VOLUME 1, ISSUE 17  •  APRIL 25, 2015

Table of Contents

Copyright Notice

VATICAN NEWS

Will human trafficking make the list of sustainable development goals?

Apostolic Blessing offered to those who mourn Cardinal George

Pope: Doomed migrants were looking for happiness

Will the U.S. greet first Latino Pope by kicking out Junipero Serra?

Pope on ISIS killings: Blood of Ethiopian Christians ‘cries out to be heard’

Pope Francis accepts resignation of Bishop Robert W. Finn

Pope Francis and his growing litany of modern-day martyrs

Rabbi Toaff: Nazi-fighter, inter-religious giant, and one of the few people remembered in JPII’s will

Pope Francis to Cuba: It’s official!

Men and women complete each other – there’s no other option, Pope says

Is dialogue with Islam possible? Yes, and it’s needed now more than ever, Vatican says

Pope Francis meets with gay French ambassador nominee

WORLD NEWS

Ankawa bomb attack strikes unease in refugees with nowhere else to go

After vision of Christ, Nigerian bishop says rosary will bring down Boko Haram

Fighting ISIS with a school – Iraqi bishop says education is needed for change

For Malawi bishops, a new vision to promote excellence in Catholic schools

Spanish film brings story of ‘Three Rebel Monks’ to life

What happens when beautiful street art meets a Rome ghetto?

Bishop: Boko Haram is spreading to Cameroon – while the world looks the other way

Armenian genocide beckons for a new start in Turkey, historian says

U.S. NEWS

HHS mandate loses again: Supreme Court order protects Pennsylvania Catholic groups

International religious freedom bill hopes to fight terrorism, promote security

New San Diego bishop: Don’t remove Junipero Serra from U.S. Capitol

Twenty years after bombing, Oklahoma City archbishop calls for mercy to temper justice

CRS deliberating over vice president in same-sex civil marriage

Confirmed priest abuse allegations in single digits for 2014

Beauty in Nebraska: College’s transformed church hopes to help students be saints

Why no Catholic is exempt from caring about the environment

Marriage march in D.C. expects diverse, wide-ranging support

Galveston-Houston’s vicar for clergy tapped to lead Victoria diocese

Senate reaches compromise on abortion funding in trafficking bill

Cardinal George praised at funeral for faith, conviction, courage in suffering

Leader, son, friend: Cardinal George remembered through the eyes of his superior

New Greensburg bishop seeks to emulate Francis’ focus on mercy

A shepherd who smelled like his sheep – Chicago faithful pay final respects to Cardinal George

FEATURES

A Lion of the American Church: Thoughts on the Passing of Cardinal George

‘They did not believe’

What’s broken in the Church’s liturgy that needs fixing?

‘Little Boy’ strong in faith, but not wavering in quality

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Sunday • April 26, 2015

Monday • April 27, 2015

Tuesday • April 28, 2015

Wednesday • April 29, 2015

Thursday • April 30, 2015

Friday • May 1, 2015

Saturday • May 2, 2015

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Volume 1, Issue 17 • April 25, 2015

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VATICAN NEWS

Will human trafficking make the list of sustainable development goals?

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • April 18, 2015

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

Vatican City — A top ranking UK anti-slavery commissioner says that human trafficking is not just an issue to be talked about, but one the global community needs to forcefully commit to eradicating.

For the United Kingdom’s Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner Kevin Hyland, the sustainable development goals being drafted for the close of 2015 “need to be clearer about modern slavery and human trafficking.”

These goals, he told CNA April 17, need to be much stronger in their emphasis that every form of slavery and trafficking is “an issue that needs to be globally responded to.”

With the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set to expire at the end of 2015, new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 are currently being developed to set targets for future international development.

The SDGs were formally discussed for the first time at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development that was held in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012. Since specific goals were not elaborated on during the conference, a 30-member working group was formed by the U.N. General Assembly and tasked with preparing a proposal of SDGs.

Although the MDGs focused heavily on areas such as poverty, education, gender equality, child and maternal health, and environmental sustainability, discussion is still underway for the SDGs, which have not been finalized.

In order to reach an agreement on specifics, the U.N. scheduled a Sustainable Development Summit to take place in New York this September. It has been confirmed that Pope Francis will address the heads of state and government present at the summit on Sept. 25 as part of his visit to the United States.

Commissioner Hyland said that he himself has been engaging with the United Nations about the finalization of the SDGs, specifically in regards to human trafficking.

The Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for the Sciences, which has been dedicated to studying the phenomenon of modern slavery and human trafficking since Pope Francis’ election in 2013, could serve as “a good vehicle to influence those goals,” he said.

Hyland is currently in Rome participating in the April 17-21 plenary session of the Pontifical Academy, entitled “Human Trafficking: Issues Beyond Criminalization.”

In his role as an independent commissioner, Hyland explained his job is to focus on how legislation against trafficking is being carried out and to make sure offenders are convicted and brought to justice.

As someone independent from agencies and the organizations such as law enforcement and Non-governmental Organizations, the commissioner is responsible for reporting on how the entire United Kingdom is working to combat modern slavery.

He is also a member of the Santa Marta Group, which is an alliance of international police chiefs and bishops from across the world who work together with civil society to eradicate human trafficking and provide pastoral care to victims.

The group was launched by Pope Francis in April 2014 with the goal of developing strategies in prevention, pastoral care and re-integration through the international network.

In addition to sexual slavery and exploitation, Hyland said that other major concerns as far as trafficking goes are domestic servitude, organ harvesting and slavery in the fishing industry.

He revealed that he has been working with Cardinal Antonio Tagle, archbishop of Manila in the Philippines, to foster greater collaboration between the diocese and the Filipino embassy in London to keep a closer watch on women who are trafficked into domestic servitude in London and the UK.

There are many men in the fishing industry who are either trafficked or end up in slavery in other parts of the world and who are forced to work “very long hours, being badly hurt and being abused and not being paid,” he said.

Also present at the plenary session was Cecilia Taylor-Camara, Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Migration Policy of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales, who said that two major areas of trafficking that are often “hidden” and off the radar are organ trafficking and baby farming.

Baby farming is also “one of the most challenging issues” they are seeking to raise awareness about in the UK, where there is “a very strict legislation regarding adoption.”

In order to avoid the hassle of the adoptive system, Taylor-Camara said that people are now going to other parts of the world “where children are affectively farmed so that they can be adopted. And that is awful.”

Organ trafficking, she said, is also “hugely significant,” because often organs are taken under false pretenses in which people are guaranteed a sum of money they never receive, or have an organ removed when they go in for a different problem.

The trafficking of organs is on the plenary’s discussion slate for Monday, when the topic will be addressed particularly in regards to the situation in India.

Taylor-Camara also expressed her hope that the eradication of human trafficking will make its way onto the list of SDGs for 2030, so that it will be given “a very high profile” on the global agenda.

Both Hyland and Taylor-Camara stressed the benefits of collaborative efforts between local bishops and law enforcement officials, saying that the “unusual” partnership helps to assure not only justice for trafficking offenders, but also that the victims are in good hands and getting the help they need.

“It’s a really unusual setting, (but) bring them together, and you’ve doubled your resources,” the commissioner said.

Taylor-Camara lauded Pope Francis’ leadership, saying that his commitment to bringing Catholic social teaching and the dignity of the human person to the forefront of the world’s attention has “energized us.”

“Since the Pope’s interest in human trafficking, we have not only succeeded in raising awareness nationally, but our work has been given a global profile. People are interested in the work that we’re doing because of the leadership of the Holy Father.”

A workshop on sustainable development will take place in the Vatican April 28, giving special attention to society’s most vulnerable, especially the poor, excluded, victims of human trafficking and modern slavery, children and future generations.

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VATICAN NEWS

Apostolic Blessing offered to those who mourn Cardinal George

by CNA/EWTN News • April 18, 2015

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, at a press conference at the NAC on Feb. 27, 2013. (Paolo Tiranti/CNA)

Vatican City — In a telegram to Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago, the Holy Father offered his blessing to all those who mourn Cardinal Francis E. George.

“To all who mourn the late Cardinal in the sure hope of the Resurrection, I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of consolation and peace in the Lord,” Pope Francis said in the April 18 telegram, according to Vatican Radio.

The Holy Father praised the late archbishop emeritus for his service to the Church as an Oblate of Mary and for his episcopal service in Yakima, Portland, and finally, Chicago.

Saddened to hear of Cardinal George’s passing, the Pontiff offered his “heartfelt condolences” to the faithful of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

“… I join you in commending the soul of this wise and gentle pastor to the merciful love of God our Heavenly Father,” Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis also offered prayers for Cardinal George during his daily Mass at Casa Santa Martha Saturday morning.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, gave his condolences in the telegram while praying “that the merciful Lord will grant (Cardinal George) the reward of his faith and his tireless labors for the Church.”

The 78 year-old cardinal passed away April 17 after battling cancer for several years. He was first diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2006 and underwent a five-hour surgery to remove his bladder and other parts of his body affected by cancer. In 2012, his doctors discovered that the cancer had returned, this time to his kidney and liver.

The funeral Mass for Cardinal George will take place April 23 at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago after lying in-state for two days. He will be buried in a family plot at the All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines, Ill.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope: Doomed migrants were looking for happiness

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • April 19, 2015

Pope Francis prays with journalists on the papal flight en route to South Korea, August 14, 2014. (Alan Holdren/CNA)

Vatican City — Pope Francis led a moment of prayerful silence on Sunday for the hundreds of migrants killed off the coast of Lampedusa, saying they were like us in their search for happiness.

“They are men and women like us, our brothers who seek a better life: hungry, persecuted, wounded, exploited, victims of war,” the Pope said in off-the-cuff remarks. “They were looking for happiness.”

The Pope was speaking during his weekly Regina Caeli address to the crowds in Saint Peter’s Square, some twelve hours following the accident.

Hundreds of people are feared dead after the boat carrying as many as 700 migrants capsized in the Mediterranean Sea, according to the Italian coastguard.

The BBC reports that the ship went down at around midnight local time south of the Italian island of Lampedusa, a major entry point for migrants from northern Africa.

