Pope faces key test with vote on divorcees, gays

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis was set to sort his allies from his enemies Saturday with a Vatican vote on a document drafted at the end of a fierce two-week debate over opening the Catholic Church’s doors to remarried divorcees and gays.

The vote will close a special synod of bishops from around the world which has seen conservatives clash publicly with liberals over a Francis-backed drive to reform the Church by softening its approach to sinners.

Ahead of the vote, the cardinals overwhelmingly approved a message to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics stressing the value of “unique and indissoluble conjugal love” but without touching directly on the hot topic of non-traditional unions.

Several told a news conference they were confident the final synod document would pass with the necessary two-thirds majority later Saturday after Vatican experts raised the real possibility it could fail.

The vote has turned into a referendum on the pope’s audacious line.

Francis, 77, has called for the Church to take a more merciful approach to unwed mothers, remarried divorcees and gays, famously saying of homosexuals, “Who am I to judge?”

A preliminary report on Monday made waves around the world by suggesting the Church should reach out to homosexuals, who have “gifts and qualities to offer the Christian community”, outraging traditionalists who had to be reminded by the Vatican that it was a work in progress.

A fresh report Thursday summed up the reactions of 10 working groups of bishops, which mixed declarations of respect for homosexuals with fierce insistence that any opening up to sinners would imply the Church condoned their behaviour.

The final document is expected to take into account the bishops’ amendments, but will be written by a drafting committee made up of perceived progressives appointed by Francis himself.

‘Soap opera’

The fallout in the corridors of power, which Boston Globe Vatican expert John Allen described as “like a daytime soap opera”, has already caused at least one head to roll.

Outspoken Cardinal Raymond Burke, currently head of the Vatican’s top canon law court, confirmed to Buzzfeed that he will be removed from the job to be made patron to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, an honorary post.

He told the US news website: “The pope is not free to change the Church’s teachings with regard to the immorality of homosexual acts or the insolubility of marriage or any other doctrine of the faith.”

The vote will reflect the attitude of the top echelons of the Church towards reform — and ultimately towards Francis’s rule, which has been coloured since his election in March last year by a determination to show the more humane side of the centuries-old institution.

“The Synod splits over gays and divorcees: there’s a risk of an anti-pope vote,” read a headline by Franca Giansoldati, Vatican expert for Italy’s Il Messaggero daily, which described the vote as “a nasty test for Pope Francis”.

“The risks are high. If the amendments are not inserted in the text the biggest surprise could come from the vote. The majority, for now, do not seem to be in favour — and the count could prove fatal,” she said.

Possible ‘revolution’

German Cardinal Walter Kasper, an ally of the pope’s who has been pushing for reform, has said he believes the “majority” of those taking part in the synod are open to change.

Kasper suggested in February that remarried divorcees should be allowed to take communion under certain conditions.

Critical bishops have said the initial document placed “too much emphasis on the problems facing the family”.

“Many bishops have asked that the document be thoroughly re-written. There have been such a number of negative reactions that the risk is it won’t pass the vote unless its heavily revised,” Marco Tosatti, who writes for La Stampa’s Vatican Insider, told AFP.

Some resent the intense media glare on the proceedings. Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea told the Catholic News Agency that all the attention on gay couples was “an attempt to push the Church to change its doctrine”.

This synod will be followed by a year of consultations, and a follow-up questionnaire will be sent out to dioceses around the world. A second, larger synod will then be held in October 2015.

After that, the results will be handed to the Argentinian pope, who will have the final say in outlining the Church’s stance on family matters.

Adolfo Nicolas, superior general of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits — to which Francis belongs — told the I.Media religious news agency to watch for a possible “revolution” a year from now.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, an ally of the pope, said there was no turning back. “There have been two steps forward, there may be one step backwards, but certainly not two.”

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Pope Francis overhauls Catholic image but real reforms await

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has turned around the way the Catholic Church is seen but his promise of Vatican reform awaits next year and key problems remain, observers said on Tuesday, as the pontiff celebrated his 77th birthday.

After years of stagnation and turbulence, the first ever Latin American pope has brought a down-to-earth style to the papacy and has shown a willingness to tackle problems like the Vatican’s secretive finances.

Francis has also established himself as a global voice on the side of the dispossessed with his critique of unfettered capitalism — earning the label of “Marxist” from conservative commentators in the United States.

In terms of the Vatican’s sluggish view of time, he has moved quickly in his first months, installing a council of world cardinals to advise him and calling for a less “Vatican-centric” kind of Church with more power for local bishops.

He has accumulated over 10 million followers on Twitter under the @pontifex handle, nearing rock star popularity, and has been named “Person of the Year” by Time magazine.

The change of mood has been all the more remarkable given the strife in the Church before his election, including outrage over child sex abuse scandals and divisions between the Vatican and local churches.

Those issues are far from gone away, however. And analysts warn that progressives in the Church hoping for a raft of reforms of Catholic teachings will be disappointed.

Francis remains a moral conservative, although a compassionate one, who is virtually certain to stick to doctrine on hot-button issues like abortion or contraception, or priestly celibacy and women priests.

Even the pope’s widely-praised comment about gay people — “Who am I to judge?” — is seen as showing tolerance but unlikely to alter the Church’s fundamental condemnation of homosexual acts as a sin.

