Filum Romanum - A Thread for the Catholic Church

The 82-year-old pontiff said he had been trapped in the lift for 25 minutes because of a power outage before he was freed by firefighters.

"I have to apologise for being late," a smiling Pope said at the start of the Angelus address.

He then asked the crowd for a round of applause for the firefighters.

Addressing the crowd, the Pope said there had been a "drop in voltage and the elevator stopped".

"Thank goodness, the firefighters arrived, and I thank them so much, and after 25 minutes of work they managed to get it started again," he said.

Television networks in Italy which broadcast the prayer live had been concerned the unprecedented delay might have been due to health reasons, AFP news agency reports.

In his address, the Pope announced that he would create ten new Roman Catholic cardinals next month.

An underground Chinese Catholic bishop has applauded an agreement between Beijing and the Vatican over the appointment of bishops in China, saying the underground Catholic church has completed its mission to uphold the faith and remain loyal to the Pope.

Bishop Joseph Wei Jingyi of the Qiqihar diocese in Heilongjiang in China’s northeast told the Vatican Insider, an official news outlet, that the underground church “has fought the good fight” and China had entered a new era where all bishops were in communion with the Pope.

The bishop was partly referring to a temporary agreement signed between the Vatican and Beijing in September last year under which Beijing finally recognised the Vatican’s authority over the appointment of bishops. In return, Pope Francis recognised seven excommunicated Chinese bishops who were previously appointed by Beijing without papal approval.

The agreement was hailed as groundbreaking because the Vatican has yet to establish official relations with Beijing. But it also drew criticism from some leaders of the underground church who felt they had been “betrayed”. Priest from northern China becomes first Catholic bishop ordained with blessing of Vatican and Beijing

Wei, 61, is well respected among Catholics in the mainland’s official and underground churches. He was ordained by the Pope in 1995 but has remained “unrecognised” by Beijing. He has spent four years in forced labour for defending his faith and was arrested on multiple occasions for his loyalty to the Vatican.

His interview with the Vatican Insider came after the Vatican issued a set of “pastoral guidelines” in June when some underground clergy were reluctant to register with the government despite the September agreement.

In the interview, Wei said he had no reservations or doubts about the agreement.

He said he and fellow Catholic priests in the diocese had asked for a “study session” with the local government so they could “better understand [the country’s] religious policies”.

According to Wei, the officials told them that Beijing’s position remained that foreign organisations were not allowed to interfere in the internal affairs of the Chinese Catholic church but the Chinese church shared the Vatican-led Catholic church’s positions on religious matters. Catholic Church accuses China of intimidating Vatican loyalists

He said that since all bishops were recognised by the Pope, the existence of an “underground church” in China has become moot or meaningless.

“I reiterated that for me, personally speaking, the underground church in China existed to maintain the integrity of [the Catholic] faith,” Wei said. “The meaning of an underground church [to continue to exist] has been lost now because this purpose has been fulfilled.”

Dr Anthony Lam Sui-ki, of the Hong Kong-based Holy Spirit Study Centre, said Wei’s comments reflected his personal faith and should not be seen as an appeal for the underground church in China to follow.

“I think his comment indicates his readiness to put himself in the hands of God including giving up his position [as bishop],” Lam said.

“There is going to be a long transition period for Chinese underground churches adapting to the changes [because of the agreement] since they have been established for more than four decades and they will not disappear overnight.”

MANUEL RUEDA Associated Press 4 October 2019

SANTA ROSA, Brazil (AP) At dusk in this small indigenous village, Antelmo Pereira calls Catholics to prayer, changes into a white robe and leads a religious service that is the closest thing the faithful in this remote part of the Amazon can get to a proper Mass.

Speaking in the indigenous Ticuna language, he leads a recital of the Lords Prayer, reads a passage from the Gospel of Matthew and delivers a sermon on accepting Jesus into ones heart, as cicadas chirp loudly in the jungle that lies just beyond the recently built Catholic church.

Pereira, 61, has been a part-time missionary for the past 15 years, volunteering his time on weekends to visit indigenous communities that rarely see a priest. He leads prayer services called Celebrations of the Word but cannot celebrate Mass or hear confessions from Catholics in the isolated places that he visits because hes married, has nine children and cannot become a priest.

But that could change if a proposal to ordain married men in remote parts of the Amazon gains traction at a gathering of bishops that opens at the Vatican Sunday.

More than 100 bishops from South America will convene at the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region. The meeting will discuss social and environmental problems faced by the inhabitants of the Amazon but bishops are also looking at ways to introduce changes to official ministries to better serve Catholics in this part of the world.

One item on the agenda is a proposal to study priestly ordination for older men who have good standing in their communities and are preferably of indigenous origin, even if they have an established and stable family.

While the proposal would be novel for the Latin Rite church, there are already married priests in Eastern Rite Catholic churches and in cases where married Anglican priests have converted.

Nevertheless, the proposal has set off a firestorm of criticism of Pope Francis, with opponents accusing synod organizers of heresy for even introducing debate on the centuries-old tradition of a celibate priesthood in the Latin Rite church.

On the ground, however, the agenda and focus on the needs of the indigenous have been welcomed.

Since 1970, the number of priests around the world has remained steady, hovering at 400,000 to 415,000, according to Catholic Church figures. But the worlds Catholic population has doubled to 1.3 billion, leading to shortages of priests in some parts of the globe.

In remote Amazonian communities that are only accessible by boat, villagers can go months without sacraments that only priests can celebrate, including communion and confessions.

