Pope Francis meets with retired Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican Photo: CNS Vatican modifies distribution of ashes for Ash Wednesday
The Congregation for Divine Worship announced that the ashes will be “sprinkled” rather than applied as a paste and the priest will “say nothing” while doing so.
The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments published the note ahead of the beginning of Lent, on Wednesday, 17 February, as the health situation caused by Covid-19 continues to forces changes on daily life, which are also reflected in the Church’s sphere.
After blessing the ashes and sprinkling them with holy water in silence, the priest addresses those present, reciting once the formula found in the Roman Missal: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” or “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”.
At that point, the note continues, the priest “cleanses his hands, puts on a face mask, and distributes ashes to those who come to him or, if appropriate, he goes to those who are standing in their places”.
He then sprinkles the ashes on each person’s head “without saying anything”.
Iraq: Papal visit logo unveiled, uncertainty over Pope Francis’ March trip
More information has been released about the Papal visit to Iraq, as Pope Francis expressed doubt this week about whether the trip would take place as planned in March.
In a television interview on Sunday, the Pope said that he had cancelled two international trips in 2020, “because in conscience I cannot cause gatherings, can I? Now I don’t know if the next trip to Iraq will take place,” he told the news programme Tg5.
Meanwhile, local organisers of the visit released on Monday the logo and motto of the visit.
The logo for the trip depicts Pope Francis in front of an outline of Iraq, with the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and a palm tree. There is also a dove carrying an olive branch flying over the Vatican and Iraqi flags.
The motto – “You are all brothers,” taken from Matthew 23:8 – is written above in Arabic, Chaldean, and Kurdish.
The Vatican announced in December that the Pope’s March 5-8 trip would include stops in Baghdad, Erbil, and Mosul.
If the voyage takes place as planned, Francis will be the first Pope to visit Iraq, which is still recovering from the devastation inflicted by the Islamic State.
False narrative of papal division ‘harmful,’ former doctrinal chief says
The constant comparison as well as false reports of division between Pope Francis and retired Pope Benedict XVI by both secular and Catholic media outlets threaten the dignity of the papacy and the faith of many, a former top Vatican official said.
In an op-ed piece published January 10 in the Italian daily La Bussola Quotidiana, Cardinal Gerhard Muller, former prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that with the “visual image of ‘two Popes’ side by side, the subtle problem of comparing the pontificates of two living people has arisen”.
He also said that in today’s age of “secularized thinking and mass media, political and ideological viewpoints end up contaminating theological judgment” to the point that, for some people, “the tenets of Catholic theology are suspected of ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’ ideology, depending on their point of view”.
In addition, “positive evaluations of either pontificate are exchanged at the expense of the opposing side,” Cardinal Muller wrote. “Evidence of this harmful antagonism of the pontificates of two living actors in current history is numerous.”