Blog - October 2015 RSS Feed

A blessed “All Hallows’ Eve” tomorrow! We’re starting one of my favorite, and busiest, times of the year. Over the next few weeks we will celebrate Thanksgiving, the Feast of Christ the King, the First Sunday of Advent and the beginning of a new Church year, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, and, finally Christmas!

What to call it? “Contradictions”? “Paradoxes”? How about “creative tensions”? The latter might be the more descriptive, if a bit stale, term. Here’s what I’m talking about :  During quite a few of the sessions of the Synod on the Family here in Rome, I almost feel as if I’m on a retreat, or a day of recollection.

First Things has a great piece from Archbishop José Gomez, the Archbishop of Los Angeles, on the final days of the Synod and St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s family: As Synod-2015 began its final week of work, Pope Francis canonized a married couple, Louis and Zélie Martin, whose nine children included the Doctor of the Church, St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

“Ahhhh…marriage- man’s most optimistic endeavor! So claims the legendary sports announcer of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Vin Scully. The Synod has acknowledged anew what God’s people have known “from the beginning”:  that to live a loving, lifelong, faithful, life-giving marriage takes sacrifice, hard work, and heroic virtue.

As you know, I’ve been in Rome for nearly three weeks participating in the Synod of the Family. So many good points have arisen here in our meetings. Yes, there has been some give-and-take, even some disagreement.

Feast of St. Edward the Confessor As we have just happily witnessed, the world is fixed on the papacy–thanks in part to Pope Francis! I am happy to announce that today, Our Sunday Visitor , made my new book on the three most recent popes available for free download.

Greetings from Rome! Yesterday I was happy to offer Mass at Nostra Signora di Guadalupe a Monte Mario, my titular church in Rome. Here are a few pictures I thought you might enjoy…

A very refreshing, consistent theme of the synod has been inclusion . The Church, our spiritual family, welcomes everyone, especially those who may feel excluded. Among those, I’ve heard the synod fathers and observers comment, are the single, those with same-sex attraction, those divorced, widowed, or recently arrived in a new country, those with disabilities, the aged, the housebound, racial and ethnic minorities.

This posting comes to you from Rome! Here I am, for three weeks, with 270 other bishops from all over the globe — in company with priests, sisters, theologians, and married couples (the first intervention from the synod floor was from a Mexican married couple, and there is even a little baby crying in the background)  — to consider, in ordered and prayerful conversation, the timely topic, The Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and the Contemporary World.

On our first full day of sessions, Pope Francis shared the following address with us. His Holiness reminded us that “the Synod will be a space for the action of the Holy Spirit only if we participants vest ourselves with apostolic courage, evangelical humility and trusting prayer.” Read the rest below.

Greetings from The Eternal City! I am in Rome for the next three weeks to participate in the Synod of Bishops on the family. Pope Francis opened the Synod yesterday with a Mass; here is his beautiful homily from that Mass.