“I express my deepest sorrow in the face of such a tragedy, and assure my remembrance in prayer for the lost and their families,” Pope Francis said in his Apr. 19 address.

He invited those in the crowd to take a moment of prayerful silence for those killed in last night’s boat accident before leading the crowds in praying the Hail Mary.

The pontiff then made a “heartfelt appeal” to the international community to act “decisively and promptly”, in order to prevent similar tragedies from being repeated.

Thousands have made their way to Lampedusa from Africa over the years, with scores of migrants dying en route, often due to factors such as overcrowding on the boats.

Today’s tragedy comes less than two years after a boat carrying 500 migrants sank off coast of Lampedusa, killing at least 300.

Pope Francis had visited the island a few months earlier, in July 2013, praying for the migrants, both living and those who perished en route.

The BBC reports that some 900 migrants are believed to have died since the beginning of 2015 trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea.

Before leading the crowds in reciting the Regina Caeli, Pope Francis reflected on the readings for the Third Sunday of Easter, centering his address on the theme of “witness.”

In the first reading, Pope Francis cited the words of St. Peter: “But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.” (Acts 3:14-15).

Turning to the Gospel, the Pope reflected on Jesus telling the disciples that they were “witnesses” of His death and resurrection.

“Every baptized person is called to give witness, with (his) words and life, that Jesus is risen, that Jesus is alive and present among us.”

The identity and mission of the witness, Pope Francis said, is summarized into three words: to see, to remember, and to recount.

“The content of the Christian witness is not a theory, not an ideology, or a complex system of precepts and prohibitions or a moralism,” the pontiff said.

Rather: “It is a message of salvation, a concrete event, even a Person: It is Christ risen, living, and only savior of everyone.”

The witness of a Christian is “all the more credible,” when it shines through a way of living that is “evangelical, courageous, gentle, peaceful, merciful.”

On the other hand, a Christian who seeks comfort, vanity, selfishness, while becoming “deaf and blind the question of ‘resurrection’”, Pope Francis asked, “how can he communicate the living Jesus,” the “liberating power of Jesus alive and his infinite tenderness?”

Pope Francis concluded his Regina Caeli address by asking Mary’s intercession to help Christians become “witnesses of the Lord’s Resurrection, carrying to the persons who we encounter the Easter gifts of Joy and Peace.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Will the U.S. greet first Latino Pope by kicking out Junipero Serra?

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • April 20, 2015

General Audience with Pope Francis, April 17, 2013. (Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Vatican City — As the U.S. prepares for Pope Francis’ trip later this year, one Vatican official says efforts to remove the statue of Spanish missionary Blessed Junipero Serra from the capital offers a poor welcome for history’s first Latin American pontiff.

California’s recent vote to replace the statue of the Franciscan missionary from the National Statuary Hall is “shocking,” especially ahead of Pope Francis’ upcoming visit, said Dr. Guzman Carriquiry Lecour, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

During an April 20 press briefing at the Vatican, Carriquiry Lecour questioned removing the statue of “this Hispanic saint from the Capital of Washington, at the precise time when the first Hispanic Pope in history” will come to the U.S. capital to canonize him.

Axing the statue just months before the papal visit in September, “would not be an extraordinarily nice welcome from a country that proposes multicultural tolerance,” he said.

Father Serra helped establish the California missions in the 1700s, many of which became the centers of major cities like San Diego. The state’s government, however, is seeking to replace the statue of the Franciscan missionary with that of the late Sally Ride, the first female astronaut in space.

The Vatican official criticized the Golden State’s decision to bury “into oblivion or ideology the extraordinary contribution of the Hispanic Catholic missionary who has origins, not only in the United States, but in California.”

Located in the Capital building in Washington, D.C., the National Statuary Hall houses statues from all fifty States. Each State is represented statues of two of its prominent historical citizens.

Alongside former U.S. president Ronald Reagan, Spanish-born Junipero Serra’s statue represents California, which has a Latino population of more than 37 percent.

“What can this initiative (to remove the statue from the capital) mean in a state in which many thousands of Hispanics live, the majority of whom venerate Blessed Junipero Serra?” Carriquiry Lecour said.

California’s senate voted 22-10 on Apr. 13 to replace the statue of Junipero Serra, although the decision awaits further approval from the state’s assembly and Gov. Jerry Brown.

Born Nov. 24, 1714 in Spain, Blessed Junipero Serra played a key role in the evangelization of 18th-century California. The missions he founded took in thousands of Native American converts to Christianity and taught them technological development skills.

As part of the lead up to the canonization later this year, the Pope will visit Rome’s Pontifical North American College on May 2 for a day of reflection on the California missionary.

In an Apr. 20 interview with CNA, college rector Msgr. James Checchio said it would be sad if Junipero Serra’s statue was removed, on account of “all the great contributions,” he made, “not just to the Church and evangelization of peoples, but also for California itself.”

From the point of view of those receiving formation at the PNAC, Junipero Serra is “a man who was heroic in giving of himself for the mission of evangelization,” he said.

“He’s a good example for us, and an inspiration for us, and so certainly our men see that – especially our Latino men, and our men from the Southwest and California dioceses.”

Pope Francis will canonize Blessed Junipero Serra on Sep. 23 at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope on ISIS killings: Blood of Ethiopian Christians ‘cries out to be heard’

by CNA/EWTN News • April 20, 2015

Pope Francis overlooking the crowd in St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday morning, April 5, 2015. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — Pope Francis voiced his distress at the news of a reported mass execution of Ethiopian Christians in Libya at the hands of ISIS, pleading that their deaths may not go ignored.

“The blood of our Christian brothers and sisters is a testimony which cries out to be heard by everyone who can still distinguish between good and evil. All the more this cry must be heard by those who have the destiny of peoples in their hands.”

In a message to Abuna Matthias, patriarch of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church, the Pope offered “heartfelt condolences” and an “embrace of peace in Christ Our Lord.”

“With great distress and sadness I learn of the further shocking violence perpetrated against innocent Christians in Libya,” the Pope said. “I know that Your Holiness is suffering deeply in heart and mind at the sight of your faithful children being killed for the sole reason that they are followers of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

On Sunday, a video released by social media accounts associated with the Islamic State purported to show mass executions of Ethiopian Christians in Libya.

The Islamic State – also known as ISIS – has taken over parts of Iraq and Syria in recent months. The militant terror group has established a caliphate and carried out mass persecutions of minority populations, primarily Christians and Yazidis. They have also published videos showing the beheading of foreign hostages as a warning to countries that have militarily intervened.

“It makes no difference whether the victims are Catholic, Copt, Orthodox or Protestant,” Pope Francis said in his message. “Their blood is one and the same in their confession of Christ!”

He offered hope amidst the darkness, noting the Easter season of joy in the knowledge that “Christ has risen from the dead.”

“This year, that joy – which never fades – is tinged with profound sorrow. Yet we know that the life we live in God’s merciful love is stronger than the pain all Christians feel, a pain shared by men and women of good will in all religious traditions.”

The Pope offered “heartfelt spiritual solidarity” and assurances of “closeness in prayer at the continuing martyrdom being so cruelly inflicted on Christians in Africa, the Middle East and some parts of Asia.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis accepts resignation of Bishop Robert W. Finn

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • April 21, 2015

Bishop Robert W. Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese. (CNA)

Vatican City — Bishop Robert W. Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph has resigned, nearly two and a half years after being the first U.S. bishop convicted of a misdemeanor in failing to report suspected child abuse by a priest in his diocese.

The Vatican confirmed Pope Francis’ acceptance of Bishop Finn’s resignation according to Canon 104 Article 2 in the Code of Canon Law in an April 21 statement, released at noon local time.

Article 2 of Canon 104, according to the Vatican’s website, refers to a situation when “a diocesan bishop who has become less able to fulfill his office because of ill health or some other grave cause is earnestly requested to present his resignation from office.”

Finn’s resignation will take effect immediately, and although he will still be a bishop, he will no longer lead a diocese. It is up to Pope Francis to choose his successor.

The brief Vatican statement gave no word as to what Bishop Finn will do following his resignation.

Last September, two years after Bishop Finn’s trial and guilty verdict, an archbishop held a visitation on behalf of the Vatican and met with Bishop Finn.

The reasons for the visitation were not revealed, however some reports indicate that the visitation was intended to evaluate the bishop’s leadership of his diocese.

In September 2012, Bishop Finn, now 62, was convicted on a misdemeanor count of failure to report suspected child abuse after he and his diocese failed to report that lewd images of children had been found on a laptop belonging to Fr. Shawn Ratigan, a priest of the diocese, in December 2010.

The diocese’s vicar general had told Bishop Finn about one of the images, but the bishop did not see them himself.

Fr. Ratigan attempted suicide after the images were discovered and initially had not been expected to live. Diocesan officials told law enforcement officials about the images in May 2011, months after their discovery.

A diocese-commissioned independent investigation said diocesan officials conducted “a limited and improperly conceived investigation” into whether a single image, which the vicar general did not see, constituted child pornography. The diocese’s legal counsel also said that that single image did not constitute child pornography.

Further investigation revealed that the photos had been taken in and around churches where the priest had worked. In 2012, Fr. Ratigan was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison on child pornography charges.

Bishop Finn was sentenced to two years’ probation for failing to report suspected abuse.

The diocese settled two lawsuits from the parents of two girls photographed by Fr. Ratigan for a total of $1.8 million in February 2014.

The Fr. Ratigan case has also triggered further legal action from an arbitrator who levied a $1.1 million penalty against the diocese, on the grounds that the diocese violated the terms of a 2008 abuse lawsuit settlement in which Bishop Finn and the diocese agreed to report suspected child abusers to law enforcement.

The diocese objected to the arbitrator’s penalty, but it was upheld in court and the diocese paid the fine.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis and his growing litany of modern-day martyrs

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • April 21, 2015

(M. Migliorato/CPP)

Vatican City — Amid a torrent of recent news reports on persecuted Christians, Pope Francis reflected on those killed for their faith and said that these modern “Stephens” suffer as the Church’s first martyr did.

