Pope Francis will celebrate the fourth annual Sunday of the Word of God Jan. 22 and, like he did last year, will confer the ministries of lector and catechist on several lay people, according to the Dicastery for Evangelization.
The theme for the 2023 celebration is: « We proclaim what we have seen, » a quotation from 1 John 1:3, the dicastery said.
Francis began the Sunday of the Word of God to promote « the celebration, study and dissemination of the word of God, » which will help the church « experience anew how the risen Lord opens up for us the treasury of his word and enables us to proclaim its unfathomable riches before the world. »
The Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica Jan. 22 for the annual event was included in the Vatican’s short calendar of papal liturgical celebrations for January and early February. The calendar was published Jan. 12.
Also on the calendar is Francis’ celebration of an ecumenical evening prayer service at Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls Jan. 25 to close the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
The week is organized by the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity and the Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches. The theme for 2023 is: « Do good; seek justice, » which comes from Isaiah 1:17.
The calendar also includes Francis’ trip to Congo and South Sudan Jan. 31-Feb. 5, which means he will not celebrate at the Vatican the Feb. 2 feast of the Presentation of the Lord and the World Day for Consecrated Life.
Peru’s bishops have called on the country’s government to stop violence that claimed at least 18 lives in anti-government protests Jan. 9-10 and has left more than 40 people dead and hundreds injured since early December.
After expressing their condolences to the families of those killed and promising pastoral accompaniment to the wounded, the bishops in a message issued Jan. 9 wrote that the deaths were a consequence of the « distortion of the right to protest, » in which people « resorted to illegality, » combined with the « excessive use of force » by security forces.
The brutal confrontation Jan. 9 occurred when protesters tried to seize the airport in Juliaca, a city of around 280,000 people two miles high in the southern Peruvian Altiplano, near the border with Bolivia.
Videos circulating on social media showed civilian victims arriving at the local hospital in ambulances, a motorized rickshaw and a cart. Protesters later set fire to a police car, burning one officer alive and injuring another.
On Jan. 10, the bishops wrote: « We cannot return to the dark times of terror that left our country in mourning for 20 years, » a reference to the political violence of the 1980s and 1990s. « This situation merits energetic and resounding rejection by all, » they added, reaffirming « with great urgency » a call for an end to the violence from both sides.
The protests began in early December, when the national Congress impeached then-President Pedro Castillo after he announced he was closing down Congress and ruling by decree. Receiving no support from the military, Castillo attempted to take refuge in the Mexican Embassy, but was arrested and jailed. His wife and daughter were granted asylum in Mexico.
Those events on Dec. 7 were a tumultuous end to a nearly 18-month presidency for Castillo, a teacher and farmer from Peru’s northern Cajamarca region, with no government experience, who ran on the ticket of a leftist party. His term was marred by constant accusations of corruption and a revolving door of more than 70 government ministers.
After Castillo’s impeachment, Vice President Dina Boluarte was sworn in as president and called early elections for April 2024. Although she ran on the same ticket as Castillo, Boluarte had distanced herself from the president and was expelled from his Peru Libre party in January 2022.
Analysts have noted that with no congressional bloc to support her, Boluarte turned to the police and military when protests erupted, especially along the coastal highway and in Andean regions where Castillo had substantial support.
In demonstrations that began after Castillo’s impeachment and continued almost until Christmas, police used tear gas and fired at protesters who had blocked key highways and attempted to seize airports in several cities.
After a lull during the holidays, protests resumed Jan. 4. Juliaca has seen the most violent confrontations, but the government Ombudsman’s Office reported demonstrations in 24 provinces, strikes in seven and roadblocks in 16 as of Jan. 10.
Protesters are calling for Boluarte to resign, elections to be held this year and a constituent assembly to rewrite Peru’s constitution, which was last rewritten in 1993, after then-President Alberto Fujimori seized power in a move similar to that attempted by Castillo.
Boluarte has said her resignation would not solve the country’s problems and that she sees her administration as a transition government.
