(We liked Pope Francis even when he was Jorge Bergoglio. This is the only story that ever brought down the whole website. People flocked to it after Cardinal Bergoglio was elected. - Ed. 2024)

Almost apologising for the actions of some priests, Bergoglio recalled the story of a young unmarried mother who had the courage to bring her child into the world and who then "found herself on a pilgrimage, going from parish to parish, trying to find someone who would baptise her child."

Vatican Insider reports that in his homily at the end of a Buenos Aires convention on urban pastoral care, Bergoglio called for an end to "sacramental blackmail" saying that "hijacking" of the sacraments is an expression of rigorous and hypocritical neo-clericalism.

"Sacraments are not a way for priests to affirm their own supremacy", said the Cardinal.

Rubbing the fragility and wounds of the faithful in their faces, or dampening the hopes and expectations of those who supposedly do not fulfil the 'requirements' in terms of doctrinal preparation, or moral status, is a pastorally misleading model which rejects the dynamics of Christ's incarnation.

"Jesus did not preach his own politics: he accompanied others", said Bergoglio.

Priests who deny the sacraments to people because of their life circumstances are the "hypocrites of today", and the "followers of the Pharisees", the ones Jesus turned his back on.

Emphasising that the Church is not an NGO or a proselyte of some multinational company", Bergoglio said denying baptism to children born out of wedlock is a form of "pharisaic Gnosticism" that "drives people away from salvation".

Sources

• Vatican Insider
• The Tablet
• Image: m24digital

The letter, written by poet Dana Gioia, emphasised the aesthetic value and cultural significance of the liturgy according to the 1962 rite: "It would be short-sighted to deprive the next generation of artists of this source of mystery, beauty, and devotion," the letter stated.

The signatories write: ‘We all, whether believers or not, agree that this ancient liturgy, which inspired the works of Palestrina, Bach, and Beethoven, as well as generations of great artists, is a great achievement of civilisation and part of humanity's shared cultural heritage.

"It is medicine for the soul, an antidote to the crass materialism of postmodernity."

The Catholic signatories explicitly emphasised their loyalty to the Pope and the validity of the current Novus Ordo: "We hope that you do not lump us together with some of the angry and disrespectful voices amplified by social media."

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco praised the letter as an ‘extraordinary statement by some great artists and cultural figures on the value and inspiration they have drawn from the traditional Latin Mass.'

A group of British celebrities published an open letter in the London Times:

"We implore the Holy See to reconsider any further restrictions on access to this great spiritual and cultural heritage."

This letter referred back to a similar one from a group of British writers and artists sent to Pope Paul in 1971.

That letter resulted in the "Agatha Christie Indult," which allowed the bishops of England and Wales to celebrate the pre-conciliar liturgy on special occasions.

Both letters react to speculation of further restrictions on using the pre-conciliar rites, to which recent Vatican decisions have contributed.

The Vatican's refusal to permit the recitation of the 1962 Mass in Australia's Melbourne Cathedral, based on the cathedral's role as a "parish church," is an example of the implementation of Traditionis custodes (2021).

Another example is its refusal to allow the ordination of members of the traditionalist Society of Missionaries of Divine Mercy in the scandal-plagued French Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon.

While some media, including the French daily "La Croix," cite curial officials denying that further restrictions are immanent, speculation continues.

Speculation intensified after Pope Francis received Gilles Wach, Prior of the "Institute of Christ the King," in an audience.

The institute celebrates the liturgy in the pre-conciliar form.

Initially, nothing was known about the content of the conversation until the institute announced that the pope had encouraged them to adhere to their charism.

The most recent example of the problem of "Latin-Mass" groups comes from Christchurch, New Zealand, where Bishop Michael Gielen has expelled a fringe group who lead illicit and abusive exorcisms without training and episcopal permission.

Traditionis Custodes

Traditionis custodes (Guardian of Tradition, 2021) restricted the celebration of the 1962 Missal and other pre-conciliar rites.

It rejected Benedict XVI's distinction of "ordinary" and "extraordinary" forms of the Mass in his motu proprio Summorum pontificium (2007).

It returned permission for the limited use of the pre-conciliar rites from the individual priest to the diocesan bishop.

Theoretically, this might have worked if it hadn't been for the divergent way bishops applied this permission.

In February 2023, Francis removed the diocesan bishops' authority to grant dispensations for the 1962 Missal by transferring this to his liturgical office.

He stipulated that bishops may not dispense from the prohibition of celebrating the pre-conciliar liturgy in parish churches and must seek the explicit permission of the Holy See.

Based on the cathedral's role as the "parish church of the diocese," Melbourne Archbishop Comemsoli's request to use the cathedral was denied.

The refusal to ordain the seminarians of the Society of Missionaries of Divine Mercy in Fréjus-Toulon is based on specific requirements.

All seminarians who wish to use the 1962 Missal after their ordination must show obedience to the Church's magisterium and seek the permission of their diocesan bishop, who must, in turn, obtain consent from the Vatican.

Part of the problem is the papacy's indecision on the matter since the 1970's.

While traditionalist groups such as the Institute of Christ the King continue to celebrate the pre-conciliar Mass based on their statutes, seminarians of the traditionalist Missionaries of Divine Mercy are refused permission for ordination due to their adherence to pre-conciliar liturgy, and exceptions seem random.

The confusion will continue, and the true nature of liturgical prayer will remain prey to secondary influences.

Liturgy is based on baptismal fidelity

Pope Benedict XVI wrote that the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium (1963), came first because the liturgy is the heart and center of the Church's life.

We are not a social club but a community of baptised people who worship God and seek to live the Gospel of Christ daily.

Baptism brings responsibilities and an acceptance of what constitutes the Church's teaching authority.

We accept that the teaching authority of the Pope and bishops in council, to which the Second Vatican Council belongs, is a category of magisterium.

As baptised members of the ecclesial community, we listen to the Spirit guide the Church through the Church's magisterium.

To deny this is to turn one's back on the Catholic Church and to call into question the reality of one's baptism.

It becomes inauthentic to say that the teaching authority is wrong simply because it does not suit a personal point of view.

Baptism is the basis of how we pray, and how we pray shows what we believe.

Together, these create the "law of prayer" and "law of belief."

These are not cultural or aesthetic categories but theological ones. Liturgical prayer expresses an ecclesiology.

The breakdown in baptismal authenticity that unites magisterium and liturgical prayer as the basis of faithfulness to the Church has created a situation where ecclesiology becomes a matter of personal choice, and liturgical rites become the battleground of these choices.

One of the main reasons for the liturgical changes during and following the Second Vatican Council has been how the Church understands salvation (who can be saved, the Church's mission, and the sacramental role in the mysterion of salvation history).

Simply put, the pre-conciliar rites do not reflect this change and are at odds with the church's self-understanding.

When, in the 1950s rite of Good Friday, the Church prayed for the "perfidious Jews," and no one blinked an eye at the deep antisemitism, now we pray for the "Jewish People, the first to hear the word of God."

We pray differently now because the Church's self-understanding, expressed in the constitutions and documents of the Second Vatican Council, is different from those that went before.

