bible.

Through it all, Wiseman’s relentless desire for truth and consistency kept him searching until he discovered the “beauty ever ancient, ever new”. His powerful stor y is like a course in fundamental theology, in compelling narrative form.

T J P . . . Sewn Softcover, $18.95 “A groundbreaking book that could change the lives of traditional Jews, Messianic Jews, Protestant Christians, and wavering Catholics. Highly recommended!” Ronda Chervin, Ph.D., Philosophy Professor and Hebrew Catholic “Wiseman’s journey is worthy of the Magi who followed the star to Bethlehem. An absorbing, challenging, and ultimately inspiring read.” —Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Author, There and Back Again

Also available ◆ SALVATION IS FROM THE JEWS Roy Schoeman Traces the role of Judaism and the Jewish people in God's plan for the salvation of mankind, from Abraham through the Second Coming, as revealed by the Catholic faith and by a thoughtful examination of history.

SFJP . . . Sewn Softcover, $19.95

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Italy: Journey Toward the Face of Christ May 24 - June 3, 2025 From the ancient rooms where St. Paul lived for seven years, to the bishop’s residence in Assisi; from the treasure trove of art and faith at the Vatican Museum, to the Benedictine monastery of Norcia; we will encounter some of the “living stones” of our Church, as we journey toward the Face of Christ — both spiritually and physically, in the form of the miraculous Face of Manoppello. Visit us online to learn more!

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I N S I D E T H E VAT I CA N PI LG R I M AG E S .C O M

Join us on a pilgrimage during the Jubilee of 2025 and experience a journey of faith, hope, and renewal!

Classic SPAIN: Pilgrimage and Lenten Retreat with Fr. Murr, March 11 - 18, 2025

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Signature SPAIN and FRANCE: With Mary from Garabandal to Lourdes, August 21 - 28, 2025

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR INSIDE THE VATICAN wants to hear from you! Email us at editor@insidethevatican.com or write to us at 14 W. Main St., Front Royal, VA 22630. Letters are edited for clarity and used as space permits.

VIVA CRISTO REY! [Re: Moynihan Letter #57, Nov 24: Martyr] Thank you for the amazing story of Miguel Pro, his family and brave Mexican people.

Annabelle White anabelwhite@icloud.com Thank you for this brilliant article which has helped me understand much better our martyrs in Mexico. What a saint the great Fr. Miguel Pro was and how much he saved the Faith in Mexico! He must be so very happy with The Lord and Our Blessed Mother and his fellow saints up there!

As I read this, and being in England, close to London at this, the most dangerous time since WWII — I can draw some parallels of what is happening here. This socialist government, only in office a few months now, has already worked to destroy so much here.

Herr Starmer (as my family and I call him) is a notorious socialist. He is as cold as a cod fish from the icy waters of northern Scotland — a man without emotions — and so many times I look at his face and think, “does this man really have a soul?”...

He is working hard at bringing the UK to its knees — starting with the elderly, whom he will let sit and freeze though the damp, cold British winters — as he with one swift click of the pen, along with his so-called chancellor (who has lied to get the job as the world now knows — and she is no “economist,” having worked in a bank in retail for a few years)... has just condemned so many elderly by removing their needed winter fuel allowance.

What kind of man could do such a thing? One has to ask the question. Never in our history has a PM made such a callous, horrific gesture — while with his other hand he gladly accepts £200,000 from his ‘close’ friends like Lord Ali in London whose NY flat he stayed in lately, as he does his/their (WEF) bidding…

Now he is saying he will go to war and yes, WWIII — to fight Russia — he is quite mad. So many of us are praying the holy 8

INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2024

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Rosary to Our blessed Mother to protect us and to stop the hand of this crazy communist…

Soon our churches may be closed (part of the prophecy as we head towards the three days of darkness which are surely coming)... our “real” priests must be ready to do what Fr. Miguel did... and what our country’s Catholic priests did during the Protestant Reformation…

Mary Herts England Jesuits of that time were still sane…

How sad Mexicans do not even know much about their sad history of those times!

Vladimír Repka Slovakia

SACRED MUSIC [Re: Moynihan Letter #59, Nov. 25: Sacred Music] Thank you for the link to a full version of “Miserere Mei” that doesn't toss a good part of the psalm! This version has been my go-to for years: Gregorio ALLEGRI - Miserere Mei, Deus (+ Lyrics / OXFORD, Choir of New College), at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s45X OnYOIw. I also have a neuro-muscular disease, and the “Miserere Mei” does calm the soul.

I was able to attend in person a performance at the Byrd Festival in Portland, perhaps a decade ago.

Again, thank you for including it.

Chant brought me to the Church, and it wasn’t till I found the TLM and Tradition that I truly felt at home, where the timelessness and unchanging nature of God is reflected in His body, the Church (per St Augustine).

Mark Gross mark.gross.op@gmail.com I enjoyed everything in this letter and agree with most of it but felt I should reply to this bit here by Aurelio Porfiri: “Now, I assure you, I’m trying to understand why it’s supposedly better for my soul to participate in liturgies with poorly sung music, organists who aren’t real organists, and

amateur Sunday singers, rather than attend a Mass with true liturgical music performed by well-trained singers. Believe me, I really try to convince myself that the ordinary liturgies, where parish priests involve just about anyone ‘as long as they don’t ask to be paid’ or are entirely incapable of understanding the role of music in the liturgy, are what I should embrace.”

I feel I must reply to this because I am a member of a choir that is made up of faithful parishioners who don’t sing for pay. This is at a Traditional Mass. We practice a lot and sing Gregorian chant and classic polyphony. Sometimes we have extra musicians who come for special occasions who are paid, but our usual singing is an activity we do as part of our prayer life, as opposed to a job to make money. I wouldn’t want it to be impossible to do this because I’m not a paid professional.

I used to sing in a church that had mostly paid singers and what I really found appalling is that none of them believed and most were open about their disrespect for believers. Many were openly into sexual deviancy too. Another church I used to attend sometimes actually had only such musicians, to the complete exclusion of parishioners or even any Catholics. I don’t think this situation is right at all.

I would hope there is a way to encourage faithful Catholics with musical talent to learn and perform the traditional music of the church. Young people should be taught music in Catholic schools and in parishes so they can become good choir singers.

Valeria valeriak76@hotmail.com

NEXT POPE? [Re: Moynihan Letter #63, Nov.26: Pizzaballa] Great letter on Patriarch Pierbatista Pizzaballa. I agree that he should be considered a serious candidate at the coming Conclave. If you go to the Latin Patriarchate’s website, LPJ.org, you can find Cardinal Pizzaballa’s meditations for each Sunday and most holy days; they are very calm and well thought through.

And, of course, if he is chosen to be the next Pope, the collection will provide insights into his thinking. And in general, there is much to read and see at the website.

Let us pray for him, that, if elected, he would make the sacrifice of leaving the Holy Land to reside in Rome, which may

not have the shooting and rockets, but has its own conflicts, as you know better than I. Sherwood Jones woodyjones@me.com

DIALOG WITH ISLAM [Re: Moynihan Letter #64, Nov. 27: Funeral] I thoroughly enjoy your updates and ITV magazine. However, you misapprehend Islam’s teachings on Mary and Jesus.

The Quran must not be read in isolation.

You must refer to the Hadiths and the Sunna of Muhammad for commentary on the Quran, and the sayings and doings of Muhammad, who is considered the perfect man. In the canonical hadiths, especially Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, Mary will ultimately be defiled by Muhammad; and Jesus — though regarded as a prophet — is seen as only a paver of the way for Muhammad, and even ridiculed for claiming to be God. The Church’s “dialogue” with Islam, whatever that can mean with a religion that admits of no compromise, is profoundly flawed and born out of a wrongly conceived “Nostra Aetate.” There can be political/diplomatic efforts with Islamic countries, but no theological dialogue because Christians are, to them, “dhimmi” — lesser people — and teach “shirk,” or heretical beliefs. Thus the whole notion of our common “Abrahamic faiths” or interreligious dialogue is foolish.

As Catholics we have a duty not to perpetuate grave misunderstandings about Islam. We owe it to Nigerian, Sudanese, and Pakistani martyrs to speak the truth about Islam because the lives of their peoples depend upon it.

Tim Lusch timlusch@yahoo.com

PAPACY COLLAPSE The notion/possibility of Benedict's “continuing a ‘Johannine dimension’ of the papacy even as he resigned the Petrine dimension” resurfaced for me recently. I was researching a possible prophetic intention by God to allow the fall — the collapse of the (petrine dimension of) the papacy, all starting with a strongly prophetic passage in Isaiah.

I published the exegesis in a blog essay on my website here: “The Church Will Remain; The Papacy Must Fall” (https://renewthechurch.com/2024/11/14/t he-church-will-remain-the-papacy-mustfall/).

Thomas Richard fidelis11111@yahoo.com

TIRED OF VIGANÒ [Re: Moynihan Letter #66, Dec. 3: Viganò] Like many, I am tired of reading about Viganò in your letters and in ITV. This man denigrates every Pope from John XXIII to Francis; he shows absolutely no respect for the position of Pope, or the successors of Peter, referring to them by their surnames (Roncalli, Bergoglio, etc.).

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Having read many books on Popes, particularly John XXIII, and his book, Journey of a Soul, I have no doubt about the his saintliness. Yet Viganò denigrates even him. The Church is going through a most difficult time, and we are all working to regenerate respect and encourage young people to return to the faith. Then we have an excommunicated former archbishop denigrating every Pope for the last 60 years, even questioning the papal election system. Is it any wonder why he was excommunicated?

Peter Le Grand Melbourne, Australia

THE THIRD SECRET The Carmelites at Sister Lucia's convent in Coimbra, Portugal wrote about the Third Secret, in their book A Pathway Under the Gaze of Mary, which is their memoir of Lucia. I picked up my copy at that convent in 2017, where my Dad, President Corazon Aquino, and I met privately with Sr. Lucia.

In the book, she disclosed to her fellow sisters that the tip of the flaming sword (seen in the opening image of the 3rd secret) touches the axis of the earth, which shudders in response. Then seas go beyond their limit (tsunamis?), the sky beyond its limit, taking in a whirl-wind house and people too numerous to count (hurricanes, tornadoes?), the mountains go beyond theirs (earthquakes?). Then Lucia hears a voice: “In time, one faith, one baptism, one Church-holy, Catholic and apostolic.” I can’t wait for this — the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Angelyn Dee angelyndee@hotmail.com

CONCERT FOR THE POOR What a great concept! But a scary resurrection statue... Thank you for writing all of this, but why couldn’t Francis just have said from the beginning, “This Concert with the Poor that you will perform today is a beautiful sign of synodal harmony…” and ended it all there. No Novus Ordo Mass, no church of synodality or his Mayan Mass. Just Concerts for the Poor.

Catherine Mary Polumbus c.polumbus@gmail.com “Resurrection” sculpture in the Paul VI Audience Hall: “Intended to capture the anguish of 20th century mankind living under the threat of nuclear war, La Res10

INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

urrezione depicts Jesus rising from a nuclear crater in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Fazzini summarized the action of the statue as “Christ rises from this crater torn open by a nuclear bomb; an atrocious explosion, a vortex of violence and energy.” robertm2@frontier.com

SPIRIT OF THE LITURGY [RE: Moynihan Letter #72, Dec. 15: Found It] So glad you found “the pages” you had been looking for. To me it basically says: “He who loses his life for my sake saves it.” Earlier this year, probably at the Holy Thursday service, it dawned on me that the “washing of the feet ceremony’ by Christ before He instituted the Eucharist, means that before each of us receives the Eucharist, either daily or on Sunday, it should be preceded by an act of sacrifice or service for our fellow man. Tom and I are so very thankful for our holy Catholic Faith, our beautiful family and our freedoms. God has truly blessed us in so many, many ways.

Susan tomstanzel@sbcglobal.net Let’s finish those things that God has put on our hearts. To date, I haven’t tried hard enough.

Charles Parlato parlato_charles@yahoo.com

express the desire to be one with the divinity or divinities to whom we offer the dedicated food. The Holy Sacrifice of Christ is the perfection of this truth. This sacrifice truly fulfills the fundamental human desire for unity with God. P. Bouyer’s insight accounts for both horizontal and vertical dimensions of the Eucharist.

On another subject: I pray for the Christians of Syria and Lebanon. They have suffered so much already from Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Assad regime in Syria. What will happen to them now that very strict Muslims are taking over Syria?

Fr. Edward Pepka eppepi@msn.com [Ed. note: Christians in Syria were protected and left to worship in peace under Assad. A radical Islamic regime may not be so friendly to Christians.]

Sorry, after all that has happened to the Church during the pontificate of Francis, I have no time for such a Church leader who promotes lesbianism and sodomy, and doubles down on saying all relig-ions lead to God, negating mar-tyrdom, the seed of the Faith.

Bill Neu chirho3@wi.rr.com

I have published two books on sacred liturgy leaning heavily on our dear, late Pope Benedict. My good friend Fr. Vincent Twomey was a student of Benedict and had written an interpretation of his work, “The Dynamics of Liturgy,” with wonderful endorsements by Catholic theologians Scott Hahn, Tracey Rowland, the late Cardinal Pell and others. I highly recommend it.

Mary Kearns marykeenankearns@gmail.com

I feel close to The Spirit of the Liturgy.

I was about to publish the Japanese edition when I had to close my publishing company. One of the most memorable comments in the book is Ratzinger saying something like “Faith without kneeling is sick at the core.” The Japanese Bishops decided long ago that we don’t kneel at Mass in Japan anymore, and the largest Jesuit Catholic Church in Tokyo, St. Ignatius Church, promptly threw out all the kneelers. Very sad indeed.

Hans Enderle h.r.enderle@gmail.com

Let me offer you an insight into the liturgy that I received from Pere Louis Bouyer, the best teacher I ever had. A sacrifice is a sacred meal. Some have tried to oppose sacrifice and meal. Pere Bouyer pointed out that this is a mistake. When we eat together — a rare event nowadays in the lives of many westerners both young and, like myself, old — we express the desire to be one with those with whom we eat.

When we humans conduct a sacrifice, we

I read this book when it first came out. I was in a state of shock over what had happened to the Church. The sickening Masses that demeaned God... well, the whole world knows how far worship has fallen. I picked up this book and literally tears streamed from my eyes. For a brief moment the hole in my heart had been filled.

Gerry Kuts gerrykuts@gmail.com

FRIENDS OF LEBANON I have not seen any mention of “Friends of Lebanon” for quite some time, and I’m wondering if the organization is still functioning.

The current turmoil in Lebanon is worse than ever. But with so many other developments in the Middle East, it seems to have faded from world news. Do you still have trustworthy contacts in the area and is there is a way to send support?

Fr. Daniel Healy frdaniel.healy@anawim.com

JOHN PAUL II TIMELINE I just happened to read your Letter #55 on John Paul II and the Shrine of Mentorella. Here is an excerpt [condensed –Ed.] from my chronology— Poland, Russia, and Our Lady of Czestochowa: October 13, 1978 On October 3, 1978, Cardinal Wojtyla arrives in Rome to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul and participate in the conclave. Wojtyla spends much time with his best friend in Rome, Polish Bishop Andrzej Maria Deskur, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. On Friday, October 13, the Fatima feast day of the miracle of the sun, the 54-year old Deskur suffered a massive stroke. Less than three years later, Wojtyla himself will be stricken on the other major Fatima feast day, May 13.

Immediately before the conclave, Wojtyla makes a pilgrimage alone to the Marian shrine of Mentorella, located on a mountain 55 kilometers southeast of Rome. Deskur had first introduced Wojtyla to this shrine, which contains an ancient wooden carving of the Madonna with the child Jesus on her arm. On leaving and hitchhikes back to Rome.

October 29, 1978 As Pope, Johjn Paul II’s first trip outside the Vatican is to visit Bishop Deskur at the Gemelli Polyclinic. Deskur states, “My mission now is to support the Holy Father with my suffering.” The Pope will attach spiritual significance to the close timing between his own election and the sufferings of Deskur, subsequently named a cardinal. The Pope’s first visit outside of Rome is to the mountain shrine of Mentorella on October 29, 1978.

It is a private visit with no official

photographers allowed. Here, the Pope prays before the statue of the Madonna, where he had prayed shortly before the conclave.

Peter Anderson Anderson 9200@comcast.net

Apostolic Church, not recognizing Vatican II or Bergoglio as legitimate.

If and when it ever occurs, recovering and restoring the true Church will be an enormous undertaking.

Victor Cameron vcamco6645@gmail.com

A READER’S POEM To Inside the Vatican Give it a try Features in there will open your eye!

With Dr. Moynihan, at the helm Items near or far fit the realm!

I learned about prelates and Hierarchy too – if there is something you favor, Name your flavor The Rome we all know, promoted by prayer Keeps us truly devoted by visits there I look forward to each issue, The captions enticing Can’t wait for the icing!

The layout is classic, in color well done!

A rainbow is missing — we could mention one.

A long time I’ve been a fan of your expertise Continue it all, thank you and please!

Mrs. Ellen Belderok St. Marys, Kansas If the Archbishop identifies so much with Lefebvre, he'll have a home with SSPX going forward. The SSPX probably “needs a “Pope” figure, and Viganò can then have the power and status it appears he's been craving. It’s a win win.

Mike Gutenkauf mikesdak@gmail.com It is tragic and a travesty, the persecution of Archbishop Viganò by the heretical apostate Vatican. I have thoughtfully read every word of Arch-bishop Vigano’s statement; thank you for providing the statement in its entirety.

Archbishop Viganò is the most faithful, holiest, courageous priest in the entire Hierarchy. He is the “sole voice” of the true, authentic, genuine One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ.

To Archbishop Viganò: I, and millions of others are currently, in essence, without a true legitimate One, Holy, Catholic,

Saw your podcast with Fr. Murr, discussing Archbishop Viganò. His words from day one were that he did not want to meet his Master not having spoken out.

We all must thank him for his courage, and you and Fr. Murr as well.

The TLM will be in the underground.

The FSSP will be next. What Fernandez will try with the SSPX should be interesting.

Louise Helder omiehelder@optonline.net My heart goes out to the Archbishop.

This is plain cruelty, that our Church would persecute this devout man. He is a bright light. He has seen through the mess, cover-ups, and corruption of this Pontificate and his cronies.

Brian Cissell Kamloops, BC, Canada Your 2021 interview with Archbishop Viganò (reposted on YouTube in July 2024 by the archbishop) was very good and I highly appreciate your professionalism in general. I hope it will be possible for you to make a follow-up on this interview; it opened many new insights for me...

Anton Roijakkers Poland Wow, I am in a bit of a state of shock after reading Viganò's statement.

I am not quite sure how I feel or what response is appropriate. I pray for the Spirit to also lead you, Dr. Bob, in a direction that promotes love and unity amid diversity of opinion.

While I believe Archbishop Viganò is not correct in his rejection, even condemnation, of Vatican II and Pope Francis, I also believe that both sides are not exhibiting Christian love.

I hope that this external judgment is also accompanied by back-channel outreach in a mode of love and care.

Bob Graf, D.Min. Springfield, Virginia, USA JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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LEAD STORY

the once and future president What might a trump presidency mean for catholics — and the World — this time around? n BY CNS/ ITV STAFF

President of United States Donald Trump with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, during Trump’s visit to the Vatican in May, 2017.

The relations between the Trump administration and the Holy See were very good in Trump’s first term, and they are expected to be so again in his next 2025-28 term (Vatican/Pool/Galazka)

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he Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said two days after the November 5 U.S. presidential election that his prayer for Donald J. Trump is that God would grant him wisdom “because that is the main virtue of those who govern according to the Bible.”

Asked by reporters November 7 about Trump’s victory and second term as president, Cardinal Parolin said, “I think he has to work above all to be president of the whole country and therefore overcome the polarization that has occurred and is very evident.”

“We also hope he can be a factor for détente and pacification in the current conflicts that are bloodying the world,” the cardinal said. “He said he will end the wars. Let’s hope so. But, of course, he doesn’t have a magic wand either.”

As for Trump’s repeated vow to with the problem and to solve it in a “launch the largest deportation pro- humane way.” gram in American history” and to seThe cardinal said he is not worverely limit all immigration, Cardi- ried that U.S.-Vatican relations will nal Parolin said the Vatican supports suffer under Trump’s leadership. a comprehensive and “wise poli“We maintained relations with cy toward migrants so that it the president during his previdoes not go to these exous term and will continue to tremes.” do so.”

Pope Francis has recog“As always,” he said, nized the right of nations to “there are elements that bring regulate immigration but also us closer and elements that difhas insisted those poliferentiate and distance cies promote an attius, and this will be an KENNEDY HALL tude of welcoming opportunity to exercise “T RUMP IS BECOMING people seeking safety dialogue and to try to and a better life, acfind more points of A POP-CULTURE companying them as consensus for the benePHENOMENON… they settle in and helpfit of the common good THE CHANGE IN ing them integrate. and world peace.”

CONVERSATION AND Cardinal Parolin told Opposition to aborreporters, “I think this THE RELIEF IN TENSION tion is one common poIS PALPABLE.” is the only way to deal sition, and Cardinal

12 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

Parolin said he hoped Trump would work on a broader understanding of the defense of human life and do so in a way that will bring people together “and not let it again become a policy of polarization and division.”

WHAT CATHOLICS MIGHT EXPECT

“Polarization and division” became veritable watchwords of the seemingly ubiquitous anti-Trump sentiment expressed throughout popular culture during the presidential campaign. So it is not surprising that Cardinal Parolin would bring them up as well.

What has been surprising, though, is the extent to which a significant amount of that sentiment has seemed to melt away so quickly since the defeat of Trump’s rival for the presidency, Kamala Harris.

In fact, as Catholic commentator Kennedy Hall noted just weeks after the election, “Trump is becoming a pop-culture phenomenon… the change in conversation and the relief in tension is palpable.”

And Catholics were sure to note that it was Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, who attended the historic reopening of the previously firewracked Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris in December.

Whatever level of popularity Trump is able to achieve, the fact remains that any American president wields a certain amount of power, for good or for ill, affecting countless human beings around the globe.

Catholics in particular possess a guide to what constitutes principles of good and of evil — the Church, Scripture and Catholic Tradition — even if particular policy decisions remain in the realm of prudential judgment. So how might a Donald Trump presidency comport with those principles?

That was the question we asked a selection of Catholic thinkers, with a view to their various areas of interest and expertise.

Their answers follow.m

WHAT DONALD TRUMP MUST UNDERSTAND ABOUT CHINA “DEMOCRACY” IS NOT THE VATICAN’S CRITERION FOR RELATING TO PEOPLES; NEITHER SHOULD IT BE TRUMP’S

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he recent American elections Believing that we are the good have once again brought busi- ones and others are bad simply benessman Donald J. Trump to the fore- cause they do not want to be like us front, as he garners significant sup- is a severe misunderstanding of who port around him. Naturally, one of the others truly are. Thinking of ourselves key topics of the electoral campaign as a singular model to be imitated was China — and how to relate to this closes us off to actually understandnation, which in recent decades has ing others. Only a religion, such as experienced enormous growth.

Catholicism, has the right to evangeMany see China as an opportunity, lize all peoples; a political system or while just as many others view it as a ideology does not have the same threat. Perhaps China is both. right.

Either way, the conversation about That being said, I believe that durit certainly cannot be sidelined. I be- ing his first term Donald Trump underlieve the first mistake to avoid in this stood something important: that with conversation, particularly prevalent in China, you must deal power to power, the United States, is interpreting strength against strength. The ChiChina through the lens of nese respect this approach far one’s own identity and more than they respect those worldview. While it is true who try to be condescending, that decisions are guided only to condemn themselves by the values underpinning to being outmaneuvered by one’s existence, we cannot the clever tactics shaped by assume we can understand the millennia of philosophy that others as if they were define the Middle Kingsimply “other versions of CHINA IS A GREAT dom. ourselves.” China is a Some see parallels beCIVILIZATION, great civilization, much tween this approach and older than the United that of the Vatican in reMUCH OLDER States, and attempting to cent years. Vatican Secreapply one’s own world- THAN THE UNITED tary of State Cardinal STATES view to such an ancient Pietro Parolin said in June and culturally unique 2024: “Certainly, the Pope people is a grave initial error. is willing to go to China; in fact, he deGeopolitical analyst Dario Fabbri, sires to go to China. However, it in his book Geopolitica Umana seems that, so far, the conditions for (Human Geopolitics), describes one this desire of the Pope to be fulfilled of the purposes of his work as follows: are not in place.”

