The Vatican on January 4 moved to calm Catholic bishops in some countries who have balked over last month’s approval of blessings for same-sex couples, telling them that the measure is not “heretical” or “blasphemous”.
In a five-page statement, the Vatican’s doctrinal office also acknowledged that such blessings could be “imprudent” in some countries where people who receive them might become targets of violence, or risk prison or even death.
The fact that the Vatican needed to issue a five-page clarification of an eight-page declaration – little more than two weeks after it was issued – appeared to underscore the extent of the confusion it caused in many countries.
After the original declaration was issued, a number of Catholic bishops’ conferences issued statements stressing that the blessings did not amount to an official approval of gay sex or a sacrament of marriage for same-sex couples.
The doctrinal office, known as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, stressed these aspects in its statement on January 4 , saying that blessings for same-sex couples should not be seen as “a justification of all their actions, and they are not an endorsement of the life that they lead”.
The office said it wanted “to clarify the reception of Fiducia Supplicans while recommending at the same time a full and calm reading” of the Dec. 18 declaration, which it said is “clear and definitive about marriage and sexuality”.
It added: “Evidently, there is no room to distance ourselves doctrinally from this declaration or to consider it heretical, contrary to the Tradition of the Church or Blasphemous.”

A pall of gloom descended over Bethlehem on Christmas Eve as the Gaza war weighed heavily on the biblical city in the occupied West Bank and the usual crowds of pilgrims stayed away.
The traditional giant Christmas tree, marching bands and flamboyant nativity scene were all absent in the city celebrated as the birthplace of Jesus Christ.
While there were few festive lights, a huge Palestinian flag was unfolded in the centre of town and a banner declared that “The bells of Bethlehem ring for a ceasefire in Gaza”.
Bethlehem usually throngs with pilgrims and tourists at this time of year. But many residents have fled and few visitors have come since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7.
The bloody conflict was sparked when the Palestinian militants launched a deadly cross border attack on southern Israel, triggering a massive Israeli retaliation.

When asked to sum up the state of the American priesthood, Catholic University of America sociologist Brandon Vaidyanathan describes it as “fractured,” in that individually priests are doing well, but their assessment of the institutional Church “is not very good.”
What’s more, research conducted by Vaidyanathan and others has found that not only is there a striking deficit in the trust priests feel in their bishop, but there’s also a significant generational mistrust priests have in each other that relates to differing theological and political alignments.
“There’s a mutual distrust of each other that is driven by political differences, and so young priests view older priests with suspicion and vice versa,” Vaidyanathan told Crux. “The younger priests are more conservative, and don’t see the older priests as sort of a part of the same program.”
The insight became apparent to Vaidyanathan and other researchers in an analysis of data compiled for “The National Survey of Catholic Priests,” which was published in October 2022 by CUA’s Catholic Project. The survey, the largest of American Catholic priests in over 50 years, got responses from 3,516 priests across 191 dioceses/eparchies.
The survey also included interviews with more than 100 priests selected from respondents, and a census survey of U.S. bishops receiving 131 responses.
Among the findings were that priests’ morale is high and they have a strong view of their personal vocations, but a high percentage of priests expressed some level of distrust in their bishop, and young priests especially experience burnout. After first survey findings were published last year, researchers conducted a deeper analysis of the data, which was published in November in a report titled “Polarization, Generational Dynamics, and the Ongoing Impact of the Abuse Crisis: Further Insights from the National Study of Catholic Priests.”
“Since [the initial survey was published] we have analyzed the qualitative data from about 104 interviews that we did, and our team was also looking at other kinds of interesting findings, patterns, that seemed to be present in the survey data that could help quantify and give us a sense of the distribution of some of the things we were finding,” Vaidyanathan, the chair of CUA’s Department of Sociology, explained.

