Archbishop Hamao Signs Petition Calling for a New Council
Sept 12, 2004
Cardinal Arns and a top Vatican official are among signatories of a petition calling for a new ecumenical council for the Catholic Church.
(The Tablet, 4 May 2002) The Archbishop-emeritus of São Paulo, and Archbishop Stephen Hamao, president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerants, joined more than 30 bishops and archbishops in supporting the “International initiative for a new council in the Catholic Church”. Most of the prelates are from Latin America and still in active service as local ordinaries.
Their names were listed on a new website (www.proconcil.org) on 24 April calling “on the Pope, Bishop of Rome, to convene a new ecumenical council, in the spirit of Vatican II” in order to “respond evangelically…to the grave challenges facing humanity, especially persons in extreme poverty”. There is some similarity to the almost simultaneous call for a campaign against poverty and hunger issued by the Brazilian bishops at the end of their assembly in April (see below).
According to the petition, this new initiative “comes from members of the Catholic Church in senior posts of responsibility”. Their goal is to start planning “a participative and conciliatory council process, beginning at local and continental church level, where concerns, hopes and new forms of renewal may be discussed freely and compassionately”.
Organisers of the initiative spell out their loyalty to Rome: “in communion with the entire Church and in a special way with the Successor of Peter, we pray that the Spirit may enlighten us to respond, prophetically and with hope, to the desire for dialogue and renewal within a wide section of the Church”.
Archbishop Hamao Signs Petition Calling for a New Council