While millions of laypeople around the world are recognized as catechists in their parish or diocese, Pope Francis is preparing to formally institute the “ministry of catechist.”
Pope Francis often has spoken of the importance of selecting, training and supporting catechists, who are called to lead people to a deeper relationship with Jesus, prepare them to receive the sacraments and educate them in the teachings of the church.
In many parts of the world, especially in communities with-out a resident priest, catechists are the leaders of the local Catholic community, evangelizing, convoking and guiding their fellow Catholics in prayer and works of charity. And, in missionary territories under the guidance of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, they already serve with a specific mandate from their bishop.
The congregation’s 1997 Guide for Catechists noted that “the Code of Canon Law has a canon on catechists involved in strictly missionary activity and describes them as ‘lay members of Christ’s faithful who have received proper formation and are outstanding in their living of the Christian life. Under the direction of missionaries, they are to present the Gospel teaching and engage in liturgical worship and in works of charity.’”

The Vatican press office said May 5 that Pope Francis’ apostolic letter “Antiquum Ministerium” (“Ancient Ministry”), instituting the ministry, would be released May 11.

Prayer is “dialogue with God” and spontaneous spoken prayer is an “anchor” to cling to, remembering that when the apostles who saw Jesus in silent prayer asked him how they should pray, he taught them to recite the Our Father, in which “there is everything”. Therefore “do not fall into arrogant pride and do not despise spoken prayer, the prayer of the simple”.
Spontaneous vocal prayer was the subject of Pope Francis general audience continuing his series of catechesis on prayer.
Speaking again from his private library he said: “Prayer is dialogue with God; and every creature, in a certain sense, ‘dialogues’ with God. In the human being, prayer becomes word, invocation, song, poetry … The divine Word became flesh, and in the flesh of every man the word returns to God in prayer”.
In the Bible we learn to ensure that “everything comes to the light of the word, that nothing human is excluded, censored. Above all, pain is dangerous if it remains covered, closed inside us…. A pain closed within us, which cannot express itself, simmers, it can poison the soul: it is fatal”.
“The first human prayer – Francis later said – is always a vocal recitation. Lips always move first. Although we all know that praying does not mean repeating words, yet vocal prayer is the safest and it is always possible to practice it. Feelings, however noble, are always uncertain: they come and go, abandon us and return. Not only that, even the graces of prayer are unpredictable: at some moment consolations abound, but on the darkest days they seem to evaporate completely. Prayer of the heart is mysterious and at times hidden. The prayer of the lips, the one that is whispered or recited in a choir, is always available, and necessary like manual labour.”

Cardinals and Bishops accused of criminal offences by Vatican magistrates, can now be tried by the Tribunal of the Vatican City State instead of the Court of Cassation presided over by a cardinal, as had been the case until now. Pope Francis made the change in an Apostolic Letter issued motu proprio, which amends the judicial system of the Vatican State promulgated in March 2020. However, trials will still require the Pope’s prior authorization before they can proceed.
The change in legislation comes after Francis himself had addressed the issue at the inauguration of the judicial year in the Vatican on 27 March. In Friday’s motu proprio, Pope Francis, citing his own words on that occasion, recalls “the overriding need for the current procedural system — also by means of appropriate changes in the law — to ensure the equality of all members of the Church and their equal dignity and position, without privileges that date back to earlier times and are no longer in keeping with the responsibilities that each person has in building up the Church.”
Pope Francis’ decision to abolish Article 24 of the law “on the judicial order of the Vatican City State,” — which provided for Cardinals and Bishops accused of criminal offences within Vatican City State to have recourse to the Court of Cassation — is therefore based on the principle of the equality of all members of the Church. The Court of Cassation is the Vatican’s Supreme Court, and in such cases would consist of three Cardinals and two or more associate judges.

Germany’s lower house of Parliament is considering re-placing state payments to the nation’s two largest churches. The Catholic and Protestant churches received combined state benefits of more than $650 million in 2020.
At a hearing in the interior affairs committee of the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, they welcomed in principle the intention of legislation by the opposition liberal Free Democratic Party, the Greens and the Left Party and pointed out that it was in line with a constitutional mandate to abolish the payments, which date back to a 19th-century provision. By contrast, a number of legal experts said an alternative bill by the Alternative for Germa-ny party to simply phase out the benefits was unconstitutional, reported the German Catholic news agency KNA.
The bill by the three parties aims to create the necessary framework for agreements between the federal states, which currently make the payments, and the Catholic dioceses and Protestant regional churches.
Most of the state payments date back to 1803, when German imperial princes received expropriated church property as compensation for a loss of territory. In return, the princes paid the churches money on a regular basis.

Catholic laypeople in the Archdiocese of Cologne have called for a local synod to address the ongoing crisis in Germany’s most populous diocese.
“We must make every effort to reestablish a genuine dialogue between the cardinal, senior members of the diocesan leader-ship and the grassroots of the church,” said Tim-O. Kurzbach, president of the Cologne arch-diocesan council of Catholics.

The translation of the Bible to be used in the new edition of the lectionary for Mass in England and Wales is being amended to use gender-inclusive language where contextually appropriate, The Tablet can reveal.
For 18 months, the Depart-ment of Christian Life and Wor-ship of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has been adapting the text of the English Standard Version Catholic Edi-tion so that inclusive translations are used whenever translators’ footnotes in the original text of the ESV-CE indicate they are appropriate, for example when the Greek word adelphoi (bro-thers) refers to both men and women.
The wording of the ESV-CE has been adapted to make it more inclusive approximately 142 times in the two volumes of the lectionary already prepared.
The Archbishop of Cardiff, George Stack, chair of the Department of Christian Life and Worship, told The Tablet: “We can’t change the language of the Bible, but we can adapt it so that it speaks powerfully to people in this age.”

