Pope Francis has appointed a Polish archbishop to study the pastoral needs of the pilgrims flocking to Medjugorje and the people who live in the town.
The Pope chose Archbishop Henryk Hoser of Warsaw-Praga as his special envoy to Medjugorje, the Vatican announced this week.
The Vatican announcement said: “The mission has the aim of acquiring a deeper knowledge of the pastoral situation there and, above all, of the needs of the faithful who go there in pilgrimage, and on the basis of this, to suggest possible pastoral initiatives for the future.”
Archbishop Hoser’s assignment has “an exclusively pastoral character”, the Vatican said, making it clear that his task is separate from the work of a commission set up in 2010 by Benedict XVI to investigate the claims of six young people who said Mary had appeared to them daily beginning in 1981.
Some of the six say Mary still appears to them and gives them messages each day, while others say they see her only once a year now. Benedict XVI had named retired Italian Cardinal Camillo Ruini to chair the group studying the apparitions.
In June 2015, Pope Francis told reporters that Cardinal Ruini had given him the group’s report and that it would be studied by the cardinals and bishops at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. At the time, Pope Francis said: “We’re close to making decisions” – although nothing has been announced in the 20 months since.
The Vatican said that Archbishop Hoser “is expected to finish his mandate as special envoy by summer of this year”.
Francis praises ‘courageous’ abuse victim for speaking out
The sexual abuse of children by those who have vowed to serve Christ and the Church is a horrendous monstrosity that represents “a diabolical sacrifice” of innocent, defenceless lives, Pope Francis has said.
The Church, which must protect the weakest, has a duty “to act with extreme severity with priests who betray their mission and with the hierarchy – bishops and cardinals – who protect them.”
The Pope wrote in the preface to a new book written by a man raped as a child by a Capuchin priest.
The book, Mon Pere, Je Vous Pardonne (“My Father, I Forgive You”), was written by Daniel Pittet, 57, in an effort to describe how he fell victim to on abuser when he was eight growing up in Fribourg, Switzerland, and the challenges he faced when he came forward two decades later with the accusations. The book is currently published only in French.
Mr Pittet, who had been a monk but later married and had six children, met the Pope at the Vatican during the Year of Consecrated Life in 2015.
His testimony is “necessary, invaluable and courageous”, the Pope wrote in the preface.
Church reopens after arson attack
The Church of the Multiplication on the shore of the Sea of Galilee has reopened nearly two years after suffering serious damage from arson attack.
A Mass to mark the event was celebrated by Cardinal Rainer Woelki and attended by Israel’s president Reuven Rivlin. He said Israel was “deeply committed to the freedom of religion”. The church is believed to be the site of the miracle of loaves and fishes.
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