Vatican City, Dec 4, 2024 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis during his general audience at St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday said all evangelizing activity depends on the Holy Spirit and not on “pastoral initiatives promoted by us.”

Continuing his catechetical series on ”The Spirit and the Bride,” the Holy Father spoke about evangelization and the role of preaching in the Catholic Church. 

Stressing the importance of prayer, the pope said all Christians should ask for God’s intercession in the work of evangelization as it “does not depend on us but on the coming of the Holy Spirit.”  

“The Holy Spirit comes to those who pray because the heavenly Father — it is written — ‘give[s] the Holy Spirit to those who ask him’ (cf. Lk 11:13),” the pope told pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square. “Especially if we ask him in order to proclaim the Gospel of his Son!”

Pointing to the example of Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry, the Holy Father said it is necessary to imitate his example and prayer: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor” (cf. Lk 4:18). 

“Preaching with the anointing of the Holy Spirit means transmitting, together with the ideas and the doctrine, the life, and conviction of our faith,” he continued.

Emphasizing the need to prioritize prayer over “persuasive words of wisdom,” the Holy Father also told his listeners to be wary of the desire to “preach ourselves” instead of Jesus Christ.

“Not wanting to preach oneself also implies not always giving priority to pastoral initiatives promoted by us and linked to our own name,” he said.

A plea to preachers

Pope Francis also shared practical advice for preachers to “never go over 10 minutes” at the risk of their listeners losing interest in a sermon.

“Preachers must preach an idea, a feeling, and a call to action. Beyond eight minutes the preaching starts to fade, it is not understood,” Pope Francis said to applause from some pilgrims.    

Final greetings and prayers for peace

In his final greetings to international pilgrims on Wednesday, the pope imparted his special Advent blessings. He encouraged the crowds to prepare well for the upcoming solemnity of the Immaculate Conception to be celebrated on Dec. 9 this year.

The Holy Father also extended his sincere greetings to Chinese pilgrims and their families at the general audience. Mandarin Chinese was today included among the official language translations of the pope’s weekly greetings and catechesis. 

Asking people to pray especially for the people of Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, and “the innocent killed in wars,” the pope implored: “Please let us continue to pray for peace, freedom.”

“War is a human defeat, a defeat of humanity. War does not solve problems. War is evil,” he said.

Vatican City, Dec 4, 2024 / 12:30 pm (CNA).

The 21 new cardinals to be created by Pope Francis at the Dec. 7 consistory reflect the pontiff’s vision for a missionary Church that reaches out to the world’s peripheries.

Following the 10th consistory of his pontificate, Pope Francis will have effectively cemented the expansive geographical diversity of the College of Cardinals as well as chosen approximately 60% of all its members and almost 80% of the cardinals who will choose his successor in a future conclave.

While the College of Cardinals will still largely be European — with a high proportion who are either representing Italian churches or are of Italian origin — after the Dec. 7 consistory more than 90 countries will be represented in the college responsible for advising the pope in the care of the universal Church.

The December consistory will also see the College of Cardinals expand to a total of 253 members. Though the vast majority of cardinals are usually secular clergy, this year’s consistory will bring the number of cardinals belonging to religious congregations and institutes to 68.  

The continued expansion of the college beyond traditionally Catholic Europe is also evident in the selection of cardinals belonging to missionary congregations in countries where Catholics are a minority.

Both Cardinals-elect Archbishop Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, SVD, of Tokyo and Archbishop Ladislav Nemet, SVD, of Belgrade-Smederevo, Serbia, belong to the Society of the Divine Word religious congregation and represent the Church in countries where the Catholic population is at 5% and below.

According to Canon 349 of the Code of Canon Law, cardinals hold the duty to act collegially in choosing a pope’s successor should a conclave be convoked. However, not all cardinals hold the right to cast a vote in a conclave.  

More than half of the college after the consistory is set to be “cardinal electors.” These cardinals are below the age of 80 and therefore eligible to vote for a new pope. 

Among the 140 cardinals with voting rights, the highest representation by country is Italy with 17 cardinal-electors, followed by the U.S. with 10 cardinal-electors, and then Spain with six cardinal-electors. 

The college’s remaining 113 “cardinal non-electors” are 80 years old and older. While they are eligible to participate in the meetings leading up to the start of a conclave, they do not have voting rights and so will not participate in the conclave itself. 