“It rejects the recognition of the West This suggests that, despite an as the ultimate end of history, a stage agreement in place between the two that every community supposedly since 2018 (an agreement deemed dreams of reaching. Other peoples do less than ideal even by some cardinot intend to live like us. Not because nals close to the current Pontiff), a specific regime prevents them from progress has been extremely slow. embracing our values or because they The Vatican’s current policy appears have yet to understand their superior- to be: better a bad agreement than ity, but to preserve their own cultural none at all. But others argue: under uniqueness. This is a reversal of the the present circumstances, better no racism, more or less naïve, found in agreement than a bad one. every judgment of others based on Many pin their hopes on Donald the level of democracy or respect for Trump, believing that his approach human rights (of Franco-American ori- could lead to a candid and honest regin). It is impossible to judge other lationship with China. Of course, peoples by how democratic they are, there is always the risk that China as such a framework is unique to the could respond with a deterioration in Western world. This book is inspired relations, but given the current situaby the uncompromising need to adopt tion, it is a risk worth taking. the perspective of others.”

—Aurelio Porfiri JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 13

LEAD STORY

the once And future president

trump’s wAr on the AdministrAtive stAte mAtters for cAtholics A sociAl minority, pro-life, pro-fAmily cAtholics mAy now fortify protection from persecution — while they cAn n BY DARRICK TAYLOR*

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he consequences of a second Trump term as President could be widely transformative (though maybe not). One arena in which they could be, and which would have immediate consequences for Catholics, is how Trump plans to deal with the federal agencies that he believes sabotaged his first term.

Trump and his transition team have set their sights on every federal bureaucracy from the FBI to the Office of Budget and Management, aiming to reshape them as part of his larger agenda. What are his plans, and how will this affect American Catholics?

Trump promised to “drain the swamp” in his first term, but underestimated the opposition of civil service personnel to his agenda, both political appointees and, more notoriously, unelected bureaucrats — ones who often have protections that make them impossible to fire. In his first term Trump issued an executive order named “Schedule F” which sought to strip these protections so that he could remove them at will. Trump never had the chance to implement this policy but has promised to do so on Day One this time around.

This is a major problem for all modern democratic societies, as permanent bureaucracies make the functioning of mass societies like the United States possible. The temptation for unelected civil servants to impose their own agendas in place of the will of democratic majorities is nowhere more evident than in the issue of immigration, in which there are multiple actors such

Patel, a former Trump administration member rumored to be his nominee for FBI director, has raised fears among the rank and file in that organization.

These agencies have reason to be afraid. The FBI’s role in the “Russian Collusion” hoax that bedeviled his administration even before he took office and the Department of Justice’s handling of that affair form the basis for accusations that Trump’s opponents used “lawfare” against him and his supporters (“lawfare” being a term as NGOs with a vested interest in for using the legal system to thwarting the popular will (imdamage or delegitimize politimigration restrictions are facal opponents). vored by seventy percent or The prosecutions of the Janmore of the public, depending uary 6 “rioters” who protested on what surveys you consult). In Joe Biden’s election in this vein, Trump’s cre2020 are a prime examation of D.O.G.E. (DeDARRICK TAYLOR ple of this. The Biden partment of Government “CATHOLIC LEADERS Department of Justice Efficiency), spearheaded WOULD BE WISE has convicted over 1400 by the entrepreneur and TO TAKE ADVANTAGE and sentenced 460 of inventor Elon Musk, to these “January Sixers,” rid government of useOF TRUMP’S WAR ON many serving multi-year less waste could aid in THE ‘DEEP STATE’ sentences for nothing reducing the influence of TO PUSH FOR GREATER more than trespassing; federal bureaucrats.

PROTECTIONS FOR some have been subject Personnel is policy, and this is the main rea- RELIGIOUS FREEDOM...” to solitary confinement.

One even committed suison there has been so much wailing and gnashing of teeth cide awaiting trial.

Combined with the efforts of Deover Trump’s Cabinet picks. Trump wants loyal Cabinet members not only mocratic attorney generals in New to ensure he can enact his policies but York and Georgia to bring lawsuits to hold accountable agencies he be- against Trump during an election year, lieves undermined his first term. His there is ample evidence that Democrats pick for Attorney General, Matt Gaetz, abused state power for political ends, the former Florida Congressman from and holding the people who did these Florida, aroused such opposition that things accountable is high on Trump’s he withdrew his nomination. Kash agenda.

14 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

Young people during pro-life activities that included the March for Life pray the rosary in front of Planned Parenthood offices in Washington, DC. In the box, Joan Andrews Bell, 76, is one of eight pro-life protesters convicted of felony conspiracy to violate the FACE act restricting access of pro-lifers to abortion clinics. Bell is currently serving a two-year sentence; some of her co-defendants received sentences as long as five years

This war on the administrative state matters to American Catholics precisely because the Left has used the same “lawfare” tactics against Catholics and other Christians since the Obama administration. Most notoriously, numerous states sued in federal Court to strip religious exemptions for employers under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), notably the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The employers finally prevailed before the Supreme Court after eight years in 2020, but then in 2021 Joe Biden appointed Xavier Beccera to run the Department of Health and Human Services.

Beccera had sued the HHS under Donald Trump as attorney general of California, arguing against exemptions from the requirement that employers provide insurance coverage for sterilization, contraception, and abortifacient drugs.

This pattern of using the legal system to intimidate political opponents continued throughout the Biden administration, who notably prosecuted pro-life activists for violations of the FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act) for blocking entrances to abortion clinics. Congress passed that act in 1994, but 25% of all cases brought under the Act have occurred since 2022, according to Steve Crampton, an attorney with the Thomas More Society. This is not a coincidence: after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade in 2022, Biden’s attorney general Merrick Garland set up a task force in the Department of Justice, presumably to reassure its pro-abortion supporters that they would protect access to abortion now that it was no longer a constitutional right.

Since 2022, all but one FACE Act prosecution have resulted in convictions, and this includes several Catholics. Most notoriously, the longest sentence for any convicted prolife activist is that of Lauren Handy, a 31-year-old from Virginia sentenced to 57 months in prison. The lone exception is the infamous case of Mark

Houck, a Catholic pro-life activist who was arrested at gunpoint after an earlymorning FBI raid of his home in Pennsylvania in 2022, in front of his terrified family.

Houck’s case is instructive. An abortion clinic volunteer in Philadelphia initially lodged a complaint against Houck, but local authorities declined to prosecute. Garland’s DOJ then stepped in and dispatched the FBI

to arrest Houck. A jury acquitted Houck in February of 2023.

These acts against Catholics are part of the wider weaponization of the federal bureaucracy at the behest of left-wing activists. Under Obama, the IRS scrutinized the tax exempt status of conservative political groups (the IRS later apologized). More recently, the FBI investigated protesters of a local school board in Virginia and labeled them as “terrorists” after the National School Board Association sent a letter to Merrick Garland complaining of “threats” from disgruntled parents over school board policies. During the Biden administration, the FBI has taken to labelling conservative groups as “domestic violent extremists,” taking their cue from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a well-known left-wing activist outfit. Included in this list of “domestic extremists” are Latin Mass Catholics, whose parishes one FBI field office in Richmond, Virginia targeted for surveillance.

A second Trump administration that takes on the administrative state will benefit Catholics, who at times have

suffered from these abuses of power as they have put their faith in action. Reports indicate Trump will pardon “January 6th” protesters but also the prolife activists mentioned above, and removing the activist element from the federal bureaucracy is the most important thing he can do.

But there will be other ancillary benefits from Trump’s planned defenestration. Reports claim that DOGE will seek to eliminate government funding of NGOs, among them, Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest provider of abortions.

According to post-election surveys, Trump won the votes of Catholics by a healthy margin (56 to 43), and the open hostility the Democratic Party has shown towards Catholics recently partly explains this. This hostility is itself an expression of a broader hostility toward religion in general on the Left, which is likely to increase in the future.

Catholic teachings on the sanctity of life and sexual morality are minority positions in the U.S. now. America has become a firmly pro-choice country, as evidenced by the success of seven state initiatives to enshrine a right to abortion into their constitutions.

Those Catholics who believe all that the Church teaches are now a tiny minority — in other words, one that will be even more vulnerable to abuses of power in the future. The Democratic Party will not remain in disarray forever, and they will doubtless resort to the same tactics when they return to power at some point. Catholic leaders would be wise to take advantage of Trump’s war on the “Deep State” to push for greater protections for religious freedom and freedom of association against the depredations of government power, while they have the chance.

*Darrick Taylor earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of Kansas. He teaches at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida and produces a podcast,“Controversies in Church History.”m

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 15

LEAD STORY

The onCe and fuTure presidenT

a greaT eConomiC iniTiaTive?

Trump’s proposals and CaTholiC soCial TeaChing n BY MICHAEL D. GREANEY*

T

he first principle of ry management are typically Catholic social teaching 150% more profitable than is respect for the dignity otherwise comparable firms. and sovereignty of the human person under God. The prima2. EXTENSION ry goal is to provide an enviOF TAX CUTS ronment within which people Conventional wisdom can become virtuous. People dictates corporations must become virtuous (more fully retain earnings to invest in human) by forming habits of new capital and create jobs. doing good. As Pope St. John This, however, decreases dePaul II noted, this can best be mand by diverting consumpdone within “an economic systion income to investment. tem which recognizes the funAt the same time, job credamental and positive role of ation allegedly restores balThe Fourth Estate by Giuseppe Pellizza de Volpedo depicts workers business, the market, private ance by increasing demand marching with peaceful demands at the end of the 19th century property and the resulting rethrough additional wage in1. TARIFFS ON ALL IMPORTS sponsibility for the means of produccome. Lowering or eliminating corIn theory, imposing tariffs tion, as well as free human creativity in porate taxes presumably enthe economic sector.” (Centesimus raises the prices of foreign hances this process. goods and services, makes Annus, §42.)

Job creation does not, howPeople act virtuously by properly American companies more ever, restore balance, as workexercising the natural rights God vests competitive, creates jobs, and ers continue to produce goods in every human person, principally life, halts capital and job flight. for which there is no effective deTariffs, however, are a liberty, and private property. Of these, mand. This is why the most immediate is private property, two-edged sword, in addi- MICHAEL D. GREANEY Keynes advocated proas John Paul II implied. This is because tion to being contrary to duction of useless goods “HOW CLOSELY DO power is essential to the exercise of free market principles. to create surpluses, and PRESIDENT-ELECT Other countries retaliate, rights, and power follows property. inflationary government TRUMP’S ECONOMIC How closely, however, do President- impose their own tariffs, debt to increase effective elect Trump’s economic proposals con- and make U.S. goods PROPOSALS CONFORM TO demand and clear the form to the first principle of Catholic more expensive overseas. THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF market of such useless, social teaching, and would they create Consequently, tariff wars sometimes harmful prodCATHOLIC SOCIAL often have little effect exan environment encouraging virtue? ucts to generate investFirst, a caveat. Specific economic cept raising prices for TEACHING, AND WOULD ment savings for corporaTHEY CREATE AN proposals can be consistent with consumers. This reduces tions. The situation is agCatholic social teaching. That determi- demand and endangers gravated because many ENVIRONMENT nation, however, is a matter of human the jobs tariffs are intend- ENCOURAGING VIRTUE?” corporations today are judgment and is not infallible. For ex- ed to save. Imposing taroften not creating jobs ample, that workers be compensated iffs does not appear to be consistent with their earnings but purchasing with Catholic social teaching. justly is an infallible teaching, but cirlabor-displacing technologies.

It would be better to make U.S. comcumstance and prudence determine the As Leo XIII suggested, it would be form and matter of compensation, e.g., panies more competitive by transform- better for workers to own the machines wages, profit sharing, co-ownership, or ing the wage system into an ownership displacing them and replace labor incombinations thereof. It is therefore system as recommended by Pope Leo come with capital income. Workers open to debate whether a specific pro- XIII in Rerum Novarum. Studies by the could purchase the companies employposal is consistent with Catholic social National Center for Employee Ownering them, paying for them with the futeaching. With that in mind, we can ship have shown worker-owned compa- ture earnings of the companies themnies with profit-sharing and participato- selves. This is the method used by look at Trump’s economic plans: 16 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

“The first principle of Catholic social teaching is respect for the dignity and sovereignty of the human person under God.” Popes who explicitly supported this principle in their teaching were: Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum, Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno and Pope St. John Paul II in Centesimus Annus

Louis Kelso’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), which has turned millions of workers into owners without cutting pay or benefits or using workers’ savings.

3. MORE CONTROL OVER FEDERAL RESERVE The federal government already has de facto full control over the Federal Reserve under the Banking Act of 1935 which gave the president power to remove the chairman at will.

This is not consistent with Catholic social teaching. Government control of the central bank creates a “dictatorship” which “regulates the flow . . . of the life-blood whereby the entire economic system lives, and [has] so firmly in their grasp the soul, as it were, of economic life that no one can breathe against their will.” (Pope Pius XI – Quadrageismo Anno, §106.)

It would be better to have all citizens vote on qualified candidates for regional Federal Reserve presidents who could then be held accountable for monetary policy. The Federal Reserve should return it to its original purpose of providing an elastic, private sector asset-backed reserve currency and liquidity for agriculture, industry, and commerce.

Monetization of government debt should be phased out and money issued in ways which create new owners.

4. DEPORTATIONS TO LOWER HOUSING PRICES Deportation to lower housing prices does not appear to be consistent with Catholic social teaching, nor would it lower housing prices. The “ghost cities” of China and thousands of vacant units in Poland during an affordable housing shortage prove this point.

Deporting illegal immigrants may be consistent with Catholic social teaching but creates a tension between rule of law and respecting human dignity. It would be better to help people reform the system in their own countries, so they do not choose to immigrate illegally.

5. NO SOCIAL SECURITY OR MEDICARE CUTS This would appear to be consistent in theory with Catholic social teaching, but as a practical matter the system is unsustainable and creates dependency on government. A condition of dependency is not consistent with human dignity and is therefore contrary to Catholic teaching. It would be better to make the system completely need-based to provide a social safety net and make it possible for people to meet their own retirement needs through their own efforts as Leo XIII recommended.

6. REDUCE STUDENT LOAN RELIEF PROGRAMS This would appear to be consistent with Catholic social teaching, as there is no reason taxpayers should pay for another’s voluntary expense. To resolve this problem, reforms such as the Economic Democracy Act (below) could be adopted, enhancing personal income and allowing people to meet health and education needs from their own resources without loans.

7. CUT ENERGY COSTS BY HALF Expanding exploitation of domestic fossil fuels may be consistent with Catholic social teaching, but is increasingly expensive, leading to higher, not lower costs. The monopoly position of energy providers is also problematical. Development of alternative energy sources, such as fusion power or hydrogen fuel, might be more prudent, as well as lowering prices by increasing competition.

Overall, while they do not appear to be consistent with Catholic social teaching, Trump’s economic plans are no worse than anyone else’s. He proposes

differences in degree, not in kind. The problem is in the flawed economic paradigm within which he and others are operating.

An alternative respecting human dignity and which is consistent with free market principles is the proposed Economic Democracy Act of the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice.

Inspired in part by Rerum Novarum, the Economic Democracy Act seeks to make it possible for every citizen to own a capital stake sufficient to generate an adequate and secure income.

As Leo XIII said, “The law . . . should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners.”

(Rerum Novarum, §46.) Monetary and tax reforms would allow ordinary people to purchase newly formed assets on credit and pay for the assets with the profits of the assets themselves, thereafter, using the income for consumption.

Would Trump react positively to the Economic Democracy Act? Possibly.

As Dr. Norman Bailey, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director of International Economic Affairs during Reagan’s administration has pointed out, Trump likes to stir things up. The proposal is so innovative Trump might see it as his opportunity to make his mark on history. The Economic Democracy Act has the potential to surpass even Abraham Lincoln’s 1862 Homestead Act in scope, which President Kennedy described as “the single greatest stimulus to national development ever enacted.”

*Michael D. Greaney, as Director of Research for the Center for Economic and Social Justice in Arlington, Virginia, helped present a 1992 Vatican seminar on what became Curing World Poverty: The New Role of Property (1994).

In addition to numerous other books and articles, he authored Ten Battles Every Catholic Should Know (2018) and is co-author of The Greater Reset (2022).m

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 17

LEAD STORY

The once and fuTure presidenT

should caTholics supporT presidenT-elecT Trump?

The elecTion manifesTed deep division among caTholics.

BuT is a Trump presidency really incompaTiBle wiTh caTholic ideals? n BY REGIS MARTIN

The President of United States, Donald Trump, meets Pope Francis in the Private Library of the Apostolic Palace in May, 2017, while visiting the Vatican during Trump’s first term. Despite differences between them on topics like illegal immigration, Trump policies tend to follow a general bias toward the traditional morality, peace and religious freedom also championed by the Pope (Vatican/Pool/Galazka)

W

hat are Catholics to make of Donald Trump? Now that the election is over and a second Trump presidency looms before us—made possible in no small part by great numbers of Catholic voters—will we continue to support him?

Since self-identified Catholic voters split 56 to 41 in favor of Trump, it seems likely that the enthusiasm will continue on at least into the first months of the new year.

But should it? For some Catholics, the real question is not whether there will be support for Trump in the future, but whether Catholics ought to have been supporting him at all. And while the number of the disaffected remains

statistically slight, there are many noise makers among them, whose voices have been shrill and strong, joining the echo chambers of the hard hysterical left. That their views appear to be almost indistinguishable from the usual secular suspects, where insanity increasingly reigns, does not inspire a great deal of confidence in their capacity to discern the signs of the times.

Take, for instance, the folks over at AMERICA magazine, the Jesuit flagship, where the flame of protest burns brightest.

And while it was once a place where one could safely go, know-

18 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

ing that the tablets of truth were reliably being kept in good working order, that is no longer the case. In fact, as I write this, I’m looking over the latest issue, the post-election edition, in which we are reminded that, yes, we are people of hope and so we must not despair, but in the meantime let us continue our bitter lamentation lest anyone forget how perfectly odious Donald Trump truly is, and that it remains morally unthinkable that a man so vile should have been re-elected to run the country.

Notice that it is not a matter of mere policy differences that drive their editorial engine. Were it only that then the two sides could plausibly find common ground on which to work out those differences. But

Although Melania Trump, wife of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, is a baptized Catholic, she has publicly stated that she supports abortion, something official Church teaching opposes. Here she places flowers at a statue of Mary as she visits Bambino Gesù Hospital in Rome May 24, 2017 (Photo: Bambino Gesù Hospital)

with Trump, alas, there is nothing to state of his own soul, which I leave work out, no room for decent and to God to sort out, I have not found godly men to maneuver. The dis- anything remotely swinish about his agreements are far too intractable policies. Indeed, the sum total of the and profound, involving such impu- good he has already done, plus the tations of benightedness and bigotry good he promises to do, fill me with that no compromise appears possi- great hope for our nation’s future. ble. Any more than one could coun- Not divine hope, mind you, which tenance an exchange with Adolph only God can give — and, praise Hitler on just how many Jews he God, I’ve managed to hang on to proposed to liquidate. One does not argue with fascism, one wages war against it. It is a fight to the death.

In short, Donald Trump is totally beyond the pale and people who voted for him are, if not morally compromised themselves, completely misinformed about the dangerous threat he poses to the nation and the world. Period. Full stop.

Not surprisingly, I reject that reading. And I do so, not simply as enough of it to survive four years of an American patriot, who loves his Joe Biden. But the human variety, country and longs to see it restored which — one would have to be an to greatness, but as a believing imbecile not to notice — has Roman Catholic, for whom taken a steep nosedive for the centerpiece of my faith many of us during the last and life is Jesus Christ and four disastrous years.

His Bride, the Church. And In the meantime, I am not thus, for all that Catholics of unmindful of the Scriptural a certain mindset will admonition: Put not vehemently object to your trust in earthly REGIS MARTIN my saying so, I see princes. Or that only “... THE BEST AND very little incompatiGod can be “loved bility between the two. MOST BENEFICIAL THING through and through,” In fact, why would any THAT HAS HAPPENED TO to quote that wise and Catholic not welcome brave Catholic statesTHIS COUNTRY IN fewer taxes, safer man, Sir Thomas streets, a secure bor- RECENT WEEKS IS THE More, who spoke it to der, less government ELECTION OF DONALD his grieving daughter TRUMP.” interference, lower while awaiting death prices at the gas pump at the hands of a true and the grocery store? Not to men- tyrant, Henry VIII. But I am not a tion a little more stability around the fideist, who takes no account of the globe? On what planet are we liv- counsels of prudence, rooted in ing where benefits like these are right reason and respect for the seen as inconsequential owing to order of nature. And what these the guy delivering them? counsels tell me is that the best and For the purists out there, those most beneficial thing that has hapfastidious few who will not cast pened to this country in recent their pearls before swine, let me as- weeks is the election of Donald sure you that, prescinding from the Trump. We Catholics, along with

everyone else, will have much to be grateful for in the next four years.

And if you like, you may throw in another eight, on the happy assumption that J.D. Vance will follow suit.

So, let it be MORNING IN AMERICA for as long as we can keep it.

Still, the horizon is not entirely without clouds — witness the terrible blight of abortion, which continues to defile our nation’s bright promise of liberty and justice for all. But here, too, one must be a realist. And while I cherish the hope that someday all children will be seen as a blessing — including the ones we cannot see owing to the disguise they wear in their mother’s womb — even after a half-century’s struggle to secure constitutional protection for every child God sends us, that time has not yet come to pass.

This is, without question, a terrible stain on our nation’s character; it is a sin for which we are all culpable, some more than others. But, again, I leave to God and His Angels to sort out the iniquities surrounding the continuing slaughter of the unborn. However, it must be said that no President has done more to hasten the day when unborn babies will be allowed to be born than Donald Trump, thanks to a series of splendid appointments to the Supreme Court.

To be sure, so much more needs to be done, including the conversion of a culture fixated upon death. But that will be the result, not so much of politics, but of prayer, and of giving witness to the joy of life, of openness to the gift which is life.

And here is where we Catholics ought to be at our best, with or without Donald Trump.

*Regis Martin, Ph.D., is Professor

of Theology and Faculty Associate with the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.m

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 19

NEWS

méxico - vatican aPProvEs “mayan mass”

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he Vatican has approved the Mayan rite of the Mass which will involve ritual dancing, women taking the place of the priest in incensing the altar, and lay leadership of certain prayers in the liturgy.

The announcement came via Cardinal Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, who is bishop emeritus of the San Cristobal de Las Casas diocese in Mexico and one of the leading promoters of this new rite.

Writing in his weekly column November 13, Arizmendi joyfully revealed that the Vatican’s Dicastery

for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has “with the authority of the Pope, on November 8 of this year, granted the long-awaited

EcumEnism - Francis ProPosEs Joint catholicorthodox 1700th annivErsary cElEbration oF nicEa

baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” Francis wrote in his message.

Reflecting on six decades of Catholic-Orthodox dialogue while look-

ing ahead to future possibilities for unity, the Pope acknowledged the progress made since Vatican II’s Unitatis Redintegratio decree marked the Catholic Church’s official entry into the ecumenical movement 60 years ago.

In a pointed observation about contemporary global tensions, the pontiff connected ecumenical efforts to peacebuilding.

“The fraternity lived and the witness given by Christians will also be a message for our world plagued by war and violence,” he wrote, specifically mentioning Ukraine, Palestine, Israel and Lebanon.

The Pope also highlighted the recent participation of Orthodox representatives in October’s Synod on Synodality.

(Catholic World Report)

Capuchin Friar Minor who had been appointed June 23, 1980 by Pope Saint John Paul II. The appointment raised red flags in some circles of the Church when it was noted that earlier in 2024, Fr. Passolini had addressed a conference on “Homosexuality and Christian Life,” in which he opined that the Bible might contain some “form of approval of homosexual relationships.”

In the talk, he went on to say, “The great story that is often invoked as a story of homosexual love is the one between Jonathan and David…

Surely there were stories of homosexual love at the time, this is evident, so nothing prevents us from being able to think it, from being able to imagine it.”

“Another reference,” he continued, “this one perhaps more known to all, is the famous Roman centurion: do you remember the one who goes to Jesus?...Well, this story begins like this: ‘A centurion had his sick servant, and that servant was very dear to him…’ But why was he so dear to him?

Did he work well? Maybe he worked more than the others? We could also think so, or, as some say, maybe there was a relationship between the two of them.” (ITV staff)

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ope Francis has proposed celebrating the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea together with Orthodox leaders, in a personal letter to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.

The letter, published by the Vatican November 30, was delivered by Cardinal Kurt Koch — who heads the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity — during a visit to Istanbul for the patronal feast of the Orthodox Church.

