VOLUME 1, ISSUE 5  •  JANUARY 31, 2015

Table of Contents

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VATICAN NEWS

Want Christian unity? Deepen your own conversion, Pope says

Pope Francis surprised by misunderstanding of his words on family

As Ukraine violence continues, Pope renews call for dialogue

Christian unity demands encounter – not theory, says Pope

Pope: Dialogue between religions key in countering violence

Pope to canon lawyers: Annulment process must be secure, prompt

Women are irreplaceable in passing on the faith, Pope says

Wondering what to give up for Lent? Try indifference, Pope says

A visit to Naples, Pompeii on Pope Francis’ slate for March

Pope Francis asks, Do you discern God’s will before making a decision?

A society without fathers is a society of orphans, Pope Francis says

Beyond the digital, into the heart: a Vatican take on communication

A love for peripheries, the link between Pope Francis and St. John Bosco

Pope says palliums will be given to new archbishops at home – not Rome

Coming soon to the Vatican: haircuts for Rome’s homeless

Lukewarm Christians who don’t love are ‘in grave danger,’ Pope warns

WORLD NEWS

Beatification cause opened for founder of Focolare movement

Should the West take on Nigeria’s terrorists? Bishops say yes

Cardinal praises Catholics in Vietnam for their witness to the faith

Catholics in Australia support Pope Francis’ action against human trafficking

Blessed Odoardo Focherini, the father of seven who saved 100 Jewish lives

Will the number of dioceses in Italy be cut in the near future?

Malawian bishops commit to spreading the Gospel with new media

Jesuit laments car bomb attack in Syria, scorns media silence

Iraqi priests work to save historic Christian writings from Islamic State

Does Francis like being Pope? A behind-the-scenes chat in the Philippines

Burma’s Bibles: encouraging love of Scripture among the laity

Ghana priests shift focus to marriage prep, youth formation

Missionary: Boko Haram behind attacks on churches, religious in Niger

Woman bishop challenges future of Anglican-Catholic dialogue

Can Christians survive the ‘dirty games’ of Middle East politics?

Church in Italy fights against imposition of gender ideology in schools

U.S. NEWS

Why the pro-life movement needs Democrats

100 babies: A women’s center that helps every step of the way

Millennials’ pro-life commitment wows bishops

Prayers offered upon death of prominent dissenting theologian

Princeton professor to pro-life movement: We’re winning

‘No compromise’ – Catholics, evangelicals unite on marriage

West Coast Walk for Life broke more than one record this year

The dark side of the Super Bowl and how Congress aims to fight it

Who’s entering religious life these days?

Bishops use Supreme Court case to call for death penalty abolition

A tale of two cakes: Colorado’s far-reaching religious freedom fight

On feast of St. Thomas, teachers called to mercifully challenge students

Measles are making a comeback, so what does the Church teach about vaccines?

Assisted living centers defeat HHS mandate in court

How one Catholic school takes a hammer to the cycle of poverty

FEATURES

Why We Don’t Let the Neighbors Tell Us How to Raise the Kids

A man of frugal speech

Housework can be a source of profound spirituality

Movie Review: ‘Black Or White’

Why Having a Heart of Gold is Not What Christianity is About

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Sunday • February 1, 2015

Monday • February 2, 2015

Tuesday • February 3, 2015

Wednesday • February 4, 2015

Thursday • February 5, 2015

Friday • February 6, 2015

Saturday • February 7, 2015

The Catholic Digital News

The Free Weekly Newsmagazine for the Church of the 21st Century

Volume 1, Issue 5 • January 31, 2015

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VATICAN NEWS

Want Christian unity? Deepen your own conversion, Pope says

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • January 24, 2015

Pope Francis. (Stephen Driscoll/CNA)

Vatican City — Pope Francis told a group of religious men and women that they are the forerunners in working towards Christian unity, which is something that first requires personal conversion, holiness and prayer.

“There is no unity without conversion. Religious life reminds us that at the center of every search for unity, and therefore of every ecumenical effort, there is before all else the conversion of heart,” the pontiff told the participants of an Ecumenical Colloquium of Religious Men and Women on Jan. 24.

Pope Francis’ address to the group, which took place in the Consistory Hall of the Apostolic Palace, fell on the second to last day of the Jan. 22-25 colloquium.

Organized by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the gathering was dedicated to prayer for Christian unity, and was held on the occasion of the Year for Consecrated Life, which opened in November.

Conversion, the pontiff said, “involves the request and the granting of forgiveness” on each side, and requires both parties “to look at one another in God,” and to make the effort of seeing themselves from the point of view of the other.

This, he said, is “a double challenge related to the search for unity, both within religious communities, and among Christians of different traditions.”

Religious men and women have frequently been the pioneers of ecumenism, the Roman Pontiff noted, explaining because they are so “deeply rooted in the will of Christ and in the common tradition of the undivided church,” consecrated persons have a “particular vocation to promote this unity.”

He pointed to the French Taizé Community and the Italian Monastic Community of Bose as contemporary examples of communities who specifically work toward fostering an environment of encounter for Christians from different traditions.

Religious life is also a sign that it is not our own efforts which bring about unity, the Pope observed, but that such unity is rather “a gift of the Holy Spirit, who creates unity in diversity.”

The Holy Spirit, he said, “reveals to us that this unity can only be accomplished if we walk together, if we follow the path of fraternity in love, service and reciprocal welcome.”

In addition to conversion, prayer is also needed in order to achieve true ecumenical unity, the pontiff noted, saying that committed efforts to build this unity are both a response to the prayer of Jesus and at the same time are themselves based on prayer.

Pope Francis then recalled an image illustrating the bond between ecumenism and religious life generated by Father Paul Couturier, who said that all those who pray for unity are an “invisible monastery.”

As consecrated persons, religious men and women “are the first animators of this ‘invisible monastery,’” the Pope explained, and encouraged colloquium participants to pray for unity and to “translate this prayer into attitudes and daily gestures.”

The Bishop of Rome also noted the importance of personal holiness in everyday life as key to ecumenical dialogue, saying that “there is no unity without holiness of life.”

Consecrated persons, he said, are also a sign of this universal call to holiness, which each person receives at their baptism.

Pope Francis concluded his address by thanking the religious men and women present for their witness to the Gospel and their service in the cause for unity.

He prayed for each of them, that the Lord “abundantly bless your ministry and inspire you to work tirelessly for the peace and reconciliation among churches and Christian communities.”

The colloquium, which coincides with the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, will close Sunday evening when Pope Francis brings the week of prayer to an end by praying Vespers with representatives of Orthodox and Anglican Churches.

Set to take place at the papal basilica St. Paul Outside the Wall, the Vespers service also falls on the feast day marking the apostle’s conversion.

On the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, which falls on Monday, Feb. 2, Pope Francis will celebrate a special Mass for Day of Consecrated Life. The Mass, which is also a special initiative for the Year for Consecrated Life, will be held inside St. Peter’s Basilica at 5:30 p.m.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis surprised by misunderstanding of his words on family

by CNA/EWTN News • January 24, 2015

Archbishop Giovanni Becciu, substitute of the Secretariat of State, speaks with journalists aboard the papal flight to Colombo, Jan. 12, 2015. (Alan Holdren/CNA)

Vatican City — Pope Francis was surprised that his words on responsible parenthood were not widely taken in the sense that he intended them, a Vatican official related in an interview on Thursday.

Archbishop Giovanni Becciu, Substitute at the Secretariat of State, also told Avvenire, the Italian bishops’ publication, on Jan. 22 that the Pope was saddened at the misunderstanding.

“The Pope is truly sorry that it created such disorientation. He absolutely did not want to disregard the beauty and the value of large families,” Archbishop Becciu stated.

“Seeing the headlines, the Holy Father, with whom I spoke yesterday, smiled and was a bit surprised that his words were not fully contextualized with regards to a very clear passage of Humanae vitae on responsible parenthood,” Archbishop Becciu stated.

Bl. Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical on the regulation of birth said that “responsible parenthood, as we use the term here, has one further essential aspect of paramount importance. It concerns the objective moral order which was established by God, and of which a right conscience is the true interpreter. In a word, the exercise of responsible parenthood requires that husband and wife, keeping a right order of priorities, recognize their own duties toward God, themselves, their families and human society.”

In the in-flight press conference back from Manila Feb. 19, Pope Francis said, “some think that — excuse the language — that in order to be good Catholics, we have to be like rabbits,” an stressed that it was instead important to exercise “responsible parenthood.”

Archbishop Becciu said the Pope’s statement “must be interpreted in the sense that the procreative act of humans cannot follow the logic of the animal instinct, but it is instead the fruit of a responsible act that is rooted in love and in the mutual gift of the self.”

He then lamented that “unfortunately, very often the contemporary culture tends to diminish the authentic beauty and high value of conjugal love, with all the negative consequences that follow.”

During the press conference, Pope Francis had also said he is saddened when people say three children per family is too much, citing that three children per couple “is the number experts say is important to keep the population going.”

Many interpreted this as a proclamation as a normative number of children for each Christian couple, but Archbishop Becciu dismissed this interpretation.

“The number three only refers to the minimum number that would assure the stability of population, as indicated by sociologists and demographers. In no way did the Pope want to say that it represented the ‘just’’ number of children for each married couple,” Archbishop Becciu said.

He then explained that “every Christian couple, in light of grace, is called to discern according to a variety of divine and human parameters the number of children they should have.”

The archbishop said the correct interpretation of Pope Francis’ words comes from the teaching of Bl. Paul VI and from the ancient tradition of the Church, which Pius XI’s 1930 encyclical Casti connubii reiterated: that “even if the unitive and procreative aspects of the sexual act must never be separated,” the act “must always be included in the logic of love” with regard to the “capacity of each person to open to the mystery of the gift of self in the bonds of marriage.”

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VATICAN NEWS

As Ukraine violence continues, Pope renews call for dialogue

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • January 25, 2015

Pope Francis bows his head in prayer during a Wednesday general audience Oct. 2, 2013. (Elise Harris/CNA)

Vatican City — During his weekly Angelus address, Pope Francis decried the recent escalation of violence in Ukraine, and later called on Christians to pray for unity with one another.

“With deep concern, I am following the worsening of clashes in eastern Ukraine, which continues to cause many victims among the civilian population,” the Pope said Jan. 25, addressing the crowds from the window of the Apostolic Palace.

Thirty people were killed by rocket fire in Mariupol, Ukraine, amid clashes between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, according to BBC. The attacks are the latest in an ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine which has left 5,000 people dead since April 2014.

Assuring his prayers for the suffering in Ukraine, the Pope renewed his “heartfelt appeal” for dialogue to be resumed, and for “an end to every hostility.”

Beginning his Angelus address, Pope Francis reflected on the day’s Gospel, which recounts John the Baptist’s arrest, followed by Jesus’ coming to Galilee with the proclamation: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:14).

“Jesus Christ himself is the living and working Word in history: he who listens to him and follows him enters the Kingdom of God,” the Pope said.

He is the “fulfilment of the Divine promises because it is he who gives man the Holy Spirit, the ‘living water’ which quenches our restless hearts,” which “thirst for life, love freedom, peace: thirst for God.”

“How often do we feel, or have we felt, thirst in our hearts,” the Holy Father remarked.

He noted that the theme of this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which concludes on Jan. 25, is taken from Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well: “Give me a drink” (John 4:7). The end of the week is marked by vespers presided over by the Holy Father at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls.

Pope Francis said it is “ugly” for Christians to be divided, adding: “Jesus wants us united: one body!”

Having been divided by “our sins,” the Pope continued, “we must pray a great deal that the Holy Spirit might unite us once again.”

In becoming man, the Pope continued, God took upon himself “our thirst, not only for material water,” but for “a full life, a life of freedom from the slavery of evil and death.”

“God thirsts for us, for our hearts, for our love, and has placed this thirst in the heart of Jesus. Therefore, in the heart of Christ, human and Divine thirst meet.”

Stressing that Jesus desires the “unity of all,” Pope Francis noted that the devil, “the father of division, is one who always divides, who always makes war, does much evil.”

“May Jesus’ thirst become ever more our thirst!” he said.

Before leading the crowds in the recitation of the Angelus in Latin, Pope Francis appealed to Mary, “Mother of Christ, mother of the Church,” who “unifies us all as a good mother.”

After the recitation of the Marian prayer, the Pope recalled that Jan. 25 is the World Leprosy Day, and expressed his nearness to all those “who suffer from this disease,” as well as their caretakers.

In off-the-cuff remarks, the Pope extended a particular greeting to the Filipino community in Rome. This being his first Angelus address since returning from his apostolic visit to the Philippines, the Holy Father commented on their “strong and joyful faith.”

“Thank you so much for all the good that you have done for us, because you have sown the faith among us, have made a beautiful witness of faith.”

Pope Francis went on to greet the other pilgrims in the square, especially the young boys and girls from Catholic Action in Rome, one of whom was invited to address the crowds alongside the Holy Father.

Concluding his address, the Pope asked the faithful to not forget to pray for him.

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VATICAN NEWS

Christian unity demands encounter – not theory, says Pope

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • January 25, 2015

Pope Francis speaks to religious communities at the Training Center ‘School of Love’ in Kkottongnaeon, South Korea, Aug. 16, 2014. (Alan Holdren/CNA)

Vatican City — More than “theoretical discussions,” what unites Christians is encounter, and a willingness to “challenge one another,” said Pope Francis as he marked the conclusion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

“Christian unity will not be the fruit of subtle theoretical discussions in which each party tries to convince the other of the soundness of their opinions,” the Pope said during vespers at Saint Paul Outside the Walls Basilica on Jan. 25.

“To plumb the depths of the mystery of God, we need one another, we need to encounter one another and to challenge one another under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who harmonizes diversities and overcomes conflicts,” he said.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is traditionally celebrated from Jan. 18-25, between the feasts of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

Those present at this year’s Vespers included Ecumenical patriarch representative Metropolitan Gennadios, Archbishop of Canterbury representative David Moxon, and various other representatives of churches and ecclesial communities.

Pope Francis’ address was largely focused on Saint John’s Gospel account of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. “He has no problem dealing with Samaritans, who were considered by the Jews to be heretics, schismatics, separated,” the Pope said.

“His attitude tells us that encounter with those who are different from ourselves can make us grow.”

In the Gospel account, Jesus asks the woman for a drink, but the Pope observes that His is more than a physical thirst: “it is also a thirst for encounter, a desire to enter into dialogue with that woman and to invite her to make a journey of interior conversion.”

The Holy Father also noted Jesus’ patience and respect for the woman before revealing himself. “His example encourages us to seek a serene encounter with others. To understand one another, and to grow in charity and truth, we need to pause, to accept and listen to one another.”

“In this way, we already begin to experience unity,” he said.

When the woman asks Jesus “where God is truly worshiped,” the Holy Father said, Christ “goes to the heart of the matter, breaking down every wall of division. He speaks instead of the meaning of true worship.”

“So many past controversies between Christians can be overcome when we put aside all polemical or apologetic approaches, and seek instead to grasp more fully what unites us, namely, our call to share in the mystery of the Father’s love revealed to us by the Son through the Holy Spirit.”

The Holy Father went on to say the “human existence is marked by boundless aspirations: we seek truth, we thirst for love, justice and freedom.”

“These desires can only be partially satisfied, for from the depths of our being we are prompted to seek ‘something more,’ something capable of fully quenching our thirst. The response to these aspirations is given by God in Jesus Christ, in his paschal mystery.”

The Samaritan woman’s encounter with Jesus made her a missionary, the Pope continued. “Her encounter with Jesus restored meaning and joy to her life, and she felt the desire to share this with others.”

Pope Francis said that “we cannot evade” the request from the many men and women who ask Christians for “something to drink.”

“All the Churches and Ecclesial Communities discover a privileged setting for closer cooperation,” he said. “For this to be effective, we need to stop being self-enclosed, exclusive, and bent on imposing a uniformity based on merely human calculations (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 131). Our shared commitment to proclaiming the Gospel enables us to overcome proselytism and competition in all their forms.”

Pope Francis went on to stress that religious life “is called to offer in our time a witness to that communion in Christ which transcends all differences and finds expression in concrete gestures of acceptance and dialogue.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope: Dialogue between religions key in countering violence

by CNA/EWTN News • January 25, 2015

Pope Francis addresses interreligious faith leaders in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Jan. 13, 2015. (EWTN)

Vatican City — Pope Francis on Jan. 24 stressed the need for dialogue between different faiths, saying that it is essential in preventing violence and promoting peace.

“Perhaps now more than ever such a need is felt, because the most effective antidote against all forms of violence is education towards the discovery and acceptance of differences,” he said, according to Vatican Radio.

The Pope spoke to members of the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies at an audience marking the 50th anniversary of the institute’s opening.

He praised the group’s efforts to promote Christian-Muslim dialogue, emphasizing the importance of such dialogue in achieving peace.

“If it is assumed that we all belong to human nature, prejudices and falsehoods can be overcome and an understanding of the other according to a new perspective can begin,” he said.

While progress has been made in inter-religious dialogue, the Pope said, more must be done. Listening to one another is necessary to understand shared beliefs and values.

“At the heart of everything is the need for an adequate formation so that, steadfast in one’s own identity, we can grow in mutual knowledge,” Pope Francis explained.

At the same time he warned against a false approach to dialogue that “says yes to everything in order to avoid problems.”

“It would end up becoming ‘a way of deceiving others and denying them the good which we have been given to share generously with others,’” he stated, according to Vatican Radio.

Ending his remarks, the Pope encouraged the institute to continue its work of fostering inter-religious dialogue and encouraging more work in this area.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope to canon lawyers: Annulment process must be secure, prompt

by CNA/EWTN News • January 26, 2015

(Petr Kratochvil CC0 1.0)

Vatican City — In a speech delivered on Saturday to participants in a conference on how to handle causes of nullity, Pope Francis encouraged a marriage process that is both sure of its judgements and prompt.

The three-day conference is sponsored by the Pontifical Gregorian University, and marks the 10th anniversary of Dignitas connubii, an instruction of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts to tribunals on handling causes of the nullity of marriage.

Pope Francis praised the document in his Jan. 24 address as “a modest but useful handbook that really takes the ministers of the tribunals by the hand toward the implementation of a process that is both secure and prompt.”

“A secure process because it indicates and explains with clarity the goal of the process itself, namely moral certainty: this requires that any prudent, positive doubt of error be totally excluded, even if the mere possibility of the contrary is not excluded. A prompt process because – as common experience teaches – he who knows the path to follow travels more quickly.”

The Pope greeted all those who came to the congress from across the world, calling their presence “a great consolation” because “it seems to me a generous response to the stresses that every authentic minister of the tribunals of the Church feels for the good of souls.”

“The knowledge and, I would say, the use” of Dignitas connubii, Pope Francis stated, “can, even in the future, help ministers of tribunals to shorten case proceedings, often perceived by spouses as long and wearisome.”

“Up until now, not all of the resources that this instruction makes available for a prompt process, devoid of every formalism for its own sake, have been explored; nor can we exclude further legislative acts in the future aimed at the same end.”

He made reference to the defender of the bond, a position appointed in each diocese in marriage cases who, according to canon law, “is bound by office to propose and explain everything which reasonably can be brought forth against nullity or dissolution.”

Pope Francis said the role of the defender of the bond is a “proper and original” one in the marriage process, adding that “his presence and the faithful fulfillment of his task do not condition the judge, but allow and encourage the impartiality of his judgment, having set before him the arguments in favor of and contrary to the declaration of nullity of marriage.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Women are irreplaceable in passing on the faith, Pope says

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • January 26, 2015

Women in prayer. (CNA)

Vatican City — Women in the family have a crucial role in transmitting the faith from one generation to the next, said Pope Francis during morning Mass for the feast of saints Timothy and Titus.

Addressing the congregation gathered in the Vatican’s Santa Marta residence on Jan. 26, the Pope centered his reflection on Paul’s letter to Timothy – who writes that his “sincere faith” comes from the Holy Spirit “through his mother and grandmother”.

“Mothers and grandmothers are the ones who transmit the faith,” the Pope said, according to Vatican Radio’s translation.

He noted that faith is a gift which is passed from one generation to the next by the women in the family, namely “mothers and grandmothers,” or “maids and aunts.” The reason faith is passed by “mainly women,” the Pope said, is “because the one who brought us Jesus is a woman.”

“It is the path chosen by Jesus. He wanted to have a mother: the gift of faith comes to us through women, as Jesus came to us through Mary.”

Pope Francis stressed the need for women, “in our own day,” to be “aware of the duty they have to transmit the faith.”

The Pope went on to make the distinction between passing on the faith and teaching on matters of the faith.

“Faith is a gift: it is not possible to study faith,” he explained. “We study the things of faith, yes, to understand it better, but with study (alone) one never comes to faith. Faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit, which surpasses all (‘academic’) formation.”

During his homily, the Pope also warned against timidity to avoid a faith that is watered down. In Paul’s letter, Timothy is told to avoid “empty pagan chatter, empty chatter of the world.”

“We have – all of us – received the gift of faith,” the Pope said. He warned of the importance of keeping the faith “in order that it not become watered down, so that it remains strong, with the power of the Holy Spirit who gave it to us.”

Pope Francis also touched on the “spirit of timidity,” which “goes against the gift of faith.”

“God has not given us a spirit of timidity,” Pope Francis said. Timidity, he added, “does not let faith grow, advance, be great. Shame, in turn, is the following sin, (which says): ‘Yes, I have faith, but I cover it up, that it not be seen too much.’”

Referred to by “our forebears” as “rosewater” faith because of shame of living “it powerfully,” the Pope said “this is not the faith.”

“(Faith knows) neither timidity nor shame. What is it, then? It is a spirit of power and of love and of prudence: that is what faith is.”

