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Vatican City, Jul 10, 2025 / 14:30 pm (CNA).

The specter of schism has hovered in recent years over the Metropolitan Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly of the Syro-Malabar Church in India—one of the 24 Eastern Churches in full communion with the Catholic Church.

Part of the clergy and faithful of Ernakulam-Angamaly, the largest Indian episcopal see in terms of the number of priests as well as the see presided over by the bishop in charge of the entire Syro-Malabar Church, did not accept the 1999 reform of the liturgical rite, which was later confirmed at the 2021 Synod of the Syro-Malabar Church.

Pope Leo XIV appears to have resolved the controversy by terminating the 2023 appointment of Archbishop Cyril Vasil' as papal delegate to the Syro-Malabar Church to mediate the dispute.

According to Vatican News, the official Vatican website, this decision by the pope "concludes the Holy See's mediation work among the Syro-Malabars."

Martin Bräuer, an expert at the Ecumenical Research Institute in Bensheim, Germany, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that "Rome now considers the conflict over and therefore no longer needs a papal representative. Secondly, the agreement reached within the [Syro-Malabar] Church without the direct mediation of Archbishop Vasil' is recognized."

Indeed, the news comes after new measures to implement the liturgical reform approved by the 2021 Synod came into effect on July 3, the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle—patron saint of the Syro-Malabar Church.

The compromise now reached allows the parishes of Ernakulam-Angamaly to celebrate the liturgy with the priest facing the faithful (versus populum), adhering to the practice of the Roman Rite, provided that at least one Sunday or feast day Mass is celebrated according to the traditional form, that is, with the priest facing the altar (ad orientem) during the consecration.

According to the 2021 reform of the rite, during Mass the priest was required to address the people during the first part of the celebration, but the liturgy of the Eucharist was celebrated facing the altar.

Prior to the reform that sparked the dispute, all solemnities had to be celebrated in line with the directives issued by the Syro-Malabar Synod four years ago. Now, however, the Syro-Malabar Church accepts as sufficient that all churches celebrate just one of their Masses on Sundays and feast days according to those directives.

“This rule also applies to parishes with ongoing civil proceedings, provided they do not contravene the decisions of state courts,” the academic explained.

Furthermore, he said, it is made explicit that the synod will only address future liturgical changes “if they are discussed in a spirit of synodality with the canonical bodies of the archeparchy.”

Other points include “the use of the sanctuary in accordance with liturgical norms, the possibility of outside bishops celebrating the unified form in all churches, and that any internal conflicts be resolved in an atmosphere of respect and friendship,” Bräuer emphasized.

What was the liturgical dispute about?

While the 2021 synod promoted a return to the liturgy facing the altar as the traditional form of the Syro-Oriental rite, many priests and faithful in Ernakulam-Angamaly defended the practice of facing the people that had become widespread after the Second Vatican Council.

The Vatican then asked the 35 dioceses of the Syro-Malabar Church to eliminate elements of the Roman rite and return to their original traditions, in this case the pure Chaldean rite, present today especially in Iraq.

For Bräuer, what is remarkable is that "this agreement was reached by means of synodality, that is, through dialogue and mutual listening," which gives legitimacy and hope to its practical application.

This case has been, according to the expert, an acid test of the delicate balance between papal authority and the autonomy of the Eastern Churches. It was St. John Paul II who, in 1998, gave the Syro-Malabar bishops authority to resolve liturgical conflicts.

According to Bräuer, “the Syro-Malabar Church first attempted to resolve the conflict internally. When that failed, Rome intervened, but that too was unsuccessful.”

The papal delegate, Archbishop Vasil’, who belongs to the Byzantine rite and had worked in the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, was widely criticized for his authoritarian style. “He didn’t know how to find the right tone with the parties in conflict,” Bräuer commented.

However, it was not an easy task. When Archbishop Vasil' traveled to India on Aug. 4, 2023, at the beginning of his mission, some priests publicly burned photos of him and he was greeted with a shower of eggs.

In this regard, it was the metropolitan vicar, Archbishop Joseph Pamplany, successor to the apostolic administrator Bishop Bosco Puthur, who managed to move toward a solution thanks to a strategy of open communication and active listening.

Finally, the consensus—which relaxed the norms that the communities of this rite in the Metropolitan Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly were required to adopt a year ago, following an ultimatum from Pope Francis—was forged in a meeting between Archbishop Pamplany and the Major Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Archdiocese, Raphael Thattil.

