Farrell mentioned the in-progress document in a speech delivered in Italian on April 22 that opened a meeting of the dicastery, which promotes the pastoral care of the family and the mission of the lay faithful. Farrell spoke about the importance of providing help and guidance to "those experiencing marital crises of all kinds."

"On this front, the dicastery is also working on the preparation of a text that will specifically concern — as you wished, Your Holiness — men and women who, having a failed marriage behind them, live in new unions," Farrell said in his opening address.

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Cardinal Kevin Farrell, head of the Vatican's Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life, spoke of "co-responsibility" between clergy and laity, saying, "It does not mean that the laity in the church have to become clerics, and clerics in the church have to become laity."

Farrell's comments came before a Vatican conference on collaboration between laypeople and clergy. The conference is titled "Pastors and lay faithful called to walk together," and will take place in the Vatican's New Synod Hall.

Farrell appeared to brush off the idea of women clergy: "The Holy Spirit gives us all a calling, and all our different gifts," he said. "To some, he gives the gift of ordained priesthood, and to others, he gives many other gifts.

"There are many apostolates that priests are not qualified to undertake that the laity are," he said, and cautioned against "reducing the work among the laity and the great gift that laity bring to the church, to just some ministerial role within the church."

Linda Ghisoni, an Italian laywoman and undersecretary of the dicastery's section for laity, cautioned against trying to stake "a claim" on certain roles or functions in the church. She said that the real discussion should focus on understanding "the nature of our vocation, our baptismal identity, which opens to us immense paths" within the church.

The conference is expected to draw delegates from all over the world, who will discuss the "co-responsibility of laypeople in the synodal church," as well as the formation of laypeople.

Farrell said that the aim is to make both pastors and laypeople aware of the sense of responsibility that comes from baptism and that "unites us all".

The cardinal stressed that as pastors, "we do not reduce [the] role of laity in the church to a mere functional position or involvement, but rather they are truly part of the mission of the church".

"Laity have a lot more to offer than a mere function they can perform, such as being the accountant of the diocese," he said, saying there is still a need to arrive at "a much deeper meaning of what it means to be co-responsible in the church".

To do this, he said, "implies a change of heart, a change of attitude".

Sources

Crux Now

CathNews New Zealand

Lacroix was speaking at a press conference previewing a three-day Vatican meeting on how to improve collaboration among laypeople, priests and bishops.

Lacroix wants priests to recognise that laypeople are not there at their service.

"We are there together at the service of the Church," he said.

Lacroix said priests should invite laypeople into parish activities and programmes, but they should also ask how they can support parishioners where they already are.

He said that people's ordinary everyday lives is the stuff of holiness, and he wants priests to support them in their lives.

"What is our role as priests and bishops in this beautiful adventure?" he asked.

"Well, our main role is to be pastors. We're not managers; we're not the boss: We're pastors, shepherds."

Lacroix stated that the Church needs "better formation, better awareness and a lot of work" to bring his vision to fruition.

He recalled a time before he was a cleric when he gave this advice to pastors: "Resist inviting us to come into your things. Recognise that some of us are in school, some of us are in our profession, and we need to be good disciples there."

The event is titled "Pastors and Lay Faithful Called to Walk Together," and is organised by the Vatican's Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, headed by Cardinal Kevin Farrell.

"The laity have a lot more to offer than a mere function they can perform."

"It is very important that we do not reduce the role of the laity in the Church to a mere functional participation or a mere functional involvement".

"The laity are not just to take up the collection at the Sunday Mass. They are to do much more", said Farrell.

He explained that the laity's responsibility to the Church demands "a change of heart, a change of attitude".

Farrell stated that "we must go to a much deeper understanding of what it means to be co-responsible for the life of the Church." This understanding requires "a lot of work".

Farrell emphasised that "as baptised Catholics, we are all responsible for the Church".

