Pope Francis in Bahrein Card. Zen’s Trial & Woman in Priest Vestments post from the Synod of Bishops

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Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://mailchi.mp/ewtn/vatican Hello and Welcome to this week’s Vaticano Update, the most important news from the Holy Father and the Vatican. Cardinal Joseph Zen stood trial in Hong Kong in West Kowloon on Monday, September 26th. He was arrested in May, accused of breaking Hong Kong’s strict national security law. The Vatican stated in May that officials were “following the development of the situation with extreme attention.” The cardinal told the faithful: “Martyrdom is normal in our Church…” while offering mass after his first court appearance in May. Prayer is “an indispensable aid to spiritual discernment, especially when it involves the affections.” Pope Francis told the faithful at the Wednesday General Audience continuing his catechism on discernment. Through prayer we can grow in familiarity with God, which “can meet doubts in a gentle way, making our lives increasingly receptive to His ‘gentle light,’ according to the beautiful expression of St. John Henry Newman.” Pope Francis concluded his catechesis with the prayer that we might grow in the grace of living “in a relationship of friendship with the Lord, as a friend who speaks to a friend.” Cardinal Francis Arinze, the former head of the Vatican’s liturgy office, has challenged the decision of bishops in Belgium to introduce blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples. “Human beings have no power to change the order established by God the Creator,” Arinze said in a Sept. 24 message. “Even if the aim is to be pastorally helpful to homosexual couples, this is an error on the part of the bishops,” Arinze said. It made clear that blessings can be given “to individual persons with homosexual inclinations, who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God as proposed by Church teaching.” Pope Francis is scheduled to travel to Bahrain, a small island kingdom located in the Persian Gulf from the 3 to 6 November 2022. A statement released by the Director of the Holy See Press Office on Wednesday said the Pope had accepted the invitation from the country's civil and ecclesial authorities. The program and further details of the Journey will be published at a later date. Pope Francis will be the first Pope to visit Bahrain. TOP 5 An image of a woman dressed in the vestments of a priest among several other artistic images posted to an official Facebook page for the Synod of Bishops has caused a social media stir. Though it is unclear whether the figure was noticed Synod organizers, the artwork does come from a Philadelphia gathering of college students that said Holy Orders should be open to women. The image also includes another person holding a microphone and wearing a yellow shirt that says “pride” in rainbow-colored letters. Despite authoritative Catholic teaching that the Church cannot ordain women, the report’s authors recommend that the Church “open doors to women in leadership and Holy Orders.” In the 1994 document Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, St. John Paul II definitively excluded the possibility of the ordination of women to the priesthood. In 2016, Pope Francis characterized this as “the final word.” Follow us on our social networks: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/EWTNVatican/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/EWTNVatican Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EWTNVatican

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• Suffering & Trials