St. Mary Church

Rome Newsroom, May 7, 2024 / 12:30 pm (CNA).

Garth Brooks may have friends in low places, but this Saturday he will perform at a high-level Vatican event with Nobel Peace Prize winners, business leaders, and professional athletes, including former NFL quarterback Tom Brady.

Brady, Brooks, and other celebrity guests will meet Pope Francis in an audience at the Apostolic Palace on the morning of May 11 as participants in the Vatican’s World Meeting on Human Fraternity.

It will be the second time that the longtime quarterback for the New England Patriots has met a pope. Brady met John Paul II in 2004 after winning the Super Bowl.

Brady will speak at a Vatican roundtable on sports titled “Competing in Mutual Esteem” on Saturday at 4 p.m. at the Italian National Olympic Committee’s Hall of Honor. 

It is one of 12 roundtables organized throughout Rome at the second annual World Meeting on Human Fraternity — called #BeHuman — on topics ranging from education to peace-building, with economist Jeffrey Sachs and New York Mayor Eric Adams among its speakers.

On Saturday night, Brooks will sing some of his country hits in St. Peter’s Square starting at 9:30 p.m. as the culminating concert of the two-day human fraternity event organized by the Fratelli Tutti Foundation.

When asked why Brooks was chosen to perform at the Vatican, Father Francesco Occhetta, the secretary general for the Fratelli Tutti Foundation organizing the event, told CNA that the foundation has built relationships in the United States, adding: “We did not have a lot of time to invite more artists.”

Last year, Grammy winner Andrea Bocelli performed at the World Meeting on Human Fraternity during which Pope Francis signed a document drafted by a dozen Nobel Peace Prize winners together with representatives of former Nobel Prize-winning organizations calling for a commitment to human fraternity.

Nobel Prize winners will return to the Vatican this year for a roundtable on peace on Friday, May 10. Cardinal Pietro Parolin will give the opening speech for the roundtable, which will include Russian journalist Dmitrji Muratov, American human rights activist Jody Williams, Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman, Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, Liberian pacifist Leymah Gbowee, Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchù Tum, and Bangladeshi economist and banker Muhammad Yunus.

Other participants in the peace roundtable include the former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Mayaki, and Graça Machel Mandela, the widow of the late Nelson Mandela.

Rome Newsroom, May 7, 2024 / 09:02 am (CNA).

The Vatican’s doctrine office will publish a new document next week on discerning Marian apparitions and other supernatural events.

The Holy See Press Office announced on Tuesday that Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), will unveil new norms for discernment regarding “apparitions and other supernatural phenomena” on Friday, May 17.

In an interview with the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, last month, Fernandez said that the document will provide “clear guidelines and norms” for discernment.

The new norms will be the first time that the Vatican’s doctrinal office has issued a general document on apparitions in four decades. Pope Paul VI approved norms on “the discernment of presumed apparitions or revelations” in 1978.

Fernandez will speak at a livestreamed Vatican press conference at noon on the day of the document’s publication, along with Monsignor Armando Matteo, the secretary for the DDF’s doctrinal section.

The announcement comes after Fernández and Matteo met privately with Pope Francis on May 4, a meeting in which the pope likely reviewed the forthcoming document.

The Catholic Church calls for “great prudence” in examining the facts related to presumed apparitions of revelations. According to the 1978 norms, it is the Church’s responsibility to first judge the facts before permitting public devotion in the case of an alleged apparition.

Under Pope John Paul II, the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued a lengthy document on popular piety in 2001 that reiterated the Church’s teaching that private revelations do not belong to the deposit of faith.

“Throughout the ages, there have been so-called private revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith,” paragraph 67 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states.

“It is not their role to improve or complete Christ’s definitive revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history. Guided by the magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church.”

WASHINGTON - Pope Francis has appointed Reverend James Mark Beckman, as Bishop of Knoxville. Bishop-elect Beckman is a priest of the Diocese of Nashville, and currently serves as pastor of Saint Henry parish in Nashville, Tennessee. The appointment was publicized in Washington, D.C. on May 7, 2024, by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

The following biographical information for Bishop-elect Beckman was drawn from preliminary materials provided to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops:

Father Beckman was born on October 19, 1962, in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. He graduated from Saint Ambrose College Seminary in Davenport, Iowa, with a bachelor’s degree in history (1984). He attended The Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium where he earned a master’s degree in religious studies (1984-1989). He was ordained to the priesthood on July 13, 1990, for the Diocese of Nashville.  

