Plenary Indulgence for World Meeting of Families

This from the Vatican Information Service yesterday:

VATICAN CITY, JUN 28, 2006 (VIS) - For the occasion of the Fifth World Meeting of Families, due to be held in Valencia, Spain from July 1 to 9, Benedict XVI will concede Plenary Indulgence to those faithful who participate in any of the associated celebrations and in the closing ceremony, according to a decree from the Apostolic Penitentiary made public yesterday afternoon.

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"The Supreme Pontiff," the decree adds, "grants Plenary Indulgence to the faithful under the usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer in keeping with the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff, with the soul completely removed from attachment to any form of sin), if they participate in any of the solemn functions held in Valencia during the Fifth World Meeting of Families, and in the solemn closing ceremony.

"All other faithful who are unable to participate in that event, may obtain the same gift of Plenary Indulgence, under the same conditions, over the days the meeting is held and on its closing day if, united in spirit and thought with the faithful present in Valencia, they recite in the family the 'Our Father,' the 'Creed,' and other devout prayers calling on Divine Mercy to concede the above-mentioned aims."

Read the whole release

We need your opinion!

The Archdiocese of Indianapolis (www.archindy.org) is preparing to launch a newly designed, interactive website with lots of new features and information. We would like your input as to what you'd like to see on the new site.

TAKE OUR REDESIGN SURVEY

The questions are simple, and you can answer as many or as few as you want. Once you've filled out the fields, click the "Submit" button at the bottom of the page.

While we can't follow every suggestion, we will take them into consideration. We hope to launch the site this fall.

Changes in the Mass

From Catholic News Service:

Bishops approve new Order of Mass with U.S. adaptations

In what Bishop Donald W. Trautman called "a truly important moment in liturgy in the United States," the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a new English translation of the Order of Mass and adopted several U.S. adaptations during a national meeting June 15 in Los Angeles.

The new translation of the main constant parts of the Mass -- penitential rite, Gloria, creed, eucharistic prayers, eucharistic acclamations, Our Father and other prayers and responses used daily -- will likely be introduced in about a year or two if it is approved by the Vatican, said Bishop Trautman, a Scripture scholar who heads the Diocese of Erie, Pa., and is chairman of the USCCB Committee on the Liturgy.

He said he thought the bishops would wait until they have approved -- and received Vatican confirmation of -- an entire new Roman Missal in English before implementing the new Order of Mass.

READ MORE...

Unusually blunt

Cardinal Walter Kasper, who serves in Rome as the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, has a sensitive job and tries in all things to bring Christians together -- to bridge the divides of schisms and the Reformation.

Which is why this story, "Vatican official to Anglicans: Women bishops would destroy unity," caught my eye. In it, Cardinal Kasper is quoted as saying some rather direct things to members of the Church of England.

The background to his comments is this: "His remarks came in a speech to a private meeting of the Church of England bishops in Market Bosworth, England, just four months after the bishops agreed to set up a working group to outline a process through which women might be consecrated as bishops.

Although three of the world's Anglican provinces have already agreed to consecrate women as bishops, Cardinal Kasper said decisions made by the Church of England had a "particular importance" because they gave a "strong indication of the direction in which the communion as a whole was heading." "

Such a move would effectively end any hope of the Catholic Church ever coming to recognize Anglican holy order (bishops and priests) as valid.

And what were the cardinal's direct comments? Here are a few:

"shared partaking of the one Lord's table, which we long for so earnestly, would disappear into the far and ultimately unreachable distance."

the goal of restoring full church communion "would realistically no longer exist"

this meant that the Anglican Communion would no longer occupy "a special place" among the churches of the West

The ordination of women bishops, Cardinal Kasper added, would "most certainly lower the temperature even more; in terms of the possible recognition of Anglican orders, it would lead not only to a short-lived cold, but to a serious and long-lasting chill."

Go read more of the story for yourself. This is just one of the things going on in the Anglican Communion these days that have the eyes of ecumenists watching.

Into God's hands

A special exclusive from an upcoming issue of The Criterion:

Put family tragedy ‘in hands of God,’ pastor says

By John Shaughnessy

In his mind, Father Michael O’Mara can picture the two boys proudly standing in front of the altar on May 21—the two brothers preparing to receive their first Holy Communion while their parents and their extended family beamed with the joy of this special moment in the life of a Catholic.

In his mind, Father O’Mara tries to imagine the horror and the suffering that these two brothers endured less than two weeks later when they were shot and killed in their eastside Indianapolis home, along with their parents and three other family members.

The seven murders on June 1 marked the worst mass killing in Indianapolis history. And like most people who were shocked and horrified by the killings, the murders left their mark on Father O’Mara—the priest who gave the homilies at funeral Masses for family members on June 6 and 7.

As he prepared to give the homilies, the Indianapolis priest called upon his memories of the family while he tried to make sense of the deaths.

Read the rest of the story | See photos of a streetside memorial

Vatican document on the family

Today's Vatican Information Service report contained the following:

"The Pontifical Council for the Family, founded 25 years ago by John Paul II with the Motu Proprio "Familia a Deo Instituta," and presided by Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, today published a document entitled: "Family and Human Procreation."

. . .

This theme is then developed over four chapters covering "procreation; why the family is the only appropriate place for it; what is meant by integral procreation within the family; and what social, juridical, political, economic and cultural aspects does service to the family entail" The fifth chapter presents the theme "from two complementary perspectives: the theological, in that the family is an image of the Trinity; and the pastoral, because the family lies at the foundation of the Church and is a place of evangelization." "

Read the rest of the news report