Pope Francis watches as performers put on a show at his general audience on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Paul VI Hall at the Vatican. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Madrid, Spain, Jan 10, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

During the Jan. 8 general audience held in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Pope Francis and those in attendance enthusiastically enjoyed a circus performance that included acrobatics and the unexpected appearance of two animatronic elephants, which quickly became the center of attention.

The picture of the Holy Father with the elephants inevitably evokes the memory of Annone, a majestic 4-year-old albino elephant from India, who five centuries ago was the pet of Pope Leo X and lived in the Vatican Gardens.

In the Spanish-language book “The Vatican As It Has Never Been Told to You,” journalist Javier Martínez-Brocal narrates the details of the unusual friendship between the pontiff who belonged to the Medici family and this elephant that crossed the seas from Lisbon to Italy as a gift from King Manuel I of Portugal.

Manuel de Aviz gave this imposing animal to the successor of St. Peter to celebrate the beginning of his pontificate. The name Annone referred to the Carthaginian general who in the First Punic War opposed fighting against Rome. Therefore, according to Martínez-Brocal, “it was a poetic way of presenting himself as a cordial ally.”

Members of the Curia and Roman citizens crowded the streets to witness Annone’s arrival, who was greeted by the pope himself near Castel Sant’Angelo. In a carefully prepared reception, and after receiving a signal from its trainer, the elephant knelt three times before Leo X. The pontiff reigned from 1513–1521.

Then the animal filled its trunk with water and spewed it over the cardinals and the people, drawing laughter and applause. The elephant became a symbol in Rome, parading in processions and special events, although only the pontiff’s most trusted men were allowed to approach it.

The animal lived in the Vatican Gardens in the Belvedere area, although it was later moved to an enclosure in the passageway that connects Castel Sant’Angelo with the Vatican. Annone died two years after his arrival due to angina pectoris. The story goes that Leo X himself accompanied him in his last moments and that he was buried in the Cortile del Belvedere, a complex of buildings north of St. Peter’s Basilica.

His memory was honored by the pope himself, who went so far as to compose an epitaph about him. Even the famous painter Raphael, whose studio was close to where the animal lived, immortalized, in at least four sketches, the white elephant that amazed Rome.

The monk Friar Giovanni da Verona also painted a drawing of the pachyderm, which can now be seen in the Vatican Museums, in one of Raphael’s rooms. Annone also inspired the American historian Silvio Bedini, author of the book “The Pope’s Elephant.”

A year after Annone’s arrival in Rome, Manuel I of Portugal gave Pope Leo X  another exotic animal named Ganda, a rhinoceros from India that he had received as a gift from a Gujarati sultan.

But Rome never saw Ganda, as the vessel carrying the animal was shipwrecked near Genoa.

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

Pope Francis meets with World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder and other leaders at the Vatican on Oct. 19, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Staff, Jan 10, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (COP), a major U.S. Jewish organization, recently called on Pope Francis, who has frequently called for peace and decried the targeting of civilians, to “refrain from making incendiary comments” about the war between Israel and Hamas.

Leaders of the group said in a letter dated Dec. 30 that they are concerned about recent comments Pope Francis has made “regarding Israel’s defensive war against Hamas.”

“We appreciate and share your concern for the suffering of innocent civilians and desire to spread peace and compassion around the world. However, statements you have made … only serve to distort Israel’s legitimate military campaign and fuel antisemitism and unjust targeting of the Jewish state,” the leaders wrote, referring to comments he made during his Christmas address to the Roman Curia on Dec. 21.

“Yesterday the [Latin] patriarch [of Jerusalem] was not allowed into Gaza, as had been promised; and yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty. This is not war. I wanted to tell you this because it touches my heart,” the pope said as reported by the Vatican.

The pope’s statement “does not acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre where Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 innocent civilians and took 251 hostages, 101 of whom still remain captive,” the Jewish leaders wrote.

“Further, it does not acknowledge Hamas’ use of human shields and civilian infrastructure for terror purposes, putting the entire population of Gaza at risk.”

This is not the first time that a Catholic leader’s statements on the Israel-Hamas war have drawn criticism. Israel’s embassy to the Holy See in June defended Israel’s “right to defend itself” following a statement by Catholic leaders in the Holy Land that suggested Israel’s ongoing campaign in Gaza is not a “just war.”

Pope Francis waves to pilgrims gathered for his general audience on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Paul VI Hall at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Jan 9, 2025 / 13:30 pm (CNA).

At the height of World War II, as the Allies coordinated their strategy, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill suggested involving the pope in peace negotiations. The proposal drew a mocking response from Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin: “The pope? How many divisions does the pope have?”

