Bishop Michael W. Warfel
The visit ad limina apostulorum for US bishops is now complete. The visits began late last year with each of the 16 regions of bishops from the US traveling to the Holy See. The visit lasted for five days. The last group of Eastern bishops made their visit the third week of February. My guess is that few people reading this have been aware of these visits or even what an ad limina apostulorum visit refers to. I thought I would dedicate this article as a report on the visit and as an explanation. I will also provide some brief highlights.
Every five years bishops from each region of the world are required to provide a report on his diocese to the Holy See (i.e., the Pope). On occasion, due to a death of a Pope (such as the case of St. John Paul II) or a resignation from office (as in the case of Pope Benedict Emeritus) the time is extended. The US bishops made our last visit close to eight years ago. The visit, first of all, involves visiting and praying at the thresholds of the tombs of the Apostles Saints Peter and Paul. We celebrated Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica on our first day and then later in the week at St. Paul’s Basilica. We likewise prayed before their remains. In addition, we celebrated Mass at St. John Lateran Basilica, the Cathedral church of the Diocese of Rome, and the Basilica of St. Mary Major, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Each group of bishops, over several months, followed the same pattern.
In addition to these special Masses, the visit involved quite a few meetings over five days, beginning with Pope Francis and then Vatican dicasteries. Dicastery is a term that refers to the various departments of the Roman Curia. These dicasteries are charged with the responsibility to attend to certain areas of concern to the Church. They are designated as Congregations, Councils and Commissions. To many, this structure may seem mysterious and remote, but they actually are not much different than the makeup of a diocesan structure with a Business Manager/CFO, Chancellor, Director of Ministries, Vocation Director, Director of Stewardship, Personal Assistant, etc. A report had been prepared months in advance of the visit, sent to the Holy See and disseminated to the appropriate dicasteries in order to provide their staffs an opportunity to be updated on the life of each diocese. These reports, along with our questions, help to focus the discussions. Each meeting was generally an hour and a half in length except for the one with Pope Francis that lasted for two and half hours. As such, it is not feasible to provide a full report. I will provide some “take-aways” and impressions I acquired from the visit.
The visit with Pope Francis was very open and cordial. He let us know at the beginning of the meeting, that we could address anything, even criticize him, but asked that we not share the specifics of our discussions. He noted that all too often the press will take something he says and misreport it or report a comment out of context. In a general way, he stressed the importance of fraternity among bishops. We discussed quite a number of current moral challenges facing the Church in the US as well as some current structures embraced by the Church. It was a very fruitful and enriching meeting.
In the meetings with the dicasteries, several emphasized the importance of the laity as being an enormous resource for evangelization and catechesis. The Congregation for Bishops, the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization and the Dicastery for Laity and Family Life all, in one way of another, emphasized the Church as needing to be “mission oriented” with the mission of spreading the Gospel being carried forth fundamentally by all the people of God. This has been a fundamental element of the magisterium of Pope Francis.
The influence of secularization and hostility to and rejection of numerous Church teachings on an array of issues such as abortion and same-sex related issues was addressed a number of times. For example, protection of the unborn as a fundamental right, not as a religious matter, but a human rights issue, is regularly rejected by many in society. I was struck by the number of times transgenderism surfaced as a concern, especially regarding Catholic schools and institutions. In contrast to Church teaching with regard to same-sex attraction (which is defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church), it is contradictory, not only to the Church’s understanding of male-female complementarity, but a fundamental contradiction to how a person is created. Still in the area of sexual morality, the issue of the devastating effects of pornography emerged. Children nowadays in the US, via easy access to internet, are introduced to pornography as early as 8-10 years old. Young adults become easily addicted and thus marriages are often negatively impacted because of a spouse who has become so addicted to viewing pornography.
Support for marriage and families was discussed. Interestingly, we were urged at the Dicastery for Laity and Family Life to begin marriage preparation remotely at 10-12 years of age. Obviously, this needs to occur within the family setting. A sixth month preparation for many a young couple, who are often marginally connected with the Church, does not provide sufficient understanding of what the sacrament of matrimony entails. There is also need for ongoing marriage enrichment such as provided by Worldwide Marriage Encounter.
Liturgical catechesis is generally lacking as exemplified by the way some Catholics view the Eucharist. Liturgy can easily be infected by secular influences, thus the dicastery urged liturgical education as being vital. At the Congregation of Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, the ten-year-old document by Pope Benedict, Summorum Pontificam was discussed which allowed celebration of the Mass in the extraordinary form (extraordinary meaning outside of the norm). Pope Benedict’s intent was to reach out to those who favored the former ritual in Latin as well as provide for mutual enrichment between the older form of the Mass and the Novus Ordo, i.e., the Mass normally celebrated today. Among the US bishops, it was agreed that experience has sadly shown that mutual enrichment has not occurred with the celebration of the Eucharist as being a sign of unity, in some cases, becoming a time of division.
This is a brief report on my ad limina apostulorem with the bishops of Region XII (Pacific Northwest). The next visit should occur in the year 2025/26 and by that time, the diocese will have a new bishop. I will provide a fuller report to the pastors of the Diocese and plan to provide it on the diocesan website.
Please help us continue