“We ask the Lord’s grace,” Pope Francis concluded, “that we might have a sincere faith, a faith that is not negotiable depending on the opportunities that come, a faith that every day I try to revive or at least ask the Holy Spirit to revive it, and make it bear much fruit.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Wondering what to give up for Lent? Try indifference, Pope says

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • January 27, 2015

Pope Francis celebrates New Years Day Mass for the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God on Jan. 1, 2015. (Bohumil Petrik/CNA)

Vatican City — The “globalization of indifference” was at the heart of Pope Francis’ Lenten message, in which he urged faithful to fight individualism with merciful hearts that are more attentive to the needs of others.

“(Jesus) is interested in each of us; his love does not allow him to be indifferent to what happens to us,” the Pope noted in his Jan. 27 Lenten message, saying that often times when we life a healthy and comfortable lifestyle, “we forget about others.”

“We are unconcerned with their problems, their sufferings and the injustices they endure … Our heart grows cold,” he observed, saying that today this “selfish attitude of indifference has taken on global proportions, to the extent that we can speak of a globalization of indifference.”

The Roman Pontiff’s Jan. 27 message, titled after the biblical passage “Make Your Hearts Firm” from James Chapter 5 verse 8, was given as a precursor for the start of the Church’s Lenten season, which begins on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 18.

Lent, he said, is a time of grace in which we encounter the love of the Lord, who first served us through his life and the washing of the disciples’ feet before his passion, and ultimately in his sacrificial death on the cross.

“God is not indifferent to our world; he so loves it that he gave his Son for our salvation,” the pontiff explained, saying that one of the most “urgent challenges” of today’s world – and the one to which he dedicated his Lenten message – “is precisely the globalization of indifference.”

This “globalization of indifference” is a reality that Christians must confront by going outside of themselves, he said, and highlighted three biblical passages he said would help to resist the temptation to withdraw and remain closed inside of ourselves.

“If one member suffers, all suffer together” from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians reminds us of the Church, the Pope explained, saying that the love of God breaks through the barriers of indifference we frequently put up.

“But we can only bear witness to what we ourselves have experienced,” he said, and encouraged faithful to turn to the sacraments during Lent – particularly the Eucharist – in order to better imitate the Lord.

During Mass “we become what we receive: the Body of Christ. In this body there is no room for the indifference which so often seems to possess our hearts,” the Pope explained.

He then pointed to the verse in Genesis Chapter 4 when God asks Cain “Where is your brother?” This passage, he said, is representative of the various parishes and Christian communities around the world.

“Do these ecclesial structures enable us to experience being part of one body? A body which receives and shares what God wishes to give? Or do we take refuge in a universal love that would embrace the whole world, while failing to see the Lazarus sitting before our closed doors?” the pontiff asked.

In order to both receive what God gives to us and make it bear fruit in our communities we need to go beyond the boundaries of the physical Church, the Pope said, noting that this is first done through our prayers to the saints in heaven, who intercede for us with joy.

Secondly, a particular parish or community can cross these boundaries by engaging “in the life of the greater society of which it is a part, especially with the poor and those who are far away.”

The Church is “missionary by her very nature,” he said, and commissioned parishes and communities not to remain self-enclosed, but go out to every nation and people so that they therefore become “islands of mercy in the midst of the sea of indifference!”

Pope Francis then pointed to the biblical verse in James “Make your hearts firm” from which the title of his message is taken, saying that it speaks to the temptation for individual Christians to become indifferent.

“Flooded with news reports and troubling images of human suffering, we often feel our complete inability to help,” he observed.

Both praying together as a community and performing small acts of charity are concrete ways that can prevent us from getting “caught up in this spiral of distress and powerlessness,” the Pope explained.

He then drew attention to the “24 Hours for the Lord” initiative of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization. Set to take place March 13-14, in the middle of Lent, confessions will be available for the entire 24 hour period.

The Pope, who is set to preside over a penitential liturgy for the event, expressed his hope that it “will be observed throughout the Church, also at the diocesan level (as) a sign of this need for prayer.”

Also noting the importance of conversion, the Bishop of Rome said that seeing the suffering of others inevitably reminds us of our dependency on God, as well as on our brothers and sisters, and encouraged all to ask for God’s grace in accepting their limitations.

If we do this, he said, “we will trust in the infinite possibilities which God’s love holds out to us (and) we will also be able to resist the temptation of thinking that by our own efforts we can save the world and ourselves.”

Pope Francis concluded his message by praying that during Lent, each person receive “a heart which is firm and merciful, attentive and generous, a heart which is not closed, indifferent or prey to the globalization of indifference.”

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VATICAN NEWS

A visit to Naples, Pompeii on Pope Francis’ slate for March

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • January 27, 2015

Pope Francis waves to pilgrims in Turkey, Istanbul, Nov. 29 2014. (Nathalie Ritzmann/Aid to the Church in Need)

Vatican City — Pope Francis’ liturgical schedule from now until Easter has been released – and it includes the creation of new cardinals and a daylong pastoral visit to Italian cities of Naples and Pompeii.

In February, Pope Francis will kick-off the month by celebrating a special Mass on the second commemorating the feast of the Presentation of the Lord as well as the 19th World Day of Consecrated Life.

The Mass, which will take place inside St. Peter’s Basilica at 5:30 p.m., will be held specifically for the members of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life in honor of the Year for Consecrated Life declared by Pope Francis.

On Sunday, Feb. 8, Pope Francis will make a 4 p.m. pastoral visit to the Roman parish St. Michael the Archangel in Pietralata, where he will most likely celebrate Mass.

The next weekend, on Saturday, Feb. 14, the Pope will hold an 11 a.m. ordinary public consistory for the creation of 20 new cardinals and for several causes of canonization inside St. Peter’s Basilica. The next day, Feb. 15, he will celebrate Mass with the newly-created cardinals in the basilica at 10 a.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 18, marks Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Pope Francis will celebrate the day with a 4:30 p.m. penitential procession from the Roman Basilica of St. Anselm to the Basilica of St. Sabina, where he will celebrate Mass at 5 p.m. and distribute ashes.

The first Sunday of Lent, Feb. 22, Pope Francis and the Roman Curia will begin five days of spiritual exercises in the Italian city of Ariccia. The exercises will conclude that Friday, Feb. 27.

Pope Francis will begin the month of March with a 4 p.m. pastoral visit to the Roman Parish of Holy Mary Mother of the Redeemer on the eighth, which also marks the third Sunday of Lent.

On Friday, March 13, Pope Francis will hold a penitential liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica at 5 p.m., and a week later will make his daytrip to the Italian cities of Naples and Pompeii, which lay roughly 225 kilometers south of Rome.

Naples is the third-largest municipality in Italy after Rome and Milan, and is also the capital of the Italian region Campania.

The Pope will bring the month of March to a close by celebrating Palm Sunday Mass on the 29th at 9:30 a.m. in St. Peter’s Square. The celebration will also include a procession and the blessing of the palms.

April 2, Holy Thursday, begins the Easter Triduum – the three days leading up to the Easter Vigil celebrating Christ’s resurrection.

Pope Francis will mark the start of the Easter Triduum on Holy Thursday with a Chrism Mass at 9:30 a.m. inside St. Peter’s Basilica, during which all of the holy oils used in the administration of the sacraments for the next year are blessed.

On April 3, Good Friday, the Pope will preside over a liturgy commemorating the Passion of Jesus at 5 p.m. inside St. Peter’s Basilica. Later that day, at 9:15 p.m., he will lead faithful in the Stations of the Cross at Rome’s Colosseum.

The next day, Holy Saturday, the pontiff will preside over the Easter Vigil inside St. Peter’s Basilica at 8:30 p.m. On April 4, Easter morning, he will give the traditional “Urbi et Orbi” blessing at 12 p.m., which goes out to Rome and to the whole world.

Pope Francis’ scheduled, public April liturgies will conclude on the 12th with the celebration of Mass for Divine Mercy Sunday at 10 a.m. in St. Peter’s Basilica. The Mass will be celebrated particularly for faithful of the Armenian rite.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis asks, Do you discern God’s will before making a decision?

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • January 27, 2015

Pope Francis says Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, Oct. 12, 2014. (Lauren Cater/CNA)

Vatican City — Pope Francis dedicated his homily at Mass on Tuesday to the theme of obeying God’s will, saying a Christian should have a heart like Mary, who was open and obedient to all that God asked of her.

“Do I pray that the Lord gives me the desire to do his will, or do I look for compromises because I’m afraid of God’s will?” the Pope asked the attendees of his Jan. 27 Mass, held in the chapel of the Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse.

The Roman Pontiff encouraged those present to pray in order “to know God’s will for me and my life, concerning a decision that I must take; the way in which we handle things … there are so many things.”

First, he said, there is the need to pray to know God’s will, then to pray for the desire to do it, and finally when we have these things, we pray “for the third time, to follow it. To carry out that will, which is not my own, it is his will. And all this is not easy.”

Pope Francis centered his homily on the day’s first reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, in which the apostle affirms that rather than seeking burnt offerings and sacrifices, God desires an obedient heart.

Adam and Eve’s act of disobedience to God in the Garden of Eden “brought evil to the whole of humanity,” the Pope noted, saying their primary sin was that of not doing God’s will.

There is no other path to heaven than obedience, he said, explaining that “it begins with Jesus in Heaven, in his desire to obey the Father. But here on earth it begins with Our Lady.”

When Mary told the Angel Gabriel, “Let it be done to me according to your word,” she allowed God’s will to be carried out through her, and with her ‘Yes’ to God “our Lord began his journey amongst us.”

However, following God’s will is “not easy,” the Roman Pontiff observed, noting how even Christ faced temptations in the desert before beginning his public ministry, as well as in the Garden of Olives before his passion and death.

If it was not easy for Christ, then it will not be easy for us either, he said, which is why it is so important to pray for knowledge of God’s will, to have the desire to do it, and then pray to carry it out.

Pope Francis then turned to the day’s Gospel reading from Mark, in which Christ, while seated with a crowd of people, is told that his mother and relatives had arrived.

When approached and informed of their presence, Christ indicated that the people he was sitting with were his relatives, saying, “whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

The Lord grants this opportunity of obedience to each individual, the Roman Pontiff said, so that everyone can be a part of that group who crowded around Christ, and of whom he said “here is my mother and my brothers and my sisters.”

Doing God’s will, he concluded, “makes us become part of Jesus’ family; it makes us his mother, father, sister, brother.”

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VATICAN NEWS

A society without fathers is a society of orphans, Pope Francis says

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • January 28, 2015

Pope Francis greets pilgrims present in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall for his Jan. 20, 2015 general audience. (Bohumil Petrik/CNA)

Vatican City — In his general audience catechesis Pope Francis turned to the role of fathers, saying that they play an irreplaceable role in family life, and their absence leaves children prey to false idols.

“When children feel neglected by fathers who focus only on their problems, on their work or their own personal realization, this creates a situation of orphans in the children and youth of today, who live disoriented, without the good example or prudent guidance of a father,” the Pope said Jan. 28.

Pope Francis directed his words to pilgrims gathered in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall for his Wednesday general audience address. Continuing his catechesis on the family, the pontiff spoke on the theme of fatherhood.

The Pope’s reflection on fatherhood falls after a separate general audience address on the role of mothers earlier this month, during which he hailed motherhood as the “antidote to individualism.”

In today’s society, the word “father” is a reality understood throughout world and which transcends history, the Roman Pontiff told today’s audience participants.

This word, he said, is the one “which Jesus taught us to call God, giving new depth and richness to the mystery of the intimacy of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which is the center of our Christian faith.”

However, in modern times we frequently speak of a “society without fathers,” in which the crisis of fatherhood can lead one to associate the term with authoritarian and repressive tendencies, the Pope noted.

Children who feel “neglected” because their fathers focus too much on work, personal achievements or are constantly away from home are often left as “orphans” without guide, he said.

“Fathers are so necessary as examples and guides for our children in wisdom and virtue. Without father figures, young people often feel orphaned; left adrift at a critical moment in their growth and development,” the pontiff continued.

Pope Francis then recounted how he has often asked the fathers he encountered if they “had the courage and love” to play with their children and to spend time with them.

Rather than hearing a reassuring yes, often “the answer is ugly, eh? In the majority of cases it’s ‘I can’t, there’s too much work,’” the Bishop of Rome observed, and said that it is the responsibility of Christian communities and civil society as a whole to find a remedy to the crisis of fatherhood.

The pontiff also drew attention to the temptation of some fathers to try and be their child’s friend more than their parent, saying that although being a friend and companion to one’s child is good, the role of the parent is essential.

“It’s true that you need to be the friend of your child, but without forgetting that you are a father, eh. If you are only there for your child as a friend, it won’t be good for them,” he cautioned.

The absence of the father figure in society is something that persons at every level of society should be aware of because it leaves “gaps and wounds” in the formation of today’s youth, the Pope explained.

“Without guides to rely on, youth can be filled with idols that end up stealing their heart, enthusiasm and genuine wealth,” he said.

Pope Francis closed his address by recalling Jesus’ promise in the Gospel of John that “he would not leave us orphans,” and prayed that the Lord would “deepen and renew our appreciation of fatherhood and raise up good fathers for the benefit of our families, our Church and our world.”

The pontiff said that although the prognosis he gave of state of fatherhood today might have been a bit negative, next week he will follow-up with a reflection on the blessing and “beauty” of fatherhood.

“I chose to begin in darkness in order to arrive to the light,” he said, and gave his blessing before greeting pilgrims present from various countries around the world.

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VATICAN NEWS

Beyond the digital, into the heart: a Vatican take on communication

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • January 29, 2015

(Thomas Lefebvre CC0 1.0)

Vatican City — The Vatican’s top communications official said that true interaction requires more than just phones and internet – and that dialogue is an interpersonal encounter we learn even from our mother’s womb.

“The first way of communication, the source of my learning is the womb of my mother,” Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli told CNA at the Jan. 23 presentation of Pope Francis’ message for World Communications Day.

“Can you imagine what that means? That from inside the womb of my mother I am starting to listen, I am discovering the sound of the voice of my mother and I am discovering the beatings of her heart. I am discovering what communication really is,” Archbishop Celli said.

And true communication, he added, “is how I am able to listen to you, how I can open my heart to you … this is the real human communication.”

Archbishop Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, spoke at the presentation of Pope Francis’ message for the 49th World Communications Day, titled “Communicating the Family: A Privileged Place of Encounter with the Gift of Love.”

Pope Francis, he said, makes the valid point that although being a digital disciple is necessary, the human dimension of communication can never be forgotten – and that this is something we first see within our families.

From these relationships, we learn “proximity, to be open to the other, to share with the other what and who we are.” The “beauty of the family,” he said, lies in the diversity of their ages and members. Communication is then “is more of a human dimension than a technological dimension.”

We shouldn’t lose this sense of human interaction in our daily emails and texts, he warned. “The risk is that I’m an expert in technology but I am not an expert in humanity. So it’s a capacity of listening, of being open, of sharing.”

Archbishop Celli also cautioned against the increase in youth and minors navigating the internet by themselves without the supervision of their parents, saying that although parents can offer much-needed education on technology, they are often absent.

“Today fathers and mothers are involved in so many things, they are so busy, but who is teaching the kids? (Who is teaching them) to be present in a human way and to have a real dialogue, real human communication with others, if we are not teaching them?” he asked.

The archbishop noted how although in last year’s message for World Communications Day Pope Francis encouraged people to be disciples through social networks, the pontiff “is not naïve,” and is aware of the dangers that the digital continent can present.

Education, Archbishop Celli emphasized, is key in helping children grow in wisdom and their ability to be present in the world, as well as in the prevention of access to online dangers such as pornography.

Technology can either help or hinder the culture of encounter, he said. One positive effect is the ability to remain in contact with relatives who are far away.

“I know grandmothers who are learning how to deal with computers and programs because they want to speak with their grandchildren, (and) this is a real loving contact, it’s not virtual,” he said, noting how he himself is in contact with his family and friends every day through technology.

“So this is how new technologies – we are inhabitants of the digital continent – can really facilitate us in the spreading of such friendship and love, and this is a great opportunity.”

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VATICAN NEWS

A love for peripheries, the link between Pope Francis and St. John Bosco

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • January 29, 2015

Istanbul’s Salesian youth center, which Pope Francis visited on Nov. 20, 2014. (Andrea Gagliarducci/CNA)

Vatican City — Though he is member of the Society of Jesus, Pope Francis shares with the Salesians of St. John Bosco a love for the peripheries, and this is why he has often visited Salesian structures during his pastoral visits.

Pope Francis visited the parish of Sacro Cuore in Rome, the last church built by St. John Bosco, on Jan. 19, 2014, and there he emphasized the work Salesians do there with refugees. When he visited Tirana, Albania on Sep. 21, 2014, members of the Salesian community and of the Don Bosco center filled the crowd with their testimonies. And in Istanbul, Pope Francis had a private meeting Nov. 30 with refugee children at the Don Bosco Youth Center.

These meetings demonstrate the deep appreciation Pope Francis has for the work of Salesians, an appreciation which stretches back to his youth.

Jorge Bergoglio was baptized and had as a spiritual father the Salesian Fr. Enrique Pezzoli, and when he was 13 he spent one year as an intern of the Salesian College Wilfrid Baròn de los Santos Angeles.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the emeritus Secretary of State and himself a Salesian, said in a recent interview with Korazym that “Pope Francis and Don Bosco share many things.”

“Don Bosco started from the peripheries, looked for children in difficult situations, lived with them and donated his life for them. Pope Francis continually invites us not only to entertain a dialogue, but even to stay with people, to walk with them,” Cardinal Bertone stressed.

This culture of encounter, this love for any person, can be detected in the Salesians’ commitment to refugees.

One of the latest expressions of this commitment is the “Don Bosco Island” project, about to start in Catania, on Sicily’s eastern coast. Cardinal Bertone visited the project Jan. 17 for an informal, and yet very heartfelt, inauguration.

During the visit, Cardinal Bertone encouraged his brothers Salesians to keep up their work, despite bureacratic issues which have slowed down the starting of the center.

Don Bosco Island consists of a refugee center able to welcome around 50 unaccompanied minors.

“Our project does not just deal with providing minors shelter and food. We want them to be integrated in the Italian territory. According to law, unaccompanied minors can stay for only three months in centers, and then they have to be displaced to other areas. Through the Salesian network and our vocational training school, we start them on an educational path, we teach them a job, and the Italian language,” Fr. Giovanni D’Andrea, one of the directors of the project, told CNA Jan. 29.

This spirit is spread in all the Salesians’ works for refugees. At Sacro Cuore, the refugee center provides a languaged school and job placament for the some 200 refugees who ask for help and assistance.

“This is not a school. This is a house,” says Sr. Marian, one of the four Missionary Nuns of the Risen Christ who are in charge of the missionary service at Sacro Cuore.

Fr. Stefano Di Fiore is in charge of the Don Bosco center in Tirana. Placed in a former refugee camp for Kosovars, the center is the soul of the block that has been built around it, providing school and activities for the young boys of the area, and currently hosting about 400 children of both sexes.

Fr. Di Fiore told CNA: “Our way of evangelizing must be a practical one. We can provide people with the joy of being together, we can provide them a job, and we have to be very attentive to respect their identity. But the way we do it is Catholic, and everyone knows it, so much so that in Tirana the sentence ‘Don Bosco method’ is common, and refers to our way of doing things.”

Pope Francis met with some of the children of refugees gathered to Don Bosco Youth Center in Istanbul during his voyage there Nov. 30.

Fr. Andrés Calleja Riuz, S.D.B., who is responsible for the center, explained to CNA: “Pope Francis will come here because we are not a school, we are a refugee center, we are a center of learning that kids can use for the future. And they are searching for the future.”

In the year of the 200th anniversary of St. John Bosco’s birth, Pope Francis will have another occasion to appreciate the Salesians’ work for the peripheries: on May 21, he will visit the first Salesian house, in Turin.

The House is in Valdocco, a block of Turin that was the very periphery of the city in the mid-1800s, when St. John Bosco established there the general quarters of the congregation he had founded.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope says palliums will be given to new archbishops at home – not Rome

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • January 29, 2015

Archbishops wear the pallium they received from Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica, June 29, 2014. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

Vatican City — As a sign of “synodality” with local Churches, Pope Francis has decided that new metropolitan archbishops will officially be imposed with the pallium in their home diocese, rather than the Vatican.

“The meaning of this change is to put more emphasis on the relationship of the metropolitan archbishops – the newly nominated – with their local Church,” Mons. Guido Marini, Papal Master of Ceremonies, told Vatican Radio Jan. 29.

By having the official imposition ceremony in the archbishop’s home diocese, more faithful and bishops in dioceses under the archbishop’s jurisdiction will be able to attend the event, ”which is so meaningful to them,” he said.

The pallium is a white wool vestment, adorned with six black silk crosses. Dating back to at least the fifth century, the wearing of the pallium by the Pope and metropolitan archbishops symbolizes authority as well as unity with the Holy See.

Traditionally the Pope bestows the stole to the new archbishops June 29 each year, which is the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. The rite is a sign of communion with the See of Peter.

It also serves as a symbol of the metropolitan archbishop’s jurisdiction in his own diocese as well as the other particular dioceses within his ecclesiastical province.

The title of “metropolitan bishop” refers to the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a metropolis, namely, the primary city of an ecclesiastical province or regional capital.

Mons. Marini said moving the official ceremony of imposition to the local level doesn’t take anything away, but rather “keeps the whole meaning of the June 29 celebration, which underscores the relationship of communion and also of hierarchal communion between the Holy Father and the new archbishops.”