Liturgical rites have meaning, and liturgical rituals express the inner meaning of belief, which is why the liturgy is called a "lex orandi," a law of prayer.

This "law of prayer" cannot be separated from the "law of belief," nor can they be played off against each other.

Since the Council, most so-called "Latin Mass" groups have become deniers of the magisterium of the bishops and Pope in council.

A recent example of this is the ordinations of priests in the traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) in the Bavarian diocese of Regensburg.

The diocesan Bishop, Rudolf Voderholze, emphasised that the SSPX's ordinations were unauthorised and violated ecclesiastical norms. He also expressed hope for the SSPX's genuine efforts to return to full communion with the Catholic Church, respecting canonical regulations.

The prominent British and United States figures from politics, business, art, and media display an essential misunderstanding of liturgy as aesthetic.

They make a fundamental mistake: they do not understand the initiative sacramental function of the liturgical rites that underpin what the Church believes about itself and how it expresses this belief in a particular place and culture.

As a result, they do not express the deeper meaning of ecclesiology of the rites beyond the aesthetic of specific rituals.

Ultimately, it is nice that the liturgy inspires artists and musicians, but this is not the point or even essential; it is tangential.

Liturgical prayer is not primarily defined by its aesthetic but by its participation in the mysterion of salvation.

The rites use ritual gestures, postures, etc., to express the mysterion.

The problem with an aesthetic approach is that either the ritual expressions become overdone (rituals for the effete, or available to the "gnostic" few) or underdone (becoming too anthropocentric and robbed of mysterion).

The danger in both is either an appeal to a "universal" or idealised culture with its call to uniformity or an appeal to a "particular" or anthropocentric culture and its appeal to local culture.

In both instances, the unity of the Church is not considered because the ecclesiological basis of liturgy is lacking.

The struggle behind the liturgical fights

Liturgical divisions weaken the unity of the Church and are not to be ignored. However, the more fundamental issues are not essentially liturgical but soteriological.

With the introduction of culture as a category of theology throughout the 20th century (and since Vatican II), our understanding of redemption, humanness, salvation, gender, sexuality, and procreation has radically changed.

The liturgy is not at war with itself because it articulates our theology of redemption, which reflects the deeper changed experience since the mid-eighteenth century.

The crux of the liturgical debates is the viability of the Latin Rite Catholic Church to maintain a single liturgical expression when it cannot retain a single pre-modern understanding of salvation because culture has been given a place within the Church in the salvific dialogue between God and humankind.

As the forces of globalisation and inculturation make deeper inroads into the magisterial system's presumptions, we struggle to maintain a unified view of what it means to be Christian and Catholic in the modern world.

Therefore, it is no surprise that we have a disunified episcopacy, the rejection of papal authority, and liturgical divisions.

The divisions concerning the use of the 1962 Missal are significant theological ones.

That is because within this conflict lie our theological understandings of the Church, laity, ordination, ministry, salvation, women's rights, participation in worship, and the discipline of believing in the teaching authority of the Church.

Those who choose one over the other should be respected for their choice.

Those who try to celebrate in both rites create a schizophrenic relationship with the Church.

• First published in La Croix
• J. P. Grayland is a visiting professor at the University of Tübingen (Germany). A priest of the Catholic Diocese of Palmerston North (New Zealand) for nearly 30 years, his latest book is titled: Catholics. Prayer, Belief and Diversity in a Secular Context (Te Hepara Pai, 2020).

Despite ongoing discussions about rising secularism, the French Catholic Church has witnessed a steady increase in adult baptisms over the past decade as revealed in a French Bishops' Conference report.

Among the newly baptised were 7,135 adults, with 36 percent aged between 18 and 25, and 5,000 people aged between 11 and 17.

Olivier Leborgne, Bishop of Arras, described it as a "movement of bewildering proportions".

He suggested that individuals turn to the Church for spiritual solace amidst today's disoriented world.

Vincent Breynaert, head of the Office for Youth Pastoral Care and Vocations, highlighted the phenomenon's broad reach, extending beyond urban centres to working-class towns and rural areas.

"These young people are not primarily an expression of a search for identity, but of a genuine spiritual thirst and a search for meaning in a secularised society.

"Many cite testimonies of faith on the internet as motivation, others the beauty of the liturgy or the calming silence in a church" Breynaert added.

Influence of grandparents

However, Breynaert emphasises that some young people also have some catching up to do.

"They regret their parents' decision not to have them baptised" says the youth pastor.

For others, the testimony of their grandparents is crucial - "especially the simplicity with which they speak of God".

Pope Francis had previously expressed similar thoughts in 2019 when he said that grandparents make a decisive contribution to their religious upbringing.

Béatrice Schenckery, head of a catechumenate team in Evreux in Normandy, also confirms the value of grandparents on the path to faith. She said many catechumens have told her that they learnt to pray from their grandparents.

Yet the significant rise in baptisms among young people prompted questions about the Church's approach in France.

Contrary to other European countries where church attendance declined after confirmation, the French Church experienced a reversal.

Bishop Leborgne and Breynaert attributed this to increased programmes for youth by dioceses and contributions from Catholic movements like scouts and charismatic communities.

Breynaert acknowledged the challenge of integrating new believers into their families, schools and parishes.

"Their journey and their decision to become Christians are a challenge for their families and their friends at school. But they are also a challenge for the youth ministry and the parishes which have to prepare for their reception and integration.

"But it won't stop there because we already know that the number of young people who will be baptised in 2025 "will undoubtedly be higher".

Sources

Katholisch

CBN

CathNews New Zealand

The stereotype is that he or she is a sort of reactionary simpleton, a bit mean, a bit senile, obsessing over abstruse texts, preferring Mass to sleeping in on Sundays, and insisting on obeying an antiquated sect whose main activity is covering up sexual abuse.

This pious person has only three obsessions: to forbid women from doing as they please with their bodies, to prevent LGBT individuals from living their lives, and to force the sick to suffer for as long as possible.

This kind of Catholic is logically the last of its kind, with a perspective that's outdated and irrelevant.

To top it all off, this clueless person has yet to realise that Jesus never existed, as people like the prolific French philosopher Michel Onfray assert.

If this kind of figure does not appeal to you, it doesn't for me, either.

And it certainly isn't what motivated 7,000 adults to officially become Catholics this past Easter here in France.

This large number of adults who were baptized during the Easter Vigil is an unprecedented leap for the Church in this country.

For several months now, Catholic observers have sensed that something is happening, which escapes the official discourse of French society. In some dioceses, such as Montpellier in the south, the catechumens were twice as numerous this year compared to last year.

Conversion is possible for anyone

It's shocking! How could we have foreseen it?

How can these people want to jump into holy water when everything in modern society attempts to dissuade them, and when they don't even know what a holy water font is anymore?

Do these new Catholics that have emerged from nowhere ignore the image of the Church that is conveyed by the media and social networks?

Did they ask for permission from the rulers of secularized society? Are they misinformed? Manipulated? After all the efforts made to repel them, how can they show up in good faith?

No one knows if this springtime of faith will last.

Sometimes there can be late frosts that ruin a beautiful bloom, and then - poof! - there goes the harvest we were dreaming of.

