Myanmar’s Cardinal Charles Maung Bo celebrates Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday, Oct. 23, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media Vatican City, Oct 23, 2023 / 12:11 pm (CNA). Myanmar’s Cardinal Charles Maung Bo described the Synod of Synodality as “a long march of hope for all humanity” during a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday.The cardinal, who serves as the president of the federation of Asian bishops’ conferences, said that many Catholics across Asia are enduring the painful reality of the “Way of the Cross.”“We pray that the Catholic Church, under the leadership of Pope Francis, will bring the entire human family into the long march of healing our world and our planet, ultimately leading us to a new heaven and a new earth,” Bo said in St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 23.As the archbishop of Yangon, Bo has been a leading voice in the Catholic Church in Myanmar for more than two decades, speaking out for human rights after the military coup in 2021.“Nowhere in Asia is the Christian faith journey more challenged than in Myanmar. Our small  flock is currently scattered due to both natural disasters and manmade crises, causing  multidimensional crises and immense suffering. … Homes have vanished, and churches have borne the brunt of cruelty,” he said at the synod Mass.Bo told the synod delegates that just as the faithful women followed Jesus to the cross, so too does the Church in Asia “continue our tear-filled synodal journey, believing that, like those women, we will see all wounds healed, and a new dawn of hope, peace, and justice will shine upon every long-suffering nation.”During the prayers of the faithful at the Mass, the congregation prayed for the Church in mainland China that it “may increasingly preserve and celebrate the communion of love and life with the universal Church.”Prayers were also offered for the Church in Myanmar as it “strives for democracy, rule of law, and that all forms of violence will end.”In his homily, Bo underlined that “one of the grave concerns” during the synod is “the legacy we will leave for the next generation.”“The environment has been borrowed from the young, and the inheritance due to them, a more peaceful world with the integrity of creation intact, is in jeopardy,” he said. “Global warming has devastated communities and the livelihoods of millions, threatening to slip away from the next generation.”The cardinal added that bishops in Asia are “acutely aware of the environmental damage inflicted upon our region due to climate-driven disasters.”“Our faith journey in Asia is not without difficulties, but this synodal gathering has energized us to return to the great days of evangelization by the Apostles,” Bo said.“We embrace the call for Asia to become ‘the 21st century for Christ’ with optimism, inspired by the global Church’s synodal journey.”The Mass was the last of four synod liturgies in St. Peter’s Basilica presided over by Church leaders from different regions of the world, including Lithuanian-American Archbishop Gintaras Grušas, Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu,

A priest surveys the damage caused by ISIS at a Catholic Church in Karamles, Iraq. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Stephen Rasche CNA Staff, Oct 23, 2023 / 08:45 am (CNA). Pope Francis cited the examples of Western intervention in Libya and Iraq in arguing that the West should not “export” its own "type of democracy” to other countries, according to a recently published interview. The pope’s comments were published in the Italian newspaper La Stampa and excerpted from a book released this week by journalists Francesca Ambrogetti and Sergio Rubin, “You Are Not Alone: Challenges, Answers, Hopes.” In an excerpt from the book, the pope was asked by the authors about “the responsibilities of the most developed countries” for the “chaos” being experienced by other nations. Francis responded that that chaos was due in part to “the failure of the West in its attempt to import its own type of democracy” in some countries around the world. “We are thinking of Libya, which seems to be led only by very strong personalities such as Gaddafi,” the pope said. “A Libyan told me that they once had only one Gaddafi, while now they have 53.” The Holy Father similarly pointed to the Iraq War, which he called “a real disgrace” and “one of the worst cruelties.” U.S.-led forces defeated the Iraqi military and deposed president Saddam Hussein, leaving in his place a country strained by worsened sectarian violence. “Saddam Hussein was certainly not a little angel, on the contrary,” Francis said, “but Iraq was a fairly stable country.” The pontiff cautioned that he was “not defending Gadaffi or Hussein.” But, he argued, “organized anarchy and other war” followed those conflicts.“I therefore believe that we must not export our democracy to other countries, but help them to develop a process of democratic maturation according to their characteristics,” Francis said. “Do not wage a war to import a democracy that their peoples are unable to assimilate.”The pope pointed out that some countries, such as monarchies, “will probably never accept a democracy,” but nations “can help to ensure that there is more participation” in those instances. The pope confessed himself “ignorant in terms of international politics,” though he said the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) indicates “an unfortunate Western choice.”Ambrogetti is an Italian-born journalist, while Rubin is from Argentina; the two previously collaborated on the 2014 book “Pope Francis: His Life in His Own Words.” Rubin has also authored a biography of Francis.