Catholic Bishops in Cameroon have added their voice to other Catholic Church leaders, who have prohibited the implementation of Fiducia Supplicans in their Episcopal Sees and territories they govern.
In a statement, members of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon (NECC) weigh in on the document that the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith (DDF) released on December 18 permitting the blessing of “same-sex couples” and couples in other “irregular situations”.
NECC members take the stance that their counterparts in Malawi and Zambia have taken, barring members of the Clergy from imparting blessings upon “homosexual couples”, and term the DDF directive that such blessings be nonliturgical as “hypocritical”.
“We, the Bishops of Cameroon, reiterate our disapproval of homosexuality and homosexual unions,” they say, and go on to issue their directive, “Consequently, we formally forbid all blessings of ‘homosexual couples’ in the Church of Cameroon.”

Catholic bishops in Poland have ruled out the possibility of blessing “same-sex unions” but remain open to blessing individuals with homosexual tendencies, only if they are “living in complete abstinence” of sexual activities.
The Polish Episcopal Conference released the statement on Dec. 21, just three days after the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a declaration that allowed nonliturgical blessings of “same-sex couples.” The Polish bishops’ statement did not expressly criticize the Vatican declaration but appeared to conflict with the guidance contained within it.
“In response to the question ‘Does the Church have the authority to bless same-sex unions?’ the answer is negative,” the Polish bishops’ statement read, citing a March 2021 “responsum” from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
“Since practicing sexual acts outside marriage, that is, outside the indissoluble union of a man and a woman open to the transmission of life, is always an offense against the will and wisdom of God expressed in the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue, people who are in such a relationship cannot receive a blessing,” the statement added. “This applies in particular to people in same-sex relationships.”

On a sunny morning at St. Benedict the African Catholic Church on Chicago’s South Side, the Rev. Rukulatwa Kiiguta stepped into the center of the sanctuary to preach.
“My brothers and sisters, yes, we do have this mission of saving souls by bringing them to Christ,” he told the assembly, looking around at the 50-odd people gathered in the Black Catholic parish, many of whom nodded as he spoke.
Kiiguta moved to the U.S. from his home in Tanzania for exactly that reason. After meeting an American priest who had traveled to East Africa to recruit seminarians, Kiiguta joined the ranks of about 15 African priests in Chicago. He sees his work in the Englewood neighborhood – where many families struggle to make ends meet, but Catholics pour their hearts into their parish – as God’s will.
This missionary’s story reflects a fundamental shift in the American Catholic church. After decades of U.S. missionaries traveling to Africa to convert and preach, the trend is reversing: Across the country, parishes now rely on the ministry of international priests, many from East Africa and Nigeria.
The Archdiocese of Chicago, one of the biggest American dioceses, is a case in point – almost two-thirds of its priests under 50 were born outside the U.S.
It’s difficult to estimate the number of foreign missionaries in the U.S. because their paths are so diverse. But recent studies by Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) estimated the U.S. hosts some 6,600 international priests and more than 4,000 international nuns.
Meanwhile, the number of American priests is tumbling: there are 10,000 fewer priests now than there were two decades ago.
Sister Thu Do, a research associate at CARA, described the trend as “reverse missionary action.” She said the number of international priests and sisters has likely grown since the Georgetown center’s last study in 2019.
“Because of the shortage of vocations in the priesthood as well as in religious life, religious institutes and dioceses here in the U.S. go outside of the U.S. to recruit new members,” she said.

On this Sunday December 24, the fourth of Advent and Christmas Eve, Pope Francis urged the faithful at the end of the Angelus to be close at this time of celebra-tion to the people in the world who suffer from war.
“Palestine, Israel, and Ukraine,” he said this morning from the window of the Vatican Apostolic Palace, are places that go towards Christmas without peace. Let us “also think of those who suffer from misery, from hunger, from slavery,” he said.
Francis expressed hope that this may be a day lived “in prayer, in the warmth of affection, and in soberness. Let me make one recommendation: let us not confuse celebration with consumerism,” he explained. Instead, for Christians, the path to follow this Christmas is that of simplicity, “without waste, and by sharing with those who lack nece-ssities or lack companionship.”
This Sunday the Holy Father asked God, who “took a human heart for Himself [to] infuse humanity into the hearts of men!”
Before his address following the recitation of the Marian pra-yer, he greeted those present, “Romans and pilgrims from Italy and from various parts of the world.”
He singled out for a special greeting a large delegation of Italians in St Peter’s Square from areas “officially recognised as highly polluted and who have long awaited their clean-up.”
The delegation was accompanied by a long banner that read: “From the S.I.N. (Sites of National Interest), we demand justice, remediation, and a change in the protection of the environment and health.” “I express solidarity with these populations and hope that their voices will be heard,” the Holy Father said.

