All posts tagged: Vatican

The Catholics who broke with Rome. Again.

The Catholics who broke with Rome. Again.

Published by Sam Flores

On the side of a mountain in Switzerland, in the shadow of the Alps, a fanciful event attracting a small but ardent group of Catholic traditionalists gathered to celebrate the consecration of four new bishops …  … who were then promptly excommunicated from the Catholic Church along with the bishop who appointed them. The group is called the Society of St. Pius X, or SSPX. It has spent decades claiming to defend the true Catholic tradition against a church it sees as too modern, too open, too willing to change. But this time, by moving ahead without Rome’s approval, SSPX triggered excommunications and pushed its whole society into schism.  And it’s not the first time this group has run up against the disapproval of the Holy See. Today, Vatican reporter Claire Giangravè joins us to talk about SSPX, Pope Leo XIV, the Latin Mass and what happens when longing for an older church ruptures the church itself. Source link

Cardinals, cake and corndogs: Inside a complicated Vatican July 4

Cardinals, cake and corndogs: Inside a complicated Vatican July 4

Published by Sam Flores

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — This year’s Independence Day party at the private residence of the United States’ ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch, was a brightly colored spectacle mixing the patriotic with the sacred, as cardinals lined up to cut a star-spangled cake commemorating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. The event, which took place on June 26, happened to coincide with Pope Leo XIV’s summit of cardinals at the Vatican, allowing some of the U.S.-born prelates to enjoy a taste of home while in Rome. Cardinals who less than a year ago had helped to elect the first American pope — Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Cardinal Blase Cupich and Cardinal Timothy Dolan — joined to celebrate their country’s anniversary, as American hits played in the background and the smell of corndogs filled Rome’s hot summer evening air. Among manicured gardens complete with a photo booth, an ice cream line and a 1947 Cadillac Series 70 used by Pope Pius XII, the crowd of U.S. expats and Vatican officials offered a heartwarming …

Rome’s ‘sexy priest’ calendar star never set foot in a seminary

Rome’s ‘sexy priest’ calendar star never set foot in a seminary

Published by Sam Flores

ROME (AP) — A calendar featuring close-ups of young, handsome men in priestly attire has been a perennial Rome souvenir for the last two decades — but few, it seems, are actually men of the cloth. Giovanni Galizia has been the cover shot for the so-called sexy priest calendar for many of the last 23 editions. In the same photo used year after year, Galizia wears a clerical collar and flashes an enigmatic smile worthy of the Mona Lisa against the granite wall of a church in his native Palermo. “It was the smile of an embarrassed kid, because I saw all my friends in front of me laughing out loud because I was dressed like I was a priest,” Galizia told The Associated Press during an interview Wednesday in his Verona living room. For Galizia, the shoot was a lark that left no mark on his life, until a story in the Rome daily La Repubblica this week revealed that the “sexy priest calendar” could be more accurately called “the fake priest calendar,” drawing …

Vatican calls for divestment from mining, citing harm to poor communities

Vatican calls for divestment from mining, citing harm to poor communities

Published by Sam Flores

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — The Vatican announced a new campaign to urge divestment from mining activities, which Catholic Church leaders said enrich wealthy countries while leaving environmental damage and poverty in the Global South. “We are living in a time when humanity faces a decisive question: What kind of world do we want to leave to the generations that come after us?” said Cardinal Fabio Baggio, undersecretary of the Vatican Department for Integral Human Development, in announcing the campaign on Friday (March 20). “This question is not abstract. It has the face of concrete communities — Indigenous peoples who see their territories threatened, families who lose their sources of water, mountains opened like wounds and rivers turned into silent witnesses of contamination.” The Vatican’s campaign and divestment platform is in conjunction with the Church and Mining Network, a group that engages 12 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to promote rights of local and Indigenous communities and build consensus around divestment from mining and related activities. Institutions that join the platform can share and …

Painting in Vatican’s Collection Is Newly Identified as an El Greco

Painting in Vatican’s Collection Is Newly Identified as an El Greco

Published by Jenni Sidey

The Vatican has announced the discovery of a newly identified painting by Mannerist painter El Greco, Artnet News reports. Titled The Redeemer and dating to the late 1500s, the piece was uncovered by restorers Alessandra Zarelli and Paolo Violini. While conserving the work, they realized that an unknown artist had overpainted the original. A small oil painting on board, The Redeemer was donated to Pope Paul VI by Spanish official José María Sánchez de Muniaín Gil in 1967 and hung in the Pope’s apartment at the Apostolic Palace. “Since its arrival in the Vatican, the work had never undergone restoration or scientific studies,” Zarelli told Artnet News. Source link

Vatican warns SSPX bishop ordinations without papal approval would cause schism

Vatican warns SSPX bishop ordinations without papal approval would cause schism

Published by Sam Flores

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — After an organization of traditionalist Catholic priests announced plans earlier this month to appoint new bishops without the approval of the pope, the Vatican’s doctrine department met with the head of the group on Thursday (Feb. 12) and later issued a statement warning against schism. The appointment of bishops has long been a point of friction between the Vatican and the Society of St. Pius X, which was founded in 1970 by the conservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a conservative French prelate who objected to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. In 1988, the society consecrated four bishops without the approval of the Vatican, which then declared them automatically excommunicated. Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications in 2009, and dialogue has been ongoing with the Vatican since then. Today, the society, with nearly 1,500 members, is not in full communion with the church, but its priests’ ability to hear confessions and conduct marriages was recognized in 2017. According to the society, its following is growing, particularly in France, where most of …

Before tackling troublesome issues, Pope Francis insists on synodality

Before tackling troublesome issues, Pope Francis insists on synodality

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — After raising expectations with his Synod on Synodality, Pope Francis is punting on a number of controversial issues that the synod process invited lay Catholics to raise. When the next session of the synod meets this October, the topics of married priests and same-sex blessings will be off the table, while the possibility of women deacons will be assigned to study groups. In effect, Francis is leaving his successor to resolve what he started. The Synod on Synodality has been a three-year consultive process, gathering input from listening sessions all over the world. The synod’s first meeting in Rome, which for the first time allowed lay men and women to vote alongside bishops, met last October in groups of 10 at roundtables for “conversations in the Spirit,” in which everyone had an equal voice. In November, the report on the October session gave recommendations to the pope and called for further research and discussion of certain topics. On March 14, the General Secretariat of the Synod gave the pope’s response to the synod’s report, …