Bishop-elect Beckman’s assignments after ordination include: associate pastor at Holy Rosary parish in Nashville (1990-1991); teacher, (1990-1996), and then associate principal for pastoral affairs at Father Ryan High School in Nashville (1991-1996); pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Springfield (1996-2002); administrator at Saint Michael Mission parish in Cedar Hill (1996-2002); and pastor at Saint Matthew parish in Franklin (2002-2015). Since 2015, Bishop-elect Beckman has served as pastor of Saint Henry parish in Nashville.

Bishop-elect Beckman’s additional service for the Diocese of Nashville has included: member of the presbyteral council (1993-2003; 2008-2013); member of the diocesan clergy personnel board (1995-2000); director of the diocesan youth office (1996-2002); priests’ vocation advisory council (1998-2000); member of the college of consultors (1993-2003, 2008-2013); dean of the northwest deanery (2001-2002) and central deanery (2008-2013); chaplain of the Knights of Columbus, Council #11925 (2003-2011); state chaplain for the Knights of Columbus (2004-2005); chair of the priest personnel board (2018-present).

The Diocese of Knoxville is comprised of 14,242 square miles in the state of Tennessee and has a total population of 2,538,487, of which 71,274 are Catholic.

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Jesus calls believers not only to be servants of his kingdom, as the prophets and Mary were, but also to be his friends, Pope Francis said.

"Friendship is not the fruit of calculation, nor of compulsion, it is born spontaneously when we recognize something of ourselves in the other," he said May 5. "Jesus, in the Bible, tells us that for him we are precisely this: friends, people beloved beyond all merit and expectation, to whom he extends his hand and offers his love, his grace, his word."

Before leading the "Regina Coeli" prayer in St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis reflected on the day's Gospel reading from St. John in which Jesus tells the apostles, "I do not call you servants any longer, but friends."

Jesus does not only want to entrust humanity with his mission of salvation, the pope said, "he wants more, something greater that goes beyond goods and plans themselves; it takes friendship."

The pope asked people to think about the beauty of friendship that they experience throughout the course of their lives, from sharing toys as children and confiding secrets to one another as teenagers to exchanging joys and worries as adults and recounting memories together as seniors.

"Let us think a moment of our friends and thank the Lord for them," he said.

In friendship, Jesus "shares what is dearest to him" with humanity, the pope said: "All that he has learned from the Father."

Jesus is invested in his friendship with humanity "even to the point of making himself fragile for us, of placing himself in our hands, without defense or pretense, because he loves us," he said. "The Lord loves us; as a friend he wants our good and he wants us to share in his."

If a friendship is true, it is "so strong that is does not fail even in the face of betrayal," he said, noting that Jesus calls Judas "friend" even after he had been betrayed.

"A true friend does not abandon you, even when you make mistakes: he corrects you, perhaps he reproaches you, but he forgives you and does not abandon you," he said.

After reciting the "Regina Coeli" prayer, the pope asked Christians to pray for Ukraine, Palestine and Israel, "that there may be peace, that dialogue may be strengthened and bear good fruit. No to war, yes to dialogue!"

 

ACI Prensa Staff, May 6, 2024 / 14:07 pm (CNA).

A priest armed with several weapons and dressed in a cassock tried to enter St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican to participate in the Regina Caeli prayer with Pope Francis on Sunday, May 5.

According to the Italian news agency ANSA, the priest, who is from the Czech Republic, tried to pass through the metal detector carrying an air pistol, two knives, a cutter, and a screwdriver.

After being arrested, the priest was reported to the authorities for illegal possession of weapons. When questioned, the priest said he carried the weapons for personal defense.

According to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the priest is 59-year-old Father Milan Palkovic.

According to Europa Press, the weapons were in a bag that belonged to another man, a 60-year-old Czech who accompanied the priest and who was also detained.

Neither has a criminal record and both came to Rome on a pilgrimage from the Czech Republic.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Rome Newsroom, May 6, 2024 / 11:12 am (CNA).

Edith Stein could be declared a doctor of the Church with the title “doctor veritatis,” or “doctor of truth,” following a petition from the Discalced Carmelites.

Pope Francis received an official request from the superior general of the Discalced Carmelites, Father Miguel Márquez Calle, on April 18 in a private audience at the Vatican to recognize the theological legacy of the saint who was martyred in Auschwitz.