“The Church today is a Church of martyrs: they suffer, they give their lives and we receive the blessing of God for their witness,” Francis told attendees of his April 21 Mass, held in the Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse.

“In these days how many Stephens there are in the world!” he said, referring to the first apostle who was killed for proclaiming Jesus Christ, and is hailed as the Church’s first martyr.

“Let us think of our brothers whose throats were slit on the beach in Libya; let’s think of the young boy who was burnt alive by his companions because he was a Christian,” Francis said.

He also brought to mind “those migrants thrown from their boat into the open sea by other migrants because they were Christians; let us think – just the day before yesterday – of those Ethiopians assassinated because they were Christians … and of many others.”

The Pope also called attention to the many Christians suffering silently inside jail cells just because of their faith in Jesus Christ.

Among them is Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi, who in 2010 was convicted of violating Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws, an allegation she denies. Her husband and daughter traveled to Rome last week, where they met with Pope Francis and received his blessing during his Wednesday general audience.

In February the Islamic State released a video depicting the decapitation of 20 Coptic Christians after they had gone missing near the coastal city of Surt, also known as Sirte, in Libya.

On Sunday another video was released by social media accounts associated with the ISIS showing the mass executions of Ethiopian Christians in Libya.

In an April 20 message sent to Abuna Matthias, patriarch of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church, Francis offered condolences and said that “It makes no difference whether the victims are Catholic, Copt, Orthodox or Protestant … Their blood is one and the same in their confession of Christ!”

The Pope’s comment on the Christian boy burned alive referred to a 14-year-old Pakistani named Nouman Masih, who passed away April 15 after being set on fire by two unknown men. After inquiring about his religion, the men doused Masih in kerosene and set him alight.

April 16 marks the day that another tragedy on Francis’ list took place when 12 passengers on a migrant boat traveling from Libya to Italy were thrown overboard by fellow migrants for being Christians.

Reports indicate that a disagreement sparked among passengers on a rubber boat bound for Italy and carrying 105 people, during which 15 Muslim passengers threatened to abandon at sea the Christians, who came from Nigeria and Ghana, based on their faith.

After a fight broke out 12 of the Christians were thrown overboard to their deaths, while others survived the attack by resisting the drowning attempt and forming a human chain. The Italian coast guard has arrested 15 people in association with the attack.

In his homily Tuesday, Pope Francis said that “the true history of the Church is that of the Saints and the martyrs.”

He recalled how the Apostle Stephan had to deal with false witnesses and the anger of those accusing him.

Stephan, the Pope noted, reminded the elders and scribes how their ancestors had persecuted other prophets, and when he described his vision of the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God they didn’t want to hear it, so they threw him out of the city and stoned him.

“God’s Word is always rejected by some. God’s Word is inconvenient when you have a stone heart, when you have a pagan heart,” he said.

Francis noted how the whole history of Revelation is marked by the many martyrs who have been killed “for their faith and loyalty towards God’s Word, God’s Truth.”

He closed his homily by pointing out that there are also many “hidden martyrs,” who are the faithful men and women that listen to the voice of God and look for new ways to help their brothers and sisters love the Lord.

These people, the Pope said, are often viewed with suspicion, vilified and persecuted by the modern “Sanhedrin’s” who think they possess the truth.

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VATICAN NEWS

Rabbi Toaff: Nazi-fighter, inter-religious giant, and one of the few people remembered in JPII’s will

by CNA’s Vatican Observer Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • April 22, 2015

Elio Toaff on Feb. 12, 2007. (Mario De Siati via Wikimedia Commons)

Rome, Italy — Rabbi Elio Toaff, the first rabbi to welcome a Pope to a Roman synagogue, died Sunday at the age of 99. Pope Francis remembered him with gratitude, praising him as “a man of peace and dialogue.”

The Pope lauded Rome’s former Chief Rabbi in his Monday remarks to a delegation from the Conference of European Rabbis. The papal audience was the first for the conference, which represents about 700 religious leaders of many Orthodox Jewish communities in Europe.

Pope Francis, writing to Rome’s current Chief Rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni, recalled the legacy of Rabbi Toaff. He especially remembered the rabbi’s historic encounter with Pope John Paul II in 1986.

“I remember with gratitude his generous commitment and sincere availability in fostering dialogue and the fraternal relations between Jewish and Catholic people, whose meaningful outcome was Rabbi Toaff’s memorable meeting with St. John Paul II at the Roman Synagogue,” the Pope said.

The rabbi’s impact on Jewish-Catholic dialogue was immense. He was one of the few people St. John Paul II specifically mentioned in his will.

Elio Toaff was born April 30, 1915 in Livorno, a town in Central-Northern Italy.

He made interreligious dialogue a distinctive sign of his life. The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said this particular approach, respectful toward every other religion and especially toward Catholicism, came from Rabbi Toaff’s very life, which featured a “spirit of openness” since his childhood.

L’Osservatore Romano credited the example of the rabbi’s father, Alfredo Sabato Toaff, who was a pupil of the famous Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli, a Hellenist who was a very good friend of Catholics.

The Toaff family also had a Catholic woman, Anna Pierazzi, as their housekeeper and nanny for about 60 years.

“The father of the future rabbi taught her how to read and write, taking care that she attended Mass every Sunday,” L’Osservate Romano said. For her part, the nanny took care that the children prayed the “Shema,” the prayer central to morning and evening Jewish prayers.

Rabbi Toaff finished legal studies in 1938 and theological studies in 1939. That same year, he earned the title of Major Rabbi at the Livorno’s Rabbis College. In 1941, he was elected the chief rabbi of Ancona, in central northern Italy.

During the year 1943-1945, he entered the Italian resistance and fought the Nazi troops that had occupied Italy.

In 1946, he was appointed Chief Rabbi of Venice. There, he taught Jewish language and literature at the local university. In 1951, he was appointed Chief Rabbi of Rome, becoming head of the most important Jewish Community in Italy. He remained in this position until 2001.

His openness to dialogue combined with St. John Paul II’s particular closeness to the Jewish people. St. John Paul II’s childhood best friend was a Polish Jew, Jerzy Kluger, through whom he became very acquainted with Jewish religion and tradition.

St. John Paul II’s wish to foster dialogue with Jews found in Rabbi Toaff a wonderful partner. Their relationship led to the historical visit of a Pope to a synagogue, which took place April 13, 1986.

On that day, St. John Paul II visited the Major Temple of Rome to pay homage to the most ancient Jewish community of the so-called diaspora.

In several interviews after the event, Rabbi Toaff said that the papal visit was “an astonishing move, from many perspectives.”

“It was the first time a Pope entered a synagogue, and I was very thoughtful, since I did not know how it was going to be, nor how the Pope was going to behave once he got into the temple,” the rabbi said.

But – he added – when John Paul II “came to me open arms and embraced me in front of everyone, the stress came down and everything became simple, friendly.” In his address, John Paul II called the Jewish people “our elder brothers, our chosen brothers.”

At the eve of St. John Paul II’s canonization, Rabbi Toaff described the late pontiff as “righteous among the nations.” He explained that Judaism doesn’t name people saints, but gives people the title “righteous.”

“As Jewish people, we want to underscore that nothing better fits with John Paul II than to be called ‘righteous’,” he explained.

When Pope Benedict XVI visited the synagogue of Rome on Jan. 17, 2010, Rabbi Toaff left his house to greet the Pope in a moving scene.

It is no wonder that Pope Francis wanted to honor Rabbi Toaff. As the pope said in his letter to Rabbi Di Segni:

“I wish to express my heartfelt participation in the mourning of the members of his family and of the whole Jewish community of Rome for the loss of the remarkable guide, who was a main character in Italian civil and Jewish history of the last decades.” Pope Francis said the rabbi was “able to garner shared esteem and appreciation for his moral authoritativeness, combined with a profound humanity.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis to Cuba: It’s official!

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • April 22, 2015

Francis greets pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square during the Wednesday general audience on May 28, 2014. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

Vatican City — Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. confirmed to journalists today that Pope Francis will make a pastoral stop in Cuba ahead of his September apostolic voyage to the United States.

The Vatican spokesman made the announcement to journalists April 22 around 2:15p.m. in the Holy See press office.

In an official statement released shortly after, the spokesman said: “I am able to confirm that the Holy Father Francis, having received and accepted the invitation from the civil authorities and bishops of Cuba, has decided to pay a visit to the island before his arrival in the United States.”

Although the details of the stop have not been released, it is expected that Pope Francis will meet with Cuban authorities. He is not expected to meet with Cuban president Raul Castro, according to a Vatican source.

Cardinal Beniamino Stella, Prefect of the Congregation of the Clergy, traveled to Cuba April 22, where he will stay until the 28th in celebration of the 80th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the Holy See.

Cardinal Stella served as papal nuncio to Cuba from 1993-1999, and helped pave the way and organize St. John Paul II’s visit in 1998, which marked the first-ever papal trip to the Caribbean Island.

The cardinal is set to meet with local clergy during his visit, and will celebrate three Masses. He will also encounter the top officials of the Cuban government and of the Communist Party.

His visit may represent a further fostering of the Holy See contribution in Cuba, and could be seen as a sign of the papal effort to help normalize relations between Cuba and the United States.

On the eve of the Dec. 17 announcement of the normalization of the diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, former Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone traveled to Cuba for a private visit.

In the coming days Archbishop Giorgio Lingua, former papal nuncio to Jordan and Iraq, will take up his post as the new nuncio to Cuba. He was appointed to the position March 17, and one of his main tasks will be to help facilitate talks between U.S. and Cuba.

The stop in Cuba this year fits within the framework of Pope Francis’ efforts in the dialogue, since Washington and Havana are currently in talks to re-establish full diplomatic ties.

Now that it’s official, the stop will be the first in a week-long papal voyage to the United States. Although the official program for the Pope’s trip to the U.S. has not been released, some appointments have been already been confirmed.

Pope Francis will be the first pope to speak to a joint session of the U.S. Congress in Washington, which is scheduled to take place Sept. 24.