Another new rule that has softened positions is that deacons may be ordained without having to commit in writing not to celebrate according to the previous form of the rite.

Is the ghost of schism laid to rest forever?

Although the threat of schism has been dispelled for now, there is still work to be done. According to Bräuer, even priests who opposed the unified liturgy have accepted the agreement, although not without reservations.

Their spokesman, Father Kuriakose Mundadan, expressed in a letter his willingness to support the agreement, although he harshly criticized both the way in which the liturgical reform was adopted and the repressive attitude of some of those previously in authority. 

“In addition to criticizing the way the synod imposed the liturgical reform, he also criticized the treatment of those opposed to the reform. He also felt that the papal delegate exacerbated the situation,” Bräuer noted.

 “Pope Francis constantly called for unity, but ultimately did not succeed in resolving the conflict. It became clear that the problem could not be resolved solely by means of authority and discipline. Now a synodal solution has been found, which we hope will be lasting,” the expert added.

Bräuer emphasized that how the agreement is implemented in the coming months will be decisive: “Only then will we see if the agreement is stable and lasting.”

For priests currently facing disciplinary proceedings, amicable solutions will be sought, and the Metropolitan Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly will also undertake to resolve disputes in civil courts.

Those who prefer the Roman Rite practice of facing the people to the traditional one are a minority: they represent only about 450,000 people, or 10% of Syro-Malabar believers, who total about five million. However, they are quite vocal. Videos of attacks on bishops and clashes between groups of Catholics circulate online.

The special tribunal created to resolve these types of liturgical disputes will not be dissolved, at least for now.

Lessons for the entire Catholic Church

Asked about the value of this experience for other liturgical conflicts in the Church, Bräuer said that the liturgy is “prayed dogma,” that is, an “expression of the Church’s faith” that can take many forms, as seen in the Catholic Church: for example, “in the West, with the ancient Mozarabic rite, and also with inculturated forms of the Mass in the Congo, Australia, or Mexico.”

“Liturgical diversity enriches the Church, but fidelity to tradition does not mean stubbornly clinging to the past, but rather accepting change with discernment,” he stated.

This story was first publishedby ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Rome Newsroom, Jul 10, 2025 / 12:30 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has tapped Father Thomas Hennen, vicar general of the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, to be the next bishop of Baker, a mission diocese in eastern Oregon.

The bishop-elect, who celebrates 21 years as a priest on July 10, is a former vocations director. He has also been rector of Sacred Heart Cathedral in Davenport since 2021. 

A moral theologian, Hennen has over 10 years of experience in pastoral outreach to people with same-sex attraction, as diocesan coordinator and chaplain for the local chapter of the Catholic organization Courage International, which offers support to men and women who experience same-sex attraction and have chosen to live a chaste life.

The 47-year-old priest, who goes by “Fr. Thom,” also has experience as a parochial vicar, university and high school chaplain, campus minister, and theology teacher.

For the last almost four years, he has also been the Davenport diocese’s leader for the Synod on Synodality, which he described in a 2021 homily as “about how we go about listening to each other, how we go about our mission as the Church, the Body of Christ, in our present age, to better communicate and better embody the Kingdom of God on earth.”

Born on July 4, 1978, in Ottumwa, a town in southeast Iowa, Hennen’s hobbies include strategy board games, reading, and playing the tin whistle and the violin, according to a 2009 interview. He has also said he first felt a call to the priesthood in the fourth grade.

He completed his studies for the priesthood at Saint Ambrose University in Davenport and the Pontifical North American College in Rome, earning a bachelor’s in sacred theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. A year after his 2004 ordination to the priesthood, he also earned a licentiate in sacred theology from the Pontifical Alphonsian Academy in Rome.

The bishop-elect speaks Spanish and Italian in addition to his native English.

The Diocese of Baker covers 66,800 square miles in eastern Oregon. Considered a mission territory, the diocese’s landscape includes mountains, hills, valleys, rivers, lakes, and plains, and has a population of approximately 12,500 Catholic households across 57 parishes and missions.

In 1987, the Baker diocesan offices were moved to Bend, in central Oregon, while the Cathedral Church of St. Francis de Sales is over 200 miles east in Baker City.

Hennen succeeds Bishop Liam Cary, who has led the Baker diocese since 2012. Cary will turn 78 in August, making him nearly three years past the usual age of retirement for Catholic bishops.

CNA Newsroom, Jul 10, 2025 / 09:30 am (CNA).