Both the eldest and youngest College of Cardinals members will be created at the Dec. 7 consistory. 

At 99, Italian Cardinal-elect Angelo Acerbi, the prelate emeritus of the Knights of Malta, will become the oldest member of the college. Having served the Catholic Church as a bishop for 50 years, he also has 40 years of experience working in the Holy See’s diplomatic corps. 

Between 1974 and 2001, he served as nuncio to New Zealand, Colombia, Hungary, Moldova, and the Netherlands.

Bishop Mykola Bychok of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Eparchy of Sts. Peter and Paul in Melbourne, Australia, will become the youngest cardinal at age 44. His elevation as cardinal will bring the total number of cardinals from the vast Oceania region to four.

In an Oct. 6 letter welcoming the new cardinals to the “Roman clergy,” Pope Francis said membership to the College of Cardinals “is an expression of the Church’s unity and of the bond that unites all the Churches with this Church of Rome.”

The consistory for the creation of the new cardinals will take place in the Papal Chapel of St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday afternoon.

CNA Staff, Dec 4, 2024 / 09:45 am (CNA).

The Texas State Board of Education has sparked renewed debate over the role of religion in public schools in the wake of the agency’s approval of a new language arts curriculum that includes the Bible.

The K–5 curriculum, which will become available this spring, features a cross-disciplinary approach that uses reading and language arts to reinforce other subjects. The Blue Bonnet Learning curriculum has come under scrutiny due to its references to Christianity and the Bible, including lessons from Genesis and Psalms as well as the New Testament. 

For example, the parable of the good Samaritan is part of a lesson plan about the Golden Rule. The program is optional, though schools receive funding per student to cover the cost of the program if they participate. Participating schools will begin the program in the 2025-2026 school year. 

According to a report by the Texas Tribune, critics of the curriculum cite fear it will “entrench religion in public life” and could “diminish the protections that are afforded to religious minorities.” Other critics fear that this could ostracize students of different faith backgrounds, while one parent called the curriculum “indoctrination.”  

But Mary Elizabeth Castle, director of government relations for Texas Values, a group that supports the curriculum, pointed out that understanding the Bible helps deepen students’ understanding of Western history.

“These materials were attacked for no other reason but to completely erase any mention of religion or the Bible from the classroom, which would create a hostile environment for free speech,” Castle said in a statement.

Catholic takes

When asked about the Texas Bible curriculum, Father Steve Grunow, CEO of Word on Fire, told CNA that the goal of the curriculum — to stress “the cultural influence and moral perspectives of the Scriptures” — is “commendable.”  

Grunow emphasized that the Bible’s vast global influence “is such that it should not be ignored in any academic curriculum.” 

But he noted that this goal is difficult to implement. “The open and often volatile question has been how to best do this,” he pointed out. 

“The Bible is not only culturally valuable but holds the status for believers to be revelatory of God,” he noted. “No interpretation of its meaning or significance can [be] characterized as neutral, and it is clear that the Bible itself does not present its purpose as relative — the text intends to convince us of the truth of its claims.”

Grunow noted that parish schools were founded with this concern in mind. 

“Contemporary Catholics might not remember, but one of the contributing factors to the founding of parochial schools was that the public school curriculum was suffused with Protestantism, particularly in regards to presentations of the Bible,” Grunow explained. “The first conflict of Catholics with public schools and other institutions in this country was not that they were secular but that they were Protestant.” 

Does the curriculum cross a line? 

Weighing in with legal perspective on the curriculum, a professor at the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America pointed out that proselytizing is unconstitutional, but education about religions is not. 

Marc DeGirolami, co-director at CUA’s Center for Law and the Human Person, said that “from a constitutional point of view as the law now stands, in principle, there is nothing illegal about what Texas is doing.”

“What is not permitted at present is to ‘proselytize’ — to teach a particular set of religious views as true and other religious views as false,” he told CNA. “From what I could see in the proposed curriculum, though, this is not what Texas is now proposing. And teaching about religion, including the historical and cultural connections of the American republic to Christianity, is not forbidden.”

However, this can be a hard line to walk. “Of course, the line between teaching about religion and teaching religion can be gray. So much will depend upon the implementation of these curricular policies,” DeGirolami said.

