E p i s co p a l O r d i n a t i o n a cco r d i n g to t h e Ca tec h i s m of t h e Ca t h o l i c C h u r c h .
Called to the High Priesthood
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he divinely instituted ecclesiastical ministry is exercised in different degrees by those who, even from ancient times, have been called bishops, priests, and deacons. Catholic doctrine, expressed in the liturgy, the Magisterium, and the constant practice of the Church, recognizes that there are two degrees of ministerial participation in the priesthood of Christ: the episcopacy and the presbyterate. The diaconate is intended to help and serve them. For this
reason the term sacerdos in current usage denotes bishops and priests but not deacons. Yet Catholic doctrine teaches that the degrees of priestly participation (episcopate and presbyterate) and the degree of service (diaconate) are all three conferred by a sacramental act called “ordination,� that is, by the sacrament of Holy Orders: Let everyone revere the deacons as Jesus Christ, the bishop as the image of the Father, and the presbyters as the senate of God and the assembly of the apostles. For without
Upon this Rock magazine is published monthly by EuropeAxess Media, Gibraltar. Editor: Fr. S. Chipolina: editor@uponthisrock.gi. Production Editor: A. Sargent: angela@europeaxess.com. Upon this Rock magazine is entirely supported by advertising and donations. It is run in liaison with the Catholic Diocese of Gibraltar by EuropeAxess Media Ltd. as a not-for-profit project. For Advertisers: This magazine is handdelivered to homes, churches, hospitals and many businesses around Gibraltar every month. To discuss your advertising requirements, or promote your church group or charity, call Tel: +350 200 79335 email: angela@europeaxess.com. Editorial is selected by EuropeAxess Media in liaison with the Catholic Diocese of Gibraltar. Neither of these parties is responsible for the accuracy of the information contained herein, nor do the views and opinions expressed herein necessarily reflect the views and opinions of either party. Advertisers are not endorsed by virtue of advertising in this magazine. EuropeAxess Media Ltd. reserves the right to refuse space to any submissions or advertisements. Efforts have been made to establish copyright owners of images, but if we have used your material, and have not credited you, please contact us to discuss restoration. The magazine is online at uponthisrock.gi. You’ll find exclusive Christian gifts in the WebShop. Cover: Bishop Carmel Zammit Episcopal Ordination Photo: William Jardim
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them one cannot speak of the Church.
Episcopal ordination - fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders
“Amongst those various offices which have been exercised in the Church from the earliest times, the chief place, according to the witness of tradition, is held by the function of those who, through their appointment to the dignity and responsibility of bishop, and in virtue consequently of the unbroken succession going back to the beginning, are regarded as transmitters of the apostolic line.”
To fulfil their exalted mission, “the apostles were endowed by Christ with a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit coming upon them, and by the imposition of hands they passed on to their auxiliaries the gift of the Spirit, which is transmitted down to our day through episcopal consecration.” The Second Vatican Council “teaches... that the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders is conferred by episcopal
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consecration, that fullness namely which, both in the liturgical tradition of the Church and the language of the Fathers of the Church, is called the high priesthood, the acme (summa) of the sacred ministry.” “Episcopal consecration confers, together with the office of sanctifying, also the offices of teaching and ruling . . . In fact . . . by the imposition of hands and through the words of the consecration, the grace of the Holy Spirit is given, and a sacred character is impressed in such wise that bishops, in an eminent and visible manner, take the place of Christ himself, teacher, shepherd, and priest, and act as his representative (in Eius persona agant).” “By virtue, therefore, of the Holy Spirit who has been given to them, bishops have been constituted true and authentic teachers of the faith and have been made pontiffs and pastors.” “One is constituted a member of the episcopal body in virtue of the sacramental consecration and by the hierarchical communion with the head and members of the college.” The character and collegial nature of the episcopal order are evidenced among other ways by the Church’s ancient practice which calls for several bishops to participate in the
consecration of a new bishop. In our day, the lawful ordination of a bishop requires a special intervention of the Bishop of Rome, because he is the supreme visible bond of the communion of the particular Churches in the one Church and the guarantor of their freedom. As Christ’s vicar, each bishop has the pastoral care of the particular Church entrusted to him, but at the same time he bears collegially with all his brothers in the episcopacy the solicitude for all the Churches: “Though each bishop is the
lawful pastor only of the portion of the flock entrusted to his care, as a legitimate successor of the apostles he is, by divine institution and precept, responsible with the other bishops for the apostolic mission of the Church.” The above considerations explain why the Eucharist celebrated by the bishop has a quite special significance as an expression of the Church gathered around the altar, with the one who represents Christ, the Good Shepherd and Head of his Church, presiding.