At the same time, he noted, “this adds – with a significant gesture – this bond with the local Church.”

In a Jan. 12 letter to apostolic nuncios in countries where a new metropolitan archbishop is set to receive the traditional pallium this year, Mons. Marini said that the decision “will greatly favor the participation of the local Church in an important moment of its life and history.”

He also said that Pope Francis believes this new custom will advance “that journey of synodality in the Catholic Church which, from the beginning of his pontificate, he has constantly emphasized as particularly urgent and precious at this time in the history of the Church.”

Pope Francis made the decision regarding the change in custom “after a long reflection and upon receiving advice which he had requested,” Marini noted in his letter.

The Pope, he explained, will bless the palliums during the June 29 Mass on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul in the Vatican as usual, but they will placed on the shoulders of new metropolitan archbishop “in his own diocese, by his representative, the Apostolic Nuncio.”

Each of the new metropolitan archbishops are invited to concelebrate the June 29 Mass and blessing of the palliums in the Vatican, where they will then receive the stole “in a private manner, from the hands of the Holy Father.”

Afterward, Mons. Marini said that it will be up to the nuncios to decide on a day and time to “publicly and officially” invest the archbishop with the pallium “by mandate of the Holy Father.”

Other bishops under the jurisdiction of the new metropolitan archbishops are expected to attend the ceremony for their new shepherd.

The imposition ceremony is “enriched” by this new aspect of community at the local level, Mons. Marini told Vatican Radio, saying that the dynamic of communion generated by the change is “very beautiful.”

There are 551 metropolitan archdioceses throughout the world. Among the archbishops appointed so far this year to serve these sees is Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago.

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VATICAN NEWS

Coming soon to the Vatican: haircuts for Rome’s homeless

by CNA/EWTN News • January 30, 2015

Construction begins on new showers inside the public restrooms just off the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square, Nov. 17, 2014. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

Vatican City — The Vatican’s continued efforts to help the homeless of Rome have expanded beyond showers and bathrooms at St. Peter’s Square, with a barber shop set to open soon.

“Our primary concern is to give people their dignity,” Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, head of the Office of Papal Charities, told the Italian news agency ANSA.

In November, construction started on new showers and bathrooms for the homeless under the colonnades of St. Peter’s Square. The archbishop, who oversaw the project, set aside space for a barber.

He noted the difficulty that the homeless face in washing themselves, which in turn helps cause others to reject them — or causes them to fear rejection.

“A person needs to keep their hair and facial hair tidy, also in order to prevent diseases,” the archbishop said. “This is another service that homeless people do not have easy access to. It is not easy for them to enter a normal shop because there may be a fear of customers catching something, like scabies for example.”

The initiative will also help “the good of the city,” since homeless people often take buses and the subway and come into contact with others.

The Poland-born Archbishop Krajewski is the papal almoner, who conducts acts of charity for the poor and raises money to fund the charitable work. When the archbishop was appointed, Pope Francis urged him not to stay at his desk but rather to be an active worker for the benefit of the poor.

Many barbers have volunteered with enthusiasm, including two barbers from the national Italian organization that transports the sick to Lourdes, France and other international shrines. Other volunteers are finishing their final year in barber school.

The barber service will be open on Mondays, when barber shops in Italy are traditionally closed. It is scheduled to open in several weeks.

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VATICAN NEWS

Lukewarm Christians who don’t love are ‘in grave danger,’ Pope warns

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • January 30, 2015

Francis in St. Peter’s Square for the Wednesday general audience on May 22, 2013. (Stephen Driscoll/CNA)

Vatican City — In his homily Friday Pope Francis encouraged Christians to remember the first time they felt the love of God, and warned that those who forget this moment risk becoming lukewarm and losing salvation.

“Lukewarm Christians: they’re there, immobile. Yes, they’re Christians, but they’ve lost the memory of that first love. And they’ve also lost their enthusiasm,” the Pope told Mass attendees Jan. 30.

“In addition, they’ve lost their patience to tolerate life’s problems with the spirit of Jesus’ love, to tolerate, and to bear difficulties on their shoulders … Lukewarm Christians, poor things, they’re in grave danger,” he said.

Pope Francis centered his reflection on the day’s first reading from the Book of Hebrews, in which St. Paul encourages the people to remember when they were enlightened by the Lord, and to keep that memory as a motivation to endure through trials.

Our memory, the pontiff noted, “is so important for recalling the grace received, because if we chase away that enthusiasm which comes from the memory of that first love, then a huge danger arrives for Christians: a lukewarm (faith).”

Those who are lukewarm become “immobile” and lose their ability to deal with life’s difficulties in faith, the Pope continued. He said whenever he thinks about lukewarm Christians two disturbing images come to his mind.

The first image is when Peter in his second letter explains that, “… the dog turns back to his own vomit, and the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire.”

The second image is when Jesus in the Gospels recounts how a person chases away an evil spirit, but lets that spirit back in once it returns with many others. Doing this, the Pope said, is like returning to the vomit of evil that was previously rejected.

A Christian, he observed, has “two parameters: memory and hope. We must evoke our memory so as not to lose the beautiful experience of that first love which feeds our hope.”

Often times hope appears in the midst of darkness, but a Christian still goes forward because they have the assurance that “hope never disappoints,” and that this hope is found in Jesus, the Holy Father noted.

These two parameters of memory and hope, he said, “are the very frames within which we can safeguard the salvation of the good people which comes from the Lord.”

Pope Francis then observed how this salvation must be safeguarded like the tiny mustard seed which grows and bears a large amount of fruit, saying that it’s “painful and heartbreaking” to see so many Christians who only go halfway on the journey to Christ.

“(There are) so many Christians who’ve failed along this road toward a meeting with Jesus … they’ve lost the memory of that first love and no longer have any hope,” the pope lamented.

He concluded his homily by praying that all would receive the grace “to safeguard this gift, the gift of salvation.”

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WORLD NEWS

Beatification cause opened for founder of Focolare movement

by CNA/EWTN News • January 24, 2015

Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement. (Massimo Finizio via Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0)

Rome, Italy — Bishop Rafaello Martinelli of Frascati, Italy, has announced that the beatification cause will be opened for the founder of the Focolare movement, Chiara Lubich.

The ceremony will take place on January 27 at the cathedral in Frascati, where the international headquarters of the movement is located and where Lubich is buried.

Maria Voce, president of the Focolare Movement, celebrated the news and encouraged members to be “living testimony of the collective holiness which Chiara Lubich preached and lived.”

Upon learning of the news of her passing in March 2008, Pope Benedict XVI sent a telegram in which he said, “I have been moved by news of the death of Chiara Lubich, which came at the end of a long and fruitful life marked by her tireless love for the abandoned Jesus.”

“At this moment of painful separation I remain affectionately and spiritually close to her relatives and to the entire Work of Mary – the Focolare Movement that began with her – and to those who appreciated her constant commitment for communion in the Church, for ecumenical dialogue and for fraternity among all peoples,” the Pontiff wrote.

“I thank the Lord for the witness of her life, spent in listening to the needs of modern man in complete faithfulness to the Church and to the Pope,” he said. “And, as I commend her soul to divine goodness that she may be welcomed in the bosom of the Father, I hope that those who knew and met her, admiring the wonders that God achieved through her missionary ardor, may follow her footsteps and keep her charism alive.”

Chiara Lubich was born on January 22, 1920, in Trento and died on March 14, 2008, in Rocca di Papa, surrounded by members of the movement. In the days leading up to her death, numerous people came to pay her homage, from simple workers to important political and religious leaders.

Her funeral was celebrated at St. Paul’s Outside the Walls in Rome and drew a crowd of nearly 40,000.

The Focolare Movement is today present in 182 countries. It claims some 2 million members and focuses on unity, dialogue and relationship.

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WORLD NEWS

Should the West take on Nigeria’s terrorists? Bishops say yes

by CNA/EWTN News • January 26, 2015

Displaced persons fill a church in Maidiguri, Nigeria, Dec. 2014. (Aid to the Church in Need)

Abuja, Nigeria — Against the background of continuing attacks by radical Islamist group Boko Haram, bishops in Nigeria are appealing for military aid from Western governments, as well as solidarity and prayer from around the world.

In the past week, Boko Haram has: captured nearly 80 people in Cameroon, freeing 24 of them; seized control of Monguno, a city of more than 100,000 located 85 miles northeast of Maiduguri; and twice attacked Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria’s Borno state.

“The West should bring in security – land forces to contain and beat back Boko Haram. A concerted military campaign is needed,” Bishop Oliver Doeme of Maiduguri told the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need just a week before the insurgency attacked his city on Jan. 24 and 25.

Much of the territory in the Diocese of Maiduguri is now controlled by Boko Haram. The group has destroyed 50 churches, Bishop Doeme says, and many more churches have been deserted. Of the diocese’s 46 priests, 20 have been displaced, many to the neighboring Yola diocese.

On Jan. 23, Nigeria’s national security adviser, Sambo Dasuki, told the BBC that Nigeria and its neighbors were in “good shape” to fight Boko Haram, and that the assistance of U.N. or African Union troops was unnecessary.

Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos told Vatican Radio Jan. 23 that he was “quite surprised” at Dasuki’s assertion, “because the people are still dying and being displaced so if the government cannot adequately control the violence, I think there is need for international assistance.”

Bishop Doeme added that the Jan. 7 razing of Baga revealed the Nigerian military’s “ineptitude,”Aid to the Church in Need reported, adding that he called for senior officers who failed to do their job properly to be sacked “as a lesson to the others.”

“Among the soldiers, there were sympathizers with Boko Haram – some of them were even Boko Haram members and many of them just ran away,” Bishop Doeme said.

This weekend’s attacks on Maiduguri were repelled by government soldiers, and a 24-hour curfew has been relaxed. Hospitals are overwhelmed with casualties in the city where thousands of people displaced from elsewhere in Borno have fled for refuge.

Archbishop Kaigama called the situation “very dangerous and very disturbing, because once they capture Maiduguri … then you can be sure that all of the areas around will easily fall to them.”

He said military intervention, not diplomatic, is needed, because “we are dealing with a group that has lost all rationality and kills people at will … whether they are Christians or Muslims, they kill them indiscriminately,” adding that dialogue “cannot happen in such circumstances.”

Elections in Nigeria are scheduled for Feb. 14, though Dasuki has suggested that the vote be delayed. Goodluck Jonathan, who has been president since 2010, is running for re-election against Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress.

In the run-up to the election, Archbishop Kaigama lamented that in Nigeria, “politics is not used for the purpose intended.”

“Most of our politicians don’t see the common good and the interest of Nigerians as number one priority. They see themselves and their positions in power as the primary considerations. We hope that this will change.”

He urged unity among Nigerians, saying that “when we lack political unity, religious unity, ethnic unity then it is easier for Boko Haram to penetrate and achieve the kind of negative results they are achieving,” adding that the solidarity seen in France after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, which killed 17, is what is needed in his own country.

“This is needed in Nigeria. To go beyond politics, beyond our narrow religious confines, beyond our narrow ethnic groups and really uphold the common good and speak out against evil, against terrorism, against inhumanity and be together as one people. This is what we desire now.”

Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sinful,” launched an uprising in 2009 and hopes to impose sharia law on Nigeria. It has targeted security forces, politicians, Christian minorities, and moderate Muslims in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north.

A state of emergency was declared in Borno in May 2013, as well as in the neighboring Yobe and Adamawa states. The U.S. recognized Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization in November 2013, after a lengthy advocacy effort from human rights and Christian groups.

Boko Haram’s attacks have killed thousands since 2009, including at least 4,000 in 2014, according to Human Rights Watch. More than 1.5 million have been displaced by the group.

“The threat we face presents a very bleak future for the Church,” Bishop Doeme said. “Many of our members are scattered and others have been killed. In some areas there are no Christians any more. But the Church belongs to Christ. The Church will remain strong and many of our people have returned after land has been taken back by the Nigerian soldiers.”

“The most important thing is to pray for our people,” he concluded.

“I know people are praying for us and I am very grateful. I want people to pray the Hail Mary – our mother Mary has been championing our cause. We have a lot of devotion to the Blessed Virgin.”

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Cardinal praises Catholics in Vietnam for their witness to the faith

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • January 27, 2015

Sacred Heart Cathedral in Da Nang. (Andreas Bossard via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Hanoi, Vietnam — Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, lauded the efforts of the Catholic community in Vietnam during his pastoral visit last week and encouraged them in the path of mission.

Cardinal Filoni’s dicastery coordinates missionary cooperation throughout the world, and he visited Vietnam after having accompanied Pope Francis’ visit to Sri Lanka and the Philippines earlier this month.

His visit to Vietnam marked the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Diocese of Xuan Loc, as well as the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s decree Ad Gentes, on the mission activity of the Church.

Cardinal Filoni stressed in a homily in Xuan Loc Jan. 24 that the diocese “is a fruit of the Second Vatican Council, and has committed in the course of these years to announce the Gospel and make of you the true family of God.”

On Jan. 23, Cardinal Filoni said Mass in Da Nang, and wished the Catholics “happy apostolate! So many people are waiting to know today, here, Christ.”

The Diocese of Da Nang was established by St. John XXIII in 1963, during the Second Vatican Council, and for this reason “it was one of the first fruits of that extraordinary ecclesiastical gathering, in which the Vietnamese bishops took part,” Cardinal Filoni said.

Cardinal Filoni’s schedule included a meeting with the Vietnamese bishops conference Jan. 20; a visit to a parish filled with ethnic minorities Jan. 21; a Jan. 22 visit to the La Vang Marian Shrine, where the Virgin Mary appeared in 1798; and finally the visit to the parish of Hoi An, the most ancient city in Vietnam, which was evangelized 400 years ago.

Cardinal Filoni’s pastoral visit to Vietnam comes at a moment of improved relations between the Holy See and Vietnam.

Relations have improved such that next month, Pope Francis will make a cardinal of Archbishop Pierre Nguyen Van Nhon of Hanoi.

Archbishop Nguyen’s appointment as cardinal is the second important move Pope Francis has made in Vietnam in recent years, in an attempt to ease relations between the Vatican and Vietnam.

In September 2013 he appointed Paul Bui Van Doc as Coadjutor Archbishop of Ho Chi Minh City. Archbishop Bui in 2012 proposed that dialogue between the Church and the atheistic doctrine espoused by Hanoi, emphasizing a distinction between the trend of secularization in the West with what happened in the East, so as to find a new way to evangelize.

Diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the Holy See were dissolved in 1975, when the communist north overran South Vietnam.

But since then, the visits of more than 20 Vatican delegations led to the 2007 visit of prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung to Benedict XVI.

After the 2007 meeting, the Holy See and Vietnam began talks to re-establish diplomatic ties, and for this purpose a joint working group was established in 2009.

In 2011, Archbishop Girelli was appointed as non-resident special envoy to Vietnam, and the following year, Nguyen Phu Trong, secretary of the Vietnamese communist party, visited Benedict, thus showing that Vietnamese authorities really wished to normalize diplomatic relations.

Further improvements on the diplomatic side are expected for the sixth meeting of the working group, which should take place in the Vatican.

In the mean time, Cardinal Filoni visited Vietnam and encouraged the activities of the Catholic community, in an attempt to join pastoral activity to the diplomatic one.

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Catholics in Australia support Pope Francis’ action against human trafficking

by Antonio Anup Gonsalves (CNA/EWTN News) • January 27, 2015

(Chris Beckett via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Canberra, Australia — Australia’s bishops and religious have joined the global call of Pope Francis to mark Feb. 8, the Feast of St. Josephine Bakhita, as the world day of prayer, reflection, and action against human trafficking.

St. Josephine Bakhita was kidnapped and sold into slavery, and later became a Canossian nun and was the first person from Sudan to be canonized, by St. John Paul II in 2000.

“The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans resolute support Pope Francis in declaring Feb. 8, Feast of St Josephine Bakhita, as World Day of prayer, reflection and action against human trafficking,” the groups said in a Jan. 23 statement.

The Australian bishops explained in their statement that the Vatican Secretary of State invited each national bishops conference to join the observance on Feb. 8 and to contribute to the “sensitising of public opinion to this tragic phenomenon, which represents one of the saddest wounds of our time.”

According to Bishop Eugene Hurley of Darwin, “It is imperative that we begin a journey of personal change when we mark 8 February.”

“Human trafficking exists in Australia and on this planet because we allow it to exist,” Bishop Hurley further emphasized. “Let us together commit to eradicate this affront to our humanity.”

Sr Anne Tormey, RSM, president of ACRATH said, “Following the call from Pope Francis and leaders of the Anglican, Orthodox, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist and Hindu faiths, ‘to eradicate the terrible scourge of modern slavery in all its forms,’ today we join this global initiative.”

“The life of St Josephine Bakhita reminds us of the assault to the dignity, and of the suffering endured by every trafficked person.”

The Australian Bishops and ACRATH also acknowledged Pope Francis’ World Day of Peace message “No Longer Slaves, but Brothers and Sisters,” given Jan. 1.

In his message Pope Francis solicited all the faithful “to practice acts of fraternity towards those kept in a state of enslavement.” He further proposed a self introspection saying, “Let us ask ourselves, as individuals and as communities, whether we feel challenged when, in our daily lives, we meet or deal with persons who could be victims of human trafficking, or when we are tempted to select items, which may well have been produced by exploiting others.”

The Australian bishops explained that despite many efforts to end human trafficking internationally, “an estimated 27 million women, men and children today are deprived of their freedom and forced to suffer in conditions of exploitation and slavery.”

“There is now a compelling need to put an end to trafficking in human beings.”

Responding to Pope Francis’ call to observe Feb. 8 the bishops urged the faithful “to think of persons trafficked into prostitution, as well as women forced into marriage, without any right to give or withhold their consent.” They added that “we remember also people trafficked into Australia to work in the agriculture, construction and hospitality sectors.”

The bishops further enumerated, “And we remember people whose labour is exploited to produce cheap goods for Australians. We remember young boys in West Africa who are trafficked into the cocoa production for Australian chocolate.”

“We remember refugees in Thailand who are trafficked onto fishing vessels to produce cheap fish for Australians to eat. We remember the women in Bangladesh whose exploited labour and unsafe working conditions result in cheap clothing for Australians to wear.”

“We also remember the 200 female students kidnapped in Nigeria in April 2014 by Boko Haram; reports suggest that many of these girls have been sold or forced into marriages.”

Emphasizing the gravity of concern, the ACBC and ACRATH stressed urged “a fourfold commitment to prevention, victim protection, the legal prosecution of perpetrators, and partnerships for change; these require a global effort on the part of all sectors of society.”

The bishops assertively concluded that ACBC and ACRATH support the statement published by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Social Sciences in November 2013, declaring that “it is our moral imperative to make ours the last generation that has to fight the trade in human lives.”

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Blessed Odoardo Focherini, the father of seven who saved 100 Jewish lives

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • January 27, 2015

Bl. Odoardo Focherini. (ANSA)

Rome, Italy — As Pope Francis tweeted Jan. 27 to observe the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, it is worth remembering Bl. Odoardo Focherini, who died a martyr to rescue Jews from Nazi persecution.

Tuesday marks the anniverary of the 1945 liberation by Soviet troops of the death camp where some 1.1 million people – the vast majority of them Jews – were put to death by the Nazis.

“Auschwitz cries out with the pain of immense suffering and pleads for a future of respect, peace and encounter among peoples,” Pope Francis tweeted this morning.

When he was arrested over his inolvement in the salvation of 100 Jews from a similar fate, Bl. Focherini was 37, had been married 14 years, and had seven children.

Most of his children have only a vague memory of their father. On March 11, 1944, the day of his arrest, his eldest daughter Olga was 13.

Born in Carpi in 1907, Bl. Focherini worked with L’Osservatore Romano and was managing director of the Catholic newspaper L’Avvenire d’Italia.

He began his work to help save Jews in 1942. Cardinal Piero Boetto of Genoa told Raimondo Manzini, then editor of L’Avvenire d’Italia the story of some Polish Jews who had arrived aboard of a train of injured people.

Manzini entrusted Focherini with the issue. Focherini thus started an enduring work of assistance to Jewish refugees, and his commitment increased after the armistice the Italian government signed Sept. 8, 1943 and the following Nazi occupation of Italy.

Bl. Focherini built a network in order to get blank identity cards, which he eventually filled with false data and gave to the persecuted, whom he accompanied to the border with Switzerland.

This network helped 100 Jews to escape Nazi persecution.

On March 11, 1944, he organized the salvage operation of Enrico Donati, a Jewish medical doctor who was imprisoned in the concentration camp of Fossoli, near Carpi, in northern Italy. Bl. Focherini took Donati out of the concentration camp with the excuse of an urgent surgery the doctor had to perform but, once he arrived at the hospital, Focherini was arrested.

Bl. Focherini was first imprisoned in Bologna, then transferred to the concentration camp in Fossoli, and then in the concentration camps of Gries, near the Austrian border, then Flossemburg and finally in Hersbruck, in Germany.

He died there Dec. 27, 1944 of septicemia after a wound in his leg became infected.

The most important testimony of his Christian life are the 166 letters he wrote to his wife Maria Marchesi. In his testament, Focherini wrote that he died “offering his life in holocaust for his diocese and for Catholic Action.”

His heroism was soon acknowledged: Yad Vashem gave him the title “Righteous Among the Nations” in 1969.

The seventieth anniversary of his death fell exactly one month before the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

His martyrdom was recognized by Benedict XVI in 2012, and he beatified June 15, 2013 in Modena.

On the occasion of the beatification Mass, Bishop Francesco Cavina of Carpi said that Odoardo’s life proved that “who rejoices in the encounter with Christ becomes more human, more real. Odoardo worked hard in all aspects of his life; he also ran the risk not to be understood, but he accepted being a prophet in the world, and this is the mission of every Christian.”

