In an interview with Jesuit magazine America, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich said Pope Francis’s pontificate has opened new paths.
“The gospel is not new, but Francis is expressing it in a new way and is inspiring a lot of people, all over the world,” Marx said.
Answering a question about the debate on divorce and remarriage in the synod of bishops, the head of the German bishops said it is not correct to say that everything is clear about divorce and remarriage, and as a result the synod will try to discover ways of putting the Church’s unchanged teaching in new and accessible ways, while searching for new means of reaching out to the faithful.
UK politician to join Jesuit Refugee Service
Liberal Democrat MP and former children’s minister Sarah Teather, will join the Jesuit Refugee Service after the UK general election in May.
She will be employed as an advocacy advice. Her main work will be the provision of education for refugee children in the Middle East and south Sudan.
When she was a minister she had succeeded to end the detention of children in the immigration system.
Teather had stated that she could not support the immigration and welfare policies of the Liberal Democratic Party. At present she is the chairwoman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on refugees, and is overseeing a cross-party inquiry into immigration detention.
No conflict between Benedict and Francis
The impression given by the media that there is a conflict between Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis is absurd, said Archbishop Georg Gänswein. The German archbishop was the private secretary of Pope Benedict and for a short while of Pope Francis before he became the prefect of the pontifical household.
“I know of no doctrinal statements from Pope Francis which are contrary to the statements of his predecessor,” he told German journal Christ und Welt.
Gänswein rejected the idea that Pope Francis is pushing for a change in the Church’s teaching regarding divorce, or the admission of divorced and remarried Catholics to the Eucharist.
Lubich beatification process begins
The process for the beatification of Chiara Lubich was officially opened last Tuesday at the cathedral of Frascati, outside Rome, which was packed to overflowing.
Among the congregation were several cardinals, bishops, representatives of various Catholic, Orthodox, Buddist and Islamic movements, and civil personalities from Trent, her birthplace.
The Focolare Movement that Lubich founded in 1943 in Trent, northern Italy, now has millions of members in 194 countries in the five continents. She passed away on March 14, 2008.
In a message read by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Pope Francis referred to “the glowing exemplary life of the foundress of the movement” which “preserved her precious spiritual legacy”.
He “invoked abundant gifts on those committed to the postulation of the case and urged that people be made aware of the life and works of [Lubich], who accepted the invitation of the Lord and opened for the Church a new light on the path towards unity”.
The request for the start of the case for her beatification had been submitted by the movement’s president Maria Voce to the bishop of Frascati on December 7, 2013. Lubich lived her last years at Rocca di Papa, in the Frascati diocese.
The second session of the case will be held on February 12, when the tribunal will hear Voce’s testimony.
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)