“Exaggerated expectations will necessarily lead to new disappointments,” German cardinal Walter Kasper was quoted as saying in a new biography of the pope by Rome-based Argentine journalist Elisabetta Pique.

“The new pope can renew the Church but he cannot invent a new Church,” Kasper said, adding that progressives and conservatives alike would be “disappointed.”

Aside from memorable phrases like his call for a “poor Church for the poor,” there have in fact been few major decisions taken by Francis in his first nine months that allow for a deeper analysis of his intentions.

Francis has begun consultations on reforming the Vatican administration and the Vatican’s scandal-tainted bank, the Institute for Works of Religion, and has set up a committee on child abuse.

About to tackle scandals of child sex abuse

On the issue of abuses and cover-ups by Catholic clergymen dating back decades, which continues to anger many Catholics and non-Catholics alike, two events next month could give an indication of the pope’s direction.

One will be the assembly on January 8 of the Legion of Christ, a troubled conservative religious order whose late founder Father Marcial Maciel was discovered to be a sexual predator who molested seminarians and fathered three children despite taking a vow of chastity.

The order has been put under Vatican tutelage as more abuse cases have emerged, but there have been internal tensions over its future ahead of the meeting, when the Vatican will have to show what it intends to do.

Then on January 16, Vatican representatives will travel to Geneva to testify before a meeting of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child over its handling of abuse cases after saying it was not legally competent over the actions of individual clergymen.

Seen trying to do too much?

Some experts believe Pope Francis may be trying to do too much and creating confusion among Catholics with his multiple interviews and ad lib speeches.

“Pilot and navigator, accelerator and brake: Pope Bergoglio’s driving is like that,” said Vatican expert Sandro Magister, using Francis’s surname from birth.

He added that the pontiff’s style had led to “misunderstandings and over-the-top expectations.”

And while his public image is that of a kindly parish priest, Vatican gossip is that he can be sometimes be brusque and authoritarian behind the walls.

With the pope’s popularity growing among many non-Catholics too, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi expressed concern in a rare critical moment that the focus on him could draw attention away from the message.

At a recent book presentation, he was quoted by Vanity Fair Italy as saying: “The extreme concentration of attention on Francis creates a communication problem.”

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Pope issues mission statement for papacy

VATICAN CITY—Pope Francis has issued the mission statement for his papacy, outlining how the Catholic Church and the papacy itself must be reformed to create a more missionary and merciful church that pays particular attention to the poor.

In a document released Tuesday, Francis amalgamated the priorities he has laid out in eight months of homilies, speeches and interviews and put them in the broader context of how to reinvigorate the church’s evangelical zeal in a world marked by indifference, secularization and vast income inequalities.

He explained his most controversial remarks criticizing the church’s “obsession” with transmitting a disjointed set of doctrines, saying that in the church’s “hierarchy of truths,” mercy is paramount and that what counts is inviting the faithful in.

He criticized the church’s centralization as impeding missionary outreach.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Pope says atheists can be moral like Catholics

ROME—Pope Francis on Wednesday said atheists could take moral decisions just like religious people, in an unprecedented letter to a leftwing Italian daily—his latest attempt to reach out to non-believers.

“God’s mercy has no limits if we turn to Him with a sincere and contrite heart,” the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics said in a missive published in La Repubblica by its founder Eugenio Scalfari.

“The question for people who do not believe in God is to listen to their consciences. Also for those without faith, sin is going against your conscience,” he said.

“Listening to it and obeying it means making up one’s mind about what is good and evil,” he added.

The letter was the 76-year-old pope’s reply to questions posed in the newspaper in July and August by Scalfari, who had admitted to not believing in God.

Since being elected in March, the Argentine pope has repeatedly said he wants his words to be heard by faithful from other religions and non-believers.

During a blessing in St. Peter’s Square in May, Francis said non-believers could be redeemed just like Catholics—an unusual message that was quickly denied by a Vatican spokesman who said that anyone who refuses the Catholic Church “cannot be saved.”

“The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ. All of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!” the pope said in his address in May.

“We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there,” he said.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Black smoke over Vatican: No new pope yet

VATICAN CITY— Black smoke is billowing from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, meaning Roman Catholic cardinals have not elected a pope in their second or third rounds of balloting.

Cardinals voted twice Wednesday in Michelangelo’s famed frescoed chapel after a first vote Tuesday in a conclave to elect a successor to Benedict XVI, who stunned the Catholic world last month by becoming the first pope in 600 years to resign.

The conclave was called after Pope Benedict XVI resigned last month, throwing the church into turmoil and exposing deep divisions among cardinals tasked with finding a manager to clean up a corrupt Vatican bureaucracy as well as a pastor who can revive Catholicism in a time of growing secularism.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Benedict begins final day as pope before retiring

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI is beginning a final quiet day as pontiff, meeting with his cardinals before flying off into retirement.

No major speech is expected during his morning farewell Thursday with his closest advisers, just a simple greeting to each one inside the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace.

Shortly before 5 p.m., Benedict will leave the palace for the last time as pope, head to the helipad on the top of the hill in the Vatican gardens and fly by helicopter to the papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo south of Rome.

And there, at 8 p.m. — the exact moment Benedict’s resignation goes into effect — the doors of the palazzo will close and the Swiss Guards in attendance will go off duty, their service protecting the pope now finished.

source:  newsinfo.inquirer.net