All articles tagged with #second vatican council
Pope Leo XIV tells a September General Audience that the Church must engage with reality, unmask societal contradictions, and stand with the vulnerable, guided by Gaudium et Spes and the Second Vatican Council’s call for the Church to serve humanity and witness to Christ.
During the Aug. 26 General Audience, Pope Leo XIV emphasized that the Second Vatican Council's liturgical reform—rooted in the living tradition of the Church and designed to foster active participation—draws the faithful into a deeper relationship with God. He stressed liturgy as a communal, evangelizing act guided by bishops and priests, and explained that while the immutable elements remain, rites should adapt to time to be more accessible and understandable so the faithful can participate fully and consciously.
Pope Leo appealed to the Society of Saint Pius X to cancel its plan to ordain four bishops without Vatican approval, warning that such a move would be a schismatic act and could lead to excommunication; the SSPX defended its course as pastorally necessary, while the pope pressed for unity and highlighted the gravity of breaking canonical norms, a history-tinged standoff that echoes past excommunications later addressed by Benedict XVI.
Pope Leo XIV, at his General Audience in the Vatican, emphasizes the Church’s eschatological role as outlined in Lumen Gentium: to guide the faithful toward salvation, denounce evil in all its forms, defend the vulnerable, and keep the Kingdom of God in view as a balance between the Church’s present reality and its ultimate fullness.
On the first anniversary of Pope Francis’s death, Pope Leo XIV praises him as a missionary of mercy and devoted shepherd whose apostolic journeys and witness touched people worldwide, highlighting his fidelity to faith, baptism, and episcopal consecration, his alignment with Vatican II, and Marian devotion, while reaffirming spiritual closeness despite being away in Africa.
Pope Francis emphasized in his weekly General Audience that all Christians, including priests, religious, and laypeople, are called to be missionary disciples. He reflected on the universal call to mission and urged all Christians to receive this calling. The Pope also emphasized the collaboration between the laity and the hierarchy and the importance of ensuring that the diversity of charisms and ministries does not give rise to privileged categories. In addition, he thanked Argentinian leaders for their wishes on the tenth anniversary of his election as Pope and appealed to the warring parties in Ukraine to respect religious sites.