In their Jan. 9 message, the bishops, who begin their semi-annual retreat and assembly Jan. 11, said the country must « distinguish just demands from others that do not allow for rational dialogue. We cannot allow Peru to be destroyed by our own actions or let it fall into an institutional abyss. »
They called on the government to « urgently stop the violence and deaths, whatever their source, » for judicial authorities to investigate the killings and punish those responsible, and for Congress « to make the decisions demanded » by the situation.
They concluded, « Let us walk together to build peace in our beloved Peru. »
With a peal of laughter, the dynamic, groundbreaking Dolores Curran arrived in heaven on Dec. 4.
At a time when the U.S. Catholic Church was dominated by priests and religious, she introduced the then-shocking notion that the laity might also play a part. In her groundbreaking 1985 book Who, Me Teach My Child Religion?, she suggested the home was an arena for spirituality and that parents just might find God there. She taught that the sacred work of relationships doesn’t happen only at church or on retreat, but in kitchens, garages and bedrooms.
In the family were « hearts of flesh » sometimes sadly missing from the sterile, institutional « hearts of stone » that still can’t embrace the gay or lesbian kids. Now her ideas seem mild; then they were wildly coloring-outside-the-lines.
She recalled with disappointment the origins of Call to Action in the 1970s. The bishops had asked laypeople like herself for consultation, then after long, grueling meetings when many left young families, the hierarchy totally disavowed their recommendations. (Apparently the same suggestions, like allowing married men and women to become priests still surface in the current synodal discussions.)
A model of graceful dealing with discouragement, she turned with joy to her newborn twin granddaughters after her husband Jim’s death. Her dear friend and best-selling author Servite Sr. Joyce Rupp told me, « Dolores simply named things as she saw them, stood by what she spoke and wrote, and made no apologies for it. When Dolores and I conversed from time to time about the nasty messages she received from readers and those who attended her talks, she never responded with similar antipathy. »
Although writing 12 books, a column (« Talks with Parents » for 30 years) and numerous articles might seem arduous in the clerical climate, Dolores did it all with spunk and humor. In one article she described driving through Nebraska during the time when Lincoln Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz excommunicated members of Call to Action. From the back seat came « Hoorays! » Her kiddos overheard the hint they might not have to go to Mass and were thrilled — perhaps not what the bishop intended? She wrote one for America magazine when the only names on their masthead had « S.J. » after them, about women in the church being like the builders of Irish famine roads that went nowhere. …
Her book that bridged from the Catholic world into the mainstream was 1984’s Christopher Award-winning Traits of a Healthy Family. Typical of Dolores, she focused not on pathology, but on characteristics parents might recognize and say, « Hey! We’re not doing so badly! » That work led to even more lectures nationally and internationally, and service with the White House Conference on Family in the 1980s.
Her sense of humor carried into a project in Denver, her home, when some of us started an alternative to the diocesan newspaper. The diocesan publication featured 15 pictures of the archbishop in almost every issue. We began Leaven for the « thinking Catholic, » and included book and film reviews, thoughtful questioning of some egregious diocesan and Vatican policies, and when we were lucky, a hilarious contribution from Dolores.
When the bishops fretted that married couples were getting too much joy from sex, Dolores proposed a « Pleasure-o-Meter » to record dangerous ecstasy levels. A former priest who had a doctorate in liturgy wrote « Egeria’s Travels » reviews of local liturgies. We chortled at his self-description: « reduced to the lay state, like a fine sauce. » Dolores and Loretto Sr. Mary Luke Tobin served for many years on our board, always generous with their support.
Subtly, she shifted the way I thought about myself. We’d always been taught that the religious life was the « higher way, » and the laity were second-class citizens. So when I asked, « What could a mom with four young kids, who’s scrambling to teach five college classes, possibly have to say about spirituality? » Dolores answered, « Plenty. » After my 16 books, countless articles, talks and retreats, maybe she was right.
