Women seeking a greater voice in the all-male hierarchy of the Catholic church are hailing Pope Francis’ announcement that women will be named to a ministerial board of the Vatican’s powerful Curia.

“This is a quite historical in a number of ways,” said Sister Carol Zinn, executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. “These people, traditionally, have been clerics. Now, this office will have members who will actually be impacted by their decisions.”

For the first time, not only women but also persons who are not ordained as priests will have a vote within the Catholic church’s governing body.

Pope Francis on Monday surprised reporters who follow the Catholic Church by naming seven women and the head of the De La Salle Christian Brothers, a religious order of teachers, to the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life is one of nine congregations within the Roman Curia, and has been described as a disciplinary body — or vetting board — for a variety of religious life and apostolic orders.

Sister Zinn said questions about the importance of such a post reminded her of when married family members ask her for advice.

“I really have no idea,” Sister Zinn said. “And it is similar with consecrated life.”

The presence of women on the congregation also strikes a chord among Catholics who wish for women to hold greater leadership roles beyond individual parishes.

“Women religious are always being disciplined by men,” said Melissa Wilde, a sociologist from the University of Pennsylvania who has written on the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican of the 1960s. “It’s yet another sign of Francis being more open to change.”

“It’s a good start and about time,” said Jeannine Pitas, a professor an English/Spanish professor at University of Dubuque and a Catholic writer. “Even if it’s a symbolic gesture, it’s an important one to reforming the male-dominated hierarchy.”

Six of the women are superiors of religious orders, such as the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. A seventh woman, Olga Krizova, is general president of the Volunteers of Don Bosco, a group of consecrated laypeople.

The Vatican made no formal announcement, and the women’s names appeared along with other nominees to the previously all-male congregation. But the presence of women and a Christian Brother on a congregation presents a stark image of Francis’ belief for the global church to rely on a diverse group of laypeople to have a say in church affairs.

“The Holy Father believes in the involvement of everyone in the life of the church, and this is one more example of creating inclusivity,” said Sister Zinn.

It also represents a contrast from his papal predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who retired in 2013.

The congregation to which the women were named oversees lay and women religious societies, and has exhibited skepticism toward female religious orders.

Under Benedict, the congregation — then led by Cardinal Franc Rode — ordered an investigation of 127 women orders. In a speech, Cardinal Rode said some American nuns had “opted for ways that take them outside” the church.

A separate investigation of nuns during Benedict’s tenure focused of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the group Sister Zinn now leads, and was ordered by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the oldest of the Curia’s nine congregations.

The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor-at-large for America Magazine, issued support for the inclusion of women on the congregation, calling it a “highly significant step” on Twitter.

It also represents for some a crack in the doorway to female ordination — though only a small crack, if that.

“You have to remember that Vatican II ended in 1965, right after the publication of the ‘Feminine Mystique,’” said Ms. Wilde. “In some ways, the feminist movement has not yet had an impact on the Catholic church.” </s> .- Pope Francis Monday appointed 23 new members of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, among them six women religious superior generals and one head of a women’s secular institute.

The July 8 nominations, which include cardinals, bishops, and the superior generals of several male religious communities, breaks with past practice in including women.

Demonstrating Pope Francis’ increased attention to putting women in leadership within the Vatican, the appointments follow the 2014 nomination of Sr. Irma Luzia Premoli, superior general of the Comboni Missionaries, as a member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Premoli’s appointment was the first time a superior general of a female institute was named a member of a congregation.

The six women superior generals are Sr. Kathleen Appler of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul; Sr. Yvonne Reungoat of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (also known as the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco); Sr. Françoise Massy of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary; Sr. Luigia Coccia of the Comboni Missionaries; Sr. Simona Brambilla of the Consolata Missionaries; and Sr. M. Rita Calvo Sanz of the Company of Mary Our Lady.

Olga Krizova, general president of the Don Bosco Secular Institute, was also nominated.

Pastor bonus, the 1988 apostolic constitution regulating the Roman Curia which will soon be replaced, says the ordinary members of a congregation are cardinals and bishops, though “according to the specific nature of certain dicasteries, clerics and other faithful can be added to the body of cardinals and bishops.”

Other new members of the Dicastery for Consecrated Life include Cardinals Angelo De Donatis, vicar general of Rome; Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life; Luis Ladaria Ferrer, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and Ricardo Blazquez Perez of Valladolid.

