Author: Eric Deabill

DUNMORE – When Jessica Castro first signed up to participate in the ISLI retreat this summer, the Scranton teen would be the first to admit it was a leap of faith.

“The first day I was nervous and scared but you get comfortable with these people,” she said. “You begin to talk and then you don’t care because you’re comfortable with them.”

Castro is one of 20 high school students from parishes and schools around the Diocese who participated in the International Student Leadership Institute from June 20-23 at Marywood University.

“You learn a lot of new things. You learn communication, support and other things. You meet new people and you feel more confident,” Castro added.

ISLI is a peer-facilitated, faith-based leadership retreat designed by Father Thomas Chambers, C.S.C., at the University of Notre Dame. It is designed to help high school students excel in both leadership and membership roles of task-oriented groups.

During the retreat, participants improve their decision-making and problem solving skills through the teachings of the Catholic faith. The students also celebrate Mass together and participate in Eucharistic Adoration.

“The retreat is focused on the concept of leadership as a learned characteristic specifically rooted in our Catholic faith,” Shannon Kowalski, Director of Service and Mission in the Diocesan Office for Parish Life, explained. “The students experience small group activities that go along with five objectives to help them understand various aspects of themselves, what they have to give towards leadership and how they can improve their leadership potential.”

Zachary Schultz, a student at Holy Redeemer High School and parishioner of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Swoyersville, participated in ISLI for the first time this summer.

“I have enjoyed it … I definitely felt very welcomed and got to meet a lot of new people,” he said.

In his school and parish community, Schultz admitted he has mostly been a “follower” but after participating in the ISLI program he said, “I’m going to try and be a leader.”

Lauren Hayden, who also attends Holy Redeemer High School and is a parishioner at Saint Jude Parish in Mountain Top, attended the ISLI program for a second time after having a great experience previously.

“It has definitely had a huge impact on my own life … I’m part of the Student Council at Holy Redeemer High School,” Hayden explained.

All of the participants got a chance to meet the Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, who celebrated Mass with them on the third full day of the retreat.

“Bishop Bambera has been great to us at ISLI. He comes every time we host the retreat to express his support for the kids and to get to know a little more about what we do,” Kowalski said. “He also comes to issue a challenge that we need them in our diocese. The students at ISLI are not the ‘future’ of the church. They are the church now. At the end of this, he expects them, and we expect them, to go back and use what they have learned.”

The ISLI retreat, which was first established in the 1980s, is traditionally offered twice a year in the Diocese of Scranton, once in the winter and once in the summer.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this summer’s event is the first in-person ISLI gathering in several years.

“We’re having a restart right now because we had to take a couple years off because of COVID,” facilitator Neil Albright explained. “We really want to see this program succeed. We want to bring it back and make it stronger because it meant so much to me in my life and I want nothing more than to share it with a new generation of kids.”

Albright, who first attended ISLI in 2015, made life-long friends as part of the program. He said the leadership behaviors and styles he learned have helped him in many ways.

“It has made me a stronger leader in so many ways. It has strengthened my faith. It has helped me bridge the gap between my experiences in the world and my experiences in the church so beautifully and fully. I’m just really thankful I can be a part of it,” he said.

“It is a pleasure of mine and the rest of the adult team to watch the students evolve over the time that they’re here,” Kowalski added. “Most of them come in unsure, uncertain, a little shy and nervous. By the end of the retreat they’re loud, they’re outgoing, and they’re breaking out of their shells.”

SCRANTON – Catholic Social Services of the Diocese of Scranton joined several community partners June 24 in organizing and sponsoring a World Refugee Day celebration at Nay Aug Park.

The event, attended by hundreds of people, included cultural songs and music, ethnic food, activities for children and information tables about local refugee communities.

“We welcome you to the greater Scranton area and beyond and hope that you find a home in this area where you feel welcome and loved,” the Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, said while addressing the crowd.

Bishop Bambera shared recent words from Pope Francis, in which the Holy Father said we are all called to show “maximum respect” for the dignity of migrants and must “construct bridges and not walls.”

While acknowledging that nations have a right to control their borders, Bishop Bambera said the international community should protect refugees and asylum seekers. He highlighted the story of his own grandmother who came to northeastern Pennsylvania from Poland in 1912 in search of a better life.

“We are so privileged to have you here, to tap into your gifts and your talents and to find ourselves better and richer because of your presence,” Bishop Bambera added.