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Will the number of dioceses in Italy be cut in the near future?

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • January 28, 2015

San Rufino, cathedral of the Diocese of Assisi-Nocera Umbra-Gualdo Tadino, a small Italian diocese which may well be merged with another small diocese. (Glen Bowman via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0)

Rome, Italy — A plan to reduce the number of Italian dioceses has been widely debated in the Italian bishops conference, and a first draft of the plan has reportedly already been given to the Congregation for Bishops and has undergone some adjustments.

There are currently 222 dioceses in Italy.

An internal commission to study a possible reduction of Italian dioceses, by consolidation, had been established under Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis referred to it during his May 23, 2013 meeting with the General Assembly of Italian Bishops.

“I know that there is a commission to reduce a little the number of the dioceses … it is not easy, but there is a commission for this,” Pope Francis said.

According to a source who works in the Italian bishops conference, the first draft for a possible reduction of Italian dioceses was given to the Congregation for Bishops earlier this month, suggesting the suppression of all dioceses with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants. The suppressed dioceses would be merged with larger existing dioceses.

This draft has undergone some adjustments. At the moment, the plan would suggest the suppression of dioceses with fewer than 90,000 inhabitants.

In Italy, there are 36 dioceses which would fail to meet the 90,000 mark. Perhaps the best known of these is the Diocese of Assisi-Nocera Umbra – Gualdo Tadino, which hosts the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi but has only 88,000 inhabitants.

The Assisi-Nocera Umbra-Gualdo Tadino diocese is in the vicinity of several other dioceses smaller than 90,000 persons, including the Citta di Castello, Foligno, and Gubbio dioceses.

The Diocese of Assisi-Nocera Umbra-Gualdo Tadino is itself the fruit of an earlier reduction in the number of Italian dioceses.

In 1986, St. John Paul II suppressed 101 dioceses in the country, setting the number to the current 222, plus five territorial abbeys.

That year, the Diocese of Assisi was united with the Diocese of Nocera Umbra-Gualdo Tadino. That diocese, in turn, was created through the 1915 union of the Diocese of Gualdo Tadino with the Diocese of Nocera Umbra.

Thus Italy’s 222 dioceses serve the 49.3 million Catholics in the country which has an area of 116,000 square miles.

By way of comparison, in the US there are only 177 dioceses to serve the country’s 76.5 million Catholics, spread over 3.8 million square miles.

The possible reduction of the Italian dioceses is still under discussion. However, the issue is not on the agenda of the Permanent Council of the Italian bishops conference, which is in the midst of its Jan. 26-28 meeting.

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Malawian bishops commit to spreading the Gospel with new media

by Antonio Anup Gonsalves (CNA/EWTN News) • January 28, 2015

Partipants at the Catholic media communicators workshop in Lilongwe, Malawi, Jan. 13, 2015. (Prince Henderson)

Lilongwe, Malawi — A national symposium of Catholic communicators set out to explore pathways in new media to build unity in Malawi and to connect people to the faith in the small southern African nation.

Held under the patronage of the Malawian bishops’ communication department, the communications secretaries from the nation’s eight dioceses met with Catholic journalists in a media symposium at Msamba Catholic Center in Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital, Jan 12- 15.

According to Prince Henderson, communication officer of the bishops conference, the workshop objective was to plot a path in enabling the Church “to embrace new forms of communication for evangelism.”

“The workshop stressed increasing the visibility of Catholic communicators and to enhance coordination of Catholic diocesan secretaries and lay Catholic journalists, among others,” Henderson told CNA Jan 20.

In a telecast message, Bishop Martin Mtumbuka of Karonga encouraged the participants to promote the new evangelization. He urged them to maintain unity and collaboration among Catholic journalists, while promoting vigorously the Church and embracing digital communications.

Fr. Andrew Kaufa, secretary of the bishops’ social communications and organizer of the conference, solicited the members to “deliberate on how to help the Church encourage youths to embrace new forms of evangelization.”

Fr. Kaufa lauded the efforts of the communicators in the African region and urged the members to find ways to make themselves visible in regional and international meetings.

Opening the inaugural address, Fr. Emmanuel Chimombo, acting secretary general for the Episcopal Conference of Malawi, emphasized to the participants that “good communication could be a recipe for bringing people of diverse backgrounds together and growing unity.”

“Good communication helps us grow closer, to know one another better, and ultimately grow in unity,” Fr. Chimombo said. “Media can help us greatly in this, especially now when the networks of human communication have made unprecedented advances.”

Analyzing the the pros and cons, Fr. Chimombo acknowledged that social media is a speedy and cheap way of exchanging information and sharing ideas, such that they are making the world a global village.

However, Fr. Chimombo also advised the participants to be vigilant regarding the disadvantages, saying, “Media may be used to disseminate inauthentic information, and ideas whose effects may be toxic to the Gospel and other values, such as truth telling.”

Lamenting the negative publicity which can “distort truth,” Fr. Chimombo invited journalists to be catalysts and to proactively “act as missionary disciples who can transform the world.” He suggested countering it with positive news for promoting unity in faith in the communities.

The diocesan communication secretaries sharing their vision for strengthening and mobilizing Catholic communications, underlining the need for partnership and networking among media in the region.

The workshop examined the challenges facing Catholic media in the region, including paucity of financial and material resources and a lack of trained personnel.

Fr Chrisantus Ndaga, coordinator of the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa, commended the positive effort and extensive role played by the media during the organization’s plenary meeting held in 2014.

Fr. Ndaga pointing out that bishops, priests and religious are among the most illiterate in information communication technology in the region. He recommended the “need to embrace ICT” and called its usage “a vital key to evangelisation.”

Fr. Ndaga also noted that communication is needed to take the center stage in the work of the digital age so that the Church could move at the same pace as the world, saying it was the responsibility of every member of the Church to defend her teachings and values.

Malawi is a small nation in southern Africa, bordered by Zambia, Tanzania, and Mozambique. Its 16.4 million people live on an adjusted per capita GDP of less than $860 annually, and over a third of GDP comes from agriculture. Some 80 percent of the population are Christian (20 percent Catholic), and around 15 percent are Muslim.

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Jesuit laments car bomb attack in Syria, scorns media silence

by Oliver Maksan (Aid to the Church in Need) • January 28, 2015

Ruins in Homs, Syria, as seen in April, 2014. (Aid to the Church in Need)

Homs, Syria —”Most of them were students at the university, young people who had not left the city. So what sort of message does this attack send out now? I believe they were deliberately targeted.”

These were the words of Father Hilal Ziad, S.J., commenting on the Jan. 21 midday car bomb explosion that killed 15 and wounded 50 others in the center of Homs. The killing was indiscriminate, and there were Christians among both the dead and the wounded.

The priest told international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need that “the attack was staged very close to our church and our aid center.”

“We do not know who was behind it, but it is a tragedy. The pictures of the attack are horrifying. We are visiting the families of the victims and trying to comfort them. But what can anyone say in such a situation? We are all deeply saddened and devastated.”

Newly under Syrian government control, Homs, the third-largest city in Syria, was for several years the site of a bloody stand-off between the regime and rebel forces of various stripes, both secular and Islamist.

Fr. Ziad is among a group of clergy caring for Christians who remained stranded in the town’s center. In April of 2014, a fellow Jesuit, Fr. Frans van der Lugt, was assassinated by an unknown gunman.

In the past year alone, 80,000 Christians were forced to leave their homes. Thanks to the aid centers run by Fr. Ziad and his fellow clergy, food, clothing and items of basic hygiene have been distributed to thousands of victims, regardless of their religion or political outlook.

Fr. Ziad expressed dismay at the lack of any reaction on the part of the world media: “Where is the reaction from the rest of the world?”

“After the attacks in Paris all eyes were on France. But here? As far as I am aware, there has not been any reaction by anybody. Not a word. Only silence. Syria and the daily sufferings of its people are forgotten.”

In October 2014, a double bomb blast killed 50 people.

It is estimated that some 200,000 people have died since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, among them many thousands of Christians.

Aid to the Church in Need is an international Catholic charity under the guidance of the Holy See, providing assistance to the suffering and persecuted Church in more than 140 countries. Websites: churchinneed.org (USA); acnuk.org (UK); aidtochurch.org (AUS); acnireland.org (IRL); acn-aed-ca.org (CAN); acnmalta.org (Malta)

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Iraqi priests work to save historic Christian writings from Islamic State

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • January 29, 2015

A Syriac manuscript from the Monastery of St. Catherine, Mt. Sinai. (CNA)

Erbil, Iraq — Effectively exiled from his friary in Mosul by the Islamic State last year, Fr. Najeeb Michaeel, O.P. is working to preserve Christian manuscripts through digitization, recording a memory of Iraq’s Christian past.

Fr. Najeeb Michaeel is an Iraqi native who studied in the U.S., and founded in 1990 the Center for the Digitization of Oriental Manuscripts to foster the collection and recording of ancient manuscripts which he had started in the 1980s.

Over the years, Fr. Michaeel has collected some 750 Christian manuscripts in order to preserve them and to make them available for study by making digital copies.

The archives of the Dominican order in Iraq are a testimony to the Christian presence in Iraq, which stretches nearly 2,000 years in cities such as Mosul and Bakhdida, which are now controlled by Islamic State.

Mosul had had a Dominican friary since the 1750s, with both friars and the Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena. The friary amassed a large library of thousands of ancient manuscripts, as well as more than 50,000 more modern volumes.

When an Islamist insurgency hit Mosul in 2008 following the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Dominicans smuggled their library to Bakhdida, a city populated primarily by Syriac Catholics, only 20 miles away.

Then in 2014, the Sunni Islamist group Islamic State seized Mosul in June. A month later Christians were effectively exiled from the city, and Islamic State continued to expand across Iraq’s Nineveh province.

Fr. Michaeel collected some 1,300 manuscripts from the 14th to the 19th century, and put them in two large trucks in the early morning, transferring them to a secret location in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, where they have been kept safe. They include not only Christian works, but manuscripts on the Quran, music, and grammar.

“We passed three checkpoints without any problem, and I think the Virgin Mary [had] a hand to protect us,” Fr. Michaeel said Jan. 26 in an interview with National Public Radio.

The library of 50,000 modern books was left behind in Bakhdida, and the city was seized by Islamic State on Aug. 7.

Fr. Michaeel has been joined in Erbil by Fr. Columba Stewart, OSB, who is executive director of the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, which is participating in the preservation of the Syriac manuscripts.

Islamic State have destroyed belongings of the non-Sunnis who have fled their territory, showing no regard for historical preservation. Convents and monasteries have been destroyed or requisitioned for their own use. In Mosul, a mound over the tomb of the prophet Jonah, on top of which a mosque was built, was destroyed with explosives in July.

Fr. Laurent Lemoine, O.P., works with Fr. Michaeel. He told France 24 last October that “we’re trying to save these cultural artifacts because in northern Iraq it seems that everything is on the road to destruction: people of course, but also our cultural heritage. The artifacts were almost destroyed several times.”

“Across the region, Christianity is in the process of being swept away. Mass has been celebrated in Mosul for 1,600 years. This year was the first time that there hasn’t been a Mass in all that time.”

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Does Francis like being Pope? A behind-the-scenes chat in the Philippines

by CNA/EWTN News • January 29, 2015

Pope Francis at Mass July 7, 2013. (Lauren Cater/CNA)

Manila, Philippines — During his pastoral visit to the Philippines Jan. 15-19, Pope Francis held an unscheduled meeting at the Apostolic Nunciature in Manila with 40 Jesuit priests and told them how it feels to be the Successor of Peter.

After the meeting with families at the Asia Arena on Jan. 16 in Manila, Pope Francis met with members of his own Jesuit order, including Father Antonio Spadaro, director the of the Jesuit magazine Civilta Cattolica, who shared some of the details of the meeting with CNA.

He said Pope Francis was asked if he liked being the Pope.

“It doesn’t displease him and he hasn’t lost his peace since becoming Pope but rather has found consolation and great peace,” Father Spadaro said.

The Holy Father feels that his ministry from the Chair of Peter “is very much connected to his service as pastor” in Buenos Aires, and that his pastoral experience inspires him to remain close to the faithful, he said.

The Pope also spoke of the role of the Jesuits in the Church, emphasizing the mystical aspect of the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Jesuits “are men of transcendence and discernment. They are not afraid. Those who are afraid are like old people!” he told those gathered, according to the Jesuit priest.

Fr. Spadaro said the Holy Father underscored the importance of an examination of conscience, “which is the fundamental basis of discernment. The examination of conscience means verifying one’s personal story in God’s light, what one does throughout the day, implying thus a dynamism in one’s own life, helping to look beyond the ideas or the rules which ideology can reduce us to.”

During the meeting Pope Francis greeted a Jesuit from China and gave him a rosary. “I have a special love for China,” the Holy Father said.

This was not the first time the Pope has surprised Jesuits during his apostolic journeys outside the Vatican. He also met with members of the Society of Jesus during his visit to South Korea last August and in Turkey last November. “These meetings tend to be private and low-key,” Fr. Spadaro said.

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Burma’s Bibles: encouraging love of Scripture among the laity

by Antonio Anup Gonsalves (CNA/EWTN News) • January 29, 2015

Burmese youth participate in a Bible seminar. (Fr. Bosco Saw/Pastoral Biblical Ministry)

Yangon, Burma — The Church in Burma is engaged in a series of biblical seminars to aid in catechesis and in drawing the laity to read and appreciate Sacred Scripture, heeding the call of the Second Vatican Council.

“Our vision is that Catholic faithful become the disciples of Christ who love, read, live, and share the living Word of God,” Fr. Bosco Saw, national coordinator for Biblical Pastoral Ministry told CNA Jan. 26. “It is part of my mission and it is growing.”

Fr. Saw cited the need for biblical-based means of teaching catechism, desired by religious congregations in the country. The seminars are meant to teach methods of sharing the Bible.

“We are pursuing our mission to lead and to empower the Catholic faithful to live out and proclaim the living Word of God.”

During a five-day workshop for the theological students of the Catholic Religious Conference attended by more than 40 religious brothers and sisters and held last November, Fr. Saw said “we deliberated on how to teach catechism using Bible stories.”

In Burma, he said, “the predominant mindset of the people is that Bible reading is meant only for priests and religious … so we use Bible seminars to educate and to help them to start appreciating, to love, to read, and to live the Bible.”

Around 20 Bible seminars have been held in Burma in the past year, with various events aimed sometimes at formators, or religious, or teachers, or the laity. In addition, each diocese in the country has organized local workshops in parishes.

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Ghana priests shift focus to marriage prep, youth formation

by CNA/EWTN News • January 30, 2015

(Nana B Agyei via Flickr CC BY 2.0)

Accra, Ghana — A national gathering of hundreds of priests in Ghana have resolved to become more involved with their parishioners through marriage preparation, family counseling, and educational youth formation.

“As priests, we promise to continually update our knowledge and educate ourselves on marriage and family issues, to be able to help the families of today to respond, cope with and manage the challenges they face,” stated Fr. Francis Appiah-Kubi in a recent article for CANAA, the Catholic News Agency for Africa.

Fr. Francis Appiah-Kubi is the president of the National Union of Ghanaian Diocesan Priests’ Association, a congress that gathers priests from around the country to discuss various pastoral issues and implement improvement when needed.

Concluding their recent assembly this January, the clergy created a nine-point resolution, which promised more involvement in remote, proximate, and immediate marriage preparation. They also discussed a deeper role in assisting families with challenges and formation with youth.

The five-day meeting took place in Takoradi, a western region of Ghana. Over 600 diocesan priests were present for the 25th national and 13th biennial assembly, which offered a renewed approach towards ministry in family life and the challenges it brings.

The theme of the congress was ‘Pastoral challenges to the family in the context of the New Evangelization: The role of the diocesan priest.’

In light of the New Evangelization, the Catholic clergy in Ghana have resolved to reach out to couples, emphasizing unity, permanence, equality of spouses, and the importance of faith in the family. These priests will also become more involved in counseling and post-marriage guidance, as well as making a more profound presence with the youth in education.

“We resolve to improve upon our living together as one big priestly family in Ghana, working in unity and love in our various communities to give good examples to all families,” Fr. Francis told CANAA.

“We resolve to be close and available to our faithful and their families and to give ourselves completely in their service.”

The resolution comes in the months leading up to the 2015 Synod on the Family.

Following last year’s gathering on the same topic, bishops from around the world will meet in Rome this October to discuss various challenges to the family and pastoral solutions to these challenges.

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Missionary: Boko Haram behind attacks on churches, religious in Niger

by (Aid to the Church in Need) • January 30, 2015

Eucharistic adoration in Niger. (Aid to the Church in Need)

Niamey, Niger — Boko Haram is determined to take its jihadist campaign beyond Nigeria. Its next targets include Niger, where, as reported in an email message from a woman religious working as a missionary in the country, the group has proclaimed that “Christians must die.”

Currently in hiding along with her fellow missionaries in private homes in Niger’s capital of Niamey, the sister wrote to international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need.

Last week’s violent protests in both Niamey and the town of Zinder against the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo — killing 10 and wounding 173 people —”were planned,” she wrote, instigated by the Nigerian terrorist organization.

“At Christmas time, Boko Haram had threatened to burn down all the churches in Niger and burn us alive! But for some reason it did not happen; no one knows quite why. It was by coincidence that the cartoons in Charlie Hebdo set the world on fire. ‘The Christians must die; that way we will be able to go to paradise,’ say the disciples of Boko Haram. It’s diabolical. But we are not going to let ourselves be moved by fear. Love is stronger than hatred,” wrote the missionary, whose name is withheld for her protection.

She continued: “It started in Zinder first of all – with five deaths, four people inside a church and one in a cafe. The French cultural center was attacked and totally burned out, as was a bank. The church, where the Missionaries of Africa live, was also set on fire, along with the neighboring residence of the Sisters of the Assumption, along with their cars and the school – everything was on fire. They have nothing left except their lives, and that alone is something to be grateful for. They were able to flee in time and took refuge on a military base.”

The sister described the violence in Niamey as being “on a major scale.” A group of men on motorcycles looted “the churches, one after another,” then destroyed them.

“They took away everything they could use and then set fire to them, with cans of petrol. They also burned the Protestant and Evangelical churches – altogether around 40 churches; it was incredible.”

Next bars, restaurants and gas stations — and even orphanages: “Fortunately the caretakers were able to take the children to police stations, where they were safe, but the attackers stole all the supplies of food,” the email message said.

Fortunately, the Sisters of Charity were at least able to save their hospital, along with its patients. The violent demonstrators were about to set fire to the hospital, but the religious confronted the attackers: “Can we first of all take out the patients before you set fire to it? These words gave the rebels pause for thought and as a result they did not touch the hospital, but nevertheless they still burned down the church,” the missionary reported.

Continuing her account, the sister wrote: “When Bishop Djalwana Laurent Lompo of Niamey heard that two communities of sisters were being attacked, he told them they must flee immediately and seek refuge. We had already had phone calls from concerned Muslim friends, who had urged us: ‘Come with us, they will not burn down the neighbourhood where they themselves live.’”

“You never know with these gangs. I went to the chapel with another sister to consume the Blessed Sacrament, because they also tried to burn the tabernacles. We locked everything up.”

One of the sisters in the community is from Rwanda, and she knew what it means to have to flee, having lived through the 1994 Rwandan genocide: “She had on five skirts and five blouses, one on top of the other. We were in fits of laughter when she came out of her room, like a giant; she could scarcely walk, she had so many clothes on,” the email said.

“One of the other missionaries had only just returned from Poland and had not even had time to unpack her things, but we had to flee immediately. What a shock it was for her! The neighbours came to say goodbye, with tears in their eyes. We entrusted the key of the house to one of them. It was very emotional. A family from the Middle East took us in,” he said, demonstrating tremendous hospitality.

“On the way we saw a Protestant church that had already been totally burnt out. No, it was incredible in a country so peaceful as Niger … but no, now Niger is no longer peaceful. For now we are safe, and living with a family. We pray, keep silence, respond to innumerable telephone calls from friends and other women religious who are concerned about us.”

“On Sunday we did not go to church, but last night there were two priests who came to celebrate Mass in a small downstairs room. It was very moving, as it was quite unplanned. God does not desert us. He is balm for our hearts, and our faith grows stronger.”

“We are at peace again. We do not intend to let ourselves be moved by violence or fear. No one knows what the future will bring. Let us only hope it will be more peaceful and that we will be able to return to live in community.”

“Why so much hatred and violence? Peace is not simply a word. We know just how fragile everything is. We have to work so hard to achieve peace – starting with ourselves. Why so much hatred, so much violence? We are weeping. The tears are flowing. O Jesus, save us!”

The sister’s email concluded with a plea: “Pray for us, for our people, for the world. So that the Light of the Love of Christ may be able to shine forth!”

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Woman bishop challenges future of Anglican-Catholic dialogue

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • January 30, 2015

The Anglican Westminster Abbey in London, October 16, 2010. (Junichi Ishito via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

London, England — While the consecration of the Church of England’s first woman bishop presents significant challenges in bringing Catholics and Anglicans into “closer communion,” ecumenical leaders say the door to dialogue remains open.

The consecration of Libby Lane as an Anglican bishop earlier this month creates a “further challenge to a hope of organic reunion”, said David Moxon, another Anglican bishop, in a Jan. 29 interview with CNA, reiterating concerns expressed by Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham.

Moxon and Archbishop Longley are co-chairs of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), which aims to advance ecumenical relations between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.

In a Jan. 27 interview with Vatican Radio, Archbishop Longley, acknowledging the challenges presented by Lane’s Anglican episcopal consecration, stressed that it “shouldn’t affect the way in which the dialogue is continued.”