When Christ said, "Go baptise in the name of the Lord. Go preach the word of God to the ends of the earth", he was speaking to everybody, not just priests.

Sources

Catholic News Agency

The Dialog

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) on March 15 published a document reiterating the Vatican's longstanding position that it is "illicit" for Catholic priests to bless same-sex unions.

God "does not and cannot bless sin", the responsum said.

There is some support to the responsum from within the church hierarchy.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, head of the Vatican's laity office, concurred with the pronouncement that a "blessing" is a sacramental action. It relates to the marriage sacrament, which the church teaches can only be celebrated between a man and a woman.

Farrell said civil unions are not "marriages" as the Catholic Church understands the term. He stressed: "I do want to insist that nobody be excluded from the pastoral care and love of the church."

Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley and head of the Vatican's development office, Cardinal Peter Turkson, pointed to Francis' pastoral outreach to gay men and lesbians. But they repeated the church's position.

"The church has a very clear teaching about marriage that needs to be proclaimed," O'Malley said during an online panel discussion organized by Georgetown University.

However, bishops from several different countries immediately criticised the CDF intervention calling it "unacceptable", hurtful and clumsy.

"I feel ashamed for my church. I mainly feel intellectual and moral incomprehension," said Bishop Johan Bonny, 65, of Antwerp (Belgium).

"Controlling who can or cannot receive God's blessing is inadequate and wrong," said Franz Kreissl, director of pastoral services for the Diocese of St. Gallen in Switzerland.

Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg said he was "unhappy" with the new note published by the Vatican.

In the USA, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago underlined that the CDF note offers "nothing new on the Church's teaching".

"This should prompt us in the Church to redouble our efforts. We need to be creative and resilient in finding ways to welcome and encourage all LGBTQ people in our family of faith," the 72-year-old cardinal emphasized.

In France, the publication of the CDF text has aroused a sense of anger in LGBTQ+ Christian movements and associations.

"What is disappointing is that we had the feeling that some things were moving on the ground, especially in dialogue with the dioceses," lamented Cyrille de Compiègne, spokesperson for the Association David & Jonathan.

Sources

• La Croix
• AP News
• Religion News

If an organisation is led by a charismatic leader who is followed uncritically and commands or demands control over members, the members are at risk of cases of physical, sexual and psychological abuse, Father Hans Zollner SJ says.

The Vatican office that grants official recognition to international Catholic lay movements and organizations ordered them to develop a set of detailed child-protection guidelines and norms for handling allegations of the abuse of minors and vulnerable adults.

As international lay organizations include hundreds of thousands of Catholics, the guidelines are important, Zollner says.

By last December, "90-something percent [of the organisations had] sent in their guidelines," Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life, says.

The Dicastery has a juridical section led by a canon lawyer.

It is reviewing the guidelines from the organizations required to file them. The staff of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors is helping with the process.

So far, several large international Catholic groups have published their Vatican-approved guidelines online.

These include Communion and Liberation, Focolare and Chemin Neuf.

The guidelines promise safe-environment training for members, contain detailed rules for activities with minors and clearly outline the responsibility of a person who is told about or suspects a case of abuse.

In most cases, this includes reporting allegations to local police.

Victims always are also free to report allegations to their local police and local bishops, Farrell said.

Members of one of the groups who want to work in a parish or diocesan programme must also meet local requirements for safeguarding training and background checks.

All laity-heavy Catholic movements and organisations that want official recognition as "international associations of the faithful" will have to include safeguarding and reporting guidelines when they apply for Vatican recognition, Farrell said.

In recent years - under Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, several small, newer communities — both religious orders and mixed groups of lay and religious — have been disbanded or placed under Vatican-mandated outside control because of sexual, physical or psychological abuse of members.

Farrell said in retrospect many of these groups "were approved at too young an age". They lacked maturity, experience in governance and oversight.

Today, for both lay and religious communities, the Vatican would "examine much more carefully the constitutions and the bylaws," he said.