Five bishops and seven superior generals of male institutes were also nominated. </s> VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis named six superiors of women’s religious orders, a consecrated laywoman and the superior of the De La Salle Christian Brothers to be full members of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

Previously, the members had all been men: cardinals, a few bishops and several priests who were superiors of large religious orders of men.

The women named members by the pope were announced by the Vatican July 8: Sisters Kathleen Appler, the U.S.-born superior of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul; Yvonne Reungoat, superior of the Salesian Sisters; Francoise Massy, superior of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Mary; Luigia Coccia, superior of the Comboni Sisters; Simona Brambilla, superior of the Consolata Missionary Sisters; Rita Calvo Sanz, superior of the Company of Mary Our Lady; and Olga Krizova, general president of the Volunteers of Don Bosco, a group of consecrated laypeople.

Brother Robert I. Schieler, the U.S.-born superior of the De La Salle Christian Brothers, also was named a full member of the congregation along with the priests who are superiors general of the Jesuits, the Discalced Carmelites, the Augustinians, the Scalabrinians, the Capuchins and the abbot president of the Subiaco Cassinese Benedictine Congregation.

The new members announced by the Vatican also included five bishops and four cardinals: Cardinals Angelo De Donatis, papal vicar for Rome; Kevin J. Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life; Luis Ladaria Ferrer, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and Ricardo Blazquez Perez of Valladolid, Spain. </s> ROME — Pope Francis named six superiors of women’s religious orders, a consecrated laywoman and the superior of the De La Salle Christian Brothers to be full members of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

Previously, the members had all been men: cardinals, a few bishops and several priests who were superiors of large religious orders of men.

The women named members by the pope were announced by the Vatican July 8: Sisters Kathleen Appler, the U.S.-born superior of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul; Yvonne Reungoat, superior of the Salesian Sisters; Francoise Massy, superior of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Mary; Luigia Coccia, superior of the Comboni Sisters; Simona Brambilla, superior of the Consolata Missionary Sisters; Rita Calvo Sanz, superior of the Company of Mary Our Lady; and Olga Krizova, general president of the Volunteers of Don Bosco, a group of consecrated laypeople.

Brother Robert I. Schieler, the U.S.-born superior of the De La Salle Christian Brothers, also was named a full member of the congregation along with the priests who are superiors general of the Jesuits, the Discalced Carmelites, the Augustinians, the Scalabrinians, the Capuchins and the abbot president of the Subiaco Cassinese Benedictine Congregation.

The new members announced by the Vatican also included five bishops and four cardinals: Cardinals Angelo De Donatis, papal vicar for Rome; Kevin J. Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life; Luis Ladaria Ferrer, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and Ricardo Blazquez Perez of Valladolid, Spain.

Crux is dedicated to smart, wired and independent reporting on the Vatican and worldwide Catholic Church. That kind of reporting doesn’t come cheap, and we need your support. You can help Crux by giving a small amount monthly, or with a onetime gift. Please remember, Crux is a for-profit organization, so contributions are not tax-deductible. </s> A Vatican security guard uses a binocular prior to the start of Pope Francis' Regina Coeli noon prayer in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, May 21, 2017. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

VATICAN CITY (AP) — In a surprise announcement Sunday, Pope Francis named new cardinals for Spain, El Salvador and three countries where Catholics are a tiny minority: Mali, Laos and Sweden.

"Their origin, from different parts of the world, manifests the universality of the Church spread out all over the Earth," Francis said, speaking from the window of the Apostolic Palace to thousands of faithful in St. Peter's Square.

The five churchmen chosen are Monsignor Jean Zerbo, archbishop of Bamako, Mali, where he has been involved in peace efforts amid Islamist extremism; Monsignor Juan Jose Omella, archbishop of Barcelona, Spain; Monsignor Anders Arborelius of Stockholm, who became a Catholic at the age of 20; Monsignor Louis-Marie Ling Mangkhanekhoun, apostolic vicar of Pakse, Laos; and Monsignor Gregorio Rosa Chavez, an auxiliary bishop who works as a parish pastor in San Salvador, El Salvador.

Francis will formally elevate the five to cardinal's rank in a ceremony at the Vatican on June 28. Then the new "princes of the church," as the red-hatted, elite corps of churchmen who elect popes are known, will co-celebrate Mass with Francis the next day, the Feast Day of Saints Peter and Paul, an important Vatican holiday.