But meanwhile, God laughs at our shock, as it is written in the second Psalm:

"Why do the nations protest and the peoples conspire in vain?

Kings on earth rise up and princes plot together against the LORD and against his anointed one:

"Let us break their shackles and cast off their chains from us!

"The one enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord derides them."

The mischievous Creator probably makes fun of our pastoral plans that aim for quantifiable results.

God finds Catholics in myriad ways, even in places where we don't go.

Le Pèlerin, one of La Croix's sister publications, once recounted the humble testimony of a young parliamentary assistant whom the Messiah came to fetch when he was 12-years-old.

The young man secretly bought a Bible with his pocket money, and the damage was done.

Reading it, he became a Christian.

He is not the only one to whom such a mishap has occurred, and conversion is possible for anyone, whether they be on the political left or political right.

God finds a way to draw people to himself

With all this in mind, however, the Gospel tells us that the disciples scatter when the situation turns dark. 1

In the Passion narrative according to St. Mark, only two outsiders confess, by their action or by words, the messianic status of Christ.

A woman breaks a jar of expensive perfume over Jesus' head, and when everything is finished in the most astounding of apparent failures, a Roman centurion - not even a lifelong Catholic — proclaims the crucified one as the "Son of God".

Even if they weren't the greatest theologians, these new Christians who knew nothing at all grasped an important truth - it's at the lowest point that the Most High lets himself be touched.

When the Church is flat on the ground and we lukewarm disciples wander around dazed in the messiness of our modern culture, God finds a way to draw people to himself.

This springtime of faith might indeed be a new beginning.

• First published in La Croix. Republished with permission
• Jean-Pierre Denis, a veteran journalist and editor, is the publisher of La Croix

As a result, the Oratory has been responsible for 5 per cent of such application requests within its relevant Archdiocese during 2023.

By the end of summer 2023, the Oratory had received over 20 adults seeking baptism, reception or confirmation in the Catholic Church.

As a result of the uptick, the Oratory started weekly classes in October for the first time, taking the group through the key points of the Creed and the Christian life.

"For whatever reason, the grace of God is leading more people to seek the fullness of truth in the Catholic Church than we have experienced in previous years," the Oratory notes on its website.

Read More

This decision follows in the footsteps of the Diocese of Essen, which in March allowed non-ordained theologians to conduct baptisms.

Bishop Gebhard Fuerst officially commissioned these theologians at a ceremony held at Rottenburg Cathedral on Wednesday evening. The event marked a historic step toward contemporary pastoral care.

Regina Seneca, one of the theologians, emphasised the significance of this move. She stated that it aligns with the evolving needs of pastoral care in the present day.

Bishop Fürst says the diocese complies with canon law and is also following an instruction the Vatican issued in 2020 on the pastoral conversion of parishes. That document states that a lack of priests is a justification for authorising lay people to preside at baptisms.

The diocese also refers to the recommendations from Germany's Synodal Path, a body that is mapping out Church reforms and the search for "gender justice".

"The bishop's motivation is to do everything to promote gender justice in the Church" said Fürst's auxiliary, Bishop Matthäus Karrer.

Karrer said this reform would certainly not have happened without "pressure from the base" and a women's forum formed within the diocesan council.

Other dioceses, including Aachen, are considering similar moves towards laypeople filling traditional church roles.

Priests will rarely baptise

Nonetheless, these advances are creating debate among theologians.

For example, Austrian priest Joachim Heimerl, who is very critical of Germany's Synodal Path, said such reforms are part of "a politicisation and secularisation of the Church", not a way "to ensure the administration of the sacraments.

"This means that priests and deacons will hardly ever baptise again" Heimerl claimed.

"Baptism by a lay person - previously allowed only in emergencies - will become the norm. The laity will seize it and defend it against the clergy" he predicted.

Approximately 10,000 children are baptised each year in the Rottenburg-Stuttgart diocese. The initiative reflects a broader one within the German Synodal Path.

The inclusion of Catholic lay theologians in liturgical functions is a response to the call to address clericalism, perceived by some as a contributing factor to instances of sexual abuse within the Church.

Sources

America Magazine

La Croix International

CathNews New Zealand

The Vatican's document, signed by Pope Francis and Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, was published on the Holy See's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith website on November 8.

Currently, the translation is available only in Italian and Portuguese.

The document is a clarification that came in response to inquiries from Brazilian Bishop Jose Negri of Santo Amaro.

In July, before the recent Synod on Synodality, Negri posed six questions to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding the role of LGBT individuals in church sacraments.

Life of faith open to all

The document states that "A transgender person, even if they have undergone hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery, can receive baptism under the same conditions as other faithful, if there are no situations in which there is a risk of generating a public scandal or disorientation among the faithful."

The dicastery also reiterated the church's position that children of gay or transgender couples can be baptised, provided there is a well-founded hope they will be raised in the Catholic faith.

The same applies to transgender children and adolescents.

"In the case of transgender children or adolescents, they can receive baptism if they are well prepared and willing."

Echoing the words of Pope Francis, the document stresses that "the Church is not a customs house, but the fatherly home where there is room for every person with his or her difficult life."

Not satisfied with merely opening the door the document keeps the door wide open, stating that "another person in the family circle" other than the godparents, can also "vouch for the proper transmission of the Catholic faith to the person to be baptised."

The document shows that there are many rooms in the Father's house and states that baptism cannot be prevented "even if doubts remain about a person's objective moral situation." It recommends applying "pastoral prudence" in each circumstance.

LGBT+ Ministry

The document also emphasises that there is no current universal canonical legislation that prevents transgender individuals from serving as witnesses at a Catholic marriage.

While the responses encourage pastoral prudence and the need to prevent scandal and confusion among the faithful, the document underlines God's unconditional love and the church's openness to all people.

The document notes that while gay individuals in a relationship akin to marriage, particularly if known in the community, should probably not serve as godparents, they may be invited as witnesses to a baptism.

Again "pastoral prudence" applies.

Context

In July, speaking with a transgender person, Francis reached out saying "Even if we are sinners, he (God) draws near to help us. The Lord loves us as we are, this is God's crazy love."

Then during World Youth Day in Portugal Francis told the crowd there is room in the Church for everyone.

"In the Church there is room for everyone, everyone" he told hundreds of thousands of young people gathered in a large park in Lisbon. "Everyone, everyone, everyone!" he said several times.

"That is the Church, the Mother of all. There is room for everyone."

"This (document) is an important step forward in the Church seeing transgender people not only as people (in a Church where some say they don't really exist) but as Catholics" said Fr James Martin on X (Twitter). He is a prominent Jesuit priest and supporter of LGBT rights in the Church.

Sources

• Reuters
• OSV News - via UCANews.com
• NBC News
• La Croix International

After the ceremony at São José (St Joseph) Parish, located in the Jardim Europa neighbourhood on São Paulo's west side, Nazario, two-time world champion with the Brazilian team, shared his experience on social media, highlighting the importance of the momentous moment in his life: "Today is a very special day. I was baptised!"