World Refugee Day was established by the United Nations to celebrate the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home countries to escape conflict or persecution. At the end of 2022, more than 100 million people were forcibly displaced globally – a record number propelled by the War in Ukraine and other conflicts around the world.

“We became refugees because of political situations,” Chandra Sitaula of the Bhutanese Cultural Foundation of Scranton Association, said. “We are here from Bhutan, Congo, Afghanistan and many other countries.”

Sitaula came to the Scranton area in 2012 after spending two years in the Bronx. He said there are roughly 7,000 Bhutanese people living in the greater Scranton area according to the 2020 census. He said the number is even larger – roughly 42,000 people – in the Harrisburg region.

“We want to introduce our culture, traditions, values and customs to the community and we need to learn other community’s cultures, communications and religions,” he explained.

Gulnar Siddiqi, a staff member with Catholic Social Services and refugee herself, said the agency works with hundreds of refugees each year.

“We are always here for refugees. Catholic Social Services has been working for many years with refugees as soon as they arrive in the country,” Siddiqi said. “We want to show our refugees how important they are. We want to show our refugees that we are all one.”

This year’s theme was ‘Hope Away from Home,’ which focused on the power of inclusion and solutions for refugees.

“As a community, we must promote empathy and compassion towards those who have been forced to leave their homes and seek safety in a new country,” Fikile Ryder, Director of Community for Catholic Social Services, added.

Since coming to the United States in 2017, Claudin Nyota of Congo says she has become a U.S. citizen and has found her neighbors to be very welcoming.

“I am happy. I love Scranton,” Nyota said. “I’m happy to see friends here that have helped me, have shown me something good. I’m so happy to see everybody.”

In addition to Catholic Social Services, World Refugee Day 2023 was sponsored by the Church of Saint Gregory in Clarks Green, The University of Scranton, United Neighborhood Centers of Northeastern Pennsylvania, Ignatian Volunteer Corps, Islamic Center of Scranton, Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit, Congolese Community of Scranton, Bhutanese Cultural Foundation of Scranton Association, Saigon Corner Vietnamese Restaurant and the Pennsylvania Department of Education – Migrant Education Program.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis named 21 new cardinals, including U.S.-born Archbishop Robert F. Prevost, who took the helm at the Dicastery for Bishops in April, and French Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States.

The pope announced the names after his recitation of the Angelus with the faithful in St. Peter’s Square July 9. He said he would formally install the cardinals during a special consistory at the Vatican Sept. 30.

Cardinal-designate Prevost expressed his surprise and joy upon hearing the announcement, he said in an interview with Vatican News July 10.

“Certainly I felt happy for the recognition of the mission that has been entrusted to me — which is a very beautiful thing — and at the same time I thought with reverence and holy fear: I hope I can respond to what the pope is asking of me. It is an enormous responsibility, like when he called me to Rome as prefect,” he said in Italian.

“I see it as the continuation of a mission that the pope has decided to give me,” he added.

Speaking in English, Cardinal-designate Prevost said it is not a coincidence that Pope Francis scheduled the consistory before the start of the first general assembly of the synod on synodality, saying he is firmly convinced that “all of us are called to walk together.”

The new cardinals represent more than a dozen countries on five continents. Three of the new cardinals are current Vatican officials, three are current or retired apostolic nuncios, 13 are current or retired heads of archdioceses around the world, one is a rector major of the Salesians and one is a 96-year-old confessor in Buenos Aires. Six belong to religious orders; two of them are Jesuits.

Continuing a papal custom, among the new cardinals were three churchmen — two archbishops and a Capuchin Franciscan priest — over the age of 80, whom Pope Francis said he wanted to honor because they were particularly deserving because of “their service to the church.” Being over the age of 80, they are ineligible to vote in a conclave.

After the new cardinals are installed in late September, there will be 137 potential voters and the total membership of the College of Cardinals is expected to be 243.

The nomination of Cardinal-designate Prevost brings to 18 the number of U.S. cardinals; after the consistory, the U.S. contingent will include 11 potential papal electors.

The September ceremony will mark the ninth time Pope Francis has created cardinals since his election to the papacy in March 2013. After the ceremony Sept. 30, he will have created a total of 131 new cardinals in that College of Cardinals, which would make up about 54% of the total college and 72% of potential electors.

With the addition of six new cardinals under the age of 60, the average age of cardinal electors will get one year younger going from today’s average age of 72 years 8 months to 71 years 6 months. Cardinal-designate Alves Aguiar of Lisbon, 49, will be just six months older than the youngest elector, Cardinal Giorgio Marengo of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 49.

