Whispers in the loggia bishops

So many of you are like that, and I thank you. Our times have their own problems, yet they also have a living witness to the fact that the Lord has not abandoned his people. The only difference is that problems immediately end up in the newspapers; this has always been the case, whereas signs of hope only make the news much later, if at all.

Those who fail to view a crisis in the light of the Gospel simply perform an autopsy on a cadaver. They see the crisis, but not the hope and the light brought by the Gospel. We are troubled by crises not simply because we have forgotten how to see them as the Gospel tells us to, but because we have forgotten that the Gospel is the first to put us in crisis.

Instead, we will keep trusting that things are about to take a new shape, emerging exclusively from the experience of a grace hidden in the darkness. Finally, I would urge you not to confuse crisis with conflict. They are two different things. Crisis generally has a positive outcome, whereas conflict always creates discord and competition, an apparently irreconcilable antagonism that separates others into friends to love and enemies to fight.

In such a situation, only one side can win. When the Church is viewed in terms of conflict — right versus left, progressive versus traditionalist — she becomes fragmented and polarized, distorting and betraying her true nature. She is, on the other hand, a body in continual crisis, precisely because she is alive. She must never become a body in conflict, with winners and losers, for in this way she would spread apprehension, become more rigid and less synodal, and impose a uniformity far removed from the richness and plurality that the Spirit has bestowed on his Church.

Whispers in the loggia bishops: Boston's eighth bishop and fourth archbishop,

The newness born of crisis and willed by the Spirit is never a newness opposed to the old, but one that springs from the old and makes it continually fruitful. The dying of a seed is ambivalent: it is both an end and the beginning of something new. We see an end, while at the same time, in that end a new beginning is taking shape. In this sense, our unwillingness to enter into crisis and to let ourselves be led by the Spirit at times of trial condemns us to remaining forlorn and fruitless, or even in conflict.

If a certain realism leads us to see our recent history only as a series of mishaps, scandals and failings, sins and contradictions, short-circuits and setbacks in our witness, we should not fear. Nor should we deny everything in ourselves and in our communities that is evidently tainted by death and calls for conversion. Everything evil, wrong, weak and unhealthy that comes to light serves as a forceful reminder of our need to die to a way of living, thinking and acting that does not reflect the Gospel.

Only by dying to a certain mentality will we be able to make room for the newness that the Spirit constantly awakens in the heart of the Church. Every crisis contains a rightful demand for renewal and a step forward. If we really desire renewal, though, we must have the courage to be completely open. We need to stop seeing the reform of the Church as putting a patch on an old garment, or simply drafting a new Apostolic Constitution.

The reform of the Church is something different. The Church is always an earthen vessel, precious for what it contains and not for how it looks. Later, I will have the pleasure of giving you a book, a gift of Father Ardura, which shows the life of one earthen vessel that radiated the greatness of God and the reforms of the Church. These days it seems evident that the clay of which we are made is chipped, damaged and cracked.

We have to strive all the more, lest our frailty become an obstacle to the preaching of the Gospel rather than a testimony to the immense love with which God, who is rich in mercy, has loved us and continues to love us cf. Eph If we cut God, who is rich in mercy, out of our lives, our lives would be a lie, a falsehood. In times of crisis, Jesus warns us against certain attempts to emerge from it that are doomed from the start.

No historical form of living the Gospel can exhaust its full comprehension. Like a parliament, for example: and this is not synodality. Only the presence of the Holy Spirit makes the difference. What should we do during a crisis? It is essential not to interrupt our dialogue with God, however difficult this may prove. Praying is not easy.

We must not tire of praying constantly cf.

Whispers in the loggia bishops: Following in the footsteps of a

Lk ; 1 Thess We know of no other solution to the problems we are experiencing than that of praying more fervently and at the same time doing everything in our power with greater confidence. Rom For this reason, it would be good for us to stop living in conflict and feel once more that we are journeying together, open to crisis. Journeys always involve verbs of movement.

