Vatican Diary / [Some interesting items from] Everything we didn’t know before and do now
It is the previously unpublished information contained in the report that the Holy See publishes each year about its own activities. Thefts, trials, indulgences, charity, donations. There is also the account of an invasion of porcupines. Wiped out
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chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350312?eng=y
VATICAN CITY, August 27, 2012 – “The activity of the Holy See” is the title of a weighty volume that year after year offers the account of the actions undertaken by the pope, the Roman curia, and other Vatican offices. It is an “unofficial publication,” as specified on the frontispiece, but – compiled by the secretariat of state – contains a substantial amount of information and not a few curiosities, often unpublished elsewhere.
– that among the activities of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith must also be included the republication in the November 30, 2011 issue of “L’Osservatore Romano” of the text by then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger published in 1998 in a volume “On the pastoral care of the divorced and remarried.” This republication – it is explained – was intended to “draw the attention of pastors” to that volume, “unfortunately little known,” which reiterates the traditional Catholic position on the argument and in which, among other things, it is confirmed that the practice of the Orthodox Churches of admitting under certain conditions a second and third marriage after the failure of the first remains “unacceptable for doctrinal reasons.”
– that the congregation for divine worship, in addition to its ordinary administration, declares that “it is closely following the proposal of ‘thematic homilies’ in conjunction with the congregation for the doctrine of the faith and the congregation for the clergy,” evidently with the intention of improving the content of preaching at Masses.
– that while the examination is underway by the congregation for the doctrine of the faith into the Marian apparitions of Medjugorje, through an international commission of inquiry that met four times in 2011, the pontifical academy of the Immaculate, for which “the problem of the lack of academics is becoming even more acute,” received many requests from prayer groups that “born from Medjugorje, have no point of reference in order to channel the grace of conversion obtained in that blessed place.”