In addition, "they would have to have all these policies in place" for preventing abuse.

Source

• Catholic News Service
• Image: Catholics & Cultures

Last month, the Vatican Dicastery (office) for Laity, the Family and Life met with about 100 representatives of Catholic associations and movements to develop abuse prevention and procedures for reporting and handling allegations.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who leads the Dicastery, told the representatives that by the end of December every movement and association in the church must turn in formal guidelines and protocols for reporting and preventing abuse cases.

All Catholic movements and associations for laypeople, which are officially recognised through Farrell's office, were told in May last year to draft abuse guidelines.

Farrell says "too many" of the groups either have not responded or submitted inadequate protocols.

He says some Catholics think holding another meeting about abuse shows the scandal has become "a fixation," "an unhealthy obsession" or "a pesky exaggeration.

"In truth, the logic is exactly the reverse," he says.

"It is the sexual abuse of power (and) of conscience that is an evil, an unhealthy obsession, a real manipulation, that suffocates and frustrates even the best pastoral plans, obscuring the good that the church accomplishes."

Farrell says developing protocols is only part of the process of "purging" the culture of abuse within the church.

The church needs a "change of mentality" to eradicate the sense of "taboo" that often led survivors of abuse to keep quiet. The same taboo caused many laymen and laywomen to look the other way, he says.

Linda Ghisoni, the undersecretary for laity at the Dicastery, read out the testimonies of three anonymous members of lay movements.

All three suffered abuse and were further harmed by their group's code of silence.

One survivor says it was difficult to speak about the abuse while still being a part of the association. However, she says she understands her "silence aggravates guilt and hinders the truth, making me an accomplice of evil and sin."

Another survivor, abused by two priests, says she felt she no longer had "access to God."

Comments from critics, including "some bishops who continue to repeat that one of those priests is so good" are "a new betrayal that comes from within the church,"she says.

Ghisoni says these testimonies are "not a way of indulging some morbid curiosity, nor an exercise in pity, but involves our honesty and brings us to an encounter with the flesh of Christ that is inflicted with wounds that, as Pope Francis has repeatedly maintained, never disappear."

Ghisoni says because of their influence on members' identity, formation, growth and freedom, lay movements and associations must have clear rules and regulations that are designed to prevent abuse and allow members to report without fear of retribution or exclusion.

She says groups that boast of strict orthodoxy often have an authoritarian and restrictive managerial style, one that does not include their members in decision-making.

This style spreads "subliminal messages that excludes those who criticize," she notes.

Groups without any real structure that have lax rules are also at risk of creating an environment where sexual abuse can thrive, she says.

Source

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: YouTube

Over 13 years, until his recent ouster for alleged sexual harassment and sexual misconduct, Bishop Michael J. Bransfield wrote personal checks to clerics and was reimbursed with church money.

Bransfield sent the checks, many for amounts in the four figures, to 137 clergymen, including two young priests he is accused of mistreating and more than a dozen cardinals. Read more

The camerlengo (chamberlain) is responsible the Vatican's administration during the vacancy created by the death or resignation of the pope.

Only the pope may choose the cardinal to fill the position of camerlengo, though he may choose instead to leave it vacant.

The camerlengo is one of two head officials of the Roman Curia who do not lose their office while the papacy is vacant. He administers Church finances and property during the interregnum.

The position Farrell is filling has been vacant since the former camerlengo, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, died last July.

Farrell says he was shocked when he heard the news.

"I was shocked. I was surprised, you know, I told the Holy Father that, 'Yeah, I'd accept, but on one condition - that he speak at my funeral.'

"So what can I say? To be quite honest with you, I have never thought of anything like this. I will confess that I really don't even know the details of what the camerlengo does. and but I'm sure there will be somebody who will coach me and tell me exactly what I'm supposed to do."