Amid a heated debate over appointments to Germany’s constitutional court, two Bavarian bishops have issued an urgent call to uphold human life and dignity, warning “there must never again be second-class people” in Germany as the country faces a contentious parliamentary vote.

Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau and Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg declared that anyone who relativizes human dignity protections should be disqualified from Germany’s highest judicial body, according to CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.

The bishops’ intervention comes as the German parliament prepares to vote Friday on three candidates for the court that serves as the nation’s supreme judicial authority and final arbiter on fundamental rights questions.

The debate over nominations has focused on views publicly expressed by Social Democratic Party nominee Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf. The constitutional law professor served as deputy coordinator of the government commission on abortion law reform. She argued that legalizing abortion within the first twelve weeks of pregnancy would be constitutionally permissible.

Most contentious was her widely criticized assertion that “whether the embryo and later fetus is entitled to the protection of the Basic Law’s guarantee of human dignity is indeed very controversial in constitutional law scholarship. In my view, there are good reasons why the guarantee of human dignity only applies from birth.”

Without naming names, the two bishops characterized such constitutional interpretation this week as fundamentally disqualifying, emphasizing the state’s duty to guarantee human dignity protections without exception.

The Bavarian bishops — who have also risen to prominence for their resistance to the controversial Synodal Way — are not the only ones raising concerns.

Some Christian Democratic Union (CDU) parliamentarians took to social media to call Brosius-Gersdorf “unelectable.”

The bishops’ statement establishes what they describe as non-negotiable criteria for constitutional judges as the country grapples with fundamental questions about the protection of human life, particularly regarding abortion law.

Bishops establish disqualification criteria

The bishops’ statement, titled “Our Basic Law is maximally inclusive,” asserts that every human being is granted human dignity and the right to life regardless of their life situation. 

Oster and Voderholzer pointed to Germany’s Basic Law (Grundgesetz), the country’s constitution established in 1949, which enshrines the inviolability of human dignity in Article 1 as the foundation of all constitutional rights.

The Bavarian bishops warned that “anyone who holds the view that the embryo or fetus in the womb does not yet have dignity and only has a lesser right to life than the human being after the birth is carrying out a radical attack on the foundations of our constitution. 

“He or she must not be entrusted with the binding interpretation of the Basic Law,” they said.

Oster and Voderholzer added that there “must never again be second-class people in Germany.”

Catholic chancellor causes outrage

The bishops’ principled position comes as Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz — a Catholic and leader of the CDU — appeared to defend Brosius-Gersdorf despite her controversial constitutional views.

In a dramatic moment during Wednesday’s Bundestag debate, when asked by Alternative for Germany parliamentarian Beatrix von Storch whether he could reconcile with his conscience voting for a candidate “for whom human dignity does not apply if [the person] is not yet born,” Merz responded: “My straightforward answer to your question is: Yes!”

The chancellor’s words created significant tension within his own parliamentary faction, according to media reports.

The CDU's pro-life organization, Christian Democrats for Life, urged party leadership to reject the nominee based on her stance on the right to life.

Pro-life organizations have announced a demonstration outside the Reichstag building on Friday morning, CNA Deutsch reported.

Germany records more than 100,000 abortions annually, with approximately 1.8 million procedures performed between 1996 and 2023.

Currently, women in Germany can obtain an abortion from a doctor during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, following a compulsory counseling session.

Puebla, Mexico, Jul 10, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The Archdiocese of San Antonio, Texas, will hold a celebration in Spanish and English on Sunday, July 13, commemorating the 137th anniversary of the birth of Blessed Anacleto González Flores, a martyr of the religious persecution Mexico experienced in the 1920s and patron saint of the Mexican laity.

González was born in Tepatitlán, Jalisco state, Mexico, on July 13, 1888. He was a prominent layman, lawyer, and catechist, recognized for his profound faith and leadership during the religious persecution in Mexico in the 1920s. He founded associations for Christian formation and defended the rights of the Church, promoting peaceful resistance to the government’s anti-clerical laws.

For his commitment to faith and justice, he was arrested, tortured, and ultimately executed on April 1, 1927. Pope Benedict XVI approved his beatification on Nov. 15, 2005. In 2019, he was named patron saint of the Mexican laity.

The Archdiocese of San Antonio’s celebration will begin at noon CT on Sunday, July 13, with Mass at St. Andrew’s Church in Pleasanton, Texas.