"The Christian faith has always been a fundamental part of my life since I was little, although I had not yet been baptised. With the sacrament, I feel truly regenerated as a child of God, in a new, more conscious and deeper way," the Brazilian star wrote on his Instagram account on Sept 12.

Read More

Careful readers will note that rather than closing Limbo, as reported by the media, what the International Theological Commission did under Benedict in 2007 was downgrade Limbo from church doctrine to a hypothesis or theory.

It no longer must be presented as church teaching.

In other words, you don't have to believe in Limbo, but you can if you want.

Make no mistake about it; Benedict killed Limbo just as much as the Second Vatican Council killed the Latin Mass.

Hypothesis or not, no one is going to teach it.

Limbo will become a theological anachronism that historians of theology note but everyone else ignores.

It is not mentioned, for example, in "The Catechism of the Catholic Church."

Limbo was a theological solution to the problem of what happens to good but unbaptized people after they die.

The New Testament is full of passages that say baptism is necessary for salvation. Catholic teaching said baptism was necessary to wash away original sin, which we inherited from Adam and Eve.

But sending unbaptised infants to hell seemed especially cruel.

How could God, who is described as merciful and loving in the parable of the prodigal son, do such a thing?

We need to remember that for the ancients, hell or Hades was the underworld, the place of the dead.

Thus, in the creed when we say Jesus "descended into hell," we are not speaking of the place of eternal damnation but the domain of the dead.

No church father before Augustine thought unbaptised children would be punished.

St Augustine, however, believed unbaptised children would experience the misery of the damned but be consigned to the mildest part of hell.

Augustine was such a theological giant that there was reluctance to question his teaching, especially when all theologians at the time were men without children.

Around 1300, the term Limbo, from the Latin "limbus," meaning edge or boundary, became used for the dwelling place of the good or innocent dead who were not baptized.

This is distinguished from purgatory, where sinners are purified before they go to heaven, and hell, where the biggest sinners spend eternity.

Medieval theologians debated how much innocent babies suffered in Limbo, and as time went on, the consensus view was that they did not suffer at all.

They experienced natural happiness but not supernatural happiness.

Also debated was whether they would remain in Limbo forever or just until the end of time.

Theologians twisted themselves into pretzels trying to reconcile what Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, church councils and others said about Limbo and unbaptized infants. For an example, see the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia.

Limbo eventually came to be seen as a temporary holding area or waiting room at the edge of hell where the unbaptised would be kept until the end of time, when they would be admitted into heaven.

Residing there were not only unbaptised children but also the patriarchs and other good people from the Old Testament. It was also open to the millions of good people who had never heard of Jesus.

When I grew up in the 1950s, this was all clearly taught in the Baltimore Catechism, along with all the other dogmas we had to accept to be a Catholic.

No good Catholic could question such teaching.

Benedict threw Limbo out the window

Pope Benedict threw open the gates of heaven for the unbaptised, reversing centuries of church teaching.

Strictly speaking, the International Theological Commission was only willing to affirm that there are "strong grounds for hope that God will save infants when we have not been able to do for them what we would have wished to do, namely, to baptize them into the faith and life of the Church."

Anyone who pays attention to what Jesus says about his Father will have not only strong hope but absolute certainty that unbaptised children go directly to heaven.

Of course, the church would never admit something it was teaching or doing for centuries was dumb.

Rather, it has to find some way to pretend it was all a misunderstanding.

Allowing Limbo to be a hypothesis is the theological equivalent of reforming the liturgy but allowing people to continue attending the traditional Latin Mass, in the belief that it will eventually die out.

The theological commission argues that Limbo "never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium, even if that same Magisterium did at times mention the theory in its ordinary teaching up until the Second Vatican Council."

That is a sophisticated way of saying the church can never be wrong. But there is no question that most Catholics in previous centuries thought Limbo was a dogma of the church.

Thousands of parents were told their unbaptized infants were in Limbo.

Pope Benedict made the greatest change in church teaching since the Second Vatican Council.

In terms of its pastoral impact on ordinary Catholics, it ranks up there with the major changes that came out of Vatican II. While mourning their dead infants, parents can now rest assured that their unbaptized children have gone to heaven.

If it had been Pope Francis who questioned Limbo, conservatives would have condemned him for challenging church dogma.

Benedict could get away with it because accusing him of unorthodoxy would have gone against stereotypes, akin to President Richard Nixon going to China.

In the history books, Benedict will be remembered as the pope who resigned and as the pope who got rid of Limbo.

• Thomas Reese SJ is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

Bay of Plenty mother Jesse Brown and her partner Luke were "shocked and upset" when their son came home from the park holding a bible and told them he'd just been baptised at a ‘gospel crusade' event.

"He walked in the door, and I said, ‘alright son', and he said, ‘I just got baptised', and I was like - what? I couldn't believe it," said Brown. Read more

The Baptism occurred last Sunday at St Hedwig's Parish in the Catholic Diocese of Essen, in the Ruhr region of Western Germany.

I had no particular expectations on this issue. Still, the fact that a lay person, especially a woman, can baptise my daughter has excited my whole family," said Carolin Winkler, the young mother.

With a degree in theology, Elvira Neumann is a parish animator, bereavement support person and member of a team of three lay people who, together with a priest, are responsible for running the parish.

"In the past, I did the preparation with the families, but I had to leave the celebration itself to the deacon or the priest," she said.

"Now, I accompany the families to the end. It's a very powerful feeling and a real honour."

The Diocese of Essen is the first in Germany to allow lay people to baptise.

It is something that canon law allows in emergencies, and Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck said the priest shortage created such an emergency.

"We are reacting to a difficult pastoral situation," he explained.

The move is in line with a Vatican instruction in 2020 on the pastoral conversion of parishes.

Further south, the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart announced it would soon allow lay people to celebrate the sacrament of Baptism.

The changes in Germany are not without theological debate.

The reforms are part of the politicisation and secularisation of the Church, says Fr Joachim Heimerl.

He says this is not the way to ensure the administration of the sacraments and will likely mean priests and deacons will hardly ever baptise again.

He's predicting the laity will "seize it and defend it against the clergy."

Heimerl is also opposed to Germany's Synodal Path.

Also critical is Michael Seewald, professor of dogmatic theology at the University of Münster.

He labels the emergency measures as "fictitious".

He warns that the move could lead to a two-tier baptism where a priest would preside at a "real ceremony", and others will do it "on the cheap."

The professor is labelling the move merely as "a political symbol that is only a consolation prize and a placebo for women who cannot be ordained priests".

Catholic dioceses in Switzerland already permit lay-led baptismal services.

Source

• la-Croix International

That's the belief of Alain Clément Amiézi, a theologian who was appointed by Pope Francis last June to lead the Diocese of Odienné in northern Côte d'Ivoire.

Bishop-elect Amiézi, who has been a theology professor and parish priest since becoming a priest in 1999, will be ordained to the episcopate and installed as the Ordinary of Odienné on September 24.

Four days later this author of numerous books who got a doctorate at the University Urbaniana in Rome will mark his 52nd birthday.

La Croix Africa's Guy Aimé Eblotié spoke with Bishop-elect Amiézi about the Church in Africa.

How do you see the state of faith in Africa?