“The now imminent 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea will be another opportunity to bear witness to the growing communion that already exists among all who are

vatican - nEw PrEachEr oF PaPal housEhold says biblE may aPProvE homosExuality

V

reported News atican November 9 that “The Holy Father has appointed as Preacher of the Papal Household the Reverend Father Roberto Pasolini, OFM Cap., Professor of Biblical Exegesis at the Theological Faculty of Northern Italy in Milan.”

The new Preacher replaces Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, also a

20

recognitio of some liturgical adaptations for the celebration of the Holy Mass in the Tseltal, Tsotsil, Ch’ol, Tojolabal, and Zoque ethnic groups of the diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas.”

Echoing Pope Francis on the topic, Arizmendi opined that such rites “are a form of incarnation of faith in expressions that are very specific to these cultures. We did not invent them, but we adopted what they live and which is in accordance with the Roman rite.”

“If there are deviations in some indigenous customs, we can help them to reach their fullness in Christ and in his Church,” he said. (LifeSiteNews)

INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

china - new BishoP Pushes the “gosPeL oF Xi”

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n July 15, the Holy See announced Pope Francis had appointed Joseph Shen Bin as Bishop of Shanghai, China, transferring him from Haimen. Notably, Shen Bin had already been installed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over three months earlier. The Vatican stated it had “rectified a canonical irregularity” for “the greater good of the diocese.”

Bishop Shen Bin then went to Rome in May 2024, to give a speech at a conference also attended by Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, proclaiming that religious liberty reigns in China.

As for his Shanghai Diocese, expectations were focused on the seminar organized from November 4 to 6, 2024, about “Sinicization of Religion in Shanghai,” immediately after the

Vatican’s uncertain announcement of LGBTQ pilgrimage for Jubilee

Vatican Synod of October.

Catholics who attended the seminar told Bitter Winter (an online magazine on religious liberty and human rights in China) that the Bishop did not discuss at all the Vatican Synod nor Pope Francis and his recent documents. On the contrary, he focused on “Sinicization,” which, as it is now clear, does not mean adapting religion to Chinese customs but to the CCP’s ideology.

France - Vatican Ban oF Latin Mass at annuaL chartres PiLgriMage?

“E

veryone is welcome. They are on the calendar like many others,” said the Vatican, through Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the organizer of the Holy Year, confirming the historic step of a LGBTQ 2025 Jubilee pilgrimage. For the first time, a specific event will be dedicated to Catholic homosexuals. The initiative was launched by the Tent of Jonathan, founded in 2018, which says that its purpose is to “help society and the Churches to open up to the understanding and reception of homosexual people.”

The September 6, 2025 event has been blessed not only by the Pope but also by the president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, according to reports. But as of December 10, the LGBTQ pilgrimage was quietly removed from the official schedule after much attention in the media.

A week later, the Vatican said the removal was only due to lack of needed information, and was temporary. (ITV staff/Il Messagero)

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he Vatican could consider “banning certain celebrations” of the Latin Mass at the 2025 Chartres pilgrimage, an annual event on Pentecost weekend for those dedicated to the Tridentine Mass, the newspaper of France’s bishops reports.

“According to consistent information in Paris and Rome, the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline

The conference encouraged the clergy of Shanghai to study and spread through lay gatherings and sermons the documents of “the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CCP Central Committee” and “General Secretary Xi Jinping’s thought on Sinicization of religion” (again, no mention of the Vatican’s documents or the Pope’s encyclicals).

The Bishop also emphasized the need for stricter cooperation with the United Front Work Department, which is in charge of controlling and supervising “official” religion in China.

The recently-installed Bishop Shen Bin is promising to bring the good news of the Gospel to Catholics in Shanghai. But it is the Gospel of Xi Jinping. (BitterWinter.org) of the Sacraments believes that this annual gathering raises questions of compliance with the rules in force on the Mass in the ancient rite,” La Croix reports. “And would indeed consider banning certain celebrations.”

The newspaper said that the 2025 event, which the Notre-Dame de Chrétienté association will hold June 7 to 9, should again attract thousands of pilgrims to Chartres Cathedral. The outlet also reported that British Cardinal Arthur Roche, the Dicastery’s prefect, “believes that the organizers of the event are not respecting the norms.”

In 2024, the 60-mile Chartres pilgrimage garnered record numbers of attendees, with between 18,00020,000 pilgrims, according to the Catholic Herald UK. The pilgrimage also has a notably young demographic: the average age of the pilgrims is 23.

“But the question remains: when the spirit of the age is so set against everything this pilgrimage stands for, why is it so popular?” Paul Sapper wrote for the Catholic Herald. “As a 26-year-old Catholic man, I attended the pilgrimage precisely for this reason — it offers everything the world is lacking and badly needs.”

(CatholicVote.org)

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 21

It was a difficult year. Around the world there were wars and rumors of wars; brutally contentious elections; assassinations and assassination attempts; deadly storms, earthquakes and mudslides. Conflicts within the Church — excommunications, criminal trials, continuing abuse allegations and the tug-ofwar between modernism and tradition — were sometimes just as painful.

Yet the Church is — in a way the world is not — consecrated and filled with grace by her divine Spouse, the Lord Jesus, who ever and

always “makes all things new.”

The grace and peace of Christ is available to all Christians of good will, and in 2024, as in every year, it was the antidote to the sickness of our modern age, and the leavening of our lives otherwise weighed down by the consequences of sin.

Jesus did indeed, in 2024, somehow renew us and bring us joy and strength, and one way He accomplished this was through the lives and testimonies of His people. We have chosen ten of them for your reflection here.

Mosaic of the Altar of the Navicella in St. Peter’s Basilica, from a painting by Giovanni Lanfranco

TOP TEN PEOPLE 2024 With the aid, and in the hope, of Christ, believers can overcome any difficulties...

Here are the testimonies of ten of His people 22 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, OFM Cap. of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Fighting WesteRn iMpeRiAlisM – CultuRAl AnD FinAnCiAl

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ridolin Ambongo Besungu, OFM Cap., 64, the Congolese cardinal who serves on Pope Francis’ “C-9” council of advisors, has been Archbishop of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, since 2018.

Cardinal Ambongo served as a parish priest and a professor before being named a bishop in 2004, and has since been a leading voice among his conferees for national peace. Pope Francis raised him to the rank of cardinal in 2019, the same year he became president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM).

A defender of traditional morality as well as a foe of the ruinous exploitation of the African continent by foreign financial interests, Cardinal Ambongo’s social crusading seems to echo the Pope’s social concerns, even while his doctrinal clarity does not.

In fact, earlier in 2024, Cardinal Ambongo made headlines with his rapid and emphatic reaction to the Vatican’s document Fiducia Supplicans, which directed Catholic clergy to impart blessings to same-sex couples.

The Cardinal, whose country is 52% Catholic and has, like much of Africa, a strong cultural distaste for homosexuality, led the African resistance to Fiducia by signing a January 11, 2024 SECAM statement saying the member bishops “do not consider it appropriate for Africa to bless homosexual unions or same-sex couples because, in our context, this would cause confusion and would be in direct contradiction to the cultural ethos of African communities.”

What Fiducia Supplicans proposes is “a kind of Western imperialism, but on a cultural level,” he said, adding that “practices that are considered normal in the West were imposed on other peoples.”

Later that month, Cardinal Amongo told a gathering of the Christian Family movement in Kinshasa, “As the West does not like children, they [Westerners] want to attack the basic cell of humanity, which is the family…

“Little by little, they will disappear,” said the Congolese cardinal, adding, “We wish them a good demise,” eliciting laughter from his audience.

Apparently chiding the Vatican for its lack of the much-touted “synodality” in the manner of Fiducia’s implementation, Cardinal Ambongo said in a March 2024 interview “I believe that if we had consulted

beforehand, if we had analyzed Fiducia Supplicans in the spirit of synodality, perhaps we could have presented it in a different form and with a different tone, taking into account the sensitivities of others.”

Where the cardinal and the Pope seem to agree, however, is on the need to end the terrible exploitation of Africa’s natural resources by foreign interests while leaving Africa’s people mired in poverty and bloodshed.

In October, 2024 Cardinal Ambongo hosted a seminar on the topic of the “modern martyrs” who “suffer and die because of the exploitation of mineral resources in Africa.”

“The extraction and transport of these minerals dispossess and displaces families from their lands,” he said. In addition, “there is often the violent demolition of homes, water contamination, air pollution with heavy metals in particular, the release of cyanide into nature, with serious damage to agricultural, livestock or fishing yields.

“Thus, the possible macroeconomic growth that this exploitation brings does not improve in most cases the standard of living of the communities concerned. Per capita income becomes significantly lower, while only a small group of people get rich.

“That’s not all…The exploitation of critical minerals (tin, tantalum, gold, tungsten, etc.) and minerals of the energy transition (lithium, nickel, cobalt, etc.) gives rise to armed conflicts in several African regions.”

“Indeed, under the instigation of Multinationals, armed groups, locked in a vicious circle of financial logic, are fighting in several African regions. The war allows the control of the different mines; at the same time the sale of minerals is used to finance the war.

This export increases the risk of war, because it supports the financing of armed groups, increases the corruption of the administration, feeds the secessionist sentiment of the populations who feel abandoned and makes the indigenous population vulnerable. All this mechanism aims to create a generalized chaos which especially prevents the development of the population directly concerned.”

In the face of this Illegal exploitation and disregard for human well-being, “the Church cannot remain silent,” he declared.m JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 23

Bishop Thomas paprocki of springfield, illinois, usa

The “holy Goalie” speaks ouT for CaTholiC TradiTion

S

pringfield, Illinois does not have quite the cachet that large American cities like New York and Chicago — and their Catholic archbishops — possess in the media.

But that isn’t stopping Springfield’s bishop, Thomas Paprocki, 72, from entering into the national fray over issues impacting Catholics.

Nicknamed the “Holy Goalie” in the press for his lifelong love of hockey, Bishop Paprocki is the third of nine children and a native of Chicago, Illinois. He’s been an active voice of Catholic tradition since his appointment as Bishop of Springfield in 2010, when he immediately organized a conference on exorcism. In 2012 he was appointed as one of a three-bishop team to carry out a multi-year investigation of the progressive Leadership Council of Women Religious.

The same year, in response to concerns over government threats against religiously-informed acts of conscience, the American bishops instituted an annual two-week campaign promoting religious liberty. Bishop Paprocki coined the term “Fortnight for Freedom” as the name for the continuing campaign, which celebrates saints who died for their faith, like Thomas More.

After the release of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s controversial document Traditionis Custodes in 2021, Bishop Paprocki again garnered media attention for his defense of the Traditional Latin Mass. Two months after its publication, the Vatican’s liturgy head, Archbishop Arthur Roche, issued a “rescript,” stating that the local bishop no longer possessed the authority to grant dispensations from the prohibition of the TLM in his own diocese.

Because many dioceses already had thriving Latin Mass communities within parishes, some bishops, like Bishop Paprocki, offered dispensations, which had allowed those Masses to continue as before.

Bishop Paprocki publicly questioned the wisdom of the instructions, telling EWTN’s news anchor Raymond Arroyo that such judgments are best made by the bishop based on the principle of subsidiarity, which maintains that “decisions should be made at a local level” unless 24 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

there’s an overriding reason.

“I’ve yet to see what that reason would be” in the case of these dispensations, Paprocki said.

Instead, he said, “you’ve got a prefect in Rome basically making decisions about what’s happening in the local diocese and the local parishes.”

In 2024, Bishop Paprocki made the news by calling out Catholic politicians’ support of abortion and repelling criticism of corporately saying the “St. Michael the Archangel prayer” at the end of Mass.

In April, 2024, President Joe Biden, a Catholic, made the sign of the cross at an abortion rally in Florida, in apparent disapproval of Governor Ron De Santis’ efforts to enact new pro-life legislation.

Soon after, Bishop Paprocki criticized Biden’s action on both a YouTube video and his diocesan podcast, saying: “Making the sign of the cross is one of the most profound gestures a Catholic can make in showing reverence for Christ’s death on the cross and belief in the Holy Trinity.”

He explained that “mocking the gesture” of the sign of the cross was wrong because Biden was doing it “to promote something that was evil, and that’s what makes it sacrilegious.”

In October, Bishop Paprocki responded to a letter in the Wall Street Journal from a Cleveland priest objecting to the praying of the St. Michael prayer at the end of Mass, saying that the Vatican “suppressed this practice in 1964 because the prayer interferes with the integrity of the Mass.”

“The liturgy ends when the celebrant says, ‘Go forth, the Mass is ended,’ and the people reply, ‘Thanks be to God,’” said Bishop Paprocki. “The prayer, then, is recited after Mass, which the priest and people are free to do…we pray it will help to invoke the intercession of St. Michael to defend us in our spiritual battles.”

Following an 1884 vision of Satan “running riot” on the planet, Pope Leo XIII composed three prayers to St. Michael, the briefest of which he commanded should be prayed at the end of every Mass.m

Bishop rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, nicaragua

DefenDing the ChurCh “with the Courage of the glorious anD resurreCteD Christ”

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he name Daniel Ortega evokes, for those old enough to remember, images of Nicaragua’s Marxist “Sandinista” president engaged in a battle of wits — and weapons — against American President Ronald Reagan and the CIA-funded “Contras.” Ortega, first elected in 1985, then voted out in 1990, made several subsequent electoral runs. He finally succeeded in 2007 — as a kinder, gentler Ortega. He appeared more sympathetic to free-market principles and friendlier to the Catholic Church.

But soon enough, the old Ortega re-emerged. Fast forward to 2018, when Nicaraguan citizens began massively protesting his administration’s corruption, incompetence and sham elections. Ortega responded by seizing control of all branches of government, jailing critics and restricting religious freedom.

One of the churchmen who would not be muzzled by the government was the bishop of Matagalpa, Bishop Rolando Álvarez, 58, who criticized Ortega’s human and civil rights violations, in and out of the pulpit.

In June 2018, masked men armed with machetes arrived at the Matagalpa diocesan chancery, stealing, vandalizing and threatening those present (Bishop Álvarez was in Rome to brief the Pope on his country’s situation at the time).

In July 2019, during a pastoral visit in his diocese, he was warned by locals that he was under surveillance by armed men.

Despite the harassment, Bishop Álvarez continued his pastoral work and in February 2020 he published an ethical decalogue for politicians, with a view to the following year’s elections.

In June 2021, he called for tolerance, since “Nicaragua is experiencing serious and complex conflicts.” By then, the Nicaraguan police had confined four presidential candidates to their homes.

In 2022, Bishop Álvarez became a prime government target when he criticized President Ortega’s regime for jailing priests and seminarians, exiling an archbishop and 18 sisters of the Missionaries of Charity, and closing church radio stations. Police began to shadow him constantly; in May, he announced a hunger strike to protest government harassment of him and members of his family.

On August 4, Álvarez came out of his residence hold-

ing the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance in response to the police preventing his priests and collaborators from entering to celebrate Mass in the chancery chapel.

The Bishop came out and told them he would be “frightened and on my knees only before God.” Riot police stood outside the door and kept them confined in the residence until August 19, when police broke into the chancery and took Bishop Álvarez away, along with priests, seminarians, and a layman.

The bishop was subsequently declared a traitor, stripped of his citizenship and sentenced to 26 years in prison.

Then, on February 9, 2023, Bishop Álvarez was freed along with a group of 222 political prisoners taken to the Managua airport to board a flight to the U.S. On the aircraft steps, he stopped, turned around and declared, “Let the others be free. I will endure their punishment.” Ortega called his act “an absurd thing.”

In the US, prominent voices such as Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, a Catholic, praised Bishop Álvarez. Smith told a Congressional hearing that “Bishop Álvarez is an innocent man who endures unspeakable suffering. His life and ministry have been an inspiring example of compassion, kindness, integrity, and selfless service.”

Meanwhile, Ortega’s government continued to harass the Catholic Church, closing institutions and imprisoning more priests, even prohibiting requests for prayers for Álvarez.

Finally, on January 14, 2024, Álvarez was deported to the Vatican, along with another bishop, 15 priests and two seminarians.

Bishop Álvarez was subsequently tapped by Pope Francis to participate in the second session of the Synod on Synodality in October-November 2024.

In a video posted while he was under house arrest in 2023, Bishop Álvarez offered a message of love that Catholics everywhere need to hear — especially as storm clouds of social persecution and religious intolerance gather, even in the “democratic” West: “We have to respond to hate with love, despair with hope, and fear with the strength and courage given to us by the glorious and resurrected Christ.”

“We have the joy of the one who tells us, ‘Courage, don’t be afraid,’” said the bishop. “Remember, beloved brothers and sisters, fear paralyzes.”m JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 25

Sr. paula Kwandao phonprasertruska head of talitha Kum Asia

“A tool to bring the love of god to people”

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etween 2008 and 2019, the number of human trafof the vulnerable. ficking victims identified worldwide more than Sr. Paula described her work in Thailand: “We quadrupled, from around 30,000 to nearly 120,000. work with different people such as ethnic groups livWhen Covid arrived, with its consequent travel ing in the borderland, in the high mountains. The difrestrictions, these numbers fell, but they are now back ficulty of the journey makes them appreciate and feel to pre-pandemic levels — and these numbers repreloved when we visit them. Their smiling faces, the sent only the victims who have been identified; the warm greeting, and pure hearts. These things drive me real numbers could be many times these. to be more dedicated to my work, to make sure they As Pope John Paul II are safe, and have sustainsaid in 2002, human trafable economic developficking is “a shocking ment going forward.” offense against human Not only care for vicdignity and a grave violatims, but prevention, is a tion of human rights.” All priority for the Asian netit takes is a quick internet work under Sr. Paula. Talsearch of the heartbreakitha Kum works for this ing stories of trafficking through training and survivors to bring home awareness-raising camthe import of the Pope’s paigns in schools, parishwords. es, and local communities, In May 2024, Catholic targeting especially Francis meets with Thai Supreme Buddhist Patriarch in 2019 (Vatican Media) women religious gathered women, youth, religious in Rome for the second communities, tribal comannual General Assembly of Talitha Kum, the internamunities, and migrant workers. tional network of sisters whose primary work is to “Working with diverse groups of people, I can feel fight human trafficking and care for its victims. One a power that drives us to move forward. The Holy of those in attendance was Sr. Paula Kwandao PhonSpirit allows us to communicate with each other prasertruksa, a native of Thailand and Talitha Kum’s understandably, though we differ in language, culture, regional representative for Asia. and lifestyle. These differences do not hinder our Sr. Paula, a Sister of St. Paul de Chartres, was work,” says Sr. Paula. named the head of the Asia branch in October 2022.

“Talitha Kum allows me to fulfill my dream of She has been a part of Talitha Kum Thailand since being a tool to bring the love of God to people, open 2010. my eyes to the needs of others, teach me to forget Working against trafficking in Thailand is particumyself and embrace others, be more patient, and dare larly difficult because of the border with Myanmar, to do new things and bravely confront the painful. I which is embroiled in a terrible civil war that has also have learned that a smiling face can soothe and killed 50,000 and displaced 3 million — and its conencourage people around me… stant flow of vulnerable people escaping the violence.

“I believe my life is in God’s hands. He will guide Add to this the fact that the previous government of me and protect me through my journey to do His misThailand actually promoted prostitution (a new Thai sion; to restore the dignity of our brothers and sisters law has at least outlawed trafficking), plus the fact that as sons of God, raise awareness of the threat of human large numbers of desperate young people in refugee trafficking, to end human trafficking in our world. Let camps who have nothing to do can access drugs and us unite in prayer and work together as God’s seroften violent online porngraphy through their phones vants. Together we can. Nothing is impossible for — and conditions are ripe for horrifying exploitation God. Let us put our trust in the Lord.”m 26 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

Harrison Butker Professional NFL Football Kicker

“I’m goINg to say wHat I BeLIeve to Be true”

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e unapologetic in your masculinity, fighting marriage and the children you will bring into this against the cultural emasculation of men. Do world… hard things. Never settle for what is easy. You might “I’m on the stage today and able to be the man I am have a talent that you don’t necessarily enjoy, but if it because I have a wife who leans into her vocation...and glorifies God, maybe you should lean into that over embraces one of the most important titles of all: homesomething that you might think suits you better. I speak maker. I can tell you that my beautiful wife Isabelle from experience as an introvert who now finds myself would be the first to say that her life truly started when as an amateur public speaker and an entrepreneur, she started living her vocation as a wife and as a mothsomething I never thought I’d be er.” when I received my industrial Butker received a standing ovaengineering degree…” tion at the college; the media, howThe “introvert” who spoke ever, reacted mostly with censure. those words on May 11, 2024 Headlines called the talk an “attack never became an industrial engion working women.” Others called neer. Harrison Butker, 29, did, him a “jerk and a bigot” and, of however, become a professional course, the old stand-bys, “homofootball kicker for the Super Bowl phobic and sexist,” for also disparagchampion Kansas City Chiefs, ing “LBGTQ” issues, “Pride and a holder of field goal records Month,” abortion and contraception. not only in the history of the A Change.org petition urged the Chiefs to fire kicker HarriButker has not been deterred.

Butker for making “dehumanizing” remarks defending Chiefs franchise, but in the histo- son In August 2024, he told the Assotraditional female roles in a 2024 commencement speech ry of the Super Bowl and of the ciated Press, “I feel like, seven years National Football League. in the league, having this platform, I’ve just decided: Off the field, Butker returned, as an adult, to the You know what, there’s things that I believe wholeCatholic faith he was raised in, and has since become heartedly that I think will make this world a better an outspoken defender of traditional morality and his place, and I’m going to preach that. And if people don’t faith in Jesus and the Church He founded. (Butker fans agree, they don’t agree, but I’m going to continue to first began to notice he was wearing a brown scapular say what I believe to be true and love everyone along that occasionally peeked out from under his NFL unithe way.” form a couple of years ago.)

And he has not limited himself to critiquing modern Although Butker caused a bit of a stir when he delivsecular culture; he also is an enthusiastic supporter of ered the commencement address at his alma mater, the Traditional Latin Mass.

Georgia Tech, in 2022, telling the graduates to “get Later in his Benedictine College speech, he married and start a family,” the husband and father of remarked: three attracted wider media attention in May 2024 for “I’ve been very vocal in my love and devotion to the the commencement address he gave at the Newman TLM and its necessity for our lives. But what I think Guide-listed Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. gets misunderstood is that people who attend the TLM In it, he said, do so out of pride or preference… I do not attend the “I think it is you, the women, who have had the most TLM because I think I am better than others, or for the diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting smells and bells, or even for the love of Latin. here now about to cross this stage and are thinking “I attend the TLM because I believe, just as the God about all the promotions and titles you are going to get of the Old Testament was pretty particular in how he in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successwanted to be worshiped, the same holds true for us ful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess today. It is through the TLM that I encountered order, that the majority of you are most excited about your and began to pursue it in my own life.”m JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 27

bishop Athanasius schneider of Astana, Kazakhstan

A TouchsTone in Troubling Times

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ishop Athanasius Schneider was born in 1961 in the Soviet Union, in an era marked by religious repression. Raised in a family of ethnic Germans in a region of the USSR where the Catholic faith was under tight government control, Bishop Schneider nevertheless developed a deep appreciation for the liturgy, catechism and spiritual life.

After studying theology in Europe and entering the seminary, Schneider became a member of the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross, a traditionalist religious community. In 2006, he was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI as auxiliary bishop for the Diocese of Astana, Kazakhstan, where he has served ever since.

Many would be hard-pressed to locate Kazakhstan on a map. Yet from his somewhat remote see in Central Asia, bordered on two of three sides by the twin mammoths of Russia and China, Bishop Schneider has exerted an unmistakable influence, particularly among more tradition-minded Catholics.

2024 was a particularly difficult year for those Catholics. Against a backdrop of ongoing “liturgy wars” between a Vatican seemingly determined to obliterate the Traditional Latin Mass and a segment of laity equally determined to preserve it, fresh affronts to tradition continued to emerge from Rome.

For instance, the once-venerable Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, 83, a formerly high-ranking Curial official — and even a nuncio to the US, the most powerful nation on earth, before his retirement — was finally excommunicated. The reason: increasingly severe criticism of Pope Francis that evolved into total rejection of his legitimacy as Pope. Many Catholics who had sympathized with Viganò originally were left confused.

As the year progressed, Pope Francis made several dubious remarks about the equality of world religions as paths to God. He authorized the “cancellation” of bishops for questionable reasons, much as he had the previous year with Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas. And he continued to host pro-LGBT activists like Fr. James Martin and Sr. Jeannine Grammick at the Vatican. Catholics were again left confused.