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Supporting Sacramental Marriages
Defining Marriage In an impromptu answer to a layman’s question at the Diocese of Rome’s pastoral congress earlier this year Pope Francis remarked that most sacramental marriages today are not valid. [Editor’s note: In the official Vatican transcript released later, that remark is changed to “a part of our sacramental marriages are null.”]
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is Holiness’ comments were seized upon by the media and seen as controversial by many, but Pia de Solenni unpacked the statement for us on the ‘Catholic Answers’ website gaining over a thousand ‘likes’ on the shortened facebook edition of her article reproduced here.
CHRISTIAN FAMILY MOVEMENT 25th, 40th, 50th & 60th Wedding Anniversary Celebrations Cathedral of St. Mary the Crowned Friday 27th January 2017 at 7.30pm Mr & Mrs:___________________________________________ Forenames: Husband___________________________________
____________________________________________________ E-mail:______________________________________________ Home Tel: ___________________________________________ Work Tel:____________________________________________ Mobile______________________________________________ Date of Marriage:_____________________________________ Church:_____________________________________________
After the church service celebration, couples are cordially invited to the Catholic Community Centre for refreshments, along with four guests. This is due to the limited space available. Couples should arrive at the Cathedral on 27th January 2017 no later than 7.15pm For further information or queries contact Denise Duo on Home no: 20043386 Mob no: 57021000 email: duos@gibtelecom.net
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-Please keep this part of the form for your information-
R ISTI A
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The Christian Mission Trust provides local Christians with donations for evangelistic SI O N TR initiatives and outreaches. The Trust is ecumenical and has provided money to many groups, individuals and churches during the last 12 years. It is run by a Board of Trustees.
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N.B. If marriage took place outside Gibraltar please produce a copy of the Marriage Certificate when handing in this form This form should be handed in at the Cathedral bookshop as soon as possible and not later than Friday 6th January 2017 You can e-mail above detail/form to duos@gibtelecom.net
The hard reality The pope’s recommendations are pretty straightforward, and they happen naturally in most families and communities. However, a plethora of sociological data and anecdotal evidence indicates that for decades many, . .continued page 10
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Address:____________________________________________
There are two basic categories of marital unhappiness. Into the first fall people who simply are not prepared for the normal—and sometimes serious—challenges of marriage. The scenarios in the second category are far more dire. They may involve deception, serious psychological disorders, abuse, violence, and addiction. In these cases, there are valid grounds for couples separating and, not infrequently, grounds for receiving a decree of nullity, meaning that there was no marriage in the first place.
Three stages of marriage preparation St. John Paul II, in his 1980 apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, described marriage preparation as happening in three stages (FC 66). In the first stage, a child starts life in a healthy, functioning family and learns marriage by seeing it lived. This is marriage prep at a very young age. John Paul II calls it remote. The second stage he calls proximate. It should begin at a “suitable age” and continue. I take “suitable” to mean the age at which children have entered puberty; they become interested in sex and dating. This formation should continue, learning an integral anthropology and view of the human person, developing one’s own religious formation, understanding the nature of conjugal sexuality and the role of spouses as parents. Not until a couple is engaged and ready to be married does John Paul II propose the third stage take place, what he calls the immediate preparation. He’s also careful to note that it’s not necessary for every couple but only for couples who “still manifest shortcomings or difficulties in Christian doctrine and practice.”
