Patriarch Abraham

Holy Patriarch AbrahamThe feast of Abraham recalls the person, our father in monotheistic Judaism who opened the door to human faithfulness before the holiness of a God who revealed Himself to humanity in a new way. The holy Patriarch’s liturgical memorial is not celebrated in the Latin Church but in the Byzantine Church does so today. He is, however, recalled in the Roman Canon of the Mass and in several of the prayers used during the year. What we believe, and why we pray is expressed in the hymn texts of the Divine Liturgy. By looking at the liturgy we know what we believe and how to live. Here, the holy Patriarch Abraham is extolled a light to follow and a man of God who mediates for humanity before the Throne of Grace.

In the night universal of ignorance towards God, and in that starless, profound gloom bereft of heavenly light, you, O Abraham, were kindled in the firmament, burning with bright far-shining faith in the Everlasting light. Who shines forth to us from your seed, entreat Him with fervor, that He enlighten us and save our souls. (Troparion, Tone 1)

You were a servant, a mortal fashioned from the earth, your master was God, Lord and Fashioner of creation, yet, well-pleased to glorify your celestial greatness, the Lord of all called Himself the God of Abraham Procure for us mercies from your merciful God. (Kondak, Tone 2)

Saint Bruno

Monastic Family of BethlehemThe Statutes of the Carthusian Order begin with, “Blessed is the glory of the Lord, The Christ, Word of the Father, for all times men were chosen by the Holy Spirit to lead a life of solitude and to unite them in an intimate love. Answering this calling, Master Bruno, year of our Lord 1084, entered the desert of Chartreuse with six companions and began life there.” The life is wholly devoted to the Lord in solitude from the world, rarely having interaction with others.

But the person of Bruno is one that we are keen to know. Very briefly, the Liturgy tells us that he was man who was intent on rejecting the distractions of the world that would take him away from his only love, God. A witness from one of Bruno’s brothers in Calabria :

“Bruno deserves to be praised for many a thing, but especially in this matter: he was always a man of even temper, that was his specialty. His face was always joyful, and he was modest of tongue; he led with the authority of a father and the tenderness of a mother. No one found him too proud, but gentle like a lamb.”

930 years later, people still follow Saint Bruno into the solitude of the cloister. In the USA, there is one monastery of monks in Vermont, and there is a group of nuns who follow the spirituality of Bruno in a relatively new order founded called the Monastic Family of Bethlehem in Livingston Manor, NY.

May Saint Bruno teach how to love God alone.

All I have is what I love

It is said that one of our late Benedictine abbesses said, “All I have is what I love!” This is what learned in homily today at Vespers.

A true judgment of man’s spirit and humanity. It is a touchstone in understanding who each of us is before God and others. The question” What do I love?” needs to be asked and answered daily. In fact, that is what happens in the daily Ignatian Examen. The discovery in answering this question is a work.

But as fragile people we are easily distracted; we can fool ourselves by making excuses, and rationales get in the way. Still, “What do I love” requires a concrete answer. What specifically do I love? Deeper down, a love holds my heart?
What stands out in what St Paul said today in his Letter to the Philippians:
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.Finally, brothers and sisters,
whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious,
if there is any excellence
and if there is anything worthy of praise,
think about these things.
Keep on doing what you have learned and received
and heard and seen in me.
Then the God of peace will be with you.

St Paul’s letter can remain in the abstract and useless without going deeper in ascertaining the meaning of the various points the Apostle raises viz. our experience. Hence, we have to ask: What do I think is true? What is does it means to act honorably? What difference does purity make? What does the word gracious mean to mean?
It seems that this matter one of several keys for the spiritual life, and not mere word-smithing and academic argumentation. What it does necessitate, I have learned, is a disciplined focus of mind and heart in working with divine revelation.

Blessed Bartolo Longo

Bartolo LongoThere is a marvelous figure of holiness inscribed on the calendar today: Blessed Bartolo Longo, the great Apostle of the Rosary and the founder of the shrine of the Madonna of the Rosary at Pompei in Italy. Born in 1841, Blessed Longo died in 1926. He was a contemporary of Saint Faustina. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1980. Several times in his pontificate, Saint John Paul II called our attention to the example of this holy layman, calling him “l’uomo della Madonna,” Our Lady’s man.

