Let us pray that “the lay faithful, especially women, may participate more in institutions of responsibility in the Church, without falling into clericalism that nullifies the lay charism.” This was Pope Francis reflection after the Angelus, when he also appealed for a ”resumption” of the truce between Armenia and Azerbaijan and recalled the beatification of 15-year-old Carlo Acutis, indicating him as a “model” for today’s young people.
Pope Francis recited the Marian prayer together with a few thousand people present in St Peter’s Square on a drizzly Sunday on Oct. 11. Commenting on that day’s Gospel passage on the parable of the wedding banquet, the Pope underlined that twice in the story, the king’s servants are sent to call the guests “but they refuse, they don’t want to go to the celebration, because they have other things to think about.”
Pope Francis underlined that “often we too put our interests and material things before the Lord who calls us. But the king of the parable does not want the room to remain empty, because he wishes to donate the treasures of his kingdom and extends the invitation to even the most distant, “without excluding anyone,” because “no one is excluded from the house of God.” The king in fact says: “Call everyone, good and bad. Everyone.” “God calls the bad, too.”
In this way the Church too “is called to reach today’s crossroads, that is, the geo-graphical and existential peripheries of humanity,” all those places where “shreds of humanity without hope” live. “It is a question of not settling on the comfortable and habitual ways of evangelization and witness to charity, but of opening the doors of our hearts and of our communities to all, because the Gospel is not reserved for a select few. Even those who are marginalized, even those who are rejected and despised by society, are considered by God worthy of His love.”
It was after the Angelus that Francis said he “appreciated that a ceasefire for humanitarian reasons was agreed between Armenia and Azerbaijan, with a view to reaching a substantial peace agreement. Although the truce proves to be too fragile, I encourage it to be resumed and I express my participation in the pain of the loss of human lives, the suffering, as well as the destruction of homes and places of worship. I pray and invite you to pray for the victims and for all those whose life is in danger.”

Pope Francis’ abrogation of the death penalty in Fratelli Tutti is being blown sky-high by his chief dialogue partner Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayyeb – who, in accordance with Islamic jurisprudence, supports the execution of apostates from Islam.
Public hanging above freshly-dug graves in a Muslim country. “Today we state clearly that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible’ and the Church is firmly committed to calling for its abolition world-wide,” Francis declares in his latest encyclical, contradicting Scripture and 2,000 years of Sacred Tradition. But Al-Tayyeb, who is named five times and upheld as the pontiff’s inspiration in Fratelli Tutti (All Brothers), trashes Francis’ declaration, stating: “The four schools of law all concur that apostasy is a crime, that an apostate should be asked to repent, and that if he does not, he should be killed.”
“[Contemporary] juris-prudents concur – and so does ancient jurisprudence – that apostasy is a crime,” Al-Tayyeb asserts in a 2016 Arabic interview, translated into English by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
“We should be aware that the concepts of human rights are full of ticking time bombs,” the grand imam warned, labelling apostasy “high treason” and “a rebellion both against religion and what is held sacrosanct by society.”
Al-Tayyeb cites the “exception of the Hanafi School,” which legislates “that a female apostate should not be killed.” He explains the exception is “because it is inconceivable that a woman would rebel against her community.” Al-Tayyeb clearly teaches that those who leave Islam must be killed. This is in accord with traditional Islamic teaching. Al-Tayyeb has shown no sign of moving toward the Christian position of the freedom of conscience and dignity of the human person. Only the Pope is moving in the other direction.

An Australian man who accused Cardinal George Pell of sexually abusing him denied he was bribed for his testimony, shooting down the latest con-spiracy theory to roil the Vatican amid a corruption investigation into its shady finances.
Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera has speculated in recent days that Vatican investigators were looking into whether Pell’s nemesis at the Vatican, ousted Cardinal Angelo Becciu, wired 700,000 euros ($823,000) in Vatican money to a bank account in Australia, and whether that money was tied to Pell’s sex abuse trial.
Pell, brought in by Pope Francis to bring accountability and transparency to the Vatican’s opaque finances, was convicted but ultimately absolved by Australia’s High Court of allegations he molested two choirboys in St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne while he was archbishop in the 1990s.
Corriere speculated that Becciu might have “bought” the testimony of Pell’s accuser to get Pell out of the Vatican. Becciu and Pell were known to have clashed over the Australian’s financial clean-up efforts at the Holy See.

Despite criticism of a 2018 deal with China over the appointment of bishops, including from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a senior Vatican diplomat said Rome is optimistic the accord will be renewed by the end of the month and won’t walk away from it because “something had to be done.”
Had Rome not granted Beijing a significant role in choosing bishops, said British Archbishop Paul Gallagher, “We would have found ourselves – not immediately, but ten years down the line – with very few bishops, if any, still in communion with the Pope.”
“If we don’t begin now, that’s the future,” he said.
Gallagher confirmed the Vatican has proposed a two-year extension of the deal, the terms of which have not been made public since it’s a provisional agreement rather than a formal treaty. He told Crux the Vatican does not yet have a response from Beijing, and that if no answer is received by the end of the month, then the deal expires.

Pope Francis has made his first public comments about Vatican financial scandals following the sudden dismissal of a powerful Rome-based cardinal over claims of embezzlement.
On Sunday 4 October, as he prepared to release a new encyclical to the world, Francis told a crowd in St Peter’s Square: “It is awful to see when people who have authority in the Church seek their own interests.”
Ten days earlier, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, a former papal chief of staff, had his cardinal rights removed and was sacked from his position as prefect of the Roman Curia’s department for saints.
Speaking during the Sunday Angelus, the Pope made an implicit reference to the mismanagement of money when he reflected on the Gospel parable of the tenants. The tenants are placed in charge of a vineyard by a landowner but kill the landowner’s servants and son when they come to collect the fruit. Francis says Jesus told this parable to “admonish the chief priests and elders of the people who are about to take the wrong path,” but added also that it “applies to all times, including our own.”