Decades later, the Soviet empire collapsed — aided, in part, by papal diplomacy. Today, the Holy See’s diplomatic service remains a unique force in international relations.

“The popes have been calling for peace on an international platform since at least the beginning of the 20th century,” EWTN Senior Vatican Analyst Francis X. Rocca said. “Pope Benedict XV tried and failed to bring a negotiated end to the first World War. Half a century later, St. Paul VI went to the United Nations and famously called for ‘no more war.’ His successors have followed suit.”

Modern papal diplomacy

Pope Francis’ diplomatic initiatives extend beyond his weekly appeals for peace from St. Peter’s Square. In 2024, he addressed the G7 summit in Italy, calling for new ethical guidelines to govern artificial intelligence development. Rocca noted that Francis’ distinctive contribution has been “to link military conflict to social justice questions and particularly the environment.”

The pope’s diplomatic engagement spans multiple fronts. At his annual meeting with the diplomatic corps in 2023, he advocated for human dignity and condemned surrogacy as “deplorable.”

“The path to peace calls for respect for life, for every human life, starting with the life of the unborn child in the mother’s womb,” Francis declared, describing surrogacy as “a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs.”

Behind-the-scenes diplomacy

The Vatican’s diplomatic influence operates through both public statements and private channels.

“The Holy See’s great advantage as a diplomatic actor is that it is neutral, sovereign but not aligned, allowing it to communicate with different sides in a conflict,” Rocca explained. He pointed to Pope Francis’ instrumental role in facilitating the 2014 rapprochement between the United States and Cuba as a notable success.

With diplomatic relations spanning more than 180 sovereign states, the Holy See maintains one of the world’s most extensive diplomatic networks. However, some challenges have tested even papal diplomacy’s limits.

The China challenge

“One of the biggest diplomatic challenges that Pope Francis has faced has been the Vatican’s dialogue with China,” said Courtney Mares, CNA Rome correspondent. The relationship has been particularly complex since 2013 when Francis’ papacy began concurrently with Xi Jinping’s rise to power.

The Catholic Church in China was long divided between the underground Church loyal to Rome and the government-sanctioned Catholic Association. In 2018, the Vatican signed a provisional agreement with Beijing regarding bishop appointments, though the process was not smooth.

“Almost immediately after this agreement was signed, there were reports of increased persecution of the underground Catholic community,” Mares noted. Despite concerns over human rights violations and breaches of the agreement, the Vatican renewed it in 2024 for another four years.

Navigating modern conflicts

The pope’s approach to current conflicts has drawn both praise and criticism. In the Gaza war, his calls for a ceasefire and hostage release, combined with criticism of Israel, have sparked controversy. Similarly, his stance on Ukraine has sometimes frustrated Catholic leadership there, notably when he appeared reluctant to directly condemn Russian aggression.

Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio, which partners with the Vatican on humanitarian issues, emphasized Francis’ genuine commitment to peace. The pope has backed words with action, dispatching Cardinal Matteo Zuppi on peace missions to Kyiv, Moscow, Washington, and Beijing to address peace initiatives and humanitarian concerns.

“The risk is that we become desensitized to war,” Riccardi warned, comparing the pope’s persistent peace advocacy to “the rooster crowing and awakening Peter: Humanity has become like Peter, enslaved to violence, accustomed to violence.”

As this modern “rooster,” Pope Francis continues to echo his message in his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti: “Every war leaves our world worse than it was before. War is a failure of politics and of humanity, a shameful capitulation, a stinging defeat before the forces of evil.”

Pope Francis addresses members of the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See on Jan. 9, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Jan 9, 2025 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis delivered his annual “state of the world” address on Thursday, asking ambassadors accredited to the Holy See to pursue a “diplomacy of hope” in the 2025 Jubilee Year, and decrying a polarization that he said led to the assassination attempt of former president Donald Trump.

“We see increasingly polarized societies marked by a general sense of fear and distrust of others and of the future, which is aggravated by the continuous creation and spread of ‘fake news,’ which not only distorts facts but also perceptions,” the pope said.

“This phenomenon generates false images of reality, a climate of suspicion that foments hate, undermines people’s sense of security, and compromises civil coexistence and the stability of entire nations. Tragic examples of this are the attacks on the chairman of the government of the Slovak Republic and the president-elect of the United States of America,” he continued.

Unable to read his full address due to a persistent cold, the 88-year-old pontiff asked an aide to deliver his prepared remarks to the diplomats at the Hall of Blessings in Vatican City on Jan. 9.

Describing the gathering with the diplomatic corps in the Vatican as “a family event,” the Holy Father commenced his speech urging government leaders and representatives to “serve the common good” and to work toward the “integral human development” of all peoples.