On March 18, secretary general of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon made it official that Francis will address the U.N. General Assembly in New York Sept. 25, and then move on to Philadelphia Sep. 26-27 to attend the World Meeting of Families.

The Pope’s appointments in New York are also expected to include a visit to Ground Zero, the site of the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001, that brought down New York City’s twin World Trade Center towers.

In Philadelphia, the two big events the Pope is anticipated to attend are a prayer vigil on the 26th and Sunday Mass on the 27th.

The organizational committee for the Pope’s U.S. visit includes: Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Holy See Permanent Observer to the United Nations in New York; Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, papal nuncio to the United States; Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington; Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, archbishop of Boston; Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, also president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York; Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia; Msgr. Ronny Jenkins, secretary-general at the bishops’ conference, as well as a team of various secretaries and assistants.

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VATICAN NEWS

Men and women complete each other – there’s no other option, Pope says

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • April 22, 2015

Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square before the Wednesday general audience on April 22, 2015. (Bohumil Petrik)

Vatican City — Pope Francis said Wednesday that marriage is a vocation all believers are called to defend, specifically in terms of the complementarity of the union between a man and a woman.

In the account of creation, “man appears for a moment without woman, free and master, but he is alone, he feels alone,” the Pope told attendees of his April 22 general audience.

“God himself recognizes that this reality is not good, that there is a lack of fullness and of communion, and because of this decided to create woman,” Francis said, explaining that when the woman is finally presented to the man, “the man recognizes that only this creature, and only she, is part of him.”

Man doesn’t see woman as a mere replica or reflection of himself, the Pope noted, but immediately recognizes her as someone reciprocal and complimentary to him.

The woman, he said, “is not a ‘replica’ of the man; she comes directly from the creative act of God. The image of the ‘rib’ does not in any way express inferiority or subordination, but on the contrary, that man and woman are of the same substance and are complementary.”

Francis spoke to the pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his general audience address, during which he continued his ongoing catechesis on the family.

In his speech, the Pope warned that the complementarity between men and women is frequently threatened by “the negative excesses of patriarchal cultures (and) multiple forms of ‘machismo,’” or sexist attitudes.

He noted how the female body is often instrumentalized and commoditized in the current media culture.

While God initially placed his full confidence in Adam and Eve, the devil is the one who sowed seeds of suspicion and distrust in their hearts, leading them to disobey God and destroy the initial harmony of their relationship, he said.

“All of this has increased distrust and the difficulty of a full alliance between man and woman, who are capable of an intimate relationship of communion and respect for differences,” the Pope continued.

Rather than being lived as a reciprocal union, marriage today has been marred by an “epidemic of distrust, of skepticism and even of hostility,” he said.

At the same time, the procreative aspect of marriage has been “devalued, which is always a great loss for everyone. How important it is to revalue marriage and the family!”

When a stable and “fruitful” union between a man and a woman is lacking or underappreciated, it is the young who suffer most, Francis observed.

Despite all of our sins and weaknesses, our vocation “is to care for the covenant of marriage,” which constitutes “a vital and energizing vocation, through which we cooperate with our heavenly Father, who himself always cares for and protects this great gift.”

Pope Francis then turned to God’s mercy, saying that the image of the Father’s tenderness toward a sinful couple “leaves us open-mouthed with wonder” at how he safeguards his creation.

This image, he said, should inspire all believers to make a commitment to defend the “vital and energizing” vocation of marriage and to protect the sacred union that God willed for men and women.

Francis concluded his address by praying that Mary’s example would teach all men and women of today to obey and be strengthened by the first harmony with which they were created and loved by God.

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VATICAN NEWS

Is dialogue with Islam possible? Yes, and it’s needed now more than ever, Vatican says

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • April 22, 2015

A view of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. (Bohumil Petrik/CNA)

Vatican City — Amid continued violence by ISIS and other militant Islamist groups, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue issued a declaration stressing that dialogue with Islam must be sought “now more than ever.”

The council emphasized that “killing in the name of a religion offends God, but it is also a defeat for humanity.”

The declaration was released April 22, and is the second of its kind issued by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

On Aug. 12, 2014, as the violence of ISIS was spreading through Iraq, the Pontifical Council delivered a strongly worded communique to condemn the self-proclaimed caliphate’s actions and to call all religious leaders, especially Muslims, to take a strong stance against violence.

Eight months later, the Pontifical Council is once again underscoring that “believers are a formidable potential of peace,” and so continuing dialogue, “even when we experience persecution, may become a sign of hope.”

In the current scenario, “we are called to strengthen fraternity and dialogue,” the council said.

The declaration comes shortly after the latest killings of Ethiopian Christians in Libya by militants of the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

“After the recent events, many people ask us whether ‘there is still space to dialogue with Muslims?’ The answer is: yes, more than ever,” the declaration begins.

Dialogue may be first of all fostered, it says, because “the great majority of Muslims themselves” do not identify with “the barbarity put into action.”

“Unfortunately, the word ‘religion’ is nowadays often associated with the word ‘violence’, while believers must prove that religions are called to be bearers of peace and not of violence.”

The declaration quotes Benedict XVI’s Jan. 9, 2006 speech to the diplomatic corps. Speaking about clashes of civilization and terrorism, the Pope emeritus affirmed that “no situation can justify such criminal activity, which covers the perpetrators with infamy, and it is all the more deplorable when it hides behind religion, thereby bringing the pure truth of God down to the level of the terrorists’ own blindness and moral perversion.”

According to the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, religious discourse in the public arena is being increasingly radicalized and bears the risk of an “increase in hate, violence, terrorism” as well as of the increasing “stigmatization of Muslims and their religion.”

The declaration maintains that “believers do not want to impose their vision of the human being and of history,” but they rather want to “propose the respect of differences, the freedom of thought and religion, the safeguarding of human dignity and the love for truth.”

For this reason, the Pontifical Council is calling for a courageous review of “family life quality, the way religion and history are taught, (and) the content of preaching in our places of worship.” Family and school “are the keys” that may help “the world of tomorrow to be based on reciprocal respect and on fraternity,” the group says.

The declaration ends with a quote by Pope Francis, who said in Ankara Nov. 28, 2014 that “any violence which seeks religious justification warrants the strongest condemnation because the Omnipotent is the God of life and peace.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis meets with gay French ambassador nominee

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • April 24, 2015

St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

Vatican City — Pope Francis met April 17 with Laurent Stefanini, the openly gay foreign service officer named by France to be ambassador to the Vatican.

News of the private audience, which was kept strictly confidential, was reported April 22 by the French magazine Le Canard Enchainé, although the magazine said that the meeting took place April 18. A source from the Vatican Secretariat of State told CNA that the meeting actually took place in the late evening of April 17, and confirmed that it lasted about 15 minutes.

The case of the French ambassador-elect to the Holy See has sparked controversy and media frenzy in parts of Europe.

At the beginning of April, French media spread the news that the François Hollande administration had chosen Laurent Stefanini to be the new French ambassador to the Holy See January 5, but that the Vatican has not responded yet to the request for accreditation of the new ambassador.

According to diplomatic right, a State can reject the request for accreditation of an ambassador, without giving any explanation about the reasons why. A State can even decide not to give a response at all to the request for accreditation of the new ambassador, and the lack of response is understood as a soft rejection of the appointment.

In order to receive Holy See diplomatic approval, ambassadors appointed to the Holy See must meet certain prerequisites and must behave in accordance with Church teaching. For example, an ambassador to the Holy See cannot be a divorced and civilly remarried person or someone living an actively gay lifestyle.

Laurent Stefanini describes himself as both gay and a self-proclaimed devout Catholic, who regularly attends Mass.

A source who serves in the Holy See diplomacy explained to CNA Apr. 21 that it should be well understood “why the Vatican delayed to give the approval to the appointment, but we can certainly assess that it was not for discrimination about his sexual orientation.”

As a matter of fact, the dossier of Stefanini lies in the Vatican Secretariat of State, which is the only Vatican body that may know in depth the reasons for the delay. The Secretariat of State is not issuing comments, as diplomatic procedures require discretion in relations among States.

According to the Italian daily news portal “Vatican Insider,” Archbishop Luigi Ventura, apostolic nuncio to France, invited Stefanini for a meeting in the nunciature February 5. During the meeting, Archbishop Ventura would have asked Stefanini to step down, but he had refused to do so.

As the Vatican delayed its response, news of the missed approval broke at the beginning of April, and secular media started pressuring the Holy See on the issue.

Withholding approval would not be unprecedented. In 2007, the Holy See did not give diplomatic approval to the appointment of Jean Loup Khun-Delforge as French ambassador. Khun-Delforge, who was openly gay, was cohabiting with his partner and in support of civil unions.

Stephane Le Foll, a spokesperson for the French Presidency, confirmed that “there was a meeting between the Pope and Stefanini,” and that “nothing has changed: France has proposed a candidate, and at the moment we are waiting for the Vatican response.”

Waiting for the final decision, a Vatican source said to the French newspaper ‘La Croix’ that “the Vatican message to France is: follow the procedures.” Such procedures imply silence while the review process of a proposed ambassador is ongoing.

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WORLD NEWS

Ankawa bomb attack strikes unease in refugees with nowhere else to go

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • April 18, 2015

Ankawa in Erbil Province, Iraq. (Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Erbil, Iraq — A car bomb explosion in front of the American consulate in what is considered the safest city in Iraq has left many unnerved and anxious, praying that nothing else will penetrate the stronghold.

“Certainly, everyone will be very concerned about this situation. We hope nothing more comes. We hope this refuge remains solid and strong, safe. This is what we hope because we have nowhere else to go,” Fr. Behnam Benoka told CNA from Erbil April 17.

Fr. Benoka is a priest from Bartella, a small Christian city near Mosul. He is currently the vice rector of the Catholic seminary of Ankawa, and has founded several field hospitals that serve refugees in camps outside of Ankawa, Erbil.

Ankawa is a Christian city in the governorate of Kurdish capital Erbil, where more than 70,000 Christians fled after their villages came under attack by the Islamic State (ISIS) last June.