The bishops’ conference of Spain warned of conflict over government plans to remove Catholic symbols from a civil war memorial site near Madrid from which the remains of former dictator Gen. Francisco Franco were exhumed a year ago.
The bishops’ conference of Spain warned of conflict over government plans to remove Catholic symbols from a civil war memorial site near Madrid from which the remains of former dictator Gen. Francisco Franco were exhumed a year ago.
“If there is a cross and basilica, it’s important there should also be a community to maintain worship there. We must immunize ourselves against a culture of confrontation,” said Auxiliary Bishop Luis Arguello Garcia of Valladolid, Spain, secretary general of the bishops’ conference.
“People in the church have different ideological perspectives, and problems occur when attempts are made to put faith at the service of one ideology,” he said of a draft law by the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez that would convert the Valley of the Fallen into a civil cemetery.
The change would lead to the closing of a Benedictine monastery and removing other Catholic features at the site.

Tracey Rowland, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia, has won the Ratzinger Prize for theology, often described as the field’s equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize.
The award is a stunning win for the Melbourne, Australia-based academic, who is the first Australian and only the third woman to receive the prestigious award.
The Ratzinger Prize is awarded to two individuals each year regardless of their religious denomination.
Pope Francis announced on Oct. 1 that Rowland would share this year’s award with Jean-Luc Marion, a French philosopher and Catholic theologian.
The prize is awarded in three areas: the study of sacred Scripture, patristics and theology.
It is presented by the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Foundation, which was established in 2010 to support theological re-search and to promote studies on the theology and teaching of the retired Pope.
Rowland told The Catholic Weekly, newspaper of the Arch-diocese of Sydney, she was “surprised but not totally shocked” to find she had been chosen for the award given that she has published much about the theology of Joseph Ratzinger, including two books that have been translated into other languages.

Pope Francis is urging world leaders not to go down the path of nationalism and isolation following the Covid-19 pandemic. In a speech to the United Nations, Pope Francis warned against ideologies which place power before people.
The 83-year-old Roman Pontiff told the UN general assembly that the Coronavirus pandemic was forcing the world to make a choice.
“One path leads to the consolidation of multilateralism as the expression of a renewed sense of global co-responsibility, a solidarity grounded in justice and the attainment of peace and unity within the human family, which is God’s plan for our world,” Francis explained in a televised address broadcast today.
“The other path emphasizes self-sufficiency, nationalism, protectionism, individualism and isolation; it excludes the poor, the vulnerable and those dwelling on the peripheries of life.”
He added: “That path would certainly be detrimental to the whole community, causing self-inflicted wounds on everyone. It must not prevail.”
The Pope called for a “change of direct-ion” as the UN marks its 75th anniversary, and faces huge pressures to the rules-based, international consensus which emerged following the Second World War.
Throughout his pontificate, Francis has become a counter-weight against the rise of nationalist populism sweeping across parts of Europe, arguing that it “is evil and ends badly, as we have seen in the past century.”

Pope remarks came following the General Audience where he had a brief meeting with members for an Italian group Tenda di Gionata (Jonathan’s Tent), which supports the parents of LGBT children.
According to reports of the encounter, Francis said “God loves your children as they are.” He also said: “The Pope loves your children as they are, because they are children of God.”
Mara Grassi, the vice-president of the support group, relayed details of what the Pope said following the audience, and that she had presented Francis with a book Genitori Fortunati (Blessed Parents). A copy of the book will soon be available in English. Speaking to Avvenire, the news-paper owned by the Italian Bishops’ Conference, she said: “I explained [to the Pope] that we consider ourselves lucky because we have been forced to change the way we have always looked at our children.
She added: “What we now have is a new gaze that has allowed us to see the beauty and love of God in them. We want to create a bridge with the Church… so that the Church too can change its gaze towards our children, no longer excluding them but welcoming them fully.”
Francis’ remarks are consistent with what he said in 2018 to Juan Carlos Cruz, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse and who at that time had spent several days with the Pope. “He told me, ‘Juan Carlos, that you are gay does not matter. God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care. The Pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are’,” Cruz recalled.
Since the beginning of his pontificate, Francis has sought to model an inclusive, pastoral approach to LGBT Catholics. It marks a shift away from the harsh and condemnatory language used by the Vatican in the past.

Prominent Catholic women across the globe are continuing to raise objections to the title of Pope Francis’ forthcoming new encyclical, “Fratelli tutti,” which uses the Italian masculine plural to address the world’s population.
Some are also baldly upset at the Vatican’s most recent explanations for not reconsidering or adapting the title, which appears to place the duty on women to see themselves as included. Francis’ encyclical, expected to focus on issues of solidarity and human friendship as the world continues to face the coronavirus pandemic, is set to be released on October 4. The title for the document is taken from one of St Francis of Assisi’s writings to the early members of his order, whom he addressed in Latin as his brothers.
Although the Italian translation “fratelli tutti” could sound to a modern Italian ear as “brothers and sisters all,” the exact one-to-one translation is “all brothers.”
Marie Dennis, who as the long-time co-president of Pax Christi International held one of the highest offices available to a woman in the Catholic Church, told NCR she was concerned the masculine construction of the title could distract from the importance of the rest of the Pope’s upcoming document.
“I understand that Pope Francis intends to be inclusive, but the tragedy of insisting on a title that excludes half the human family is immense,” said Dennis, who stepped down from the co-presidency role in 2019 after serving for 12 years.