“My prayerful hope for this new year is that the jubilee may represent for everyone, Christians and non-Christians alike, an opportunity also to rethink the relationships that bind us to one another, as human beings and political communities,” the pope said in his prepared speech to the diplomatic corps.

Referring to diplomacy as a “vocation” to “foster dialogue with all parties,” the pope said political leaders are called to be heralds of peace, truth, forgiveness, freedom, and justice.

During his speech, the Holy Father cited Chapter 61 of the Book of Isaiah as the root of his proposed “diplomacy of hope” for 2025: “Christ came ‘to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (cf. Is 61:1-2a).’”

“Only in this way is it possible to break the chains of hatred and vengeance that bind and to defuse the explosive power of human selfishness, pride, and arrogance, which are the root of every destructive determination to wage war,” the pope told diplomats on Thursday morning.

Bringing peace to regions, countries at war

Circling the globe in his yearly address, the Holy Father raised his concerns about the growing social and political tensions in different parts of the world, particularly in Ukraine and the Holy Land.

“My wish for the year 2025 is that the entire international community will work above all to end the conflict that, for almost three years now, has caused so much bloodshed in war-torn Ukraine and has taken an enormous toll of lives, including those of many civilians,” he said.

For the Holy Land, the pope renewed his call for a ceasefire and the release of all hostages in Gaza. He also prayed that Jerusalem be the “city of encounter” for Christians, Jews, and Muslims. 

“My prayerful hope is that Israelis and Palestinians can rebuild the bridges of dialogue and mutual trust, starting with the smallest, so that future generations can live side by side in the two states, in peace and security,” he said.

The cancellation of oppressive economic, environmental debt 

The Holy Father also expressed concern for Global South countries burdened by debts imposed upon them by Global North nations and international corporations.

“I ask the wealthier nations to forgive the debts of countries that will never be able to repay them. This is not simply an act of solidarity or generosity but above all an act of justice,” he implored. 

Threats to true peace and justice

Though Francis recognized the “undoubted benefits” of advances in communications technology and artificial intelligence in his speech, he also highlighted its potential to threaten pathways of peace in society.

“They can be misused to manipulate minds for economic, political, and ideological ends,” he stated. “Its limitations and dangers cannot be overlooked, since it often contributes to polarization, a narrowing of intellectual perspectives, a simplification of reality, misuse, anxiety, and, ironically, isolation.”

The pope also spoke of the dangers of an unbridled consumerism that “threatens to subvert the order of values inherent in the creation of relationships, education, and the transmission of social mores.” 

Emphasizing the duty to care for society’s “weakest and most vulnerable,” the Holy Father reiterated the need to protect life “at every moment, from conception to natural death.”

“No child is a mistake or guilty of existing, just as no elderly or sick person may be deprived of hope and discarded,” he stated.

Pope Francis greets young people gathered for his general audience on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Paul VI Hall at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Jan 8, 2025 / 12:35 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis used his first general audience of the year to address the scourge of exploitation and violence against children, urging Christians worldwide not to remain indifferent to their pain and suffering.

Putting a spotlight on the “scourge of child labor,” the Holy Father lamented that there are “too many children forced to work” who are unable to smile, dream, or nurture their talents.

“In every part of the globe, there are children who are exploited by an economy that does not respect life, an economy that, in so doing, consumes our greatest store of hope and love,” he said on Wednesday.

Speaking to hundreds of international pilgrims gathered inside the Paul VI Hall in Vatican City, the pope said society — especially Christians “who recognize themselves as children of God” — must not turn a blind eye to the plight of vulnerable children. 

“[Christians] cannot accept that our little sisters and brothers, instead of being loved and protected, are robbed of their childhood, of their dreams, victims of exploitation and marginalization,” he said.

In spite of great technological advancements, the Holy Father said, such progress has often disregarded the dignity of children, “who are a gift from God,” and failed to address their current and future needs. 

“Today we want to turn our gaze toward Mars or toward virtual worlds, but we struggle to look in the eye a child who has been left at the margins and who is exploited or abused,” he said.

“The century that generates artificial intelligence and plans multiplanetary existences has not yet reckoned with the scourge of humiliated, exploited, mortally wounded childhood,” he continued.

Before extending his greetings to different pilgrim groups from around the world, the pope prayed: “Let us ask the Lord to open our minds and hearts to care and tenderness, and for every boy and every girl in the world to be able to grow in age, wisdom, and grace, receiving and giving love.”

Pope praises CircAfrica for its ‘mission’ to do good

At the end of the pope’s first general audience since the opening of the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope, 50 members of CirCAfrica, a circus company currently on tour in Rome, performed a short extract from their show for the pope and pilgrims inside the Paul VI Hall.