If accepted, Stein, also known by her religious name St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, could become the fifth woman to be declared a doctor of the Church, a title that recognizes a substantial contribution to the Church’s theology and moral life.

With the petition, the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints can officially begin the required process to grant Stein the title.

The Carmelites first launched an international commission to gather the necessary documentation required by the Vatican in 2022, a year that marked both the 100th anniversary of Stein’s baptism and the 80th anniversary of her martyrdom.

A title that was proposed for her at the time was “doctor veritatis” because of her relentless intellectual pursuit of truth, which after her conversion she recognized in the person of Jesus Christ.

Stein was born in 1891 into a Jewish family in what is now Wrocław, southwestern Poland. The city was then known as Breslau and located in the German Empire.

After declaring herself to be an atheist at the age of 20, she went on to earn a doctorate in philosophy.

She decided to convert to Catholicism after spending a night reading the autobiography of the 16th-century Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Avila while staying at a friend’s house in 1921.

“When I had finished the book,” she later recalled, “I said to myself: This is the truth.”

Stein was baptized on Jan. 1, 1922, at the age of 30. She took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross when she became a novice Carmelite nun 12 years later.

Ten years after Stein entered the Carmelite convent, she was arrested along with her sister Rosa, who had also become a Catholic, and the members of her religious community.

She had just finished writing a study of St. John of the Cross titled “The Science of the Cross.”

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross died in the Auschwitz concentration camp on Aug. 9, 1942. Pope John Paul II canonized her in 1998 and proclaimed her a co-patroness of Europe the following year.

“God is truth,” Stein wrote after her conversion. “Anyone who seeks truth seeks God, whether or not he is aware of it.”

In each of our lives there are people who have left their imprint on us. It may be something they said or did, the values they gave us, the example they set. They marked our life in ways that continue to influence and guide us whether they live down the street, across the country, or […]

Vatican City, May 5, 2024 / 17:00 pm (CNA).

For the newest class of 34 Swiss Guards who will be sworn in on Monday, their service is based on faith and a love for the Church and the pope as storied as the uniform itself. 

“For me it was something, first and foremost, to give something to the Church, because the Catholic Church gave us a lot when I was a child and with this service, I can give something back,” explained Nicolas Hirt, one of the new guards who hails from the Swiss canton of Fribourg. 

The cadets, joined by their instructors, gathered for a media event on April 30 in the courtyard behind the barracks adjacent to the Sant’Anna entrance, which was adorned with the flags from each of the Swiss cantons. 

The Swiss Guard’s annual swearing-in ceremony will take place on Monday, May 6, in the San Damaso courtyard of the Apostolic Palace. There, the new guards will solemnly raise their right hands, with three fingers extended, representing the Holy Trinity, and proclaim their oath: “I swear I will faithfully, loyally, and honorably serve the Supreme Pontiff and his legitimate successors and I dedicate myself to them with all my strength. I assume this same commitment with regard to the Sacred College of Cardinals whenever the Apostolic See is vacant.”

There was a palpable sense of pride, perhaps even a hint of nervousness, as the young men marched last week in the storied corridors, perfecting the ancient rites ahead of a day that will mark a milestone in their lives. 

Renato Peter, who comes from a small village near St. Gallen (the first from his village to enter the guards), said he first developed a desire to enter into the service of the papal guards after a trip to Rome in 2012 with his diocese. 

“When you work in the Vatican, you have to feel like you go back in history because a lot of European history has been made here,” said Peter, who is mindful that those who wear the iconic tricolor uniform bear a great responsibility and represent a connection to the history of the Church. 

“We are the smallest military in the world,” Peter continued, emphasizing that service in the Swiss Guards is like no other. “But, we are not training to make war. We are like the military, yes, but we’re for the security of the pope.” 

The Swiss Guard is indeed the smallest standing army in the world, numbering only 135 members (Pope Francis increased its ranks from 110 in 2018), protecting not only the smallest sovereign territory in the world, Vatican City State, but also acting as the personal security force of the Holy Father. 

This year the Swiss Guard celebrated 518 years of service to the Apostolic See. Its history dates back to Jan. 22, 1506, when 150 Swiss mercenaries, led by Captain Kasper von Silenen from the central Swiss canton of Uri, arrived in Rome at the request of Pope Julius II.

But the swearing-in ceremony takes place on May 6, marking the anniversary of the Sack of Rome in 1527 by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V when 147 guards died protecting Pope Clement VII. 

