But even with the best prognosis, age is catching up to Francis.

Barring a miracle, he will only be expected to continue as pope for five or six years. We may look back at his hospitalisation as the moment that marked the beginning of the end of his papacy.

If that's the case, we will also be able to count incredible achievements.

As a pastor, Francis has caught the imagination of the world with his compassion and openness to all people. He has put love, especially love for the poor, centre stage in his peaching of the gospel.

As a world leader, he has put his papacy squarely on the side of migrants and refugees. And he has been a prophetic voice against global warming and the excesses of capitalism.

And within the church, he has encouraged dialogue and a more consultative style of governance: Put bluntly, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith no longer acts like the Inquisition it once was.

In short, Francis has rebranded the papacy for the 21st century with a pastoral, prophetic and inclusive voice.

Where he has been less successful is in winning over the clerical establishment to his vision for the church. In his eight years as pope, Francis has hardly dented the clerical establishment that he inherited.

Many bishops and priests in the Roman Curia and around the world think his election was a mistake and they are hoping for a return to what they regard as normalcy in the next papacy.

They feel he has not emphasized dogma and rules enough, so they are not cooperating.

Yet Francis has treated these opponents with the gentleness of a pastor who hopes for their conversion.

Any other CEO would simply replace those who are not on board with his agenda, but Francis refuses to fire people.

As a result, he has waited until curial officials and bishops reached retirement age. For such a strategy to have an effect requires a very long papacy, such as the 27-year reign of John Paul II, followed by eight years of Benedict.

During this 35-year period, John Paul and Benedict remade the episcopacy in their image.

The litmus test was loyalty and orthodoxy as they defined it.

Anyone who questioned the papacy's position on birth control, married priests or women priests was disqualified.

These bishops then revamped the seminaries that have produced the clergy we have today.

One of the best examples is the United States, where neither the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops nor the seminaries are bastions of Francis supporters.

Bishops who embody Francis' values make up only 20 to 40 of the 223 active U.S. bishops.

And among the clergy, Francis receives his greatest support from older priests, who are dying off, rather than younger ones who are the future of the church.

Instead of taking to heart the axiom that "personnel is policy," he left in place a Benedict appointee, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, as prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, the office that vets candidates for the episcopacy.

The nuncios, who suggest episcopal candidates, were also trained and advanced under John Paul and Benedict, and for the first three years of Francis' papacy, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, an archenemy, served in that role in the United States.

As a result, even the American bishops appointed under Francis are a mixed bag.

Finding young candidates for the priesthood, meanwhile, who support Francis and want to be celibate is like looking for Catholic unicorns, and if you were to find some, they aren't likely to be welcomed by conservative seminaries.

As a result, the laity who are encouraged to come to church because they like Francis are unlikely to find him in their parishes or dioceses.

Reforming the Catholic Church takes decades, not years.

If his papacy is reckoned a failure, it will be because Francis failed to replace or outlast the clerical establishment put in place by John Paul and Benedict.

His papacy will only succeed if he is followed by popes who are in sync with his approach to Catholicism, and this is not guaranteed.

He has appointed sympathetic men to the College of Cardinals, but conclaves are unpredictable as his own election showed.

• 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.

He said there is a need to be pastorally close to the sick person and their family but not risk further virus transmission.

"The regulations around movement are to absolutely minimise the possibility of community transmission of the Covid-19 virus."

"For the common good, therefore, we must follow those instructions to not create a greater evil."

If someone needs pastoral care priests can be contacted by phone through their normal numbers.

Visits to the sick and housebound

If a priest is called to attend to the sick at home, this must be done by phone or electronic means such as video call rather than by home visit.

Pastoral teams will make arrangements to ensure that those who are sick or housebound receive spiritual care.

They will also keep in contact with those who are in self-isolation, and people should advise them if they are in this situation.

Communion to the sick who are not in danger of death is suspended.

For the critically ill at home, the normal process for contacting a priest in the area should be followed.

Most hospitals are in lockdown so access by a priest may be difficult but this situation will be managed by the Hospital Chaplaincy team and the hospital.

Priests who are on hospital duty will be specially trained for the new situation.

Priests who are not hospital chaplains cannot go to the hospitals automatically to visit parishioners.

Apart from the current travel restrictions, all access to hospitals is restricted.

Anointing

As far as the anointing of the sick goes Dew said "Technically it is the words and the oil, not the anointing touch that is the matter and form of the sacrament."

However, the risk of transmitting the virus by the proximity of the anointer and anointed (closer than one metre) means this is outside the regulations for social/physical distancing.

In the hospital setting, the ecumenical nature of the chaplaincy set-up means that a request from Catholics can be responded to.

Funerals

No funerals are being celebrated. Funeral directors have advised that families have the choice of immediate cremation or burial, or putting bodies in their mortuary facilities.

Families should contact a priest for support using the normal contact details in parishes.

Marriages

Marriages and marriage preparation courses are suspended.

Parish activities

All parish gatherings are suspended. This includes meetings; sacramental programmes; the conferring of First Holy Communion, First Reconciliation and Confirmation; Lent programmes; RCIA programmes; and the Second Rite of Reconciliation. Contact the parish about Reconciliation.

Parish Offices

Parish offices are closed but may be accessible through phone and email systems. There will be a way to contact a priest.