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Née:________________________________________________
Pia de Solenni
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Forenames: Wife______________________________________
For the purposes of this post, I am focusing on the first and far more common category.
We invite applications for funding from anyone who wishes to launch an evangelistic initiative or who needs support for an existing Christian missionary activity. Please write to: The Chairman, Christian Mission Trust, 4 South Pavilion Road, Gibraltar. Upon This Rock has an online shop
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Our Role Within the Church S
till today there are those that have a mistaken view of what the church is and the role that we as laymen/laywomen play within the Church. Perhaps the first thing to clarify is what the Church is? The church is Jesus Christ, the living body of Jesus Christ, it is God’s kingdom which includes all of us without exception. A community of Christians living God’s love and sharing His love across the world. Those of us that consider ourselves Christians are those that believe in Jesus Christ and follow his teachings. “We are all Christian laymen/ laywomen within the church”
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exaggerating if we said that men and women within the church have generally been paralysed for over four hundred years and it is about time that we all woke up. We all need to become active within the church and not expect that the clergy do everything. The world is in a mess and the clergy on their own simply can’t get the job done. It’s not that we the laymen and laywomen within the church are part of the church, we are the church with all the benefits and responsibilities that this brings with it and we have ALL been called by God to work
for him within the church to change this world. God never tires from calling us, it is important that we understand this, he invites us to work for him and with him but never forces us to do so. There are those who claim “the Lord never talks to me, never calls me” and this cannot be further from the truth. The Lord talks to ALL of us consistently through our contact with other people and circumstances that we are exposed to. If we listen carefully, if we open our eyes fully, we will hear those
Together with the Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, Priests and Nuns we make up the church of God, we are the church. In the eyes of God we are all the same, there are no divisions; a Premier League of Christians does not exist. We are all the same and there is only one way of being a Christian, God expects the same from all of us. Whilst we are all born with individual characteristics and we are all good at different things there is a role for all of us to play within the church. We all have a mind of our own, God has given us the gift of free will and we simply do not believe that something is right or wrong because the Priest says so. Over the centuries men and women within the church have generally been quite passive, as if the church only involved the Priests and Nuns and we are now suffering the consequences of this. We would not be
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messages coming from God, the only thing is that at times we choose not to hear. We are ALL called to spread the word of the Lord and this is not something that has happened by chance. It is a right and responsibility for ALL of us and if we do not do this it may be that no one else does and we would be impeding God from entering someone else’s lives. There are those that may think that spreading the word of the Lord is all about knocking on doors and talking to others about God. Whilst this is certainly one way of doing this, spreading the love of God extends beyond this. We can spread the word of God by our actions, as they say “an action is worth a thousand words”. We can spread the word of God by how we lead our lives, so that other people, watching us from a distance, can see for themselves what living with God in our lives is like. Our mission as Christians is not to lock ourselves in the church, but to go out to where God is not yet present. Our responsibility is to take God to our homes, to our group of friends, the workplace
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and everywhere we go. There are those who say that the Christian way of life is no longer compatible with life in this day and age. This is simply not true, a Christian way of life is compatible with every sphere of life in this day and age. It is compatible with politics, social activities, sports, the economy, culture and everything else, it is simply that we chose to leave God out of these activities but we don’t have to. Take the example of Usain Bolt, undoubtedly the best athlete in recent times. Usain Bolt is a devout Christian and he makes the sign of the cross before every event he participates in. Not only that, he actually waits until the camera is focusing on him in order to do so. In a world where we are expected to say “Happy Holidays” as opposed to “Merry Christmas”, where Christmas decorations are being replaced with images of nicely wrapped presents so as not to offend others, Usain Bolt has the courage to proclaim his Christianity to the world at large. Usain has stated in interviews “with God at your
side everything is possible”. Having won the Olympic Gold medal in the 200 metre track event in the recent Olympics he stated “nothing would have been possible without Him” referring to God. We need to ask ourselves, do I do this, do I proclaim my Christianity or do I hide it? Christianity is not something mysterious reserved for a select few, it is a lifestyle that is within everyone’s reach should you decide to make it your own. Having God in your lives will not exempt you from the difficulties that life will present you with, but it will give you an inner peace during those difficult moments to help you cope with those circumstances. On the other hand, the joy you will experience, through a life with God at your side, will enable you to reach levels of happiness as you have never experienced before.