The Swiss Guards form an integral part of the history of the papacy and a core component of the security apparatus of the Vatican, but they also occupy a special palace in the popular imagination, one underscored by a profound spirituality. 

“It’s another world, another culture, and above all doing a fairly unique job, that is to say, there is the protection of the Holy Father,” said Vice-Corporal Eliah Cinotti, spokesman for the guards. 

“I don’t think there are many of us who are lucky enough to have the opportunity to serve the Holy Father in that way, therefore the Swiss Guard is a quite unique institution.”

Cinotti observed that for many of the pilgrims coming to Rome, which is often a once-in-a-lifetime experience, the guards act as a point of encounter between the people and the Church, shedding light on an evangelical dimension of their mission. 

“Since we are Swiss Guards and represent the pope, we are also there to be Christians, to listen to these people. There is no specific training for this because it already comes from our Christian character to help others.”

Service in the Swiss Guards is both physically and psychologically demanding, and the entry requirements are strict, even though the guards do not face deployment to active war zones like conventional soldiers.

A prospective guard must hold Swiss citizenship, be Catholic, single, and male (after five years in service the guards are allowed to marry), and be at least 1.74 meters tall (approximately 5’8”). They are required to have completed secondary school (or the equivalent) and have completed mandatory military service. 

Despite what some may consider prohibitive entry restrictions, Cinotti noted, during the annual call for applications there are anywhere from 45-50 applicants, and there has not been a problem with recruitment. 

During the first round, prospective candidates go through a preliminary screening and, if selected, they will sit with a recruitment officer in Switzerland for an initial interview, which generally lasts anywhere from 30 minutes to one hour. Candidates also have to undergo an intensive psychological test to assess whether they can withstand the demands of the job. 

Should their candidacy proceed, they are then sent to Rome where, for the first two months, they are exposed to the working environment of the Vatican and receive approximately 56 hours of intensive instruction in Italian. Their instruction also includes an emphasis on their cultural and spiritual formation.

The cadets are then sent to the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino in Switzerland, where they are instructed in self-defense and the use of firearms by local police. While the guards carry medieval halberds — an ax blade topped with a spike mounted on a long shaft — during official papal events, each is equipped with a 9mm GLOCK 19 Gen4 pistol, taser, and pepper spray. 

There is also a two-year minimum service requirement after which they can decide to remain or return to Switzerland. 

“About 80% return to Switzerland and 20% stay,” Cinotti said. “And the 80% who return to Switzerland go to the police or the army or return to their basic profession or go to study at university.” 

He also noted there have been some years where a guard will discern a vocation to the priesthood. “And we also had a certain point, people who entered the seminary at the time, one per year more or less.” 

He added: “We haven’t had anyone for two years, but I think they will arrive, or rather it’s a question of vocations.”

Cinotti spoke on the myriad security challenges that a guard will have to face in his day-to-day work, which can last anywhere from six to 12 hours of continuous duty, noting that there has been an uptick in the number of people coming to the Vatican for help. 

Cinotti also noted that for all of the guards, there has been the additional learning curve of adapting to Pope Francis’ pastoral style, which has brought him in close proximity to the faithful during his audiences in Rome and his travels abroad.  

“Pope Francis is like every pope,” Cinotti remarked. “He has his own style, and we must adapt to the pope.” 

“If he wants to go to contact the people of God, we must guarantee that, of course, everything is fine, but we cannot prevent it. He does what he wants, he is the pope,” he added. 

While this can raise some logistical problems, Cinotti reassured that the guards have been trained to respond to possible threats. He said they have developed a symbiotic, and always professional, relationship with Francis. 

“He transmits a certain serenity and a certain awareness that we are there next to him, we are there, like the gendarmerie, which allows us to operate in complete tranquility on the ground without being disturbed,” he said. 

“He likes to change plans and will change plans throughout the day,” Cinotti added, “but it suits us very well because we adapt to him and we do this service and for us, it is still important to guarantee his safety.” 

Vatican City, May 5, 2024 / 09:30 am (CNA).

Pope Francis asked for a moment of silence as he spoke from the window of the Apostolic Palace on Sunday for people to thank the Lord for their friends. 

The pope reflected on the gift of friendship during his Regina Caeli address on May 5.

