VATICAN (CNS): Having bid a final farewell to his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Bendedict XVI, at a Janury 5 funeral Mass, Pope Francis will soon pack his bags for his first foreign trip of 2023, a year that promises to be as busy as ever.
The pope, who turned 86 on 17 December 2022, can move quickly—in a wheelchair—and keeps saying in interviews that a functioning head and heart—not a well-functioning knee—are essential to the exercise of the papacy.
So his appointment book is starting to fill up, although he usually agrees to appointments with the caveat of “God willing.”
Several events are already inked in including a pastoral visit to violence-torn Congo from January 31 to February 3, immediately followed by an ecumenical pilgrimage for peace to South Sudan from February 3-5 with Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury, and the Reverend Iain Greenshields, moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
The pope will also celebrate his 10th anniversary as pope on March 13.
From August 1 to 6, the pope is scheduled to join perhaps a million young people from around the globe for World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, and the first session of the world Synod of Bishops on “synodality” is scheduled for October 4 to 29 at the Vatican.
His constant pleas for peace in Ukraine will not end until the war does.
While Pope Francis indicated on 21 December 2022 that he had reached, or at least was reaching, the end of a series of general audience lessons about spiritual discernment—what it is, how it is done and how the results are judged—his emphasis on teaching Catholics how to listen to the Holy Spirit when making decisions individually or communally will continue as the synod process does.
In October, saying he did not want to rush the process of discerning how the Holy Spirit is calling the Church to grow in “synodality,” the pope announced that the assembly of the Synod of Bishops would take place in two sessions. The gathering scheduled for 2023 is only the first one.
Having published his constitution reforming the Roman Curia in June 2022, Pope Francis is expected to make some changes in the top positions of Curia offices during the year.
The normal retirement age for cardinals and bishops working in the Curia is 75, but the pope has often kept cardinals who are prefects of dicasteries in place beyond their 75th birthdays.
The two cardinals likely to retire in 2023 are Luis Cardinal Ladaria, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, who will be 79 in April and has been in office since 2017; and Mauro Cardinal Piacenza, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Vatican tribunal, who turned 78 in September and has led the office since 2013.
Four other cardinals continue to serve past the age of 75. Michael Cardinal Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, celebrated his 76th birthday in July. Joao Cardinal Bráz de Aviz will turn 76 in April. Kevin Cardinal Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life, turned 75 in September. Marcello Cardinal Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, celebrated his 75th birthday on December 22.
In 2023 Pope Francis also will hear continuing calls to address the clerical sexual abuse scandal and, especially, to ensure greater consistency in dealing with abusers and greater transparency in how the Vatican has handled the cases.
Returning to Rome from Bahrain in November, Pope Francis told reporters that over the past 20 years, the Catholic Church had made huge efforts to stop hiding abuse cases and simply shuffling abusive priests to new assignments—“an ugly habit,” he said—and “we are moving forward.”