While the pope is alive, the job is just a title - so until the pope dies or resigns, Farrell will continue as the head of the dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life.

However, if Francis resigns or pre-deceases him, one of Farrell's jobs will be to officially declare the Holy Father's death to the public.

He will also have to seal the papal apartments, chair consultations about the papal funeral and make practical preparations for the conclave to elect the next pope. He will also have to chair a committee of cardinals taking care of the church's ordinary affairs until a new pope is elected.

To take office, Farrell, 71, will take an oath before Pope Francis, who will give him a sceptre, a symbol of the authority of the camerlengo. The current sceptre, covered in red velvet, dates to the papacy of Benedict XV.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• La Croix
• Rome Reports
• Image: Catholic News Agency

"They have no credibility; they have never lived the experience; they may know moral theology, dogmatic theology in theory, but to go from there to putting it into practice every day … they don't have the experience," said Irish-born American Cardinal Kevin Farrell.

Farrell heads the Vatican's Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, and is the point man for the Aug. 21-26 World Meeting of Families in Dublin.

The cardinal was born in the Irish capital, but moved to the United States in 1984, later serving as an auxiliary bishop in Washington before becoming bishop of Dallas in 2007.

In 2016, he was tapped by Pope Francis to head the new office - which combined several other Vatican councils as part of the reform of the Curia.

In an interview with Intercom, the official magazine of the Irish bishops, Farrell spoke of the differences between the Church in the United States and the Church in Ireland.

He said the United States was a country where "the laity run the Church."

"In my own experience as Bishop of Dallas, we had one priest in a parish where 10,000 people would attend Mass at the weekend. We have parishes that have a $20 million annual budget. No priest is going to be able to run a parish of that magnitude without competent lay people," the cardinal said.

He said this also meant many pastoral tasks usually left to priests in Ireland - like marriage preparation - are done by others.

"We have a million and a half Catholics and 75 priests, with a 45 to 50 per cent rate of (Mass) attendance. Those 75 priests are not going to be interested in organizing marriage meetings," said Farrell.

He said the Church in Ireland would have to adapt to this lay model of Church governance, due to "sheer numbers."

The Dublin diocese - with a comparable number of Catholics to Dallas - currently has over 400 priests, but that number is dropping as fewer and fewer men are being ordained to replace clergy that die or retire.

"We have to worry about the 99 per cent, about the baptized, and not worry about the other things we have been obsessed with," Farrell said.

The cardinal said this would lead to a less clericalized Church, which is a good thing. Continue reading

• Image: Dallas News

Farrell is the head of the Vatican's Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life. Read more

The conference has been held at the Vatican on International Women's Day - celebrated on 8 March, since 2014.

The list of potential speakers at the conference required approval from a cardinal. Mrs McAleese and two other nominees (neither of whom have been named) were not granted permission to participate.

Their attendance was opposed by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life.

No reasons were given, according to Chantal Götz, managing director of Voices of Faith. However, she notes McAleese has been outspoken on gay rights and women's ordination.

As a result of the Vatican decision, Götz says organisers have changed the conference venue.

It will now be held outside the Vatican, so will not require Vatican approval for choosing speakers and panel members.

The organisers have also changed the name of the conference to "Why Women Matter", and have invited McAleese to attend as a keynote speaker.

She had previously been asked to take part in a panel discussion at the event.

McAleese, who has studied for a doctorate in canon law at the Gregorian University in Rome, has written to Pope Francis about the situation.

She says she will not make any further comment on the matter as she is waiting to see if the pope responds to her letter.

The conference brings together Catholic women from across the globe to share their experiences and create dialogue with leaders on gender equality, inclusion and leadership.

It is seeking to convince the Vatican that women "have the expertise, skills and gifts to play a full leadership role in the church".

The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, says neither he nor his office were consulted by the Vatican in relation to the list of speakers for the event.

Source

• Brinkwire
• Irish Times
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: The Telegraph