The Birmingham archbishop’s confidence that dialogue will go on despite this latest development is “very important to us”, Moxon said.

On Jan. 26, Lane was consecrated in York Minster as the Anglican Bishop of Stockport. She is the first woman to be consecrated a bishop for the Church of England, after its general synod in Nov. 2014 voted to allow for women bishops.

However, Moxon acknowledged that not everyone in the Church of England is on board, with some people unable to recognize the authority of a woman bishop. In response, the Church of England general synod made provisions for those in this category, allowing them to operate under the authority of what is sometimes referred to as a “flying bishop”.

“People who don’t agree with the ordination of a woman as a bishop don’t have to come under her authority,” he said, nor do they “have to be licensed to the bishop who will ordain women to be bishop or to be priests.”

While Lane represents the first bishop consecrated for the Church of England, Moxon stressed that the existence of women priests and bishops within the Anglican Communion is not a new challenge in ecumenical dialogue with the Catholic Church.

As ARCIC prepares for its upcoming meeting in Rome in May, he said the decision to consecate Lane as bishop will be on the agenda, “but, it won’t be seen as a crisis. It will be seen as a challenge which we knew was already there.”

Over the last four decades, some of the 38 Anglican provinces have been electing to allow for the ordination of women and bishops. Included among them is Linda Nicholls, Anglican Bishop of Toronto and ARCIC member.

“The ordination itself is one step in a long process that began nearly forty years ago,” said Bishop Brian Farrell, L.C., secretary for the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, in a Jan. 29 email interview with CNA.

He said ARCIC “has continued in spite of this development, and has taken account of the challenge this new situation represents to our growing into closer communion.”

Members of the ecumenical organization “will have to face the whole question of our disagreement on the implications of the sacramental nature of ordained ministry”, he added.

“Nobody on either side underestimates the difficulties involved.”

The bishop went on to cite the Second Vatican Council’s recognition of the affinity between the Church and the Anglican Communion, noting their “many common traditions and structures.”

However, while “some parts” of the “shared Christian life and patrimony” between Anglicans and Catholics have grown stronger through dialogue, others have weakened.

This weakening, he explained, is largely due “to an acceptance by some parts of the Anglican Communion of the idea that important aspects of the Christian message and Christian living can change as a result of changed cultural attitudes”.

Bishop Farrell added that this challenge is also felt among some Catholics.

“Where we differ is in the way the Churches reach authoritative decisions about these matters. This is precisely the issue that ARCIC is discussing in the present phase of dialogue.”

One of the central aspects of the challenge presented by this latest development in dialogue lies in the fact that the Catholic Church is unable to change its teaching on the ordination of women as priests, much less as bishops.

In the 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, St. John Paul II wrote that “in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”

Nonetheless, while Pope Francis and his predecessors have lauded the essential role of women in the Church, the debate among Catholics in certain circles over ordination of women continues to thrive.

“There is vast space in the Catholic Church for women to take on a greater leadership role,” Bishop Farrell said.

He went on to clarify that “specific debate about women’s ordination is based on a mistaken concept of ministry as ‘power’ in the Church.”

This errant understanding stems from the way “our whole tradition has tended to reinforce that idea in the way the priesthood has been presented and exercised,” he added.

“A truly profound conversion and reform in the way we think about the priestly ministry is needed.”

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Can Christians survive the ‘dirty games’ of Middle East politics?

by Kevin J. Jones (CNA) • January 30, 2015

An Iraqi Christian refugee at a church shelter in Jordan, Oct. 28, 2014. (Kim Pozniak/Catholic Relief Services)

Amman, Jordan — Christians have lived in the Middle East since the time of the apostles, but political machinations by world powers and other groups put these communities at risk of extinction, a Jordanian priest fears.

“Who are the main players in these ‘dirty games’? Behind the scenes?” Father Rifat Bader asked journalists at his church near Amman on Oct. 28. “I think many nations are involved in dirty games.”

“But the thing that I cannot understand really: Why do the Christians have to go out of the game?” he asked. “Why, we are part of our societies! So let us be considered as part of the game! Not out of it.”

Fr. Bader, the general director of the Catholic Center for Studies and Media, is pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus Latin Rite Catholic Church in the Jordanian capital.

The priest cited Chaldean Patriarch Raphael Sako’s September 2014 comments about “dirty political games” in the Middle East.

Fr. Bader noted that the early 20th century actions of Western powers in the region, such as the Sykes-Picot Agreement the United Kingdom and France secretly contracted during World War I to divide the territory of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the war. He predicted similar action in the Middle East in the 21st century.

“Now we have a new Sykes-Picot, with new divisions,” he said.

Fr. Bader was also sceptical of United States policy in the region. In his view, religious minorities “are not a real concern for the U.S. government.”

The aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 has been hard for many, particularly for Iraqi Christians and other religious minorities. Iraq’s Christian population declined from about 1.4 million people to only 400,000. The rapid expansion of the Islamic State group in 2014 only worsened their plight, as the group captured historically Christian towns and cities with large Christian populations such as Mosul, and imposed an extreme version of Islamic law.

The Islamic State’s rise has compounded the crisis in neighboring Syria, where a civil war continues to rage between the government of President Bashar Assad and several rebel coalitions, including the Islamic State. The political backers of the Islamic State are a topic of intense speculation in the region.

Fr. Bader said that the Islamic State was “fiercest” first against the Christians. “And then came the Yazidis, and then the Kurds,” he said, listing the militants’ other targets.

“The first part of this dirty game was against the Christians,” he said. “They didn’t have time to think.”

Fr. Bader’s church has hosted several dozen Iraqi Christian refugees who fled the Islamic State hours before its soldiers occupied their towns and cities. As of late October, they lived in a building converted to shelter them, with assistance from the Catholic humanitarian agency Caritas Jordan and the U.S.-based Catholic Relief Services.

Many of the refugees are determined never to return.

“No, we will never go back,” Taif Hanna, an engineer from Mosul, told reporters. “ISIS tried to kill us.”

The militant group offered three choices: conversion to Islam, payment of a tax, or death.

“So we all fled Iraq,” Taif said.

“I will leave all my history there. Because of the terrorism,” lamented Taif’s father, Maan George Hanna. “We have no trust in the government or anything. Never, forever.”

While Fr. Bader praised the Jordanian monarchy’s actions to help Christians, he voiced strong concern that so many Christian refugees were leaving the Middle East entirely.

“When they leave Jordan, they leave the Middle East. This makes us more sad. We want to keep them in the Middle East, but we cannot,” he said, questioning why other Arab countries were not welcoming more Christians.

The priest also criticized aspects of the meeting of US presidnet Barack Obama with leading Christians of the Middle East, which was linked to the In Defense of Christians summit in September 2014.

In Fr. Bader’s view, the meeting neglected Christians and their patriarchs in the Holy Land itself.

He contended that the meeting depicted Islam as the only challenge to Christians in the Middle East and ignored the challenge posed to Christians by Israel.

According to the priest, some in the Holy Land suffer “as Christians” from the Israeli occupation and “the lack of religious freedom.”

Fr. Bader thought there was a double standard in how the U.S. government treats Palestine and Israel.

At the same time, he saw the need for “one Islamic voice in the Muslim and Arab world” to condemn the Islamic State’s actions.

The majority of Jordanians are against the Islamic State, and Fr. Bader said it is wrong to think that such a caliphate is good for all Muslims.

“They do not want such a form of a violent, cruel, massacr(ing) state.”

He added that many Muslims who do want a religious state at most want it to resemble the papacy: speaking on behalf of human beings and human rights, and not against them.

Fr. Bader praised Muslim assistance for Christian refugees. When Muslims heard Iraqi Christians were coming to stay, he reported, veiled Muslim women came to help them.

“Really that is a great image of Jordan.”

The country has taken in about 1.4 million Syrian refugees, increasing its population by about 20 percent. Despite the significant strain on national resources, the country appears to be politically stable.

“We thank God for the stability in Jordan, that we can at least have a safe country which hosts all these people from Syria and from Iraq,” Fr. Bader said.

“Before that, it was from Palestine.”

He said it is important to distinguish Arab countries in which Christians are persecuted, from countries in which they are not.

Fr. Bader had high praise for Jordan’s King Abdullah II. The priest noted the king’s remarks at the United Nations and at a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative which emphasized Christians’ 2,000-year history in the Middle East and their past, present, and future role in Middle East societies.

“When the king says this, we are proud of what he is saying, because he is frank, and he is really always defending the Arabic Christians.”

The king has also been patron of a conference about the challenges facing Middle East Christians.

Fr. Bader also praised the Catholic Church’s support for many projects, noting that coordination teams of bishops come every year from the U.S. and from Europe.

“They come, they visit Gaza, they visit the hidden sufferings in Jordan and in Palestine.”

The Jordanian priest noted that Caritas Jordan helps both Muslims and Christians. Religious differences are not a barrier to aid and cooperation, the priest said.

However, Caritas Jordan is also facing a great burden in trying to aid the refugees.

“That’s why Caritas needs more help from the partners outside,” the priest said. “They have to help Caritas because we don’t foresee when this crisis will end.”

Fr. Bader stressed the importance of Arabic-language Catholic news, especially after the reaction to Benedict XVI’s 2006 speech in Regensburg, Germany about the role of faith and reason in Christianity and Islam.

Media coverage focused on a passage in which the Pope cited a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who criticized Islam’s Prophet Mohammed. The media coverage at times provoked reactions that turned violent.

“Nobody could read the speech,” Fr. Bader said. “They were just attacking the Pope and the Church without reading the content of it.”

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Church in Italy fights against imposition of gender ideology in schools

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • January 31, 2015

(Emory Maiden via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Rome, Italy — The general secretary of the Italian bishops conference stressed on Friday that the attempt to introduce textbooks into the nation’s schools that present gender theory as a fact are an effort to turn biological data upside down.

Bishop Nunzio Galantino of Cassano all’Jonio, general secretary of the Italian bishops conference, spoke following a meeting of the Italian Bishops Permanent Council, which took place Jan. 26-28.

On the bishops’ agenda were new regulations for church buildings and the theme for the general assembly to be held in May, as well as some general issues, the most compelling of which was the introduction into Italian schools of texts supporting gender ideology.

Gender theory or ideology is the notion that one’s ‘gender’ is chosen and need not correspond with one’s biological sex.

In his opening address, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa underscored that the issue is pivotal, and mentioned Pope Francis’ concern over the ideological colonization of families, which he expressed twice during his trip to the Philippines earlier this month. Pope Francis lamented that foreign aid to developing countries is often tied to acceptance of gender theory, and called it a form a colonization.

Cardinal Bagnasco talked about the adoption of gender-oriented books in Italian primary schools, asking, “Have the books by the A.T. Beck Institute - captivatingly titled ‘Educating for diversity in school’ and inspired by gender theory - really disappeared from Italian schools?”

He then said the aim in spreading those books is that of “colonizing the minds of children, boys and girls, with a distorted anthropological vision, without having previously requested and obtained the authorization of parents.”

Cardinal Bagnasco’s denouncement followed a lengthy struggle of parents’ associations in Italian schools.

Following the 2012 issuance of a “National Strategy for the prevention and contrast of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (2013-2015),” Italian schools have included sexual education plans that follow gender ideology.

Parents’ associations have taken a strong stance against these plans of sexual education, including opposition to the adoption of the book “Educating for diversity in school”, issued by the National Office of Anti-Racial Discrimination.

The books have been printed, but were not distributed following the large protests from parents’ associations.

In December, an initiative of CitizenGo gather almost 50,000 signatures asking the Italian Minister for Education to ban gender ideology in Italian schools.

“Currently, educational projects are often presented with the aim of ‘combating discrimination’,” reads the petition.

But “the generic topic of ‘non discrimination’ very often hides the negation of the natural sexual difference and its reduction to a cultural phenomenon; the freedom to identify as any gender, despite one’s biological sex; the equivalence of any form of union and of family; the justification of almost every sexual behavior.”

This year, Amnesty International has presented a “high school teachers’ handbook” titled “Schools active against homophobia and transphobia. LGBT rights, human rights.”

The handbook stresses that, as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child considers children able to express their own ideas and make decisions, “it is necessary to understand that LGBT persons’ rights are human rights,” and that if a school child “is wondering about his sexual orientation or gender identity,” then it is important to provide “positive images of the life of LGBT persons.”

The handbook also deals with gender theory, and explains to teachers “the difference between biological sex and gender.”

All of these issues have been widely discussed at the Italian Bishops Conference Permanent Council.

The final declaration of the Bishops Council stressed that this culture “does not preserve the family as the central cell of society,” but that it “denaturalizes the family,” and equates family “with any other affective link.”

Bishop Galantino called the “effort carried out with textbooks to propose gender theories to boys and girls as a matter of freedom” a “poisoned chalice.”

He added that “individual rights are legitimate, but they cannot be smuggled as the path that leads to the common good, which is based on other grounds.”

The bishops’ concerns echoed those observed by Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, when he said Dec. 19, 2013 that “today one of the greatest problems (facing Catholic schools) is when large organizations want to impose gender ideology.”

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U.S. NEWS

Why the pro-life movement needs Democrats

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • January 25, 2015

2015 March for Life in Washington D.C. on Jan. 22, 2015. (Addie Mena/CNA)

Washington D.C. — Pro-life Democrat politicians are fast becoming an endangered political species, but their pro-life presence is necessary for the movement to succeed, both Republicans and Democrats agreed.

“I think if the pro-life movement becomes confined to just the Republican Party, it’s going to hurt the movement,” Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) told CNA at the 2015 March for Life. He added that if more pro-life Democrats get elected, “the Republican Party then can’t take the pro-lifers more for granted.”

The 2015 March for Life drew some 200,000 pro-lifers from all over the country. Young people showed up in droves with high school, college, and diocesan groups. Seminarians and members of religious orders were also well-represented.

Only one Democrat joined the three Republican members of Congress onstage at the official rally on the National Mall. Rep. Lipinski admitted that the past few years have been “tough” for pro-life Democrats but insisted that their presence is vital to the success of the pro-life movement.

The chair of the Republican National Committee also said that the pro-life issue is not just a Republican one.

“I think that a lot of people in this country without party labels agree that we need to be pro-life, and lives are worth saving,” Reince Priebus told CNA at the 2015 March for Life.

“I’m here to support the March for Life because I think they do great work and it provides great awareness for the issue,” he continued.

Janet Robert, the president of the board of Democrats for Life, told CNA that the pro-life movement has to expand its coalition to get beyond the stereotype of conservative Christian pro-lifers.

“It is important that we rebuild the movement by focusing on every person, regardless of their faith, their creed, their nationality, and their other beliefs,” Robert said. “Unite us so that we can get things done.”

The right to life has to be seen as a “human right” and not just a religious issue, she added. The United Nations and NARAL, among other groups, have been calling abortion a “human right” and pro-lifers must counter that.

“We’ve got to stop that thinking, it’s very destructive,” she said.

Robert spoke for the brand-new Pro-Life Alliance, a coalition of “non-traditional” pro-life groups such as Democrats and atheists, created to build bridges with those factions around the right to life as a fundamental “human right.”

The coalition wishes for “people to understand that the pro-life movement is basically an anti-violence, pro-woman, anti-sexual abuse, pro-peace movement, which it really is,” she said.

“Because it’s fundamentally about protecting human life and about human rights. It is the most important human right, the right to life.”

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U.S. NEWS

100 babies: A women’s center that helps every step of the way

by Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • January 25, 2015

(Lighthouse Women’s Center)

Denver, CO — Lynn Grandon kept a tally on her desk of how many babies she knew the Denver Lighthouse women’s center had helped bring into this world.

Last week, an e-mail from a nurse at the center confirmed that five more women had given birth – bringing the total to 100. Grandon, the director of Lighthouse, could barely contain her excitement.

“I called her back on the phone and I was screaming and I was going, ‘Do you realize what this means? We’ve hit 100!’” Grandon recalled.

The Lighthouse Women’s Center, which is operated by Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Denver, has probably saved many more babies. They do their best to follow up with women who have come to them for care, but sometimes they lose touch.

The celebration is also bittersweet, Grandon told CNA, because there are some who seek help at Lighthouse who end up miscarrying their child.

“Those, in their own precious way, are triumphs too, because she did everything in her heart that was the right thing to do in a difficult situation,” Grandon reflected. “So we honor the decisions of those women too, it just doesn’t get such a public face, so that’s the behind-the-scenes story that’s just as meaningful to us.”

Lighthouse offers a revolutionary approach to crisis pregnancy care, which they call a “continuum of care.” Depending on the client, that care may include emergency assistance, shelter, counseling, child care and victim assistance, in addition to provision of diapers and material needs for moms with newborns and infants. Their connections to other Catholic services and centers in the archdiocese means they can help women through whatever challenges they may face.

“Catholic Charities comes alongside these women and helps them even after the baby’s born,” Grandon explained, “so this continuum of care is unique in the United States, we’re very proud of it, and intend to work with organizations to replicate it nationwide.”

With the number 100, Lighthouse has saved at least one baby a week on average since March 2013 - which is no small feat, considering they are located across the street from the second largest Planned Parenthood in the nation. Lighthouse opened in October 2012.

Grandon said once in a while, a woman intending to go to Planned Parenthood will actually come to Lighthouse instead, but she wishes it happened more often.

Unfortunately, she explained, “(t)here are very vocal protesters right at Planned Parenthood’s gate that shout unkind and demeaning things at the women, which actually often makes them run into the building just to get away from them.”

Another part of the problem is the visibility of Lighthouse, which Grandon said will soon change.

“We are actually constructing a very large 4x30 ft. sign above our fencing that the women can see from their cars,” Grandon said.

It will read: “You are not alone, free help here.”

Women considering abortion are almost always doing so out of fear and a sense of being alone, Grandon said, difficulties that Lighthouse staff are trained to address and help women overcome.

“My experiences at Lighthouse were amazing: the friendliest staff, nurses, everyone just makes you feel comfortable and at ease,” said one woman served at Lighthouse, who gave birth to a daughter a year ago. “I could tell them my concerns and they would help me out. They would calm me down if I was upset.”

Although Lighthouse already offers a myriad of services, they are hoping to expand even more to be able to help more pregnant women in poverty and to launch mobile medical units on university campuses in the Denver area, complete with free ultrasounds, STI testing and counseling.

Lighthouse is hoping to raise some of these fund to expand at their upcoming Gala, “A Beacon of Hope” on Jan. 31 in Denver. The gala includes keynote speaker Jason Scott Jones, a pro-life activist, author and producer of the film “Bella.” Details of the event can be found at ccdenver.org/gala.

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U.S. NEWS

Millennials’ pro-life commitment wows bishops

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • January 28, 2015

March for Life in Washington D.C. on Jan. 22, 2015. (Addie Mena/CNA)

Washington D.C. — Both Roman and Orthodox Catholic bishops were stirred by the presence of the Millennial generation at the 2015 March for Life.

“You look out in the crowd and you see so many young people,” remarked Orthodox Bishop Michael of New York and New Jersey. He said it gave him great hope for the future of the pro-life movement.

The primate of the Orthodox Church in America, Metropolitan Tikhon, shared that hope. “I do feel like in our country, there’s a real sense among our young people, especially, that life is really a sacred concern that we all have to protect,” he told CNA.

While admitting there is still some polarization on the pro-life issue, he maintained that “there’s been a marked growth in those who really feel connected to the issue of life.”

More than 200,000 were estimated to be in attendance at the 2015 March for Life in Washington, D.C. Young people flooded into the city from high schools, colleges, and seminaries across the country.

The theme of this year’s March was “Every Life Is a Gift,” putting special focus on unborn children who receive a “difficult prenatal diagnosis” such as Down syndrome or Spina Bifida. As many as 60 to 90 percent of unborn children with such a diagnosis are aborted, according to studies cited by the president of the March for Life, Jeanne Monahan.

A short distance away, U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) had made the claim that “social issues just aren’t as important” to Millennials. This idea was part of her explanation for torpedoing a significant piece of pro-life legislation, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would have banned most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

However, the bishops raved about the youthful enthusiasm for the pro-life cause. One bishop, the rector of a seminary, discussed his seminarians at the march.

“Their energy and enthusiasm that brings them to discern a vocation to the priesthood and come into the seminary is the same energy that filled the Basilica of the National Shrine today,” said, Auxiliary Bishop Timothy Senior of Philadelphia, rector of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.

“That inspiration of young people, of a younger generation who understand what is the truth of the sanctity of life is really so inspiring,” he told CNA.

The bishops also stressed the need for unity among people of all religions – and even those with no faith – on the pro-life cause.

“We certainly want to stand in solidarity with all in our country – people of all faiths or no faith at all – who recognize the sanctity of human life,” Bishop Senior said.

Metropolitan Tikhon pointed out the presence of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and others at the march. “The greater reason we are here is really to show our unity and to join together in a common cause that is, in a sense, greater than the specific issue of abortion,” he said.

The march is ultimately about the Resurrection, he explained.

“The Orthodox Church has been represented since the beginning of this march. And I think we’re very focused on tradition in the Orthodox Church,” he said.

“We focus on the Resurrection – every Sunday is dedicated in the Orthodox Church to the Resurrection of Christ. Our Paschal services for the Feast of the Resurrection are really the highlight of our liturgical year, the overcoming of death, the destruction of corruption by our Lord, the resurrection of the whole human race – that permeates our whole life. And so we come here to share our joy at proclaiming that life and the resurrection that Christ offers us.”

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Prayers offered upon death of prominent dissenting theologian

by CNA/EWTN News • January 26, 2015

(CNA)

Hartford, CT — Father Richard P. McBrien, a Notre Dame theology professor who came to prominence for opposing Catholic teaching on several issues, died on Sunday in Connecticut at the age of 78.