Then the many-part, years-long Synod on Synodality finally concluded, and arguments immediately 28 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

ensued over its significance — healthy or malignant?

— to the Faith itself and to the institution of the Church. Catholics were more confused than ever.

Through it all, the soft-spoken voice of Bishop Schneider has been one of the most steadfast, reassuring, consistently charitable and yet uncompromisingly rooted in unchanging truth. He is a rock to whom faithful Catholics have become accustomed to clinging in the stormy seas of 21st-century Catholicism.

His assessment of the Synod on Synodality, in particular, has been a touchstone for the faithful looking for clarity.

His main concern, reiterated again and again, has been that the Synod has sought to conform the Church to the current opinions of the secular world, and not vice versa. In one of his more pointed remarks, he stated, “The Synod on Synodality is leading the Church into a dangerous path of relativism, where personal experience is being placed above divine truth.”

In interviews, he has repeatedly warned that the Church’s apparent softening on issues relating to divorce and remarriage, homosexuality and gender is creating a growing “disorientation” among the faithful and the erosion of doctrinal clarity.

“The Pope has the duty to clarify the teachings of the Church, not to create confusion,” he lamented.

Yet, he is no friend of the “sedevacantist” (literally, “empty chair”) movement which refuses to accept Francis as duly elected Pope. “I am not attacking the Pope,” he has said, “but defending the faith that has been entrusted to the Church.”

It is in the era of Francis, in fact, that Bishop Schneider’s clarity on Catholic teaching has been most valuable. For better or worse, the Pope has energetically pursued his own vision for the Church, and Bishop Schneider has dutifully called him to account for it when necessary.

As he wrote in his 2019 book, Christus Vincit, “The Pope is ultimately the person in the Church with the least freedom, because his authority is very limited, since he is only an administrator of something which does not belong to him, but to Christ. The Pope is the last person in the Church who could say, ‘Now I will do what I want!’”m

archbishop stephen ameyu mulla of Juba, south sudan

“What our country needs so badly is not a human peace”

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tephen Ameyu Martin Mulla, 61, was born in Ido in peace of Jesus.” the Equatoria region of Sudan, now South Sudan At the 2024 Synod in Rome, Mulla spoke of the — a country which gained its independence from efforts of the Holy See to mediate peace in 2018 Sudan in 2011 after more than 21 years of civil war, the between leaders in South Sudan, where a plurality of longest-running in Africa. Despite this, South Sudan the population — including the president, Salva Kiir continues to struggle with conflicts linked to ethnicity, Mayardit — is Catholic. While the countries ended politics, resources and natural disasters. major hostilities and formed a unity government that In the midst of the continuing conflict, Mulla attendyear, Mulla says the various sides in the conflict have ed seminaries, both minor and major, in not yet achieved lasting peace.

Sudan and was ordained in 1991 for the “The country is still unstable and we diocese of Torit. After earning a doctorcontinue to insist, as bishops, that this ate in dogmatic theology at the Pontifirevitalized peace agreement should be cal Urban University in Rome, he implemented,” he said. became a professor and dean of the “There is corruption, there is misSaint Paul National Major Seminary in management of the resources. It is a Juba, and a lecturer and consultant for country that came out and had the the Sudanese Organization for Non-viopotential of being a good and prosperlence and Democracy (SONAD). He ous country, but because of mismanagefounded a local humanitarian NGO, the ment, a lot of problems have happened, Horiok Community Association and and so many people are suffering.”

Development (HODA) in 2005, worked He also spoke of the need for for women’s rights organizations from increased attention to environmental 2013 to 2016, and then as deputy direcconcerns, as a wave of ecological crises tor of the Institute of Applied Research batter the Northeast Africa region, and Community Outreach at the including food insecurity, a water crisis Catholic University of South Sudan. and desertification. South Sudan, which In 2019, Pope Francis appointed him Archbishop Stephen Ameyu Mulla confirms is located in the Nile River Basin, also 664 children and adults at St. Mary Immacubishop of Torit, a see which had been faces devastating floods on a regular late Parish in Terekeka, South Sudan without a bishop for five years. Later basis. that year, Pope Francis promoted him to archbishop of “A lot of cities have been submerged, and many Juba. His appointment as archbishop met with some people are suffering as we talk,” said Cardinal Mulla, opposition, partially tied to ethnic divisions, that who spoke of tent cities that have lasted years followincluded charges of improper influence and unsuitabiling the displacement of thousands of residents. ity, which Pope Francis reviewed and rejected.

Cardinal Mulla offered a reflection on “The BishHe is currently vice president of the Catholic Conop’s Ministry from a Synodal Perspective” at the 2023 ference of Bishops of Sudan and South Sudan, and Synod on Synodality. In it, he cast synodality in terms served as host for Pope Francis’ visit to South Sudan in of evangelization, rather than church governance.

February, 2023. Pope Francis chose him to be made a “The aim of these participatory processes should cardinal that same year. not be ecclesiastical organization, but rather the misCardinal Mulla has been on the front lines of the sionary aspiration of reaching everyone,” he said. “The peace and reconciliation efforts in the conflict-ridden Bishop should also be conscious of the missionary East African nation. Known as a peacemaker, Cardinal character of his pastoral ministry and ensure that all his Mulla wrote in a 2023 letter to the Pope, “The peace pastoral activity is marked by a missionary spirit capawhich our country so badly needs is not a purely ble of awakening and maintaining among the faithful a human peace based on personal interests, but rather the zeal for the spread of the Gospel.”m JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 29

eduardo Verastegui

“I dId not wIsh to contInue sIngIng sIlly songs”

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This vow led to his involvement, both as producer and n March of 2024, a movie about a Catholic saint debuted cast member, in the 2006 pro-life film “Bella”; in the 2012 in theaters across the United States, garnering a 90% film on the Cristero movement in Mexico, “For Greater positive critical rating — and an amazing 98% viewer ratGlory,”; and in the Hiroshima-bomb-themed “Little Boy.” ing — on the popular website Rotten Tomatoes.

In an interview he challenged the common accusation The film was “Cabrini”; one of the two executive prothat pro-life people like him only care about babies before ducers of the film was the Mexican actor and one-time birth. presidential hopeful Eduardo Verástegui.

“Being pro-life means to take care of those kids who “Cabrini” was just the latest, but perhaps most explicitare living in the streets, being pro-life means to take care ly Catholic, cinematic effort of Verástegui, whose producof those children who are victims of sexual exploitation, tion company, Metanoia Films, also produced the 2023 being pro-life means to take care of those teenagers who blockbuster film about human trafficking, “The Sound of are suffering from addiction, being Freedom.” pro-life means to take care of those Shortly after the March 8 debut who are falsely accused and they’re of “Cabrini,” Verástegui told the in prison,” he said.

National Catholic Register “My After 25+ years in the entertainhope is that when parents take their ment business, in 2024 Verástegui daughters to see this film, they will threw his hat into a different ring: imitate the saint’s life rather than a politics. secular model. The modern feminist Already known as a supporter of movement doesn’t want girls and president-elect Donald Trump women to see Cabrini because the (Verástegui gave Trump a large film shows a woman truly empowbanner of Our Lady of Guadalupe ered by God... in October), he declared his inten“God our Father wants us to Eduardo Verastegui presents a copy of "Little Boy" to Pope Francis during a brief meeting in Rome in 2015 tion to run for President in Mexico’s cooperate with him. But when June 2024 election. women or men take God out of their lives, whatever they “I have to let go of everything I fought for [for] 20 touch is destroyed because they aren’t living in the pleniyears, even though it’s my passion to make movies, in tude of truth and God’s love. order to give life to my country,” he said.

“Cabrini shows what the saint did when God guided “If they give me the opportunity to be president of her to found orphanages, hospitals and schools…She Mexico, I will not allow the entire LGBT+ alphabet to incarnated the acts of mercy and is more alive today than continue contaminating our nation. I don’t want Mexican ever because she is now a saint,” he said. children sexualized and indoctrinated in schools with In fact, the one-time pop band singer and soap opera books that promote gender ideology,” the Mexican actor star says that he promised God and his family that “I will wrote. only use my talents to do projects that will have the potenUnfortunately, due in part to government technical diftial to make this world a better place.” ficulties, Verástegui was not able to register enough signaAfter finding success in Mexico’s entertainment industures to appear on the ballot. try 25 years ago, Verástegui, now 50, came to Hollywood, But Verástegui continues to work for the rights of the where he received roles in several American films. It was unborn, including appearing at an October pro-life rally at then that, seeking to improve his American accent, he met Florida’s Ave Maria University, where he told the student a pronunciation coach in 2002 who happened to be a crowd, “No matter how on fire you are, if you step out of devout Catholic. the community, prayer, Mass … little by little you extinVerástegui questioned this coach about the Catholic guish.” faith, in which the actor himself had been raised but had Verástegui concluded, “It’s very important to be on fire. largely cast off. Spurred to learn more, Veratsegui eventuBut that fire doesn’t come from us. ally re-discovered his faith and vowed to pursue only pro“God is the fire.”m jects in tune with his Catholic beliefs and sensibilities.

30 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

tracey rowland

“We already knoW hoW the battle Will end”

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Research Professor of the University of Notre Dame Ausustralian theologian Tracey Rowland delivered the tralia. commencement address to the 2024 graduating class But Dr. Rowland’s principal area of renown is her at Christendom College, the orthodox Catholic liberal scholarship in the thought of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope arts college in Virginia founded in 1977.

Benedict XVI. Mrs. Rowland’s address was neither the irrationally In 2020 Pope Francis announced that Rowland had optimistic “You can do anything if you believe in yourwon the prestigious Ratzinger Prize for Theology, makself” type commonly heard at secular institutions, nor the ing her the first Australian and only the third woman to doom-and-gloom “You are going out into a foul world of ever receive this award. evil and treachery” kind that sometimes greets graduating As Dr. Rowland described her own reaction to the seniors at conservative Catholic schools. award, “I was surprised but not totally shocked because I It was, instead, a talk full of realism. She began by have published quite a lot about the admitting that “you have been born theology of Joseph Ratzinger...” into a cosmic battle from which including Ratzinger’s Faith: The there is no escape,” but went on to Theology of Pope Benedict XVI assure the graduates that “As Chris(2008) and Benedict XVI: A Guide tians we already know how the batfor the Perplexed (2010). tle will end. St. Augustine Explaining the importance of described the Cross as a mousetrap Joseph Ratzinger, she says set for the devil…The devil thought “Ratzinger really understands Westhe had defeated Christ with the cruern culture,” and as well, “He actualcifixion, but paradoxically the cruly believes the Catholic faith.” cifixion was Christ’s defeat of the “Both the Church and western devil.”

Pope Emeritus and Dr. Rowland, 2020 Ratzinger culture are in a state of crisis. To get It’s something for us all to dwell TheAward winner, in 2021 (Ratzinger Foundation) out of any crisis someone needs to do on: despite the truly awful things a pathology report on the cause(s) of the problems and to happening all around us, the seeming collapse of Chrisrecommend solutions. tendom itself and the “civilization of love” that is its aim, “The crises are primarily of an intellectual nature and ours is the victory. they have secondary effects in the world of culture, spirTracey Rowland’s invitation to speak at Christendom ituality and human relationships.

College was just one of a long line of honors accorded the “He is also important because he was a Peritus at the highly accomplished professor and author since she first Second Vatican Council… he has first-hand knowledge earned her Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, where of what happened and why.” she studied on an academic scholarship, in 2001. That Though Dr. Rowland was born Anglican, she chose to same year she became the inaugural Dean of the Pontifibecome Catholic during her primary school years, under cal John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the the tutelage of Mercy Sisters in Ipswich, Australia.

Family in Melbourne, Australia, a position she held until During secondary schooling at the Range Convent, 2017.

Rockhampton, Dr. Rowland was hand-picked by the sisDuring this period she also continued her theological ters to excel academically. studies at the Pontifical Lateran University, where she “Their desire to get the best out of us took root in theobtained her Licentiate in Sacred Theology and a Doctorology, stemming from the passage, ‘To whom much has ate in Sacred Theology. In 2010 she also graduated from been given, much is expected’,” Dr. Rowland said. the University of London with a degree in Education.

One sister in particular expected great things from the In 2014 she was appointed as a member of Pope Franthen-teenager, both academically and spiritually. cis’ International Theological Commission. In 2016 she “She told my grandmother that if I ever lost my faith, delivered the prestigious Cardinal Winning Memorial she would come back from the dead and haunt me,” Dr. Lecture at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. In Rowland said.m 2017 Rowland was appointed as the St. John Paul II JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 31

TOP TEN PEOPLE 2024

Bishop mounir Khairallah

“I carry a message of forgIveness”

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t the tender age of five, Lebanese Maronite Bishop the other person, especially the one who has hurt us, Mounir Khairallah became an orphan when his who persecutes us, is a grace and a gift from God.” parents were brutally murdered by a Syrian farmworkThe plea he delivered at the Synod was addressed to er. both his countrymen and the whole of humanity: His aunt, a nun in a monastery, took him in, along “But I say to you, young Lebanese, that I have underwith his three young siblings. It was she who first stood why forgiveness is so difficult, but it is not impostaught him the great lesson of forgiveness. sible. I understand you, but it is possible to live it if we As he recounts: “In the church, she invited us to want to be disciples of Christ, in the land of Christ. On kneel and pray—to pray to God for mercy, for love. She the Cross, Jesus forgave; we are capable of forgiving. told us: ‘Let us not pray so much for your parents; they And I tell you more: all those who wage war against us, are martyrs before God. Let us instead pray for those whom we consider enemies—Israelis, Palestinians, Syrwho killed them and seek to forgive ians, of all nationalities—these are not throughout your lives.’ “ enemies, why? Because those who It is a lesson that Bishop Khairallah pasfoment war have no identity, no confessionately desires we all learn, especially sion, no religion; but the others, the peothose in the grip of hatred and violence in ples, want peace, want to live in peace on his beloved homeland. the land of the peace of ‘Jesus Christ, “I come from a country that has been King of Peace.’ engulfed in fire and blood for fifty years “Therefore, even today, despite all that now,” Bishop Khairallah said in a “testihappens—50 years of blind, savage mony” at the October 2024 Synod on Synwar—despite everything, we as peoples odality, to which he had been invited by of all cultures of all confessions, want Pope Francis. “In 1975, the war in peace; we are capable of building peace.

Lebanon began under the pretext of a reli“Let us put aside our politicians, ours gious and confessional war, mainly and those of the world, the great powers: between Muslims and Christians. they make their interests at our expense.

“Fifty years later, they have failed to But we, as a people, do not want all this; A young man holds up Lebanon's understand that it is not entirely a war of flag, an olive branch as people wait we reject it. confession or religion. It is a war that has for the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI “Yes, I come here to speak about forbeen imposed upon us, in Lebanon, a for his meeting with young people in giveness and reconciliation, while my Bkerke, Lebanon (Sept. 15, 2012) ‘country-message,’ as Saint John Paul II country and my people suffer and experialways said; a country-message of conviviality, freeence the consequences of wars, conflicts, violence, dom, democracy, and life in respect of diversity.” vengeance, and hatred.

Bishop Khairallah was ordained in 1977 for the “We Lebanese always want to condemn hatred, Maronite Catholic Eparchy in Batroun after being eduvengeance, and violence. We want to build peace. We cated by the Capuchins and attending minor seminary in are capable of doing so. If Pope Francis has chosen forLebanon, then studying philosophy and theology at the giveness, for us and for me, it is a great message to give.

Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome. He pursued “Talking about forgiveness, when bombings strike his postgraduate education in France before returning to all of Lebanon, would it be impossible? No. In all this, Lebanon. He became a parish pastor, a university prothe population of Lebanon rejects, as always, the lanfessor and General Secretary of the Maronite Synod. In guage of hatred and vengeance.

2012, Pope Benedict made him the Eparch of Batroun. “‘If you love those who love you,’ says Jesus, ‘what Through all this time, Bishop Khairallah has been an merit do you have? Love your enemies. Pray for those apostle of forgiveness as the path to peace desired by who persecute you. Then you will be disciples of Christ God: “Loving our neighbor and being able to forgive and children of your Father.’”m 32 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

NEWS

new cardInal oF PalestInIan descent: gaza “borders on horror” “It Is rIght to talk about the genocIde In gaza, the PoPe dId well” – cardInal Fernando garIb n BY FRAnCA GIAnSOLDATI (IL MESSAGERO)

Fernando Chomalì Garìb, 67, archbishop of Santiago, Chile, elevated to cardinal by Pope Francis in the 2024 consistory on December 7

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mong the 21 new cardinals elevated by Pope Francis in the 2024 consistory December 7, Fernando Chomalì Garib, 67, archbishop of Santiago, Chile, is the only one of Palestinian origin. A moral theologian and former civil engineer, he always reiterates that the balance of the rest of the world will depend on the balance that is reached in the Holy Land. It is an issue that he has been following personally for some time and makes him very sensitive to what is happening in the Gaza Strip.

Franca Giansoldati: Do you, along with the Pope, suspect that a genocide is underway in Gaza?

CARDINAL GARIB: It is objectively an absolutely crazy situation. There are now 42,000 people dead due to bombings that should stop, and the Pope has rightly reflected on the opportunity for an investigation to be carried out in this sense by the international community.

War is something that should not have happened, just as what Hamas did on October 7 should not have happened. It should not have happened. In the same way, there should not have been [such] a reaction from the Israeli government; everything has become absolutely inhuman — a situation that borders on horror and that must stop as soon as possible.

And I myself have made myself available.

In what sense?

As a cardinal and as a descendant of a Palestinian family, I repeat that

if I can do something to end the war, I am ready to do it. It is my duty, just as the Pope is also doing in launching continuous appeals for peace, because [what is happening] is truly a defeat for everyone.

Do you see a solution?

Today there is no other way than to try as soon as possible to have the conditions for two independent states, with absolutely secure borders for both, so that the populations can develop. This would be the most reasonable thing. After all, there are UN Resolutions that must be implemented. I think that if the Church were to build a bridge between all these factions dominated by ideology and fanaticism, it could facilitate dialogue. And it would be a good thing. If necessary, I repeat, I am ready and available.

You spoke of 42,000 deaths in Gaza, citing Hamas data that the Un has since refuted. The Un has attested to a lower figure, around 8,000...

Look, just one death would be enough. It’s not an issue of numbers to say no to war and to repeat that life is sacred for Jews, Christians and Muslims. Life is a treasure to be protected. What the Pope said about the international investigation, the

famous phrase in the book, I agree with. I think the same way. Regardless of the denomination, genocide — from what is being seen in Gaza — is something whose contours are, objectively, unimaginable.

Pope Francis has been criticized for being anti-Semitic… (laughs) It’s ridiculous, his personal history goes in a very different direction even when he was in Argentina. He only said what he thinks in the face of so much, too much, suffering. He is a profoundly human person, full of empathy and humanity.

Bergoglio is often questioned...

Only in half a century will we better understand what he has done.

He has understood in a very particular way, and focused on with precision, the culture in which we live and are inserted. The economy that kills, for example; the selfishness, the indifference; the exponential growth of those who remain outside the welfare system (and not only in developing countries).

Now this dynamic also concerns the West. He is a courageous man.

He set in motion reforms and movements because things could no longer continue as they were before.

Just think of the issue of migratory flows.

It is impossible to go back because in ten years they will be part of everyday life — multiplied by a thousand.m

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REFLECTION

The day benedicT died The reflecTions of a Polish journalisT who has been in rome for 15 years, on The occasion of The second anniversary of The deaTh of PoPe benedicT Xvi (d. december 31, 2022) n BY AnnA ARTYMIAK

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t has already been two years consecrated women who ran since Pope Benedict XVI Benedict’s household, and Br. passed away. I remember that Eugeniusz, the Polish Bonifrate morning very vividly. It was the brother who was the Pope Emerilast Saturday of the month, soon tus’ private nurse. He was the one after Christmas 2022 and after the who heard his last words, profeast of St. Stephen. It was such a nounced in Italian: “Lord, I love beautiful, warm, sunny day, and you.” there were long lines to St. Peter’s Don Giorgio, as people in the Basilica. At a time when many Vatican used to call Archbishop tourists were happy to celebrate Gänswein, was very changed. On New Year’s Eve in the Eternal one side he was visibly moved, on City, time in the Vatican stopped. the other it seemed that he had We journalists were already already touched Heaven. aware that our beloved Pope EmCrowds of ordinary people eritus might return to the Father’s came. I remember a moving moHouse soon. Pope Francis at the ment when a father brought his general audience had asked all to intellectually-disabled teenage pray for Benedict XVI, saying: “I son. They knelt together as the would like to ask you all for a spefather tried to explain why they cial prayer for Pope Emeritus were there.

Benedict, who is supporting the Archbishop Georg Gaenswein celebrates Holy Mass at the tomb of When they were leaving the Church in silence. Remember Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican Grottoes on January 31, 2023, one chapel, Archbishop Gänswein month after Benedict’s death. (Photo - Grzegorz Galazka) him – he is very ill -– asking the warmly greeted the boy, inviting Lord to console him and to sushim to come back one day for a tain him in this witness of love for POPE BENEDICT’S BODY WAS DRESSED AND LAID IN general audience. “You may perthe Church, until the end.” sonally greet the Pope at the end,” FRONT OF THE ALTAR. THE BODY OF THE “HUMBLE It was then my twin sister, he said in a gentle way.

WORKER IN THE LORD’S VINEYARD” HAD BEEN Kasia, and I knew that his condiPope Benedict’s body was CONSUMED BY HIS SUFFERING, EVIDENCED IN HOW tion must have been serious, and dressed and laid in front of the agreed that only Benedict’s sucaltar. The body of the “humble PAINFULLY THIN HE HAD BECOME. cessor could be the right person to worker in the Lord’s vineyard” have announced it. had been consumed by his suffering, evidenced in how painfulThat morning Kasia and I had just returned to Rome from ly thin he had become. the holiday break at home in Poland, praying all the while to There was a constant flood of the faithful. The night was arrive there before Benedict’s actual passing. very quiet and very warm, very unusual, even for Rome, in DeThen the announcement came – and the moment of our first cember. It was a mystical experience, in which you could feel tears. He was the first Pope whom we had covered as Vatican the peace and love in that place of Benedict’s repose. correspondents based in Rome. Everyone knew that one day his During the following days of personal tribute to the late death would come, but you are never ready for it.

Pope, many people expressed to Archbishop Gänswein their There was one special moment in that sad time: In the conviction that Benedict XVI was a saint. He replied: “So do I evening, a decision was made that any persons who came to the believe.” As during St. John Paul II’s funeral, so also at BenePetriano Gate asking the Swiss Guards if they might come to dict’s funeral there were banners proclaiming: “Santo subito!” say goodbye to the Pope Emeritus at his private chapel would (“Sainthood now!”). be allowed to do so.

Since the very month of his death, there has been a tradition When we arrived there that afternoon, Benedict’s legendary to have a monthly Holy Mass said for Benedict XVI at his tomb personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, was outside in the Vatican Grottos. It is usually the last Saturday of the the private chapel. There were also four Memores Domini, lay month at 7:15 am. Everybody is welcome.m 34

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NEWS

Two world-famous musicians play for rome’s poor “This is noT jusT a concerT, iT is an acT of love, a concreTe gesTure Towards Those less forTunaTe, an inviTaTion To reflecT on whaT uniTes us as human beings.” – hans Zimmer, 67, mulTiple award-winning film score composer n BY ROBERT MOYnIHAn

Award-winning film score composer Hans Zimmer with Robert Moynihan at St. Peter’s in Rome December 6, 2024.

In the tondo: Tina Guo, the brilliant Chinese-born American cellist

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being around six years old, I tried violin for one year. I was horrible!...

“My dad said, ‘Okay, maybe you could try the cello.’ … it came to me much more naturally. I progressed much faster, so that actually helped in the many, many hours of practicing and training, which I’m grateful for now.

“When I was growing up, of course, it wasn’t fun.”

ot a single seat was empty on the evening of Saturday, December 7, in a crowded Paul VI Audience Hall inside Vatican City. Some 3,000 poor people were the special “guests of honor” among the total of about 7,000 people — full capacity — who packed the hall.

The event was the fifth annual “Concert for the Poor,” a concert performed with the poor as “honored guests” in the Vatican, featuring the German-born musical genius Hans Zimmer, 67, and the brilliant Chinese-born American cellist from San Diego, Tina Guo, 39.

Zimmer has scored more than 500 film projects and been honored with two Academy Awards®, three Golden Globes®, four Grammys®, an American Music Award, and a Tony® Award.