Armed groups kill scores of villagers in Nigeria’s north-cen-tral Plateau state in the long-running conflict between noma-dic herders and farmers.
At least 140 people were killed and others are missing after a series of attacks by gunmen on remote villages in north-central Nigeria’s Plateau state.
Officials and survivors con-firmed the Christmas Eve attacks and blamed the killings on the farmer-herder crisis in the West African nation.
They said the military gangs, locally called “bandits,” launched “well-coordinated” attacks in “not fewer than 20 different commu-nities” and torched houses on Saturday and Sunday. Gunfire was still heard on Monday morning. Plateau Governor, Caleb Mutf-wang, said that in Mangu local governorate alone, 15 people were buried on Monday, and authorities in Bokkos had counted not less than 100 corpses.
“I am yet to take stock of (the deaths in) Barkin Ladi,” Mutfwan said, adding, “It has been a very terrifying Christmas for us here in Plateau.”
More than 300 wounded people have reportedly been taken to hos-pitals.
Amnesty International’s Nige-ria office told The Associated Press that it has so far confirmed 140 deaths in the Christian-majority Bokkos and Barkin-Ladi areas of Plateau, based on data compiled by its workers on the ground and from local officials.
There are fears of a higher death toll as some people remain unaccounted for.
Some witnesses said it took more than 12 hours before security agencies responded to their call for help.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, though blame fell on herders from the Fulani tribe, who have been accused of carrying out such mass killings across the northwest and central regions.
The bandit militias operate from bases deep in forests and raid villages to loot and kidnap residents for ransom.

In his annual Christmas address to members of the Roman Curia, Pope Francis urged the Church’s governing bureaucracy to be open to change and to resist “rigid ideological positions” that prevent them from moving forward.
Speaking to members of the curia during a Dec. 21 audience, Pope Francis stressed the need to “remain vigilant against rigid ideological positions that often, under the guise of good intentions, separate us from reality and prevent us from moving forward.”
“We are called, instead, to set out and journey, like the Magi, following the light that always desires to lead us on, at times along unexplored paths and new roads,” he said.
Referring to something he said was once told to him by a “zealous priest,” the pope said “it is not easy to rekindle the embers under the ashes of the Church. Today we strive to kindle passion in those who have long since lost it.”
“Sixty years after the Council, we are still debating the division between ‘progressives’ and ‘conservatives,’ while the real difference is between lovers and those who have lost that initial passion,” he said.
In this year’s speech, Francis told the curia to imitate God’s style of closeness, compassion, and tenderness, and to embark on a path of faith marked by an ability to listen and discern, and an openness to journey.

In his first major media appearance since being convicted of financial crimes by a Vatican tribunal and sentenced to five and a half years in prison, Cardinal Angelo Becciu told an Italian TV host Monday that “I want to shout to the world that I’m innocent.”
“I’m going to do everything I can, everything to demonstrate my innocence through the legal system and in every way possible,” Becciu said, speaking on the program Cinque Minuti (“Five Minutes”), hosted by Bruno Vespa, one of the country’s most renowned television journalists.
“I want to shout to the world that I’m innocent,” Becciu said. “I absolutely did not commit any of the crimes of which I’ve been accused.”
With regard to the complex London property deal at the heart of the recent Vatican trial, Becciu appeared to suggest that primary responsibility rested with Italian Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, who headed an administrative office within the Secretariat of State that oversaw the London operation but who escaped indictment by becoming a witness for the prosecution instead.
“I wasn’t the one who made the decision. As substitute, do you know how many offices I had to follow? There are 17. I didn’t have the time to follow economic and financial matters step by step,” Becciu said.