“While often controversial, his work came from a deep love of and hope for the Church. We pray for eternal rest for his soul,” University of Notre Dame President Father John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. said of Fr. McBrien Jan. 25.

Fr. McBrien chaired the University of Notre Dame Theology Department for 11 years and chaired the Faculty Senate for three years. He joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1980, with the initiative of then-president Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, Fr. McBrien’s official website reports.

Before arriving at Notre Dame, he taught at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, Mass. and directed the Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry at Boston College. From 1975-1976, he was the first visiting fellow at Harvard University’s John Fitzgerald Kennedy School of Government. He was president of the Catholic Theological Society of America from 1973-1974.

Fr. McBrien was a television commentator on Catholicism as well as the author of over 20 books and an opinion column. He served as the theological consultant for The DaVinci Code movie, based on Dan Brown’s much-criticized fictional novel about a centuries-long plot to cover up Jesus Christ’s marriage to Mary Magdalene.

He was an early signatory of an influential dissenting statement against Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical “Humanae Vitae,” which reaffirmed Catholic teaching on the immorality of contraception.

An April 1996 U.S. bishops’ review of Fr. McBrien’s work “Catholicism” was particularly critical of the priest-theologian’s media appearances.

“McBrien gives the press what it wants to hear,” the review said. “He can be counted on to reduce magisterial doctrine and Vatican directives to matters of opinion that can be explained away or rejected when they do not conform to modern norms or the popular culture. He does this by emptying Catholic teaching of its meaning without acknowledging his opposition to it while shifting the focus to his defense of some societal value.”

The review also criticized the book “Catholicism” for some “inaccurate or at least misleading” statements. Among these is its insistence that Catholics may maintain that “Jesus Christ could have sinned.” The work also appears to cast doubt on the Catholic doctrines of the Virgin Birth and the perpetual virginity of Mary.

While acknowledging “many positive features” in the book, the review concluded that Fr. McBrien’s work posed pastoral problems, especially as a textbook for college undergraduates.

The text depicted as “open questions” issues related to contraception, homosexuality and women’s ordination, and treats official Church teaching as “merely one of the options for the reader,” the review said. The text implies that Catholic teaching is “erroneous” on this issues.

The review said that Fr. McBrien’s work is intended for beginning theology students, but its presentation risks confusing them by presenting such “multiplicity of opinion” while providing “insufficient direction for those seeking to know what is truly at the core of the faith.”

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Princeton professor to pro-life movement: We’re winning

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • January 27, 2015

Prof. Robert P. George speaks at Georgetown University on Jan. 20, 2014. (Addie Mena/CNA)

Washington D.C. — Victory is in sight for the pro-life movement, as technology and rhetoric witness to the cause of life, Princeton professor Robert George told an audience of high school and college pro-life activists Jan. 23.

“On the fundamental question of whether abortion is good or bad, liberation or killing, the argument has been won,” said George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University.

An estimated 2,300 high school and college students and chaperones from as far away as North Dakota and Nebraska attended the Students for Life East Coast Conference just outside of Washington, D.C.

The gathering followed the annual March for Life, which was attended by over 200,000, according to one estimate.

Drawing an analogy between the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the present-day pro-life movement, George invoked Dr. Martin Luther King who, on the night before he was assassinated, predicted victory for the movement. “I’ve been to the mountaintop and I’ve seen the Promised Land,” George quoted King.

“I feel in my own way,” he added, “I’ve been to the mountaintop.”

The reason for optimism in the pro-life movement, George said, is its “victory in the realm of ideas.” For instance, he pointed to name-change of NARAL Pro-Choice America. While the group used to have “abortion rights” in its name, the reference to abortion has now been removed.

Abortion “was once a great cause for them,” the professor said, but “now they have to hide it.” This is because “the public is not with them, not on the argument.”

The emergence of technology has also been key for the pro-life movement, he added, noting the proliferation of ultrasound machines that show an infant in the womb.

“You cannot sustain an argument for abortion over the long term with that reality starting you in the face,” he said, emphasizing that while legal abortion remains, “we have won the argument.”

Many of the college leaders who attended the March for Life and surrounding events said they found hope and inspiration from the massive crowds of pro-life youth.

“If you’re coming here, I feel like you’re actually standing up for something against opposition,” said Megan Kangiser of Creighton University, a Jesuit university in Omaha, Nebraska.

“I felt the presence of God in all of us,” said Kenny Mizingo from the University of Central Florida.

Mizingo, originally from Angola, is involved in the local Catholic Campus Ministry and traveled with the pro-life chair of the ministry.

“Thousands of people just praying, making noise for God, was life-changing for me and it gave me more motivation, more strength,” he said.

Although the university has a huge enrollment, the pro-life group is quite small, about 10 members. They pray the rosary every Saturday at 7 a.m. outside the local abortion clinic, and this is “challenging,” Mizingo admitted, particularly when the abortion doctors or clients walk past them into the clinic without acknowledging their presence.

But despite temptations to despair, he said, “it’s not about me, it’s not about them, it’s about God. God is the reality, God is the way.”

“God touches my heart and my mind, gives me more strength and motivation, to keep praying for those babies, to keep preaching to those people, especially the doctor that goes to that clinic. Every Saturday, I have a special encounter with God.”

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‘No compromise’ – Catholics, evangelicals unite on marriage

by CNA/EWTN News • January 27, 2015

(Mazur/catholicchurch.org.uk)

Washington D.C. — A coalition of Catholic and Protestant leaders has united to call all Christians to an unwavering defense of the truth of marriage, rooted in nature as well as faith.

“(W)e affirm strongly and without qualification, following the clear testimony of Holy Scripture, that marriage is a unique and privileged sign of the union of Christ with his people and of God with his Creation – and it can only serve as that sign when a man and a woman are solemnly joined together in a permanent union,” reads a joint statement between Catholic and Protestant leaders.

“If we are to remain faithful to the Scriptures and to the unanimous testimony of Christian tradition, there can be no compromise on marriage.”

Nearly 20 Catholics and Evangelical Protestants signed the statement, which is titled “The Two Shall Become One Flesh: Reclaiming Marriage.” Signatories represent the ecumenical coalition Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT), which is an initiative of the Institute on Religion and Public Life.

The statement will debut in the March issue of “First Things” magazine.

“(M)arriage is the foundation of a just and stable society,” the Catholic and Protestant leaders said, emphasizing that marriage was a reality that existed before the state.

The truth about marriage can be found in “both revelation and reason,” they said, pointing to both Scripture and “the truths inscribed on the human heart.”

However, the sexual revolution has gravely weakened marriage, they continued, pointing to decreasing marriage and birth rates, as well as rising abortion and divorce levels in the past 50 years.

“A contraceptive mentality encourages the notion of sex as purely recreational, a matter of private pleasure. Widespread divorce and serial cohabitation undermine our sense of stability and commitment in human relations,” they said, also noting an increase in out-of-wedlock births and casual acceptance of premarital sex.

“Christians are implicated in this decline. Evangelicals and Catholics are more likely to divorce than they were fifty years ago. Moreover, Christians have adopted to no small extent the contraceptive mind-set that in society at large has separated sex from reproduction and so weakened the centrality and attraction of marriage.”

Everyone suffers from this modern marriage crisis, the statement explained, but especially children and those with lower education levels.

Redefining marriage poses a particularly dangerous threat to society and the common good, said the Catholic and Protestant leaders.

Same-sex “marriage” is now legal in more than 30 states and the District of Columbia. The U.S. Supreme Court announced earlier this month that it would take up the issue of same-sex “marriage” again this term.

For those who experience same-sex attraction, the signers of the statement encouraged the search for genuine freedom in God’s truth. They also apologized for any injustices to persons with same-sex attraction and promised to better integrate all single people into the life of the Christian church.

“However, faithful Christian witness cannot accommodate itself to same-sex marriage. It disregards the created order, threatens the common good, and distorts the Gospel,” they said.

When marriage is redefined, they explained, “the distinction between men and women is denied social recognition and marriage is no longer a unique bond uniting male and female. It becomes an instrument created by the state to give official status to the relationship between two generic human beings.”

The result is a “parody of marriage” that reconfigures the basic family structure and the natural family as the “fundamental context defining where we have come from.”

The signatories also warned of other consequences stemming from a redefinition of marriage.

“(W)here the family is a creation of the state, children become, in important legal respects, the property of the state,” they explained.

Furthermore, when we deny truths about human nature, we lose sight of our fundamental dignity as children of God, they cautioned: “If the truth about marriage can be displaced by social and political pressure operating through the law, other truths can be set aside as well.”

The stakes are therefore high, for all of society, the Catholic and Protestant leaders stated.

“Freedom itself is severely compromised when our speech about the difference and complementarity of male and female must be policed, and any dissent from the new orthodoxies assiduously suppressed.”

“It is increasingly difficult to affirm that marriage is the union of a man and a woman without being ruled outside the boundaries of reasonable public conversation,” they observed. “And once opposition to same-sex marriage is judged to be discriminatory, no institution that declines to substitute unreality for reality will remain unaffected.”

Reclaiming true human sexuality is key to healing a broken culture of marriage and escaping the false views that amount to a degrading and deceptive “pseudo-freedom,” the religious leaders said.

Rather than going along with the spirit of the age, they encouraged Christians everywhere to take a strong stand on marriage.

“We owe our fellow citizens a socially engaged witness to the truth about marriage, which, with the family, is the unalterable foundation of a healthy, humane society.”

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West Coast Walk for Life broke more than one record this year

by Maggie Lawson (CNA/EWTN News) • January 27, 2015

Large crowds took part in the 2015 Walk for Life West Coast in San Francisco, Jan. 24, 2015. (Darwin Sayo/Walk for Life West Coast)

San Francisco, CA — The eleventh annual Walk for Life West Coast broke its own records this year, drawing the largest crowd it has ever seen, as well as more press coverage than in previous years.

“We had by far the largest crowd we have ever had. The plaza was packed – it looked like a football stadium sized crowd,” Eva Muntean, Walk for Life co-founder and organizer, told CNA.

For the past eleven years, Walk for Life West Coast has gathered thousands of people to peacefully march in the name of life. This year, the San Francisco event was held on Jan. 24.

Compared to last year, Muntean believes that the 2015 event was “larger, and as hard as it is to believe, might have even been a bit more lively” than the year before, drawing a crowd of over 55,000 people.

“The youth are out in greater numbers than ever and are quite vocal about their pro-life values,” she went on to say.

Walk for Life West Coast held a rally before marching down Market Street to Justin Herman Plaza. Among the speakers at the rally were EWTN program hosts Jim and Joy Pinto, pro-life speaker Julia Holcomb, and Rev. Clenard Childress, founder of a website designed to reach the African-American community with the truth about abortion.

Muntean particularly highlighted the testimony of Rebekah Buell, who spoke at the rally about her own experience with the RU486 pill reversal procedure.

At eight weeks pregnant, Buell ingested the RU486 pill at an abortion clinic as a means of ending her pregnancy.

“I instantly knew this was a mistake,” she stated in her testimony for the St. Juan Diego Women’s Center in San Jose, California.

After leaving the abortion clinic, Buell rushed to find a doctor who would reverse the effects of the abortion pill. Although the abortion clinic said this would deform her child, she gave birth to a healthy son later that year.

“Rebekah’s story needs to be shared far and wide – she used the procedure to rescue her son Zechariah” after taking the abortion pill, Muntean stated, saying that they have already received emails from people across the country who were not aware that this reversal program was available.

Not only did the Walk for Life West Coast achieve record-breaking crowds, Muntean said, but it also enjoyed unprecedented press coverage.

“This year, our local press did their most thorough job of covering the Walk,” Muntean stated, explaineing that AP, as well as the local ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX stations all covered the Walk for Life West Coast. She also noted that the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle included a story with more than 20 photos in their slideshow.

“The hope is to energize the people to get involved in pro-life work by bringing in more speakers to explain the horrible consequences of abortion,” Muntean stated, adding that their ultimate goal is an end to abortion, so that there will no longer be a need to hold these events.

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The dark side of the Super Bowl and how Congress aims to fight it

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • January 28, 2015

(Claus Tom Christensen via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Washington, D.C. — Just days before Super Bowl XLIX, the U.S. House of Representatives is pushing for a bipartisan crack-down on the hidden menace of sex trafficking, which some human rights advocates refer to as “modern-day slavery.”

“Everyone needs to be put on notice: if you buy or sell an individual like a commodity, the law is coming after you, and you can get up to life imprisonment, according to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act,” announced Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) on Tuesday at the bipartisan End Human Trafficking Press Conference on Capitol Hill.

Smith referenced the upcoming Super Bowl in Glendale, Arizona on Feb. 1 as the center of the next big push to curb sex trafficking. Large sporting events like the Super Bowl and the World Cup have become notorious dens of human sex trafficking with large crowds descending on one city for a short period of time.

“Hopefully the Super Bowl will not see what we’ve seen in previous Super Bowls, and that is the massive exploitation of women,” he stated.

A combination of state and local efforts helped curb trafficking during last year’s Super Bowl in New Jersey, Rep. Smith said, most notably with the arrests of members of a drug and prostitution ring in New York City.

Ultimately, the House hopes to have a dozen bills signed into law before the end of the year. The proposed legislation includes safe-harbor laws for victims of trafficking, encourages treating child prostitutes as victims rather than criminals, penalizes those who provide advertisements for trafficking, and boosts awareness of human traffickers by local law enforcement.

“Every one of these bills meets an unmet need. This is the most creative use of legislative talent I have ever seen,” Smith said.

Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) called the current situation a “crisis in our country.” She noted a particular problem for the trafficking of young people who fall through the cracks in the foster home system.

Last year, the House unanimously passed legislation authored by Bass to help connect child trafficking victims to resources and service that can prevent their further abuse.

The problem of modern-day slavery still however, and it calls for speedy action by Congress, said Rep. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.).

“We’re alarmed by what this industry is doing, how it’s growing in the United States, and not just in urban areas around big events,” Rep. Noem told EWTN. “Everybody thinks human trafficking and sex trafficking is happening at the Super Bowl, at big events. Well it’s also happening at little rural small towns every single day.”

Even Craigslist-style announcements from small South Dakotan towns are bringing in sex slaves, she said, noting that “76 percent of sex trafficking is being done over the internet right now.”

Noem had another horrifying statistic – some child slaves are raped anywhere from 25 to 48 times in one day.

“They need a special kind of help and a special kind of care, and that is something that we aren’t addressing right now for those that come out of this industry,” she said.

In recent years, human rights advocates have sought to bring greater awareness to the ongoing problem of human trafficking, including within the United States.

Last summer, more than 100 U.S. cities were part of “Operation Cross Country VIII,” a crackdown on sex trafficking that was part of an ongoing effort to stop the exploitation of minors through the Innocence Lost National Initiative.

During a week-long series of enforcement, FBI, state and local authorities recovered 168 child victims of sexual exploitation and arrested 281 suspected pimps.

The pressing issue of human trafficking has also drawn the attention of Pope Francis, who has called for global action on the matter.

“In order to eliminate it, we need a mobilization comparable in size to that of the phenomenon itself,” the Pope wrote back in December, calling on consumers to practice “social responsibility” when they make purchases.

The first International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking is in less than two weeks – February 8, the feast day of St. Josephine Bakhita. Just this past year, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace with the International Union of Superiors General at the Vatican determined that the Day of Prayer and Awareness would be global.

St. Josephine Bakhita was herself a victim of slavery in the 19th century. After she was freed, she entered the Canossian Daughters of Charity where she served the poor and shared her own story of slavery.

“It’s awe-inspiring to think that Catholics from so many different countries will gather together on the same day to pray for the same cause,” stated the executive director of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Migration and Refugee Services, Ambassador Johnny Young.

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Who’s entering religious life these days?

by CNA/EWTN News • January 28, 2015

(Michael Foley via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Washington D.C. — U.S. Catholics are being encouraged to get to know local religious communities, as a new study offers insight into the potential impact of vocational programs, Catholic schools, and encouragement in discerning.

“I encourage everyone to take advantage of the opportunity to visit local religious communities in their own area during the Day of Religious Open Houses, Sunday, February 8,” Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Raleigh, N.C. said Jan. 26.

Bishop Burbidge, who chairs the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, stressed the importance for youth and young adults to have “greater exposure and familiarity with the community life of religious.”

His comments came in response to the latest survey of Catholics who professed perpetual vows last year at nearly 800 communities of religious life in the U.S. According to the U.S. bishops’ conference, the survey reported that 89 percent of the professed religious had participated in some kind of vocation program or experience before joining their religious institute.

The survey, conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, involved 41 brothers and 77 sisters and nuns. The respondents were among the 190 vowed religious whose contact information major superiors had provided to the center.

Those who made perpetual vows in 2014 had an average age of 37. About 67 percent identified as white, 15 percent as Hispanic, and 14 percent as Asian. About 94 percent of Asian respondents and one-third of Hispanic respondents were foreign born. The most numerous foreign-born vowed religious came from the Philippines, followed by Vietnam.

About 40 percent attended a Catholic elementary school, about the same percentage for all Catholic adults in the U.S. They were more likely than the general Catholic population to have attended a Catholic high school and much more likely to have attended a Catholic college.

Most vowed religious said that educational debt did not delay their applications to their religious institutes, though those with debt owed an average of $15,750. Several women religious, but no male religious, reported receiving help in paying down their debt

Brother Humbert Kilanowski, a member of the St. Joseph Province of the Dominican friars, said he didn’t consider a priestly religious vocation in earnest until he was “well into graduate school.”

“But even though I couldn’t have foreseen it, I’m happier as a religious than I could be anywhere else, and I thank God for surprising me with his grace,” he said.

About 86 percent of the vowed religious respondents were raised Catholic from birth. About 91 percent said they regularly practiced private prayer before entering their religious institute.

The average age at which respondents said they started considering a religious vocation was 19. About half said a parish priest or a religious sister or brother encouraged their vocation. Twenty-five percent said their mother had encouraged them to pursue their vocation, while 15 percent said their father had. Nearly 60 percent said they had been discouraged from considering a religious vocation, often by a family member, friend or classmate.

Sister Ann Kateri Hamm of the Franciscan Sisters of Renewal, a Harvard graduate, said she felt called to religious life “from a young age” but “I was hesitant to share openly about it.”

“It was not until I was engaged to be married that I knew for sure that God had made my heart to be totally his – and he gave the grace to finally say yes to my religious vocation,” she said.

The Catholic Church’s observance of the Year of Consecrated Life began Nov. 30 last year.

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Bishops use Supreme Court case to call for death penalty abolition

by CNA/EWTN News • January 28, 2015

Lethal injection room at the New Mexico state penitentiary. (Ken Piorkowsk)

Washington D.C. — Several bishops in the U.S. have welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to re-examine death penalty protocols, and have called for the abolition of the death penalty.

“We pray that the court’s review of these protocols will lead to the recognition that institutionalized practices of violence against any person erode reverence for the sanctity of every human life. Capital punishment must end,” Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who chairs the U.S. bishops’ pro-life activities committee, said Jan. 27.

Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, who chairs the committee on domestic justice, said recent executions have shown “how the use of the death penalty devalues human life and diminishes respect for human dignity.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has announced it will consider the case Glossip v. Gross, brought by three Oklahoma death row inmates, Richard Glossip, John Grant, and Benjamin Cole.

The inmates’ lawsuit asks the court to reject the three-drug protocol used in Oklahoma executions, saying it can cause extreme pain that violates constitutional bans on cruel and unusual punishment. Among the drugs in the cocktail is midazolam, a sedative.

The case was filed in response to the botched April 2014 execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma, which took more than 40 minutes. Although sedated, his body writhed and he breathed heavily as he was being killed. He eventually died of a heart attack.

Oklahoma officials said Lockett’s vein failed during the execution, which prevented the lethal drugs from working as intended. Other reports said officials failed to deliver the intravenous drug properly.

Following Lockett’s execution, Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin had issued a temporary stay of the exeuction of Charles Warner. The federal government also investigated the execution practices.

Warner, who was one of the inmates listed as a plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, was executed in mid-January. Supreme Court justices, by a vote of 5-4, voted not to stay the execution of Warner, who was a convicted child rapist and murderer.

Glossip, was scheduled to be executed Jan. 29.

However, the Supreme Court granted a stay of execution Jan. 28 to all three living inmates who are plaintiffs in the case, writing that “it is hereby ordered that petitioners’ executions using midazolam are stayed pending final disposition of this case.”

It is disputed whether or not midazolam produces a deep enough sleep for the inmate to experience less pain when the other two drugs of the cocktail are administered.

The Supreme Court failed to stay not only Warner’s Jan. 15 execution, but also the Jan. 27 execution of Warren Hill in Georgia. Hill’s execution was being challenged on grounds of intellectual disability.

Catholic leaders have criticized the continued use of capital punishment.

Cardinal O’Malley said that society can protect itself “in ways other than the use of the death penalty.”

“We bishops continue to say, we cannot teach killing is wrong by killing,” Archbishop Wenski added.

The inmates’ attorney, Dale Baich, characterized Oklahoma’s new drug protocols as “novel and experimental.”

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has defended the state’s use of lethal injection, saying its constitutionality has been affirmed by two federal courts. Defending the constitutionality of the execution procedure will preserve the Oklahoma Department of Correction’s ability “to proceed with the sentences that were given to each inmate by a jury of their peers,” he said Jan. 23.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear the inmates’ case in April.

States that use lethal injections have faced increasing difficulty in obtaining the drugs used, mainly because the drugs’ manufacturers refuse to sell them for use in lethal executions, NBC News reports.

In May 2014, Ohio’s botched execution of inmate Dennis McGuire, which also used midazolam, also prompted calls to revisit the death penalty.