A crisis is itself movement, a part of our journey. Conflict, on the other hand, is a false trail leading us astray, aimless, directionless and trapped in a labyrinth; it is a waste of energy and an occasion for evil. The first evil that conflict leads us to, and which we must try to avoid, is gossip. Let us be attentive to this! Talking about gossip is not an obsession of mine; it is the denunciation of an evil that enters the Curia.

Here in the Palace, there are many doors and windows, and it enters and we get used to this. Gossip traps us in an unpleasant, sad and stifling state of self-absorption. It turns crisis into conflict. Herod, on the other hand, closed his heart before the story told by the Magi and turned that closed-heartedness to deceit and violence cf.

Each of us, whatever our place in the Church, should ask whether we want to follow Jesus with the docility of the shepherds or with the defensiveness of Herod, to follow him amid crisis or to keep him at bay in conflict. Allow me to ask expressly of all of you, who join me in the service of the Gospel, for the Christmas gift of your generous and whole-hearted cooperation in proclaiming the Good News above all to the poor cf.

Let us remember that they alone truly know God who welcome the poor, who come from below in their misery, yet as such are sent from on high. For the poor, who are the centre of the Gospel. I think of what that saintly Brazilian bishop [ Ed. Let no one willfully hinder the work that the Lord is accomplishing at this moment, and let us ask for the gift to serve in humility, so that he can increase and we decrease cf.

Jn I offer my best wishes to each and all of you, and to your families and friends. Thank you, thank you for your work, thank you so very much. And please, continue to pray for me, so that I can have the courage to remain in crisis. Happy Christmas! Thank you. Though the insignia will be sent to them and received in local ceremonies, they will have full membership in the Pope's "Senate" when their names are read out by the Pope alongside the others, thus "publishing" the list of his choices.

Among other concessions in the name of safety, the traditional evening "courtesy visits" to the incoming class will not take place, nor will the sign of peace among the cardinals after the new picks are invested. However, the standard close of the event — the Pope's concelebrated Mass with the new cardinals — will be held Sunday morning.

The road.

Whispers in the loggia bishops: 22 ; Most Rev. William Koenig

The road is the setting of the scene just described by the Evangelist Mark Jerusalem always lies ahead of us. This Gospel passage has often accompanied consistories for the creation of new Cardinals. For he is our strength, who gives meaning to our lives and our ministry. Consequently, dear brothers, we need carefully to consider the words we have just heard.

Because they knew what lay ahead of them in Jerusalem. More than once, Jesus had already spoken to them openly about it. The Lord knew what his followers were experiencing, nor was he indifferent to it. Jesus never abandons his friends; he never neglects them. Even when it seems that he is going his own way, he is always doing so for our sake.

All that he does, he does for us and for our salvation. In the specific case of the Twelve, he did this to prepare them for the trials to come, so that they could be with himnow and especially later, when he would no longer be in their midst. So that that they could always be with him, on his road. We have just heard it ourselves: the third announcement of his passion, death and resurrection.

Whispers in the loggia bishops: Some US bishops advocate

This is the road taken by the Son of God. The road taken by the Servant of the Lord. Jesus identifies himself with this road, so much so that he himself is the road. This way, and none other. At this point, a sudden shift takes place, which enables Jesus to reveal to James and John — but really to all the Apostles — the fate in store for them.

Two of his disciples break away from the others: James and John. They want to take a different road. Those who — as Saint Paul says — look to their own interests and not those of Christ cf. Saint Augustine speaks of this in his magnificent sermon on shepherds No. A sermon we always benefit from rereading in the Office of Readings. Jesus listens to James and John.

He does not get upset or angry. His patience is indeed infinite. Immediately after this, the other ten apostles will show by their indignant reaction to the sons of Zebedee how much all of them were tempted to go off the road. Dear brothers, all of us love Jesus, all of us want to follow him, yet we must always be careful to remain on the road.

For our bodies can be with him, but our hearts can wander far afield and so lead us off the road. In this passage of the Gospel, we are always struck by the sharp contrast between Jesus and his disciples. Jesus is aware of this; he knows it and he accepts it. Yet the contrast is still there: Jesus is on the road, while they are off the road.

