Pope’s new book calls for spiritual rebirth
The global ecological crisis is just one of the effects of a distorted and diseased view people have of the world, themselves and each other, Pope Francis has said in a new book.
In fact, addressing a global crisis demands a global approach, which must start with “a spiritual rebirth”, he wrote in the concluding chapter of Our Mother Earth: A Christian Reading of the Environmental Challenge.
“We need to rediscover ourselves as people, that is men and women who recognise they are unable to know who they are without others, and who feel called to see the whole world around them, not as an end in itself, but as a sacrament of communion,” he wrote.
Except for the final chapter, the new book is a compilation of passages from Pope Francis’ documents, texts, homilies and speeches focusing on the environment. The book was released in Italian on October 24 by the Vatican publishing house.
Throughout the book, the selected passages reiterate the importance of having a holistic approach to seeing all of creation as a gift from God and the need to experience an “ecological conversion” in which that awareness is translated into action.
Controversy over Vatican central bank €50 million loan
The head of the Vatican’s central bank appeared to admit this week to a transaction that could be a violation of European regulatory commitments, namely a loan of €50 million to finance the purchase of a struggling Italian hospital.
Sources say a controversial grant from the US-based Papal Foundation was requested in order to balance the central bank’s books after the hospital was unable to repay the money.
In a statement last Tuesday, Bishop Nunzio Galantino, head of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), acknowledged that the Vatican’s central bank loaned the money to finance the purchase of the Italian hospital, the Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata (IDI), even though APSA is prohibited from making loans that finance commercial transactions, by policies put in place to exempt it from external oversight.
The loan was made in 2015 to the non-profit Fondazione Luigi Maria Monti, a partnership between the Vatican Secretariat of State and the Congregation of the Sons of the Immaculate Conception, the hospital’s previous owners, under whose management the hospital was driven to bankruptcy following a series of embezzlement scandals that led to multiple prosecutions and debts of more than €800 million.
Amazon synod: ‘Understand the needs of Catholics here’
Addressing concerns about a proposed Amazonian rite in the Church, an indigenous participant at the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon called on Catholics to soften their hearts and understand the needs of Catholics in the region.
Delio Siticonatzi Camaiteri, a member of the Ashaninka people and a professor from Peru, said at a briefing that fears about the proposal are unwarranted because indigenous people seek unity and not division. “Do we (want to) have our own rites? Yes, we do! But those rites must be incorporated with what is central, which is Jesus Christ.
“There is nothing else to argue about on this issue! The centre that is uniting us in this synod is Jesus Christ,” he said.
While there are nearly two dozen different rites in the Catholic Church, those critical of the proposal fear that it would introduce so-called pagan elements into the liturgy.