Cardinal-designate Prevost, 67, was born in Chicago, and had served as bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, for more than eight years before being appointed to lead the Vatican body responsible for recommending to the pope candidates to fill the office of bishop in many of the Latin-rite dioceses of the world. Recommendations made by the dicastery are typically approved by the pope. Archbishop Prevost has been a member of the dicastery since November 2020.

He also oversees the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, established in 1958 by Pope Pius XII to study the church in Latin America, where nearly 40% of the world’s Catholics reside.

The cardinal-designate holds degrees from Villanova University in Pennsylvania and the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and a doctorate from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. An Augustinian friar, he joined the Augustinian mission in Peru in 1985 and largely worked in the country until in 1999, when he was elected head of the Augustinians’ Chicago-based province. From 2001 to 2013, he served as prior general of the worldwide order.

In 2014, Pope Francis named him bishop of Chiclayo, in northern Peru, and the pope asked him also to be apostolic administrator of Callao, Peru, from April 2020 to May 2021. The pope then appointed him to succeed the retiring Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in early 2023.

Cardinal-designate Pierre, 77, was born in Rennes, France. Ordained to the priesthood in 1970, he served as apostolic nuncio to Haiti, Uganda and Mexico until Pope Francis named him nuncio to the United States in 2016.

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of Military Services, USA, and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops offered his congratulations and prayers to the new cardinals on behalf of the bishops of the United States July 9.

“Please join me in praying for Cardinal-designate Prevost and Cardinal-designate Pierre as they continue their lives of service to the universal church,” Archbishop Broglio said. “For the church in the United States, their ministry has been a true blessing. Our episcopal conference rejoices in this sign of recognition of these distinguished churchmen.”

Before he read the 21 names, Pope Francis told the estimated 15,000 people in St. Peter’s Square that the diversity of the new cardinals “expresses the universality of the church, which continues to proclaim God’s merciful love to all people on Earth.”

The order in which the cardinals are announced determines their seniority in the College of Cardinals, which has little practical effect except in liturgical processions.

Here is the list of the new cardinals:

— U.S.-born Archbishop Robert F. Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, 67.

— Italian Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches, 67.

— Argentine Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández of La Plata, Argentina, incoming prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. He will turn 61 July 18.

— Swiss Archbishop Emil Paul Tscherrig, the apostolic nuncio to Argentina, 76.

— French Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, 77.

— Italian Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, 58.

— South African Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town, 66.

— Argentine Archbishop Ángel Sixto Rossi of Córdoba, 64. He is a member of the Society of Jesus.

— Colombian Archbishop Luis José Rueda Aparicio of Bogotá, 61.

— Polish Archbishop Grzegorz Rys of Lódz, 59.

— South Sudanese Archbishop Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla of Juba, 59.

— Spanish Archbishop José Cobo Cano of Madrid, 57.

— Tanzanian Archbishop Protase Rugambwa, coadjutor archbishop of Tabora, 63.

— Malaysian Bishop Sebastian Francis of Penang, Malaysia, 71.

— Bishop Stephen Chow Sau-yan of Hong Kong, 63. Born in Hong Kong, he is a member of the Society of Jesus.

— Bishop François-Xavier Bustillo of Ajaccio in Corsica, France, 54. Born in Spain, he is a member of the Conventual Franciscans.

— Portuguese Auxiliary Bishop Américo Alves Aguiar of Lisbon, 49.

— Spain-born Salesian Father Ángel Fernández Artime, rector major of the Salesians, 62.

Those named cardinal and over the age of 80:

— Italian Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, a retired papal nuncio, a former curial official and a respected historian of the Second Vatican Council, 82.

— Retired Archbishop Diego Rafael Padrón Sánchez of Cumaná, Venezuela, 84.

— Capuchin Father Luis Pascual Dri, confessor at the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompei, Buenos Aires, 96.

DUNMORE – As he weighs many important decisions in his life, Antonio Ingargiola says the idea of becoming a priest has crossed his mind on more than one occasion.

“I have definitely thought about seminary and going into the priesthood,” he said. “I still feel like I have a lot more discernment, prayer and reflection to do, but I feel very strongly towards it.”

Ingargiola, a parishioner of Saints Anthony and Rocco Parish in Dunmore, was one of 30 high school students who attended Quo Vadis Days from June 26-28 at Marywood University. Twenty-one of the students this year, including Ingargiola, were attending Quo Vadis Days for the first time.