Until now Erbil has been considered the safest city in Iraq, and attacks there have been relatively rare.

However, after yesterday’s car bombing in front of the U.S. consulate and near the hub of the Erbil diocese killed 3 and left 14 wounded, many are growing increasingly concerned about their safety.

Reuters news agency reports that the blast, which the Islamic State claimed responsibility for, was followed by gunfire and a cloud of dark smoke. It is believed that that the consulate was the main target.

The last major attack in Erbil took place in November when a suicide care bomber detonated himself outside the governor’s office, killing five. That attack was also claimed by the Islamic State.

“This attack in front of the American consulate and near the Catholic bishopric of Erbil may cause the people some serious unease as they think and rethink what to do, where to go, what will happen, if there’s anything more to come,” Fr. Benoka said.

It’s not just the local people who are worried, but many who come from other cities to work in Erbil and help refugees are also concerned, including both governmental and non-governmental organizations, the priest explained.

“We hope the evil stops here. We hope there’s nothing more,” he said.

After beginning their bloody campaign last summer, ISIS forces have since established a caliphate and have persecuted non-Sunnis in its territory, which extends across swaths of Iraq and Syria.

ISIS has forced more than 1.2 million Christians, Yazidis, and Shia Muslims from their homes in Iraq, under threat of death or heavy fines if they do not convert.

Last August Fr. Benoka was the recipient of a phone call from Pope Francis, who called the priest after receiving his letter detailing the plight of the Christians persecuted by ISIS.

Fr. Benoka told CNA afterward that he was “shocked” to receive the call, which lasted 3 minutes, and thought it had been a joke. However, he soon realized it wasn’t a prank, because he recognized the Pope’s voice from being in an audience with him prior.

The Pope, the priest recalled, “said he was very sorry for everything that was happening to us and he said, ‘Know that I am with you in prayer always. I never forget you.’”

He said that Francis told him, “I’ve personally sent Cardinal Filoni to check on the situation there for me. Tell everyone that Pope Francis called you. I never forget you and I’ll never leave you.”

Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, visited Erbil as Pope Francis’ personal envoy from Aug. 12-20, 2014. He returned during Holy Week this year as a sign of Francis’ love and solidarity.

When asked whether or not he planned to stay in Iraq after this latest attack, Fr. Benoka said, “I’ll be here as long as the people are. I’ll move with the people. As long as they’re here, I’ll be here.”

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WORLD NEWS

After vision of Christ, Nigerian bishop says rosary will bring down Boko Haram

by Alan Holdren (CNA/EWTN News) • April 21, 2015

(Jess Pac via Flickr CC BY 2.0)

Rome, Italy — A Nigerian bishop says that he has seen Christ in a vision and now knows that the rosary is the key to ridding the country of the Islamist terrorist organization Boko Haram.

Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme says he is being driven by a God-given mandate to lead others in praying the rosary until the extremist group disappears.

“Towards the end of last year I was in my chapel before the Blessed Sacrament … praying the rosary, and then suddenly the Lord appeared,” Bishop Dashe told CNA April 18.

In the vision, the prelate said, Jesus didn’t say anything at first, but extended a sword toward him, and he in turn reached out for it.

“As soon as I received the sword, it turned into a rosary,” the bishop said, adding that Jesus then told him three times: “Boko Haram is gone.”

“I didn’t need any prophet to give me the explanation,” he said. “It was clear that with the rosary we would be able to expel Boko Haram.”

The bishop said he didn’t want to tell anyone, but “felt that the Holy Spirit was pushing him to do so.”

He started with the priests of his diocese, and then told participants in the April 17-19 #WeAreN2015 congress in Madrid, Spain. The event is being sponsored by the Spanish Catholic sister groups hazteoir.org and CitizenGo to gather ideas on how to preserve the Christian presence in nations where they are most persecuted.

Bishop Dashe leads the Diocese of Maiduguri, in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno State. In 2009, there were around 125,000 Catholics under his guidance. After a surge in violence from the Islamist extremist group called Boko Haram, today “there are only 50 to 60 thousand left,” he said.

Most of those who fled sought safer areas in other parts of Nigeria, he said. Some of the same families are now returning home as armed forces from Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon liberate their homes.

In 2014, Boko Haram became known worldwide when members kidnapped nearly 300 girls from a school in Borno State. On March 7, 2015, five suicide bombers killed 54 and wounded nearly three times as many in the capital city of Maidaguri, where the bishop lives and works.

The group has killed 1,000 people across Nigeria in the first three months of 2015, according to Human Rights Watch, which reports that more than 6,000 have died in Boko Haram-led violence since 2009.

Just last month, the group pledged its allegiance to ISIS – also known as the Islamic State – which launched a bloody campaign in Iraq and Syria last summer.

Meanwhile, Bishop Dashe has just completed a “consolation tour” to communities in his diocese, promoting forgiveness and continued faith. He believes he was asked by Jesus to spread devotion to the rosary in order to aid them as they do so.

“Maybe that’s why he did it,” said the bishop, referring to Jesus in his vision.

Bishop Dashe said he has a strong devotion to Christ’s mother, and that “I never joke with ‘Mamma Mary.’ I know she is here with us.”

And he is not the only Nigerian bishop putting the future of the country in the hands of Mary. The nation’s bishops’ conference has consecrated the country to her twice in recent years.

Bishop Dashe believes that one day his diocese will completely recover and grow thanks to her intercession.

“These terrorists … think that by burning our churches, burning our structures, they will destroy Christianity. Never,” Bishop Dashe told several hundred people from the dais of the #WeAreN2015 congress.

“It may take a few months or a few years … but Boko Haram is gone.’”

He later told CNA that “prayer, particularly the prayer of the rosary, is (what) will deliver us from the claws of this demon, the demon of terrorism. And of course, it is working.”

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WORLD NEWS

Fighting ISIS with a school – Iraqi bishop says education is needed for change

by Blanca Ruiz (CNA/EWTN News) • April 21, 2015

Refugee children at a refugee camp in Duhok, Iraq on March 28, 2015. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Madrid, Spain — Bishop Bashar Matti Warda is the bishop of Erbil, Iraq, one of the dioceses most attacked by ISIS, and where the most Christian refugees have been taken after fleeing the Islamic State.

In an interview with CNA, Bishop Warda said that education will be key in helping to fight the mentality behind ISIS.

The bishop was in Madrid for the April 17-19 “We are all Nazarenes” conference.

He said that “the fanatical mentality of ISIS is not a new phenomenon; it has always existed except that now it has increased because of the chaos the country is going through.”

He also emphasized that the Islamic State is not a phenomenon that is only affecting the Middle East but “a global phenomenon, because there are European and American citizens in its ranks.”

Bishop Warda pointed to the importance of education in bringing Iraq to the state of breakdown that it is currently experiencing, and the role that education must play in bringing about change.

“In 2004, my parish was the first one where they placed a car bomb. The people asked ‘What can we do?’ Some proposed building a concrete wall. But I told them no, that what we needed to do was to build a school and that’s what we did. The neighborhood children come to this school now, which is located on the church grounds, and 90 percent of the students are Muslims,” he said.

The prelate stated that at the school, “we educate them in the values of accepting others, of respect, and love and having an open mind. That is what they are missing and what Christians, and especially Catholics, can contribute.”

He described seeing Christians offering help to Muslims in need, saying, “These communities carry out the duty of love and solidarity. Christians have the mission of bringing the message of giving freely what they have received from God as a gift or a grace, even in this convulsed area of the world.”

The Islamic State – also known as ISIS – has taken over parts of Iraq and Syria in recent months. The militant terror group has established a caliphate and carried out mass persecutions of minority populations, primarily Christians and Yazidis.

The continual attacks in Iraq have forced many Christians to have to flee from their homes. Since August 2014, Erbil has taken in more than 15,000 families who are living in a precarious situation.

“Some came on foot, walking for more than eight hours, having left everything behind. We have had to do a lot of work to help them and we had to start from zero. We want our people to stay in Kurdistan and Iraq, but only so long as they have a decent life. Housing, education and health are the main issues to resolve,” Bishop Warda told CNA.

The persecution of Christians in the Middle East is not new, the prelate reiterated, but now there is the possibility of emigrating to other countries where there is freedom of religion.

In fact, Bishop Warda said that the Iraqi Christian community in the United States has 22 priests and seminarians that were born in Iraq. “They emigrate but they do not leave their faith or their Church, just the country,” he explained.

The bishop of Erbil is aware that life for Christians in Iraq is not easy, and this region runs the risk of remaining without its historic Christian presence.

“So we want to offer a possibility, so that families will think twice before they leave. We know life in Iraq is not easy, especially when they live crowded together in one room of a house, or in a trailer, and they (ISIS) have left us with nothing.”

“We can’t tell them to stay, but we want emigration to not be the only option,” he emphasized. He also pointed out they feel “the power of prayer. That all your brothers and sisters in the faith are praying for you is something very powerful.”

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WORLD NEWS

For Malawi bishops, a new vision to promote excellence in Catholic schools

by Antonio Anup Gonsalves (CNA/EWTN News) • April 22, 2015

Malawi’s bishops launch new vision to promote education excellence in Catholic schools. (Episcopal Conference of Malawi)

Lilongwe, Malawi — The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Malawi has launched a new national education policy to promote the education of Catholics and to improve the quality of schools in the country.

Bishop Martin Mtumbuka of Karonga, who chairs the Malawi bishops’ education commission, said the Church wants to “keep up with the standards” of changing times. The policy aims to “offer direction” to those who manage Catholic educational institutions to ensure that they follow the original aim of Catholic education.

Bishop Mtumbuka launched the new education charter in the national capital Lilongwe on April 15, according to a statement by Prince Henderson, the Malawi bishops’ communications officer.

The effort has the financial support of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops through its overseas charitable arm, Catholic Relief Services.

Bishop Mtumbuka, who chairs the Malawi bishops’ education commission, said that the new policy would also help promote the quality of education in the country as a whole.

He reflected on the various challenges facing the country’s education sector and further stressed the need for collaborative action.