Personally, I’ll always be grateful for the vital encouragement Dolores and Joyce Rupp gave when I transitioned from college teaching to writing and speaking in the spirituality arena. If it hadn’t been for them, I probably would have floundered and quit within two weeks. Now, I continue to cherish her bold acuity, breath of fresh air and model I’ve tried to follow.
In his 2017 book, Eight Whopping Lies and Other Stories of Bruised Grace, Brian Doyle eloquently describes who Dolores was: « If we cannot see God in the vessels into which the electricity of astonishing life is poured by a profligate creation … then we are very bad at the religion we claim to practice, which says forthrightly that God is everywhere available. »
With grief for the loss and gratitude for the gift, I remember St. Thomas More’s line about « meeting merrily in heaven. » Surely Dolores chortles uproariously now with Jim, their daughter Theresa, and her many siblings. In fact, Dolores and God are probably cracking zany jokes together.
If the world of politics in 2022 was characterized by increasing polarization between the left and the right, the political life of the nation in 2023 will be increasingly marked by antagonisms within the ideological groupings that shape American politics. This was on vivid display during the fight over the speakership last week. Secondly, these intra-party fights will largely frustrate most attempts at legislation in the new year, as the margins in both chambers of Congress are so tiny, leaders in the House and Senate cannot afford to lose any of their members. Finally, three realities over which politicians have little control will affect our political life in ways it is impossible to predict beyond noting that the effects will be significant: the economy, migration and the war in Ukraine.
And religion could, or should, play a role in all of these likely political struggles.
The Republican Party is already drowning in mutual recriminations about their lackluster showing in the 2022 midterm elections. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly criticized former President Donald Trump for his decisive backing of primary candidates who won the GOP nomination but bombed in the general election. « We lost support that we needed among independents and moderate Republicans, primarily related to the view they had of us as a party — largely made by the former president — that we were sort of nasty and tended toward chaos, » McConnell said.
Trump had previously called McConnell « a loser for our nation and for the Republican Party » after the Kentucky senator criticized Trump for hosting white supremacist Nick Fuentes and antisemite Kanye West to dinner.
On the House side, Congressman Kevin McCarthy’s ascent to the speakership should have been a cakewalk but instead turned into a chaotic meltdown. A handful of Republican members of Congress, wanting to put a more Trumpian face on the party, refused to play ball with the rest of the GOP caucus. It was not clear whether they really wanted reforms of legislative procedures or simply wanted McCarthy’s scalp. Trumpistas inevitably give off a whiff of nihilism, yes?
The Democrats are far more unified at the level of congressional leadership. A remarkable thing happened last year when Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Rep. Steny Hoyer, the longtime No. 2 in the Democratic House leadership; and Rep. Jim Clyburn, the longtime No. 3, all stepped aside to allow a new generation of leaders to emerge. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries was selected as Democratic leader, joined by Rep. Katherine Clark and Rep. Pete Aguilar as No. 2 and No. 3 respectively.
While the right is fighting inside its congressional caucus, the fights on the left have begun on the pages of the nation’s leading newspapers. Social critic Thomas Frank recently wrote, « Sizable majorities of Americans desperately want traditional liberal measures like universal health care and economic fairness. But actually, existing liberalism, with its air of upper-crust contempt and its top-down moralism, rubs this deeply democratic nation exactly the wrong way. » He correctly diagnosed the utter lack of imagination on the political left.
The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg also thinks the « fever » on the left may be breaking and points to some recent articles by progressive leaders calling for an end to the « left’s self-sabotaging impulse. » That verdict, though welcome, seems premature.
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The other factor that could serve to tamp down any intra-party fights among the Democrats is the expected decision by President Biden that he will run for reelection. If the Republicans have to decide whether they will continue as a Trumpian cult or revert to some version of conservativism, the Democrats’ decision about what kind of progressivism they want to embrace could be put off for four years as the party rallies around Biden.