“It’s very empowering because I feel like for other young men who might be discerning priesthood, sometimes you can almost feel alone, you can feel like you’re alone in this vast city,” he added. “But coming to things like this, you realize you’re not alone. There are other young men who are also discerning the same position as you, which is really nice to know and comforting to know.”

Each summer, the Diocesan Office of Vocations holds its Quo Vadis Days retreat to help young men explore vocational opportunities and ask the question about where God is calling them. In Latin, “Quo Vadis” means, “Where are you going?”

“It is a time of prayer, fun, community building and fellowship,” Father Alex Roche, Diocesan Director of Vocations and Seminarians, said. “It’s a great opportunity for them to realize that priests, bishops and seminarians are human beings just like them, men who have gone through all the same ups-and-downs of life and who were teenagers themselves once. It gives them the opportunity to experience the priesthood in a new way and discover, maybe, if God is calling them in that direction.”

Throughout the three days, speakers visit to talk not only about the priesthood but also about many other topics including religious life, marriage and dating. The young men grow in their faith by participating in Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Mass and Eucharistic Adoration. They also have plenty of free time to play sports, pool, foosball, capture the flag and more.

“I loved Holy Hour. I loved it. It was so beautiful,” Joaquin Sierra, a participant from the Church of Saint John in East Stroudsburg, said.

Sierra said he made several new friends attending Quo Vadis Days this summer and loved the fact that many of the priests and seminarians took the time to get to know each person individually.

“They really want to get to know you,” he explained.

Reflecting on his time at Quo Vadis Days, Sierra added he is considering speaking about his experience when he gets back to his parish in the Poconos.

“I think I’ll definitely be more thoughtful in everything that I do at home,” Sierra stated.

That is exactly what Father Roche is hoping that participants take away from their time together.

“I hope what they take away is a new passion for their faith, a new experience of Jesus Christ and the desire to carry whatever they receive here back into their parishes so that they can continue to grow with everything they’ve experienced here throughout the whole year,” Father Roche said.

Having just been ordained a Transitional Deacon for the Diocese of Scranton, Rev. Mr. William Asinari felt many of this year’s Quo Vadis Days participants were very receptive to listening to God’s voice as they discern vocational opportunities.

“God loves them and made each of them for a purpose,” Deacon Asinari said. “No matter what it is, it is going to be amazing and God will fulfill everything in them through what He calls out of them.”

PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) – Catholic leaders throughout the country are calling for prayer and action after gun violence scarred the July 4 holiday weekend in several states.

Mass shootings took place in 13 states plus the nation’s capital from June 30 through the early morning hours of July 5, according to the Washington-based nonprofit Gun Violence Archive.

The rampages have so far left 15 dead and 94 injured. Holiday weekend shootings were reported in Washington, D.C., Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Texas, with both Maryland and Texas each recording two attacks.

“The U.S. bishops join with others throughout the country in offering prayers for the support and healing of the communities impacted by these violent shootings,” Chieko Noguchi, spokesperson for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told OSV News in a July 5 email.

Five people were killed and several wounded in Philadelphia the evening of July 3, as suspect Kimbrady Carriker is alleged to have stormed through the city’s Kingsessing neighborhood with an AR-style semiautomatic rifle. A 15-year-old boy was among those slain; two other children sustained injuries.

Four were killed and six wounded at a July 4 outdoor party in Shreveport, Louisiana. In Texas, three were slain and eight injured late July 3 during an annual festival in Fort Worth’s Como neighborhood.

A gathering in Baltimore came under fire July 2, leaving two young adults dead and 28 injured, most of them teens.

In Tampa, a 7-year-old boy was killed July 4 amid an argument over jet skis, according to police. The child’s grandfather was wounded.

In Washington, nine were injured as a holiday event stretched into the early hours of July 5. Later that morning, the body of a young male was found on the campus of The Catholic University of America in a fatal shooting police and university officials said was unrelated to the school.

Following the Baltimore shooting, Archbishop William E. Lori issued a July 2 message imploring both prayer for the victims, survivors and their families — as well as action.

“Lord, bring us independence and deliverance from violence’s stranglehold on our culture,” Baltimore’s archbishop prayed.

At the same time, “we also consider ways that we might be called to act,” he said. “Consider how all of us can support neighborhood and community efforts that work to end violence in our streets.”

“We pray especially for those who lost their lives, and also for those who were injured and for their families and loved ones,” said Noguchi. “The Catholic Church has been a consistent voice for rational and effective forms of regulation of dangerous weapons, and the USCCB continues to advocate for an end to violence, and for the respect and dignity of all lives.”