We have to think if the way that we have structured our ministries, the way in which men and women participate in the church must remain as it is or if some changes must be made, said Bishop Jos Javier Travieso, of San Jos del Amazonas in northern Peru.

His vicariate in the Peruvian Amazon covers an area the size of Portugal, but only has 14 priests to serve a population of approximately 140,000 Catholics.

Because of the shortages, some clergy have begun training lay members of their parishes to perform Celebrations of the Word that are similar to Mass but dont include the consecration of the Eucharist, which can only be celebrated by a priest.

In Belm do Solimes, a small indigenous town on the banks of the Amazon River, Capuchin Friar Paulo Braghini has trained seven members of his parish, including Pereira, who has also been training to be ordained a deacon, a position open to married men.

On the third weekend of every month, the friar, Pereira and dozens of missionaries leave Belm and fan out into villages that are located deeper in the jungle.

Ercilio Gaspar, a public health worker in the village of Novo Cruzador, realizes its not the same as Mass, but said hes happy with what the missionaries have accomplished. For us, Antelmo (Pereira) and his team are like our priests, he said.

But in other villages along the Amazon River, some churchgoers support the ordination of community elders.

For Policarpa Bautista, a Ticuna leader in the Colombian village of Ararara, sustaining the faith is important, especially given that evangelical churches are gaining a foothold in the region.

Bautista said evangelical missionaries preach against indigenous rituals that can involve drinking large quantities of fermented beverages and revering the spirits of the Amazon jungle.

Catholic missionaries are supportive of these traditions, Bautista said.

We have been Catholic for a long time, and having two churches will divide our communities, Bautista said.

But Catholic conservatives argue that the church would be abandoning its own beliefs if it begins to ordain married men to make up for priest shortages.

Even one of Francis top advisers at the Vatican, Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, said hes skeptical about the married priest proposal and suggested Francis shared his skepticism.

Ouellet praised the evangelical value of the celibate priesthood, noting that indigenous people were first converted to the Catholic faith by celibate priests whose decision to sacrifice a family was a powerful and visible confession of faith.

His view is shared by some of the more vocal opponents to the synod.

Pereira, who is a member of the Ticuna tribe, and would be a clear candidate for ordination if Pope Francis decides to pursue the reform, said he wanted to become a priest when he was in his 20s, before he had children.

But he was discouraged because the nearest seminary was a couple days away by boat and he hadnt finished elementary school, which made the priesthood unlikely.

That barrier is gone. Pereira completed his basic studies and obtained a university degree in his 50s, majoring in Ticuna language studies.

He teaches Ticuna at the elementary school in Belm do Solimes and recently helped translate a childrens catechism book into the indigenous language. This is a strict path that not everyone is willing to follow, he said. In my community we need more people to announce the word of God.

Pope urges conservatives to be open to changes in Church By Philip Pullella, Reuters Sun, 6 Oct 6:43 PM GMT+8

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis appealed to conservatives on Sunday not to be bound by the status quo as he opened an assembly of bishops to discuss the future of the Roman Catholic Church in the Amazon, including the possibility of introducing married priests.

At a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica opening the synod, Francis also denounced past and present forms of colonialism and said some of the fires that devastated forests in Brazil in recent months were set by special interest groups.

In his sermon, Francis said some Church leaders risked becoming "bureaucrats, not shepherds", and urged them to have the courage of rekindling what he called the fire of God's gift by being open to change.

"If everything continues as it was, if we spend our days content that 'this is the way things have always been done', then the gift vanishes, smothered by the ashes of fear and concern for defending the status quo," he said.

One of the most contentious topics of the synod, whose some 260 participants are mostly bishops from the Amazon, is whether to allow older married "proven men" with families and a strong standing in local communities to be ordained as priests in the Amazon.

This solution to the shortage of priests, backed by many South American bishops, would allow Catholics in isolated areas to attend Mass and receive the sacraments regularly. At least 85% of villages in the Amazon, a vast region that spans eight countries and the French territory of Guiana - cannot celebrate Mass every week. Some see a priest only once a year.

Conservative opponents fear it would be a doctrinal Trojan horse that would then spread to the entire Church in the West.

HERESY AND ERROR

They have attacked the synod's working document as heretical, including what they say is an implicit recognition of forms of paganism and pantheism practised by indigenous people, such as nature worship.

The three-week synod will discuss spreading the faith in the vast region, a greater role for women, environmental protection, climate change, deforestation, indigenous people and their right to keep their land and traditions.

Bill Donohue, president of the U.S.-based Catholic League, a conservative group, drew criticism for what was perceived as a condescending attitude toward native cultures when he said this week that a dilemma in the Amazon was "how to respect the culture of indigenous peoples while at the same time acknowledging inherent deficiencies in it."

A number of conservatives have tweeted their disapproval of a three-planting ceremony in the Vatican on Thursday in which people from the Amazon used native symbols and gestures, such as blessing the earth.

In his sermon, Francis said indigenous cultures had to be respected.

"When peoples and cultures are devoured without love and without respect, it is not God’s fire but that of the world. Yet how many times has God’s gift been imposed, not offered; how many times has there been colonization rather than evangelization!" he said.

The synod is taking place at a time when the Amazon is in the world spotlight because of the devastating fires in Brazil. Francis implied that he believed at least some of the fires were intentionally set.

"The fire set by interests that destroy, like the fire that recently devastated Amazonia, is not the fire of the Gospel (which is) fed by sharing, not by profits," he said.

The synod does not make decisions. Participants vote on a final document and the pope will decide which recommendations to integrate into his future rulings.