The majority of our Churches in Africa have already celebrated the centenary of evangelization.

Logically, we should speak of an adult Church. But at the qualitative level, we realize that there is still a lot of work to do.

Today, in several African countries, after the great celebrations that accompany the reception of baptism, the percentage of those who continue and complete their Christian initiation through confirmation is very low.

The number of faithful who are truly committed to social or political action according to the virtues of the Gospel is infinitesimal. People are baptised without becoming Christians, the sacraments are given without evangelizing.

The responsibilities for this situation are shared. From my point of view, it is linked, on the one hand, to the fact that some catechumens ask for baptism for the wrong reasons and, on the other hand, to the quality of the formation received.

What should be the impact of baptism on the lives of African Christians?

There is essentially the prophetic commitment which has three dimensions.

First, a Christian coherence invites us to break with the dichotomy that often exists between the life of faith and everyday life, at work, at school or in the family.

Christian life is not a cloak that one wears when entering the church and removes when leaving.

The second dimension is courageous witness.

Our African countries need Christians who are able to get out of the logic of "everyone does it this way," and then live their faith through their commitment at the social, economic and political levels.

The third dimension is to have a spirituality that allows Christians to face existential problems with courage.

There are forms of spirituality that make our Christians numb, that infantilize them through predictions and words of knowledge, to the point where their vital forces are annihilated.

Who is responsible for this prophetic commitment for an adult Church? The clergy or the laity?

Clerics and laity must work together for the good of the Church.

Clerics must fully play their role as formators, companions and guides. They must also collaborate fully with the laity so that there is what is called in the Church a common responsibility.

Since Vatican II, we are no longer in the era when the priest did everything and lay people were passive observers.

From a historical perspective, it is obvious that since the arrival of the missionaries, the lay people have participated actively in evangelization, especially through the catechists.

Today it is necessary to reimagine the participation of the laity in the life of the Church, taking into account the new realities.

In this regard, we must consider the phenomenon of new communities and fraternities, which can make valuable contributions but can also pose problems. Indeed, they sometimes plunge Christians into obscurantism and infantilize them.

It is imperative for pastors to help these prayer groups understand what it means to be "ecclesial".

• Guy Aimé Eblotié write for La Croix from Africa.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

Parishes are being combined, the ordained ministers being spread more thinly around communities, and the access to gathering for Eucharistic activity is being curtailed.

The process is sometimes given an elegant name derived from analogies with businesses that are "down-sizing", but this does not hide the reality that this is driven by two key factors: fewer and ageing presbyters.

Moreover, there is little prospect that this situation—even with the addition of presbyters from Africa and India (a practice that is itself a form of colonial exploitation)—will change any time soon.

In answer to this, we need to reflect on the basics of ministry and not merely imagine that what has been the paradigm of ministry in the Catholic Church since the early seventeenth century is either set in stone or in any way ideal.

Rather than being an ideal, it was instead a pragmatic response to the Reformation which, in terms of the Council of Trent's vision of "the priesthood" (sacerdotium), was perceived as an officer-led rebellion that was to be prevented from recurring.

Liturgical ministry

Every religion, and every Christian denomination, has spiritual leaders, and these take the primary roles at its rituals. Moreover, ritual requires expertise, and the amount of expertise required is usually a direct function of the length of the group's remembered tradition.

But there is a binary model at work here: a sole minister or small ministry group that acts, leads and preaches/speaks/teaches on one side and, opposite them, a much larger group that attends/listens/and receives ministry.

We see this model in a nutshell in the statement "the clergy administer the sacraments".

This is a valuable and widely appreciated model because it fits well beside other expert service providers in society (e.g. medics providing healthcare to the rest of the community, or accountants providing financial services), and so full-time "ministers of religion" are aligned by society, and often by themselves, with those other experts.

Because society needs a "chaplaincy" service, we have a justification for the clergy and their liturgical ministry within society.

Discipleship as community service

In stark contrast to such highly structured notions of ministry or priesthoods, Jesus was not a Levite; his ministry barely engaged with the formal religious expert systems, and when those structures are recalled (e.g. Lk 10 31 and 32; Jn 4:21), they are the objects of criticism or presented as transient.

Moreover, while Jesus was presented as appointing messengers/preachers (apostles), there is no suggestion that these were thought of as ritual experts.

Leaders emerged in the various early Churches with a variety of names: e.g. "elders" [presbuteroi] or "overseers-and-servants" [episkopoi kai diakonoi]. The latter was possibly a double name for a single person, which we would later divide into two ranks: "bishop" and "deacon".

But it took generations (until the later second century; we now know that Ignatius of Antioch wrote after AD 150 at the earliest) for those patterns to be harmonized between communities, and then systematized into authority structures.

There is no suggestion in the first-century documents that leadership at the two key community events, baptisms and Eucharistic celebrations, was restricted in any way to or was the preserve of those who were community leaders, much less a specially authorized group.

The link between (a) leadership of the community and (b) presidency at the Eucharistic meal (a linkage that would drive much later thinking on ministry and even today is a major source of Christian division) would not be forged until the third century, and only later again would "the history of its institution" by Jesus be constructed.

The Church within society

It has long been an illusion of the various Christian denominations that a study of history—particularly the first couple of centuries and the texts from those times that they held to belong to the New Testament Canon—could provide a blueprint for ministry (e.g. "the three-fold structure of order": bishop, presbyter, deacon).

Neither can it offer a conclusive answer to issues relating to ministry that have arisen in later situations (such as, at the time of the Reformation, what "power" can be seen to come from the Christ to the priest, or whether a woman can preside at the Eucharist today).

This is an illusory quest. Not only does it fall victim to the anachronism inherent in all appeals to a perfect original moment, a much imagined period in the past when all was revealed (at least in nuce).

But it also assumes that ministry as it later developed was not itself the outcome of multiple, often conflicting, forces in particular societies, as well as adaptations by Christians to well-known inherited religious structures (e.g. orienting worship in churches because pagan temples were so aligned).

So, for example, the clerical system, within which was/is located liturgical ministry, for much of Christian history-related originally to the political needs of the Church as a public body within the Roman Empire.

Given that there was no "original" plan for liturgical ministry in the Church and, as a result of centuries of disputes, there are many conflicting views about what constitutes someone within ministry, so it is quite impossible—except within the mythic spaces of particular denominations—to produce a systematic "original plan" for liturgical ministry.

However, given that ministry occurs and is needed, one can set out some criteria that can help individuals and communities to develop a pragmatic theology of liturgical ministry.

Criteria for ministry

Every specific ministry is a particular variation of the ministry of all the baptized, and in baptism there is a radical equality: "there is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28).

This radical equality is a characteristic of the new creation brought about in Christ.

Therefore, any subsequent distinctions such that particular ministries are not potentially open to every baptized person are tantamount to a defective theology of baptism by which all ministry is brought into being.

So, by making further demands for "signs" of particular divine election (e.g. being able to speak in tongues or handle snakes) as indications of suitability for ministry fly in the face of the incarnational dispensation seen in baptism.

Likewise, regulations that restrict ministry to particular states of life (e.g. demanding celibacy as a condition for the presbyterate) have to be seen as an undue concern with the status of certain ministries.