Praising circus artists’ mission of “doing good and making us laugh,” the Holy Father, who was seen tapping his feet to the music during the show, thanked the dancers, acrobats, and jugglers from various African nations for making him and others “laugh like children.” 

Sister Simona Brambilla, the new Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life / Credit: Vatican News

ACI Prensa Staff, Jan 8, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

Pope Francis has marked another milestone in his pontificate by appointing, for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church, a woman to head a Vatican dicastery. She is Italian nun Sister Simona Brambilla, the new prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

Brambilla, who will turn 60 on March 27, had been serving as secretary of the same dicastery since October 2023. At that time, she was the second woman to hold such a position, after Sister Alessandra Smerilli was appointed to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development in 2021.

Moreover, just last month, on Dec. 13, 2024, Brambilla was appointed by the pope to be a member of the Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod, which “is responsible for the preparation and realization of the Ordinary General Assembly” of the Synod of Bishops.

Regarding this appointment, the Italian nun said: “I deeply believe in the synodal journey. We have lived and are living an experience of the Spirit, which impels the Church to walk together, in mutual listening and mutual edification. From this experience there is no going back.”

“We go forward; and we go inward, deeper, involved and caught up in a spiral movement that, with strength and gentleness, brings us to the essentials of who we are as Christians: brothers and sisters in Christ, lightened, disarmed, and freed from the various armors and vestments we may be wearing,” she added. 

A few years earlier, in July 2019, Brambilla and six other women became the first members of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

Brambilla, who as secretary oversaw the apostolic visitation to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter and the suppression of the Carmelite Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington, Texas, served for 13 years as superior general of the Consolata Missionaries.

She joined the congregation in 1988 and was sent to Mozambique as a missionary. The nun was also the order’s first general councillor. This experience allowed her to write a thesis on evangelization and inculturation in the African country and to obtain a doctorate in psychology in 2008 at the Gregorian Institute of Psychology, where she also taught.

The nun is also a professional nurse, practicing at the hospital in Merate, Italy.

In October 2023, in an interview with ACI Stampa, CNA’s Italian-language news partner, the nun shared that “the experience of fruitful contact with different realities, peoples, cultures, particular Churches, forms of Consecrated Life in Africa, America, Asia, and Europe has transformed me and strengthened in me the awareness that the encounter with others is a source of growth, of exchange of gifts, of grace” with the call to “sow the Gospel” and make it germinate everywhere.

What can be done to renew consecrated life?

In that interview, Brambilla answered the question on what can be done to renew consecrated life as follows: “I feel the need and desire to study with those who have much more knowledge and wisdom than me and who have long offered their skills and their energies of mind, heart, and soul to accompany the paths of consecrated men and women in different fields.”

In this way, she continued, she will be able to help others better, also considering the importance of listening to “everyone, their various experiences and paths, is a fundamental step to let the Spirit guide us, to open our hearts, our inner senses to his light… so that he may show us his ways, to walk with them together.”

The nun also highlighted the importance of “littleness” when questioned about the lack of vocations in the Church, offering as a point of reference a speech by Pope Francis in September 2022 in Kazakhstan.

Brambilla quoted, among others, the following passage: “the Gospel says that being ‘little,’ poor in spirit, is a blessing, the first beatitude, because smallness humbly gives us the power of God and leads us to not base our ecclesial activity on our own capacities. This is a grace! I repeat: There is a hidden grace in being a small Church.”

In January 2024, the new prefect gave an interview to the Italian bishops’ newspaper Avvenire in which she said that her appointment as secretary of the Dicastery for Consecrated Life “finds its place within an ecclesial path that is increasingly synodal, open, inclusive, dialogical, and evangelical” and in which she noted what Pope Francis had said in his homily on Jan. 1 a year ago.

“The Church needs Mary in order to recover her own feminine face, to resemble more fully the woman, Virgin and Mother, who is her model and perfect image, to make space for women and to be ‘generative’ through a pastoral ministry marked by concern and care, patience and maternal courage,” the pope said at that time in the excerpt cited by the nun.

Asked whether her appointment would “demasculinize” the Catholic Church, the new prefect emphasized that “this is a reflection to be continued and expanded by everyone but also to be translated into an effective practice that certainly passes through a greater participation of women at the various levels of the life of the Church.”

It also requires “a careful study of the feminine dimension of the Church and of the mission in the broadest sense: models and dynamics of thought, affection, sensitivity, spirituality, action, mission that embody the two vital dimensions, the feminine and the masculine, and take into account the necessary, beneficial, and blessed interaction between the two.”