Several U.S. states have moved away from capital punishment in recent years. In total, 18 states have abolished capital punishment.

The U.S. bishops’ conference cited Pope Francis’ October 2014 call to abolish the death penalty “in all its forms.” The conference is working with state Catholic conferences, the Catholic Mobilizing Network, as well as with other groups, to work to abolish the death penalty in the U.S. In 2005, the bishops launched the Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty.

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A tale of two cakes: Colorado’s far-reaching religious freedom fight

by Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • January 28, 2015

(California Bakery via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Denver, CO — The battleground for religious freedom is currently the soft, frosted tops of cakes in Colorado.

Jack Phillips, owner of the Lakewood, Colo., Masterpiece Cakeshop, was sued in July 2012 for refusing to make a same-sex “wedding” cake on the grounds that it violated his Christian beliefs. He and his staff were ordered by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission to undergo anti-discrimination training and to submit quarterly reports on changing company policies.

In July 2014, the commission rejected Phillips request to temporarily suspend the orders against him while his case proceeds in court.

It has recently come to light that at that same hearing, Diann Rice, a member of the commission, compared Phillips’ case to that of the Holocaust, which cost 6 million Jewish lives, and slavery.

“Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust,” Commissioner Rice said at the hearing.

“And to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use – to use their religion to hurt others.”

Meanwhile, down the street in Denver, Azucar Bakery owner Marjorie Silva is fighting a similar battle, but with a slightly different twist.

Bill Jack approached Azucar bakery in March 2014 and ordered a Bible-shaped cake. When the cake was nearly done, Jack asked Silva to add two men holding hands with an X through them, and anti-gay written sentiments to the cake.

When Silva refused to create the cake, Jack told KUSA-TV he believed he “was discriminated against by the bakery based on my creed.”

Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Colorado, who has supported the legal action against Phillips, contended that the case differs from Phillips because he had refused to make any wedding cake for two men, while Silva only objected to a single message.

But Alliance Defending Freedom senior legal counsel Jeremy Tedesco, who is supporting Philips’ case, said these two cases are dealing with the exact same principle.

“Whether you have a narrow objection or a broad objection, what matters is the basis of your objection, the fact that you don’t want to engage in expression that violates your beliefs,” he said. “They’re both in the exact same position, they both don’t want to create a cake that expresses a message that they disagree with.”

Tedesco said the Azucar case will make for a telling test of the Civil Rights Commission and the American Civil Liberties Union, as far as which rights and whose rights they are willing to uphold.

“They’re either going to have to play favorites when it comes to these issues … or they’re going to have to disregard everybody’s rights and say that no one has this first amendment freedom in Colorado.”

“The ACLU is now having to say, under these circumstances (Silva) has every right to say no,” Tedesco added. “So if we were to rely on the ACLU for when to creating a cake creation is speech and when it’s not, I guarantee you, the only people who would ever be creating expression when they bake cakes are people who agree with the ACLU’s ideological beliefs.”

Tedesco added that he found the commissioner’s anti-religious sentiments during Phillips’ hearing to be disquieting.

“Such alarming bias and hostility toward Jack’s religious beliefs – and toward religion in general – has no place in civil society, let alone on a governmental commission that sits in judgment of whether he may follow his faith in how he runs his business,” he said.

“Commissioner Rice compared a private citizen who owns a small bakery to slaveholders and Holocaust perpetrators merely for asking that the state respect his right to free speech and free exercise of religion.”

CNA sought comment from the Department of Regulatory Agencies, which oversees the commission. A spokeswoman said that the department staff and commission members are not free to discuss the hearing because it is presently before the Colorado Court of Appeals.

These two cake cases are part of an increasing trend against religious freedom, warned Tedesco, and all Americans should be concerned. He pointed out that a flower shop in Washington State has been sued for declining to take part in a same-sex ceremony and an Idaho wedding chapel run by a husband and wife who are both ordained ministers has been told to perform same-sex ceremonies or face the possibility of jail time or fines.

“A government that forces any American to create a message contrary to his own convictions and surrender his livelihood is a government every American should fear,” Tedesco said. “Today the government is targeting Jack Phillips, but tomorrow it could be you.”

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On feast of St. Thomas, teachers called to mercifully challenge students

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • January 28, 2015

Mass for the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Jan. 27, 2015. (Rachel Salamone/CUA)

Washington, D.C. — Catholics must be “merciful teachers” in eliciting the best from everyone around them, said a prominent Dominican preacher on the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas.

“Our call, religious, ordained, and laity alike, is to be ‘merciful teachers who wake up the world’,” the Very Rev. Ken Letoile, O.P., told Mass attendants at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He cited Pope Francis’ call for the consecrated religious to “wake up the world.”

“It should not be surprising that St. Thomas thinks teaching is a profound spiritual work of mercy: ‘Instructing the ignorant’,” Fr. Letoile added. Former students revere their exceptional teachers precisely because “they demanded the most of us, as they called forth from us – the root meaning of the word ‘educate ‘ – they called forth our best work.”

“They formed us in the truth. They were merciful to us, because we are made to know the truth and to rejoice in it. We are not meant to be ignorant.”

Fr. Letoile is the prior provincial for the Dominican Province of St. Joseph, the eastern quarter of the four Dominican U.S. provinces. He preached at the annual Mass of St. Thomas Aquinas at the National Shrine on Jan. 28.

Fr. Letoile was joined by over 50 concelebrants from the neighboring Catholic University of America, Dominican House of Studies, and other seminaries and consecrated religious houses of studies.

The Mass was co-sponsored by Catholic University, the Dominican House of Studies, and the National Catholic Educational Association. It heralded the new academic semester and celebrated Catholic Schools Week. St. Thomas is also the patron saint of Catholic schools.

“One of my revered Dominican teachers once told us that before he entered the classroom he would pray for grace he needed to love the students he was about to teach,” Fr. Letoile shared. “In the words of today’s first reading, ‘I pleaded and the spirit of wisdom came to me.’ That’s the humility that is key to our call to be merciful teachers.”

St. Thomas was transformed by “merciful teaching,” Fr. Letoile added.

Thomas’ teacher, St. Albert the Great, “saw in his shy student what none of Aquinas’ other teachers and none of his classmates could see: a gifted genius in love with the Lord, who would, one day, teach the world about the mysteries of the Christian faith.”

Speaking at the end of Mass, Catholic University president John Garvey said the academic vocation is ultimately about God and not an egotistical pursuit of knowledge.

“Thomas’ example shows that the academic vocation is not a game. It’s not something we win by racking up the highest GPA or making the most clever arguments,” Garvey stated.

“For St. Thomas the goal of studying theology was to acquire the knowledge we need to direct our lives toward God, the final goal.” When students do not live what they study, he added, “our studies can be like conversations in an echo chamber. The reverberations build and build until the sound is unintelligible.”

National Catholic Schools Week begins every last Sunday of January and continues through the week. It “is the annual celebration of Catholic education in the U.S.,” according to the National Catholic Education Association.

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Measles are making a comeback, so what does the Church teach about vaccines?

by Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • January 29, 2015

(Debora Cartagena/CDC)

Denver, CO — Disneyland is supposed to be the Happiest Place on Earth, not the place where you contract a highly contagious, once-eradicated disease.

Unfortunately, that is what happened at Disneyland in California, starting back in December. The measles virus, likely carried by a tourist from a foreign country, started a chain of infections that has now reached at least 87 people in seven states and Mexico. The outbreak has also resurfaced arguments surrounding the vaccination of children.

At least 73 of the reported cases are in California, a state with large pockets of people opposed to vaccination. Some places in southern California reach unvaccinated rates of double digits, sometimes tripling the state and national averages, which are around 3 and 5 percent respectively.

Dr. Paul Cieslak is a Catholic parent of six who has overseen the Acute and Communicable Disease Prevention section in the Public Health Division of the Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS) since 1995. He is also a member of the Catholic Medical Association, an organization committed to upholding the teachings of the Catholic Church while advancing the profession of medicine.

According to Dr. Cieslak, opposition to vaccines largely comes from misinformation regarding side effects.

“It is true that occasionally you can get a nasty side effect from a vaccine, as from any medicine,” he told CNA. “That said, the vaccines are very safe, tens or hundreds of millions of doses of this thing have been given with very little problem.”

Others who oppose vaccines fall into the category of religious or conscientious objectors. Many who oppose vaccines on religious grounds do so because the cell lines of some vaccines were developed from cells of aborted fetuses.

Dr. Marie T. Hilliard is a canon lawyer and the Director of Bioethics and Public Policy at the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), a non-profit research and educational institute committed to applying the moral teachings of the Catholic Church to ethical issues arising in health care and the life sciences.

The NCBC, along with the Pontifical Academy for life, have studied the moral issues surrounding vaccines and have determined that it is morally licit, and even morally responsible, for Catholics to use even those vaccines developed from aborted fetus cells.

“There’s a whole formula for examining these dilemmas in terms of what we call cooperation in evil, and there are certain things that are always wrong, and there are certain things that are tolerable,” Dr. Hilliard told CNA.

The Pontifical Academy for Life determined that the good of public health outweighs the distanced cooperation in the evil of the abortions performed in the 1960s from which the cell lines were developed. No new abortions have been performed to maintain these vaccines, and no cells from the victims of the abortions are contained in the vaccines.

Currently the vaccine lines for rubella, chicken pox, and hepatitis A are the remaining vaccines that have been developed from aborted fetal cells and for which there is no alternative available.

“One is morally free to use the vaccine regardless of its historical association with abortion,” reads a document from the NCBC based on the findings from the Pontifical Academy for Life. “The reason is that the risk to public health, if one chooses not to vaccinate, outweighs the legitimate concern about the origins of the vaccine. This is especially important for parents, who have a moral obligation to protect the life and health of their children and those around them.”

Those particularly susceptible to disease who can benefit from “herd immunity” (when the majority of a population is vaccinated) include children too young to be fully vaccinated, pregnant women, and those with suppressed immunity such as cancer patients.

The document goes on to say that Catholics should express their opposition to vaccines developed from aborted cells, and that there is an obligation to use alternative vaccines, should they exist.

Dr. Cieslak said he has vaccinated his children and encourages his patients to do so as well.

“As a parent, I don’t want my kids to get sick, I want them to feel confident when they go into school or crowds or other settings that they don’t have to fear whatever disease,” he said. “As a doctor and especially as a public health guy, I like to see the disease rates go down, I like to see the population healthier, I like to see less money being spent on treating diseases that are preventable.”

Still, Dr. Cieslak believes that people should be allowed the freedom to refuse vaccines if they yet cannot reconcile them with their consciences.

“I think we are not cooperating in the evil of abortion by vaccinating our kids because we had nothing to do with the original abortions, that’s a done deed,” he said. “But still I know parental consciences are bothered by this and I think some rightfully so, and so I think we need to respect that.”

Barbara Loe Fischer, Co-Founder and President of the National Vaccine Information Center, believes all parents should have the right to informed consent and should be allowed to determine which vaccines, if any, are right for their children.

“Informed consent means that you have the right to be fully informed about the benefits and the risks of medical intervention, and be able to exercise voluntary decision making, you’re able to make a voluntary decision without being coerced or harassed or punished for the decision you make,” Fisher told CNA.

“It’s an ethical principal, it’s a human right, and that means it should apply to vaccines as well.”

Fischer said she is concerned about the “blame and shame” being poured out on the unvaccinated in the wake of the recent measles outbreak, and encourages parents to read the product manufacturer inserts of vaccines as well as medical literature and information available on sites such as the CDC’s website.

“I think that when people are judging the quality of information, they only need to look at it and see are the statements backed up?” she said. “And if they’re backed up with good resources, then they can take that more seriously.”

While the new measles cases are cause for concern, the outbreak isn’t nearly as bad as it could be, and that is thanks to vaccinations, Dr. Cieslak said.

“The fact that it doesn’t spread to everybody is a testimony to the fact that most of them are immune, and most of them got that way through vaccinations,” he said. “And when we have seen transmission of multiple cases, it’s been largely among unvaccinated people.”

“As a Catholic I would argue that it’s a socially conscious thing to do,” Dr. Cieslak said. “It’s not only good for you, it’s good for your fellow man.”

Frequently asked questions about vaccines from a moral standpoint can be found on the National Catholic Bioethic’s Center website at: ncbcenter.org/page.aspx?pid=1284

The Pontifical Academy for Life’s statement on vaccines can be found at: cogforlife.org/vaticanresponse.htm

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Assisted living centers defeat HHS mandate in court

by CNA/EWTN News • January 29, 2015

(Marea Howse CC0 1.0)

Denver, CO — A federal court has permanently barred the Obama administration from enforcing the federal contraception mandate against the group of Evangelical-owned senior citizen and assisted living centers.

“All Americans should oppose unjust laws that allow the government to force people to surrender their constitutionally protected freedom to live and work according to their deepest beliefs,” Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Michael J. Norton said Jan. 27.

Norton’s legal group filed the challenge to the federal rule on behalf of Stephen W. Brisco, who owns several Colorado companies that operate senior citizen residences, assisted living centers, and skilled nursing facilities and related businesses that mange them.

Brisco, an Evangelical Christian, objected to federal mandates that he provide employees with insurance coverage for contraceptive drugs that can cause abortions.

Refusal to provide the coverage would have resulted in heavy fines.

Norton said that Americans have a “clearly protected right” to be “free from this type of government coercion at home, in their family businesses, and in non-profit endeavors that benefit everyone.”

On Jan. 27 a U.S. District Court for Colorado issued a permanent injunction against the federal government from enforcing the mandate. It cited the Supreme Court’s June 2014 ruling that the mandate’s application to closely-held private companies like Hobby Lobby violated the 1993 federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The Supreme Court had said the government had not shown that the mandate was the least restrictive means of achieving its goal of providing free contraceptives to employees.

The Obama administration announced the controversial mandate in 2012. It requires employers to cover sterilization, contraception and some drugs that can cause abortions. Its narrow exemption for those with religious and moral objections to the coverage drew much criticism and prompted many legal challenges.

Norton said the Obama administration should give up what he described as “its blind and indefensible efforts to punish people of faith.”

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How one Catholic school takes a hammer to the cycle of poverty

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • January 30, 2015

San Miguel School in Northwest Washington, D.C. (John MacArthur)

Washington D.C. — During Catholic Schools Week, the president of a small school in Washington, D.C. explained its humble origins, extraordinary mission, and its hopes for the future.

“We intentionally seek out kids who can’t afford to go here and who are at risk,” Don Mullikin told CNA. He chairs the board of San Miguel School in Northwest Washington, D.C., a middle school catering exclusively to low-income immigrant families.

“When it comes to Pope Francis, his message is simple and clear, and it’s what we do: helping others who are more needy than you.”

The school is sponsored, but not owned, by the De La Salle Brothers. Its mission is in the La Sallian tradition of the “preferential option for the poor.”

That ministry dates back to the 1600s when St. Jean Baptiste de La Salle served the poor in France through Christian education, hoping to break their “cycle of poverty.”

And in the same way, San Miguel exists to break the “cycle of poverty.” The formula is not easy, because the students enter the middle school a year or two behind the sixth grade level. In three years, they must be ready to excel at a private Catholic high school.

In short, the school crams five years of education into three calendar years. Students attend school year-round for nine hours a day.

The enrollment is small – only 65 students – and is only male and middle school-age.

This is an extremely formative and important age, Mullikin explained, providing the best opportunity to prepare kids for high school, something many of their parents never got to accomplish.

With the small enrollment the principal knows every student, so “you cannot slip through the cracks.”

The students are all from immigrant families, half of them Salvadoran and the rest from other parts of Latin America. And every family starts out at or below the poverty line. Admission is made on a financial basis “in reverse.”

Thus, tuition is almost completely free, which separates San Miguel from other parochial schools. “We are reliant upon the good will and contributions of the community to survive,” Mullikin stated. “Most parochial schools don’t want to take our kids who can’t pay.”

Many families just pay the minimum of $50 a month. Those who can afford to pay more may do so. But the school doesn’t just cover education; it also provides counseling, breakfast, lunch, and extracurricular activities. It is almost completely dependent upon donors and foundations for its income.

Yet these low-income students leave with a ticket to a Catholic high school. The acceptance rate at Catholic high schools in the area is 100 percent, and 97 percent of alumni either have a high school diploma or are pursuing one. In comparison, that rate is 50 percent for all Latino males in the D.C. area.

The immigrant parents of students are extremely hard-working but do not know the “foreign” American school system, Mullikin explained. Thus they may not know of options like San Miguel.

“What’s really important is allowing these families to fulfill their dream of making it better for the next generation,” he said.

The parents are “working their fingers to the bone day and night,” he added. They don’t have time to research the U.S. school system. “We have to really reach out to them and teach them about the school.”

Cramming five years of education into three calendar years is an apt metaphor for the school. It seems a daunting task but not only does it work, it succeeds marvelously.

The end product, he said, is “well-educated boys who are young men who are prepared to succeed in high school.”

The school does not stop helping a student once he graduates, either. A counselor has a full-time job of checking in on each alumnus in high school, ensuring that any needs of theirs are met and that they are succeeding in school. This establishes a “safety net” that goes beyond the San Miguel years.

One example Mullikin gave was of a graduate who wasn’t eating lunch at his high school because he didn’t have the money. Once San Miguel discovered this they alerted his high school. The administration quickly took care of the problem and gave him a cafeteria card.

“If that safety net wasn’t there, he wouldn’t be eating,” Mullikin said.

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Why We Don’t Let the Neighbors Tell Us How to Raise the Kids

by Jenny Uebbing • January 28, 2015

My dear fellow Catholics. My brothers and sisters.

We are, in fact, in a rather unique family, are we not?

Huge. Dysfunctional. Multitalented. Holy. Scandalous. Disappointing. Inspiring.

It’s much like any other family, plus or minus about a billion members.

We have our quirks and our shortcomings, our saints and our sinners. We are imperfect and wonderfully weird and, first and foremost, we are universal.

That’s unbelievably ambitious, by the way, for God to cobble something together from so many disparate and diverse members and call it holy and apostolic. If nothing else convinces you of the divinity behind the longevity of Catholicism, let it be this: that we haven’t all killed each other yet.

And so now we have the internet. The 24/7 news cycle. The entire world up in each other’s business in a way previously unfathomable to mankind. And there are pros and cons to this never-ending glut of information to process. I would offer as a giant con the seemingly global disability to process well, at least for 99% of the literate populace. We’re very good at emoting and reacting. We’re less adept at reasoning and reflecting.

Each era has its own challenges and triumphs. We live in the Information Age, for better or worse, and so we must learn what (and whether) to do with the information that is assaulting our eyeballs and our eardrums at literally every waking moment. Do we process it all? Filter it out? React to everything that moves us?

Social media complicates this further, because everyone has a platform and, therefore, the right to exercise it. It’s the great equalizer, making would-be journalists and talking heads of us all.

But remember, not all sources of information are created equal. And not everyone with a loud microphone and a robust Twitter following has the capacity to speak thoughtfully and thoroughly on a given issue.

My biggest complaint with the Francis papacy, 2 years in, is the reaction of seemingly well-formed and practicing Catholics to the Things He Says Which Are Outrageous.

Let me back up and preface what is about to be said; it is true that this Holy Father of ours is not the most eloquent speaker. It is true that he speaks his heart readily, and that he uses culturally-hamstrung idioms and analogies. He is not an intellectual, first and foremost (and I don’t think he would take offense at my saying so) and he is not a philosopher. His worldview was most decidedly not formed by the Western/European experience.

But he is the Pope. He is the Successor of Peter, chosen by his brother cardinals under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead the Church now, today, in the year 2015. Not in the year 2012 or 1987 or 1334. He’s here for us, right now. Just as each of us were handpicked to live in such a time as this.

And if I don’t agree with everything that comes out of his mouth (and I don’t) and if some of what I read in his writings makes me squirm (and it does), there’s one thing for certain: I’m sure as hell not going to let someone from outside the family tell me what I should think about it.

Now, there’s nothing stopping my next door neighbor, my barista, or the lady at our local grocery store from commenting on how I’m raising my kids, how closely spaced they are, or what kinds of trash I’m serving up at the dinner table, but freedom of speech is not the same thing as rightful authority.

See what I’m saying?

Yes, the guy at Starbucks can comment on my mewling pack of toddlers and advise me to put a stranglehold on the flow of progeny issuing forth from our marital union, but I’m not about to invite him into our bedroom to pour over my NFP charts and help us decide if and when the time is right for another kid.

He can comment away all he likes, but I don’t have to (and sure as hell shouldn’t, in fact) listen.

Similarly, CNN, MSNBC, the AP, America magazine, your token crackpot blogger, and all the rest are very, very free to comment on every thing the Pope says and does, what it means, what it doesn’t mean, and what you, as a Catholic, SIMPLY MUST DO ABOUT IT.

But you know better than to be getting your family business from the guy at the post office, don’t you?

You’re not really going to let someone outside the family - and as is often the case, utterly opposed to the very existence of the family - tell you your family business, are you?

Misquotable or not, Pope Francis is our Pope. He’s our father. He’s also a figure of contradiction and amusement and confusion and excitement and all the other adjectives for the rest of the world, looking on in wonder/disgust/mild curiosity. So yes, he will be in the news. And yes, all the things he says will be analyzed and dissected and translated and represented to you, the consumer, to ingest.

But it’s your responsibility to monitor the quality.

I can’t expect to have a well-formed opinion of or appreciation for the Pope if all I read about him comes through the secular media who simultaneously reviles the Catholic Church and desperately wants to see her fall into ruin. I can’t seriously hope to allow the Holy Spirit to work through him on my little old heart if, instead of reading his encyclicals and his homilies, all I know of him is filtered through a Buzzfeed article or Rachel Maddow’s stimulating commentary.