When asked if he thinks the curriculum could be a violation of religious freedom, Grunow agreed with DeGirolami — it’s only unconstitutional “if its purposes were sectarian and to proselytize.” 

“I do think that most Americans would not have an issue [with] the presentation of the Bible in the public schools; that’s not the point of contention,” Grunow said. “The issue is how to do this in a way that respects ... the Bible, those who hold it to be God’s revelation, those who ascribe to differing interpretations, and those who might appreciate its cultural significance but are wary of any encroachment of religion in public institutions.”

“The Texas curriculum is trying to navigate these concerns,” Grunow said. “I give them credit for their efforts, but time will show us the efficacy of this endeavor.” 

Some critics have threatened legal action, but DeGirolami said objections like these “are on awkward footing.”

For DeGirolami, excluding a particular religion in education “seems discriminatory to me, especially in a world where what children are taught in public schools seems, at least to me, to be neck deep in moral and religious teaching.”

In other words, religious and moral values manifest throughout education anyway, so excluding Christianity would be discriminatory.   

“School curricula are meant to develop in children certain civic, moral, political, and cultural views, together with teaching them certain basic skills,” he explained. “Those civic, moral, political, and cultural views presuppose answers to some very basic questions that are also questions addressed by Christianity and many other religions.” 

For DeGirolami, Christianity should not be excluded from the civic and moral discussion. 

“To say that Christianity, because it is ‘religious,’ is not to be included in that discussion, is to gerrymander a category (‘religion’) so as to exclude particular substantive positions that are unwelcome or that critics think are wrong,” he said. “But if they are wrong, critics should just say so and explain why, rather than excluding them from the get-go as categorically inappropriate or out of bounds.”

Lima Newsroom, Dec 4, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The bishops of Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala are inviting the faithful to participate in a day of prayer for the Catholic Church in Nicaragua on Sunday, Dec. 8, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

“On ​​the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, Nicaraguan Catholics lift their voices in a great festival of praise known as ‘la gritería,’” the bishops of Central America said in a Nov. 29 statement. On this occasion, they pointed out, “in Nicaragua and throughout Central America, the traditional Marian devotion is expressed that is so deeply rooted in the piety of our people.”

The “gritería” (clamor) is celebrated on Dec. 7 in Nicaragua on the eve of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, when the faithful walk the streets and visit altars erected in honor of the Virgin Mary praying, singing, and lighting fireworks while shouting “Who causes so much joy?” and responding with “The conception of Mary!”

In their statement, the bishops expressed their “profound solidarity and communion with the people of God in Nicaragua, who often face a challenging reality.”

In their text, the prelates encouraged Catholics in each jurisdiction or parish to “join in prayer this cry of faith and hope, peace and freedom, which the faithful people direct to their mother and patroness. Our thoughts are with you, Nicaraguan brothers and sisters. We fraternally join your outcry, which respectfully hopes to find an answer.”

The bishops’ announcement came just prior to the Dec. 2 letter Pope Francis wrote to the Catholics of Nicaragua in which he encouraged them to be certain that faith and hope “work miracles.”

Relentless persecution

The persecution of the Catholic Church by the dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega and his wife and “co-president,” Rosario Murillo, seems to have no end.

A few days ago, the regime approved a reform of the country’s constitution that further restricts religious freedom and freedom of expression in the country, which are already quite limited. Among the most controversial measures is a provision that requires that “religious organizations must remain free of all foreign control.”

In mid-November, the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship expelled from the country the bishop of Jinotega and president of the country’s bishops’ conference, Carlos Enrique Herrera Gutiérrez, who had criticized a mayor, an Ortega supporter, who interfered with Mass by blasting loud music in front of the diocesan cathedral.

Herrera Gutiérrez and other bishops, priests, and religious have been subject to constant monitoring, persecution, and abduction as well as imprisonment in deplorable conditions.

Numerous members of the clergy have been deported from the country, stripped of their Nicaraguan citizenship and made stateless, as is the case of the bishop of Matagalpa, Rolando Álvarez, who was exiled to Rome in January along with Isidoro Mora, the bishop of Siuna; 15 priests; and two seminarians.

Under the socialist regime, Catholics have been silenced and public expressions of faith, such as prayers for the persecuted and other pastoral and spiritual activities, have been prohibited.