Despite the questions it may have raised, Brambilla’s appointment does not contradict Church teaching. Although the ministerial priesthood is reserved for men, the Church recognizes the equal dignity and complementarity of men and women.

Pope Francis has emphasized the need for a “more incisive female presence in the Church” and this appointment is a step in that direction. Brambilla’s appointment does not entail sacramental functions reserved for the priesthood but rather an administrative and pastoral leadership role that reflects the richness of the gifts and abilities that women bring to the Church, as demonstrated by the long history of influential women in Catholicism.

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

Pope Francis addresses cardinals and senior Vatican officials during his annual Christmas speech to the Roman Curia, Dec. 22, 2024 / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Jan 7, 2025 / 14:45 pm (CNA).

In a move that raised eyebrows among Vatican observers, Pope Francis on Monday created an unprecedented leadership structure at the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life by appointing both a nun as prefect and a cardinal as pro-prefect — a solution that begs clarity in law and theology.

The unusual decision to appoint Sister Simona Brambilla as prefect and Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime as pro-prefect has sparked discussion about the intersection of traditional Church hierarchy and Pope Francis’ vision for reform.

Understanding the pro-prefect role

The office of pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life is not provided for in the constitution Praedicate Evangelium, which regulates the functions of the Roman Curia.

However, Pope Francis instituted the office ad hoc when he appointed the cardinal as pro-prefect and the nun — the secretary until now — as prefect of the dicastery.

It has not been stated how there will be a balance of power between the new prefect and the pro-prefect. However, speaking of a relationship of subordination with a cardinal who would be the “second in rank” to the prefect does not seem to be a correct reading. What is the logic that pushed Pope Francis to make this choice?

Power and authority in the Church 

Throughout history, there has been a broad, complex, and sometimes controversial reflection on the relationship between the power of orders, which is received with ordination and which enables one to administer certain sacraments — such as presiding over the Eucharist — and the power of governance, which gives authority over a part of the people of God, such as a diocese, a religious order, or even a parish. 

For a long time, it was believed that the two powers were distinct and that it was possible to exercise them separately — St. Thomas Aquinas shared this position, too. 

As regards the Roman Curia, it was believed that all those who carried out their service in it received their power directly from the pope, who conferred authority on them regardless of whether or not they were ordained. This also applied to cardinals, whose authority derived from papal creation — ​​which is not a sacrament. The pope chooses the cardinals as collaborators and advisers of the pope in the government of the Church. 

This approach has characterized the history of the Church for a long time, so much so that there have been cardinals who were not priests — for example, Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, Vatican secretary of state from 1848 to 1876, was ordained deacon but was not a priest. Further back in time, there were cardinals appointed at a young age who only received orders after a long time, and even popes who were only deacons at the time of their election to the papal throne. 

In the past, some abbots had not even been ordained priests and governed an ecclesiastical district, or there were figures who seem strange to us but who responded to this logic, such as the so-called bishops-elect, who governed dioceses without receiving episcopal consecration but did so because of their election. Other examples include the so-called mitered abbesses, “women with the pastoral staff,” who exercised their authority over a territory and the faithful. 

Vatican II’s impact on Church governance

Over time, however, another approach has emerged that goes back to the Church of the first millennium: The power of government is closely linked to the sacrament of holy orders, so it is not possible to exercise one without the other except within certain limits, which are rather narrow. 

Hence, Pope John XXIII in 1962 decided that all cardinals should be ordained archbishops with the motu proprio Cum Gravissima.

This is the approach of the Second Vatican Council, which is found, for example, in Lumen Gentium, No. 21, in the Explanatory Note at No. 2, and in the two Codes of Canon Law, the Latin and the Eastern one.

Vatican II authoritatively reiterated that the episcopate is a sacrament and that by episcopal consecration, one becomes part of the College of Bishops, which, together with and under the authority of the pope, is the subject of supreme power over the entire Church.

This approach was followed in the two Curia reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council: Pope Paul VI’s constitution Regimini Ecclesiae Universae (1967) and Pope John Paul II’s Pastor Bonus (1988). John Paul II delineated the Curia into congregations and pontifical councils, which in lay terms might be defined as “ministries with portfolio” and “ministries without portfolio.”

The congregations had to be governed by cardinals because they participated in the decisions of the universal Church with the pope and, therefore, their heads had to have the rank of first advisers to the pope. The pontifical councils, on the other hand, could also be led by archbishops, but in any case, by ordained ministers because they still had to be in collegiality with the bishop of Rome — that is, the pope.

Francis’ Curia reform: breaking new ground 

The apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium, with which Pope Francis reformed the Curia in 2022, departed from this approach. There was no longer a distinction between congregations and pontifical councils, which were all defined as dicasteries. Therefore, there was no longer a difference in who could be the head of the dicastery, a position that could also go to a layperson. 

