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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (CNS) Benedict's past statements mean his letter was inevitably of interestThis week’s furore over Benedict XVI’s letter could seem a little overblown. First the Pope Emeritus was reported to have written a note paying a compliment to Pope Francis. Then it emerged that the official Vatican photo had blurred and concealed another part of the letter – in which Benedict declined to write a short passage on a new collection of booklets about Francis’s theology. (The refusal was mentioned at the press conference, but not on the Vatican website or in the original reports.) It...

How are personalities of young people formed in today's world? How do new technologies influence them? How do they view God and the Church? These are some of the questions that young people will study during the pre-synod meeting to take place in Rome from March 19 to 24. Three hundred youth will address them physically from the Eternal City, while thousands of others will join in through social networks. The objective is to encourage believers and non-believers to participate. From the answers a working document will be written by bishops who will participate in the Synod on "Youth, faith...

“The great saints and reformers, those who provoked real changes in the Church and in history, did not love slogans but gestures along with the gift of self. But for quite some time now we have been used to living with slogans in the Church". Five years after the election of Pope Francis, Vatican Insider interviewed Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez, rector of the Catholic University of Argentina, and a theologian particularly close to the Pope.    How do you assess these first five years of pontificate? What has characterized it most?   I would rather not dwell on the results obtained in...

One evening I was having dinner with a friend who is a prominent leader in the world of entertainment. He is not Catholic, but professed to have a very strong liking of our Holy Father, Pope Francis. He appreciated his clear voice in defense of the marginalized, his powerful symbolic witness in actions such as washing the feet of prisoners and his radiant and joyful interactions with people from every background.“What makes him tick?” he asked. “What centers him and directs his life?” I replied: “The Holy Father genuinely believes not only that Jesus rose from the dead 2,000 years...

The Vatican announced today that Pope Francis has appointed members of a pre-synodal council who will collaborate with the secretariat of the Synod of Bishops in preparation for the Pan-Amazonian synod next year. Also announced was the theme of the October 2019 synod: Amazonia: new pathways for the Church and for an integral ecology. Of particular, though not unexpected, interest are the appointments of Cardinal Claudio Hummes and retired Bishop Erwin Kräutler to the council. Both have advocated a change in discipline to allow married clergy in the Latin rite, and the Pan Amazonian synod is expected to provide a...

A Case Study of Rupture in the Lex Orandi: The Epistles of Lenten Sundays One of the most striking areas of rupture and discontinuity between the traditional Latin Mass and the Mass of Paul VI is to be found in the passages of Scripture read on Sundays. The annual cycle of the old Missal, embodying the practice of well over a millennium, puts before the Christian people year after year essential truths of the spiritual life and fundamentals of morality to which we must always return. The three-year cycle of the new Mass, an unprecedented novelty against the backdrop of...