The church’s witness to life amid the shootings is more crucial than ever, Father Eric J. Banecker, pastor of St. Francis de Sales Parish in Philadelphia, told OSV News.

The Philadelphia shooting, which took place in his parish boundaries, was “an evil act, and we need to look at it squarely in the eye for what it is,” said Father Banecker.

Without discounting the role of mental and emotional imbalances, “we shouldn’t overpsychologize” the causes of gun violence, he said. “Evil actions are evil actions. Human beings are moral agents.”

In an email message, Father Banecker told his parishioners he was “convinced we have a unique responsibility to respond spiritually to this terrible event,” which was “one more example of the disregard for the dignity of human life which finds so many examples in our culture.”

He asked parishioners to join in praying the Angelus at noon July 5, “asking the Lord, through the intercession of his Mother and ours, to be near the victims and those who mourn, to bring conversion of heart to the perpetrator and to bring about in all of us a renewed love for God and respect for human life.”

In the email, Father Banecker also requested that parishioners undertake an act of penance, such as abstaining from meat, on July 7 for the same intention.

“We cannot sit back and watch as God is pushed more and more to the margins of our society and expect any real healing from the atomization, consumerism, and loneliness of our age,” he wrote. “A Christian life well lived can bring about a renewal of our society. But it is up to us to respond to the grace of the Holy Spirit and live the abundant life which Christ desires for us.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Catholics must place the Eucharist at the center of their lives to transform their relationships with God and their neighbors, Pope Francis said.

“If you are the same at the end of Mass as you were at the beginning, something is wrong,” the pope said in a video message released July 3 for his prayer intention for the month of July: “For a Eucharistic life.”

“The Eucharist is the presence of Jesus, it is deeply transforming. Jesus comes and must transform you,” he said.

The video, different versions of which are released with the pope’s monthly prayer intention, also showed people attending Mass, helping the homeless and visiting the elderly.

By offering himself in the Eucharist, Christ “invites us so that our lives may be nourished by him and may nourish the lives of our brothers and sisters,” the pope said.

“The eucharistic celebration is an encounter with the Risen Jesus,” Pope Francis said. “At the same time, it is a way of opening ourselves to the world as he taught us.”

Each time Catholics participate in the Eucharist, “Jesus comes and gives us the strength to love like he loved,” the pope said, because the Eucharist “gives us the courage to encounter others, to go out of ourselves and to open ourselves to others with love.”

Pope Francis prayed that Catholics may place at the center of their lives the eucharistic celebration which ” which transforms human relationships and opens up an encounter with God and their brothers and sisters.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Christians are called to be modern-day prophets who guide others to see the Holy Spirit at work in everyday life and not to be superstitious people who try to predict or control the future, Pope Francis said.

“A Christian does not believe in superstitions like magic, cards, horoscopes or similar things,” he told some 15,000 visitors gathered in St. Peter’s Square July 2 to pray the Angelus. He admonished those who do so saying, “many Christians go to have their hands read.”

Prophets are not limited to the biblical figures who anticipated Jesus’ coming, since “Jesus himself talks about the need to welcome prophets,” the pope said, reflecting on the day’s Gospel reading from St. Matthew in which Jesus says, “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.”

“A prophet, brothers and sisters, is each one of us,” Pope Francis said. “A prophet is he who, by virtue of baptism, helps others read the present under the action of the Holy Spirit,” which helps people “understand God’s plans and align yourselves” with them.

The pope said a prophet is someone who “shows Jesus to others, who witnesses him, who helps live today and build tomorrow according to his design.”

Pope Francis encouraged Christians to reflect how they live out their baptismal calling to be prophets in their daily lives, and to ask themselves: “How is my witness going? How is my prophesy?”

He said that the day’s Gospel reading not only calls on Christians to be prophets, but to receive them as well.

“It is important to welcome each other as such, as bearers of God’s message, each according to his or her status and vocation, and to do so there where we live,” he said, “that is, in the family, in the parish, in religious communities, in other spheres of the church and society.”

Particularly in decision-making, the pope said it is important to recognize each person’s prophetic gifts and to engage in listening and dialogue before reaching a conclusion.

“Let us think about how many conflicts could be avoided and resolved in this way, listening to others with a sincere desire to understand one another,” he said. “Because each one of us has something to learn from others.”