However, when presenting the reform of the Curia on March 21, 2022, the then-Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda — created cardinal by Pope Francis in the consistory of Aug. 27, 2022 — explained that there were still some dicasteries in which it was appropriate for a cardinal to lead and noted that the “constitution does not abrogate the Code of Canon Law, which establishes that in matters that concern clerics, clerics are the ones to judge.” 

In practice, the canonical mission was no longer given by order but by the pope’s decision. This is why a layman like Paolo Ruffini could be at the head of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication.

This is the heart of the debate: Are there offices that can be exercised only by papal appointment, or are there offices that, despite papal appointment, can be exercised only if one is ordained?

The question arises when a pro-prefect supports Sister Brambilla. The Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life has various competencies, but all competencies are generic acts of government that can be exercised without priestly ordination. There are situations of clerics’ judgment, though, and likely it was thought that these decisions cannot be managed without an ordination.

Thus, the figure of the pro-prefect was created. The definition of pro-prefect seems, however, to be used improperly. The document Praedicate Evangelium describes two pro-prefects who are the heads of the two sections of the Dicastery for Evangelization. That is because these two pro-prefects lead the sections of the dicastery “in place of” (i.e., pro-) pope, who is considered the prefect of the dicastery.

In other cases, a prelate who did not yet have the rank to hold the office formally was appointed pro-prefect. For example, when Angelo Sodano was appointed Vatican secretary of state on Dec. 1, 1990, he was still an archbishop. He was thus appointed pro-secretary of state because the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus provided that the secretary of state was always to be a cardinal. Sodano retained the title of pro-secretary of state until the consistory of June 28, 1991, when he was created cardinal and formally took the title of secretary of state starting July 1, 1991. 

Pro-prefect Artime, however, is already a cardinal and does not exercise jurisdiction in place of the pope. If anything, he works alongside the prefect, Sister Brambilla. His role is more co-prefect, and it remains to be seen whether the pope will appoint a secretary for the dicastery to understand the organizational chart.

A Jesuit model for Church governance? 

The choice to place an ecclesiastic alongside the prefect reflects some religious orders, which have “brothers” (consecrated laypeople) at their helm but are appointed alongside figures with sacramental authority.

Therefore, Pope Francis would have chosen to follow a path already followed by religious congregations for the governance of the Church. This is not new. Pope Francis, for example, also intervened in the governance crisis of the Order of Malta precisely by operating on the order as if it were only a religious and monastic entity, authoritatively imposing the new constitutions in September 2022 and establishing that the Holy Father needs to confirm the election of the grand master of the order.

Even the Council of Cardinals, established by Pope Francis at the beginning of his pontificate in 2013, resembles the general council that supports the government of the Jesuit General.

Many of these settings are given by Pope Francis’ main legal adviser, Cardinal Ghirlanda, also a Jesuit, who personally followed the reform of the Order of Malta and the reform of the Curia — as well as various other reforms, such as that of the statutes of the Legionaries of Christ.

Looking ahead: implications and questions 

Pope Francis established an innovation in the Roman Curia without outlining it with a precise law, leaving the management of the competencies to subsequent decisions, not using the criteria of the government of the Curia but rather those of the religious congregations. It seems “inside baseball.”

However, it speaks of a small revolution — or potentially a misuse of terms that could cause some confusion in the future.

Bishop Dominique Rey of Fréjus-Toulon, France. / Credit: Claude Truong-Ngoc via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Rome Newsroom, Jan 7, 2025 / 11:30 am (CNA).

Pope Francis accepted Tuesday the early resignation of French Bishop Dominique Rey of Fréjus-Toulon following years of Vatican scrutiny over the ordination of clerics using pre-Vatican II liturgical books and other concerns.

Bishop François Touvet, appointed coadjutor bishop of the same diocese in November 2023, now automatically succeeds Rey.

In a Jan. 7 press release, Rey, who has led the diocese since 2000, said he was recently informed by the nuncio, the pope’s ambassador in France, that Pope Francis wanted him to submit his resignation after he had encouraged him not to resign in December 2023.

While Rey added that he does not know what changed in the intervening year, “faced with misunderstandings, pressures, and polemics that are still harmful to the unity of the Church, the ultimate criterion of discernment for me remains that of obedience to the successor of Peter.”

The Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon in the south of France was able to ordain six men to the transitional diaconate last month after all ordinations in the diocese were halted by the Vatican in June 2022 following a fraternal visit by Archbishop (now Cardinal) Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseille.

The ordinations of six seminarians from the traditionalist community Missionaries of Divine Mercy took place in the Collegiate Church of Saint-Martin in Lorgues on Dec. 1, 2024.