Come on.

Would you let someone talk about your biological father that way? Would you give them that same authority over your opinion of him?

I thought not.

It’s an imperfect analogy, because yes, the Pope is a very public figure. But remember this: we have a responsibility before God to answer for the information we take in, be it in the form of entertainment or “news.” We’re not just open trash receptacles, and words and ideas have consequences. So don’t let someone who doesn’t have your - or your family’s - best interests at heart be the one to tell you your family business.

Your mama raised you better than that.

Jenny Uebbing is the content director of our marriage and family life channel, where her blog Mama Needs Coffee will be permanently hosted. She lives in Denver, CO with her family, where she writes and speaks on Church teachings on marriage, contraception, NFP and bioethics.

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A man of frugal speech

by Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J. • January 28, 2015

He is honored as a Doctor of the Church, the Angelic Doctor, the Church’s “very own theologian and philosopher,” and patron of Catholic schools and universities.

Today is the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas, Dominican friar, priest, philosopher, and theologian. He died in 1274 when he was not quite fifty, leaving his unfinished magnum opus, the Summa Theologiae. Down through the centuries, college students and scholars alike have poured over this masterpiece of clarity, line by line.

His biographers record that on Dec 6, 1273, while celebrating Mass, Thomas fell into ecstasy. Though he didn’t speak of it, his secretary begged him to continue his work on the Summa, but he replied, “Reginald, I cannot, because all that I have written seems like straw.” He never again wrote or dictated anything.

His Life, Summarized

Thomas Aquinas was born in Roccasecca, a small town near Monte Cassino in the Northern Kingdom of Sicily. As a child, he was educated first by the Benedictines at Monte Cassino and later studied at the University of Naples. Ridiculed by fellow students as a “dumb ox” because of his taciturn manner, he cared little if they thought him a dunce. His powers of analysis and abstraction soon proved them wrong. What is it that they say about still water running deep?

Though intellectually superior to his opponents, Thomas avoided personal attacks on them when given the chance to embarrass them. G.K. Chesterton writes that “he had a massive and magnetic presence; he had an intellect that could act like a huge system of artillery spread over the whole world; he had that instantaneous presence of mind in debate, which alone really deserves the name of wit. But it never occurred to him to use anything except his wits, in defense of a truth, distinct from himself. It never occurred to Aquinas to use Aquinas as a weapon.”

Despite fierce opposition from his family, Thomas chose to enter the Dominican Order, attracted as he was to its charism of teaching and preaching. His became a protégé of the distinguished scientist and future Dominican saint, Albert the Great, who predicted that the teaching of his student ‘would one day produce such a bellowing that it would be heard throughout the world.’

Thomas lectured at the university level all his life, at the University of Paris and in his own Italian province. In 1274, Gregory X asked him to attend the Second Council of Lyon to reconcile the Latin West with Greek Orthodox Christendom. On his way, he fell ill. He died in the nearby Cistercian Abbey of Fossa Nuova.

Work Ethic of St. Thomas

Some people love to work at their art or profession with little diversion. Mozart, for one, was never not composing. Whether he was walking or riding in a carriage, even in his sleep, he was working on a piece of music. He died at thirty-six, having composed more than six hundred works. The same could be said of Johann Sebastian Bach who died at sixty-five, his compositions numbering more than one thousand. Every week, he had to write a cantata for the Lutheran Sunday service, the long one, lasting four hours and the short one, only two.

Aquinas was known as a clear and original thinker and a powerhouse of quiet, consistent energy. In his style, Thomas strove for clarity, reserve, and transparency. He tried to reflect the order of the world with rigor and clarity. The theological synthesis of the Summa Theologiae dealt with topics such as the atheism and existence of God, how to know God, and what we would today call language about God through analogy, humankind, its virtues and vices, Jesus Christ and the Incarnation, and the sacraments. There were other ‘summas,’ academic disputations, expositions of Sacred Scripture, writings on Aristotle, and polemical writings! Thomas arranged for a well-organized staff of secretaries to copy needed texts and take dictation, as his own handwriting was illegible. The New Catholic Encyclopedia shows a facsimile of an autograph manuscript with an example of his littera inintellligibis (14:103). The scope and content of his works are breathtaking! Unrivalled!

In the thirteenth century, Europe was a world of three faiths, the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim. Though the Protestant Revolt was still some three hundred years away, the Church faced a deepening schism between the Latin and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Reconciliation was high on the Church’s agenda.

In his pursuit of truth, Thomas’ enlisted the views not only of Christian writers like Augustine and Anselm but also of men of other faiths, including the Jewish philosopher Maimonides and the Muslims, Avicenna and Averroes. They became interlocutors in the Summa Theologiae. For Thomas, “there was no opposition between truths discovered by reason and those revealed by God” (W. Principe, “St. Thomas Aquinas, Encyclopedia of Catholicism, 94).

Aristotle confirmed Thomas’ own belief that human knowledge begins with experience; ‘nothing is found in the intellect which is not first found in the senses.’ Because of the Incarnation, the divine is humanized, and the human is divinized. Thomas could see in the senses the wonder of the Incarnation.

One Line, Studied and Studied Again

The Ancients and the Church Fathers couldn’t quite formulate a satisfactory definition of beauty. It took Thomas Aquinas to sum up ancient and patristic teaching on beauty, offering a terse definition of it: “Beauty relates to the cognitive faculty; for beautiful things are those things which please when they are seen” (Summa Theologiae, I, q 5, a4,). Beauty is what pleases the eye (id quod visum placet). He gives three formal criteria of beauty: (1) integrity or wholeness, (2) proportion or harmony, and (3) clarity, brilliance or radiance.

Something is beautiful not because I say so, or because I like it. A thing has beauty, and it pleases me if I have the capability of seeing the beauty. There has to be something beautiful outside of me before I can respond to it as beautiful. A beautiful sunset presents itself to me, and I respond to it as beautiful. An easy example to grasp.

Integrity or wholeness means that the parts fit together as a unified and intelligible whole. Proportion or harmony connotes a certain aptitude of the parts fitting together to produce its overall harmony that is good. The idea of proportion conjures up ballet dancers, trapeze artists, the sitting Buddha or a Pythagorean theorem. Here we see balance, symmetry, and harmony at their finest.

Finally, brilliance refers to things that are what they should be. Because of this, they are lightsome and conspicuous. These three criteria are taken together as one.

So much for an abbreviated discussion of Thomas’ simple sentence, “Beauty is that which pleases the eye” (id quod visum placet).

Conclusion

The Church has found in St. Thomas Aquinas a shining exemplar of sanctity and scholarship. Thomas was that official theologian “who treated the radiant power of Christ’s revelation without any trace of decadence. But after Thomas Aquinas, theologians of such stature are rare.” For several hundred years, his influence was so widespread, that after him came schools of theology that were essentially a process of commentary on his works.” (Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord II, 16). The poem below by Emily Dickinson is a fitting tribute to this saint and scholar.

I fear a Man of frugal Speech —

I fear a Silent Man —

Haranguer — I can overtake —

Or Babbler — entertain —

But He who weigheth — While the Rest —

Expend their furthest pound —

Of this Man — I am wary —

I fear that He is Grand — .

Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph, Brentwood, NY, holds degrees in philosophy (Ph.L), musicology (Ph.D.), theology (M.A.), and liturgical studies (Ph.D). She has taught at all levels of Catholic education and writes with a particular focus on a theology of beauty and the sacred arts. Her e-mail address is jroccasalvo@optonline.net.

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Housework can be a source of profound spirituality

by Msgr. M. Francis Mannion • January 29, 2015

One of the projects I have been undertaking in my spare time over the past month or so is going through my library and separating the books I want to keep from those I want to, well, get rid of.

One of the nice things about this project is rediscovering books that I read years ago but had forgotten. One such book is by Kathryn Allen Rabuzzi entitled, The Sacred and the Feminine: Toward a Theology of Housework. I recommend this book (published in 1982, but still in print) to anyone looking for an insightful understanding of housework and the task of homemaking.

Rabuzzi’s thesis is that women who do housework are, whether they know it or not, doing something religious. Housework, she says, represents a participation in one of the most fundamental of human roles — that of bringing order out of chaos and turning the world into a more friendly and benevolent place.

In the tasks of cooking, cleaning, washing, and ironing, the mother is ritualizing in a simple way the innate desire of the human person to bring order, harmony, and coherence to a universe in which chaos and disorder reign. She beautifies the home, and makes it good and holy. She is a maker of sacred space.

As Rabuzzi sees it, the mother fights disorder and disharmony, and seeks to keep everything in its proper place. In cleaning up after the minor disasters that children wreak, she is ritually symbolizing the restoration of order — one of the goals all religion.

Like the Church, Rabuzzi points out, the home is a place of refuge and protection from the chaotic world. The home is a symbol of salvation. People instinctively associate home with safety from all kinds of outside threats. Home is a place that keeps its inhabitants safe from the elements, from threatening people, and from fearful encounters.

The home, in Rabuzzi’s vision, serves as a foundational symbol of human belonging. Being “at home” is synonymous with contentment and happiness. We commonly speak of being “at home” with ourselves, and with family and friends. By the same token, homelessness signifies not only a physical condition, but also a painful spiritual experience.

Rabuzzi says that in her task of caretaking, the mother is functioning in a role akin to that practiced by priests in various religions. She is the source and maker of peace, healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation. She banishes fear, and casts out the “evil spirits” that inhabit the minds of children in the form of unwarranted fears.

In the task of bathing and washing, there is a certain analogy with the Church’s practice of baptism. The mother’s role of cooking and feeding functions as an image of what the Church does in the celebration of the Eucharist.

Rabuzzi is no sentimentalist. She does not cast the home or the tasks of housework in an unrealistic or idyllic light. Nor is she anti-feminist. Housework and homemaking are also the responsibility of fathers and husbands — and much of what she says can be applied to the role of men in the home. However, she holds that there is a distinctly feminine character to the task of making and running the household.

This book can give encouragement to mothers who have chosen to remain at home and devote their full-time energy to homemaking. It is a wonderful exercise in the spirituality of the ordinary. It is particularly valuable in light of the cultural tendency to downgrade and undervalue the traditional role of homemakers.

Msgr. Mannion is pastor emeritus of St. Vincent de Paul parish in Salt Lake City. He holds a Ph.D in sacramental theology from The Catholic University of America. He was founding president of The Society for Catholic Liturgy in 1995 and the founding editor of the Societys journal, Antiphon. At the invitation of Cardinal Francis George of Chicago he founded the Mundelein Liturgical Institute in 2000.

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Movie Review: ‘Black Or White’

by Carl Kozlowski • January 30, 2015

Amid an era in which racial tensions are boiling over more than they have in decades, America is looking for positive solutions to calm the storms. The movie “Selma” has come into sharp cultural focus as a result, due to its stirring depiction of Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Yet while that film does manage to bring those past dramatic incidents to vibrant life, there is still a need for filmmakers to address what’s happening in the here and now. The new movie “Black Or White” boldly steps into the breach with the tale of a white grandfather (Kevin Costner) and a black grandmother (Octavia Spencer) fighting for custody of their biracial granddaughter – and the result is a movie, that while occasionally uneven in tone, manages to be touching, smart and wickedly funny throughout.

Costner plays Elliott Anderson, a lawyer who in the film’s opening scene, has learned that his wife has died in a car crash. They had been raising their granddaughter Eloise (Jillian Estell) ever since her mother – Elliott’s daughter – died in childbirth, because the daughter was just 17 years old and Eloise’s father was a drug-using, 23-year-old street thug named Reggie (Andre Holland), who quickly fled his responsibilities.

But seven years later, with Elliott left to raise Eloise alone after the crash and Reggie re-entering the picture claiming to be newly sober, his mother Rowena (Spencer) enlists her shark-lawyer brother Jeremiah (Anthony Mackie) to seek sole custody of Eloise. While they use the two mens’ changed lifestyles as their official excuse, a deeper argument emerges: Rowena and her family believe that Eloise would be better served by being raised in a black environment.

Elliott fights back through his best friend and law partner Rick (Bill Burr), with the case that he has given Eloise a life of privilege and private schools that can’t be matched in Rowena’s South Central Los Angeles neighborhood. On the other hand, while Elliott resents Reggie and doesn’t trust his sobriety, he himself has a drinking problem that’s spinning out of control.

These complex issues come to a head in a series of courtroom scenes with dialogue that is powerfully written and unpredictable. Ever since his immortal performance as Crash Davis in 1988’s “Bull Durham,” Costner has been known for delivering fiery speeches that combine acid wit with deeper meaning, and he pulls off a rant here that had the heavily mixed black and white crowd at the advance screening gasping, laughing and applauding.

Most of the rest of the cast matches Costner note for note, with Spencer able to draw laughs with the best eye-rolls in show business. Mackie practically vibrates with fierce and prideful energy, Holland is outstanding at making his reprobate character sympathetic against the odds, and Burr – who is currently America’s hottest white standup comic – does a surprisingly good job with his meaty dramatic role.

Yet, the film isn’t without problems. Although she’s at the center of the often-electric battles, Estell is a flat presence onscreen and her character is frankly annoying at times. The musical score is downright atrocious as well, repeating itself throughout the film and adding a distracting emphasis to several slowly paced weak scenes outside the courtroom.

Writer-director Mike Binder, who has built a career of underappreciated yet terrific character-driven movies including “The Upside of Anger” and “Reign O’er Me,” still manages to make this movie land both its emotional and comedic punches. It’s a rare movie that speaks with often politically incorrect daring and honesty about how black and white people truly see each other, and it will likely stick in audience’s minds and grow on them even days after seeing it.

For that alone, it’s a movie that deserves to be noticed.

On a content level, “Black Or White” has its PG-13 rating earned primarily through one use of the “F” word, a surprising string of uses of the notorious “N” word in a couple of scenes, and some milder profanities scattered a few times throughout.

There’s also no sex or nudity, but the affair that resulted in Eloise’s creation is discussed in angry terms a couple of times. The movie is clear in its depiction of Elliott’s drinking and there is a brief image of Reggie’s crack use. There is also a pretty intense fistfight between two men that results in a rather perilous situation, but to say more would be giving things away.

Overall, “Black Or White” is perfectly acceptable viewing for adults and teens, though this is a movie that’s definitely aimed at a middle-age and older crowd.

Carl Kozlowski has been a professional film critic and essayist for the past five years at Pasadena Weekly, in addition to the Christian movie site Movieguide.org, the conservative pop culture site Breitbart.coms Big Hollywood, the Christian pop culture magazine Relevant and New City newspaper in Chicago. He also writes in-depth celebrity interviews for Esquire.com and The Progressive. He is owner of the podcasting site radiotitans.com, which was named one of the Frontier Fifty in 2013 as one of the 50 best talk-radio outlets in the nation by talkers.com and will be relaunching it in January 2014 after a five-month sabbatical. He lives in Los Angeles.

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Why Having a Heart of Gold is Not What Christianity is About

by Very Rev. Robert Barron • January 30, 2015

Many atheists and agnostics today insistently argue that it is altogether possible for non-believers in God to be morally upright. They resent the implication that the denial of God will lead inevitably to complete ethical relativism or nihilism. And they are quick to point out examples of non-religious people who are models of kindness, compassion, justice, etc. In point of fact, a recent article has proposed that non-believers are actually, on average, more morally praiseworthy than religious people. In this context, I recall Christopher Hitchens remark that, all things considered, he would be more frightened of a group of people coming from a religious meeting than a group coming from a rock concert or home from a night on the town. God knows (pun intended) that during the last twenty years we’ve seen plenty of evidence from around the world of the godly behaving very badly indeed.

Though I could quarrel with a number of elements within this construal of things, I would actually gladly concede the major point that it is altogether possible for atheists and agnostics to be morally good. The classical Greek and Roman formulators of the theory of the virtues were certainly not believers in the Biblical God, and many of their neo-pagan successors today do indeed exhibit fine moral qualities. What I should like to do, however, is to use this controversy as a springboard to make a larger point, namely that Christianity is not primarily about ethics, about “being a nice person” or, to use Flannery O’Connor’s wry formula, “having a heart of gold.” The moment Christians grant that Christianity’s ultimate purpose is to make us ethically better people, they cannot convincingly defend against the insinuation that, if some other system makes human beings just as good or better, Christianity has lost its raison d’etre.

Much of the confusion on this score can be traced to the influence of Immanuel Kant, especially his seminal text Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. Like so many of his Enlightenment era confreres, Kant was impatient with the claims of the revealed religions. He saw them as unverifiable and finally irrational assertions that could be defended, not through reason, but only through violence. Do you see how much of the “New Atheism” of the post-September 11th era is conditioned by a similar suspicion? Accordingly, he argued that, at its best, religion is not about dogma or doctrine or liturgy but about ethics. In the measure that the Scriptures, prayer, and belief make one morally good, they are admissible, but in the measure that they lead to moral corruption, they should be dispensed with. As religious people mature, Kant felt, they would naturally let those relatively extrinsic practices and convictions fall to the side and would embrace the ethical core of their belief systems. Kant’s army of disciples today include such figures as John Shelby Spong, John Dominic Crossan, James Carroll, Bart Ehrman, and the late Marcus Borg, all of whom think that Christianity ought to be de-supernaturalized and re-presented as essentially a program of inclusion and social justice.

The problem with this Kantianism both old and new is that it runs dramatically counter to the witness of the first Christians, who were concerned, above all, not with an ethical program but with the explosive emergence of a new world. The letters of St. Paul, which are the earliest Christian texts we have, are particularly instructive on this score. One can find “ethics” in the writings of Paul, but one would be hard pressed indeed to say that the principal theme of Romans, Galatians, Philippians, or first and second Corinthians is the laying out of a moral vision. The central motif of all of those letters is in fact Jesus Christ risen from the dead. For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus is the sign that the world as we know it — a world marked by death and the fear of death — is evanescing and that a new order of things is emerging. This is why he tells the Corinthians “the time is running out” and “the world in its present form is passing away;” this is why he tells the Philippians that everything he once held to be of central importance he now considers as so much rubbish; this is why he tells the Romans that they are not justified by their own moral achievements but through the grace of Jesus Christ; and this is why he tells the Galatians that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the “new creation.” The new creation is shorthand for the overturning of the old world and the emergence of a new order through the resurrection of Jesus, the “first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

The inaugural speech of Jesus, as reported in the Gospel of Mark, commences with the announcement of the kingdom of God and then the exhortation to “repent and believe the good news.” We tend automatically to interpret repentance as a summons to moral conversion, but the Greek word that Mark employs is metanoiete, which means literally, “go beyond the mind you have.” On Mark’s telling, Jesus is urging his listeners to change their way of thinking so as to see the new world that is coming into existence. It is indeed the case that Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists, and agnostics can all be “good people.” In terms of what we privilege today, they can all be tolerant, inclusive, and just. But only Christians witness to an earthquake that has shaken the foundations of the world and turned every expectation upside down. A key to the new evangelization is the rediscovery of this revolutionary message.

Father Robert Barron is the founder of the global ministry, Word on Fire (wordonfire.org), and the Rector/President of Mundelein Seminary. He is the creator of the award winning documentary series, “Catholicism” and “Catholicism:The New Evangelization.”

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SUNDAY • FEBRUARY 1, 2015

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Dt 18:15-20; NRSVCE)

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. This is what you requested of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: “If I hear the voice of the Lord my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die.” Then the Lord replied to me: “They are right in what they have said. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak — that prophet shall die.”

Second Reading (1 Cor 7:32-35; NRSVCE)

I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin are anxious about the affairs of the Lord, so that they may be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to put any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to the Lord.

Gospel Reading (Mk 1:21-28; NRSVCE)

They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching — with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

MONDAY • FEBRUARY 2, 2015

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

First Reading (Mal 3:1-4; NRSVCE)

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight — indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

Second Reading (Heb 2:14-18; NRSVCE)

Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, Jesus himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.

Gospel Reading (Lk 2:22-40; NRSVCE)

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, Mary and Joseph brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,

according to your word;

for my eyes have seen your salvation,

which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,

a light for revelation to the Gentiles

and for glory to your people Israel.”

And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed — and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

TUESDAY • FEBRUARY 3, 2015

Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Heb 12:1-4; NRSVCE)

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

Gospel Reading (Mk 5:21-43; NRSVCE)

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” So he went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” 36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

WEDNESDAY • FEBRUARY 4, 2015

Wednesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Heb 12:4-7, 11-15; NRSVCE)

In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children —

“My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,

or lose heart when you are punished by him;

for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves,

and chastises every child whom he accepts.”

Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

Pursue peace with everyone, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and through it many become defiled.

Gospel Reading (Mk 6:1-6; NRSVCE)

Jesus left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.

THURSDAY • FEBRUARY 5, 2015

Memorial of Saint Agatha

First Reading (Heb 12:18-19, 21-24; NRSVCE)

You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Gospel Reading (Mk 6:7-13; NRSVCE)

Jesus called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

FRIDAY • FEBRUARY 6, 2015

Memorial of Saint Paul Miki and Companions

First Reading (Heb 13:1-8; NRSVCE)

Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” So we can say with confidence,

“The Lord is my helper;

I will not be afraid.

What can anyone do to me?”

Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Gospel Reading (Mk 6:14-29; NRSVCE)

King Herod heard of Jesus, for his name had become known. Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”

For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

SATURDAY • FEBRUARY 7, 2015

Saturday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Heb 13:15-17, 20-21; NRSVCE)

Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls and will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with sighing — for that would be harmful to you.

Now may the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, make you complete in everything good so that you may do his will, working among us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Gospel Reading (Mk 6:30-34; NRSVCE)

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.