Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia has been chosen to lead a group of five clergymen who will implement Pope Francis’ recent apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, in US parishes.
Chosen by the head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, the hope is that the working group will develop a fuller understanding of the range of activities to implement in parishes by mid-September.
The working group will marshal the resources of the USCCB to assist bishops with the positive reception and ongoing implementation of Amoris Laetitia, to learn the various initiatives taking place in the dioceses and to update the Vatican on their progress by the time of the annual curial visits.
Speaking to the Catholic News Agency (CNA), the archbishop said: “Our ‘committee’ is very ad hoc and may exist for only three or four months...There is no policy dimension to what we are doing”.
He said the group’s aims were “to gather what the bishops of the USA are doing” and share the information with other bishops, and then report to Cardinal Baldisseri at the Vatican, who is gathering responses from bishops’ conferences around the world.
Archbishop Chaput is chairman-elect of the bishops' Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, and a delegate to last October's Synod of Bishops on the family. The other members of the working group include: Bishop Michael Burbidge of Raleigh, North Carolina, chairman of the Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations; Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St Paul and Minneapolis, chairman of the Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance; Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo, chairman of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth; and Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron of Detroit, chairman of the Committee on Doctrine.
Amoris Laetitia was issued in April after synods in 2014 and 2015.
Loading ...