For both parties, the intra-party struggles have an ideological aspect, and Catholic social teaching would serve both parties well as a counterpoint to their worst tendencies. For Republicans, their economic libertarianism, which unites the Trump and anti-Trump right, seems relegated to the background and the primary issue is whether the GOP is to embrace the anti-democratic belief that might makes right. Catholicism, which has learned to live with every form of government through the centuries, has never embraced the crude authoritarianism embodied in that dictum.
For Democrats, the question is whether an economics rooted in the common good can be their calling card or if they will embrace the culture wars from the left, leading with issues of sexual and racial identity. Again, Catholic social teaching would point them in the right direction, away from the culture wars and towards the articulation of the kind of social democracy that shaped the New Deal and the Great Society programs that remain the most popular and potent expression of the common good in American political life.
The second political dynamic we can expect this year is stalemate. Morally clamant issues like immigration reform will not even be raised because the prospect of achieving anything is miniscule. The decision by Rep. Kevin McCarthy to improve his chances at becoming speaker by lowering the threshold needed to force a no-confidence vote puts him on a very short leash, even if he wins. Previously, half the caucus had to vote to bring a motion to « vacate the chair. » Now, apparently, one member can force that most destabilizing vote any legislative chamber can face.
This kind of procedural dynamic seems far removed from the moral calculations flowing from Catholic social teaching. But just as Washington Archbishop Patrick O’Boyle denounced the use of the filibuster to prevent civil rights legislation in the 1960s, so too in this decision to empower a small fringe of extremists, significant moral issues are in play. Government does not exist to keep this man or that woman in power, but to work for the common good of a people. Giving someone like Rep. Matt Gaetz a parliamentary weapon to prevent the kind of compromises our country needs on many issues, from immigration reform to gun control, is a variety of moral abdication.
Come the autumn, when the Congress will face some must-pass legislation, such as voting to raise the nation’s debt ceiling and to fund the government, the usual bipartisan consensus that makes those difficult votes possible may not exist. Catholic social teaching is clear on this point: Failing to govern does not serve the common good.
Finally, the economy, migration and Ukraine will all play a large role in the nation’s political life this year, and all three resist easy political or policy solutions. Our Catholic social teaching nonetheless offers guidance.
The economy will continue to struggle with inflation and there is little the president or Congress can do about it. At a deeper level, the kinds of policy changes to the tax code that might ameliorate the gross income inequality that afflicts our society are not going to happen. The best we can hope for is that state and municipal governments will follow the lead of the last Congress in voting for programs that help convert our economy to sustainable energy sources, address poverty and homelessness, and commit to infrastructure projects that are sorely needed. America needs to invest in its own future more than it needs to subsidize Wall Street. Catholic social teaching is clear here: An economy is measured by how he treats the poorest, not the wealthiest, of its citizens.
Catholic social teaching is clear on this point: Failing to govern does not serve the common good.
No political will exists to confront the migration crisis at our southern border, or the problems within our border. It is shocking that DACA recipients still are unsure what their future holds. It is shocking that undocumented workers can be so easily exploited in the labor market. And it is shocking that we have not established a policy for handling the refugee crisis at the border. Worst of all for liberal Catholics, one of our own, Joe Biden, has been president for two years and we have seen no leadership from the White House on this issue. None. Again, the teaching of the church is clear: We follow a savior who was himself a refugee as a child, and both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures are clear on the moral obligation to welcome the stranger.
The outcome of a war depends on the vagaries of battle as well as on political decisions made in legislative chambers. The brave people of Ukraine are defending not only their homeland but the principle that might does not make right. They are defending democracy and decency. They are defending the proposition that a nation should be free to choose its own allies and its own future without being invaded by a powerful neighbor that disapproves of those choices. Our task in America is easy: The people of Ukraine have asked us for military and humanitarian aid and we have it within our power to fulfill that request. All the requirements of just war theology have been met. Indeed, the right to protect counsels us to aid the Ukrainians in their hour of need.