In his announcement ahead of the ordinations, Touvet said they were “the fruit of a trusting and peaceful dialogue maintained with the superior of the community [of the Missionaries of Divine Mercy] and the Dicastery for Divine Worship [and the Discipline of the Sacraments].”

Pope Francis appointed Touvet a coadjutor bishop of Fréjus-Toulon in November 2023, putting him in charge of economic and real estate management, religious communities, and the training of priests and seminarians.

The Vatican requested the suspension of ordinations in the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon in the summer of 2022 due to “questions that certain Roman dicasteries were asking about the restructuring of the seminary and the policy of welcoming people to the diocese,” according to an announcement by Rey at the time.

Known for his support of the Traditional Latin Mass, Rey had also ordained diocesan clerics using the 1962 Roman Pontifical.

After Pope Francis promulgated Traditionis Custodes, the 2021 motu proprio restricting the celebration of Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, Rey highlighted the concerns of some priests and communities present in his diocese who offered Mass according to the old rite. 

Rey said in his Jan. 7 statement, posted to X, that “just as I have always tried to respond to the calls for the new evangelization of St. John Paul II, then to the encouragements of Benedict XVI to welcome and form priestly vocations, and finally to the orientations of Francis, I have agreed, in this case, to hand over the pastoral charge that had been entrusted to me in 2000 by John Paul II.”

“As I reach my 25th year of episcopate in service of the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon, I thank God for the blessings and missionary fruits,” he added.

Rey announced he will celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving in the diocese on Feb. 1.

Pilgrims cross the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican on Dec. 25, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News

Vatican City, Jan 7, 2025 / 11:00 am (CNA).

More than half a million people have passed through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, two weeks after its Christmas Eve opening. 

Pope Francis, the first “pilgrim of hope” to cross the Holy Door’s threshold, inaugurated the 2025 Jubilee Year by opening the papal basilica’s door on Dec. 24, 2024. 

Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization Archbishop Rino Fisichella said the great number of pilgrims marks “a very significant beginning” for the Catholic Church’s holy year, which will conclude on Jan. 6, 2026. 

“Hundreds of groups of faithful have already made their pilgrimage,” Fisichella said in a Jan. 7 media statement released by the Dicastery for Evangelization. 

“The dicastery is working tirelessly to ensure that pilgrims receive a welcome and an experience that lives up to their expectations,” he added.

Holy See and Italian authorities are collaborating to welcome an estimated 30 million people expected to come to Rome throughout the jubilee year.

“Preparations are underway all over the world to reach Rome in the coming months, with many children, young people, adults, and the elderly who have already entered the jubilee climate with the celebrations for the opening of the holy year,” Fisichella said.

Jubilees — a tradition celebrated in the Catholic Church since 1300 — are filled with special spiritual, artistic, and cultural events for people intending to come to Rome for pilgrimage. 

An important part of the jubilee is the opportunity to receive a plenary indulgence — a grace granted by the Catholic Church through the merits of Jesus Christ to remove the temporal punishment due to sin — by passing through a “Holy Door.”

Besides the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica, the other four Holy Doors of the 2025 Jubilee are located at the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, the Basilica of St. Mary Major, the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, and in Rome’s Rebibbia prison.

“The thousands of people who filled the four papal basilicas during the days of the celebrations for the opening of the Holy Doors” reflects the “great desire” among pilgrims to participate in the Church’s jubilee festivities, according to the Dicastery for Evangelization.

The first major calendar event of the 2025 holy year is the Jubilee of the World of Communications to be held from Jan. 24–26. Thousands of journalists and media professionals from around the world are expected to come to Rome for the occasion.

Father Roberto Pasolini. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Rome, Italy, Jan 7, 2025 / 10:30 am (CNA).

Franciscan Capuchin Father Roberto Pasolini is very comfortable with public speaking — it’s basically his job as a Scripture expert called on to give talks and lead retreats around Italy.

Yet, just late last year, he began a new adventure, one he finds a bit more intimidating: preaching to Vatican employees, cardinals, and the pope during Lent and Advent.

On Nov. 9 last year, Pope Francis named Pasolini the next preacher of the Papal Household, succeeding 90-year-old Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, who held the post for 44 years.

The 53-year-old Pasolini said the call to become the pope’s preacher was a big surprise and caused him “a great deal of fear.”

“The fact that God is calling me, at this moment, to go right into the heart of the Church, in front of the pope, the cardinals, the people who support the Christian institution, to speak such important, meaningful words, it scares me,” he told CNA during an interview at the Capuchin General House in Rome on Dec. 11, 2024.