Divine Mercy Displayed

Blessed Bartolo Longo’s story is a dramatic illustration of Divine Mercy. The mystery of Mercy announced by Saint Faustina played itself out in the life of Blessed Longo. As a young man, following studies in Law, Bartolo Longo abandoned his faith and allowed himself to be drawn into paths of great spiritual darkness. He practiced spiritism, found himself entrenched in the occult, and became a practicing Satanist. Longo went so far as to have himself ordained a priest of Satan. He very nearly lost his sanity, becoming a mere shadow of himself.

Spiritually Sick

In one particular séance Longo was distressed to see the face of the deceased king of Naples and the Two Sicilies: Ferdinand II. That same night he saw the soul of his mother circling his bed, begging him to return to the Catholic faith. His practice of the occult had so affected him that he was barely recognizable to those who once knew him as a handsome young man, full of vitality and promise. A Catholic friend, seeing him in such a pitiful spiritual, psychological, and physical state, begged him to at least meet with Father Radente, a wise Dominican priest. After some time, Longo made a thorough confession and, under the direction of this priest, began the reform of his life. He entered the Third Order of Saint Dominic, receiving the name, Brother Rosario.

Conversion and Healing

Bartolo’s Dominican spiritual father told him that the Mother of God promised that anyone who promoted her Rosary would assuredly be saved. The rest of Blessed Barolo’s life was dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary. The Rosary was his lifeline. The Rosary was the anchor of his salvation. The Rosary was the means by which the Holy Mother of God brought him back from hell. It was through the prayer of the Rosary that the Blessed Virgin healed his soul, restored him to health, and entrusted him with a mission. Later Blessed Bartolo wrote, “What is my vocation? To write about Mary, to have Mary praised, to have Mary loved.”

Rosary Apostolate

Blessed Longo reached out to the desperately poor, ignorant, and needy people of the town of Pompei. He taught them to pray the Rosary. The Rosary did for that entire town what it had done for him in his personal life; it brought healing, refreshment, holiness, joy, and peace. With the help of the Countess Mariana de Fusco whom he later married on the advice of Pope Leo XIII, while preserving with her his vow of chastity, Bartolo Longo undertook the construction of the church of the Madonna of the Rosary of Pompei. The city that grew up around it became the City of the Rosary.

He founded a congregation of Dominican Sisters to care for the poor. He established a school for boys. He wrote tirelessly in the service of Madonna and of her Rosary. His beautiful supplication to the Madonna of the Rosary has been translated into countless languages. Pope John Paul II prayed it when, on October 7, 2003, he visited Pompei to conclude the Year of the Rosary. In Italy, every year on the first Sunday of October, everything comes to a halt at noon while people, young and old, poor and rich, healthy and sick, pause to pray Blessed Longo’s supplication to the Virgin of the Rosary.

Divine Mercy Available to All

Saint Faustina made known the mystery of Divine Mercy. Blessed Bartolo Longo experienced Divine Mercy in a dramatic and deeply personal way. The same Divine Mercy is available to us: the mercy that brings back from hell, the mercy that raises the soul from spiritual death, the mercy that heals, restores, forgives, and repairs the past.

The Divine Mercy comes to us through the intercession of the Mother of God and, most efficaciously, through the humble prayer of the Rosary. It comes to us in the Sacrament of Penance: the mystery of the blood and the water from the side of Christ washing over the soul. And the Divine Mercy comes to us in the mystery of the Eucharist. The Mass is the real presence of Crucified Love. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is Divine Mercy flowing from the Heart of the Lamb, making saints out of sinners.

Father Mark Daniel Kirby, OSB
Silverstream Priory

God’s vineyard, or mine: Pope Francis’ homily opening the Synod

Pope Francis and Cadinals Oct 5 2014 REUTERS

Knitting the fabric together you will want to read the Pope’s reflections from the Saturday Vigil, today’s homily and the Angelus address. Read independently you’ll not have the full flavor of what he’s trying to say to the Church.