He said there is a lack of qualified teachers, teaching materials and learning materials, as well as shortcomings in school infrastructure. At the same time, there has been an increase in the number of orphans requiring assistance alongside problems from poverty, poor water and sanitation facilities, and HIV / AIDS.

Due to poverty and related issues, it is common for students to drop out of school, especially girls.

These are matters that the Church cannot manage alone, Bishop Mtumbuka said. He noted that young people face challenges in the context of social, cultural and religious complexity

The bishop also thanked the government of Malawi and its agencies for support. The country’s education ministry has assisted Catholic education since 1926. He also acknowledged and thanked the people of Malawi who support Catholic schools through their taxes.

Charles Msosa, principal secretary in the Ministry of Education, praised the new policy and said it would help educational development.

Msosa said the initiative is “a sure sign of commitment to improve education outcomes for all Malawians.”

He assured the Catholic bishops’ education commission of the education ministry’s continued support.

Catholic missionaries and educational institutions have played a significant role in promoting literacy programs and schools in Malawi.

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WORLD NEWS

Spanish film brings story of ‘Three Rebel Monks’ to life

by CNA/EWTN News • April 23, 2015

Screenshot from ‘Three Rebel Monks’ trailer. (CNA)

Madrid, Spain — A group of young adults in Spain are bringing to the big screen a novel about the renewal of the Cistercian Order by three saints who strove to recover the poverty, simplicity and austerity of the early monastic era.

“Three Rebel Monks” tells the story of Saint Robert of Molesmes, Saint Albéric, and Saint Stephen Harding, who overcame the challenges of monasteries that resisted their efforts.

The film is an adaptation of the book with the same title written by M. Raymond. The film director, Aleix Forcada, said that he began with a short university project and ended up with a thorough production.

The film was shot at the medieval monastery of Santa Maria de Huerta in Soria, Spain, where there is currently a Cistercian community.

Forcada and the other filmmakers are young adults in the Schoenstatt movement in Madrid. They spent four years in filming and editing, a period of time that they say has been an opportunity to encounter God, according to a press release on the movie.

Although the film is set in the 12th century, Forcada said it can be considered contemporary “because it speaks to us of eternal values such as constancy, perseverance, trust, humility, effort, courage … values that don’t have anything to do with ideologies or distinctions, are for everyone.”

He also emphasized that it has a special message for young people that are trying “to wake up from the toxic anesthesia of the ephemeral, of the ‘here and now.’ Things in life take time, and nothing comes without effort.”

Forcada also said that “the whole process of filming was an experience of God. I couldn’t pick out an exact moment … the simple fact of having been able to complete the film is a clear sign of the presence of God.”

The entire production and filming were made possible through small donations. Forcada said they received help from “anyone who could teach us how to organize film shoots with extras, anyone who gave us free lighting, the community of monks that welcomed us with such affection, the people that gave of their time to help us.”

Forcada said he hopes that people who see the film “leave the movie theater in a reflective mood,” regardless of whether they are Christian.

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WORLD NEWS

What happens when beautiful street art meets a Rome ghetto?

by Elise Harris and Jan Bentz (CNA/EWTN News) • April 23, 2015

Curator Francesca Mezzano of Project 999, which aims to spread a passion for art around the city of Rome, especially in poorer neighborhoods. (CNA)

Rome, Italy — Street artists from 10 countries around the globe gathered in Rome and put their talents to use in creating an outdoor art exhibit designed to place beauty at the center of an impoverished neighborhood.

“We are in a new paradise. In a paradise in which we have contributed with beauty and with art to make solidarity (and) closeness coexist amongst those people who society marginalizes,” Emmanuele Emanuele, president of the Roma Foundation, told CNA.

The foundation heads up the Big City Life project: a large, outdoor, art exhibit consisting of 20 wall-sized murals designed and created by 20 international artists that cover the sides of 11 buildings in Rome’s poor Tor Marancia neighborhood.

Although not a true ghetto by definition, Tor Marancia is considered a periphery of Rome, and is colloquially referred to as a ghetto by Romans due to its rough appearance and the poverty of those who live there.

The open-air museum is the result of the joint-effort of the entire community – many of whom didn’t speak to each other or interact beforehand – as well as the artists and members of the foundation. Work on the portraits began Jan. 8, and concluded Feb. 27.

Open to the public 7-days a week, the exhibit has very few works that are visible from the street. In order to see the full display of murals, a person has to enter the area and walk around inside.

Beauty is one of the things man needs to most, Emanuele said, calling it “the protagonist of culture.”

“I think that beauty will help to save the world, and will also help to redeem life’s sadness,” he said.

Street art, he emphasized, is an important artistic expression of beauty. “I’m convinced that street artists don’t have anything more or less important than artists in a home or a gallery.”

With a history dating as far back as 1539, the Roma Foundation operates its own projects that help in designing other initiatives that aim for a big impact in five main sectors: health, scientific research, aid to the underprivileged, education and arts and culture.

The Big City Life initiative is the brainchild of the “999 Contemporary Street Art” project, which is funded by the Roma Foundation.

Stefano Antonelli, who works with 999 Contemporary and helped to pioneer the project, spoke with CNA about the specific murals that are included in the exhibit. One of the pieces he discussed was a large image of the Virgin Mary.

The only religious image among the murals, the Marian portrait was done with acrylic and spray paint by an Italian street artist called Mr. Klevra, who works for an energy company and keeps a low-profile as an artist.

It took the artist three days to paint the image, which extends nearly 33 feet wide and 49 feet tall.

Antonelli said that Klevra is an expert of Byzantine iconography, which is “absolutely strange” due to the fact the style is often unused and considered outdated. Rather than traditional styles, young artists today tend to prefer strong, “pop-oriented” colors, he said.

However, Antonelli explained that the Marian image proved to be a “quite unique” addition to the exhibit, and served as a representation of something meaningful for the Italian people.

“We are in Italy, we have a Catholic tradition we are in the city of the Pope and we thought that placing a Virgin Mary in this place could be something really powerful,” he continued.

The parish priest of Tor Marancia, Don Marco, was initially against the portrait being placed where it was, however after meeting with the artist he is set to bless the image in May, which is traditionally understood as the month of Mary.

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WORLD NEWS

Bishop: Boko Haram is spreading to Cameroon – while the world looks the other way

by Eva-Maria Kolmann (Aid to the Church in Need) • April 24, 2015

Children in the diocese of Maroua-Mokolo, Cameroon, which faces threats from Boko Haram. (Aid to the Church in Need)

Abuja, Nigeria — A bishop in Cameroon has sent out an urgent message that the militant Islamist group Boko Haram is increasingly spreading into his country – but that media around the world are paying no attention.

In a memorandum made available to the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, Bishop Bruno Ateba of the Diocese of Maroua-Mokolo lamented that the violence perpetrated in northern Cameroon by Boko Haram has not drawn significant international attention.

“What happened in Paris during the attacks there is something we experience here every day,” he said, referencing the January massacre at a Franch satirical newspaper by Muslim extremists, “and yet nobody in the world says anything about it.”

“Instead, the attention of the world is focused above all on the Middle East,” the prelate said.

Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sinful,” launched an uprising in 2009 in an effort to impose sharia law on Nigeria. More than 6,000 people have died in Boko Haram-led violence in the country, according to Human Rights Watch.

In 2014, Boko Haram became known worldwide when members kidnapped nearly 300 girls from a school in Borno State. Last month, the group pledged its allegiance to ISIS – also known as the Islamic State – which launched a bloody campaign in Iraq and Syria last summer.

But while the world turns its focus to the Middle East, Boko Haram is infiltrating parts of Cameroon, Bishop Ateba warned.

The bishop said that in his diocese alone, since the last quarter of 2014, two senior diocesan staff, three catechists and more than 30 faithful have been murdered, and there have been numerous abductions.

He also said that numerous mosques have been burnt down and imams have had their throats cut, because “they refused to obey the orders of Boko Haram.”

Since as early as December 2013, the native Muslim community within Cameroon has adopted an increasingly clear stance against Boko Haram, he explained, and Muslims have often come to the aid of Christians threatened by the terror group that is “sowing panic” in northern Cameroon.

Just as it does in Nigeria, Boko Haram also recruits children in Cameroon, ages 5-15, enticing them with financial benefits for their families or simply abducting them by force, the bishop reported. This year alone, he said, no fewer than 2000 Cameroonian children and adolescents have been seized by Boko Haram – including a number of girls.

The infrastructure of the affected region – already one of the poorest in Cameroon – has been severly damaged. According to Bishop Ateba, the terror attacks have caused the closure of more than 110 schools and 13 health centers, while many police stations have been destroyed.

The Diocese of Maroua-Mokolo is today home to more than 55,000 displaced Cameroonians as well as refugees from Nigeria, he added. Many have sought shelter with friends and relatives, but more than 22,000 are still hiding in the bush.

The situation is particularly bad in the community of Amchidé, where a series of attacks by Boko Haram have caused the entire population to flee, the bishop explained. As a result, the pastoral activities in the area have come to a complete standstill. The chapel has been burned down and, according to eyewitness reports, there are human skulls lying in the streets.

Praising the courage of the faithful who continue to gather for prayer despite the dangerous sitaution, Bishop Ateba also addressed world leaders with a plea: “Today we beseech your attention, your prayers and your help.”

“Help us to bring an end to this nameless brutality that is destroying all hope for the future and bringing to nothing all the hard work of generations of believers.”

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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WORLD NEWS

Armenian genocide beckons for a new start in Turkey, historian says

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

(Kema Keur via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0)

Vatican City — On the day marking 100 years since the systematic killing of over a million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman authorities, a Catholic historian insists that peaceful coexistence is possible today in Turkey.

“It is very important today to celebrate the centenary of the Armenian genocide because history has shown without doubt that this genocide happened,” Marco Impagliazzo told CNA April 23.

However, from the memory of this dark point in history “we can start to build a new future in Turkey between Turkish and other Christian minorities. This genocide doesn’t divide us, but is a new step,” he said.

The Ottoman Empire was a strong example of “cohabitation, coexistence between people, religions and ethnicities,” before the rise in Turkish nationalism produced the racist attitudes which led to the slaughter of the Armenians in 1915, he said.

