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Pope Benedict XVI has approved stricter guidelines for determining which saints will be remembered with mandatory feast days.
The General Roman Calendar, the universal schedule of holy days and feast days for the Latin rite of the Catholic Church, is so packed that more selectivity is needed, according to new norms and a commentary published in the official bulletin of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.
The pope determines who makes the universal calendar based on recommendations from the congregation, the commentary said. And, according to the new norms published in the bulletin in mid-May, those recommendations will be more difficult to obtain.
"A saint can be inserted in the general calendar because of the significant and universal importance of his or her spiritual message and effectiveness as an example for a broad category of members of the church," said the norms, approved by Pope Benedict in December.
Special consideration will be given to saints from countries not already represented in the general calendar and from underrepresented categories, such as laypeople, married couples and parents, the norms said. In addition, the norms said, 10 years should have passed since the canonization ceremony to ensure ongoing, widespread devotion.
The process for adding a candidate, it said, should begin with a two-thirds favorable vote from the bishops’ conference where the saint was born, lived or died. In addition, the congregation will ask the opinion of at least three other bishops’ conferences on different continents.
"The numerous beatifications and canonizations celebrated in the past few years by the supreme pontiff have underlined concretely the multiple manifestations of holiness in the church," the commentary said.
But, it said, hundreds of new saints also has meant greater competition for the limited free dates on the universal calendar, dates used to remember saints with a local importance and to keep the tradition of remembering Mary on Saturdays not already dedicated to an obligatory feast.
Also from CNS: "The Secret’s Out"
Despite claims there are still secrets connected to the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima, Pope Benedict XVI and his secretary of state said the entire message has been published and has been interpreted accurately.
The Marian apparitions to three children in Fatima, Portugal, began 90 years ago May 13, and Pope John Paul II ordered the so-called "third secret" of Fatima to be published in 2000.
As the Fatima anniversary approached, the Vatican bookstore was selling copies of "The Last Fatima Visionary: My Meetings With Sister Lucia." The 140-page, Italian-language interview with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, opens with a letter of presentation from Pope Benedict.
The two men worked with Pope John Paul to publish the "third secret" and to write an official commentary on it, describing its depiction of a "man dressed in white" shot down amid the rubble of a ruined city as a prophetic vision of the 1981 attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul.
In the new book, Cardinal Bertone said Carmelite Sister Lucia dos Santos, at the time the last surviving visionary, confirmed the Vatican’s interpretation.
He also said Pope John Paul felt that since the assassination attempt had already taken place and he survived, the 2000 beatification of Sister Lucia’s cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, was an appropriate occasion for announcing the publication of the secret.
The continuing rumors that the Vatican is still hiding something puzzle Cardinal Bertone and, he said, they irritated Sister Lucia, who died in February 2005 at the age of 97.
In the book, Cardinal Bertone said, "The most diehard ‘Fatimists,’ like those who follow Father Nicholas Gruner’s Fatima Crusader magazine, remain disappointed."
The priest of the Manhattan church where Rudy Giuliani had his second wedding says he would deny the presidential contender Holy Communion because of his public support for abortion.
"Because he publicly is against church teaching, the answer would be no" if Giuliani requested the sacrament, said Msgr. Thomas Modugno.
Modugno is the pastor of St. Monica’s, the East Side church where Giuliani wed his second wife, Donna Hanover. The priest did not preside over the wedding.
Giuliani, a lifelong Catholic who once considered the priesthood, has strained to define and defend his abortion stance. Pope Benedict further inflamed this issue with his comment this week that it is proper to refuse Communion to Catholic politicians who accept abortion.
Communion is a central sacrament of the church in which Catholics believe they are receiving the body of Christ.
Modugno, who has not seen Giuliani at the church since his third marriage to the former Judith Nathan, said all Catholics who support abortion should be denied Communion.
"However, do I know they’ve taken that position? Probably not," the priest said. But he drew a comparison with public figures like former Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who was denied Communion by St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke during the 2004 campaign.
"Everybody knows his position. [It’s] not confidential," Modugno said of Giuliani.
Asked if Giuliani attends church, a campaign spokeswoman said, "The mayor’s relationship with God is both private and personal."
At St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Rev. Joseph Marabe, 60, said, "If he comes to my church, he would be refused Communion."
Marabe then qualified his statement to add, "If the cardinal declares it, then [if Giuliani] is invited here, [we] would advise him before he comes not to take Communion, to save him from public embarrassment."
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