VATICAN (CNS): Pope Francis and his international Council of Cardinals met in-person at the Vatican on April 25, discussing the war in Ukraine, the Vatican press office said on April 28. There was a discussion about the conflict and its impact on the Church, ecumenism and the sociopolitical sphere.
The cardinals reflected on the situation and supported the different initiatives that have been launched by Pope Francis and the Vatican’s secretary and secretariat of state, aimed at finding a peaceful solution, according to the Vatican press office.
Each cardinal then presented a rundown of the different situations on their own continent, touching on such issues as peace, health care, poverty, tenuous political situations and pastoral problems in the local churches, it said.
Six of the seven members of the council participated: Seán Cardinal O’Malley of Boston; Óscar Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras; Oswald Cardinal Gracias of Mumbai, India; Reinhard Cardinal Marx of Munich and Freising, Germany; Fridolin Cardinal Ambongo Besungu of Kinshasa, and Giuseppe Cardinal Bertello, retired president of the commission governing Vatican City State. Pietro Cardinal Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, was in Mexico to mark 30 years of diplomatic ties with the Vatican.
On his doctor’s orders to rest an inflamed knee, the pope was compelled to cancel his scheduled appointments for April 26, which included that day’s session of the Council of Cardinals.
The cardinals spent the day discussing climate change and the upcoming COP27 meeting in Egypt in November. They reflected on what the Church could be doing to draw attention to the urgency of the problem. Cardinal Ambongo gave a broader look at the global situation and what expectations came out of the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, particularly in helping poorer nations in Asia, Latin America, Africa and Oceania.
The cardinals also continued an in-depth discussion, begun in February, on women in the Church. The April meeting included a presentation by Sister Laura Vicuña Pereira Manso, a member of the Congregation of Franciscan Catechists and the Kariri Indigenous community from the Amazon region in Brazil.
On April 27, the final day, the cardinals continued a reflection on the Vatican’s diplomatic service and the role of the apostolic nuncios. Cardinal Gracias presented a report on the subject, followed by an open discussion.
They ended the session discussing the implementation of the Praedicate Evangelium [Preach the Gospel], the papal constitution reforming the Roman Curia, a project Pope Francis began with the Council of Cardinals shortly after taking office in 2013. Published by the Vatican on March 19, it will go into effect on June 5, the feast of Pentecost.
The cardinals discussed possible ways to implement the new legislation and evaluate next steps and potential challenges.
The council is scheduled to meet again in June.