They imply that baptism is merely some basic entry requirement for "Christianity" rather than that which creates the new person who can minister, and in that new creation no such distinctions exist.

Similarly, the notion that women, as such, can be excluded from ministry on the basis of some pragmatic historical appeal (e.g. "Jesus did not ordain women!"—assuming such a pre-critical view of "history" has any value), fails to take account of the fundamental role of baptism in all Christian existence and action.

We must also respect the awareness that all action and ministry by Christians is Christ-ian in nature.

Christians form a people: a priestly people. We all too often, and too easily, lose sight of the fact that Christians must think of their liturgy in a way that is radically opposed to that commonly found in other religions of a "religious service" due to God or the gods.

In that paradigm, the divine is the opposite of the world in which we live and to which something is owed, presented or transferred, and this constitutes a mode of contact with the divine realm, which might constitute a debt of loyalty/praise/petition or appeasement.

Making this connection, whether by an individual or a group, assumes a technical knowledge and some sacred skill—usually the work of a special priesthood—such that the divine recognizes that the action performed is the appropriate sacred deed.

The priesthood holds the sacred key not permitted to the mere worshippers!

Christians, contrariwise, conceive their worship on the basis that their servant is with them in a community.

Therefore, where two or three are gathered in the name of Jesus, he is with them (Mt 18:20).And so their actions together—such as celebrating a meal—take place in the presence of the Father, because the Christ present among them, is always their High Priest.

This theological vision has important implications for individual Christians who find themselves performing specific acts, ministries, within the Church. Within Christianity, the ministry is that of the whole community.

Language and priestly ministry

It is also worth remembering that language plays us false in understanding "priestly ministry" in particular.

The Old Testament cohen (which we usually render by the word "priest") performed special tasks on behalf of the rest of Israel (see Leviticus and Numbers).

This was rendered in the Septuagint by the word hiereus—a word commonly used for pagan temple officials—and then, later, into Latin by sacerdos, which was a generic word covering all the various special temple "priesthoods" such as flamenes and pontifices.

The early Christians did not use these words for their leaders. Hiereus and sacerdos belonged to Jesus alone in the heavenly temple. Christian leaders were designated by their relation to the community: as the one who oversaw, led, or served it.

Later, the hiereus/sacerdos language was absorbed and became the basis of Christians' perceptions of their presbyters. Our word "priest" is etymologically from the word "presbyter", but conceptually it relates to the sacerdotal functions.

Once this had occurred, it had to be asked what made them different and what special religious quality they had that others did not possess.

The answer came with the notion of a power "to consecrate", and then this power (itself the subject of rhetorical inflation) became the basis of "ontological difference" between them and "ordinary Christians" or whose ministry is "praying, paying, and obeying".

After more than a millennium and a half of these confusions in Christianity, both East and West, it is very hard for many who see themselves as "ministers" in a Church—especially those with elaborate sacerdotal liturgies—to break free of this baggage.

Tradition can be like a great oil-tanker turning at sea: it takes a long time to overcome inertia, and for the ship to answer the helm!

Where do we start?

In every community, there are those who have the skills that have brought that group together and given it an identity. The task is to recognize these actual ministers and to facilitate them to make that ministry more effective and fruitful.

Some will have the gifts of evangelizing and welcoming, others the skills of leading the prayer and offering the thanksgiving sacrifice of praise, others the gifts of teaching, others of reconciling, others for the mission of each community to the building up of the kingdom of justice and peace, and some will have management skills.

None is greater and none is less!

In every discussion of ministry we need to have the advice of Paul to the Church in Corinth around 58 CE echoing in our heads as he presents ministry as the working out of the presence of the Spirit in the assembly:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another, various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit (1 Cor 12:4-13).

If these statements were to reverberate through our discussions today we might need to talk less about "closing churches" and "combining parishes" and could then move on to the more fruitful task of discovering the wealth of vocations that are all around us.

But there is only one [merely logical] certainty: the future will not be like the past. And when the present seeks to recede into its past, it is untrue to its own moment.

• Thomas O'Loughlin is a presbyter of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton and professor-emeritus of historical theology at the University of Nottingham (UK). His latest book is Discipleship and Society in the Early Churches.

But in September 2019 he decided the time had come to leave the church behind. He filled out a form that he had found online, accompanying it with a long letter explaining his reasons, and sent everything to the parish in his hometown.

Two weeks later, a note was put next to his name in the parish baptism register, formalizing his abandonment of the Catholic Church, and Nanetti became one of an increasing, though hard to quantify, number of Italians who have been "de-baptized."

Every year in Italy, more and more people choose to go through the simple process, which became available two decades ago at the behest of the Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics, abbreviated in Italian as UAAR.

A lack of data makes it difficult to establish how common the phenomenon is, but some dioceses are keeping track. The Diocese of Brescia, east of Milan, said in its diocesan newspaper in August that 75 people asked to be de-baptized in 2021, as opposed 27 in 2020.

Combining this partial data with activity on a website UAAR recently launched where people can register their de-baptisms, Roberto Grendene, national secretary of the UAAR, said the organization estimates that more than 100,000 people have been de-baptized in Italy.

De-baptism not possible. But...

The church quibbles with the word "de-baptism" — sbattezzo in Italian. Legally and theologically, experts say, this isn't an accurate term.

The Rev. Daniele Mombelli, vice-chancellor of the Diocese of Brescia and professor of religious sciences at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, said it's not possible to "erase the baptism because it's a fact that historically happened, and was therefore registered."

"What the procedure does is formalize the person's abandonment of the church," said Mombelli.

While agreeing that it is impossible to cancel a baptism, Italy's Personal Data Protection Authority now states that everyone has the right to abandon the church.

The de-baptism is finalized once an applicant declares the intention to abandon the church and the decision is registered by the church authorities, normally the local bishop.

But according to canon law, anyone who goes through the procedure is committing the crime of apostasy, which, Mombelli said, comes with "severe consequences."

An apostate immediately faces ex-communication from the church, without the need for a trial. This means that the person is excluded from the sacraments, may not become a godparent and will be deprived of a Catholic funeral.

"There's a substantial difference between the sin of apostasy and the crime of apostasy," Mombelli said. "An atheist commits the sin because it's an internal decision, and they can be forgiven if they repent. An apostate, instead, manifests their will to formally abandon the church externally, so they face legal consequences for their decision."

De-baptism is not exclusive to Italy, Grendene said, and the UAAR website includes a section monitoring how the procedure is being carried out abroad, but only very few countries regulate it. In the rest of the world, humanist and atheist organizations, such as Humanists International, pay more attention to apostasy than governments do.

The reasons behind de-baptism vary from person to person. But many of the de-baptized described their choice as a matter of "coherence."

Pietro Groppi, a 23-year-old from Piacenza who got de-baptized in May 2021, said that the first question he asked himself before sending his form was "Do I believe or not?" and the answer was simply, "No."

But for many, abandoning the church is a statement against its positions on LGBTQ rights, euthanasia and abortion.

Nanetti said that being de-baptized helped him affirm his own identity as bisexual. "I had to get distance from some of the church's positions on civil rights matters," he said.