His film scores include Dune:Part One, No Time to Die, Gladiator, As Good as It Gets, Rain Man, The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Thelma and Louise, The Lion King, The Last Samurai, 12 Years A Slave, and Dunkirk.

Tina Guo, Grammy nominee and Female Artist of the Year at the BRIT Awards, is one of the most recorded solo cellists of all time in film, TV and video game soundtracks. She has also performed as a soloist with symphony orchestras throughout the world.

Inspirations All artists have their muses.

Dante, Italy’s and Europe’s greatest poet, had his Beatrice, who inspired him to write his epic poem stretching from hell to heaven, with purgatory in

between: The Divine Comedy, which has lasted now more than 700 years.

Hans Zimmer told us at the Vatican press conference December 6 that he was inspired to write his hundreds of film scores by a fictitious woman named Doris, a product of his imagination “who lived in Bradford, England, outside of London” – a place he played in the 1980s — “with two children, leading a very hard life.”

“She’s of a certain age. She’s got two boys, doesn’t have a husband… She works really hard to try to make ends meet. And at the weekend…she plunks down her hard-earned money… Just for two hours, she wants to have an experience that she wouldn’t [otherwise] have in her normal life.”

And Tina Guo told us how she was inspired by her parents, who made her practice playing the cello up to seven hours a day, until her own being of flesh and blood, she said, virtually merges into the resonating wood and strings of her cello, creating art.

She called it a “family tradition.”

“My father is a cellist and my mother is a violinist…when I moved to America,

The Concert The mood was one of rapt attention.

The listeners at the concert seemed to be expecting some new insight, some new revelation, about themselves and their place in the world.

Consider the dominant role of Hollywood in the global “entertainment industry,” spinning tales and sharing dreams through films seen and reflected upon by billions — and as a leading Hollywood composer, Zimmer’s role is itself a dominant one.

And yet, this dominant figure came to Rome — came to play his music on a stage where the Pope normally sits to give his catechesis, beneath an imposing sculpture of the risen Christ, next to a simple manger scene, not far from a Christmas tree, in the presence of 3,000 poor people.

And all framed by the resurrected Christ, rising above, and the humble manger scene, off to the right, and the little lighted Christmas tree, as the choir is singing, and the musicians playing, giving their music to us in space and time, under heaven.m

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PILGRIMAGE MEdjuGoRjE

The holy spiriT aT work The VaTican has approVed The “emergenT spiriTualiTy” of medjugorje in recenT pronouncemenTs. The aposTolic VisiTor appoinTed by pope francis Talks abouT why n BY CHRISTINE MUGRIDGE *

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n Nazareth, the young One great gift of the Holy “pre-teen” was caught by Spirit present in the world surprise during her time today is the phenomenon of prayer through the greeting known as “Medjugorje.” of the heavenly messenger, It is this same Holy Spirit “Hail Mary, Full of Grace, to whom we look as baptized the Lord is with you!... The children of God to see how Holy Spirit will come to you He is renewing the face of the “GOD IS PRESENT AND ACTIVE IN OUR HISTORY. and the power of the Most earth (Ps. 104:30). Renewal THE HOLY SPIRIT, WHO FLOWS FROM THE HEART High will overshadow you. and new life often spring Therefore the Holy Child OF THE RISEN CHRIST, WORKS IN THE CHURCH WITH from surprisingly humble developing inside you will be beginnings. In 1981 there DIVINE FREEDOM AND OFFERS US MANY VALUABLE called the Son of God. …” could be no place quite as GIFTS...” – CARDINAL VICTOR FERNÁNDEZ (Luke 1:26-38). humble as Medjugorje, While awaiting her Above, map with tourist sites in Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina. where it was reported, on Below, Msgr. Aldo Cavalli meeting with members of the Inside the response it is said by mystics June 24, that two teenage Vatican pilgrimage to Medjugore in September 2024 and poets alike that the angels girls, just taking a walk, were held their breath. This is how surprised by a “young, most the salvation of the world beautiful woman standing on began. By the action of the a hill.” The young woman Holy Spirit, through the was seen “holding an infant “FIAT” of the Virgin of in her arms and smiling.”

Nazareth, Christ became At that time one might Incarnate God. have wondered, “Can anyCardinal Victor Fernánthing good come out of Meddez, Prefect for the Dicastery jugorje?” According to the for the Doctrine of the Faith, Holy See, the answer to that speaks to the ongoing action question is a resounding, of the Holy Spirit in the May “Yes!” And the recent pro17, 2024 document “Norms nouncement on Medjugorje for Proceeding in the Discernment of Alleged Supernatin September 2024 from the Vatican is confirmation. ural Phenomena”: “God is present and active in our history. The Holy Spirit, who flows from the heart of the PILGRIMAGES STRONGLY ENCOURAGED risen Christ, works in the Church with divine freedom It is not our focus here to review the rather conand offers us many valuable gifts that aid us on the path tentious debate on the supernatural origin of the appariof life and encourage our spiritual growth in fidelity to tions themselves. It is enough for us to see that a Vatican the Gospel. This action of the Holy Spirit can also reach commission, under the guidance of Pope Benedict XVI, our hearts through certain supernatural occurrences, pronounced in 2010 the first seven “apparitions” to be of such as apparitions or visions of Christ or the Blessed supernatural origin. This pronouncement is solid.

Virgin, and other phenomena.”

Our attention is on the recent public release of the 36

INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

Within this mix of beauty, faith, poverty and violence, Vatican declaration of “Nihil Obstat” in a September 19, by the grace of God, we can also witness the storied pres2024 “Note” regarding the spirituality of Medjugorje ence of the Franciscan Order (O.F.M., Order of Friars and subsequent encouraging of pilgrimages. As defined Minor), and the heroic figure of “il poverello” – the in the May 2024 “Norms” document, Nihil Obstat is the Franciscan Friar or ‘uncle’ (as they were often called highest term of approval in the discernment of alleged during the times when summary execution of Catholic supernatural phenomena which the Church may propriests was not unheard of). Here the Order of St. Francis nounce, short of papal approval. and the socio-cultural impact that these men of the cloth According to the “Norms,” Nihil Obstat does not have had, and continue to have, cannot be refer to any judgment about the superunderestimated. natural authenticity of the phenomenon The Franciscans remained steadfast in itself; it asserts rather that there are the region during times of war, with the “many signs of the action of the Holy motto “Franciscans do not run.” And to the Spirit [that] are acknowledged ‘in the people of Bosnia-Hercegovina, no matter midst’ of a given spiritual experience, what their faith, their spiritual uncles and no aspects that are particularly critbecame guardians of these families caught ical or risky have been detected, at least up in bloody conflicts regional and nationso far. For this reason, the Diocesan al. The Franciscans defended the people Bishop is encouraged to appreciate the and especially the Catholic faith with their pastoral value of this spiritual proposal, lives. (See the testimony given by the and even to promote its spread, includFranciscan Martyrs of Siroki Brijeg.) ing possibly through pilgrimages to a Regardless of trials there is one remaining sacred site.” constant: the people here are deeply During his pontificate, St. Pope John aligned with their Catholic beliefs, they Paul II met with the alleged seers (6 love the Blessed Mother and it is youth) several times at the VatAbove, the Shrine of Our Lady of Mejugorje, the main for pilgrimages. Below, one of the smaller shrines the Franciscans who defend their ican and reported to one, “If I destination located on the walking trail near the apparition site faith. was not Holy Father, I would have gone myself to MedjugorLISTENING TO THE SPIRIT je a long time ago.”

WHO WORKS IN THE FAITHFUL PEOPLE OF GOD A BUCOLIC REGION We turn our attention now to MARKED BY DEVOTION the Franciscan parish of St. AND MARTYRDOM James, one of their parishes It is mid-September, nearing which up until 1980 was run in harvest time in the Balkans. We relative obscurity. find ourselves only a few hours In 2016 Pope Francis from the heady beaches of received additional findings Maharsk, driving inland to a from the International Commissmall village located “between sion; these were not made pubthe hills” in the nation of lic. In 2018, Francis officially assigned the first AposBosnia-Herzegovina. And we are not alone. A staggertolic Visitor, Polish Archbishop Henryk Hoser, to the ing 45 million have made this trip before us. We’ve trapastoral care of the now-burgeoning pilgrimage site. versed from the coast through craggy mountain passes, Pope Francis announced in May 2019 that bishops and connected in part to the Mosor and Biokovo Ranges; priests were free to lead pilgrimages to Medjugorje. In through different valleys laced with inky blue ribbons of 2021, Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Aldo Cavalli meandering rivers offering more beautiful scenery. as the second Apostolic Visitor to the Parish of St. Vibrant green leaves on ancient grape vines and giant James, Medjugorje. The position of Apostolic Visitor is European Beech trees are giving hints of hues golden to be exercised indefinitely, at the discretion of the Holy and brown.

See. Although quite picturesque, the bucolic scenery thinThe Vatican has assigned Archbishop Cavalli to take ly veils centuries of anguish. This region only recently care of the spiritual life of the pilgrims and parishioners, (in the last 40 years) came into its own type of firstand also to maintain discernment of and approval for world status, but on a deeper level, it is a location on the public release of any future alleged messages from Our planet that has been embroiled in geo-political conflict Lady, Queen of Peace. The Holy See is following the and religious wars for over a millennium.

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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PILGRIMAGE MEdjuGoRjE ThE hoLy SPIRIT AT WoRk new “Norms” and watching carefully all that is happening per those guidelines. Of particular interest is the abundant fruit and the overall meaning of the alleged messages.

AN EMERGENT SPIRITUALITY FROM THE MOTHER OF GOD At the Press Conference for the presentation of the November 2024 “Note,” titled “The Queen of Peace,” the DDF Prefect, Fernández, stated that, “The majority of the [Medjugorje] messages include good content that can stimulate the faithful to conversion, to growth in the encounter with Christ, to be builders of peace in the world. That is, they repropose, with other words closer to the simple language of our peoples, the encouragement and exhortations that come from the Gospel.”

From their painstakingly meticulous study the Dicastery found that a spirituality is emergent from the messages in their entirety; one that focuses on peace, a constant invitation to prayer (prayer with the heart, incorporating fasting, conversion, adoration, Sacred Scripture reading, frequent attendance at Holy Mass) alongside fraternal love and personal witness. Christocentric and worthy of attention, the messages are seen by the Vatican as positive exhortations in the light of the whole spiritual experience. “We are called upon to be …attentive to what the whole of the Medjugorje manifestations reminds us about the teachings of the Gospel. …[W]hat is being evaluated is rather the present spiritual phenomenon, the present fruits, the work that the Holy Spirit does at this time ‘in the midst of’ this phenomenon and not ‘because of’ this phenomenon.”m Pope Francis receives Msgr.

Aldo Cavalli, Apostolic Nuncio, in an audience May 15, 2021, in the Vatican. Msgr. Cavalli was named Apostolic Visitor of a special character to the Parish of Medjugorje on November 27, 2021(Vatican Media/Romano Siciliani)

Facing page, Msgr. Cavalli meeting with pilgrims at Medjugore

The holy SpiriT aT Work

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alking in a light mist toward us at the close of the evening “prayer program,” the figure of Archbishop Aldo Cavalli could almost be missed. The Apostolic Visitor to Medjugorje likes to go unnoticed. At 78 he is a spry, rather self-deprecating figure with a disarming smile; a fatherly presence with a gentle laugh. The Archbishop moves easily among locals and pilgrims hailing from all corners of the world, with all the charm of a typical Italian vicar from the alpine region of Lombardy (his place of birth). Gifted with humility, he speaks of himself simply as “a son of Mary.” He is a man of solid faith, with an old-school, no-nonsense pastoral approach. His “handling” of the phenomenon now known simply as “Medjugorje” is equally refreshing; straight-up Catholicism served without embellishment.

I had the distinct joy of sitting down with the archbishop, and asked him the following questions: Christine Mugridge: As we embark on a new year, we ask: What is Medjugorje in 2025?

ARCHBISHOP CAVALLI: Medjugorje above all is a place of grace. It is a question of a need for us to collaborate and a question of capacity and willingness to cooperate with the grace. The grace is here before we arrive. We have to see the 38 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

grace in the first place and then to see where grace places us.

We reflect, ‘In which path, upon which pathway does the grace place each of us?’ It is the grace of God in this place that directs our path. Here we move with the grace. This is very important!...We must not try to move the grace in our own manner. Otherwise, Medjugorje becomes a place of tourism.

Why do pilgrims come here?

Medjugorje is a place of prayer. Here… we are nothing.

(The people do not come to meet the visionaries, nor to see big buildings. Here there is nothing extraordinary to see; nothing special about the architecture, etc.) Here people come (and they keep coming)… Here they come to pray!

When it rains, it rains. When the sun is shining, we have 45 degrees [Celsius] out in the sun. No one complains about that to me. (Laughing) Instead the pilgrims come here to pray: to pray, to pray, to pray. The pilgrims are increasing...We don’t worry about publicity (smiling again) … It is enough that the people return back home to share of their experiences. They are our “sponsors.”

What is the impression of Pope Francis?

“The Pope asked me recently, “What about Medjugorje?”

I said, “Listen, we pray. We pray. We pray.” He was very

happy. Very happy, yes! Pope Francis wanted the Nihil These people come here…we try to organize a pastoral Obstat. Clearly. He wanted that. The Dicastery did the necinitiative for them… Look, God likes to do many good essary, well-presented research. The document presented things and at the beginning [these things look as if they was very thorough. The majority of research was on all of the are]… nothing. Cenacolo: nothing. From nothing… with messages. The majority of these messages are found by the one person who had one/a charism… a grace to do that, they Committee to be very good; very credible. The Committee began… Little by little it becomes a very important institustudied every one. It is an incredible work that the Dicastery tion in the world! Like here. Like Nazareth. Nazareth was for the Faith did. They gave the Holy Father a well-presented nothing. Never did the Bible speak about Nazareth. Never, document. Very good! Also, Pope John Paul and Pope Benenever, never! Why did God choose Nazareth? GRACE. Why dict… each wanted this. choose Mother Elvira [Foundress of Cenacolo]? GRACE. What about the “Fruits of Medjugorje”?

Why choose this place? To become a place of GRACE. “There are people who are ‘for’ Medjugorje and those What is the task ahead? who are ‘against’ Medjugorje. And this is an ongoing debate Through the Nihil Obstat the central message is “to go, with the documentation as part of this debate. But, the fruits go, go!” to Medjugorje. Go to experience the spirituality, the of Medjugorje are incredible, incredible! Me too (laughs), I spiritual life there; to now better understand the spiritual am a fruit of Medjugorje. experience one lives when on pilgrimage and to carry this Here we have hundreds of vocations. These people have forward to our homes, to our families, at work and in our told me, “Now I want to go to the parishes. The task ahead is to be here seminary to prepare myself to and to pray and … to leave as Misbecome a priest.” Some young sionaries of Peace and Love of God. women say, “Now I go to the conThe spirituality of Medjugorje, in vent.” Generally a cloistered conspite of the controversy, remains also vent. “Because I want to live there for a spirituality of joy. The spirituality God with all my life.” Why here this of Medjugorje is joyful, festive, and change? Because here this place is a includes an invitation to live the joy place of change through grace with of following Christ, giving thanks the Virgin Mary. It is a place of proeven for the small, beautiful things in found change – not exterior change. life: In this profound interior change there “I want to introduce you continuis/are realized sometimes a call to the “THIS IS A PLACE OF CHANGE THROUGH ally to the joy of life. I desire that each vocation of the priesthood. Here of you may discover the joy and love GRACE WITH THE VIRGIN” there is a change that leads to people that can be found only in God and that – ARCHBISHOP CAVALLI wanting to consecrate themselves to only God can give” (Message, May the Church of Jesus…

25, 1989).

Many people have personal spiritual experiences here “With great joy, I bring you the King of Peace, that he and there are reported healings of impossible medical illmay bless you with his blessing” (Message, December 25, nesses; of children and adults. These are personal signs for 2007). them… People pray. They go to the Sacrament of ConfesThe holy season of Christmastide concludes with the sion. They convert. They have hope. They find peace…They Feast of the Presentation of the Lord on February 2. We return home with this hope and peace with the intention to thank God for the gift of the Infant Savior, radiant and pure. change their lives.

We thank God for the FIAT of that faithful young woman in Are there significant moments for you here? the Temple, presenting the Child for the high priest to bless Our Adoration is done with music in a delicate manner as Simeon gave glory to God. Let us also rejoice for this time and… with silence. Silence, silence, silence. One person of New Advent in the Church – a time where that same singing well, with one guitar: this is enough music ministry woman, the Mother of God and Queen of Peace, has for 10,000 people. But [it must be] one person singing well. appeared once again, presenting the Prince of Peace anew This past summer, there were here 50,000 young people for while gently calling us to believe and hope in, to trust and the Youth Festival. It was very hot in the sun; but they attendlove and to adore Our Lord with her. ed Adoration in silence. This is faith. The value of that moment is incredible, because in such moments Jesus *Dr. Christine Mugridge is the founder of the non-profit speaks. Jesus ‘sees’ them; Jesus looks at them [in the organization, Sacred Arts Communication, a Catholic silence].

Apostolate for sharing Faith and Catholic Culture.

There are new pastoral initiatives here in MedChristine is the author/editor of “God’s Call to jugorje such as Medjugorje’s Cenacolo communiWomen: Twelve Spiritual Memoirs”m ty for troubled youth, and with the Irish people known as “Travelers”...

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 39

FOOTSTEPS On ThE WAY

going on pilgrimage, tHen and now Holy year pilgrims will trace patHs trodden for centuries

n BY ITV STAFF/CNA

P

Rome’s Santa Croce in Gerusalemme church, founded

by St. Helena in the fourth century. (photo: commons.wikimedia.org)

ilgrimage, travel to a “Marvels of the City of holy place or for a holy Rome” in English, the purpose, has a long Mirabilia Urbis Romae is a history in the Church. St. grouping of hundreds of Helena, mother of Constanmanuscripts, incunabula, tine, established the practice and books in Latin and modof traveling on pilgrimage in ern European languages that the fourth century when, describe notable built works circa 326 A.D., she herself and historic monuments in embarked on a trip to the the city of Rome. Starting in Holy Land. She was in her the 14th century, a re-elabolate seventies at the time, and ration of the Mirabilia had been named the “Augusdubbed the Historia et ta” (“the exalted”) by her son descriptio urbis Romae two years earlier. began to appear in combinaHelena sought to visit the tion with the Indulgentiae sacred sites associated with ecclesiarum urbis Romae the life and Passion of Jesus, focusing on the churches of knowledge of which had Rome, and the Stationes been preserved and handed on by the ecclesiarum urbis Romae that includ“LET US EVEN NOW BE DRAWN local Christian community there. ed a calendar listing Masses at various TO THIS HOPE!” Besides identifying and marking sites Roman churches. These assemblages like the spots where sermons and miracles of Jesus were clearly intended for pilgrims. occurred, St. Joseph’s carpentry shop, the cave of the What Thomas O’Loughlin, author of the book Celtic Nativity and the house of the Annunciation, she returned Theology, says about pilgrimage in the historic culture to Rome with sacred relics, including wood pieces, nails of Catholic Ireland is true of Catholic pilgrimage generand the placard from Christ’s cross. ally: “The actual act of walking was a sanctifying activHelena is said to have initiated the buildity; the act of walking in a group, processing of one of the seven pilgrim churches in ing, was a liturgical act of the first order.”

Rome, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (“Holy Though the relative value of journey and Cross in Jerusalem”), on the land of her own destination may differ for different pilimperial palace to house the sacred relics she grims, the process of having to leave one’s brought from Jerusalem. home to travel to another—sacred—place is Muslim control became an obstacle to pilcrucial. It is a practice that persists into our grimage to the Holy Land in the seventh cenown day. tury. Yet Christians were not content to let Pope Francis has designated the year the tradition of pilgrimage simply die; 2025 as a Holy Year, also called a Jubilee increasingly, they traveled to sites associated Year — historically, a time for reconciliawith the Apostles, saints, Christian martyrs, tion and renewal — and given it the theme and Marian apparitions. Rome became a “Pilgrims of Hope.” Millions of pilgrims common destination for pilgrims from are expected to descend upon the Eternal throughout Western Christendom in the City for the Church’s many scheduled Holy medieval period, and important sites Illustration page from a 1499 book of Mirabilia Year events, and the city has been were listed in travel guides such as the urbis Romae. The first important printed copy restoring and building infrastructure was compiled around 1475 under the title 12th-century Mirabilia Urbis Mirabilia for the past two-plus years in order to Romae velpotius Historia et descripRomae. accommodate them. tio urbis Romae.

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The Itinerarium Burdigalense (“Bordeaux Itinerary”), the oldest surviving Christian itinerarium, was written by the anonymous “Pilgrim of Bordeaux” recounting the stages of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the years 333 and 334.

eternal happiness with God in SOLEMn OPEnInG heaven. We are saved by OF THE HOLY DOORS God’s mercy, seen especially In Pope Francis’ May 9 in the gift of indulgences: papal bull Spes non confunwhile Confession washes dit, he announced that the away our sins, indulgences – Jubilee Year would begin including the Jubilee Indulwith the opening of the Holy gence – remove the temporal Door of St Peter’s Basilica on effects of sins forgiven in the Christmas Eve, 2024.

Sacrament.

Later, on December 29, the Some ways to receive an Pope opened the Holy Door indulgence during the 2025 of the Archbasilica of St John Jubilee Year, along with the usual Lateran, the Cathedral of Rome. On conditions, include: the same day, every Cathedral and •Visiting a Major Papal Basilico-Cathedral throughout the ca in Rome • Visiting a basilica in world had Mass celebrated by the the Holy Land • Visiting a cathelocal Bishop to mark the opening dral or other sacred place desigof the Jubilee. nated by the local Ordinary • FastOn the Solemnity of Mary the ing from social media, futile distracMother of God, January 1, 2025, Pope Helena as Augusta, tions, or superfluous consumption Francis opened the Holy Door for the 324–328/30, bronze follis.

•Volunteering in service to the comBasilica of St. Mary Major, with the (photo: cngcoins.com) munity • Performing works Holy Door for the Basilica of of mercy • Supporting works St Paul’s Outside the Walls JOIN INSIDE THE VATICAN PILGRIMAGES of a religious or social nature. being opened on Sunday, JanON A VERY SPECIAL HOLY YEAR The Holy Father conuary 5, the Vigil of the Feast of APRIL 14-24, 2025 PILGRIMAGE cludes the Bull with a final the Epiphany.

“In the course of the year,” Jubilee Year Easter in Italy: note of hope, praying that “the coming Jubilee will be a Pope Francis writes, “every Assisi, Norcia and Rome Holy Year marked by the effort should be made to hope that does not fade, our enable the People of God to These are just some of the highlights: participate fully in its procla- *Spend 3 nights and 2 ½ days in Assisi, a lovely medieval hope in God” and that it might help us recover “the mation of hope in God’s grace town untouched by time and in the signs that attest to *Visit the Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels, built over the confident trust we require in the Church and in society, in their efficacy.”

Portiuncula – the tiny church built by St. Francis. our interpersonal relationThe Jubilee will end in the *Visit the tombs of St. Francis and St. Clare. particular Churches through- *Experience the Easter Triduum – Holy Thursday, Good ships, in international relations, and in our task of proout the world on December Friday and Easter Saturday – with Benedictine monks moting the dignity of all per28, 2025, with the Holy Doors in historic Norcia. of St. John Lateran, St. Mary *Attend Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday Mass with Pope sons and respect for God’s gift of creation.”

Major, and St. Paul’s Outside Francis at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Spes non confundit ends the Walls being closed on that *See the Shrine of the miraculous Holy Face in Manopwith Pope Francis exclaimsame date. pello and the Eucharistic Miracle in Lanciano. ing, “Let us even now be And finally, the Jubilee *Enjoy a walking tour of Baroque Rome; drawn to this hope!” He calls Year will draw to a close in – Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon on Christians to live a life in Rome on the Solemnity of and Piazza Navona – with Dr. Moynihan keeping with their faith, as a Epiphany, January 6, 2026. *Attend a Papal Audience. witness and an invitation to *Visit the 4 major basilicas of Rome, designated for A HOLY YEAR MARKED Jubilee Year indulgence, and walk through the Holy Doors. all to “hope in the Lord.”