Those are the stories that I will be looking at in the new year. And, there is one more, admittedly less important, reality about the estuary where politics and religion intertwine: Tomorrow, my newsletter starts! Make sure you sign up to receive it by clicking here. Whatever happens in 2023, you know you can read analysis drawn from an explicitly Catholic and liberal perspective here.
When I was a child, the small nativity scene my family displayed at Christmas included only a single king rather than the traditional three. Perhaps two had gotten lost before my family inherited the set, or maybe it only came with one. In any case, my mother went from store to store in search of two more magi — but here she ran into another problem. Magi figures were only available in sets of three.
This is how my family came to have four Magi in our crèche. Although some family members voted to leave one in the box, setting up this nativity display became one of my Christmas responsibilities and I dimly remembered a story about a fourth magi. So as a youngster I decided all four should be displayed.
In the introduction to his erudite and highly entertaining The Magi, author Eric Vanden Eykel invites his readers to imagine the nativity scene. Who is included in our mental images? The Holy Family, of course, but who else? Shepherds? Sheep? A donkey? A drummer boy? Maybe an angel or two? Is there a star shimmering overhead? What about those Magi?
I teach seventh grade New Testament in the suburbs of Chicago, and either due to terrible pacing or sheer dumb luck, the last chapter of the textbook I was able to cover before Christmas break was on the infancy narratives. I started these Advent lessons with Vanden Eykel’s visual thought experiment, asking my students to sketch their own particular mental image of the nativity scene.
My young teens’ drawings supplied the usual cast of characters: After the Holy Family most frequently came a trio of well-dressed gentlemen carrying gifts. We discussed how only two of the four evangelists, Matthew and Luke, included stories of Jesus’ birth, and how virtually all my students’ images combined elements and characters from both Gospels. Only Matthew includes the Magi, and a close re-reading of Matthew’s second chapter shows that what we think we know about these figures is much more than Matthew actually tells us.
One service that Vanden Eykel provides his readers is to clear away what we think we already know about the Magi, and to allow us to gaze on the scene with fresh eyes. For instance: How many magi were there? Nearly everyone would answer, « Three, of course! » Often the three are even named: Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar. But Matthew doesn’t actually supply this information.
In Matthew, the unnamed and unnumbered Magi arrive with three types of gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. Who are they coming to find? Jesus, of course, but how do they refer to him? The translation most Catholics are most familiar with is « the newborn King of the Jews, » but Vanden Eykel suggests that a more precise translation would read, « the one born King of the Judeans. »
Since the Magi refer to Jesus with this title in front of King Herod, the difference in translation matters a great deal: The second translation more directly calls into question the legitimacy of Herod’s Rome-backed hegemony over Judea. We know from history that Herod was paranoid and power-hungry, but this reading might help us further understand the jealousy and rage that led to Matthew’s story of the « massacre of the innocents. » Whether the Star of Bethlehem that led the Magi on their journey was a star, a planetary conjunction or a comet, it too posed a challenge to Herod’s kingship, as astronomical phenomena were commonly believed to mark the arrival —or departure — of great rulers.
I grew up calling the Magi the « Three Kings, » but a literal translation would be something like « magical people. » The word has been translated as « wise men, » and « astrologers, » but we often just say « kings » instead. When the word « magi » occurs elsewhere in Scripture, it is not often in a positive light. The word connotes a foreign quality that can explain the multiethnic appearance of the trio, but has also provided fodder to Judeophobic readings for centuries. Vanden Eykel reminds us throughout his book that there are very real consequences to debates about interpretation and translation, and that this is true whether the Magi were historical individuals or, as he suggests, literary figures.
Vanden Eykel is an expert on Christian apocrypha; and it’s a good thing, for if the author were working only from Matthew’s Gospel he’d have almost nothing but speculation. Vanden Eykel does use the text of Matthew to ask questions and challenge assumptions, but he also traces the story of the Magi’s visit to Bethlehem through more creative means as well: from apocryphal and patristic texts, down to modern popular interpretations such as O. Henry’s 1905 short story « The Gift of the Magi » or Christopher Moore’s 2002 novel Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. I did not expect in a work of biblical scholarship for there to be so much attention paid to Monty Python’s « Life of Brian »!