The difficulty that is arising is the confusion of what a synod is, and the perceived division among the theologians, especially among some cardinals. The pastoral thing to do in any situation is to know in a concrete way what is going on in the people’s way of life. The trouble is bishops and other pastors tend to not to really care what their people believe, think, how they live and what their struggles are: they are too insulated; they are too attached to their own opinions of “what should be.” When you are cut off from the laity: rarely speaking with and listening to them, hearing their confessions, counseling them, etc. there is no way a pastor of souls can claim to know his sheep. See if this is what the Pope is saying.

The homily from Mass follows:

Today the prophet Isaiah and the Gospel employ the image of the Lord’s vineyard.  The Lord’s vineyard is his “dream”, the plan which he nurtures with all his love, like a farmer who cares for his vineyard.  Vines are plants which need much care!

God’s “dream” is his people.  He planted it and nurtured it with patient and faithful love, so that it can become a holy people, a people which brings forth abundant fruits of justice.

But in both the ancient prophecy and in Jesus’ parable, God’s dream is thwarted.  Isaiah says that the vine which he so loved and nurtured has yielded “wild grapes” (5:2,4); God “expected justice but saw bloodshed, righteousness, but only a cry of distress” (v. 7).  In the Gospel, it is the farmers themselves who ruin the Lord’s plan: they fail to do their job but think only of their own interests.

In Jesus’ parable, he is addressing the chief priests and the elders of the people, in other words the “experts”, the managers.  To them in a particular way God entrusted his “dream”, his people, for them to nurture, tend and protect from the animals of the field. This is the job of leaders: to nurture the vineyard with freedom, creativity and hard work.

But Jesus tells us that those farmers took over the vineyard.  Out of greed and pride they want to do with it as they will, and so they prevent God from realizing his dream for the people he has chosen.

The temptation to greed is ever present.  We encounter it also in the great prophecy of Ezekiel on the shepherds (cf. ch. 34), which Saint Augustine commented upon in one his celebrated sermons which we have just reread in the Liturgy of the Hours.  Greed for money and power.  And to satisfy this greed, evil pastors lay intolerable burdens on the shoulders of others, which they themselves do not lift a finger to move (cf. Mt 23:4)

We too, in the Synod of Bishops, are called to work for the Lord’s vineyard.  Synod Assemblies are not meant to discuss beautiful and clever ideas, or to see who is more intelligent…  They are meant to better nuture and tend the Lord’s vineyard, to help realize his dream, his loving plan for his people.  In this case the Lord is asking us to care for the family, which has been from the beginning an integral part of his loving plan for humanity.

We are all sinners and can also be tempted to “take over” the vineyard, because of that greed which is always present in us human beings.  God’s dream always clashes with the hypocrisy of some of his servants.  We can “thwart” God’s dream if we fail to let ourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit gives us that wisdom which surpasses knowledge, and enables us to work generously with authentic freedom and humble creativity.

My Synod brothers, to do a good job of nurturing and tending the vineyard, our hearts and our minds must be kept in Jesus Christ by “the peace of God which passes all understanding” (Phil 4:7).  In this way our thoughts and plans will correspond to God’s dream: to form a holy people who are his own and produce the fruits of the kingdom of God (cf. Mt 21:43).

The Lord plants the vineyard

“Throughout the Scriptures the Lord continually likens human souls to vines. He says for instance: ‘My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hillside’, and again: ‘I planted a vineyard and put a hedge around it’. Clearly it is human souls that he calls his vineyard, and the hedge he has put around them is the security of his commandments and the protection of the angels, for ‘the angels of the Lord will encamp around those who fear him’. Moreover, by establishing in the church apostles in the first place, prophets in the second, and teachers in the third, he has surrounded us as though by a firmly planted palisade. In addition, the Lord has raised our thoughts to heaven by the examples of saints of past ages. He has kept them from sinking to the earth where they would deserve to be trampled on, and he wills that the bonds of love, like the tendrils of a vine, should attach us to our neighbors and make us rest on them, so that always climbing upward like vines growing on trees, we may reach the loftiest heights.”

A reflection from St. Basil for the 27th Sunday through the year
Mt 21:33-43

Pope Francis prays for a listening heart fixed on Christ’s gaze

Luisna Pucci and Elise NataleDear families, good evening!

The evening falls on our assembly.