At 1:15 p.m. there will be a talk in English about the Archdiocese of San Antonio’s support, often including providing refuge, for persecuted Mexican Catholics. This will be followed by a bilingual presentation of the Spanish-language book “Anacleto González Flores: From the Word to Social Transformation.”

The celebration will conclude with the veneration of the first-class relics of Blessed Anacleto starting at 2:15 p.m.

Archdiocese of San Antonio provided aid to persecuted Church in Mexico

During the years of religious persecution in Mexico, various dioceses and Catholic institutions in the United States provided assistance to Mexican bishops, priests, and laypeople, including the Archdiocese of San Antonio. 

Father Rafael Becerra, the priest organizing the celebration, shared with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that there are records that show that “some of the homes of the Josephite Sisters became a place for refugee priests.”

Also in the town of Castroville, just west of San Antonio, “a seminary was built and founded for seminarians from Mexico during the time of religious persecution.”

“It is known that seminarians from 13 different dioceses in Mexico came to study at that seminary” and that 59 priests were ordained after receiving their formation at that seminary, he noted.

Among other institutions, Becerra mentioned the important support of the Knights of Columbus, the largest Catholic fraternal service organization in the world. Six members of the Knights were martyred during the 1926–1929 Cristero War.

“We also know that several priests were here in San Antonio. There are about 40 refugees, some Claretians, other priests, and some bishops like [the archbishop of Mexico City] José Mora,” he commented.

Among other Mexican prelates who also passed through the Archdiocese of San Antonio during the years of persecution were St. Rafael Guízar y Valencia — today the patron saint of the bishops of Mexico — and his brother, Antonio, who was archbishop of Chihuahua.

These and other historical materials will be presented this Sunday, July 13, as part of the celebration of the Archdiocese of San Antonio.

For more information on how to participate in the celebration, click here.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Humanity is at a crossroads, and facing the immense potential generated by the digital revolution driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI), according to a message from Pope Leo XIV.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 10, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The Diocese of Grand Rapids, Michigan, has announced a restructuring process as it faces a shortage of priests.  

The announcement of the “Rooted in Christ Pastoral Planning Process” comes a year after Bishop David John Walkowiak issued an urgent diocesan-wide appeal to pray for an increase in vocations in the diocese, which has had just one ordination to the priesthood in the last two years. 

“In 2024, we had one priestly ordination. In 2025, seven pastors were either granted senior priest status or reassigned outside the Diocese of Grand Rapids, and there were no priestly ordinations,” the diocese said in a June 29 statement. “Given this reality, the Presbyteral Council and priests of the diocese urged Bishop Walkowiak to take a hard look at what is required for the well-being of our parish communities and priests.”

The priest shortage has forced many priests to take on the responsibility of shepherding two to three parishes at a time, according to the diocese.

In a video message, Walkowiak said that while he is “grateful to our pastors who have generously taken on the responsibility,” the situation is ultimately not sustainable.

It has been more than a decade since the diocese — which spans 11 counties, 79 parishes, and 31 Catholic schools — last underwent a pastoral planning process.

According to the restructuring plan, 13 parishes across the diocese will merge, forming new parishes, while 8 parishes will form clusters in which two or more parishes will be made to collaborate to varying degrees on ministries, resources, and personnel. Parishes in clusters retain their buildings and finances, unlike in cases where parishes merge. 

While he noted the change can be “difficult and often painful,” the bishop expressed faith that the changes would ultimately be beneficial to parish communities. 

“We risk stagnation and decline if we fail to adapt,” he said, adding: “We need to remember that a parish is a communion of persons, one that extends beyond the confines of parish buildings. Sometimes in order for that communion of persons to remain healthy and continue to grow, the administrative and physical structures that support it must be reassessed.” 

Six of the mergers were kicked off with the promulgation of the plan on June 29, while other mergers and clusters are set to take place in accordance with the end of pastors’ terms and priestly assignments.

Walkowiak has appointed Vicar General Father Colin J. Mulhall to oversee the implementation of the pastoral plan.

In addition to the merging of parishes and formation of parish clusters, the diocese also announced that land for a new parish in the West Deanery would be purchased between the cities of Zeeland and Hudsonville due to projected population growth. A new parish will also be established on land already owned by the diocese in the townships of Robinson and West Olive, also due to projected population growth.

“We must adjust administrative duties so that pastors can encourage their parish communities to become centers of evangelization, where all are invited into a relationship with Christ through worship, participation, and outreach to those in need,” the bishop said.

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