Since being elected pontiff in 2013, Francis has made a point of visiting his flock in places where Catholics are in the minority, as well as of working to improve relations between churches and among believers of different faiths.

His brief pilgrimage last year to Sweden, where Lutherans are the Christian majority, was hailed by some as instrumental in helping to improve relations between the two churches. While there, he joined Lutheran leaders in a common commemoration of the Protestant Reformation that divided Europe five centuries ago.

Arborelius, who is 67, converted to Catholicism when he was 20. In 1998, when he was consecrated as a bishop in Stockholm's Catholic cathedral, Arborelius became Sweden's first Catholic bishop, of Swedish origin, since the times of the Reformation,

In Mali, a country bloodied by Islamist extremism, Muslims constitute the predominant religious majority.

Zerbo's clerical resume reveals him to be a churchman working for reconciliation in society, a virtue repeatedly stressed by Francis. The Vatican noted that Zerbo, 73, who was named an auxiliary bishop of Bamako in 1998 and 10 years later was made that city's archbishop, has played a role in peace negotiations.

Extremists attacked a hotel in Bamako in 2015, killing 19 people. Last month, the U.N. peacekeeping chief for Mali called the security situation there alarming, warning that extremist groups operating under the al-Qaida banner were carrying out more sophisticated attacks and Islamic State militants were slowly making inroads.

There has been slow progress in implementing a peace deal reached in June 2015 between Mali's government, Tuareg separatists and armed groups in the north.

In Laos, the tiny Catholic community has often struggled to persevere, including under communist-led rule. Mangkhanekhoun, 73, was ordained a priest in 1972 and has served as a bishop since 2001. The Vatican paid tribute to his work in visiting faithful in mountain villages. Since early this year, he has served as apostolic administrator in Vientiane.

Catholicism has been the majority religion in Spain and in El Salvador, although in parts of Central and South America, evangelical Protestant sects have been gaining converts from the Catholic church.

The resume of Chavez, 74, also includes credentials valued by the pope, who has made serving the poor a key focus of the Catholic church's mission. Chavez heads the Latin American division of Caritas, the Catholic charity. He was appointed an auxiliary bishop in 1982 for San Salvador, where he now will be based as a cardinal after serving as a parish pastor in the city.

Chavez worked closely with the late Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, who during El Salvador's civil war was shot to death by a right-wing death squad while saying Mass in 1980. Pope Francis has denounced Catholic clerics who "defamed" Romero after the slaying, a campaign that delayed Romero's eventual beatification.

Francis' pick for the Spain cardinal's post, Omella, 71, worked as a missionary in Zaire earlier in his career and serves on the Vatican's powerful Congregation of Bishops office. Since December 2015, he has been archbishop of Barcelona.

In announcing his selections, Francis expressed hope that the new cardinals with their work and "their advice will sustain me more intensely in my service as bishop of Rome, universal pastor of the church." In other remarks to the faithful in the square, Francis referred to the situation of another Catholic minority — Chinese whose loyalty to the pope has put them at odds with authorities of the state-sanctioned Catholic church in China, and sometimes brought persecution. He prayed that Catholics in China would be able to bring their "personal contribution for the communion among believers and harmony in the entire society." Francis is eager to see improved Vatican-China relations. Both sides have for decades been at odds over Chinese authorities' insistence that they have the right to appoint bishops, a prerogative the Vatican says only belongs to the pope. He urged Catholics in China to "stay open to meeting and dialogue, always." Frances D'Emilio is on Twitter at www.twitter.com/fdemilio </s> In a surprise announcement Sunday, Pope Francis named five new cardinals, for Spain, El Salvador and three countries where Catholics are a tiny minority: Mali, Laos and Sweden. “Their origin, from different parts of the world, manifests the universality of the Church spread out all over the Earth,” Francis said, speaking from the window of the Apostolic Palace to thousands of faithful in St. Peter’s Square.

Those chosen are Monsignor Jean Zerbo, archbishop of Bamako, Mali; Monsignor Juan Jose Omella, archbishop of Barcelona, Spain; Monsignor Anders Arborelius, bishop of Stockholm; Monsignor Louis-Marie Ling Mangkhanekhoun, apostolic vicar of Pakse, Laos; and Monsignor Gregorio Rosa Chavez, an auxiliary bishop in San Salvador, El Salvador.

