Vatican Starts Year With News: Dad Advocates Adoption. ROME - Pope Francis on Wednesday called for the adoption processes to be simplified and urged couples to have more children during their first general audience of the year, which included updates among its participants that emphasize their call for a less clericalized Catholic Church.
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| Vatican Starts Year With News: Dad Advocates Adoption |
ROMA — For the first time, a layman and a nun read the English and Spanish translations of the pontiff's weekly catechism lesson, instead of the traditional cassock priest, a small but revolutionary change at the Vatican.
The monsignors of the Vatican secretariat of state have always provided the summarized translations to the general audience on Wednesdays. On this occasion, the clergymen read only those for French, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Polish, and Italian.
The Vatican announced the change in advance, noting that starting Wednesday "men and women, religious and lay employees of various dicasteries of the Roman Curia, will participate in the General Audience to read the greetings in various languages."
See also: Vatican Starts Year With News: Dad Advocates Adoption
During his almost 9 years of the papacy, Francis has often criticized the element of Catholic culture that places priests on a pedestal and has advocated that the "people of God" assume their rightful place in the institution.
He has specifically called for women to occupy government functions and appointed several religious women to important positions in the Vatican, although none leads a Vatican congregation. He is currently presiding over a two-year consultation among laity around the world to understand the needs and desires of the ordinary faithful and what the Church can do to better serve them.
With the novelty, the catechism of Francis focused on the figure of Joseph, the “adoptive father” of Jesus. Francisco repeated his call for couples to have more children to cope with the "demographic winter" in much of the West. And he asked that those who cannot have offspring open to adoption.
"This type of choice is one of the highest forms of love, fatherhood, and motherhood," he said. "How many children in the world are waiting for someone to take care of them!"
In addition, she asked that adoption processes be simplified "so that the dream of many children who need a family, and of so many couples who want to give them love, come true."
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