Between 2018 and 2024, 870 attacks against the Catholic Church were recorded in Nicaragua, as documented in the report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?” by exiled lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Vatican City, Dec 4, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

A small island town in northern Italy has put its heart into recreating a local lagoon in a Nativity scene for St. Peter’s Square — the first time the crèche will feature a large body of water.

“There’s not only the work behind it, but there’s the love, there’s the passion of everybody,” Andrea de Walderstein, the Nativity’s architect, designer, and construction manager, told CNA.

“We are the first to bring water to St. Peter’s [Square],” he said, explaining that the grandiose Nativity will feature the lagoon of Grado, a town of about 8,000 people located on an island and adjacent peninsula in the Adriatic Sea between Venice and Trieste.

De Walderstein said the ambitious display — which will be nearly 100 feet long and over 45 feet wide — is being assembled “like a Lego practically.” The embankment of the “lagoon” alone requires 102 Styrofoam bricks.

While not disclosing every surprise, de Walderstein and Antonio Boemo, the coordinator and leader of the project, told CNA that the replica lagoon will be set in the early 1900s and will feature a beach, islands, boats, animals, and representatives of the inhabitants of the town.

The scene, to be unveiled on Dec. 7, will also feature “casoneri,” the fishermen who used to live in huts on the islands of the Grado lagoon. According to information from the Vatican, the fishermen and women would traditionally only come into the village for three important holidays every year, including Easter and Christmas.

The traditional Nativity figures of Mary, Joseph, and the child Jesus will be inside one of the fishermen’s huts, called a “casone.”

“What we are interested in is that people will admire, become curious, and understand the feelings that we have when we go to the lagoon,” Boemo said.

But bringing a large body of water into St. Peter’s Square posed an important challenge — how to keep the seagulls of Rome from turning it into a giant birdbath. 

This was a big concern for the Vatican, de Walderstein said. “So we came up with a system with ultrasonic machines to keep them away.”

Boemo’s idea for a Nativity scene featuring the lagoon of Grado first came to him years ago. He told CNA a proposal was sent to the Vatican in 2016 and he is so happy to finally be seeing his dream become a reality.

He emphasized that this project has involved the whole community of Grado, with 40 people being physically involved in the construction and approximately 500 from the town expected to attend the unveiling.

The architect de Walderstein, too, said after being originally brought on just to design the project, will also “do the workmanship, because I really like to touch it with my own hands and build it with my own hands.”

“I have to thank Antonio, who involved me in this adventure. I am really happy,” he said.

National Catholic Register, Dec 4, 2024 / 04:00 am (CNA).

On Dec. 4 we celebrate St. John of Damascus, also known as St. John Damascene.

A priest and religious, he became a doctor of the Church. He’s also the last Church Father.

Here are seven things to know and share about St. John of Damascus.

1. Why is he the last of the Church Fathers?

We need to divide history into different periods. The age of the Church Fathers was not the same as the ages that came before it or the ages that followed it.

But to do this, we have to divide history at somewhat arbitrary points.

Thus, it is customary to regard the age of the Church Fathers as ending in the East with the life of St. John of Damascus, who died around A.D. 749.

(In the West, the age of the Church Fathers is commonly reckoned as ending with St. Isidore of Seville, who died in A.D. 636.)

2. Who was St. John of Damascus?

As his name implies, he was born in the city of Damascus, in the modern state of Syria, which is just north of Israel.

It’s the same city that St. Paul was travelling to when he experienced his conversion on “the Damascus Road.” (In fact, it’s quite close by modern standards; Damascus is about 135 miles north of Jerusalem.)

John was born in A.D. 675 or 676, and he lived to about 75 years of age, dying around A.D. 749. He spent most of his life in the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem.

He is also known by the Greek nickname “Chrysorrhoas,” which means “streaming with gold” or “gold-pouring,” indicating the quality of his writings.

3. Why is he significant?

Pope Benedict XVI explained:

“Above all he was an eyewitness of the passage from the Greek and Syrian Christian cultures shared by the Eastern part of the Byzantine Empire to the Islamic culture, which spread through its military conquests in the territory commonly known as the Middle or Near East.”

4. What happened in his early life?

Pope Benedict XVI explained:

“John, born into a wealthy Christian family, at an early age assumed the role, perhaps already held by his father, of treasurer of the Caliphate.

