VATICAN CITY (CNS)—While 2022 finally saw the publication of Pope Francis’ structure reforming the Roman Curia, the largest news and the largest changes in his ministry got here from Russia’s war on Ukraine and from the pope’s own problems walking.
Knee problems forced the pope, who will have fun his 86th birthday Dec. 17, to postpone a planned trip to Congo and South Sudan in July, although he did make a significant trip to Canada later that very same month.
A number of weeks before heading to North America, he had told the Reuters news agency that an inflamed ligament in his right knee caused him to limp, which made him walk badly and that, in turn, caused a small fracture.
The pope was complaining of knee pain in January and canceling public events already in February; by early May he was arriving at audiences in a wheelchair.
The pope was complaining of knee pain in January and canceling public events already in February; by early May he was arriving at audiences in a wheelchair.
Because the yr ended, he mostly used a cane to walk in public, however the wheelchair was a frequent alternative. And, at papal liturgies, it became the norm for him preside over the Liturgy of the Word and provides the homily, but have a cardinal or bishop preside over the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
Because the pope’s step faltered, his cries for peace increased, although not without controversy and criticism.
Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, Pope Francis took the bizarre step of leaving the Vatican to go to the Russian Embassy to the Holy See to plead for peace and offer the Vatican’s services as a mediator. And, inviting bishops across the globe to hitch him, he solemnly entrusted and consecrated the church, all humanity and “especially Russia and Ukraine” to the Immaculate Heart of Mary during a prayer service March 25 in St. Peter’s Basilica.
But whilst tens of millions of Ukrainians—mostly women and youngsters—fled and as evidence mounted of Russian war crimes, Pope Francis didn’t publicly condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin. That, along along with his pleas for Russia and Ukraine to dialogue and negotiate peace, left many individuals, particularly Ukrainians, hurt that the pope looked as if it would someway blame “each side” for the war.
Journalists repeatedly asked Pope Francis to clarify.
In late November, he told the Jesuit-run America magazine he didn’t think it was crucial to call names. “If you have got a martyred people, you have got someone who martyrs them.”
In late November, he told America he didn’t think it was crucial to call names. “Why do I not name Putin? Since it just isn’t crucial; it’s already known.”
“Why do I not name Putin? Since it just isn’t crucial; it’s already known,” he said.
And, he said, “the position of the Holy See is to hunt peace and to hunt an understanding. The diplomacy of the Holy See is moving on this direction and, in fact, is all the time willing to mediate.”
It was not until October that Pope Francis publicly said he was calling on “the president of the Russian Federation, begging him to stop this spiral of violence and death, also for the sake of his people.”
At the identical time, Pope Francis appealed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “to be open” to any “serious peace proposals.”
Also in the realm of diplomacy, in October the Vatican renewed for an additional two years its agreement with China on naming bishops which might be acceptable to each the communist government and the pope. But soon after, the Chinese government transferred a bishop without Vatican approval, drawing an unusual statement of “regret” from the Vatican that the task “didn’t happen in accordance with the spirit of dialogue existing between the Vatican and Chinese sides.”
In August, the pope created 20 latest cardinals and led the complete College of Cardinals in a two-day meeting on the apostolic structure “Praedicate Evangelium.”
In August, the pope created 20 latest cardinals and led the complete College of Cardinals in a two-day meeting on the apostolic structure “Praedicate Evangelium” (Preach the Gospel), which was the primary major reform and reorganization of the Roman Curia since 1988.
Published in March and taking effect in June, the document merged some Vatican congregations and pontifical councils and raised the status of others—particularly the charitable office of the papal almoner. But mostly, it insisted the Roman Curia was a service organization meant to support the pope and native bishops of their efforts to advertise the church as a community of missionary disciples, sharing the Gospel and caring for all those in need.
The project had been a protracted one. Six months after taking office in 2013, Pope Francis arrange his international Council of Cardinals to advise him and to assist design the reform. They interviewed all of the heads of Vatican offices, studied what each was doing and made dozens of proposals, going through various drafts and consultation periods before the ultimate version was promulgated.
“The general effects of the policies linked to the residential schools were catastrophic. What our Christian faith tells us is that this was a disastrous error, incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Also long within the making was Pope Francis’ trip to Canada to apologize to Indigenous communities for the ways Catholics and their institutions, especially residential schools, contributed to their suffering and to the stifling of their language, culture and traditional spirituality.
The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Motion in 2015 included a request that the pope make such an apology on the land of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities. And representatives of the three groups got here to the Vatican in March and April to share with the pope the stories of the survivors of residential schools and to recount the multigenerational trauma that got here from the physical and emotional abuse, the splitting apart of families and the suppression of their people’s language and cultures.
Meeting Indigenous people in Edmonton, Maskwacis and Lac Ste. Anne in Alberta, in Quebec City and nearby Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré and, finally, in Iqaluit, Nunavut, within the Canadian Arctic, Pope Francis repeatedly said, “I’m sorry.”
“The general effects of the policies linked to the residential schools were catastrophic,” he said at Maskwacis. “What our Christian faith tells us is that this was a disastrous error, incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Pope Francis made three other foreign trips in 2022: specializing in migrants in Malta and on interreligious dialogue and promoting human fraternity in visits to Kazakhstan and Bahrain.
All year long, the pope continued to speak in regards to the need for the Catholic Church to embrace “synodality,” a type of sharing the Gospel by listening to 1 one other and to the Holy Spirit and making room for every of the baptized to simply accept his or her responsibilities as a disciple and welcoming the gifts of all.
Saying he didn’t need to rush the strategy of discerning how the Holy Spirit is looking the church to grow in “synodality,” Pope Francis announced in October that the following assembly of the Synod of Bishops would happen in two sessions: October 2023 and October 2024.