Francis will formally elevate the churchmen to cardinal’s rank in a ceremony at the Vatican on June 28. Then the new “princes of the church,” as the red-hatted, elite corps of churchmen who elect popes are known, will co-celebrate Mass with Francis the next day, the Feast Day of Saints Peter and Paul, an important Vatican holiday.

Since being elected pontiff in 2013, Francis has made a point of visit his flock in places where Catholics are in the minority, as well as to improve relations between churches and among believers of different faiths. His brief pilgrimage last year to Sweden, where Lutherans are the Christian majority, was hailed by some as instrumental in helping to improve relations between the two churches. While there, he joined Lutheran leaders in a common commemoration of the Protestant Reformation that divided Europe five centuries ago.

Arborelius, who is 67, converted to Catholicism when he was 20. In 1998, when he was consecrated as a bishop in Stockholm’s Catholic cathedral, Arborelius became Sweden’s first Catholic bishop, of Swedish origin, since the times of the Reformation,

In Mali, a country bloodied by Islamist extremism, Muslims constitute the predominant religious majority. Zerbo’s clerical resume reveals him to be a churchman working for reconciliation in society, a virtue repeatedly stressed by Francis. The Vatican noted that Zerbo, 73, who was named an auxiliary bishop of Bamako in 1998 and 10 years later was made that city’s archbishop, has played a role in peace negotiations.

Extremists attacked a hotel in Bamako in 2015, killing 19 people. Last month, the U.N. peacekeeping chief for Mali called the security situation there alarming, warning that extremist groups operating under the al-Qaida banner were carrying out more sophisticated attacks and Islamic State militants were slowly making inroads.

There has been slow progress in implementing a peace deal reached in June 2015 between Mali’s government, Tuareg separatists and armed groups in the north.

In Laos, the tiny Catholic community has often struggled to persevere, including under communist-led rule. Mangkhanekhoun, 73, was ordained a priest in 1972 and has served as a bishop since 2001. The Vatican paid tribute to his work in visiting faithful in mountain villages. Since early this year, he has served as apostolic administrator in Vientiane. Catholicism has been the majority religion in Spain and in El Salvador, although in parts of Central and South America, evangelical Protestant sects have been gaining converts from the Catholic church.

The resume of Chavez, 74, also includes credentials valued by the pope, who has made serving the poor a key focus of the Catholic church’s mission. Chavez heads the Latin American division of Caritas, the Catholic charity. He was appointed an auxiliary bishop in 1982 for San Salvador, where he now will be based as a cardinal after serving as a parish priest in the city.

Francis’ pick for the Spain cardinal’s post, Omella, 71, worked as a missionary in Zaire earlier in his career and serves on the Vatican’s powerful Congregation of Bishops office. Since December 2015, he has been archbishop of Barcelona. In announcing his selections, Francis expressed hope that the new cardinals with their work and “their advice will sustain me more intensely in my service as bishop of Rome, universal pastor of the church.”

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App now </s> VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis announced he will create five new cardinals June 28; the new cardinals-designate come from Mali, Spain, Sweden, Laos and El Salvador.

Unusually, the group of prelates announced by the pope May 21 includes an auxiliary bishop whose archbishop is not a cardinal; he is Cardinal-designate Gregorio Rosa Chavez, 74, the current auxiliary bishop of San Salvador.

The other churchmen who will receive red hats are: Archbishop Jean Zerbo of Bamako, Mali, 73; Archbishop Juan Jose Omella of Barcelona, Spain, 71; Bishop Anders Arborelius of Stockholm, Sweden, 67; and Bishop Louis-Marie Ling Mangkhanekhoun, apostolic vicar of Pakse, Laos, 73.

After briefly talking about the day's Gospel reading, leading the crowd in St. Peter's Square in reciting the "Regina Coeli" prayer and greeting various groups present, instead of wishing everyone a good Sunday and a good lunch -- the normal procedure at the noon prayer -- Pope Francis made his announcement.

The five new cardinals coming from "different parts of the world demonstrates the catholicity of the church spread across the globe," Pope Francis said. And the practice of assigning to each of them a church in Rome "expresses that the cardinals belong to the Diocese of Rome," which, as St. Ignatius of Antioch explained, "presides in charity over all the churches."

Pope Francis said that June 29, the day after the consistory and the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the new cardinals would concelebrate a Mass with him, the entire College of Cardinals and new archbishops from around the world.