Father Timothy Radcliffe told the Synod on Synodality delegates on Oct. 23, 2023, that the time before the 2024 assembly "will be probably the most fertile time of the whole synod, the time of germination." / Credit: Vatican Media Vatican City, Oct 23, 2023 / 07:27 am (CNA). Father Timothy Radcliffe said Monday that “the most fertile time” of the Synod on Synodality will be the months of “active waiting” leading up to the final 2024 synod assembly.Speaking at the livestreamed opening of the general congregation on Oct. 23, Radcliffe likened the months of waiting between the two synod assemblies to “a pregnancy.”“In a few days’ time, we shall go home for 11 months. This will be apparently a time of empty waiting. But it will be probably the most fertile time of the whole synod, the time of germination,” the English Dominican said.“These 11 months will be like a pregnancy,” he added. “We, my brothers and sisters, are pregnant with new life.” Radcliffe, who serves as the spiritual adviser to the synod, also warned delegates not to speak negatively when they return home from Rome, quoting St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: “‘Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths’” (Eph 4:29).Little has been made public regarding what will take place between the two synod assemblies. Synod spokesman Paolo Ruffini has confirmed that the synod delegates attending this month’s assembly will be returning to Rome next year for the October 2024 synod assembly. Synod organizers have also said that a new Instrumentum Laboris, or working document, for the 2024 assembly will be written based, in part, on the synthesis document produced at the end of the 2023 gathering. Radcliffe described the gap between the synod assemblies as “a time of active waiting,” noting that it will be “hard for many people to understand what we are doing.”“When we go home, people will ask, ‘Did you fight for our side? Did you oppose those unenlightened other people?’ We shall need to be profoundly prayerful to resist the temptation to succumb to a party-political way of thinking,” he said.“That would be to fall back into the sterile, barren language of much of our conflictual society. It’s not the synodal way. The synodal process is organic and ecological rather than competitive. It’s more like planting a tree than winning a battle.”Radcliffe encouraged the delegates to reflect on how their words can “nurture the tender plant that is the synod” after leaving the 2023 assembly.“Will we speak fertile, hope-filled words, or words that are destructive and cynical? Will our words nurture the crop or be poisonous? Will we be gardeners of the future or trapped in old sterile conflicts? We each choose,” he told the delegates. Radcliffe is one of two “spiritual assistants” who helped to lead the meditations for the retreat and the prayers throughout the synod assembly this month, along with 79-year-old Mother Maria Grazia Angelini.Angelini told the synod delegates in her spiritual reflection at the start of the final week of the assembly

Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck of Essen, Germany at the Synod on Synodality press briefing Oct. 21, 2023. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez Vatican City, Oct 21, 2023 / 12:40 pm (CNA). A German bishop participating in the Synod on Synodality challenged the idea that the Catholic community in his country is at odds with the universal Church — and reasserted that it will continue to play a role in the ongoing discussions in Rome about the Church’s future. Speaking at the Synod press briefing Saturday afternoon, Bishop Franz Josef Overbeck of Essen acknowledged that others have expressed concerns to him regarding the Catholic Church in Germany’s controversial “Synodal Way.” “Many people have asked me, ‘Are you still Catholics and part of the Catholic Church?”, said Overbeck, one of the German Bishops Conference’s three delegates to the universal Synod, and a major proponent of the German Synodal Way. “And I say, ‘Yes, of course, we are Catholics, and we are here to stay.” Begun in 2019, the Synodal Way is a non-canonical initiative of the German bishops’ conference and the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK). The collaboration approved blessings of same-sex unions, incorporated transgender ideology into Church practice, and petitioned Rome to open ordained ministry to women at its final assembly in Frankfurt in March 2023. Pope Francis has criticized the Synodal Way as “elitist” and “not helpful,” while bishops from around the world have written to express their concern that the process could induce schism between Germany and the universal Church. Vatican officials and German bishops have held multiple meetings to discuss the Synodal Way, most recently on July 27. Contextual argument Speaking for nearly 10 minutes about the Synodal Way to journalists, Overbeck asserted that the controversial process was responding to the uniquely “post-secular” context of German culture, in which “people have no idea” about transcendence, the Church, or Jesus Christ.  “This changes the entire framework for the questions we are carrying out,” said Overbeck, adding that if Catholic teaching is in contradiction with “the signs of the times,” then “nobody is going to be convinced” by the Church’s guidance. Overbeck repeatedly referred to Germany’s particular cultural situation to justify some of the Synodal Way’s most controversial proposals. For instance, he alluded to exploring an end to mandatory priestly celibacy by noting that in his 13 years as Bishop of Essen, he has only ordained 15 new priests, while 300 priests have died. The Diocese of Essen, he said, currently has no seminarians in formation. In addition, Overbeck suggested that the widespread presence of both the Catholic permanent diaconate as well as ordained women as Lutheran ministers in Germany makes the question of opening the diaconate to women particularly relevant to the local Church.“We live in this world, and these are the questions that come up,” said Overbeck, who said that any consideration of including women in the diaconate should be in response to “a vocation,” and not simply creating a rite “so that women can be a part of the sacramental ministry of the Church.” Overbeck, who has previously

Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney spoke to EWTN on the occasion of the Synod on Synodality. / Credit: EWTN News Vatican City, Oct 20, 2023 / 12:00 pm (CNA). During the Synod on Synodality, we must be careful about “blaming everything on the Holy Spirit,” Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney has said, noting that if a proposal is radically at odds with the Gospel then “that’s not of the Holy Spirit.”“The Holy Spirit is Christ’s Spirit. He is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, and so he is only ever going to be saying things that are consistent with what Christ has revealed to us in the apostolic tradition,” Fisher told CNA in an interview in Rome this week.Much emphasis has been placed on listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit during the October assembly with synod delegates gathering for nearly daily small-group “conversations in the Spirit,” described on the synod website as “a dynamic of discernment in a synodal Church.”The Australian Dominican explained that if some synod proposal is “radically at odds” with the Gospel and the apostolic tradition, “that’s not of the Holy Spirit because we cannot have Christ and the Holy Spirit at war with each other.”“We’ve got to be careful about blaming everything — all our opinions, our interests, lobbies, and factions — putting all that on the Holy Spirit,” Fisher said. “Catholics like to think that the Holy Spirit elects the pope, the Holy Spirit chooses our bishops and priests for us, the Holy Spirit does this and that. And there’s no doubt that God’s hand, God’s providence, is there in all those important things in our lives and in the life of the Church. But we’ve also had some terrible popes in history. We’ve had some awful priests and bishops and awful things happen in people’s lives. And was the Holy Spirit absent? No, but he permitted those things to happen.”“So let’s not pin everything on the Holy Spirit that happens at the synod or anywhere else in our lives. I think that’s actually superstitious to do that,” he added. The challenge of the synod is to listen and ask what God is saying to us and to the Church at this time, he explained, adding that the Church has already provided helpful “guideposts” when trying to discern the will of God.“Christ has given us everything we need for our salvation, already revealed. We hand that on from generation to generation, the Gospel and the teachings of the Church,” he said.“We already have a whole body of teaching, of reflection, by thousands and thousands of people down through the generations, guided by the Holy Spirit on all sorts of questions there to help us, the deposit of faith as we call it, it’s there to be mined.”“So we’re not just left to our own devices, our own thinking — whatever the mood is in the assembly on a particular matter. We’ve actually got something solid to rely on and to test the moods