“Very soon, however, dissatisfied with life at court, he decided on a monastic life and entered the monastery of Mar Saba, near Jerusalem. This was around the year 700.

“He never again left the monastery but dedicated all his energy to ascesis and literary work, not disdaining a certain amount of pastoral activity, as is shown by his numerous homilies.”

5. What theological controversy made him important?

It was the eighth-century controversy over whether images should be venerated — the so-called “iconoclast controversy.”

Pope Benedict XVI explained:

“In the East, his best remembered works are the three ‘Discourses Against Those Who Calumniate the Holy Images,’ which were condemned after his death by the iconoclastic Council of Hieria (754).

“These discourses, however, were also the fundamental grounds for his rehabilitation and canonization on the part of the Orthodox Fathers summoned to the Council of Nicaea (787), the Seventh Ecumenical Council.

“In these texts it is possible to trace the first important theological attempts to legitimize the veneration of sacred images, relating them to the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God in the womb of the Virgin Mary.”

6. How did St. John Damascene contribute to the discussion?

Pope Benedict XVI explained:

“John Damascene was also among the first to distinguish, in the cult, both public and private, of the Christians, between worship (‘latreia’), and veneration (‘proskynesis’): The first can only be offered to God, spiritual above all else, the second, on the other hand, can make use of an image to address the one whom the image represents.

“Obviously the saint can in no way be identified with the material of which the icon is composed.

“This distinction was immediately seen to be very important in finding an answer in Christian terms to those who considered universal and eternal the strict Old Testament prohibition against the use of cult images.

“This was also a matter of great debate in the Islamic world, which accepts the Jewish tradition of the total exclusion of cult images.

“Christians, on the other hand, in this context, have discussed the problem and found a justification for the veneration of images.”

7. What did St. John Damascene write about this?

As Pope Benedict XVI explained, John Damascene wrote:

“In other ages God had not been represented in images, being incorporate and faceless.

“But since God has now been seen in the flesh, and lived among men, I represent that part of God which is visible.

“I do not venerate matter, but the Creator of matter, who became matter for my sake and deigned to live in matter and bring about my salvation through matter.

“I will not cease therefore to venerate that matter through which my salvation was achieved.

“But I do not venerate it in absolute terms as God! How could that which, from nonexistence, has been given existence, be God? ...

“But I also venerate and respect all the rest of matter which has brought me salvation, since it is full of energy and holy graces.

“Is not the wood of the cross, three times blessed, matter? ... And the ink, and the most holy book of the Gospels, are they not matter? The redeeming altar which dispenses the Bread of Life, is it not matter? ... And, before all else, are not the flesh and blood of Our Lord matter?

“Either we must suppress the sacred nature of all these things, or we must concede to the tradition of the Church the veneration of the images of God and that of the friends of God who are sanctified by the name they bear, and for this reason are possessed by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

“Do not, therefore, offend matter: It is not contemptible, because nothing that God has made is contemptible” (cf. “Contra Imaginum Calumniatores,” I, 16, ed. Kotter, p. 89-90).

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register and has been adapted by CNA.

Saint John Damascene has the double honor of being the last but one of the fathers of the Eastern Church, and the greatest of her poets. It is surprising, however, how little that is authentic is known of his life. The account of him by John of Jerusalem, written some two hundred years after his death, contains an admixture of legendary matter, and it is not easy to say where truth ends and fiction begins. The ancestors of John, according to his biographer, when Damascus fell into the ...

Reading 1: Isaiah 25:6-10, Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 23:1-6, Gospel: Matthew 15:29-37

Blessed are You, loving Father, For all your gifts to us. Blessed are You for giving us family and friends To be with us in times of joy and sorrow, To help us in days of need, And to rejoice with us in moments of celebration.. Father, We praise You for Your Son Jesus, Who knew the happiness of family and friends, And in the love of Your Holy Spirit. Blessed are you for ever and ever. Amen.

Blessed are You, loving Father, For all your gifts to us. Blessed are You for giving us family and friends To be with us in times of joy and sorrow, To help us in days of need, And to rejoice with us in moments of celebration.. Father, We praise You for Your Son Jesus, Who knew the happiness of family and friends, And in the love of Your Holy Spirit. Blessed are you for ever and ever. Amen.