"We entrust the new cardinals to the protection of Sts. Peter and Paul," Pope Francis said, praying that with St. Peter they would be "authentic servants" of communion in the church and that with St. Paul they would be "joyful proclaimers of the Gospel."

The pope also prayed that "with their witness and their counsel," the new cardinals would "support me more intensely in my service as bishop of Rome, pastor of the universal church."

With five new cardinals, the College of Cardinals will have 227 members, 121 of whom are under the age of 80 and therefore eligible to vote in a conclave. The number of electors exceeds by one the limit of 120 set by Blessed Paul VI. The next cardinal to turn 80 will be Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, retired president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers, who will celebrate his birthday Feb. 3.

The Vatican released brief biographical notes about the five who will be inducted into the college in June:

-- Cardinal-designate Zerbo was born Dec. 27, 1943, in Segou and was ordained to the priesthood there in 1971. He earned a license in Scripture studies from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and then returned to Mali as a pastor and professor at the seminary in Bamako.

Ordained a bishop in 1988, he served first as auxiliary bishop of Bamako and then was named bishop of Mopti. He has led the Archdiocese of Bamako since 1998.

According to the Vatican, "he played an active role in the Mali peace negotiations" and has worked for solidarity and reconciliation among the nation's citizens.

-- Cardinal-designate Omella was born in the small town of Cretas April 21, 1946, and did his seminary studies in Zaragoza as well as Louvain, Belgium, and Jerusalem. He was ordained in 1970. In addition to parish work in Spain, he spent a year as a missionary in then-Zaire, now Congo.

Ordained a bishop in 1996, he served as auxiliary bishop of Zaragoza and later as bishop of Barbastro-Monzon, then bishop of Calahorra and La Calzada-Logrorio. Pope Francis named him archbishop of Barcelona in 2015.

He has long been a member of the Spanish bishops' commission for social questions and served two terms as commission president. He is a member of the Vatican Congregation for Bishops.

-- Cardinal-designate Arborelius hosted Pope Francis' visit to Sweden in October as part of an ecumenical commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.

Born in Sweden Sept. 24, 1949, he joined the Catholic Church at the age of 20. A few years later, he entered the Discalced Carmelites, took vows in 1977 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1979.

Ordained bishop of Stockholm in 1998, he became the first native Swedish bishop in Sweden since the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, according to the Vatican.

-- Cardinal-designate Ling was born April 8, 1944, in Laos. The Vatican did not say in what city, but did say he was educated and did seminary studies in Laos and Canada.

Ordained to the priesthood in 1972 by the apostolic vicar of Vientiane, he was instrumental in training catechists and was known for his pastoral visits to remote mountain villages.

In October 2000, he was named apostolic vicar of Pakse and was ordained a bishop six months later. Since February, he also has served as apostolic administrator of Vientiane, which currently is without a bishop.

-- Cardinal-designate Rosa Chavez was born Sept. 3, 1942, in Sociedad, El Salvador. He studied at San Jose de la Montana Seminary in San Salvador, earned a degree in social communications and studied at the Catholic University in Louvain, Belgium.

He was ordained to the priesthood in 1970 in San Miguel and served overlapping -- and sometimes simultaneous -- terms as the bishop's secretary, pastor of a parish and director of the diocesan radio station. From 1977 to 1982, he served as rector of San Jose de la Montana Seminary in San Salvador, a position that brought him into regular contact and close collaboration with Blessed Oscar Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador, who was assassinated in 1980.

He was named auxiliary bishop of San Salvador in 1982. Currently, in addition to his duties as auxiliary bishop, he serves as pastor of the Church of St. Francis in the capital, president of Caritas El Salvador and president of Caritas in Latin America and the Caribbean. </s> The Vatican issued an official document Monday rejecting the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisting on the sexual “complementarity” of men and women to make babies.

The document, published during LGBT Pride Month, was immediately denounced by LGBT Catholics as contributing to bigotry and violence against gay and transgender people. Advocacy group New Ways Ministry said it would further confuse individuals questioning their gender identity or sexual orientation and at risk of self-harm.

The text, “Male and Female He Created Them,” was intended to help Catholic teachers, parents, students and clergy address what the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education called an “educational crisis” in the field of sex education.

It called for a “path of dialogue” and listening on the issue of “gender theory” in education. But even priestly advocates for LGBT Catholics noted that the text appeared to have relied entirely on previous papal pronouncements, Vatican documents and philosophers and theologians.