“May the power of hope

BY HOPE *See Santa Croce in Gerusalemme and other beautiful fill our days,” the Pope says, Pope Francis insisted that and historic churches. “as we await with confidence Christian hope, rooted in INSIDETHEVATICANPILGRIMAGES.COM the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ’s death and resurrecpilgrimage@InsidetheVatican.com Christ, to whom be praise and tion for each human person, +1.202.536.4555 glory, now and forever.”m points to our final destiny — JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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SCRIPTURE

i am the way “two ways there are, one of life anD one of Death, anD great is the Difference between the two ways” — Opening Of the DiDachē tōn DoDeka apostolōn (the teaching Of the twelve apOstles), ca. first century, aD n BY AnTHOnY ESOLEn*

Mosaic of Christ in the apse of the Abbey Church of St. Maria Laach, Germany

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ne of the great Biblical discoveries of the late nineteenth century was an ancient vellum manuscript with the heading, in Greek, Didachē tōn dodeka apostolōn (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles). Scholars date it, at the very latest, to the early 100s, but there is nothing in it that necessitates a dating later than the first century. Its language is simple and straightforward, like that of the gospels, and though it is written in Greek, its linguistic manner is Semitic, suggesting an Aramaic original rendered into Greek, or a Greek original composed by some person or persons who were thinking first in Aramaic or in the Hebrew of Scriptures.

Its beginning, too, is Semitic: “Two ways there are, one of life and one of death, and great is the difference between the two ways” (1:1). The text goes on to enumerate the characteristics of each way. But way is the key word here. When the disciples, puzzled, asked Jesus how they could follow him, because they did not know the way he was going, Jesus replied, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6). I think I can hear the Hebrew behind it: ha derek anochi – I am the way, with the emphasis on the pronoun, anochi (“I”), coming after 42

INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

the noun, derek (“way”). Indeed, the followers of Jesus, after his ascension, described their faith and their worship as the Way (Acts 9:2, 22:4, 24:14); the report of such is from St. Paul.

Now, the first use of the Hebrew derek, in Scripture, is here: “And [God] drove out the man, and placed in the east of the garden of Eden the cherubim, and the flaming sword that turned roundabout, to keep the way to the tree of life” (Gen. 3:24). Let us put that verse beside what Jesus says. Satan had tempted Adam and Eve with lies, and those lies led to death, and they blocked up the way to life, but Jesus Himself is truth, and he does more than point toward the way. He is the way. His obedience undoes the disobedience of Adam. His Cross is the tree of life, and from his body flowed forth blood and water (Jn. 19:34), an endless river springing up into life everlasting (cf. Jn. 4:14).

What is a way? The word derek is widespread in the Old Testament and is used in both a literal and a figurative sense, but even when it is used figuratively, the literal is not far to seek: a way, a path, a road. So is it translated into Greek as hodos, with the same primary mean-

think, must have had two simultaneous reactions: first, ing. The way from Jerusalem to Jericho, that is, the road, that the way was obviously the right one, corresponding one notorious for bandits in ambush, is a hodos (Lk. to all the best impulses of the human heart and approved 10:31). by the feeble but still audible voice of conscience, and We ought to keep this literal meaning foremost. We second, that those who travel along this way must be may say that there are various ways to get a certain thing thought quite mad. done, but the word there suggests not so much a track as For the way, in its negative sense, means that “thou a means: you can build a house out of wood or brick or shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt stone, and each of these is a way to build, a means of not corrupt boys, thou shalt not fornicate, thou shalt not building, with different building materials. But if we ask steal, thou shalt not engage in divination, thou shalt not how we are to return to the garden and the tree of life, we use sorceries, thou shalt not put to death the child in the are asking for the road that will take us there. And the womb, thou shalt not slay him once he is born” (2:1-2). thing about a road is that it does not depend on what its We may think that most of travelers consider it to be. It these prescriptions are easy leads where it leads. If you go enough to fulfill. But then, not down it, you go where it takes every society is afflicted with you. It is an objective fact. the same chief diseases, and it Thus when the author or is eye-opening, at least, to see authors of the Didache say that some of them placed next to there are two ways, we must not one another, as if the author saw interpret them as simply recomno dime’s worth of difference mending a variety of habits of between them – as if the fornilife. They are roads, as Jesus cator were on the same path says: “Broad is the road [hodos] with the thief and the murderer, that leads to destruction” (Mt. and the abortionist on the same 7:13). It is the easy road to take, path with someone who exposwith a lot of fellow travelers on es an unwanted child already it. Its easiness and its breadth Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise born. So it may be that one are tempting – we may say that party of travelers down the they too are lies, because the “IF YOU LOVE THOSE WHO HATE YOU, YOU road of death is holding to the road leads not to the expanse of left side, another to the right, heaven and its life of pure love, WILL HAVE NO ENEMIES” and each party points scornfulbut to the cramps of self-will, DIDACHE (1:3) ly at the other, while all are envy, pride and other lies, all heading in the same direction. petty and dreary, with a dull repetitiveness that mimics This being the case, and it is not an entirely comfortthe eternity of heaven. able one to consider, we should pray always: “Lord, be The Didache does go on to describe the two ways, and my guide, my companion, my support, my way, and my in language that suggests that the words of Jesus, espedestination, and if my steps go wrong, correct me at cially those from the Sermon on the Mount, have so penonce, and never abandon me to be my own. That is what etrated to the heart of those who follow them that they Adam and Eve chose when they ate the fruit, to be their come forth naturally. The summation of the Way of Life, own. Help me to choose otherwise.” given at the beginning, is this: “First, you shall love the God who made you, and second, you shall love your * Dr. Anthony Esolen, currently a faculty member at neighbor as yourself” (1:2). That entails the love of eneThales College in North Carolina, has been a mies especially, as the Didache makes this bold but perprofessor of literature and humanities for 35 years fectly logical claim: “If you love those who hate you, and is the author or translator of more than 30 books, you will have no enemies” (1:3; emphasis mine). I do not which include a range of English translations, believe that we are meant to understand that our love analyses of culture, literary and Biblical criticisms, will necessarily bring them around. Our love brings us meditations on modern education, meditations on the around: it brings us along the road to life. Jesus loved Christian life, and original poetry. Dr. Esolen also Judas. He loved the Pharisees. He told them the truth, serves as a senior editor and regular writer at and they condemned him to death.

Touchstone magazine, has published well over I could go on to enumerate the various manners 1000 articles in various journals, and publishes in which this derek, this way, was not like what we a web magazine dedicated to language, music, in English used to call “the way of the world,” the poetry, and classic films called Word and Song road the world rolls along, the road to death. Those with his wife, Debra.m who encountered the Didache for the first time, I JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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SPIRITUALITY BEHIND BARS

a MediTaTion on recidiviSM To begin walking in The SpiriT can require a “learning curve” n BY MARCELLUS ALLEn ROBERTS *

“I was in prison and you visited me,” (Mt. 25:36) A priest says Mass for inmates inside a prison. Unfortunately, Catholic priests comprise only 13% of all prison chaplains across the US.

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uring the COVID give joy. But you cannot give lockdown, the George what you don’t have.” (No Beto Unit of the prison Greater Love, St. Mother in which I am incarcerated Teresa) went through a significant Now PeeWee’s back — transformation. In times back behind bars. This time, past, an inmate would spend his third time down, they hit eighteen months at what was him with a bucket of ice called a transfer unit — a water, a wake-up call, a small prison used to acclimate prison“twenty-piece.” But don’t just shake ers to their new environment before your head at the facts. Listen. Be curiTHE SACRAMENTS REQUIRE sending them to larger, more dangerous enough to ask about his emotionRIGHT DISPOSITIONS FOR THE ous facilities. The lockdown changed al, mental, and spiritual state the last GRACE IMPARTED BY THEM TO all of that. time he was released. He’ll answer The pandemic exposed a brewing ACTIVELY TRANSFORM THE LIVES with one word: empty. officer shortage and to make up for The one-word answer leaves his OF THOSE WHO RECEIVE THEM. the lack, several of the smaller units lips so casually, as if he had already were closed down and the larger units began taking on asked himself the question before and is only recalling inmates directly from county jails. The buffer between the well-thought-out conclusion of a previous reflecguys with large sentences and those we call “short tion. This is his answer even though he came into full timers” has disappeared. Today, it is common for a man communion with the Catholic Church during his last who has been locked up for twenty years to find himself sentence, professed the same Confirmation promises in conversation with a man who left the county jail twenhanded down through the ages, and partook of the Prety days ago. Lapses in protocol may result in these two cious Body and Blood. being housed together in the same cell, and since recidiHe admits that between the altar of his First Commuvism is higher in those given shorter sentences, it’s been nion and his parole, his life had been swept clean, put in an interesting adjustment to make. order — yet left empty... “‘Eat, eat the bread. You are This change in the demographics of the prison has hungry.’ And the little one looked at me and said, ‘I am brought up more conversations about recidivism, its afraid. When the bread will be finished, I will be hungry causes, and how one can avoid becoming a negative staagain.’” (No Greater Love, St. Mother Teresa) tistic. We now get to watch men we saw walk out of the PeeWee will tell you how he was sober when door months or years before walk back in, fresh from the released, but drunk and high twenty-four hours later. He county jail, on parole violations and fresh charges. The was totally overwhelmed by the sudden influx of freetemptation for those who have been serving lengthy sendom and the almost total absence of accountability. With tences to look down on those coming back in is strong, no one to answer to, he picked up his old habits with but it can also be turned around and used to generate a breakneck speed and laid his faith by the wayside — a dialogue of understanding and mutual benefit. phenomenon dubbed “jailhouse religion.”

Talking with so many men who have come back has “Jailhouse religion” is akin to the “dry drunk” of given me perspective on the role recidivism plays on Alcoholics Anonymous. A person appears to have spiritual life in prison. “People are hungry for the Word recovered from his disease because he has ceased of God that will give peace, that will give unity, that will indulging in the destructive behavior, but because he has 44

INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

yet to deal with the underlying psychologGod, in His mercy, showers down ical causes, as soon as certain condian abundance of graces so that with tions are met and the circumstances our cooperation, we can be maneubecome favorable again, the destrucvered onto the righteous path. Staytive symptoms return in full force, as ing on this path has a learning curve if they had never left. Things got bad in the same way our natural abilities enough that the windows of opportunihave a learning curve. The time it ty which were flung wide open upon Peetakes to learn to walk in the Spirit, in Wee’s release began to close and his the light of Sanctifying Grace, varies.

Mother Teresa has inspired millions with her world began to collapse. First, unem- extraordinary I can relate personally because I example of compassionate and selfless work for the poor, the ill, and the outcast. ployment. Then his social circle was born with severely bowed legs Right, the book No Greater Love ia an inspirational shrank to those who shared his addicand was well past walking age, scootcollection of her teachings edited by New World Library in 2000. tions. ing myself along the floor with my Alarmed, PeeWee used his health arms, before my parents concluded insurance to gain admission into a HAVE THE COURAGE TO ACCEPT that I was suffering from a serious aildrug rehabilitation program. ment. Had I been born in St. Mother HUMILIATION AND RECEIVE For a brief period PeeWee started Teresa’s Calcutta, I’d have been left GOD’S FORGIVENESS. attending Mass again. How do you without remedy and subject to the – MOTHER TERESA think he was received by the parishmost brutal, lifelong destitution. ioners? He will tell you that the atmosphere was welMy parents were able to provide medical treatment; coming and inviting. But shame and guilt play cruel the doctors broke my legs and reset them, and for that tricks on those who are in most need of fellowship and reason, I walk today. Recidivism, in its most positive community. PeeWee never got the courage to open up to cases, is similar to that breaking of my legs. God breaks the members of that parish. He never asked for the supthat He might bind, wounds that He might heal. port and accountability that would have helped him “This is humility: to have the courage to accept maintain his freedom. humiliation and receive God’s for“I ask Him to make a saint of giveness.” (No Greater Love, St. me, yet I must leave to Him the Mother Teresa) choice of the saintliness itself and It is God Himself who allows a still more the means that lead to it.” person to be thrown back into the (No Greater Love, St. Mother Terebarrel from which they thought they sa) had escaped. Those of us who have Ask PeeWee what kind of yet to be granted a second shot at thoughts ran through his mind as he freedom dare not judge our brothers a beautifully illustrated copy of Rosary Warfare, realized he was headed back to and sisters too harshly. Though we published by Angelus Press prison with a twenty-year sentence may have learned to run, we don’t — his longest sentence to date. At first only the worldly hesitate to slow down to a crawl, if we must, in order to pleasure that he’d miss out on came to mind — the same listen intently to those recidivists who return bearing temptations that had put him back in shackles. But, a morality tales. They might include the very lessons we resolve to do this time differently settled over his heart need to learn, so that, when given the opportunity, we are as he resigned himself to the inevitability of his circumprepared to wrestle with God outside these walls and not stances. He realized that God had granted him the opporlet go until we receive His blessings. tunity for change and a chance to grow beyond the role Last night, PeeWee and I prayed the Divine Office of “jailhouse religious” and experience the transformatogether. The Catholic brotherhood rummaged up a tion promised in the Gospel and communicated in the hand-me-down copy of Christian Prayer, a spare Sacraments.

Rosary, and a beautifully illustrated copy of Rosary Recidivism is a dark, difficult aspect of prison spiriWarfare, published by Angelus Press. He is one of us and tuality. It would be a falsehood to say that access to the will be equipped, encouraged and accompanied along Sacraments automatically cures all the ills of those sephis journey. arated from society and makes them fit for a successful All of this on the tab of the Good Samaritan who, for reentry to their communities as contributing, law-abida season, has placed him in our care. ing citizens. It is not automatic.

The Sacraments require right dispositions for the *Marcellus Allen Roberts is a 40-year-old Prison grace imparted by them to actively transform the lives of Oblate of St. Benedict’s Abbey, Atchison, Kansas. He those who receive them. is serving a 25-year penance in the state of Texas.m JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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C AT H O L I C I S M A n D O R T H O D O X Y E D I T E D B Y: C H R I S T I N A D E A R D U R F F

The Message of the Icon

BY ROBERT WIESnER

THE CREED: BAPTISM I ACKNOWLEDGE ONE BAPTISM FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS

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he history of water, beginning with Creation itself, provides a sort of unifying theme throughout salvation history. At the very beginning, we find the Holy Spirit brooding over the primordial waters, already prefiguring the vital role water is to play for humanity: water is destined to be foundational to both natural and supernatural life.

Water is seen to engulf sin in the Great Flood and in the Great Escape from Egypt; in those two same instances, God’s people are found to be held apart from the ruin, being spared contact with water at its most destructive.

Being a desert people, the Hebrews practiced a careful respect for water. They never became a great sea-faring people (though some dared to become fishermen!), but rather mostly limited their contact with the fluid to hygienic and ritual cleanliness. Both literal and moral grime then were deposited in water.

The Baptism of John the Forerunner served to bring the moral function of water to its fruition in the Old Covenant.

The repentance preached by John brought thousands to rid themselves of sin in Jordan’s waters, adding further pollution to an already quite murky element.

Then came Jesus. Obviously He had no need of repentance; His purpose in entering the river was quite different. St. Gregory of Nyssa bluntly states of Jesus’ Baptism: “He descended into the filth.” In that first stunning act of His public ministry, Jesus completely reversed the supernatural function of water. The great cleansing of water is heralded in one of the antiphons for the Feast of Theophany: “The sea beheld this and fled, the Jordan turned back on its course. Why was it, O sea, that you fled, that you, O Jordan, turned back on your course?”

Eastern tradition holds that the Jordan River indeed page 46

reversed its flow as a sign that water’s function as a depository for moral misdoing was changed in an instant. Jesus sucked out every blot of sin collected in the waters, all to be put to death on the cross. The contact of the sin-filled waters with the absolute purity of Jesus imparted His purity to the Jordan River. Indeed, to this very day, the Great Blessing of Water on Theophany indicates that ordinary water used in the ceremony is actually transformed into the very water cleansed by Jesus; it is in fact Jordan Water!

One of the more powerful aspects of Baptism consists of the utter destruction of sin, not a mere forgiveness. Water has become a potent moral medicine, healing the soul completely of sin.

Many Eastern Churches actually make use of a nearby river or stream for the blessing to drive home the point more forcibly. Even beyond the moral aspects of the blessing, an outdoor ceremony reinforces another aspect of the Blessing.

Nature itself, also wounded by the sin of Adam, begins its great regeneration, fulfilled at the end of time with the “New Earth” promised in Revelation.

Baptism in the Eastern Churches is most properly accomplished as a public ceremony at the beginning of the Divine Liturgy. Beginning at the doors of the church, certain preliminary prayers precede the entrance of the catechumen: the renunciation of Satan, the exorcism and the formal acceptance of a life in Christ.

The entrance into the church is accompanied by the recitation of the Nicene Creed. Chrismation (Confirmation) and First Communion are also administered, as the newly baptized has become a full member of the Church with full rights and privileges. Often, Roman Catholics attending Divine Liturgy are startled by the sight of infants and very small children receiving the Eucharist!m

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East-West Watch

BY PETER AnDERSOn

THE ORTHODOX AnD THE FInAL DOCUMEnT On THE SYnODAL CHURCH A book and a conference that, during the Catholic Synod on Synodality, invited observtion of the experience of synodality in eastern and oriental Orthodox Church traditions.

In the round, Metropolitan Job of Pisidia (of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople) who declared himself disappointed by the conclusions of the Catholic Synod

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n October 26, 2024, the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops of the Catholic Church issued its Final Document on the subject, “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission.” The Final Document is the culmination of a long process that began three years ago and included consultations at the diocesan, national and continental levels. The Final Document was approved by Pope Francis, who elected not to issue his own apostolic exhortation at the conclusion of the Assembly.

Traditionally, a “synodal church” has been understood to be a church governed by a synod, such as the Orthodox and other Eastern churches. Unlike the Catholic Church, where the Pope is the highest authority, the highest authority of various local Orthodox Churches is their synod, which is composed of a group of bishops including the primate.

Since 2006, the Catholic–Orthodox Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue has been discussing the relationship between “synodality” and “primacy.” In the dialogue, “synodality” describes the Orthodox form of governance, while “primacy” relates to the authority of the Pope to govern the church. The dialogue is seeking to reconcile these two concepts.

In the past, Pope Francis has stated that the Catholic Church must learn from the Orthodox and Eastern churches about synodality. As recently as September 28, 2024, Pope Francis stated in a meeting with Belgian Jesuits: “The Easterners have not lost synodality; we have lost it.”

Strangely, the Final Document says nothing about learning from the Eastern churches about synodality. The word “Orthodox” is never used in the Final Document. The reason for this silence may well be that the Final Document expands the concept of “synodality” far beyond the concept of “synodality” traditionally recognized by the eastern churches.

One of the non-voting “fraternal delegates” invited to attend the Catholic Synod was Metropolitan Job of Pisidia (of Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople). Metropolitan Job is also co-president of the joint commission. In his address at the Synod, Metropolitan Job stated that “a synod is a deliberative meeting of bishops, not a consultative clergy-laity assembly.” He added: “In light of this, we could say that the understanding of synodality in the Orthodox Church differs greatly from the definition of synodality given by your present assembly of the Synod of Bishops.”

Rather than relying on historical use, the Final Document stated that “thanks to the experience of recent years,” the meaning of “synodality” has been “better understood.” In it, synodality is broadly defined as “the walking together of Christians with Christ and towards the Kingdom of God, in union with all humanity.”

In this regard, the Final Document emphasizes the role of the “People of God,” stating: “Encouraging the widest possible participation of the whole People of God in decision-making processes is the most effective way to promote a synodal Church.” The Assembly itself included a substantial number of non-bishops who had the right to vote.

The difference between the historic concept of synodality held by Metropolitan Job and the broad concept expressed by the Final Document does not mean that the role of the laity will necessarily be markedly different in the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. At the present, the laity are very active in the affairs of the Orthodox Church, although bishops usually maintain ultimate control.

On the other hand, the broad language of the Final Document does not mean that the traditional role of Catholic bishops will be eliminated. Still, there is a marked difference in the two concepts of synodality, and this will not bring Catholics and Orthodox closer together.m

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C AT H O L I C I S M A N D O R T H O D O X Y E D I T E D B Y: C H R I S T I N A D E A R D U R F F

NEWS from the EAST

BY MATTHEW TROJACEK

MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE SEEKS since the first historic meeting between a Pope and an AssyrTO “OPEN MORE PARISHES” ACROSS AFRICA ian patriarch.

Amid songs and dances, a diplomatic-plated car pulled Quoting from the Second Vatican Council’s Unitatis up in front of a church in Akpakpa, a suburb of Cotonou, the Redintegratio, the Pope emphasized that both Churches largest city in Benin. Exiting with a smile, Constantin of share “the same faith, handed down by the apostles,” even Zaraïsk, Metropolitan of the Russian Patriarchal Exarchate if expressed differently. of Africa and representative of the Russian Orthodox Francis pointed to recent achievements in CatholicChurch’s Patriarch Kirill, greeted those waiting.

Assyrian dialogue, such as the 2001 agreement on the This was his first visit to the Nativity Anaphora of Addai and Mari, an ancient Eucharistic prayer of Christ parish in Akpakpa. The recognized for its apostolic roots, and the 2017 joint statevisit reflected the Moscow Patriarment on sacramental life. chate’s current mission to expand A 2022 document titled “The Images its influence in Africa, a region of the Church in the Syriac and Latin traditionally under the jurisdiction Patristic Traditions” laid further of the Alexandria Patriarchate. Tengroundwork for mutual understanding. sions within Orthodoxy over the Pope Francis’ decision to add Saint Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s indepenIsaac to the Martyrology follows a recdence have driven Moscow to expand ommendation from the recent Synod on its reach.

Synodality to recognize saints from “It’s a great day!” exclaimed Father other Christian traditions in the Partheny Dansou, Dean—meaning Catholic liturgical calendar. (CNA) Pope Francis, on the occasion of the meeting with episcopal vicar—for the Russian Ortho- Mar Awa III, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian dox Church in Ivory Coast, Benin, Togo, Church of the East, announces that Saint Isaac (in RUSSIA BLOCKS CATHOLIC, Burkina Faso and Liberia. Metropolitan the round) will be added to the Roman Martyrology OTHER RELIGIOUS WEBSITES Zaraïsk arrived in Cotonou “to formally incorporate this Amid its war against Ukraine, Russia continues to block new Russian Orthodox community,” Father Dansou added. a number of external religious websites, social media The October 23 Benin visit was part of a tour that began on accounts and apps from several countries, preventing October 10 in Gabon and continued through Cameroon, believers of various faiths from accessing information and Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Togo. engaging in dialogue, according to a human rights watch “The Russian Orthodox Church has a presence in 30 group.

African countries,” Metropolitan Zaraïsk told La Croix Forum 18 – a news service that partners with the NorweInternational, adding that he currently counted “250 priests gian Helsinki Committee in defending freedom of religion, and over 300 communities in Africa.” His objective? “To thought and conscience – posted an updated list of affected establish even more Russian Orthodox parishes in Africa to sites on October 4. better serve the continent.” (LaCroix) “I think it illustrates the Russian authorities’ … obsessions, if you like, in blocking what they call extremist conHONORING PERSECUTED MIDDLE EAST tent,” Felix Corley, Forum 18 editor and researcher, told CHRISTIANS, POPE FRANCIS ADDS ASSYRIAN OSV News, noting that the bans are also operative in RussSAINT TO MARTYROLOGY ian-occupied areas of Ukraine.

Pope Francis announced on November 9 that Saint Isaac Forum 18 found that Russia’s ban extends to sites “relatof Nineveh, a seventh-century Assyrian bishop venerated ed to Jehovah’s Witnesses … Muslim sites related to theoloacross Christian traditions, will be added to the Roman Margian Said Nursi (blocked as ‘extremist’); a website supporttyrology. ing LGBT+ people in religious communities; religious sites The Pope made the announcement on the occasion of a criticizing Russia’s war against Ukraine, including ChrisVatican meeting with Mar Awa III, Catholicos-Patriarch of tians Against War and Christianity Today,” as well as the Assyrian Church of the East.

“Ukrainian religious sites … social media sites of those The gathering commemorated two milestones: almost 30 opposing the war on religious grounds … and news and years since the Common Christological Declaration was NGO sites which include coverage of freedom of religion or signed, ending a 1,500-year doctrinal dispute, and 40 years belief violations.” (UCANews) page 48

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restrictions, which he attributes primarily to ecclesiastical schism and the interference of the Constantinople Patriarchate, while also theorizing about what he sees as a broader plan to merge the Orthodox and Catholic churches.

Asked whether the present persecution of the canonical UOC by the Ukrainian state has its root in the war, Metropolitan Luke notes that, in fact, “The root of all troubles is the ecclesiastical schism.”

“And this is just a small fraction of the violations of the rights of the faithful of our Church — violations for which it’s not so much the OCU that bears responsibility, but rather the Patriarchate of Constantinople,” Metropolitan Luke states.

