Vigil Prayer Service for Reconciliation, October 1, 2024 with Pope Francis presiding; St. Peter Basilica, Rome
The second session of the Synod on Synodality has begun. After two days of prayer and reflection, the synod delegates gathered Tuesday evening in St. Peter’s Basilica with Pope Francis to pray for forgiveness of the Church’s sins and failures.
The prayer service was profound, and a fitting way to conclude our retreat, and begin our work of becoming a community of faith walking together in mercy with Christ and one another toward the Kingdom along with the whole of humanity, with an orientation towards mission. (Instrumentum Laboris, No 5)
In the first three years of this synodal journey, we have heard many accounts from people who have experienced serious harm from members of the clergy and the broader Church. Part of our ability to truly walk together is to acknowledge our failures and to beg God and others for forgiveness.
Pope Francis wrote these intentions in which he names particular sins and failures while asking for pardon from God. It is important for people to know that this prayer service was offered and to hear the sins that were named. For us to journey together, we need to acknowledge all that we have heard in these recent years. We need to ask forgiveness and to find a renewed unity and harmony. We need healing.
There were several people who gave personal witness to their experience, including a man from South Africa who was abused by a priest as an eleven year old boy. It was powerful. Hopefully, you can find the video of the Vigil Prayer service here.
One ‘grace’ I was very aware of these past few days of prayer and reflection is that the Risen Lord is always with us. In addition, the Risen Lord can heal us of all our wounds – and they are many. As St. Paul says in the Letter to the Philippians: “I wish to know Christ and the power flowing from his resurrection”.
Below are the requests for forgiveness as they were read during the vigil last night. I would invite each of you to think of the Risen Lord – with his healed wounds – present to you personally – longing to heal our wounds. This takes faith, and ‘handing over’ our wounded memories and experiences so the Lord can take them and heal us. We are in need of this great grace today!
Card. Oswald GRACIAS, Archbishop of Bombay (India)
I ask forgiveness to God the Father, feeling shame for the sin of lack of courage, of the courage
necessary to seek peace among peoples and nations, in recognition of the infinite dignity of every
human life in all its phases, from the nascent state to old age, Especially the children, the sick, the
poor, of the right to have a job, land, home, family, community in which to live free, of the value that
is the landscape and culture of every area of the planet. To make peace it takes courage: to say yes to
the encounter and no to the clash; yes to the respect of agreements and no to provocations; yes to
sincerity and no to duplicity. In the name of all the faithful I ask forgiveness to those who are being
born today and will be born after us, to the generations of the future that lend us this world and that
have the right to live in it, one day, in harmony and peace. Even more serious is our sin, if to justify
war and discrimination, we invoke the name of God. Forgive us Lord.
Card. Michael CZERNY, S.I., Prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human
Development
I ask forgiveness, feeling shame for what we too, the faithful, have done to transform creation from
garden to desert, manipulating it at our own pleasure; and how much we did not do to prevent it. I
ask forgiveness, feeling shame, for when we have not recognized the right and dignity of every human
person, Discriminating and exploiting it – I am thinking in particular of the indigenous peoples – and
for when we were accomplices in systems that favoured slavery and colonialism. I ask forgiveness,
feeling shame, for when we took and take part in the globalisation of indifference in front of the
tragedies that transform for many migrants the sea routes and borders between nations from routes of
hope to routes of death. The value of the person is always higher than that of the border. At this
moment I hear the voice of God asking us all: «Where is your brother; where is your sister?». Forgive
us, Lord.
Card. Seán Patrick O’MALLEY, O.F.M. Cap., Emeritus Metropolitan Archbishop of Boston
I ask forgiveness, feeling shame, for all the times that we the faithful have been accomplices or have
directly committed abuses of conscience, abuse of power, and sexual abuse. How much shame and
pain I feel when considering especially the sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable people, abuses that
have stolen innocence and profaned the sacredness of those who are weak and helpless. I ask
forgiveness, feeling shame, for all the times we have used the condition of ordained ministry and
consecrated life to commit this terrible sin, feeling safe and protected while we were profiting
diabolically from the little ones and the poor. Forgive us, Lord.
Card. Kevin Joseph FARRELL, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life
I ask forgiveness on behalf of all in the Church, especially us men, feeling shame for all the times
that we have not recognized and defended the dignity of women, for when we made them mute andand not infrequently exploited, especially in the condition of consecrated life. I ask forgiveness, feeling shame for all the times we have judged and condemned before taking care of the frailties and wounds of the family. I ask forgiveness, feeling shame, for all the times that we have stolen hope and love to the younger generations, when we did not understand the delicacy of the steps of growth, the pain of the formation of identity, and we are not willing to sacrifice ourselves for their right to express talents and professionalism by finding a decent job and receiving a fair salary. I ask
forgiveness, feeling shame for all the times we have preferred to take revenge instead of committing ourselves to the pursuit of justice, abandoning those who make mistakes in prisons and resorting to the use of the death penalty. Forgive us, Lord.
Card. Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith
I ask forgiveness feeling shame for all the times that in the Church, especially us pastors who are entrusted with the task of confirming our brothers and sisters in the faith, have not been able to guard and propose the Gospel as a living source of eternal newness, “indoctrinating it” and risking reducing it to a pile of dead stones to be thrown at others. I beg forgiveness, feeling shame for all the times we have given doctrinal justification to inhuman treatment. I ask forgiveness, feeling shame for when we have not been credible witnesses of the fact that the truth is free, for when we have obstructed the
various legitimate inculturations of the truth of Jesus Christ, who always travels the paths of history
and life to be found by those who want to follow him with fidelity and joy. I ask forgiveness, feeling
shame for the actions and omissions that have prevented and still make difficult the recomposition in
unity of the Christian faith, and the authentic fraternity of all mankind. Forgive us, Lord.
Card. Cristóbal LÓPEZ ROMERO, S.D.B., Archbishop of Rabat (Morocco)
I ask forgiveness on behalf of all in the Church, feeling shame for when we turned our head to the
other side in front of the sacrament of the poor, preferring to adorn ourselves and the altar with guilty
valuables that steal bread from the hungry. I ask forgiveness, feeling shame for the inertia that keeps
us from accepting the call to be a poor Church of the poor and that makes us yield to the seduction of
power and the flattery of the first places and titles of vainglory. I ask forgiveness, feeling shame, for
when we give in to the temptation of hiding ourselves in the centre, protected within our ecclesial
spaces sick with self-referentiality, resisting to go out, neglecting the mission in the geographical and
existential peripheries. Forgive us, Lord.
Card. Christoph SCHÖNBORN, O.P., Archbishop of Wien (Austria)
I ask forgiveness, feeling shame for the obstacles that we place in the building of a truly synodal,
symphonic Church, aware of being holy people of God who walk together recognizing the common
baptismal dignity. I ask forgiveness, feeling shame for all the times that we have not heard the Holy
Spirit, preferring to listen to ourselves, defending opinions and ideologies that hurt the communion
in Christ of all, expected at the end of time from the Father. I ask forgiveness, feeling shame for
when we have transformed authority into power, suffocating plurality, not listening to people, making
it difficult for many brothers and sisters to participate in the mission of the Church, forgetting that we
are all called in history, For faith in Christ, to become living stones of the one temple of the Holy
Spirit. Forgive us, Lord.
May we walk humbly with the Risen Lord and one another, showing mercy in our own relationships.
Once again this year, Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, OP led us with four beautiful reflections on the Resurrection account of John’s Gospel. You can find his presentations on the Vatican News Website (I think)!
Peace!
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