The church's stance on sexuality helped push Groppi to seek out de-baptism as well, though he's not affected personally. He finds the Vatican's position on these matters "absurd," and he's unhappy with how the church meddles with Italian politics.

Francesco Faillace, 22, now going through the de-baptism procedure, said: "I've been an atheist since basically forever. For the church, being baptized means that you're a Catholic, but that's not the case. I've personally been baptized for cultural reasons more than religious because that's how it goes in Italy."

Faillace believes that if all the people who don't truly identify as Catholics were to be de-baptized, official percentages of Italian Catholics would be significantly lower.

The latest data seems to back him up.

In 2020, sociologist Francesco Garelli conducted a large study financed by the Italian Catholic Bishops Conference that concluded that 30% of the Italian population is atheist — around 18 million people.

The Rev. Alfredo Scaroni, pastor in a town of 9,000 in northern Italy, has noticed an increasing number of people distancing themselves from the church. If more than 15% of the population appear at Sunday Mass, he said, it is an achievement.

"The church is having a large conversation on atheism, and, from our side, we need to practice more acceptance and attention," Scaroni said.

Grendene, of the UAAR, said many Italians are still unaware of de-baptism as an option.

In the past, the association would organize "de-baptism days" to advertise it, he said, but it turns out that the church itself is de-baptism's best promoter.

"Whenever the Vatican is at the centre of a controversy, we see the access to our website grows dramatically," said Grendene, pointing out that on two days in June, traffic on the UAAR website went from a daily average of 120 visitors to more than 6,000.

Not coincidentally, perhaps, a few days earlier the Vatican sent a note to the Italian government, asking to change some of the language in a proposed law aimed at criminalizing discrimination based on sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability.

• Sara Badilini is an author at Religion News Service.

The baptism agreement is the first major work of New Zealand's Roman Catholic-Lutheran Dialogue Commission.

The Commission has held regular meetings since being created by Lutheran Bishop Mark Whitfield and Cardinal John Dew in 2017 during a commemoration service (see image).

2017 marked the 400th anniversary of the Reformation of European Christianity that began in 1517, when Martin Luther published his Ninety-five Theses in Wittenberg, Germany.

The Commission's tasks aim to help the Catholic and Lutheran Churches in New Zealand meet five commitments to:

• begin from the perspective of unity and not from the point of view of division in order to strengthen what is held in common even though the differences are more easily seen and experienced.
• let themselves continuously be transformed by the encounter with the other and by the mutual witness of faith.
• recommit themselves to seek visible unity, to elaborate together what this means in concrete steps, and strive repeatedly toward this goal.
• jointly rediscover the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ for our time.
• witness together to the mercy of God in proclamation and service to the world.

The Commission has been studying Baptism as a sacrament that unites Christians in the grace of God.

"Catholic and Lutheran baptismal rites have much in common, and this work is a welcome opportunity to learn from each other's practices," says Whitfield.

Dew agrees, saying it "honours our commitment to seek the unity that draws us together, to be transformed by our encounter with one another, and to promote further expressions of our unity across our churches.

"The Catholic and Lutheran churches can learn from one another and speak with a common voice on issues of concern in modern society, with the conviction that they share one baptism and one faith."

While there are differences in understanding and emphasis between the two churches, the Commission's statement notes:

"Catholics and Lutherans both assert that through baptism a person becomes a member of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.

"A parent couple that includes both a Catholic and a Lutheran partner are encouraged to bring their child for baptism in the church of their choice. They may seek to have both of their pastors/priests participate in the baptismal service.

"Christians are encouraged to speak of being baptised into the Christian church, into the Christian faith, or into Christ.

"They may say that they were baptised in the Catholic or Lutheran church but are discouraged from saying that they have been baptised Catholic or baptised Lutheran."

There are several Lutheran parishes in New Zealand.

The statement made no comment on Lutheran eligibility as preference students in Catholic schools.

Source

• NZ Catholic Bishops' Conference
• The Lutheran Church of New Zealand
• Image: NZ Catholic Newspaper

Bishop Kevin Doran of Elphin says after consulting with clergy, baptisms, First Holy Communions and confirmation ceremonies will be held. The regulations for general religious services will be followed.

"The mission of the Church cannot be put on hold indefinitely," he says. He describes the state's guidance as "advice by government rather than regulation."

Three other Irish Catholic dioceses will follow suit. Like Doran, the bishops of Clogher, Waterford and Lismore wrote to the government last week informing it that access to the sacraments "will go ahead from mid-August."

Taoiseach (prime minister) Micheál Martin responded, saying he did not approve "any unilateral breaching of regulations no matter what quarter they come from.

"I'd say to the Church authorities that the government's only motivation here in terms of the regulations we have brought in, in respect of gatherings and congregations, is to protect people and to protect people's health."

Last month Archbishop Eamon Martin, who is the Primate of All Ireland, accused the government of communicating in a "grossly disrespectful" way that the baptism, confirmation and communion ceremonies should be delayed due to COVID-19.

The government's decision marked a "complete reversal" of its previous position in June, where the Taoiseach indicated the ceremonies could go ahead the following month.

Martin says he has been "deluged with calls from parishes" and priests and others have been extremely disappointed by the government's change of mind.

By 31 July, Ireland's 4.9 million people had recorded 299,549 COVID-19 cases and 5,035 related deaths. It is currently experiencing a fourth COVID wave driven by the Delta variant.

Waterford and Lismore's bishop is criticising the way the government and its COVID health team saying its communications with the Church "regarding the sacraments leaves a great deal to be desired.

"We are all conscious of the need to remain vigilant. Parishes have been exemplary ... but for any local parish community and their priest who wish to avail themselves of these sacraments, they must be allowed to do so."

The bishop of Clogher, whose diocese straddles the border with Northern Ireland, says the ceremonies will take place in the Republic of Ireland from 20 August.

"The appropriate protocols presently in place in our churches will be maintained, and families are reminded of the need for adherence to public health guidance in relation to social interactions following the church celebration," he says.

He says the diocese will follow the same practice as last year. The liturgies will involve small groups of children. Attendance will be restricted to the child, the parents/guardians, and sponsor."

The new regulations effectively criminalise Mass with a congregation, Martin says.

After meeting with Ireland's health minister, he stressed that priests' pastoral work should be "deemed essential, rather than subject to penal sanction" amid the pandemic.

Source

• The Catholic World Report
• Image: Independent.ie

Mary McAleese thinks the Church needs to overhaul the practice of baptising babies. She says it violates 21st-century human rights.

In an address to Oxford University, McAleese said canon law claims the Church is entitled to limit, compromise and control church members' rights.

This entitlement is tied into the "christening contract which most of us slept or cried through," she said.

Her talk - entitled ‘Baptismal obligations? Revisiting the christening contract - a necessary prelude to any synodal journey' - called for a change in two aspects of infant baptism.

McAleese told her audience that she - and an increasing number of educated laity - would like changes made to the way baptism imposes lifelong obligations and compulsory obedience to church teaching.

Babies cannot understand what is being promised on their behalf, she explained.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says "having become a member of the Church, from now on, he is [we are] called to obey and submit to the Church's leaders."

