ROME — ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV affirmed Wednesday that monks will have to be celibate and insisted that bishops take “company and decisive” motion to maintain intercourse abusers, as he gave marching orders Wednesday to the sector’s Catholic hierarchs.
Leo met in St. Peter’s Basilica with about 400 bishops and cardinals from 38 international locations attending this week’s particular Holy Yr celebrations for clergy. An afternoon after he gave an uplifting message of encouragement to younger seminarians, Leo presented a extra complete define of what bishops will have to do to guide their flocks.
It’s a subject matter the previous Cardinal Robert Prevost would have lengthy contemplated given his function because the prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Bishops. In that activity from 2023 till his election in Would possibly, the Chicago-born Prevost vetted bishop nominations for Pope Francis, figuring out the kind of chief who would additional Francis’ view of a church the place all are welcome and discussion is the decisive type of governance.
Historical past’s first American pope reaffirmed Wednesday that the principle function of bishops is to forge cohesion in his diocese amongst clergy and to be just about his flock in phrase and deed. Bishops will have to are living in poverty and ease, generously opening their properties to all and appearing as a father determine and brother to his monks, Leo stated.
“In his non-public lifestyles, he will have to be indifferent from the pursuit of wealth and from varieties of favoritism in keeping with cash or energy,” he stated.
Bishops will have to stay celibate “and provide to all of the unique symbol of the church, holy and chaste in her individuals as in her head,” he stated.
Regarding circumstances of abuse, he stated bishops “will have to be company and decisive in coping with scenarios that may motive scandal and with each and every case of abuse, particularly involving minors, and completely appreciate the law these days in drive.”
It was once the second one time in per week that Leo has commented publicly at the abuse scandal. On Friday evening, in a written commentary to a crusading Peruvian journalist who documented gross abuses in a Peruvian Catholic motion, Leo stated there must be no tolerance within the Catholic Church for any form of abuse. He recognized sexual and religious abuses, in addition to abuses of authority and gear in calling for “clear processes” to create a tradition of prevention around the church.
Francis, who in some ways positioned Leo in place to be successful him, had additionally reaffirmed celibacy for Latin ceremony monks whilst acknowledging it was once a self-discipline of the church, now not doctrine, and subsequently may alternate. However he refused appeals from Amazonian bishops to permit married monks to deal with the priest scarcity within the area.
Prevost spent twenty years as a missionary and bishop in Peru and would know smartly the ones arguments. However on Wednesday he reaffirmed the celibate priesthood because the “unique symbol” of the church.
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