A fascinating read and good summary of the synod document: Synod working doc aims to unite Catholics, but may alienate conservatives | Crux (cruxnow.com)
Re: the story below on the pope having difficulty breathing: Vatican News mentioned this in several news stories it published today, including one on the Holy Father’s meeting with ROACO: “Receiving ROACO members in the Vatican on the morning of Thursday, 22 June, Pope Francis handed them his prepared remarks and explained he would not be reading his discourse because he is still having difficulty breathing after the general anaesthesia he underwent during surgery on 7 June.”
POPE SAYS BREATHING “STILL NOT GOOD”
Gives one speech today, but hands out the text for a 2nd one
(I. Media for Aleteia) – Pope Francis says he is still suffering from the effects of his recent anaesthesia. He reported this when receiving members of the meeting of the Works of Aid to the Oriental Churches (ROACO), on June 22, 2023 at the Vatican, I.MEDIA found. Two weeks after his operation for an abdominal hernia with risk of occlusion, the Pope explained that his breathing was “not good.”
Since his return on June 16 from the Gemelli hospital, where he underwent surgery on June 7, the 86-year-old Pontiff has resumed the Sunday Angelus, as well as his audiences. Yesterday, June 21, he received the Brazilian president, and on June 20, the Cuban president. However, the general audience on Wednesday June 21 was cancelled ahead of time, to allow him to continue his convalescence.
But this morning, the Pope showed signs of fatigue. After a first speech, which he read to Assumptionist religious, he declined a second address to ROACO, contenting himself with handing it over to the participants. “I’m still under the effects of anesthesia. My breathing is not good,” confided the Argentine Pontiff.
During this brief exchange, the 266th Pope then instructed Msgr. Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, to pass on his pre-prepared speech.
“I’m still alive,” he added, however, to a participant who asked how he was doing.
The Pope, who has been missing part of one lung since he had a serious infection as a youth, has already had respiratory problems this year. On March 29, he was rushed to Gemelli, where doctors diagnosed him with “infectious bronchitis.” He underwent antibiotic treatment and left hospital on April 1.
He later confided that it was acute pneumonia. “If we had waited a few more hours, it would have been more serious,” he told Mexican television.
POPE SENDS CARDINAL KRAJEWSKI TO UKRAINE FOR 6TH TIME
A communique from the papal almoner’s office says Pope Francis is sending Cardinal Konrad Krajewski to Ukraine for the 6th time, bearing urgent medical supplies and prayers from the Holy Father. This mission is evangelical and underlines the closeness of Pope Francis to the tormented Ukraine.
The cardinal “will head to the Kherson area where, following the destruction of the dam, the innocent population is in great difficulty and many people have lost their lives. His mission is to be with the people, pray with them and bring an embrace and concrete support from the Pope.
Vatican photo –
“The Almoner will travel to Ukraine with a car loaded with the most urgent medicines and thus have the opportunity to visit, along the way, various religious communities, the Catholic parishes of the Byzantine and Latin rites as well as the Orthodox.
“In these days, there will also be a second truck full of food (mostly received from Korea), medicines and health aids which will be delivered to the areas most affected by the dam explosion.”
SR. LUCIA, FATIMA VISIONARY, DECLARED VENERABLE
Carmelite Sister Lucia de Jesus Rosa dos Santos, who, along with her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto witnessed a series of apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Fatima, has been declared Venerable by the Church.
Sr. Lucia (R) –
The decree recognizing Sr Lucia’s heroic virtues was promulgated on Thursday with the approval of Pope Francis.
In 1916, Lucia and her two cousins reported being visited by an Angel in the area of Fatima, Portugal. The following year, beginning on May 13, the children claimed to receive a series of apparitions from the Blessed Virgin Mary, which culminated six months later with the famous “Miracle of the Sun” that was witnessed by tens of thousands of people.
After the untimely death of her cousins, who died a few years later due to Spanish flu, Sister Lucia remained the sole custodian of the message entrusted to her by Our Lady, which she transcribed, at the instigation of the Bishop of Leiria, José Alves Correia da Silvia, into four documents between 1935 and 1941.
A later document, dated 1944, contained the so-called “third secret,” was sent to Rome and opened for the first time in 1960. St John Paul II, who had a special devotion to Our Lady of Fatima, allowed the secret to be published in 2000.
Along with Sister Lucia, four other Servants of God saw their causes advanced on Thursday. Thursday’s decree also recognises the martyrdom of twenty people killed out of “hatred of the faith” in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War.
Sister Mary Lange, who left her native Cuba for the United States because of racial discrimination, founded the Congregation of the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore in 1829. The order is dedicated to school education.
For full story: Fatima visionary Sr Lucia declared Venerable – Vatican News
VATICAN DELIVERS EVIDENCE IN ORLANDI CASE TO CIVIL AUTHORITIES
In a statement to journalists, the Office of the Promoter of Justice says evidence found in Vatican institutions and gained from interviews with former officials has been turned over to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Rome.
Vatican News
On the 40th anniversary of the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi on June 22, 1983, the Promoter of Justice of Vatican City State, Alessandro Diddi, has stated that he has forwarded the acts of his office’s investigation to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Rome.
In a statement made public by the Holy See Press Office in response to journalists’ questions, Diddi’s office reports that “in recent months this office has collected all the evidence available in the various institutions of the Vatican and the Holy See, while also seeking evidence through conversations with the persons in charge of certain offices at the time of the events.”
Lines of further investigation
Vatican investigators proceeded “to examine the material, confirming certain lines of investigation worthy of further investigation,” the statement continues, noting that “in recent weeks” all the relevant documentation has been transmitted “to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Rome, so that the latter may examine it and proceed in the direction it deems most appropriate.”
Thursday’s statement concludes with the commitment that the Promoter “will continue his activities in this direction in the coming months,” while expressing his closeness to Emanuela’s family in their grief, “aware of the suffering one feels for the disappearance of a relative.”
Joan's Rome 