There's no way in canon law the 37,000-per day infants baptised into the church can "escape even when they become capable of understanding their implications," she said.

An alternative to the christening contract could be developed, McAleese suggested.

This should offer members an opportunity for expressing a voluntary commitment to these obligations when they are mature enough to do so.

Contemporary understanding of human rights, as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, have overtaken Canon Law's limits on people's freedom of conscience, opinion, belief and religion, she said.

In her opinion, Canon Law and the Catholic Church are at a "crossroads".

McAleese, who is a canon lawyer, said and there was "evidence of panic" at the top of the Church "and a familiar degree" of denial.

"Some old and some new enemies are blamed for the serial crises in the Church; secularism, relativism, feminism, gay cabals, atheism, selfish individualism, sectarianism, a hostile media," she said.

The Catholic Church's "imperial top-down model of control" which centralises power in a clerical elite and "obliges unquestioning loyalty from the lay and paying masses" is not simply outmoded, it is no longer fit for purpose and never was, she said.

It has damaged itself by its own mistakes and has shattered its reputation by abuse scandals.

The Church is hollowing out faith from the inside and its control system had skewed relationships between the laity, the clergy and the hierarchy making the laity been unequal Church citizens, excluded from discernment and decision-making.

"So, we can say truthfully of Church teaching it has been a case of ‘everything about us - without us'.

"It still is and will remain so regardless of synodality," she warned.

In March, the Irish bishops announced they were planning for a national synod for the Church in Ireland.

Source

• Independent
• Image: The Irish Times

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had recently made an official statement deeming this language improper for the conferral of baptism.

Not only did this affect Father Hood himself and the many people who had received sacraments from him, but it also brought about significant questions from the people of the church about what the case means for sacramental life.

The person acting as minister must intend to do what the church intends to do with the sacrament.

Most prominent among these questions are the sacramental validity of the baptisms, confessions, marriages and more that Hood performed during his priestly ministry.

Fr John Baldovin, S.J., a sacramental theologian and professor at the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College, offered America explanations for many of the important questions that have arisen as a result of Father Hood's case.

Baldovin noted that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has the authority to say what is and is not valid when it comes to sacramental language and form.

Theologians, however, also have the right to raise questions, he said.

It is important to recognize, Baldovin noted, that other forms of baptism have been used validly in the church throughout history.

Even today, some Eastern churches, both Orthodox and those Eastern Catholic churches in union with Rome, use a different form.

Some early churches used an interrogatory form in which the baptismal candidate was asked a set of questions about his or her belief in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and was immersed in the baptismal font after each affirmative answer.

Baptism is unique in that any person can be its minister.

Baldovin points out, though, that the person acting as minister must intend to do what the church intends to do with the sacrament.

Importantly, that intention must be expressed both internally and externally.

While it could reasonably be assumed that Deacon Mark Springer baptized Hood with goodwill in his internal intention, his external expression of the sacrament—even if its aberration from the essential form was an honest mistake—is what the statement from the C.D.F. invalidates.

The central question of the case lies in the matter of sacramental validity—in other words, the church guarantees that God's grace is present in the sacramental act.

Baldovin makes an important suggestion about validity's meaning and impact: "Too many people think invalid means unreal."

On this point, he stands in agreement with the Letter to the Faithful From Archbishop Vigneron of Detroit that addresses the case of Hood.

Vigneron urges hope when he writes that "[t]he Church, following the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, recognizes that God has bound Himself to the sacraments, but He is not bound by the sacraments."

While we can be sure that God acts in sacraments properly conferred, Baldovin said, the boundaries of God's grace and power are not delineated by the sacraments alone.

The deacon's errors were meaningful and should not be repeated, he noted, but they do not necessarily limit God's power to act. Continue reading

This year 305 adults will be baptized - 61 more than in 2019.

The number of adult baptisms in Belgium has been growing for several years.

There were 143 in 2010, 180 in 2015, 244 last year and over 300 this year.

Although the majority of Belgium's 11.5 million population are baptized Catholics, only seven percent go to Mass on Sundays.

The largest number of adult baptisms will take place this year in the Diocese of Tournai. This is a primarily French-speaking area in western Belgium.

The diocese will baptize 127 adults, compared to 93 in the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels.

According to CathoBel, which is the website of the Catholic Church in Belgium, those seeking baptism this year included a 42-year-old who arrived in Belgium from Thailand in 1996. He was baptized on Sunday this week - 23 August.

The Thai immigrant, his 18-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter were all baptised together at Our Lady of the Snows Church in Borgerhout by a member of the catechumenate team of the Diocese of Antwerp.

The CathoBel website quoted the family as saying: "This Sunday will mark for our family the beginning of a new life that we have been waiting for so long. We long for our new birth so much."

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: The Catholic Leader

Father Matthew Hood learned that he was not a baptised Catholic earlier this month after watching a family video of his baptism and where some words were changed.

The words used at his baptism are not sanctioned by the Church.

Hood remembered a video of his own baptism ceremony in which the deacon said: "We baptize you…."

Hood realised his baptism wasn't valid - which meant he wasn't confirmed nor ordained.

According to sacramental theology, only a baptised Catholic can validly receive the other sacraments, since baptism is the means by which a person enters the Church and is incorporated into the body of Christ.

The trouble was, in the three years since his ordination, Hood had worked as a priest, baptising people, confirming them, celebrating Masses, offered absolution and marrying couples.

Once he realised Hood called his archdiocese. He needed to be ordained!

But first, after three years of acting like a priest, living like a priest, and feeling like a priest, he needed to become a Catholic!

First, he needed to be baptised.

After receiving the sacrament of baptised he was confirmed and received the Eucharist. He made a retreat, was ordained a deacon and on August 17 he was ordained a priest. (As pictured.)

Hood called the ensuing two weeks "a roller coaster".

"My heart goes out and breaks for those for whom I've celebrated Mass, Mass intentions I've offered, the confessions I've heard, and especially the sacraments of anointing of the sick that I've celebrated for people on their deathbeds, my grandmother included among them," Hood said.

St. Thomas Aquinas once famously said, "God binds Himself to the sacraments, but He himself is not bound by them."

Hood said, The Lord is still merciful and fully capable of imparting grace even when human error occurs.

Archbishop Allen Vigneron of the Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit has acknowledged "human error has resulted in disruption to the sacramental lives of some members of the faithful" and vowed to remedy the situation for those impacted.

"As far as God ‘taking care of it,' we can trust that God will assist those whose hearts are open to Him", the Archbishop said.

On August 6, the Vatican released a document saying that baptisms using the word "we baptise" rather than "I baptise" makes the baptism invalid.

A doctrinal note accompanying the CDF letter said it has received number of cases in which baptisms have been administered using the words: "In the name of the father and of the mother, of the godfather and of the godmother, of the grandparents, of the family members, of the friends, in the name of the community we baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

The document was signed by Cardinal Luis Ladaria, head of the Vatican's doctrinal office, and by the department's secretary, Archbishop Giacomo Morandi.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Detroit Catholic
• Crux
• Image: National Catholic Reporter