Buildings, not the community closed

The bishop of Auckland, Patrick Dunn said the buildings are closed but not the living church.

He encouraged people to let their parish priest know about people who are struggling.

"Regional St Vincent de Paul and the Catholic Caring Foundation are able to access resources and have the travel permissions that enable them to provide sustenance and care."

Dunn said the phone ministry is the new normal.

"Even if a few minutes of 'How are you?' What are you up to? You are not alone.'"

Source

• catholic.org.nz
• wn.catholic.org.nz
• aucklandcatholic.org.nz
• Image: Screenshot

The Pope has appointed Chicago's Archbishop Blase Cupich to the Congregation for Bishops.

Archbishop Cupich replaces the late Cardinal Francis George on the congregation.

Continue reading

They should not regard their calling as a career in which to seek advancement and notice.

As he spoke, a bishop who personified this ideal was dying, in far-off Christchurch, New Zealand.

Bishop Barry Jones was the servant-priest that Pope Francis wants all priests to be.

Continue reading

Speaking a news conference at the synod on the family, Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane said he was concerned an "all-or-nothing" approach tended to dominate discussions before and, at times, during the synod.

But there exists a "vast territory that calls us to a new kind of pastoral creativity", he said.

On the issue of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, the Church's doctrine is clear that they cannot receive Communion, he noted.

But Archbishop Coleridge said this is a delicate subject that cannot always be generalised and must be viewed case-by-case.

"In the case of divorce and remarriage, we're always dealing with sin, there's no news in saying that; the Church has traditionally spoken of the second union as adulterous," Archbishop Coleridge said.

He said the term "‘adulterous' is perhaps too sweeping", and that while defining the sin is "important, but in another sense it doesn't say enough".

"And I think what a pastoral approach requires is that we actually enter into what the synod is calling a genuine pastoral dialogue or discernment with these couples."

While the framework and direction of this dialogue is Church teaching, the archbishop said that the Church is also called to reach out to those who feel alienated.

"What really worries me as a pastor is that a lot of these people don't come to me or the Church," he said.

"They are seriously alienated and feel seriously excluded.

"So the question is not what do we do when they come to us but how can I/we go to them and begin that process of dialogue that starts with a kind of listening."

Sources

• Catholic News Service
• Image: ABC

The Pope was speaking in Rio de Janeiro to the co-ordinating committee of the Latin American Bishops' Council (CELAM), an umbrella organisation for the 22 bishops' conferences of Latin American and the Caribbean.

In his down-to-earth address, he criticised pastoral plans that "clearly lack nearness, tenderness, a warm touch" and are incapable of sparking "an encounter with Jesus Christ" and with other people.

"Christ's followers are not individuals caught up in a privatised spirituality, but persons in community, devoting themselves to others," the Pope said.

"Responding to the existential issues of people today, especially the young, listening to the language they speak, can lead to a fruitful change, which must take place with the help of the Gospel, the magisterium, and the Church's social doctrine," the Pope said.

He asked the bishops to examine whether they "manipulate" or "infantilise" the laity.

"In practice, do we make the lay faithful sharers in the mission?" he asked.

Pope Francis called on bishops and pastors to encourage lay participation in "consultation, organisation, and pastoral planning", especially through diocesan and parish-level pastoral and financial councils.

But he warned against reducing the Church to "the structure of an NGO" focused on quantifiable results, statistics, and a business-like organisation.

Seeing the Church in terms of institutions and business management, he said, can have a "paralysing" influence on Catholic life.

He described this mindset as: "More than being interested in the road itself, it is concerned with fixing holes in the road."

The Pope also criticised the psychology-focused tendencies of some spirituality courses and spiritual retreats, saying they reduce the encounter with Jesus Christ to "self-awareness", a "self-centred approach" that "has nothing to do with the missionary spirit". He gave the Enneagram as one example.

Sources:

Catholic News Agency

Vatican News

National Catholic Reporter

Image: Rome Reports (YouTube)

He argues this dual commitment can be achieved through a tool called the pastoral circle which was formulated by the USA Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Jesuit Order to help churches, organisations and religious communities respond effectively to the issues that face them.

Chong says there are four moments in the pastoral circle: insertion, social analysis, theological reflection and action plan.

1. Insertion — involves asking what is happening? Put yourself in the situation. One good way of doing this, he said, was imagining yourself looking down on Fiji. One asks what are the people experiencing, what are their fears, what are their aspirations?
2. Social analysis — why is this happening? Why of the what. What are the root causes of the problem? Why are things the way they are? Archbishop Chong said that social analysis could be likened to a visit to the doctor. The doctor carries out an analysis to identify the cause of illness. He said this second moment was very important because "unless we know the root cause, we might not be able to effectively address the situation".
3. Theological reflection — here we reflect on what is God saying to us in this situation/problem. This is an attempt to understand the problem from the perspective of God.
4. Action plan — what is to be done? This course of action is informed by the social analysis and the theological reflection.

The pastoral circle guides the Churches, communities, and organisations towards relevancy and effectiveness in responding to their challenges.

He says training will be needed and expertise will be drawn from both the laity and the religious communities. Archbishop Chong says he wants to use this tool at all levels within the local church so that its teachings, interpretations and applications will always be relevant to those whom the church serves.

Source

• The Fiji Times
• Image: 3.bp.blogspot.com