But while Vanden Eykel does keep his readers guessing and entertained, his traditional scholarship is still top-notch. In The Magi, even the footnotes are fascinating.
Despite the fact that the entire story of the Magi comprises 12 short verses in Matthew’s Gospel, Vanden Eykel writes that, « aside from Jesus, Mary, and a handful of others, there are few characters in the history of Christianity who have exercised a more profound influence on our collective imaginations. » The author deftly connects the foundation texts of this story and shows his readers where the seeds of our assumptions about the Magi were sown — and how they grew to lend light, color and fragrance to our lives at Christmas and Epiphany.
I will close with a final story Vanden Eykel mentions in his last chapter. According to a relatively recent (1896) « apocryphal » text, The Story of the Other Wise Man by Henry van Dyke, a fourth magi named Artaban accompanied the more familiar Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar from the East, but was delayed, helping unfortunate travelers he met along the way to Bethlehem. By the time Artaban finally got to Judea, 33 years had passed and his arrival now coincided with Jesus’ crucifixion. The old pilgrim was rewarded for his labors of charity with a vision of Christ before his own death.
As a child I always left the figure of the fourth Magi a bit off to one side of the crèche, hiding behind an evergreen tree that would have been somewhat out of place in the Holy Land of the first century. Eric Vanden Eykel and his book showed me why, even as a child, I already had a space reserved for Artaban — both in my nativity scene and in my imagination.
I became a writer by being a reader, and I became a reader to escape my body. When I was consumed by pain due to my childhood chronic illness, I learned there was a magical backdoor in my mind that led to Narnia, to 19th-century New England, or simply to a secret garden. Books could take me away.
Authors writing about embodiment face a paradox: Words help us share what we’ve learned and invite each other to new ways of being in the world, but the written word can also be a tool for separating us from our bodies and even from each other. How do we help our readers move from understanding concepts to incarnating truths?
In The Embodied Path: Telling the Story of Your Body for Healing and Wholeness, Ellie Roscher seeks to reclaim writing as an act of reintegration with our bodies, our stories, and ourselves. Its unique structure is part anthology, part memoir, part workbook. Each of the seven chapters includes multiple « body stories » retold from interviews with people Roscher knows, stories from Roscher’s own life and writing prompts and breath practices for readers to follow.
While the stories illustrate various aspects of life with our ever-changing human bodies, their ultimate purpose is to illuminate and inspire a new telling of the reader’s own body story using the practices and prompts. Reading and writing become avenues back into the body, rather than away from them, allowing each of us to reclaim agency within our own stories through their retellings.
Along the way, more than 20 stories offer wisdom from many different kinds of embodied lives. Readers meet wheelchair user Rebecca and cancer survivor Kevin, whose stories invite us to pay attention to the ways our own bodies or others’ are marginalized by ableism. We are allowed to witness Justin’s and Sawyer’s gender-expansive lives. The body story of Linda, a lesbian nun, offers us a chance to reflect upon our various identities and how they affect our belonging in different spaces. Elizabeth’s story allows us a joyful glimpse into a life told through tattoos. Fardosa, who is hijabi, and Sage, who is Black and mixed, share two very different narratives about reclaiming the self from the white gaze.
Roscher characterizes all of these stories as « counter-stories. » As she defines them, « counter-stories are told to resist, repudiate, subvert, contest, and undermine the master narrative. They don’t buy what the dominant culture is selling. » Of course, choosing to claim the wisdom and importance of body stories is itself a counter-narrative to the Gnostic tendencies of dominant culture. However, Roscher’s stories themselves continually remind readers to pay closer attention to « master narratives » of privilege and oppression, as well as to how our bodies tell more complicated, more liberatory and truer stories about who we are and how we relate to each other.