One of the most formative moments early in my artistic journey was hearing Andrew Peterson’s song “Let There Be Light.” I was in my late teens at the time, just beginning to grapple with the musical gifts that would eventually lead me to a career in composition. But as Peterson crooned the lyrics, “When your spirit is hovering over the deep / In the image of God just look into that darkness and speak,” I remember the light bulb illuminating in my mind: My creativity is an act of faith.
That singular notion has stayed with me throughout my life, fueling my creative work and giving me a sense of purpose. And I can think of numerous musicians, authors, poets, artists, and theologians who have similarly encouraged me along the way.
Fine artist Makoto Fujimura is undoubtedly such a figure. While his stunning work has captivated countless people around the world, the way he has lived out his vocation far exceeds the bounds of his artistry. Throughout his public life, he has promoted the interaction of art, culture, and faith through founding the International Arts Movement, establishing his own Fujimura Institute, and, more recently, serving as the director of the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts at Fuller Theological Seminary. He has also come alongside many other artists, advocating for them and supporting their efforts, as he did for me in writing the foreword to my first book.
In each of these pursuits, Fujimura has sought to promote a vision of what it means to create and how acts of creativity relate to our faith. Now, in his engaging book Art and Faith, Fujimura gathers the many themes from each corner of his vibrant career into a single volume that persuasively articulates a “theology of making” (to quote the book’s subtitle) while communicating that vision in a contemplative style that itself radiates the very creativity he advocates throughout the book.

In his latest salvo to challenge Rome’s authority, the president of Germany’s bishops’ conference has said that any German Protestant who wishes to receive Holy Communion in a Catholic Church on Öku-menischen Kirchentag — a day of Christian unity in May — may do so.
“Anyone who is Protestant and attends Communion can receive Communion,” Bp Georg Bätzing told an online discussion in Frankfurt on April 22 about the May 15 event that usually brings thousands of Christians to the city for ecclesial events.
“We want to take steps towards unity,” he said, adding that “whoever believes in conscience what is celebrated in the other denomination will also be able to approach [the altar] and won’t be rejected.”
According to the German bishops’ news site Katholisch.de, the bishop of Limburg went on to say that the practice “has been maintained up and down the country” and is actually “nothing new.” Perhaps what is new is that it is being discussed, he continued, adding that he does not expect “an objection from Rome.”
He noted the existence of Vatican reservations about the Church in Germany, saying: “For many officials in Rome, the German Catholic Church has a Protestant smell.” He claimed this is “not the case at the highest level of prefects,” but with officials who have no experience with the Church in Germany.
Bishop Bätzing went on to note “fear” in Rome about the Synodal Path in Germany, and the challenge of preserving unity, but added: “You can also endanger unity by nurturing it with instruments that are unsuitable for the time and world in which we live with its cultural diversity.”
Pope Francis, he added, has repeatedly said that “the Church cannot be controlled centrally” and that decentralized decisions have to be made within the framework of Catholic doctrine and canon law. “This is the way that we’re trying,” Bishop Bätzing said.
The bishop was alluding to a passage in the Pope’s 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium in which the Pope wrote that the Second Vatican Council called for a “concrete realization of the collegial spirit,” and that he regretted that this desire “has not been fully realized, since a juridical status of episcopal conferences which would see them as subjects of specific attributions, including genuine doctrinal authority, has not yet been sufficiently elaborated.”

According to an ancient Chinese proverb, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Very often, we focus not on those initial small steps but on giant leaps, often undertaken by government. Think, for example, of Franklin D. Roosevelt signing Social Security into law in 1935, a giant step that changed the lives of the elderly. Or Lyndon B. Johnson’s signature on the Medicare law 30 years later that did the same. Or the big steps contained in the just-passed American Rescue Plan, which, among other things, aims to reduce childhood poverty by 50 % . Each of these big steps impacts all of our lives.
But sometimes it’s the small steps we take that change the country in profound ways. In 2008, 56% of Americans believed that gay marri-ages should not be recognized as valid. That same year, 52 % of California voters voted to ban gay marriage, even as 61 percent backed Barack Obama  Four years later, Vice President Joe Biden endorsed gay marriage during a memorable appearance on “Meet the Press.” A few days later, Obama declared his position had “evolved.” Today, 67% say gay marriages should be recognized — an all-time high. Millions of first steps led to profound change.
Today another series of small steps are altering how we live and act. For the first time, the Gallup Organization reports that membership in a Christian church, synagogue or mosque has fallen from 61% in 2010 to 47%. Meanwhile, those who profess no religious preference grew from 8% to 21%  over the last decade. And among those who do express a religious preference, the number of congregants has declined from 73% to 60%.

In commemoration of Arme-nian Genocide Remembrance Day on April 24, Bishop David J Malloy of Rockford, chairman of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on International Justice and Peace highlighted the tragic loss of so many Armenians in what has been called the first genocide of the 20th century.
Bishop Malloy’s full state-ment follows:
“April 24 is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, marking the 1915 start of a campaign that resulted in the death of as many as 1.2 million Armenian Christians — victims of mass shootings, death marches to distant camps, torture, assaults, starvation, and disease. Thousands of Armenian children were torn from their families and forcibly converted. This horrific tragedy was intended to eliminate the Armenian people and their culture in what has been called the ‘first genocide of the 20th century.’