After praying the Angelus, Pope Francis asked the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square to “not tire of praying for peace” during the summer months, and in particular for the people of Ukraine and all of the world’s forgotten conflicts.

“Let us become interested in what is happening, let us help who suffers and pray, because prayer is the meek force that protects and sustains the world,” he said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis appointed his longtime theological adviser and fellow countryman Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández of La Plata, Argentina, to lead the Vatican’s doctrinal office, urging him in a public letter to expand the office’s focus beyond its reputation as a watchdog pursuing possible doctrinal errors and to promote the understanding and transmission of the faith.

Archbishop Fernández, who turns 61 July 18, replaces Jesuit Cardinal Luis Ladaria, 79, according to the Vatican, which made the announcement July 1. It said the cardinal had completed his term as prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which began with his appointment July 1, 2017. Archbishop Fernández will begin his new role mid-September, which also includes serving as president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and president of the International Theological Commission.

In an open letter to the archbishop, the pope asked him to lead the dicastery toward promoting theology that is attentive to the essentials of the faith and at the service of evangelization. “Its central purpose is to guard the teaching that flows from the faith in order to ‘to give reasons for our hope, but not as an enemy who critiques and condemns.'”

“The dicastery which you will preside over in other times came to use immoral methods. Those were times when, rather than promoting theological knowledge, possible doctrinal errors were pursued,” the pope wrote. “What I expect from you is certainly something very different.”

In his letter Pope Francis recalled the restructuring of the dicastery in 2022 which split the office into two sections: one to handle doctrinal questions and another dedicated to handling disciplinary matters including those related to the abuse of minors.

Given that the specific section for disciplinary matters is staffed “with very competent professionals, I ask you as prefect to dedicate your personal commitment in the most direct way to the principal aim of the dicastery which is keeping the faith,” he wrote.

The pope wrote that task consists of “increasing the understanding and transmission” of the Catholic faith, especially before questions “posed by the progress of the sciences and the development of society.”

“These issues, incorporated in a renewed proclamation of the Gospel message, ‘become tools of evangelization'” because they allow the faith to enter into conversation with “our present situation, which is in many ways unprecedented in the history of humanity,” he wrote.

The church, Pope Francis wrote, must “grow in her interpretation of the revealed word and in her understanding of truth.”

“For differing currents of thought in philosophy, theology and pastoral practice, if open to being reconciled by the Spirit in respect and love, can enable the church to grow,” he said. “This harmonious growth will preserve Christian doctrine more effectively than any control mechanism.”

In a Facebook post July 1, Archbishop Fernández said he accepted the nomination “with much joy” even though there would be many people against him. “There are people who prefer a more rigid, structured way of thinking at war with the world,” he wrote.

The pope told him that while the dicastery was once dedicated to pursuing heretics in the past, he wanted something very different for its future since “errors are not corrected by going after them or controlling them, but by making faith and wisdom grow. This is the best way to preserve doctrine,” the archbishop wrote.

He added that Pope Francis assured him that matters related to abuse pertained to an autonomous section within the dicastery, and that as prefect he would be tasked with “encouraging the reflection of the faith, deepening theology, promoting a way of thinking that knows how to dialogue with how people live,” and “encouraging free, creative, deep Christian thought.”

As archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio nominated then-Father Fernández to become rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina in 2009. The two have long enjoyed a close relationship, and Pope Francis promptly named him an archbishop after his election to the papacy in 2013.

Archbishop Fernández studied theology with a specialization in biblical studies at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University and obtained a doctorate from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina. Since 2017 he has been the president of the doctrine commission of Argentina’s bishops’ conference. Between books and academic articles, he has more than 300 publications under his name.

At the Vatican, the archbishop was a member of the drafting committees for the final documents of the 2014 and 2015 Synods of Bishops and he has been credited for contributing to several significant texts of Pope Francis’ pontificate.

In his letter Pope Francis said that the church needs “a way of thinking which can convincingly present a God who loves, who forgives, who saves, who liberates, who promotes people and calls them to fraternal service.”

This occurs, the pope said, if “the message concentrates on the essentials, on what is most beautiful, most grand, most appealing and at the same time most necessary.”

“There is a harmonious order among the truths of our message and the greatest danger occurs when secondary issues end up overshadowing the central ones,” he wrote.

Such a richness of truth necessitates “a special care to verify that the documents of your own dicastery and of the others have an adequate theological support, are coherent with the rich soil of the perennial teaching of the church and at the same time take into account the recent magisterium,” Pope Francis told him.