There is a space in your heart that only God can fill. At times when you are enjoying the happiest times in your lives you still feel that there is something missing. When you face the difficulties in life at times you feel very alone. If this sounds familiar, and you want to do something about it, the Cursillo Movement offers you an excellent opportunity through it’s Cursillo Weekend Retreats. The next Cursillo Weekend for men will be held at the Retreat Centre from the 10th till the 13th November. Further weekend events will be held early next year. If you would like to register for one of these events please contact us on 58008885 or send us an email on cursillogibraltar@ gmail.com and we shall send you an enrolment form, we look forward to seeing you there. God Bless Cursillo Team Leaders
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Theology of the Body
Wake Up! Pope John Paul II on The Genius of Women (United States Catholic Conference Publication) Paperback – August 7, 1997 by Pope John Paul II. This compendium includes major statements from Pope John Paul II to and about women. A bibliography is included. Available on Amazon.com
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omen, girls and all those proclaiming to be female need to wake up!
You are built with a feminine genius. Pope Francis reminds us in the Joy of the Gospel that, “the feminine genius is needed in all expressions in the life of society”. John Paul II introduced the phrase feminine genius as meaning an essential nature of spirit, he stated that ‘The moral
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and spiritual strength of a woman is joined to her awareness that God entrusts the human being to her in a special way… A woman is strong because of her awareness of this entrusting, strong because of the fact that God entrusts the human being to her, always and in every way. This awareness and this fundamental vocation speak to women of the dignity which they receive from God himself, and this makes them
strong and strengthens their vocation (Mulieris Dignitatem 30). This is a call to all women to look into their feminine heart and see the beauty in our God given characteristic as female. When you think of the qualities that make up a strong woman what would they be? Often the culture defines her as selfsufficient, a leader, an activist, corporate leader, independent, effective, honest, passionate and
intuitive. These are certainly positive characteristics, but I challenge you to think deeper, at what is at the heart of women created by a loving Creator. To help answer that question let’s think of a woman who might exemplify a woman who has grasped her vocation as woman to the fullest. Mother Teresa used her femininity in a very powerful, yet humble and incredibly world recognized way. How did this tiny, not very physically beautiful
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editorial written by by Teresa Kenney, APRN and selected by Dr. Monique Risso woman, who cared nothing for fame, but only for Jesus, exemplify the feminine genius? Chiara Lubich, the founder of the Focolare Movement and a friend of the newly beatified nun, said “She was invested with love, with charity, the greatest gift, the greatest charism heaven created.” “After her death I learned even more about her and I eagerly read books about her,” Lubich recalls. “I admired Mother Teresa especially for her determination. She had an ideal: the poorest of the poor. And she remained faithful to it. Her whole life was aimed in that direction. In this aspect too, she is a source of inspiration to me to remain faithful to the ideal that God has entrusted to me.” (zenith.org 2003) I personally was deeply inspired by Mother Teresa, I wrote a college paper on her years ago, and that paper was chosen to be read in front of our large humanities class. I was embarrassed at the time, to have my thoughts read aloud, but when I think about it now and why it was chosen, it was not because I was some great writer, but because of whom I was writing about. No one drew people in like
Mother Teresa; she was strong, yet humble. People like presidents and world leaders were awe-struck in her presence. Think of her addressing the leaders of the United Nations, barely reaching the microphone but boldly proclaiming what was good and true. ‘I was surprised in the West to see so many young boys and girls given into drugs, and I tried to find out why — why is it like that and the answer was: Because there is no one in the family to receive them. Father and mother are so busy they have no time. Young parents are in some institution and the child takes back to the street and gets
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involved in something. We are talking of peace. These are things that break peace, but I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing — direct murder by the mother herself. And we read in the Scripture, for God says very clearly: Even if a mother could forget her child — I will not forget you — I have carved you in the palm of my hand.’ (Nobel Peace acceptance 1979) To me the qualities of Mother Teresa and true Feminine genius are receptive, strong, intuitive, determined, creative, affectionate, ministerial, compassionate, beautiful, self-
giving and empathetic. The feminine genius may be different to you than it is to me, but I challenge you to really think about what makes up woman, what is her true vocation, what gifts has she been given by God that should be valued, lived out and celebrated. How can she be a beacon of light in this world of darkness?