Next, the Georgian outlet asks: “After the adoption of Law No. 8371, can one say that not only the UOC, but Orthodoxy as a whole, as a confession, has been effectively banned?”

LITURGY DISPUTE In The Metropolitan responds InDIA’S SYRO-MALABAR strongly: “I would even strengthen CHURCH DEEPEnS the emphasis—not just banned, but The apostolic administrator in a under threat of destruction.” troubled Syro-Malabar archdiocese According to Metropolitan Luke, in India has warned of “canonical this is part of a larger plan, first to disactions” against priests and the laity mantle the UOC and merge its remover a simmering decades-old liturnants into a new structure, which, he gy dispute. claims, might then be united with the Bishop Bosco Puthur of ErnakuUkrainian Greek Catholic Church. lam-Angamaly in southern Kerala, This is part of a broader Vatican and The apse of Saint George's Church of Kashveti in an October 30 circular read at SunPhanar strategy for Orthodoxin the heart of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia day Masses November 3, said the Catholic unification, with Ukraine Eastern Rite Church will no longer tolerate those who pubserving as a test case, the Metropolitan believes — evidence licly tarnish the image of its leaders. that Orthodox-Catholic reunification is feasible without Dissenting priests and the laity decided to burn copies of doctrinal changes. (OrthoChristian) the circular.

The decades-long liturgy row over the rubrics of Mass ORTHODOXY COULD BECOME was settled in July after the priests and the laity agreed to celTHE STATE RELIGIOn In GEORGIA ebrate at least one uniform Eucharistic liturgy according to Beka Mindiashvili is a disappointed man. This elderly the new form, in which the celebrant faces the altar during Georgian theologian no longer sees many people praying the Eucharistic prayer, on Sundays and other feast days in before the iconostasis of Saint George’s Church of Kashveti every parish. in the heart of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. The imposing The opposing priests and laity want to continue with their religious edifice, central to his daily life of faith, is gradually traditional Mass, during which the celebrant faces the conemptying out. “Faith and trust in the institution are being gregation throughout. (UCANews) severely tested,” he said, dressed entirely in black. The Orthodox Church, a cornerstone of Georgian identity, faces “nOT JUST BAnnED, BUT UnDER THREAT unprecedented political intrusion.

OF DESTRUCTIOn” —METROPOLITAn LUKE The fate of the Orthodox Church’s Georgian PatriarOn STATE OF ORTHODOXY In UKRAInE chate was one of the central issues in the country’s parliaMetropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye of the Ukrainian mentary elections held on October 26. Accused by several Orthodox Church gave an interview to the Georgian outlet European Union countries of illiberal tendencies — tvalsazrisi.ge on November 25. claims it denied — the Georgian Dream party, which won The Metropolitan is one of the most outspoken hierarchs the election with 53.9% of the vote, plans to amend the of the UOC, and the territory of his diocese is located right Constitution to make Orthodoxy the official state religion. on the line of battle in the ongoing war. In the interview, he This would mark a first in the history of the Eastern discussed the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches. Never since the Great Schism of 1054 have reliChurch in Ukraine, including church seizures and legal gion and politics been so intertwined. (LaCroix) m

CARDInAL KOCH TRAVELS TO ISTAnBUL FOR ST. AnDREW’S FEAST As is customary, a Vatican delegation, led by Cardinal Kurt Koch, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, traveled to Istanbul to take part in the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s celebration on November 30 of the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, brother of St. Peter and patron saint of Constantinople.

Speaking to EWTN News about this anniversary on November 21, Cardinal Koch emphasized that unity efforts must focus on “the innermost center of self-revelation in Jesus Christ.”

The Swiss cardinal also highlighted what he called an “ecumenism of blood,” noting that “Christians are not persecuted because they are Catholic, Lutheran or Anglican, but because they are Christians.” (EWTN News)

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TradiTion and BeauTy

liturgical music and tHe reign of paul vi His appreciation for tHe cHurcH’s musical patrimony did not prevent its gradual disappearance n BY AURELIO POFIRI *

T

here is no doubt that gated to museum artifacts.” one of the most influ(Paolo Mattei, “La porpora e ential figures in the il coro,” 30 Giorni, NovemCatholic Church of the 20th ber, 2010. ). century was Pope Paul VI, In an interview with now proclaimed a saint. He noted Catholic author Paolo was undoubtedly a key figure Rodari, recalling the Council In the early years of his pontificate, Paul VI received in the Church’s journey years, Cardinal Bartolucci Maestro Domenico Bartolucci in a private audience.

Bottom, in 2011, Bartolucci, now a cardinal, during his direction through the last century commented: “We were disof the choir of St. Peter's Basilica (although his work, as often missed, told that it was not happens, is celebrated by the Sistine Chapel that some and criticized by others, AT THE END OF THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL should sing, but the people. It (UNDER PAUL VI), MOST OF THE GLORIOUS with little balance between was a Copernican revolution. these two perspectives). Per- POLYPHONIC REPERTOIRE OF THE CHOIR OF THE The abandonment of Latin, haps something similar can SISTINE CHAPEL WAS PRACTICALLY EXCLUDED which the Council itself did be said about his relationship not advocate, was in fact prowith liturgical music. moted by many liturgists, and I also draw on my own thus the entire traditional memories of conversations repertoire of Gregorian chant with my teacher, Cardinal and polyphony, and conseDomenico Bartolucci, who quently the scholae cantowas the director of the Sistine rum, were branded as the root Chapel Choir during Paul of all problems. The motto VI’s papacy. If one compares became ‘go to the people,’ the repertoire of the Sistine without understanding the Chapel Choir at the opening grave consequences of this of the Second Vatican Countrivialization of the rites and cil (under John XXIII) with the liturgy. that at its conclusion (under “I always opposed this and Paul VI), one can see an evifirmly supported the necessident limitation of the choir’s role. Much of its glorious ty of great art in the Church, as nourishment and benefit polyphonic repertoire was practically excluded. For for the people themselves. Participation was equated years, the choir was even barred from giving concerts. with singing or reading something, disregarding the Recalling the Council era and the subsequent years, wise pedagogy of the past. Paradoxically, even the entire Cardinal Bartolucci stated: “We were gradually downrepertoire of devotional hymns that the faithful knew sized and sidelined. We became an alien body within the and sang disappeared. Years ago, for instance, when celebrations. During the pontificate of John Paul II, the people attended a Requiem Mass, they knew how to sing Sistine Chapel Choir was increasingly less involved in the Dies Irae with devotion, and I recall everyone joinmajor papal liturgies. The living beauty of Palestrinian ing in the Te Deum or the Marian antiphons. Today, it’s polyphony and Gregorian chant was progressively relehard to find someone capable of doing so.

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“Fortunately, many are now starting to realize what encounters in Rome. In the Sistine Chapel, with the parhappened, though it may be a bit late. We should have ticipation of the entire Choir, the Cappella performed for thought about this before proceeding with so much prethe first time a Mass with Italian hymns. In St. Peter’s, sumed ‘wisdom,’ dictated by fashion. But you see, back our Alessandro Bussadori once moved cardinals, dignithen, everyone was renewing, everyone was pontificattaries, and faithful to tears; he himself wept, embraced ing. Luckily, the Holy Father is now giving very clear after a sublime hymn by the Pope. guidance on liturgy, and we hope time will assist the new “The most memorable encounter was in the Pope’s generations.” private chapel on his eightieth birthday. He wished to The Holy Father he referred to was Benedict XVI. spend it in recollection and solitude; yet he could not say However, Paul VI also received the Sistine Chapel Choir no to the children. To them, the venerable Pontiff, as if on March 12, 1964, and addressed them with words of reminiscing for himself but with words comprehensible appreciation, summarized on the Vatican’s official webto them, recalled the reasons for his vocation, the milesite as follows: “First of all, sing well. This is already stones of his priesthood, the aspirations of his life, the happening, and the Holy Father acknowledges and challenges, concerns and hopes of his pontificate. It was, praises the maestro, Monsignor Bartolucci, the individin the stunned silence of the children present, the most ual group instructors, and all beautiful speech ever heard those who make up this excelfrom him. May this dear and lent choir. Singing well is no holy Pontiff assist us and smile simple task: it requires signifiupon his young choristers from cant study, exercises, rehearsals, heaven.” repetitions — in short, it is a Certainly, between these two meritorious effort to be regarded illustrious maestros, who as a primary duty. respected one another, there “It could be said to be the was a divergence of opinion on only duty, but a second one arisPaul VI. I remember Cardinal es, contributing to its true primaBartolucci often recounting an cy. This second duty obliges one anecdote about a meeting with to sing well not only with the The late maestro of the Milan Cathedral, Monsignor Luciano Archbishop Montini, where the Migliavacca, who served under Archbishop Giovanni Montini voice but also with the heart. latter asked for more “pastoral (the future Paul VI) “This may seem simple, but it music.” This scandalized the is arduous, as aligning the soul’s esteemed musician, who would WHILE PAUL VI SEEMED TO APPRECIATE sentiments with the words and add that true “pastoral music” THOSE WHO DEDICATED THEMSELVES sounds is natural, yet not always was that of the great tradition of PROFESSIONALLY TO SACRED MUSIC, HE achieved, just as the spiritual the Catholic Church. unity of man is not always alive ALSO APPEARED TO FAVOR COLLABORATORS In conclusion, while Paul VI and operative. Seeking it, valuseemed to appreciate those who AND PROJECTS THAT RELEGATED GREAT ing it, sometimes involves diffidedicated themselves profesSACRED MUSIC TO OBLIVION culty. One can sing well, even sionally to sacred music, he also excellently, with the voice, and be faithful to the score, appeared to favor collaborators and projects that relegatyet let the heart wander elsewhere, distracted by ed great sacred music to oblivion. It is another enigma thoughts and interests unrelated, if not contrary, to the about this Pope, now consigned to history. One thing music’s spiritual expression.” that is clear: this debate, even decades after his death, These are admirable words, even though what was shows no signs of subsiding. happening in the liturgy during those years seemed to On the contrary, the situation seems increasingly tanmove in a direction contrary to the Pope’s praise. To be gled. Reflecting on our past can help us gain a clearer impartial, we must also recall the words of the late maeunderstanding of these issues and, perhaps, discover if stro of the Milan Cathedral, Monsignor Luciano a way forward exists.

Migliavacca, who served under Archbishop Giovanni Montini (the future Paul VI) and was more * Maestro Aurelio Porfiri is a composer, conducopen to liturgical reform, although he did not shy tor, master organist, writer and educator in Rome. away from criticism when necessary.

His blog on music, Cantus, is available on Substack, On the occasion of Paul VI’s canonization, he and his latest book, The Right Hand of the Lord Is Exaltremarked: “On the day — June 21, 1963 — when he was ed: A History of Catholic Traditionalism from Vatican II to elected Pope, he was supposed to be here with us. We Traditionis Custodes, is now available from Sophia Instisent him a congratulatory telegram. Then came the tute Press.m JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

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Of Books, Art and People

Venice’s RedentoRe chuRch opens its gaRdens to the public n BY LUCY GORDAn

Andrea Palladio, the architect of this votive church on the island of Giudecca, La Chiesa de Santissimo Redentore (The Church of the Most Holy Redeemer)

Below, a view of the garden from the church bell tower.

(Photo Carlo Soffietti)

S

pread to human beings by fleas that had previously bitten infected rats, the bubonic plague or “black death” was a constant problem for Venice from its first outbreak in 1347, when it killed millions of people throughout Europe, until the 1830s. Venice, a city dependent on commerce, especially by sea from the East, couldn’t turn away foreign ships for fear they’d introduce disease, because otherwise it would have collapsed economically.

Over the next 60 years after 1348 there were another six outbreaks of the plague until the Senate decided in 1423 to introduce a hospice for the sick, known as a lazzaretto, in the monastery on the island of Santa Maria di Nazareth in the Venetian lagoon. It became known as Lazzaretto Vecchio. Although this isolation was better than nothing, there were two more outbreaks of the plague, in 1439 and in 1468, so a second and permanent quarantine station, known as Lazzaretto Nuovo and designed by the esteemed architect Andrea Palladio, was built in the monastery on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore.

These two lazzaretti and 52 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

the permanent establishment in 1485 of the Magistrato alla Sanità (basically a Ministry of Public Health) kept Venice plague-free for nearly a century.

In 1568 the Tezon grando (a large warehouse built on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore for the cleansing of goods which arrived on infected ships) was built, but when in 1573 news of a major epidemic in Constantinople arrived, the city was caught unprepared because many cases had arrived from the mainland, not from the sea. Although it had been diagnosed by family physicians, professors of medicine in nearby Padua and the Venetian Government denied the presence of the plague until a year later, when, on July 31, they declared the first lockdown ever, lasting two weeks. When the situation didn’t improve, the Doge and the Senate promised the Lord to erect “a temple in the name of Christ” and miraculously the epidemic ended in early January 1577 — only after killing 50,726 Venetians, or one third of the city’s population.

The architect of this votive church on the large island of Giudecca, La Chiesa de Santissimo Redentore or Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, was again Palladio, who died in 1580, before the church was finished. Its

record of Venetian landscape, façade facing “downtown” culture, and religion, and exemVenice across the wide Canale plar for the Capuchin Francisdella Giudecca was inspired by cans of “Paradise on Earth,” on the Pantheon in Rome and the May 19, 2021 the Friars, with 15 steps required to reach the the authorization of the Holy See church’s entrance were a direct (Congregatio pro Institutis Vitae reference to the Temple of Consecratae et Societatibus ViJerusalem. tae Apostolicae) and of the SuGiovanni Trevisan, the Paperintendency of Archeology, triarch of Venice, laid the corFine Arts and Landscape for the nerstone on May 3, 1577. The City of Venice and its Lagoon, church wasn’t consecrated until entrusted the garden’s restora1592, when Pope Gregory XIII The Turin lawyer Adele Re Rebaudengo, creator and curator of the restoration project, and the famous landscape architect Paolo tion to the Venice Gardens entrusted it to the Order of FriPejrone. (Photo - Cynthia Giard Préfontaine) Foundation Project. Created in ars Minor Capuchin, who al2014 by the Turin-born lawyer ready, since 1539, had adminisAdele Re Rebaudengo “to retered a small church called Sanstore and conserve parks, garta Maria degli Angeli nearby, dens, and places of historic and today part of the Redentore cultural interest,” the Foundacomplex. Fourteen Capuchins, tion restored the Giardini Reali almost all northern Italians, still (Royal Gardens) in Piazza San live at the Redentore.

Marco as its first project, finishThe Giudecca had always ing on December 17, 2019. been Venice’s garden, orchard, “Almost immediately afterand farm island, so the Cawards — in fact, not even two puchins soon planted their own weeks after the completion of garden which they kept for the Royal Gardens project,” Re Rebaudengo told a group of themselves for over 400 years — only opening it to the invited journalists, including me, at supper the night before public for the very first time this year, on October 31. For the press preview on October 26, “I’d rung the doorbell of now, it is open until March 31, 2025 on Thursdays, Fridays the Redentore’s monastery to propose this second project. I and Saturdays from 10 am to 4:30 pm. The entrance fees was sure they would think I was crazy, but instead, after are 12 euros for tourists, 6 euros for residents of Venice and long discussions, and bureaucratic and legal negotiations, children from 6 to 12 years old, and members of FAI (Fonthe Holy See gave the Foundation a 22-year Concession. do per l’ambiente italiano or Italian National Trust Fund).

“The aim of the project was to carry out the restoration, Otherwise, residents of Venice can choose to pay 30 euros care, cultivation, and the opening of the compound to visia year for an unlimited entrance card. It’s free for clergy, members of ICOM (International Councils The Venetian church Santa Maria della tors, while maintaining the spirit and harmony of the place. In this historical mofor Museums), children under 5 years old, Salute, built to celebrate the end of an ment, when collaboration, compassion and outbreak of the plague in 1630 the disabled plus their helpers, and donors dialog seldom exist,” continued Re Rebauof between 500 and 1,000 euros to the dengo, “the Foundation believes that this Friends of Venice Gardens Foundation. was a project not only of restoration, and The best way to reach Il Redentore by pubof affinity and respect for nature, but also a lic transportation is via the vaporetto 2, return to how we human beings used to which stops just in front. treat each other with respect. We live in The 1-hectare garden runs from the fast-moving times, but here we have to reback of the church’s apse to the south laspect the cycles of nature and its fruits goon. Over the centuries its several buildFranciscan-style.” ings, including meditation chapels, workAlthough open to the public, this garshops, a greenhouse, and an apiary, had den is not your usual park with playgradually fallen into disrepair, but the gargrounds. Rather it’s a place to meditate and den suffered serious damage from the “acfind inner peace, so it is not appropriate for qua alta,” the record 187 cm. (6 feet, 2 children unless specific activities, like art, inches) high tide on November 12, 2019, gardening and cooking lessons with the which submerged and devastated the products from the garden, have been set up whole city of Venice. for them.

Other planned activities include To remedy the damage to this important JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 53

Of Books, Art and People concerts, poetry readings, book presentations, art and photographic exhibitions, and a café with dishes prepared from the garden’s seasonal produce. For example, the menu at the press preview was soft polenta with melted cheese by the spoon and crispy black kale, polenta chips with garden herb ricotta, lightly seared mixed garden vegetables, Chantilly cream with grappa, baked plums and mint.

With the objective of restoring and safeguarding the site’s beauty, religious and cultural tradition and vision for the future, the Foundation first conducted in-depth archival research predominantly in the Redentore’s archive and Venice’s library La Marciana, founded in 1468 by the humanist Cardinal Bessarion, where documentation and drawings of the original garden were discovered. The project was then entrusted to the world-famous landscape architect Paolo Pejrone, also Turin-born, who had, for example, restored the gardens of the Roman Church Santa Croce in Gerusalemme and the Giardini Reali, and to architect Alessandra Raso for the buildings’ reconstruction.

The project took three years to complete and cost approximately 5,500,000 euro, or 6 million dollars. Europe’s PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan), part of the Next Generation EU economic recovery project, provided 2,200,000 euro; the remaining funds were donated by cultural foundations, businesses, and generous private benefactors as well as by many individuals who adopted trees

54 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

and benches.

Speaking of trees and plants, the garden is home to 2,504 plants: 52 trees (30 of which are cypresses brought here from Tuscany); 240 shrubs; and 684 herbaceous, 1,520 flowering, and 8 aquatic plants. The garden includes an olive grove, an orchard of fruit trees, a fountain with water lilies in homage to the Orient’s connection to Venice, seasonal vegetable plots, an arbor made of chestnut wood, a traditional herb garden with medicinal plants which were once the source of the Redentore’s pharmacy, and a pittosporum garden essential for the garden’s honey production and the perfect setting for romantic views of the sunset over the lagoon. The garden is self-sufficient for water, thanks to a well and a rainwater storage. The Foundation will cover the maintenance cost of 250,000 euro (c. $270,000) a year.

P.S.: Since 2021 the Venetian church Santa Maria della Salute, built to celebrate the end of an outbreak of the plague in 1630 which killed 80,000 Venetians, had been covered in scaffolding and closed to the public.

Every year since 1631, on November 21, the Venetians have crossed the Grand Canal from St. Mark’s Square on a bridge made of connected boats to give thanks at this church and enjoy a plate of castradina, a mutton-based dish. This year the celebration was especially joyous because the scaffolding had been dismantled and the church reopened just a few days before.m

THE END EXCERPTS fRom LoRD of THE WoRLD

“HiS DominaTion WaS ComPLETE” MORE THAN A CENTURY AGO, MONSIGNOR ROBERT HUGH BEnSOn FORESAW THE RISE OF SECULAR HUMANISM, THE CONTRACTION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, AND THE COMING OF THE ANTICHRIST n BY ITV STAFF Editor’s Note: The passage below is from the novel Lord of the World, written by the English Catholic convert Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson (the son of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury) in 1907. He attempts a vision of the world more than a century in the future — in the early 21st century… our own time… predicting the

LORD OF THE WORLD

BY ROBERT HUGH BENSON (1907) BOOK II, THE EnCOUnTER, CHAPTER VIII, SECTIOn II-III (Note: At last, the President of Europe, Julian Felsenburgh, appears to the assembled crowd in triumph after decimating his enemies and laying waste to Rome and all it symbolized. Mabel, in attendance, feels herself drawn completely into his words: “There is no repentance, but there is something better…the knowledge of what crimes man was yet capable of, and the will to use that knowledge...”)

In this again, as Mabel perceived afterwards, there was no precise or verbal record within her of what he said; there was no conscious process by which she received, tested, or approved what sheThen she saw how already the long procession was winding up beneath the screen, and by imperceptible art the light grew yet more acutely beautiful. They were coming, then, those ministers of a pure worship; grave men who knew in what they believed, and who, even if they did not at this moment thrill with feeling (for she knew that in this respect her husband for one did not), yet believed the principles of this worship and recognised their need of expression for the majority of mankind—coming slowly up in fours and pairs and units, led by robed vergers, rippling over the steps, and emerging again into the coloured sunlight in all their bravery of Masonic apron, badge and jewel.

Surely here was reassurance enough. ***** The sanctuary now held a figure or two. Anxious-faced Mr. Francis, in his robes of office, came gravely down the steps and stood awaiting the procession, directing with almost imperceptible motions his satellites who hovered about the aisles ready to point this way and that to the advancing stream; and the westernmost seats were already beginning to fill, when on a sudden she recognised that something had happened.

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rise of Communism, the fall of faith in many places, the advance of technology (he foresees helicopters) and so forth up until... the Second Coming of the Lord, with which his vision ends. For this reason, and also because Pope Benedict and Pope Francis have repeatedly cited the book, saying its clarification of the danger of a type of humanitarianism without God is a true danger that we do face, we print a selection from it in ITV, now and in the months ahead.

Just now the roaring of the mob outside had provided a kind of underbass to the music within, imperceptible except to sub-consciousness, but clearly discernible in its absence; and this absence was now a fact.

At first she thought that the signal of beginning worship had hushed them; and then, with an indescribable thrill, she remembered that in all her knowledge only one thing had ever availed to quiet a turbulent crowd. Yet she was not sure; it might be an illusion. Even now the mob might be roaring still, and she only deaf to it; but again with an ecstasy that was very near to agony she perceived that the murmur of voices even within the building had ceased, and that some great wave of emotion was stirring the sheets and slopes of faces before her as a wind stirs wheat. A moment later, and she was on her feet, gripping the rail, with her heart like an over-driven engine beating pulses of blood, furious and insistent, through every vein; for with great rushing surge that sounded like a sigh, heard even above the triumphant tumult overhead, the whole enormous assemblage had risen to its feet.

Confusion seemed to break out in the orderly procession. She saw Mr. Francis run forward quickly, gesticulating like a conductor, and at his signal the long line swayed forward, split, recoiled, and again slid swiftly forward, breaking as it did so into twenty streams that poured along the seats and filled them in a moment.

Men ran and pushed, aprons flapped, hands beckoned, all without coherent words. There was a knocking of feet, the crash of an overturned chair, and then, as if a god had lifted his hand for quiet, the music ceased abruptly, sending a wild echo that swooned and died in a moment; a great sigh filled its place, and, in the colored sunshine that lay along the immense length of the gangway that ran open now from west to east, far down in the distant nave, a single figure was seen advancing.

III What Mabel saw and heard and felt from eleven o'clock to half-an-hour after noon on that first morning of the New Year she could never adequately remember. For the time she lost the continuous consciousness of self, the power of reflection, for she was

God as depicted by British poet William Blake as the “architect of creation,” now in the British Museum, London

still weak from her struggle; there was no longer in her the process by which events are stored, labelled and recorded; she was no more than a being who observed as it were in one long act, across which considerations played at uncertain intervals.

Eyes and ear seemed her sole functions, communicating directly with a burning heart. ***** She did not even know at what point her senses told her that this was Felsenburgh. She seemed to have known it even before he entered, and she watched Him as in complete silence He came deliberately up the red carpet, superbly alone, rising a step or two at the entrance of the choir, passing on and up before her. He was in his English judicial dress of scarlet and black, but she scarcely noticed it.

For her, too, no one else existed but He; this vast assemblage was gone, poised and transfigured in one vibrating atmosphere of an immense human emotion. There was no one, anywhere, but Julian Felsenburgh. Peace and light burned like a glory about Him. For an instant after passing he disappeared beyond the speaker's tribune, and the instant after reappeared once more, coming up the steps. He reached his place—she could see His profile beneath her and slightly to the left, pure and keen as the blade of a knife, beneath His white hair. He lifted one white-furred sleeve, made a single motion, and with a surge and a rumble, the ten thousand were seated. He motioned again and with a roar they were on their feet.