“The real-life experiences of LGBT people seem entirely absent from this document,” said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest who wrote a book on improving Catholic Church outreach to the LGBT community, titled “Building a Bridge.” ”We should welcome the congregation’s call to dialogue and listening on gender, and I hope that conversation will now begin.“ Pope Francis has repeatedly argued the position that people cannot choose their genders. But the document represents the first attempt to put the Vatican’s position, first articulated fully by Pope Benedict XVI in a 2012 speech, into a comprehensive, official text.

The document called for a new alliance among families, schools and society to offer a “positive and prudent sexual education” in Catholic schools so children learn the “full original truth of masculinity and femininity.”

It called gender fluidity a symptom of the “confused concept of freedom” and “momentary desires” that characterize postmodern culture. It rejected terms such as “intersex” and “transgender” and said the purpose of the biological “complementarity” of the male and female sex organs was to ensure procreation.

Francis DeBernardo, head of New Ways Ministry, said such concepts are outdated, misinformed and ignore contemporary science on factors beyond visible genitalia that determine gender.

“Gender is also biologically determined by genetics, hormones and brain chemistry – things not visible at birth,” DeBernardo said in a statement. “People do not choose their gender, as the Vatican claims, they discover it through their lived experiences.”

He said the Catholic Church should encourage this process of discovery, saying it’s “a process by which individuals discover the wonderful way that God has created them.” </s> Pope Francis prays in front of a statue of Our Lady of Fatima on the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima, May 13, 2015, in St. Peter's Square. (© L'Osservatore Romano)

Pope Francis and the Unexpired Call of Fatima

On May 12-13, the focus of the Catholic world will be on Portugal, as Pope Francis heads to Fatima to lead the celebration of the centenary of the apparitions of Our Lady to the three shepherd children.

It will be an opportunity for the Holy Father to reinforce the continued relevance and summons of Fatima and link it to four of his most prominent pastoral priorities: mercy and conversion, peace, Marian devotion and children.

First, mercy and conversion. From his papal motto Miserando Atque Eligendo (“With Mercy Chosen”), pointing to how God chooses through mercy, to the words of his inaugural Angelus meditation in 2013 — stressing that we should never tire of asking for the forgiveness that God never tires to give — to the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy he convoked, his 2016 apostolic letter Misericordia et Misera (“Mercy and Misery”), and more, Pope Francis’ priority for a pontifical theme has been the merciful love of God, our need to receive it and to pray for others to receive it, and our call to become merciful like the Father in sharing it.

Mary’s main message to the pastorinhos was a maternal echo of her Son’s call to conversion. She asked Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto if they were willing to offer themselves to God in reparation for sins and for the conversion of sinners.

She showed them three visions — one of hell, another about world wars, and the third about the persecution of the Church — indelibly illustrating for them the consequences of sin. She urged them to turn to her Son and beg, “Forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell and lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of your mercy.”

When St. John Paul II first went to Fatima in 1982, he summarized Mary’s entreaty as a reiteration of her Son’s call to repent and believe: “The message of Fatima is, in its basic nucleus, a call to conversion and repentance, as in the Gospel.”

For that reason, he said, her maternal reiteration “remains ever relevant” and is even “more relevant … and urgent” than it was in 1917. Writing in 2000, the future Pope Benedict likewise underlined, “Our Lady's call to conversion and penance, issued at the start of the twentieth century, remains timely and urgent today,” stressing that her “insistent invitation” to penance “is nothing but the manifestation of her maternal concern for the fate of the human family, in need of conversion and forgiveness.”

The second priority Pope Francis will be able to pray for and articulate in Fatima is the pressing need for peace.

Because of a failure of persons and peoples to convert and forgive, the world is exploding with conflicts, what Pope Francis has called a third world war “fought piecemeal.” Syria, Iraq, North Korea, South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are among the most noteworthy ones, but terrorist networks and attacks, murderous drug cartels and organized crime, totalitarian crackdowns and various national insurgencies have made most of the world a battlefield.

Our Lady appeared in Fatima to help lead the world on the path of peace. “If what I say to you is done,” she said to the three children, “many souls will be saved, and there will be peace. The war [World War I] will end, but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out.”

With prophetic prescience, she called us to pray for and consecrate Russia, because if it were not converted from the totalitarian communist atheistic path it had begun a few months earlier with the Bolshevik Revolution, it would “spread its errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions [and] … various nations will be annihilated.”