How can we all, like Mother Teresa, find that one ideal we are called to live by, and live it to the fullest? I challenge you, find it and live it now!
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Pope Francis on Marriage
Defining Marriage continued from page 5
if not most, children have not been graced with a healthy, intact family. Thus the remote stage of marriage prep is missing. With regard to the second, proximate stage of preparation, few families, communities, or churches put it into practice. I recall a recent conversation with two men in their seventies. “When I was in the eighth grade,” one told me, “we were taught that if we wanted to get married and have a family, we had to be thinking about the work we would do to support that family.” Suffice to say there are now myriad men (and women) much older than eighth graders who don’t have this basic sense of vocation and purpose in life. So we are left with the
third stage of preparation: the immediate, the months or weeks before the couple’s wedding. There are some laudable Catholic programs that meet these needs. Some dioceses have also extended the period that the couple must be engaged before getting married in the Church. Still, we are faced with a reality in which there is little marriage preparation until a couple gets engaged. If marriage prep of some sort wasn’t happening all along, then something else was— nature, after all, abhors a vacuum. Other experiences and habits, many contrary to sustaining and nourishing a healthy marriage, filled that space, bringing us to a point where we have far too many wounded individuals attempting something that should be pretty straightforward, even if there are complications along the way. Lots of invalid marriages? Pope Francis has now espoused a theory that has evolved in some Catholic circles: that a great many marriages are invalid, largely
because people are unprepared. Actually, in the parlance of the Catholic Church, it doesn’t make sense to talk about “invalid” marriages. The Code of Canon Law states: “Marriage possesses the favor of law; therefore, in a case of doubt, the validity of a marriage must be upheld until the contrary is proven” (can. 1060). Certainly, a member of the clergy or another expert may give an opinion that a particular marriage is invalid, that in reality it never existed. But until a bishop or a diocesan marriage tribunal verifies the facts and issues a decree of nullity, the marriage is considered valid. As has been noted by others, the reason a married couple makes vows to each other is that each is promising to love even when he or she doesn’t feel like it, even when things are incredibly difficult. The couple in the midst of a marital crisis does not think back to their wedding day and say, “Yes! This is just what I signed up for!” A couple engaged to be married should be envisioning a happy future together; otherwise, there’s no sense in making the commitment in the first place. Not always irreparable To my mind, as a Church we make a mistake when we encourage someone in a troubled marriage by essentially saying, “You can get out of it.” In fact, I would argue that most spouses don’t want out of the marriage; they want the marriage to be improved, even if it means addressing their own shortcomings. They want the tools and a plan to do the work. Couples are agreeing to a permanent, exclusive union that will be open to at least some children. But they don’t realize
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that they don’t know how to do it. And if they don’t know how to do it in their first marriage, chances are that they won’t know how to do it in their second or third marriages. In fact, based on anecdotal evidence, I’d argue that the main reason some subsequent marriages are better is because the individuals finally start to learn some of the basic human skills they lacked in the first marriage. It’s the same individual, with the same goals and dreams, only now they have the means to set about achieving the goals. People in troubled marriages can do incredible damage to each other and to themselves, but it’s not clear to me that it’s always irreparable. I think this has a direct correlation to our spiritual well being as Christians. We are all wounded, even broken, daughters and sons of God, called to experience his forgiveness. But if we ourselves are not able to forgive and heal, I wonder how much we are able to experience God’s forgiveness and healing. Forgiveness and love St. Augustine noted that God could redeem us but he could not save us. In other words, it’s not enough for God to be willing; we have to be willing too. We have to be willing to allow him to love us, to ask his forgiveness, to seek his healing. He can’t do it for us. The sacrament of confession demonstrates this perfectly. God