However, this “cohabitation” is not something of the past, but can still be an example of peaceful coexistence today.

Impagliazzo is a full time professor of Contemporary History at the University for Foreigners of Perugia and president of the Community of Sant’Egidio. He is also a consultor for the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples.

He recently authored a book entitled “The Martyrdom of the Armenians,” and spoke alongside the founder of the Sant’Egidio Community, Andrea Riccardi, at an April 23 event commemorating the “Armenian Martyrdom.”

Organized by the Sant’Egidio Community, the event also celebrated the publication of Impagliazzo’s book, as well as a volume written by Riccardi entitled “The Massacre of Christians,” which was published simultaneously with that of Impagliazzo.

Both of the books provide a historical account of what is commonly known as the Armenian genocide, the centenary of which is celebrated today.

Also referred to as the Armenian Holocaust, the genocide took place in 1915 when the Ottoman Empire systematically exterminated its historic minority Armenian population who called Turkey their homeland, most of whom were Christians. Roughly 1.5 million Armenians lost their lives.

Turkey has repeatedly denied that the slaughter was a genocide, saying that the number of deaths was much smaller, and came as a result of conflict surrounding World War I. The country holds that many ethnic Turks also lost their lives in the event.

However, most non-Turkish scholars refer to the episode as a genocide. Argentina, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Russia and Uruguay are among the 22 nations that formally recognize the massacre as a genocide.

Today Germany added also added itself to that list during an April 24 parliamentary session, making itself the 23rd country to recognize the massacre as a genocide.

Speaker Norbert Lammert told parliament that “we Germans cannot lecture anyone about dealing with their past, but we can through our own experiences encourage others to confront their history, even when it hurts,” the Associated Press reports.

The agency reports that Lammert made his comments at the beginning of a non-binding motion to recognize the Armenians’ fate as “exemplary for the history of mass destruction, ethnic cleansing, expulsions and genocides by which the 20th century is marked.”

Yesterday German President Joachim Gauck also referred to the slaughter as a genocide, which signaled a shift in his country’s stance on the subject, as previous officials have avoided using the term.

In their speeches for the commemorative event, both Impagliazzo and Riccardi stressed that the use of the term genocide in the case of the Armenian massacre is not a word of hatred, but one of truth.

“As St. Paul said, the truth will set you free. So now we have this freedom of knowledge of our past, to be more free to build a new future together,” Impagliazzo said in his comments to CNA.

He said it’s important for both sides to recognize what took place during the massacre, and that Turkey “(has) to know as we have to know, what happened in order to build a new future.”

The professor recalled Pope Francis’ own use of the term “genocide” during his April 12 liturgy for Divine Mercy Sunday, which he offered for faithful of the Armenian rite in commemoration of the 100 year anniversary of the tragic event.

In his homily for the Mass, Francis noted that “in the past century our human family has lived through three massive and unprecedented tragedies. The first, which is widely considered ‘the first genocide of the twentieth century,’ struck your own Armenian people, the first Christian nation.”

The Pope’s words, Impagliazzo said, were “very important” and showed the freedom he had “to speak, not to accuse the Turkish people or the Turkish government, absolutely not.”

Francis, he said, “is aware of this fact, of these massacres, (and) he spoke as a free man, a free man that wants a new consideration of the facts in order to establish a new story.”

The professor expressed his belief that there is already a movement of reconciliation going on within Turkey, which he said was largely inspired by Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, who was murdered in 2007 and was a prominent member of the Armenian community.

Dink was the editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, and had been outspoken in advocating for reconciliation for Turkey and Armenia, as well as for human and minority rights in Turkey.

Often critical of both the Turkish denial of the genocide as well as the Armenian push for its international recognition, Dink was killed in Istanbul in 2007 by a 17-year-old Turkish nationalist named Ogin Samast.

At his funeral, large numbers of both Turkish and Armenian citizens marched together “to demonstrate to the Turkish people that we don’t have to fear memory,” Impagliazzo said.

Even if an official recognition of the genocide could help in the process of reconciliation, “I don’t think it’s a legal step that will solve this situation, but a new mutual understanding between people, based on the truth of the history,” he said.

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U.S. NEWS

HHS mandate loses again: Supreme Court order protects Pennsylvania Catholic groups

by CNA/EWTN News • April 18, 2015

The U.S. Supreme Court building. (CNA)

Washington, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court has continued its trend of decisions stopping enforcement of a federal contraception mandate against religious employers with moral objections.

On April 15, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito issued an order barring the federal government from enforcing the mandate against Catholic Charities affiliates, Catholic schools and social service organizations in the dioceses of Erie and Pittsburgh.

“Every time a religious plaintiff has gone to the Supreme Court for protection from the government’s discriminatory mandate the Court has protected them,” Lori Windham, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said April 17.

“How many times must the government lose in court before it gets the message?” she added. “For years now the government has been claiming that places like Catholic Charities and the Little Sisters of the Poor are not ‘religious employers’ worthy of an exemption. That argument has always been absurd.”

The plaintiffs in the case have objected to a Department of Health and Human Services rule mandating insurance coverage of sterilization procedures and contraception, including some drugs that can cause abortions.

The organizations said they cannot help employees acquire the objectionable drugs and procedures without violating their religious beliefs.

Alito’s court order requires the government to brief the court on why it should be able to fine the objecting organizations, according to the Becket Fund.

Windham noted that the court has sided with plaintiffs against the HHS mandate in four previous cases. Other plaintiffs which have prevailed against the mandate include institutions and businesses such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, Wheaton College, the University of Notre Dame and Hobby Lobby.

“The federal bureaucracy has lots of options for distributing contraceptives – they don’t need to coerce nuns and priests to do it for them,” said Windham, whose organization has represented the Little Sisters of the Poor and other challengers of the mandate.

On April 24, the Supreme Court is expected to consider a similar case involving the Nashville, Tenn.-based Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, and several Catholic charities in Tennessee and Michigan.

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U.S. NEWS

International religious freedom bill hopes to fight terrorism, promote security

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • April 19, 2015

The U.S. Capitol building at sunset. (vgm8383 via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Washington, D.C. — A bill boosting promotion of religious freedom abroad could deter terror groups like ISIS, protect vulnerable minorities and foster global security, advocates say.

The bill is “an important first step in improving the ability of our nation to advance religious freedom globally,” stated Bishop Oscar Cantu of Las Cruces, chair of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, in an April 10 letter to Congress.

“The increase in violence perpetrated against religious minorities has reached staggering proportions,” he warned.

The Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act of 2015 passed the House Subcommittee for Global Human Rights on Thursday and adds to the existing International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

It mandates education and training for ambassadors and foreign service officers – all the way down to the entry-level – to promote religious freedom abroad.

The bill also creates an interagency committee chaired by the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom – currently Rabbi David Saperstein – that would develop a global strategy for promoting religious freedom.

The power to sanction individuals for egregious abuses of religious freedom is also granted to the president under the proposed legislation.

“The bill we passed 15 years ago needs to be updated to match the new challenges of the 21st century,” stated Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who authored the legislation.

“A robust religious freedom diplomacy is necessary to advance our nation’s interest in the stability, security, and economic development of countries we engage with around the globe.”

He cited global threats to religious freedom – from the bloody terrorism of the Islamic State, al Shabbab, and Boko Haram to the rising anti-Semitism in Europe – to show the need for a stronger U.S. foreign policy on religious freedom. He added that “governmental restrictions on the freedom of religion are at a seven year high,” citing the Pew Research Foundation.

The bill cites “growing evidence” of “a connection between the absence of religious freedom and increased levels of persecution of religious minorities, religiously motivated conflict, violent extremism, and terrorism, including the kind of terrorism that has reached the United States.”

“More robust efforts to advance religious freedom diplomatically will advance U.S. values around the world and help protect vulnerable religious minorities,” added the bill’s leading co-sponsor, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.).

The original International Religious Freedom Act was a landmark bill that created an ambassador position for international religious freedom in the U.S. State Department.

It also started the independent, bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which promotes religious liberty abroad and authors a yearly report on the state of global religious freedom that includes recommendations for the State Department’s list of “Countries of Particular Concern” for human rights and religious freedom abuses.

The new bill re-authorizes this commission until 2021 and expedites the process by which an ambassador is chosen. The post has been vacant for much of President Barack Obama’s tenure.

Bishop Cantu cited Pope Francis’ statements of solidarity with persecuted Christians in his support for the new bill.

“At Easter, Pope Francis acknowledged ‘the suffering of our many brothers and sisters who are persecuted for [Christ’s] name, and of all those who suffer injustice as a result of ongoing conflicts and violence’,” the bishop stated.

“The Holy Father went on to name violent conflicts in Syria, Iraq, the Holy Land, Libya, Nigeria, and most recently Kenya, many of which have a dimension of religious persecution or ethnic/sectarian tensions that have taken on religious overtones.”

“The Catholic Church views protection of religious freedom as a ‘cornerstone of the structure of human rights’,” he added, “since it is rooted in the dignity of the human person.”

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U.S. NEWS

New San Diego bishop: Don’t remove Junipero Serra from U.S. Capitol

by CNA/EWTN News • April 20, 2015

The statue of Father Junipero Serra inside the National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. (CNA)

San Diego, CA — Bishop Robert McElroy, the new head of the San Diego diocese, has criticized a proposal to remove the statue of pioneering California missionary and soon-to-be saint Father Junipero Serra from the U.S. Capitol.

Bishop McElroy told journalists on Wednesday that Fr. Serra is a “foundational figure” of California history. He noted that Fr. Serra is one of the few Hispanics honored in the U.S. Capitol and represents a state “rapidly becoming majority Hispanic,” the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.

The U.S. Capitol building houses two statues from each state, depicting renowned figures from the state’s history. On April 13, the California Senate voted 22-10 to remove Fr. Serra’s statue and replace it with a statue of Sally Ride, the first U.S. woman in space. The proposal must be approved by the California Assembly and Gov. Jerry Brown if it is to take effect.