Father Ivan Montelongo, age 30 (seated at left), of El Paso, Texas, is one of 11 U.S. delegates to the Synod on Synodality. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN Vatican City, Oct 20, 2023 / 12:30 pm (CNA). “I think we all agree when I say that we are tired,” Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich said in his remarks to open the Synod on Synodality’s 15th day on Wednesday.One synod delegate agreed that the schedule has been “loaded” but said it’s “understandable that we tackle a lot in a short period of time.”“It’s intense but it’s good work,” Father Ivan Montelongo told CNA this week about his participation as one of 11 delegates representing the United States at the Oct. 4–29 assembly at the Vatican.Father Ivan Montelongo, Wyatt Olivas, and Julia Oseka, all delegates representing the United States, speak with Pope Francis during a Synod on Synodality meeting in the Paul VI Hall. Credit: Vatican MediaThe coffee break, the 30-year-old priest from El Paso, Texas, emphasized, is “sacred time.”Between small-group discussions and larger all-member gatherings, there’s a lot of listening, and listening “takes a lot of concentration, a lot of coffee too,” Montelongo said.As the third week wraps on the first session of the 16th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality, what does a typical day look like for a U.S. participant?For Montelongo, the wake-up call is usually around 6 a.m. He and the other U.S. delegates are staying at the Pontifical North American College (NAC), a seminary for men studying for the priesthood in the United States.On the days the synod does not celebrate Mass together in St. Peter’s Basilica, he and the other U.S. delegates start the morning with Mass at 7 a.m. in the college’s chapel.Mass is followed by a quick breakfast before loading up in a van at 8 a.m. to make the way down the hill to the not-far-off Paul VI Hall in Vatican City.The time before everything starts, he said, is usually filled with greeting people, making connections, finding your table, and getting seated.At 8:45 a.m., the synod assembly begins. The hundreds of delegates pray the psalms and listen to the day’s Gospel together. Sometimes there are also spiritual reflections, Montelongo said.Whether the agenda calls for small groups or full-group listening sessions, called general congregations, the mid-morning coffee interlude is always much appreciated, the priest said.“Everyone [moves] toward the coffee and while we’re in line, or after getting coffee, conversations just happen,” he said, “sometimes about what was discussed but sometimes just about ourselves, about our weekends, about our ministries.”Montelongo, who was ordained in 2020, is judicial vicar and vocation director for the El Paso Diocese. While he was born in California, he spent his childhood in Mexico until age 15, when he moved to Texas with his family.The synod assembly takes its lunch break from 12:30-4 p.m., during which time the U.S. delegates return to the North American College to eat and partake in “the beautiful tradition of siesta time.”Montelongo said he will also use

Archbishop Faustino Armendáriz of Durango, Mexico. / Credit: Archdiocese of Durango ACI Prensa Staff, Oct 20, 2023 / 18:00 pm (CNA). The archbishop of Durango, Mexico, Faustino Armendáriz, commented that “it’s a challenge to seek the will of God” at the Synod on Synodality, where he is a participating member. The synod is taking place at the Vatican through Oct. 29 and for the first time laypeople, including 54 women, will have the right to vote.The Synod of Synodality was announced in October 2021 with the theme “For a synodal Church: communion, participation and mission.” Hundreds of people, including bishops, priests, and laypeople, are taking part in this year’s session, which will be followed by a second session in October 2024.“Here it is a challenge to seek God’s will, not ours,” Armendáriz noted. “Many voices are heard saying ‘this is going to happen,’ ‘this is going to change,’ ‘that is going to be removed.’ No. What is the will of God? That is what we want to discover,” the prelate said in an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.Armendáriz considered that the many proposals and experiences shared will enlighten the participants to help them “see with more hope this path of the Church” in which there are some voices that “are very far from imagining what we really want.” “What we want,” he emphasized, “is not to remove what already exists but to strengthen it with the desire for our churches to be living churches.”Synodality and the Holy SpiritThe Mexican archbishop acknowledged that for everyone to be “in synodality is not easy” since there are people “with very different ideas” and who come from different cultures.“I had to be a relator in one of the small circles, and putting together a document where we all agree is quite a challenge, but it can be done. I say this from my testimony of having achieved it and being able to present it to the synthesis commission,” he continued.The working method of the synod establishes that each small circle or working group presents its report to the commission in charge of preparing the summary document of the first session, which will include both the topics on which there is both convergence and divergence.The archbishop encouraged Catholics to “look with great hope that indeed many fruits will come out [of the synod]. I think we should trust the Holy Spirit and say — every time we start a project or a session — that we do it in the name of God.”When asked what synodality is, Armendáriz said that “synodality, literally and etymologically, means ‘walking together,’ although the fact of being together does not mean that we are in synodality, but rather it is a whole lifestyle that we have to learn.”The archbishop of Durango then highlighted that “in the synod, before each meeting, the presence of the Holy Spirit is invoked, there are pauses to meditate in the light of the Spirit, the topic is taken up again and at the