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already knows what we did, why we did it, and whether we’ll do it again. His love, mercy, and understanding are all there waiting for us, but we don’t have access to them unless we ask for them through the act of confession. If we are able to begin to experience God’s forgiveness and his love of us, we will better experience these things as we are able to apply them toward others. Remember, we are made in his image and likeness. We are called to love and forgive even as he does. In no way is this easy. But it seems to be the cross that each of us is called to if we want to follow Christ, the Son of God, who became one of us not only to redeem us but to show us how to love the Father. Saving existing marriages Instead of discussing invalid marriages, I propose the conversation should be about how to better prepare people for marriage and how to enrich existing marriages. In the cases where it is impossible to reconcile a couple, and/or there are circumstances that make it impossible for them to be married, we also need to find ways to help
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these individuals shoulder the incredibly heavy crosses they’ve been given. Sadly, it often seems that once we’ve seen the couple down the aisle, we don’t have much in place for them until it’s time to baptize a baby—or to help them navigate the annulment process. Instead, we could be reaching out to couples to help them grow in their formation as Christians and as spouses, supporting them in the work to build a happy and fruitful marriage, giving them the tools to grow stronger in crises. I’ve yet to meet a couple, including my husband and myself, who couldn’t have benefited from ongoing formation in the Christian faith. After all, beyond the natural aspects of marriage, the couples in which both spouses are baptized, participate in a sacramental marriage, meaning that we are called to live the type of union that exists between Christ and his bride, the Church. (See the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1661 and Ephesians 5:2525, 31-32.) There are those troubled marriages in which circumstances are so dire that it’s not feasible for the couple to continue a life
together and, in some cases, those marriages can be proven to have never existed in the first place. But there are also marriages that could be deemed invalid or null, but nevertheless, if both spouses are willing, the original lack— whether intent, form, or even capacity—could be corrected, enabling the couple to live fully a sacramental marriage. Canon law provides for this in one of two ways: either a convalidation of the marriage or a radical sanation, whereby an invalid marriage is validated retroactively back to the time when the contract was first made (CIC 1156-1165). These practices are largely unutilized in the United States. In fact, most of the U.S. canonists I’ve spoken with are unfamiliar with them, as they are with the practice of allowing a couple to seek a decree of nullity before seeking a civil divorce. Nevertheless, these are norms determined by the local bishops in the U.S. and in other countries, not by the universal Church. When I’ve spoken with canonists in Rome and the Vatican, they acknowledge the potential civil concerns that might deter the practices in the U.S. At the same
Pia de Solenni
time, they uphold right of the individual to have the Church evaluate his or her marriage. As we celebrate this jubilee Year of Mercy, I think it would be worthwhile to consider whether there are ways the Church can protect itself civilly while allowing individuals to avail themselves of the justice of the canonical legal system. Proceeding through the annulment process before a civil divorce could be a wake-up call for those who have been assured (by themselves or others) that they are in an invalid marriage, only to learn that the Church deems the marriage valid. Not everyone would recognize the Church’s authority; but for those who would and who seek it, it would be available, and they could act accordingly. Similarly, couples that have serious concerns about the validity of their marriage could seek the Church’s evaluation and potentially rectify the sacrament they seek to live. * * * This is a shortened version of an article that appeared in the January-February 2016 edition of Catholic Answers Magazine.
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