WELCOME and thank you for taking the time to visit our Website! The executive of the Canadian Federation of Presbyteral Councils hope you will enjoy our new site, and that it will assist you in your ministry amongst God’s faithful. Included are the names of each member of the Federation who have been chosen to represent each English speaking Diocese and Eparchy in Canada. They are at your service, as is your Executive.
Please have a look around the site and drop us an e-mail on your thoughts. It is our earnest hope that this site will not only serve as a practical resource and tool, but more importantly will assist the CFPC in its mission of service to the Priests of Canada.
Message of Apostolic Nuncio at AGM
MESSAGE TO THE MEMBERS OF THE CANADIAN FEDERATION OF PRESBYTERAL COUNCILS AT 2020 AGM
My dear brother priests,
I am very happy to extend a heartfelt and fraternal greeting to you at the beginning of your meeting. Even though it takes place in a virtual format, I pray and hope that your gathering will be accompanied by the presence of the Lord; bestowing his grace in whatever way each of us needs in order to live out our ministry well in the course of these difficult circumstances triggered by the Covid-19 epidemic.
Friends: allow me to express myself in simpler words. With our priestly ordination, it is as if Jesus told us: "Luigi, John, Peter, Michael ... what I did, now ... do it yourself". I give you everything you need and I am with you so that - always acting in communion with the Church and therefore in the name of the Church - what I have done, you also can do. I said ‘in communion with the Church’. Never forget this. In fact, as our Magna Carta or Great Charter Pastores dabo vobis, given to us by St. John Paul II, reminds us: “The ordained ministry has a ‘radical communitarian form’ and can only be carried out as ‘a collective work’” (cf. PDV, no. 17). “By its very nature, the ordained ministry can be carried out only to the extent that the priest is united to Christ through sacramental participation in the priestly order, and thus to the extent that he is in hierarchical communion with his own bishop” (cf. PDV, no. 17).
2. What did Jesus do? To that vast crowd of people “troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd”, Jesus, with his heart “moved with pity”, first offers the gift of his Word “and he began to teach them many things” (cf. Mk 6:34), and then pours out the gift of himself: the Eucharist (cf. John 6: 1-13). Jesus who "gives himself", in the Word and in the Eucharist, is the image of the Good Shepherd who gives himself; is the image of the Church that gives herself; is the image of the "Church that goes forth towards the existential peripheries”; is the image of the Pastor and the Church who do not live for themselves but for humanity, to love, to serve ... to save humanity ... This is the task of the Church: The Church exists to keep alive in people’s hearts the memory and experience that God loves them. It exists to tell everyone, even those furthest away: “God doesn’t forget you, He cares about you”. Even in the storm, in your storms, he is with you. But how? How can I love and serve humanity today ...? We will be able to know if we ask, if we do as Jesus did when he asked Bartimaeus, the blind man: "What do you want me to do for you?" (cf. Mk 10.51). It is a question of asking our brothers and sisters, “Tell me how can I love you, how can I serve you, how can I help you…”? There is also a clear exhortation ‘to listen’ found in the recent Encyclical of Pope Francis Fratelli tutti: “… today’s world is largely a deaf world… At times, the frantic pace of the modern world prevents us from listening attentively to what another person is saying… We must not lose our ability to listen”. Saint Francis “heard the voice of God, he heard the voice of the poor, he heard the voice of the infirm and he heard the voice of nature. He made of them a way of life. My desire is that the seed that Saint Francis planted may grow in the hearts of many” (no. 48). Always, but especially in this time of great pastoral, social and moral difficulties ... the first acts to be lived for those who want to be close to the people are not planning and doing, but listening and connecting; that is, welcoming the deep needs of the people, understanding their suffering, understanding and recognizing its meaning (using appropriate interpretative categories), and then integrating it into our life of evangelization activities, thus making it an opportunity for global growth. In this way, we see it is an undertaking to be conducted in the plural; that is, “together”; done in communion, in order to generate communion.
3. Finally. ln this present condition of apparent ministerial "stasis", the power of intercession must be rediscovered: the figure of Moses on the mountain (cf. Ex 17:8-12) must be central in our days. Victory is obtained by the "raised arms" of the man of God, on a hill, in an elevated but isolated position, while the battle is fought on the plain, at a great distance. We too, in these days, are crossing the desert, yet we must be confident that it is precisely within this desert and in our poverty that God speaks to us and manifests himself to us. In particular, I urge you to embark on this prayer of intercession together, in communion with one another - even if physically distant - since we are sure that the Lord listens to what we ask when we are united in his Name (cf. Mt 18: 19-20). I, too, accompany you with my prayerful closeness. It is with gratitude that I greet you with the words of St. Paul: "I thank my God every time I remember you, always praying with joy for you in all my prayers" (cf. Phil 1:3-4).
Please, do not forget to pray for me.
Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi Apostolic Nuncio to Canada
BEATIFICATION OF YOUNG PRIEST OCTOBER 31
BEATIFICATION OF YOUNG PRIEST OCTOBER 31
BEATIFICATION OF PRIEST WHO DIED DURING PANDEMIC
The Servant of God Fr Michael McGivney, who founded the Knights of Columbus, will be declared “Blessed” on 31 October 2020. This inspirational priest who started an organization of Catholic laymen at St. Mary’s, his parish church, to help them fight and overcome poverty, injustice, Catholic prejudice and to dissuade them from compromising themselves by turning to decidedly non-Catholic agencies for help to get ahead.
Fr. Michael, ordained to the priesthood only 5 years prior, founded the Knights when he was only 30 in 1882. At the age of 38 he died a young priest of pneumonia complications during the Russian Flu pandemic.
POPE FRANCIS CHALLENGES PRIESTS TO REEXAMINE THEIR MINISTRY
In his latest encyclical in which he envisions a type of new world order in which members of human society fully and conscientiously engage with each other in a sustainable relationship with nature, Pope Francis sees an important role for priests. On the eve of the feast of his patron, St. Francis of Assisi, the Holy Father issued a new encyclical letter on fraternity and social friendship entitled "Fratelli Tutti".
In a section subtitled as “Hope” the Holy Father includes priests among the essential workers, “who, in the midst of fear, responded by putting their lives on the line”. (54) He explains that although the present pandemic in overshadows our global society with "dark clouds", God continues to “sow abundant seeds of goodness in our human family”, especially - a great deal of hope. “Hope is bold; it can look beyond personal convenience, the petty securities and compensations which limit our horizon, and it can open us up to grand ideals that make life more beautiful and worthwhile”, Let us continue, then, to advance along the paths of hope.”. (55)
In Chapter 2 of the encyclical, “A Stranger on the Road”, the Pope goes on, however, to also remind us that the priestly office must be manifested by an abundance of authentic action and spirit. While reflecting on the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) he points out that the priest in the story doesn’t come off looking very good. “he passed on the other side”. His Holiness, draws attention to how people change when confronted with the challenge of human suffering or some concrete, and perhaps inconvenient, human need. As in the parable, we find ourselves in in two categories – “those who care for someone who is hurting and those who pass by” (70). Fratelli tutti, does not allow excuses for priestly inaction. We must not allow our busyness with the Lord’s work in one area, to distract us from attending to those immediately in need of attention. When this happens, it only serves as a “sad reflection of the growing gulf between ourselves and the world around us” (73). The fact that one of the passers-by in the parable is a priest, Pope Francis declares, “shows that belief in God and the worship of God are not enough to ensure that we are actually living in a way pleasing to God”(73).