Again there was a silence. He stood now, perfectly still, His hands laid together on the rail, and His face looking steadily before Him; it seemed as if He who had drawn all eyes and stilled all sounds were waiting until His domination were complete, and there was but one will, one desire, and that beneath His hand.

Then He began to speak….

The nearest image under which she could afterwards describe her emotions to herself, was that when He spoke it was she who was speaking. Her own thoughts, her predispositions, her griefs, her disappointment, her passion, her hopes—all these interior acts of the soul known scarcely even to herself, down even, it seemed, to the minutest whorls and eddies of thought, were, by this man, lifted up, cleansed, kindled, satisfied and proclaimed.

For the first time in her life she became perfectly aware of what human nature meant; for it was her own heart that passed out upon the air, borne on that immense voice. Again, as once before for a few moments in Paul's House, it seemed that creation, groaning so long, had spoken articulate words at last—had come to growth and coherent thought and perfect speech.

Yet then He had spoken to men; now it was Man Himself speaking. It was not one man who spoke there, it was Man—Man conscious of his origin, his destiny, and his pilgrimage between, Man sane again after a night of madness—knowing his strength, declaring his law, lamenting in a voice as eloquent as stringed instruments his own failure to correspond.

It was a soliloquy rather than an oration. Rome had fallen, English and Italian streets had run with blood, smoke and flame

had gone up to heaven, because man had for an instant sunk back to the tiger. Yet it was done, cried the great voice, and there was no repentance; it was done, and ages hence man must still do penance and flush scarlet with shame to remember that once he turned his back on the risen light.

There was no appeal to the lurid, no picture of the tumbling palaces, the running figures, the coughing explosions, the shaking of the earth and the dying of the doomed. It was rather with those hot hearts shouting in the English and German streets, or aloft in the winter air of Italy, the ugly passions that warred there, as the volors rocked at their stations, generating and fulfilling revenge, paying back plot with plot, and violence with violence. For there, cried the voice, was man as he had been, fallen in an instant to the cruel old ages before he had learned what he was and why.

There was no repentance, said the voice again, but there was something better; and as the hard, stinging tones melted, the girl's dry eyes of shame filled in an instant with tears.

There was something better—the knowledge of what crimes man was yet capable of, and the will to use that knowledge.

Rome was gone, and it was a lamentable shame; Rome was gone, and the air was the sweeter for it; and then in an instant, like the soar of a bird, He was up and away—away from the horrid gulf where He had looked just now, from the fragments of charred bodies, and tumbled houses and all the signs of man's disgrace, to the pure air and sunlight to which man must once more set his face.

Yet He bore with Him in that wonderful flight the dew of tears and the aroma of earth. He had not spared words with which to lash and whip the naked human heart, and He did not spare words to lift up the bleeding, shrinking thing, and comfort it with the divine vision of love….

Historically speaking, it was about forty minutes before He turned to the shrouded image behind the altar.

"Oh! Maternity!" he cried. "Mother of us all—-" And then, to those who heard Him, the supreme miracle took place…. For it seemed now in an instant that it was no longer man who spoke, but One who stood upon the stage of the superhuman.

The curtain ripped back, as one who stood by it tore, panting, at the strings; and there, it seemed, face to face stood the Mother above the altar, huge, white and protective, and the Child, one passionate incarnation of love, crying to her from the tribune.

"Oh! Mother of us all, and Mother of Me!" So He praised her to her face, that sublime principle of life, declared her glories and her strength, her Immaculate Motherhood, her seven swords of anguish driven through her heart by the passion and the follies of her Son—He promised her great things, the recognition of her countless children, the love and service of the unborn, the welcome of those yet quickening within the womb.

He named her the Wisdom of the Most High, that sweetly orders all things, the Gate of Heaven, House of Ivory, Comforter of the afflicted, Queen of the World; and, to the delirious eyes of those who looked on her it seemed that the grave face smiled to hear Him….(to be continued) JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

57

VATICAN WATCH

By Matthew Trojacek with CNA Reports - Grzegorz Galazka and CNA photos

OCTOBER WEDNESDAY 16

POPE FRANCIS TO RELEASE GROUNDBREAKING AUTOBIOGRAPHY HOPE IN 2025 In a historic move, Pope Francis is set to become the first sitting pontiff to release an autobiographical memoir. Titled Hope, the much-anticipated book will be published worldwide on January 14, 2025, in what is being described as an unprecedented literary event. The announcement came from Random House Publishing on October 16, marking a significant moment not only for the Vatican but also for the global literary and religious communities.

In a statement accompanying the announcement, Pope Francis explained his motivations: “´Hope´ is the story of a journey— one that I cannot separate from the journey of my family, my people, and the people of God. In every chapter and passage, it is also the story of those who have walked with me, those who came before, and those who will follow.” He further reflected on the nature of autobiography, describing it as “not just our private history, but the luggage we carry with us.

Memory is not only what we recall, but what surrounds us, and it speaks not just of what was, but of what is yet to come.” (Zenit) WEDNESDAY 30

POPE FRANCIS TO PARENTS OF ABORTED CHILDREN: “EVIL DOES NOT HAVE THE LAST WORD” On October 30, Pope Francis received in audience members of Project Hope, a program of accompaniment for the spiritual and emotional healing of women and men who suffer the consequences of having chosen abortion.

The members of the initiative, which has spread to most Latin American countries, aim to help those who seek “reconciliation and forgiveness” and experience God’s mercy.

Project Hope came about from women and also men asking for help “with tears in their eyes and expressing the need to know how to cope with unbearable pain.”

“But we must not lose hope,” the Pope reminded. “Evil does not have the last word; it is never definitive. Like the angel in Saint Joseph’s dream, God announces to us that, after this desert, the Lord will return to take possession of his house.” (CNA) 58 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

THURSDAY 31

VATICAN OPENS VISITORS’ CENTER FOR SAINT PETER’S BASILICA FOR HOLY YEAR The Vatican has opened a new center to welcome pilgrims and tourists before they visit Saint Peter’s Basilica.

The space, which was inaugurated October 31, is intended to provide practical, artistic, and spiritual information to visitors of the Vatican basilica — especially during moments of higher than usual influx, as is expected during the 2025 Jubilee Year.

The “Official Area,” as the Vatican is calling the center, is located about a five-minute walk from St. Peter’s Square.

The Vatican has partnered with two Italian organizations, the nonprofit BeHuman and the for-profit company Civita Mostre e Musei, to create the welcome center, which will also have priests, religious, and laypeople available for spiritual discussions, “listening, and empathy,” a press release said.

Pope Francis said earlier that while many people come to the Vatican “to pray at the tomb of the first of the apostles, to confirm their faith and their communion with the Church, to entrust dear intentions to the Lord… Others, even of different faiths, enter it as ‘tourists,’ attracted by the beauty, the history, the charm of the art.”

“But in everyone there is one great quest, conscious or unconscious: the quest for God, beauty, and eternal goodness,” he said. (NCRegister)

NOVEMBER MONDAY 4

VATICAN PUBLISHES NEW EDITION OF FUNERAL RITES FOR ROMAN PONTIFF The Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff has produced and released the second edition of the Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis, used for the funeral of the Roman pontiff. It was approved on April 29, 2024 by Pope Francis, who received the first copy of the printed volume on November 4.

A number of new elements for papal funerals have been introduced. The ascertainment of death will no longer take place in the room of the deceased but in the chapel, and his mortal remains will be placed immediately inside the coffin.

The faithful will be able to venerate the Pope’s body inside the open coffin, and the tradition of having three coffins of cypress, lead, and oak has been eliminated.

“A second edition became necessary,” explained Arch-

Just below, a hall in the Vatican Library. At bottom, during the General Audience on November 20: Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska (first from right) with First Ladies of Lithuania, Serbia, and Armenia. The First Ladies participated together in the Holy Mass presided over by Cardinal Matteo Zuppi (in the round) on the occasion of the 1,000th day since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

bishop Diego Ravelli, Master of Apostolic Ceremonies, “first of all because Pope Francis has requested it, as he himself has stated on several occasions the need to simplify and adapt certain rites so that the celebration of the funeral of the Bishop of Rome may better express the faith of the Church in the Risen Christ.”

Archbishop Ravelli also noted that “the renewed rite also [is] needed to emphasise even more that the funeral of the Roman Pontiff is that of a pastor and disciple of Christ and not of a powerful person of this world.” (VaticanNews) TUESDAY 12

POPE FRANCIS MOVES PART OF VATICAN LIBRARY AND ARCHIVE TO ROME SEMINARY Pope Francis has called for the expansion of the Vatican library and archives to a building outside Vatican City to make more “available this precious patrimony.”

In a letter dated October 29 and issued on November 12, the Pope declared that part of the archives and library would be moved to a building on extraterritorial Vatican property at the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran.

“The centuries-old care for the custody of the acts and documents concerning the government of the universal Church, combined with a commitment to the development and dissemination of culture, are the characteristic features of the activity of the Vatican Archives and Library,” Pope Francis wrote in a papal chirograph.

The Vatican Library “preserves over 180,000 manuscripts (including archival units), 1,600,000 printed books, about 9,000 incunabula, over 300,000 coins and medals, more than 150,000 prints, thousands of drawings and engravings, and over 200,000 photographs.” (CNA) WEDNESDAY 20

UKRAINIAN FIRST LADY BEFORE THE POPE On November 20, Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska, stood amidst the solemn beauty of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome. Alongside global dignitaries, including the First Ladies of Lithuania, Serbia, and Armenia, she marked a grim milestone: the 1,000th day since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Yet her message transcended grief, offering a defiant hope rooted in faith and humanity.

The commemorative Mass, organized by Ukraine’s Embassy to the Holy See, united voices of faith and diplomacy.

Presided over by Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the Pope’s special envoy for peace in Ukraine, the service emphasized unity and the pursuit of justice. Cardinal Zuppi, a tireless advocate for peace, used the occasion to reflect on the spiritual and moral imperative of ending the war. Earlier in the day, Zelenska met privately with Pope Francis, whose un-

wavering support for Ukraine has been a beacon of hope during the war.

The Pope, who publicly denounced the conflict as “a disgraceful catastrophe for humanity” during his general audience that morning, offered both spiritual solace and tangible solidarity.

(Zenit) WEDNESDAY 27

POPE PROVIDES ASSISTANCE TO HOMELESS PEOPLE IN CALABRIA’S TENT CITIES It is a matter of dignity, even more than clean clothes and blankets. In the tent city — or rather, “shantytown” — of San Ferdinando, a Calabrian city of around 175,000 inhabitants, hundreds of African immigrants live in poverty and squalor, waiting for their residency permits. Many work in the fields, often without work contracts.

On November 27, the Pope’s charitable outreach arrived in this industrial area of Reggio Calabria with the opening of the seventh “Pope Francis Laundry,” following those opened in the Italian cities of Rome, Genoa, Turin, Naples, and Catania.

The initiative, developed and promoted by Procter & Gamble Italy, in collaboration with Haier Europe and supported by the Apostolic Almoner and the Diocese of Oppido Mamertina–Palmi, caters to migrants, the poor, and the homeless, enabling them to wash their clothes and blankets and maintain personal hygiene. All services are completely free. (VaticanNews)

NOVEMBER SATURDAY 7

21 NEW CARDINALS CREATED Pope Francis created 21 new Cardinals from all over the world at a Vatican consistory December 7.

The Holy Father continued the precedent he has set in previous years of selecting Cardinals from dioceses and countries that rarely receive the red hat. This includes Archbishop Joseph Mathieu of Tehran-Ispahan, Iran; Archbishop Ladislav Nemet of Belgrade, Serbia; and Eparch Mykola Bychok of Sts. Peter and Paul of Melbourne, the eparchy for Ukrainian Catholics throughout Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania.

There are five new cardinals from Italy, but only one from North America — Archbishop Francis Leo of Toronto, Canada.

After Saturday’s consistory, the College of Cardinals will increase in size to 256 members. There will be 141 Cardinals eligible to vote in the next Conclave. However, 15 of them will turn 80 (thus losing voting privileges) in 2025. (SLMedia.org)m JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 59

PEOPLE B M Y

ATTHEW TROJACEK with G. Galazka photos

CHURCH LEADERS SPEAK UP FOR FREEDOM OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION The archbishop of Paris spoke out in favor of freedom of Catholic education in France, amid weeks of tensions and protests after the principal of a Catholic school was fired by the state school-supervising body for “breaching secularism.”

The principal of a high school in southern France introduced confessions during school hours and invited a bishop to speak to students, which was seen as an offense to school diversity, even if the school was Catholic.

In an interview for Radio Notre Dame, the station of the Archdiocese of Paris, Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris said on October 12 that “we must be able to proclaim the Gospel in Catholic schools,” adding, “There are people who want to silence us.”

Catholic schools educate around 17% of pupils in France.

Of all the private schools in France, 95% are Catholic. They operate under a 1959 agreement with the French state, according to which they follow the same curriculum as public schools and welcome children of all faiths and backgrounds. The state pays the salaries of the Catholic schools’ teachers, who are inspected by the Ministry of Education. The schools can offer catechism classes, as long as they are not compulsory.

Over the past three years, state control over Catholic schools has tightened, and this relationship has become tense.

(UCANews) WORD ON FIRE TO PUBLISH RATZINGER’S COLLECTED WORKS IN ENGLISH Bishop Robert Barron’s media company Word on Fire plans to publish in English more than two dozen volumes of the collected works of Joseph Ratzinger from before and during the time he served as Pope Benedict XVI, including titles currently not available except in his native German.

The project, which will include books and academic articles, will require a small army of translators and editors, under the direction of Tracey Rowland, an Australian theologian and expert on the late Pope’s thought, who won the Ratzinger Prize for theology in 2020 [see page 31 in this issue for a profile of Tracey Rowland, one of our Top Ten of 2024 -Ed.]. (NCRegister) TEXAS BISHOP: “NO NEED” FOR CATHOLICS TO ATTEND SSPX MASS IF THEY CAN GO ELSEWHERE Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth, Texas, published a letter October 29 saying Catholics have “no reason” to worship at Society of St. Pius X chapels, after receiving “several inquiries regarding the ecclesial status” of the SSPX. Olson noted that the SSPX is not in “formal schism” with the Catholic Church, nor is it “in full communion or good standing.”

The bishop said that Catholics who are “able to receive the sacraments at a Catholic church from clerics in good standing” 60 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

POPE FRANCIS CANONIZES 14 NEW SAINTS, INCLUDING PRIESTS MARTYRED IN SYRIA

Pope Francis canonized 14 new saints on October 20, including a father of eight and Franciscan friars killed in Syria for refusing to renounce their faith and convert to Islam.

“These new saints lived Jesus’ way: service,” Pope Francis said. “They made themselves servants of their brothers and sisters, creative in doing good, steadfast in difficulties, and generous to the end.”

The newly canonized include Saint Giuseppe Allamano, a diocesan priest from Italy who founded the Consolata missionary orders, and Saint Marie-Léonie Paradis, a Canadian nun from Montreal known for founding an order dedicated to the service of priests.

Also among the saints are Saint Elena Guerra, hailed as an “apostle of the Holy Spirit,” and Saint Manuel Ruiz López and his seven Franciscan companions, all martyred in Damascus in 1860 for refusing to renounce their Christian faith.

The final three canonized are siblings, Saints Francis, Mooti, and Raphael Massabki, lay Maronite Catholics martyred in Syria along with the Franciscans. (CNA) have “no reason to attend and receive sacraments at an SSPX church or chapel.”

The bishop further noted that those looking to worship at a Traditional Latin Mass can attend a parish run by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, a traditionalist group with a canonically regular status. (CNA) SOUTH KOREA: ONE MILLION PEOPLE IN THE STREETS AGAINST HOMOSEXUAL “MARRIAGE” On October 27, more than a million South Koreans — predominantly from the Christian and Catholic communities — took to the streets of Seoul in a large-scale protest against proposed anti-discrimination laws that would legally recognize same-sex marriages. Organized by a coalition of Christian churches and bolstered by the slogan “Healthy Family, Holy

Nation,” the event marked one of the EVERYONE NEEDS SOME HEAVENLY HELP, POPE SAYS country’s largest public demonstraThe Pope welcomed officers, soldiers tions, drawing attention to a cultural and a large group of volunteers to the Vaticlash between traditional religious becan November 7 to celebrate the 70th anliefs and evolving LGBTQ+ rights. niversary of Saint Christopher being The proposed anti-discrimination named their patron saint by Pope Pius XII. legislation, which activists have pur“I also have a devotion to Saint Christosued since 2011, has faced repeated pher,” the Pope told them. “I always have a opposition from conservative and reliSaint Christopher medal with me because gious groups. Though the bill would he helps me keep going.” protect individuals from discriminaChoosing a patron saint, the Pope said, tion based on gender, age, race, reliis “to recognize that there is no profession gion, academic background, and sexuor state in life that does not need to cling to al orientation, opponents argue it intrue values and receive divine protection.” fringes on religious freedoms and (UCANews) could compel religious institutions to contradict their beliefs. Kim Jeonghee, spokesperson for the organizing Catholic member of conflict-stricken Myanmar’s National committee, condemned the legislation as fundamentally opHuman Rights Commission, said the rights body can facilitate posed to “the natural law and the order in which the world was dialogue and mediation, Fides, the Vatican’s missionary news created.” According to Kim, the recent court ruling extending agency, reported on October 23. benefits to same-sex couples challenges the constitution, “The commission can now take on a bridging function and which, in her view, does not legally recognize same-sex marbe a body that can help initiate a dialogue and mediation riage. (Zenit) process,” Hmung added.

Hmung is the founder of Yangon’s Saint Joseph University, MYANMAR RIGHTS BODY KEY the country’s first private Catholic university. (UCANews) TO PEACE TALKS, SAYS CATHOLIC MEMBER VATICAN PROHIBITS TRADITIONAL Joseph Kung Za Hmung, a newly appointed LATIN MASS IN BISHOP STRICKLAND’S 8 MILLION EXPECTED FORMER CATHEDRAL FOR ST. FRANCIS Celebration of the TradiXAVIER EXPOSITION tional Latin Mass in the IN GOA cathedral of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, must cease effective December 1, according to a Vatican-approved The final days have arorder that came almost one year after Pope rived at the Basilica of Bom Francis removed Bishop Jesu in Old Goa, India, and Joseph Strickland, one of nearby areas for receiving an his most outspoken critics, estimated 8 million Catholics for the exposition of the sacred relics of Saint as head of the diocese.

Francis Xavier.

Bishop Joe S. Vásquez The once-in-ten-year event, which lasts 45 days, began of Austin, apostolic adminison November 21, when the saint’s relics kept in the siltrator of the Tyler Diocese since ver casket were lowered and taken to the nearby Sé Strickland’s dramatic ouster last November Cathedral de Santa Catarina for the public to venerate.

11, announced the move in a letter to The expositions first began in 1782, 230 years after parishioners of Tyler’s Cathedral of the Imthe saint died in Japan and after the Archdiocese of Goa maculate Conception, which had offered a claimed control of the body to help people venerate the 2 p.m. Sunday Mass in Latin.

Jesuit missionary known for his work across Asia.

A spokesperson for the diocese also Francis Xavier was buried on an Island near Japan in 1552, confirmed that Traditional Latin Masses and his body was found incorrupt when exhumed a year later to be taken to Pormust also be halted in four other parishes. tugal, the base of his mission.

Saint Joseph the Worker Parish, under the However, the body was not taken to Portugal, as its well-preserved state was care of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter considered a sign of sanctity, and it was kept in Goa, then a Portuguese colony (FSSP), is the only parish in the diocese and the base of his missionary activities. with authorized “use of the 1952 Missal, The body is not technically considered incorrupt now, as some parts, particaccording to the provisions of Traditionis ularly soft tissues, have decomposed. The relics are now preserved in a lying Custodes.” (NCRegister)m position, clad in mass vestments. (UCANews) JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 61

Food FoR THoUGHT n BY MOTHER MARTHA

I

n 1300 Pope BoThe Vatican’s niface VIII proDicastery for Evanclaimed the first gelization has choordinary Jubilee, or sen My Safe Place Holy Year, with the PaTransfer as the Vatipal Bull, “Antiquorum Habet Fida can’s Official Taxi and Transfer Relatio.” Since then, they have Partner during 2025’s Holy Year. taken place either every 50 or Its shared mobility service every 25 years. 2025’s Holy Year seeks to reduce travel costs and is the 27th. It began on Christmas traffic, especially for transfers to and Eve 2024 and will last through from Rome’s airport, a ride that Epiphany, January 6, 2026. If you usually costs 50 euros, not counting still need to organize your pilgrimaluggage and tips. My Safe Place ge to Rome, the principal venue, and Transfer charges 14.99 euros per perto other religiously significant places son for religious and 19.90 euros per elsewhere in Italy, here are three unperson for pilgrims. This door-tobeatable websites. door service, payable via Visa, MaMy “Food for Thought” article stercard, Amex and debit cards, as “Religious Stays in Italy,” published well as cash, is available Mondayin the June-July 2020 issue, was Friday, 8 am-8 pm, and 8 am- 5 pm about the website www.ospitalitareon Saturday and Sunday. ligiosa.it. This non-profit AssociaTo be eligible you must downtion, Ospitalità Religiosa Italiana (Itaload: www.mysafeplace.it. It’s allian Religious Hospitality) at Via Moliready accepting bookings if you’re na 10 in Varese, a city in Lombardy, registered on the official Jubilee App: In 1300 Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed northwest of Milan (tel. 011-39-327www.register.iubilaeum2025.va. the first ordinary Jubilee, or Holy Year.

3842841), still describes nearly 3,000 In addition to the airport transfer, Below, Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Archbishop “religious places to stay” in Italy. As My Safe Place Transfer can meet Rino Fisichella inaugurate the Info Point for I’ve already explained, these include the Jubilee 2025 at no. 7 Via della Conciliazione cruise ship passengers at Civitavecguesthouses, holiday houses, B&Bs, chia and offers transportation to Ascampsites, hostels, hermitages, consisi, San Giovanni Rotondo and Pavents, monasteries and hotels. In dua at negotiable prices, so you may short – somewhere for everybody. want to check out accommodations Accommodations are found in all on www.ospitalitareligiosa.it in the20 regions of Italy. Logically, the larse locations as well. The service to gest number, some 197, are in the Latravel outside of Rome is available 24 tium region – many fewer than befohours a day and every day of the re Covid. Of these, 123 are in the week.

Eternal City. Several are within To book specific Jubilee events, walking distance of Vatican City. you need to download the pilgrim’s Of the sites in Rome, especially card on the official Jubilee App. The for pilgrims wanting more privacy, App explains how you can become a 13 are hotels. All of them have reJubilee volunteer, recounts the histaurants, conference rooms and ofstory of the Jubilee, lists all the 2025 ten, chapels, as well as free parking Jubilee’s special events, Jubilee churand spacious gardens. ches and Jubilee itineraries. Here too, They are: San Giuseppe House, Hotel Valle, Hotel if you click on “contacts,” you can write in personal reAntico Palazzo Rospigliosi, Domus Australia, Hotel quests, or telephone questions to 011-39-0669869201, Adriatico, Casa Fraterna Domus, Hotel Varese, Casa 011-39-0669869202, or 011-39-0669869203.

Madre Nazarena, Hotel Nova Domus Aurelia, Villa Once in Rome, you can also visit the Pilgrims WelEUR, Hotel Casa Tra Noi, Hotel Santa Prisca, and come Center at no. 7 Via della Conciliazione, the wide DNB House Hotel. San Giuseppe House, Hotel Adriastreet from the Tiber to St. Peter’s Square built by Mustico, Hotel Nova Domus Aurelia, and Hotel Casa Tra solini to celebrate the Lateran Pacts in 1929, whereby Noi – and all are short walks to St. Peter’s Square.

Italy recognized The Holy See as a sovereign state.m

PLANNING A PILGRIMAGE TO ITALY FOR THE 2025 JUBILEE

62 INSIDE THE VATICAN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025

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2025 PILGRIMAGES SPAIN Pilgrimage and Lenten Retreat with Fr. Murr, March 11 - 18, 2025

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USA Discovering Mary in the Heartland Pilgrimage to Wisconsin, April 28 - May 2, 2025

MEXICO Our Lady of Guadalupe & the Flower World Prophecy, May 2 - 9, 2025

ITALY Journey Toward the Face of Christ, May 24 - June 3, 2025

SPAIN AND FRANCE With Mary from Garabandal to Lourdes, August 21 - 28, 2025

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