While each story is told with sensitivity and artistry, the first-person narratives of Roscher’s own body are especially compelling. Throughout the book, she shares stories from various parts of her body and times in her life. With honesty, attention to her own context, self-compassion and humility, Roscher « goes first » in crafting her body story, creating a space of hospitality where the reader can envision and write their own.
Readers will want to pay special attention to the introduction and the chapter titled « How to Use This Book, » as the rest of the book is dense with narrative material and light on instruction. Roscher tells us to « go slowly, » a reminder that could probably be reiterated with every chapter. The writing is compelling, but body stories are intense. Breath practices can be unfamiliar and often reveal their gifts with repetition. Writing the stories of our own bodies is difficult emotional and mental labor. This is a book that explicitly asks for the reader’s engagement, and might accompany a journey of weeks or months.
The Embodied Path is a rich, kaleidoscopic resource — the kind of book readers could return to and experience differently every few years. In fact, the ever-changing nature of our bodies and our stories is a major theme of the book. As Roscher writes: « We are the main characters of our own stories, and we can consciously fall in love with our lives and our bodies as they unfold, expand, and become. »
Long after childhood, writing my body story has offered me a path to reintegrate with my own sick body and to resist the ableism within and around me. Even so, the breath exercises and writing prompts in The Embodied Path inspired me to journal about a different body story from the last year — reminding me that meeting our bodies and telling their truths is never a completed project. It’s a beautiful and empowering journey that continues on.
With the same spirit and aims that behind his recent reform and reorganization of the Roman Curia, Pope Francis, as Bishop of Rome, has overhauled the Vicariate of Rome.
The vicariate, too, is called « to become more suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation » and to be at the service of a church that reaches out to everyone, evangelizing in word and deed, embracing human life and « touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others, » the pope wrote in a new papal instruction.
Of the many changes, the pope created two new bodies: an office dedicated to safeguarding minors and vulnerable people; and an independent supervisory commission of papally appointed experts who monitor the work and administrative and economic affairs of the vicariate.
The changes, which go into effect Jan. 31, were released Jan. 6 in the new apostolic constitution, « In Ecclesiarum Communione » (« In the Communion of Churches »). It replaces the previous constitution, « Ecclesia in Urbe » (« The Church in the City »), issued by St. John Paul II in 1988.
The new document aims to revitalize the vicariate’s mission by giving « primacy » to charity and the proclamation of divine mercy, synodality with the faithful and promoting greater collegiality, particularly between the pope and his auxiliary bishops of Rome.
In fact, the pope will have a much greater role in the vicariate, staying informed with required reporting, presiding over meetings of the episcopal council and taking part in major decisions concerning pastoral, administrative and financial matters, including requiring his final approval of the diocese’s annual budget report.
The annual budget report, budget management, requests for assistance by parishes and rectors and ensuring greater transparency in managing funds will be handled by the diocesan council for economic affairs, which is presided over by the cardinal vicar or the vice regent, it said.
The pope wrote he would like greater vigilance over financial management « so that it may be prudent and responsible » and « conducted consistently with the purpose that justifies the church’s possession of goods. »
The constitution recognized that « due to the very large task of governing the universal church, » the pope needs to have help in caring for the Diocese of Rome, which is why he appoints a cardinal vicar.
The cardinal vicar will inform the pope « periodically and whenever he deems it necessary about the pastoral activity and life of the diocese. In particular, he will not undertake initiatives that are important or exceed ordinary administration without first reporting to me. »
The cardinal vicar also must submit first to the pope all candidates « for possible admission to Holy Orders » after those candidates have received approval by the episcopal council.
« The church loses its credibility when it is filled with what is not essential to its mission or, worse, when its members, sometimes even those invested with ministerial authority, are a source of scandal by their behaviors that are unfaithful to the Gospel, » Francis wrote. « Only in the total giving of oneself to Christ in order to serve the salvation of the world does the church renew her fidelity. »