Two roads that cannot meet. Only the Lord, through his cross and resurrection, can save his straying friends who risk getting lost. It is for them, as well as for all the others, that Jesus is journeying to Jerusalem. For them, and for everyone, will he let his body be broken and his blood shed. Bishop Quinn conceded that the church authorities "took the Indian out of the Indian," destroying traditional spiritual practices and "imposing a European Catholicism upon the natives.

He acknowledged that the Indians had a civilization of their own - one that valued all of nature - long before the Spanish imposed an alien, European-type life upon them. He was not only astounded at the apology - "it was huge" - but also by the bishop's appreciation of the culture. After the Mass, Sarris spoke at a gathering in the St.

Raphael's school gym. Others who are Catholics are still angry. And many of us left the church because of colonization, for which the church was the main instrument. In a interview to mark his 25th anniversary as a bishop, he offered some impressions on his ministry there, and the state of the wider church: Q: You have been retired for more than 10 years now.

Your primary ministry during that time has been with the Yaquis Native Americans in Arizona. What are the main aspects of your ministry and your impressions? In what ways has this ministry affected your life? I can just do purely essential priestly work — Masses for the Indians, all the whispers in the loggia bishops, funerals, days of recollection — all the things the associate pastor does.

I enjoy it very much. The Yaquis have about seven churches, but all under one parish. Most of them are just lean-to churches, as they are very poor. I rotate around those seven churches and I work with two Trinitarian priests. They have a reservation that is 90 miles by 90 miles, and they have about 45 whispers in the loggia bishops, most of which have a church.

They are very small communities, so I help them out on occasion too. I also say Mass daily for some sisters who live near where I have my R. The Yaquis have rituals — deer dancing and other things — that are laced with Latin prayers; they are Roman Catholic to the core — about 85 percent Catholic among the population. Circles are big to them.

They go to confession by writing their sins on slips of paper, which the priest reads silently. For context, the Roman Pontiff is elected by a supermajority of two-thirds. Yet far more significantly, the electors don't merely choose the next Pope — one of them will be next the Pope. In light of the ongoing travel restrictions due to the pandemic, it's worth noting that cardinals-designate need not be present at the Roman ceremonies to formally take their places in the College.

Regardless of their whereabouts, the designees enjoy the title "Eminence" and the right to enter a Conclave upon the Pope's publication of the biglietto — literally, the "ticket" — listing their names, which currently takes place at the beginning of the Consistory itself. Before anything else, given Cantalamessa's invariable presence in his brown Capuchin habit — to say nothing of his penchant for controversy over four decades as the household preacher — the sight of Padre Raniero in cardinal red is going to give more than a few natives the vapors.

On a related front, the friar's deluxe following among the Catholic Charismatic renewal is likewise set to make next month's rites the first "Scarlet Bowl" to feature en masse speaking in tongues among the moment's usual kaleidoscope of the church's universality. And speaking of the church's Catholicity For Francis, the call is legacy-defining. For the cardinal-designate, it's simply been a long time coming.

Appointed a bishop at 35 — the youngest possible age under canon law — the DC prelate a favorite of the last three pontificates now becomes the oldest American to be elevated to a Conclave seat since St Paul VI limited the electoral age to 80 in Having echoed the meteoric rise of his own mentor in many ways — among them, becoming the first Black president of the US bishops at all of 53 — while today's announcement has been gleefully received across all sorts of divides, if anything, it comes as an overdue recognition of a ministry that, by any standard, has been one of the landmark tenures in American Catholic history, one often saddled with equally historic and unique burdens.

To be sure, there is a poetic — and, even more, a Providential — timing to the news, coming amid a societal reckoning over systemic racism and the ties that bind the body politic. Yet while much of the wider world will make the mistake of conflating the man with the moment, anyone who's watched Gregory's ascent onto the national, then global stage over the last 30 years knows the extraordinary blend of skill, dignity, self-effacement and, yes, tolerance for pain that have paved the road to today, and how this elevation is the most merited of any these shores have seen in living memory.

Three decades ago, the walk began with his arrival in rural Southern Illinois, an early hotbed of abuse scandals, which saw him take the then unheard-of move to suspend one-sixth of the priests he inherited.