null / Credit: Denis Belitsky/Shutterstock CNA Staff, Oct 20, 2023 / 11:35 am (CNA). Astronomers gathered at the Vatican Observatory this month to hear the results of major research into thousands of previously hidden galaxies that the Milky Way has long obscured. A press release from the Vatican’s astronomical research station said astronomers gathered there earlier in October “to present the latest results of a deep survey of the heart of the Milky Way,” known as the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea extended (VVVX) survey. Astronomers have long been frustrated by what is known in celestial science as the “Zone of Avoidance,” a patch of the sky in which our own Milky Way galaxy blocks out galaxies and other objects. A variety of stargazing techniques have been developed and attempted over the years to try to peer through this region of the sky in order to see the universe beyond it. Using sophisticated new technology, the VVVX team were “able to peer through the dust and see even distant galaxies on the other side of the Milky Way,” the observatory said in its announcement. Among the findings presented at the conference at the Vatican was “a new catalog of nearly 20,000 never seen before galaxies just behind the plane of the Milky Way,” the Vatican said, which allowed astronomers to “discover structures in the universe” normally hidden behind our galaxy. Among the other findings, the Vatican said, was research on “hyper-velocity stars” in the Milky Way; these stars are “moving at velocities larger than 2 million kms/hr” and are thought to have generated such immense speeds after encounters with the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. As well, scientists shared findings on “a new kind of variable stars in the nuclear disk of the Milky Way”; these objects “have wild changes in brightness” never before observed in other stars. They have been dubbed “dipping giants” by astronomers. The findings at the October conference “pave the road for a better understanding of the structure of the Milky Way and the formation of all galaxies in general,” the Vatican Observatory said. Long a major center of astronomical research, the Vatican Observatory’s roots date back to the 16th century, according to the Vatican.Located outside of Rome at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, the observatory “supports a dozen priests and brothers … from four continents who study the universe utilizing modern scientific methods.”The observatory also works with scientists at major astronomical institutions around the world,” the Vatican said.

When the Nazis occupied Rome for nine months following the fall of Mussolini, Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty created what came to be known as the "Rome Escape Line." / Patrick Leonard/EWTN Vatican City, Oct 20, 2023 / 09:40 am (CNA). Many people know Irish Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty from Hollywood’s portrayal of his life in “The Scarlet and the Black,” the film based on a real-life Catholic hero who was honored at the Vatican this week. Ireland’s President Michael Higgins in a Vatican ceremony on Oct. 19 paid tribute to O’Flaherty, an Irish priest who hid Italian Jews from the Nazis and went on to baptize the former head of the Gestapo in Rome.When the Nazis occupied Rome for nine months following the fall of Mussolini, Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty created what came to be known as the "Rome Escape Line." Credit: Patrick Leonard/EWTNThe wreath-laying ceremony marked the 60th anniversary of O’Flaherty’s death on Oct. 30, 1963. The ceremony took place in the Vatican’s Teutonic Cemetery, where a plaque commemorates O’Flaherty as a “tireless defender of the weak and oppressed” who saved more than 6,000 lives during World War II. Higgins praised the Irish priest for his “wonderful courageous work in the most terrible of times.”