“Since childhood, we learn how beautiful this experience is: We offer friends our toys and the most beautiful gifts; then, growing up, as teenagers, we confide our first secrets to them; as young people we offer loyalty; as adults, we share satisfactions and worries; as seniors, the memories, considerations, and silences of long days,” the 87-year-old pope said.

“The word of God, in the Book of Proverbs, tells us that ‘Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel’ (Prv 27:9). Let us think a moment of our friends and thank the Lord for them.”

Speaking to the crowd gathered below in St. Peter’s Square on a sunny Sunday in Rome, the pope remarked that Jesus desires to share in this great gift of friendship with us.

“Today the Gospel tells us about Jesus’ words to the apostles: ‘I do not call you servants any longer, but friends,’” he said.

“And today Jesus, in the Bible, tells us that for him we are precisely this, friends: dear people beyond all merit and expectation, to whom he extends his hand and offers his love, his grace, his Word; with whom he shares what is dearest to him, all that he has heard from the Father (cf. Jn 15:15),” he added.

Pope Francis asked people to reflect on whether they feel loved by the Lord as a beloved friend or if Jesus seems like more of a stranger.

“May Mary help us to grow in friendship with her Son and to spread it around us,” the pope said as he began to pray the Regina Caeli prayer in Latin.

At the end of his address, the pope prayed for peace in Ukraine and the Holy Land and offered his solidarity to people affected by the heavy flooding in southern Brazil that has killed at least 60 people.

Pope Francis gave a shoutout to pilgrims visiting Rome from Texas, Chicago, Berlin, and Paris, as well as to the Pontifical Swiss Guards, who will celebrate their swearing-in ceremony on Monday.

The pope also wished a happy Easter to Orthodox Christians and Eastern-rite Catholics who are celebrating Easter this weekend according to the Julian calendar.

“May the risen Lord fill all communities with joy and peace and comfort those who are in trial,” Pope Francis said.

Rome Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 12:41 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis published a letter on Thursday addressed to all parish priests in the world with his advice for building a missionary Church in which all the baptized share in the mission of proclaiming the Gospel.

“Parish communities increasingly need to become places from which the baptized set out as missionary disciples and to which they return, full of joy, in order to share the wonders worked by the Lord through their witness,” Pope Francis wrote in the letter published on May 2.

The pope presented the letter to 300 priests participating in the Synod on Synodality’s “World Meeting of Parish Priests” during an audience at the Vatican, saying that their meeting is “an opportunity to remember in my prayers all of the parish priests in the world to whom I address these words with great affection.”

“Before all else, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation for the generous work that you do each day, sowing seeds of the Gospel in every kind of soil,” Pope Francis wrote.

“It is so obvious as to sound almost banal, but that does not make it less true: the Church could  not go on without your dedication and your pastoral service,” he added.

In the letter, Pope Francis offered three suggestions to parish priests for building “a synodal and missionary Church.”

The first is for priests to live out their “specific ministerial charism in ever greater service to the varied gifts that the Spirit sows in the people of God.” 

He said that by nurturing the many and varied charismatic gifts of the laity, priests will “feel less alone in the demanding task of evangelization” and “will experience the joy of being true fathers, who do not dominate others but rather bring out in them, men and women alike, great and precious possibilities.”

The second suggestion is to “learn to practice the art of communal discernment” by using the “conversation in the Spirit” practiced during last October’s Synod on Synodality assembly.

Lastly, Pope Francis encouraged priests to base everything they do “in a spirit of sharing and fraternity” both among themselves and with their bishops.

“We cannot be authentic fathers unless we are first sons and brothers. And we cannot foster communion and participation in the communities entrusted to our care unless, before all else,  we live out those realities among ourselves,” the pope explained.

The audience with the pope concluded the four-day World Meeting of Parish Priests, which took place from April 29 to May 2 at the Fraterna Domus retreat house in Sacrofano, Italy, just north of Rome.

The gathering of 300 priests was jointly organized by the Dicastery for the Clergy and by the General Secretariat of the Synod in response to the first synod assembly’s synthesis report, which identified a need to “develop ways for a more active involvement of deacons, priests, and bishops in the synodal process during the coming year.”

Father Clinton Ressler, a priest from the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, was one of five American priests who traveled to Rome for the meeting.

Ressler told EWTN that a highlight from the meeting was “the experience of being together with brother priests from around the world.”

He said that he has learned that despite the diverse realities in which priests in different parts of the world find themselves, “the experience of being a priest on the front lines and in the trenches is kind of a universal experience — the joy, the sorrow, the hope.”