Twentieth-century history has verified her admonition. Even though the consecration was eventually done, prayer for peace in the world, and especially for countries that continue to seek to subjugate other lands under dehumanizing utopian lies, remains ever needed.

When Blessed Paul VI visited Fatima for the 50th anniversary of the apparitions in 1967, he said he had come to pray for peace in the world, so that through prayer and penance under Mary’s direction, we would see the triumph of love and the victory of peace. When St. John Paul II came in 1991, two years after the fall of the Soviet communist bloc, he thanked Mary for “having guided with maternal tenderness peoples to freedom” and said that Mary’s “palpable, penetrating call” for peace remains insistent.

The third pastoral priority Fatima gives Pope Francis is the opportunity to emphasize true devotion to Mary, especially through the Rosary and consecration. It’s noteworthy that before and after every foreign trip Pope Francis goes to St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome to beg for Mary’s prayers. He has repeatedly encouraged all people to pray the Rosary, calling it a “school of prayer” and “school of faith,” and exhorting us, “Please pray the Rosary. … Do not neglect it!”

During the Year of Consecrated Life, he spoke regularly about the meaning of Mary’s consecration and how we are called to imitate it and enter into it.

In Fatima, Mary taught the three children how to pray the Rosary properly, because they were used to saying just the first words of each prayer. She identified herself to them as “Our Lady of the Rosary,” and in every appearance, she asked them to “pray the Rosary every day.”

She revealed: “To save [poor sinners on the path to hell], God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart,” a heart that is pure and sees God, treasures his word, says fiat to what he asks, and loves both him and others.

The day Blessed Paul VI visited Fatima, he released an apostolic exhortation focused on the devotion we should all have to Mary as a spiritual mother, describing her as the model of how to enflesh and live by God’s word. In Rome and Fatima, St. John Paul II led the Church throughout the world in consecrating itself to Mary’s Immaculate Heart. And during his visit, Pope Benedict emphasized, “Fatima and the Rosary are practically synonymous,” urging us, in praying the Rosary, to imitate the entrustment of the shepherds to Mary and allowing her to help us fix the gaze of our hearts on the blessed Fruit of her womb.

The fourth pastoral priority is about young people and the call to spiritual greatness.

Whenever Pope Francis visits a parish, he always has a special meeting with young children to answer their questions, to inspire them in simple ways to say “Yes” to God, and to help them to grow in love of God, the Blessed Mother, their faith and others. With youth and young adults at World Youth Day, he has summoned them to the fullness of the Christian life. “God calls each of us to be holy, to live his life,” he said in Brazil at World Youth Day 2013. In Krakow in 2016, he challenged them, “Leave your mark on history” by following Jesus all the way.

When he reaches Fatima this week, Pope Francis will have a chance to illustrate these truths as he canonizes Francisco and Jacinta, who will become the youngest non-martyred canonized saints in history. When John Paul visited in 2000 to beatify Francisco and Jacinta in the presence of Lucia, he said that the means by which they were able to become “saints so quickly” was that they had enrolled in Mary’s “school” and had learned from her, through prayer and loving reparation, the way to holiness, happiness and heaven.

Pope Francis will have a chance to call all children of God, no matter how young, to learn from the same Mother and teacher and offer Sts. Francisco and Jacinta to the children of the world as heroes who truly left their mark on history.

During the last papal visit in 2010, Pope Benedict said that the message of Fatima “imposed itself on the Church.” Its centenary is not principally about looking backward, because “Fatima’s prophetic message” is, he said, not complete, but is something that all of us are meant to actualize.

Our Lady’s message doesn’t chiefly concern secrets or “particular devotions,” but, rather, he underlined, a “fundamental response” that involves persistent prayer, conversion, penance, forgiveness, Marian piety and consecration, faith, hope, justice and charity. For the years leading up to the centenary and beyond, he called all of us through those practices to help hasten the fulfillment of the prophecy of the triumph of Mary’s Immaculate Heart and to the peace, holiness and salvation it brings.

As Pope Francis visits Fatima, he will help the Church, through the example of the docility and devotion of the new saints, to enter Mary’s school and learn there not just the lessons of the past century and about the foundation for peace on earth, but, most important of all, the path to salvation and eternal happiness, where Our Lady and the shepherd children continue to pray for the bishop in white and for all of us.

Father Roger Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, and national chaplain of Catholic Voices USA.
Pope Francis names for first time in Vatican history female members of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.