“It took great courage and took great commitment and it was morally so striking that somebody did all of that for those threatened,” the Irish president told EWTN. The wreath-laying ceremony on Oct. 19, 2023, marked the 60th anniversary of O’Flaherty’s death on Oct. 30, 1963. Credit: Patrick Leonard/EWTNBorn in County Cork in 1898, O’Flaherty grew up in Killarney playing golf on the course where his father worked as a steward before discerning his vocation to the priesthood.As a seminarian, O’Flaherty studied theology in Rome at the Urban College of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and went on to earn doctorates in both canon law and philosophy in Rome.He was ordained to the priesthood in 1925 and became a Vatican diplomat, during which time he served in posts in Haiti, Egypt, and Czechoslovakia.During World War II, O’Flaherty lived in the German College inside Vatican City State and worked at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then known as the Holy Office. The Holy See assigned O’Flaherty the task of visiting the Italian prisoner-of-war camps, where he brought books, cigarettes, chocolate, and hope to the English-speaking Allied prisoners, according to the Hugh O’Flaherty Memorial Society. After these visits, the priest used Vatican Radio to contact the prisoners’ relatives.When the Nazis occupied Rome for nine months following the fall of Mussolini, O’Flaherty created what came to be known as the “Rome Escape Line” — a network of priests, diplomats, and expatriates in Rome who helped to hide more than 6,000 escaped Allied POWs and Jews in convents, monasteries, and residences.Among those, O’Flaherty hid 50 people in his Vatican residence, the Pontifical Teutonic College, during the war years. Secret meetings among members of the Rome Escape Line to exchange documents and information on safe houses took place inside St. Peter’s Basilica

Synod on Synodality spokesman Paolo Ruffini speaks to the media during a press briefing at the Vatican on Oct. 18, 2023. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA Vatican City, Oct 20, 2023 / 07:31 am (CNA). This past week the Synod on Synodality assembly delved into two crucial themes: the accompaniment of LGBT individuals and the topic of a female diaconate. Additionally, the assembly discussed the structure of the Church, all with the aim of shaping a more synodal future for the Church. The process has been driven by what the Synod calls “active listening and speaking from the heart,” which, some participants have reportedly said, tends to be driven by emotions. It also raises a fundamental question: Will something truly defined ever emerge from the process?Several notable events also took place: Pope Francis met with members of New Ways Ministry, a U.S.-based LGBT ministry group which was previously denounced by both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office, three theologians held a conference designed to show support for the synodal journey, and a special prayer service for migrants presided over by Pope Francis was held at St. Peter’s Square.LGBT issuesThe issue of the debate on LGBT inclusion was downplayed by Vatican spokesperson Paolo Ruffini, who stated that "the blessing of homosexual couples is not the theme of the Synod." However, on Oct. 17, Sister Jeannine Gramick, co-founder of New Ways Ministry, an LGBT+ organization which was previously denounced by both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office for causing confusion on sexual morality among the Catholic faithful, met with Pope Francis, along with three other New Ways staff members. The meeting was publicized by Vatican Media, and perceived as an endorsement of New Ways Ministry's approach by Pope Francis. It occurred despite a controversy surrounding the Synod’s website, which was forced to remove a New Ways Ministry video that invited LGBT people to participate in the assembly.Women’s ordination and other key topicsApart from LGBTQ+ issues, the Synod also engaged in discussions related to the female diaconate and even contemplated the possibility of women delivering homilies, which already happens in situations such as in German-speaking Switzerland, where the priest is treated almost like a mere consecration official. The topic of "female priesthood" was even broached, raising fundamental questions about the role of women in the Church despite assurances from Synod organizers that changes to doctrine were not on the agenda. One intervention during a morning session was reportedly significant in this discussion. Responding to calls for women’s ordination not only to the diaconate, but in some cases also to the priesthood, a laywoman participant argued that the focus on women’s ordination is a distraction from what women in the Church need and is an attempt to clericalize the laity. The intervention received loud applause. The week also saw deliberations on the role of parishes, priests, and bishops. Ruffini emphasized that the Synod is not just a "roundtable or a talk show," but a "conversation of the Spirit."  However, it remains to be