It is the hour in which one willingly returns home to the same meal, in the thick of affections, of the good that has been done and received, of the encounters which warm the heart and make it grow, good wine which anticipates in the days of man the feast without end.

It is also the most weighty hour for he who finds himself face to face with his own loneliness, in the bitter twilight of broken dreams and plans: how many people trudge through the day in the blind alley of resignation, abandonment, even resentment: in how many homes was the wine of joy less plenty, therefore, the zest – and the wisdom – of life. For one another we make our prayer heard.

It is significant how – even in the individualistic culture which distorts and  renders connections fleeting – in each person born of a woman, there remains alive an essential need of stability, of an open door, of someone with whom to weave and to share the story of life, a history to which to belong.

The communion of life assumed by spouses, their openness to the gift of life, the mutual protection, the encounter and the memory of generations, educational support, the transmission of the Christian faith to their children . . . With all this, the family continues to be a school without parallel of humanity, an indispensable contribution to a just and united society. (cfr Esort. ap. Evangelii gaudium, 66-68).

And the deeper its roots, the more it is possible in life to leave and to go far, without getting lost or feeling out of place in foreign lands.

This horizon helps us to grasp the importance of the Synodal assembly, which opens tomorrow.

Already, the “convenire in unum” surrounding the Bishop of Rome is an event of grace, in which episcopal collegiality is made manifest in a path of spiritual and pastoral discernment.

To search for that which today the Lord asks of His Church, we must lend our ears to the beat of this time and perceive the “scent” of the people today, so as to remain  permeated with their joys and hopes, by their sadness and distress, at which time we will know how to propose the good news of the family with credibility.

We know, in fact, as in the Gospel, there is a strength and tenderness capable of defeating that which is created by unhappiness and violence.

Yes, in the Gospel there is salvation which fulfills the most profound needs of man! Of this salvation – work of God’s mercy and grace – as a Church, we are sign and instrument, a living and effective sacrament.

If it were not so, our building would remain only a house of cards, and pastors would be reduced to clerics of state, on whose lips the people would search in vain for the freshness and “smell of the Gospel.” (Ibid., 39).

Thus emerges also the subject of our prayer.

Above all, we ask the Holy Spirit, for the gift of listening for the Synod Fathers: to listen in the manner of God, so that they may hear, with him, the cry of the people; to listen to the people, until they breathe the will to which God calls us.

Besides listening, we invoke an openness toward a sincere discussion, open and fraternal, which leads us to carry with pastoral responsibility the questions that this change in epoch brings.

We let it flow back into our hearts, without ever losing peace, but with serene trust which in his own time the Lord will not fail to bring into unity.

Does not Church history perhaps recount many similar situations, which our Fathers knew how to overcome with persistent patience and creativity?

The secret lies in a gaze: and it is the third gift that we implore with our prayer. Because, if we truly intend to walk among contemporary challenges, the decisive condition is to maintain a fixed gaze on Jesus Christ – Lumen Gentium – to pause in contemplation and in adoration of His Face.

If we assume his way of thinking, of living and of relating, we will never tire of translating the Synodal work into guidelines and paths for the pastoral care of the person and of the family.

In fact, every time we return to the source of Christian experience, new paths and un-thought of possibilities open up. This is what the Gospel hints at: “Do whatever he tells you.”

These are the words which contain the spiritual testament of Mary, “the friend who is ever-concerned that wine not be lacking in our lives” (EV 286). Let us make these words ours!

At that point, our listening and our discussion on the family, loved with the gaze of Christ, will become a providential occasion with which to renew – according to the example of Saint Francis – the Church and society.

With the joy of the Gospel we will rediscover the way of a reconciled and merciful Church, poor and friend of the poor; a Church “given strength that it might, in patience and in love, overcome its sorrows and its challenges, both within itself and from without.” (Lumen Gentium, 8)

May the Wind of Pentecost blow upon the Synod’s work, on the Church, and on all of humanity. Undo the knots which prevent people from encountering one another, heal the wounds that bleed, rekindle hope.

Grant us this creative charity which consents to love as Jesus loved. And our message may reclaim the vivacity and enthusiasm of the first missionaries of the Gospel.

