New Vatican documents

Two new documents out from the Vatican while I was away in Lourdes. The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life has issued an instruction: The Service of Authority and Obedience (subtitled "Faciem tuam, Domine, requiram" - I shall seek your face, O Lord: Ps 26.8)

This lengthy document looks at the duties of those in authority and particularly mentions the duty to think with the Church. In this context, it quotes Pope Benedict's homily during the Chrism Mass earlier this year:
“Our obedience is a believing with the Church, a thinking and speaking with the Church, serving through her. What Jesus predicted to Peter also always applies: ‘You will be taken where you do not want to go'. This letting oneself be guided where one does not want to be led is an essential element of our serving and precisely that which makes us free”
One odd feature of this document is that it speaks always of the "Reign of God" and never of the "Kingdom of God". I vaguely suspect that "Reign" is meant to avoid offending someone. If it is an inclusive language thing, are we now to speak of "Our Lady Sovereign and Mother" or to celebrate the feast of the "Reigning of Mary"?

Meanwhile, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has published a General Decree regarding the delict of attempted sacred ordination of a woman. Both the one who attempts to ordain and the woman are excommunicated latae sententiae. So those ladies in the famous boat should not be going to communion.

The link above is to the English translation. Here is a link to the Latin original.

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