Pope makes G8 group official, to be called 'Council of Cardinals'

Pope establishes advisory panel as permanent Council of Cardinals

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis made his international advisory panel on church governance a permanent council of cardinals, thereby emphasizing the importance and open-endedness of its work among his pontificate's various efforts at reform.

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Fr Lombardi on new Council of Cardinals which convenes this week

(Vatican Radio) At a press briefing in the Vatican this morning, it was announced that Pope Francis has issued a chirograph, or formal, handwritten letter, officially setting up the Council of Cardinals which will be holding its first meeting from Tuesday to Thursday this week.

“An encouraging innovation to enrich the governance of the Church with a new method of consultation”. That was how Fr Federico Lombardi, head of the Holy See press office, described the new Council of eight cardinals who represent the Church on the different continents, from Africa and Asia, Europe and Australia, North, Central and South America and finally one cardinal, Giuseppe Bertello, president of the Governing body of Vatican City State. Together with the Italian bishop of Albano serving as secretary and Pope Francis himself, this small group will be working for the next three days behind the closed doors of the library inside the Apostolic Palace where most previous popes have lived. All of the cardinals are staying at the nearby Santa Marta guesthouse where Pope Francis has chosen to live and all of them will be travelling with the Holy Father on his pilgrimage to Assisi on Friday at the end of their meeting.
In the formal letter, Pope Francis makes clear he reserves the right to change the number of advisers in his new Council and to seek their advice individually, or as a group, whenever necessary. Fr Lombardi noted that, ahead of this week’s meeting, all the cardinals have already been hard at working, seeking input from bishops conferences in their particular parts of the globe and they’ve already had a couple of informal get-togethers to share ideas and suggestions ahead of the opening session on Tuesday morning. Fr Lombardi also read out the part of the papal letter which spells out the main tasks facing the newly instituted Council:

“ …a Council of Cardinals with the task of assisting me in the governance of the Universal church and drawing up a project for the revision of the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus on the Roman Curia”

Reforming the Roman Curia and helping with the governance of the Church are clearly tasks that will take shape slowly over the coming months and years. Though there will be another press briefing on Wednesday at 1, after the first day and a half of talks, Fr Lombardi stressed we are unlikely to see any concluding documents or major decisions emerging from this first step of what aims to be a much less Roman and more widely representative way of

Pope: peace and joy, not perfect organization, signs of God’s presence in Church

(Vatican Radio) “Peace and joy” are the true signs of God’s presence in the Church – not perfection in its organization and planning. That’s what Pope Francis told the faithful gathered early Monday for the private daily mass in the Vatican guest house Santa Marta.

The disciples were enthusiastic, making plans for the future and discussing how the new-born Church should be organized. They debated who was the greatest amongst them and restricted to themselves the number of people wishing to do good in Jesus’ name. But Jesus, explains the Pope, surprises them – turning the focus of the discussion from “organization” to “children:” “He in fact, who is the smallest among all of you…is great!”

Drawing on the reading from the Prophet Zecharia, the Pope spoke in his homily of the signs of God’s presence: not in “fine organization” nor in “ a government that moves ahead, all clean and perfect,” but in the elderly sitting in the squares and in children playing .

“The future of a people is right here…in the elderly and in the children,” he said. “A people who does not take care of the elderly and children has no future because it will have no memory and it will have no promise! The elderly and children are the future of a people!”

Pope Francis warned that it is all too easy to shoo a child away or make them calm down with a candy or a game – or to tune out the elderly and ignore their advice with the excuse that “they’re old, poor people.”

And the disciples didn’t understand this either, stressed the Pope.

“The disciples wanted efficacy; they wanted the Church to go forward without problems and this can become a temptation for the Church: the Church of functionalism! The well-organized Church! Everything in its place, but without memory and without promise! This Church, in this way, cannot move ahead. It will be the Church of the fight for power; it will be the Church of jealousies between the baptized and many other things that occur when there is no memory and no promise.”

The “vitality of the Church,” then, does not come through documents and planning meetings- these are necessary, yes, but they are not “the sign of God’s presence.”

“The sign of God’s presence is this, so says the Lord: ‘Old men and old women will sit again in the squares of Jerusalem, each with a cane in hand for their age. And the squares of the city will swarm with young boys and girls playing…Playing makes us think of joy: it is the Lord’s joy. And these elderly people sitting with a cane in hand, calm: they make us think of peace. Peace and joy. This is the air of the Church!” 

Canonization date announced for Blessed Popes John Paul II and John XXIII

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Monday morning held the Public Ordinary Consistory for the forthcoming Canonization of Blessed Pope John XXIII and Blessed Pope John Paul II. During the course of the Consistory in the Vatican's Consistory Hall, the Pope decreed that his two predecessors will be raised to Sainthood on April 27, 2014, the day on which the Church celebrates the Second Sunday of Easter and Divine Mercy.