Cardinal Coccopalmerio speaks about marriage, communion to divorced and remarried

coccopalmerioCardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio was chosen by Pope Francis to head a new commission for the study simplifying of the annulment process. The Cardinal is the President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts; he spoke with Salvatore Cernuzio of ZENIT and the text of the interview was released on ZENIT on October 3, 2014.

The Extraordinary Synod of Bishops begins tomorrow but tonight in Rome there is a vigil service presided over by the Pope and a packed St Peter’s Square. He set the tone of wanting the Church at her various levels oriented toward the Lord in prayer.

The interview is not terrifically insightful or revealing of “possible” changes to our pastoral practice with regard to marriage and family life, or about giving a new  theological anthropology, but it is a text that ought to garner some attention not only for experts but for those who work in pastoral contexts like the parish and universities. It follows:

 

ZENIT: The Synod is already at our door. With what state of mind do you approach this great Assembly? What are your hopes, but also your fears?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: There is, certainly, some concern because we will be addressing delicate questions, on which opinions are diverse. The fear, which is justified, is that there will be some reason for opposition. However, I believe that, if each one of us says freely and sincerely what he thinks and others listen to him with patience and with the desire to compare and reflect further, all will be well. In this connection, I trust in the help of the Holy Spirit, that He may illumine our minds and, above all, make us open to one another.

ZENIT: The international media has given much attention to the subject of the Sacraments for civilly remarried divorced persons, theorizing in fact that there will be “clashes” and angry debates during the Assembly between conservative and progressive factions. What do you think?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: I think the subject of Communion for remarried divorced persons is important, because there are persons who live experiences of suffering and, therefore, expect a word of light and comfort from the Church. However, obviously, this isn’t the only topic: there are many others that, perhaps, are more important. The real topic, the main one, is to make the beauty of marriage and the family understood, despite the fact that such an adventure also entails effort. If the Synod succeeds in giving, especially to young people, a more beautiful, more enthusiastic sense of marriage and the family, it will certainly have achieved the most important result. Then as well, of course, it will have to address “burning” issues, but it will do so in a wider and more serene atmosphere.

ZENIT: In regard to these burning issues, how do you define them? What is your position? In which of the two “factions,” if we can so describe them, are you?

Cardinal Cocopalmerio: I cannot anticipate here my intervention in the Synod. I only think that, following the Lord’s Gospel and it being a question of so many persons living in painful situations, we are called to commit ourselves to give satisfying and adequate answers to the needs of today.

ZENIT: Among the topics connected to the Synod are also the juridical and canonical implications of the matrimonial bond. In fact last week Pope Francis instituted a study commission for the annulments process, and made you a member. Should we describe this as a strategic move of the Pontiff on the eve of the Synod?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: I would rather say an intelligent move that put to the fore one of the questions that the Synodal Assembly will certainly be working on. From many sides it has been suggested that the procedures be simplified to come to the declaration of an eventual matrimonial nullity. Hence this Commission works outside of the Synod but also in service of the Synod, being able to give it a notable contribution. The Pope did well in instituting it.

ZENIT: Isn’t there the risk that with a simplification of the procedures of matrimonial nullity the evangelical principle of the indissolubility of the Sacrament will be questioned?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: The procedure for the declaration of matrimonial nullity serves to declare if a marriage is valid or not. Therefore, it isn’t a procedure for the annulment of the matrimonial bond but it serves simply to see, to confirm, to take into account the validity or invalidity of the bond. If the bond is not valid, there is the pronouncement of the nullity of the marriage; if it is valid, its existence is confirmed. It is, therefore, a procedure oriented to seeking the truth: does this bond exist or not?

The procedure for the declaration of matrimonial nullity does not put in question the principle of the indissolubility of marriage: it tends only to examine if in a concrete case, there is or is not a marriage. If the bond was never born, it is no longer about dissolubility or non-dissolubility, but about the non-existence of matrimony. Therefore, even if the procedure is simplified, it must never fail, however, in the finality of establishing the reality. And if the simplification impedes coming to knowledge of the reality it would not be good.

ZENIT: On the practical plane, there is an increase in requests for nullity. Almost 50,000 marriages in the world celebrated in church have been annulled, of which more than 2,400 alone were in Italy. Will it be possible, with this Commission, to meet these requests?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: I don’t have the statistics, therefore I cannot know how to reply. However it seems to me that the current language is erroneous: marriages are not “annulled.” What is declared is only that the bond does not exist because it was never born, in as much as at the moment of the celebration an essential requisite was lacking, as happens, for instance, when one who marries excludes the indissolubility of marriage.