“On the other hand, I also felt a great alignment with what was already happening [in my life],” he noted, “because I have always been following words, reading texts, and searching reality for the meaning that can give clarity to our existence.”

After receiving the news about the new role, Pasolini had just under a month before he gave his first Advent meditation to the Roman Curia on Dec. 6, 2024, the first of three he delivered on the December Fridays leading up to Christmas.

“During Advent, since the call was very recent, [I was] immediately trying to rummage through my pockets to find some words, some reflections that in recent years maybe I’ve already prepared a bit around the theme of the Incarnation, Advent, and Christmas,” he said about preparing his meditations.

‘I will not hold back my humanity’

The position of preacher of the Papal Household has existed in a stable way since the pontificate of Pope Paul IV in the mid-1500s. In 1743, Pope Benedict XIV established that the role should always go to a member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchins.

On following the long and celebrated legacy of Cantalamessa, Pasolini said he is trying not to compare himself too much and plans to bring his own contribution, “giving catecheses that are maybe a little bit more narrative and more biblical than the theological genre that Father Raniero [Cantalamessa] used.”

“I think I will not hold back my humanity, which is the humanity of a much younger friar than Father Raniero, to communicate also through a language and a way of address that corresponds more to people of my age,” he said.

“I will try as much as possible to be natural, to remain myself,” he added, “and to continue to do what basically I have been doing until now: announce, with all my heart, with all the intelligence of which I am capable, the mystery of God.”

Return to faith

Before becoming a priest or preacher, Pasolini grew up in northern Italy, passionately following his favorite soccer team, Milan.

He grew up Catholic, but as a teenager, the priest experienced the desire to distance himself from the faith. “So I took my time off from God, and I did some years in which I sought the meaning of my life elsewhere, outside the parish and Church context in which I had grown up,” he explained.

Pasolini described those years as good, though difficult: “Because when we distance ourselves from God, on the one hand we feel a little bit free, and on the other hand we find that we still don’t know how to use our freedom well.”

“They were also years of choices that led me to suffer, to realize the darkness that was inside me,” he noted. 

The priest’s journey back to the faith began unexpectedly while studying information sciences at a university in Milan. 

Traveling one day on the city’s subway, he found a copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew, a free giveaway inside a newspaper, and started reading it. Little by little, he found his way back to the Church.

“I felt the desire to go to confession and then to participate in the Eucharist and to involve myself a little bit in my parish life, which I had hastily dismissed,” he said. “And that was kind of the time when I started to comprehend again the mystery of faith, the mystery of the Church, but especially the beauty of the Gospel, the love of Christ.”

‘A second calling’

As Pasolini was rediscovering the faith and experiencing more and more God’s love for him, he felt the growing desire to share this beauty with others.

It was during this time that he “met” St. Francis of Assisi through his writings, he said. 

“I found his style, his way of life, so beautiful, so simple, so inspired by the Gospel, that I got curious and tried to go and meet the friars in Milan,” the priest explained. “And little by little, going there, I felt my desire to live my baptism become concrete through embracing that form of life together with other brothers. And so I graduated [from university], left everything, and entered the convent.”

It was not long after entering the Capuchins that the friar’s superiors noticed the centrality of the word of God in “my life, my days, my way of speaking, my way of praying,” Pasolini elaborated. And so, after his initial formation for religious life and the priesthood, he was sent to Rome to study at the Pontifical Biblical Institute.

This, he said, was the beginning of “a second calling within my first calling” to be not only a priest friar but also an expert in sacred Scripture.

During his years of biblical formation, Pasolini studied in Rome and Jerusalem and was awarded a doctorate for a thesis on the Gospel of Mark.

He described that time as “seven years of wonderful formation in the word of God … which definitely defined me as a friar and a biblical scholar, and then as a preacher, able to draw from Scripture the resources to proclaim the Gospel, the kingdom of God, to others.”

Approach to preaching

According to Pasolini, the best preparation for preaching can and should begin long before standing at the ambo.

“For years, before I started the preaching ministry, I got into the habit of meditating on God’s word every day for me first of all — for my heart, for my life,” he said. “This habit of doing ‘lectio divina,’ as we would say today, accustomed me to stand before God, every day, as one who listens to him, receives a word, and tries to respond to this word.”

“So,” he continued, “when I became a priest and started giving homilies and catechesis, I would just tell others what God and I had already said to each other during prayer. Of course, in a somewhat organized form, because maybe God and I said some things to each other in prayer that are not really good to be told to everyone.”

“But … the best preparation to give a homily, to give a catechesis, is to let God’s word touch your heart personally,” he said to priests and others who preach publicly. “Then, if we have allowed ourselves to be touched, we will surely be able to touch the hearts of others.”