ZENIT: In the Instrumentum laboris of the synod, one reads that the Assembly will study a more valid pre-matrimonial pastoral ministry but also a strategy to support young couples after the Sacrament. In your opinion, up to now has this type of ministry been a lacuna in the Church?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: The pastoral intention is very important. The preparation for marriage should be carried out with passion and diligence so that the future spouses are supported in a conscious and joyful way. Perhaps in some parts of the world this ambit is not taken care of or not sufficiently taken care of. I am certain that the Synod will insist on this point and will be able to renew methods and structures. Even more important, then, is post-matrimony, the follow-up, that is, the new couples that have met, for instance, with difficulties in their matrimonial life which they didn’t have as engaged couples. It is necessary to support couples, especially in their difficult moments in which there are disillusions, relational difficulties caused, for instance, by reasons of work or health.

ZENIT: I would like to hear your thought on unions between persons of the same sex. On other occasions, you have stated that homosexuals are not condemned and, if there are also stable unions between them, what is important is that they not be confused with the family and with matrimony. Can you clarify this concept?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: Matrimony is a precise reality; it is the union between a man and a woman, which is stable, open to generation: it is a concept of matrimony to be maintained with commitment and honesty. Therefore, the other unions cannot in all honesty be called matrimony. And when we say matrimony we also say family. The problem, therefore, is not so much not to condemn unions between persons of the same sex: every person, in fact, has his conscience and, therefore, makes his choices. The problem is to see if legislation can include in its ordering forms of homosexual union especially in relation to adoption.

ZENIT: What is your point of view on this issue?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: I have questioned myself many times in this regard. By tendency I am decidedly opposed to the possibility of a homosexual couple adopting children. I have much difficulty with this, because one thing is the choice that two persons can make of their life, of their relationship, another is to have this choice carried out on someone outside, little persons, incapable of deciding. If I were a lawmaker I think I would prohibit it.

ZENIT: What are the greatest risks?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: First of all, those of an anthropological nature, because  — let’s say it clearly – one can discuss everything, but spontaneously one feels that the education of a child is not to be entrusted to a homosexual couple. However, here we are entering in a very complex matter in which I don’t feel competent. I say spontaneously that the adoption of children by same-sex couples is certainly something foreign to my conviction. From the legislative point of view, I confirm, I would not permit it.

ZENIT: So many, however, object that in face of cases of abandonment or mistreatment of minors, it would be better if a child was received by two persons, even of the same sex, who in any case can guarantee him/her affection and support …

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: Yes, certainly, when faced with the reality of street children, totally abandoned, as the many I have seen, and they are an excruciating sight, perhaps the thought comes that a “homosexual couple is better.” But let’s be clear: it would be as if saying that in face of a great evil a lesser evil is preferable. Deep down something remains that is difficult to accept.

ZENIT: Can there ever be an opening of the Church in this regard?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: I don’t think the Church could ever accept the legitimacy of a homosexual union from an objective point of view. The Church can respect this choice of life, presupposing that it was made in full good faith. It is something else, however, to say that this union is objectively something good and acceptable.

ZENIT: So many people, perhaps misunderstanding, expect great openings on the part of Pope Francis. In connection with the Pontiff, it came to my mind that about two years ago, on the eve of the March Conclave, you hoped in an interview that “the new Pope would be first of all a witness of the Faith, capable of listening and of dialogue; that he be able to bring love and joy to the world; but that he also be able to evaluate his collaborators and appoint in the Papal Curia personnel of very high technical and spiritual formation.” In light of what Bergoglio has done in these months of pontificate, has your hope been heard?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: Yes, absolutely. Among the many things that could be said of Pope Bergoglio, one is obvious above all: he loves persons, he makes each one feel that he considers him important, that he listens to him and, therefore, appreciates him. By expressing love, he gives joy.

ZENIT: Are you pleased with the reform of the Curia that is underway?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: Let’s keep in mind that we are still in one phase – let’s say – of the work in progress. Moreover, the Holy Father came from far away; he had not lived in Rome and must still enter in certain mechanisms and certain structures of the Curia.

ZENIT: However in the C9, the Council of Cardinals instituted by the Pope to help him in the government of the Church, are there not truly “curial” names …

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: Yes, it’s true. However, the nine Cardinals give pastoral guidelines that are then taken by experts and translated into effective. This is the praxis. Moreover, there is a clarification to be made …

ZENIT: Which one?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: That the reform of the Curia must start from a specific presupposition: the Curia is made up of persons, of Dicasteries, that is, of subjects each one of whom carries out an activity of the Pope. The Holy Father has to carry out so many tasks for the government of the universal Church, but he can’t do everything alone, because he doesn’t have the time or the specific competencies. Therefore, every “subject” – at present we have 26 Dicasteries in the Curia (Congregations, Pontifical Councils, Tribunals, Offices) – helps the Pope to carry out a task. And he has more or less value to the degree that he carries out this activity and does it well. The whole reform of the Curia must rotate around this: what activity of the Pope does this dicastery carry out? Does it do it well?

ZENIT: And if it doesn’t do it well?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: It can also be closed. If there are Dicasteries that carried out an activity of the Pope in the past but that today are no longer necessary, then they can be abolished.

ZENIT: Therefore, in this case also, are we moving towards a strong simplification?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: Yes, a simplification could be exercised but, if we follow the criterion of what the Pope needs today, there could even be an enlargement. In the sense that, if the Holy Father intends to carry out an activity, of which there was no need before, he can institute a new organism. It’s the case, for instance, of the Commission for the Protection of Minors.

ZENIT: One last question. The Synod will conclude on Sunday, October 19, the day in which Pope Francis will beatify Paul VI. Were you able to know Pope Montini in person?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: Yes. It was he who ordained me a priest. I was one of the last 30 priests ordained by Cardinal Montini before he left the Diocese of Milan, so I was always united to him by bonds of spiritual sonship.

ZENIT: What memory do you have in particular of the Pontiff?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: More than as Archbishop I remember him as Pope. I like to describe his figure with a phrase that a Cardinal once said and that always left me astounded: “Montini believes in God.” See, he was someone who believed in God, therefore in man and therefore he loved God and people.

ZENIT: Are you happy to see him beatified?

Cardinal Coccopalmerio: Obviously very much. I would like to see him canonized soon …

Miriam Teresa Demjanovich –an American blessed

Miriam TeresaToday, the Catholic Church in America witnessed the beatification of a woman Sr. Miriam Teresa –the fourth American-born woman to be beatified. This is the first time a beatification ceremony happened in the USA. The Mass and rite was offered by Cardinal Angelo Amato in the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, NJ.

Interesting, our new blessed was a member of the Eastern Catholic Church in the United States. She was a member, however, of a religious order of the Latin Church, the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth. Her feast day is May 8. The Blessed’s book, Greater Perfection, published after her death remains germane to those interested in the spiritual life.

The Vatican Radio interview with Bishop Kurt Burnette (eparchial bishop of the Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Eparchy of Passaic) notes very well the importance of Blessed Miriam Teresa for us: her understanding of the sacrament of Baptism, her teaching on prayer, her desire to be of complete service to the Triune God. As the bishop says, Americans are known for their activism; and the other American blesseds and saints are known for their activity in building up the Mystical Body of Christ –the Church, but her God has chosen to raise up for us a model of holiness who is a contemplative.

“Bishop Burnette reflected on the impact of her legacy on Eastern and Western spirituality.

“One of the remarkable things about her writings, I believe, is that she brings an Eastern Christian spirit of unity into the Western analysis. The Western theology tends to be analytical. For example, when she talks about prayer, in the West they had divided prayer up into three stages. What they called the purgative, the illuminative and the unitive. But Sr. Miriam Teresa claims that prayer always includes all three parts.”

Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to Sr. Miriam Therese when a young boy who lost his eyesight due to macular degeneration was cured after prayers through her intercession. For Bishop Burnette, this miracle along with her profound humility, spirituality and insight are clear signs of God’s confirmation of her sanctity. “I don’t believe we really choose who is going to be canonized, God does,” he concluded.