Pope Francis will canonize Fr. Serra September 23 during his visit to the United States. In January, the Pope characterized Serra as “the evangelizer of the west in the United States.”

The Franciscan priest played a key role in the evangelization of 18th-century California and founded some of the missions that became the centers of major Californian cities. The missions took in thousands of Native American converts to Christianity and taught them many of the skills and technologies necessary for cultural development.

While some critics have depicted Fr. Serra as a harsh and malicious figure, his defenders say his life has been politicized and misrepresented. They point to the many natives who mourned his death and attended his funeral, as well as the work that the soon-to-be saint did to clothe, house and feed the native peoples.

Pope John Paul II beatified Fr. Serra in 1988.

Bishop McElroy’s comments on Fr. Serra came on the same day as his installation Mass as the sixth bishop of San Diego.

The bishop’s April 15 homily stressed the theme of “mutual accompaniment.” He recounted the story of two free climbers in Yosemite Valley’s El Capitan rock formation. One of the climbers refused to abandon his friend for days, despite his friend’s repeated inability to complete a difficult, isolated section of a climb. The climber eventually succeeded in scaling the difficult section, and they were able to finish the climb together.

Bishop McElroy said this kind of companionship “must form the heart of the relationship of a bishop with his local church.”

He also stressed that bishops and lay Catholics share a common baptism, which is the “most important religious identity for disciples of the Lord.”

“Saint Augustine expressed this reality clearly: for you I am a bishop; with you I am a Christian,” he explained.

Bishop McElroy listed three central challenges: the proclamation of God’s unlimited mercy, the need always to “witness to the grace of God which is present in the cultural diversity of the Church,” and the need to “seek to be a builder of bridges in our contemporary world.”

He said San Diego has the opportunity to “reclaim our border with Mexico as a bond which unites us to the whole of the Americas, rather than as a barrier which divides us.” He advocated comprehensive immigration reform and stressed the need to recognize “the grace that immigrants from Latin America have provided to California.”

He also recognized the ethnic and cultural diversity of San Diego, calling this “a powerful gift of the Holy Spirit.”

The bishop said Catholics must bring “into the very heart of the Church and society those so often condemned to live or die on the periphery.” He included in these the poor, the homeless, the unborn, the aged and disabled, the imprisoned, and victims of sexual trafficking and abuse, “especially clergy abuse.”

Catholics, he said, “are not called to separate from culture, nor to be coopted by our culture, nor to war against our culture, but to embrace our culture with a powerful and transformative love rooted in the gospel.”

Bishop McElroy emphasized “the beauty of God’s design for humanity” and said that a Gospel-rooted “ministry of accompaniment” must reach out to society in a world where many are left “broken and separated, alienated and factionalized.”

Christian ministry must “constantly build new bridges to recreate the unity of the human family and protect human dignity as God has intended.”

The San Diego diocese is among the largest in the U.S., with almost 1 million Catholics.

Bishop McElroy succeeds Bishop Cirilio Flores, who passed away in September after just one year in office.

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U.S. NEWS

Twenty years after bombing, Oklahoma City archbishop calls for mercy to temper justice

by CNA/EWTN News • April 20, 2015

Oklahoma City National Memorial. (Phil Roeder via Flickr CC BY 2.0)

Oklahoma City, OK — As the Oklahoma City community continues to heal two decades after the horrific bombing that claimed the lives of 168 people, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley said he hopes people find mercy as well as justice in response to unspeakable acts of violence.

“The demand for vengeance diminishes all of us,” he said in a column for Sooner Catholic.

Archbishop Coakley said that like most Americans, he remembers where he was the day of the April 19, 1995 bombing. He was a parish priest in Wichita at the time and followed the story in the news.

He recalled how moved he was by the community’s response “to such unspeakable violence and evil.”

“Those tragic days brought out the best in this community and its people. A remarkable spirit of kindness, hospitality and care for one another and for strangers was on display before the world,” he recalled.

“That spirit of solidarity has come to be known as the Oklahoma Standard. It was a light shining in darkness.”

However, the archbishop said, his hope for the community moving forward is even now still shaped by the “deeply disturbing” event of hearing about convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh’s death sentence over the public address system of an amusement park he was visiting with a youth group.

“From a reverent silence in which you could hear a pin drop there erupted an outburst of enthusiastic applause,” Archbishop Coakley recalled in the moments that followed that the news that McVeigh would be put to death.

While the convicted bomber “deserved a just sentence for his terrible crime,” the archbishop warned, there is a “fine and dangerous line” between true justice and vengeance.

He said that the experience strengthened his resolve against the death penalty in today’s society, saying that “(w)hile the death penalty may be legitimate in principle, it is hard to find circumstances today when it is legitimate to apply that principle.”

“When there are non-lethal means to protect society and exact due punishment for serious crimes we ought to pursue these means,” he stated.

Archbishop Coakley said that this anniversary is an opportunity to honor those who were killed 20 years ago and continue to support those who are still grieving their lost loved ones.

“The healing continues,” Archbishop Coakley said. “I am so proud to be a part of this community today, even as I so admired it from afar 20 years ago.”

As the Church journeys through the Easter season, he reminded Catholics, “God suffers with us” and in doing so has put an end to the “cycle of sin and death.”

Quoting Pope Francis’ first Angelus address after his election, Archbishop Coakley said in closing, “A little mercy makes the world less cold and more just. We need to understand properly this mercy of God, this merciful Father, who is so patient.”

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U.S. NEWS

CRS deliberating over vice president in same-sex civil marriage

by CNA/EWTN News • April 20, 2015

(Catholic Relief Services)

Oklahoma City, OK — A communications official with Catholic Relief Services said that the organization is aware that one of their vice presidential employees is in a same-sex civil marriage, and is in deliberations about it.

“Rick Estridge has served CRS for 16 years and currently holds the position as our vice president of overseas finance. Rick is in a same sex civil marriage,” said CRS senior manager for communications Tom Price.

“At this point we are in deliberations on this matter,” he told CNA April 20.

According to public records from the Clerk of Circuit Court for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, published by the Lepanto Institute, Rick Estridge with CRS entered into a civil same-sex marriage with his partner, William Gorestas on April 4, 2013.

Estridge is vice president of overseas finance at Catholic Relief Services. He described his current position on his LinkedIn profile as follows, according to the Lepanto Institute:

“As Vice President of Overseas Finance, I lead the development and implementation of all overseas financial management systems, policies, processes and activities to ensure strong resource stewardship, operational efficiency, consistent financial performance, risk mitigation, and exceptional financial management across all overseas operations. I also act as the lead Finance representative of the Agency to all donors, partners and other stakeholders related to overseas financial reporting, and contract/agreement, policy and compliance matters related to overseas financial management.”

The institute said that Estridge had also been publicly championing gay marriage on his Facebook page, though both his LinkedIn and Facebook accounts were later disabled.

The Lepanto Institute and related groups have previously accused CRS of facilitating contraception in developing nations and advocating behavior contrary to Church teaching. The U.S. bishops have investigated and rejected these accusations on several occasions, stressing their confidence in the organization’s Catholic identity and the safeguards put in place to ensure that identity.

Catholic Relief Services was founded in 1943 by the Catholic Bishops of the United States to serve World War II survivors in Europe. The charitable organization serves in 93 countries worldwide, to all people regardless of race, creed or nationality and employs Catholics as well as non-Catholics.

CRS describes itself as a pro-life organization committed to protecting, defending and advancing human life throughout the globe in accordance with Catholic social teaching.

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U.S. NEWS

Confirmed priest abuse allegations in single digits for 2014

by CNA/EWTN News • April 21, 2015

Priests celebrate Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Denver, Jan. 17, 2015. (Catholic Charities/Jeffrey Bruno CC BY 2.0)

Washington, D.C. — There are tens of thousands of Catholic clergy in the U.S. – but there were fewer than 10 substantiated allegations of clergy sex abuse committed in the 2013-2014 audit period, according to the U.S. bishops’ latest report.

In addition, almost all clergy, laity and other workers and volunteers at Catholic institutions have undergone safe environment training.

Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the bishops’ “first priority” is healing for victims and survivors of abuse.

“We join Pope Francis in his desire that the response of the Church be pastoral and immediate,” the archbishop said in the preface to the annual report on the implementation of the bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

“Though our promise to protect and heal made in 2002 remains strong, we must not become complacent with what has been accomplished,” Archbishop Kurtz said in an April 17 announcement from the U.S. bishops’ conference.

“It is my hope and prayer that as we continue to fulfill our promise, the Church will help model ways of addressing and bringing to light the darkness and evil of abuse wherever it exists,” he said.

The report was prepared by the bishops’ Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection for the National Review Board that monitors the Catholic Church’s efforts to respond to and prevent sex abuse.

The report uses two sets of data: one from the Georgetown University-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, and another from reports submitted by the auditors at Stonebridge Business Partners to the secretariat.

The CARA data found only six allegations of abuse of a minor that took place from July 2013 to June 2014 that had been substantiated by law enforcement, and two incident of abuse substantiated by a canonical process in the Catholic Church.

The Stonebridge Business Partners auditors’ data has a somewhat different analytic frame. It includes all allegations reported by a diocese or eparchy during an audit year. It also measures allegations made by someone who is currently a minor.

The auditors examined 37 allegations reported to civil authorities by someone who was a minor during the period from July 2013 to June 2014. Civil authorities found six substantiated allegations of abuse, while 11 were found to be unsubstantiated, 12 were unable to be proven, and eight were still under investigation.

There are over 30,000 Catholic priests in the U.S. and over 16,000 deacons.

Overall, the Stonebridge auditors examined claims from 620 alleged survivors of child sexual abuse by clergy whose 657 allegations were reported to the bishops’ secretariat from July 2013 to June 2014. Of these, 130 cases were substantiated and 62 were unsubstantiated, while 243 were still under investigation, 210 were unable to be proven or disproven, and 12 were classified as “other.”

Over 80 percent of credible abuse allegations reported to the secretariat date back more than 25 years. The majority of allegations concerned incidents from the 1960s to the 1980s.

The audit said all new allegations were reported to the authorities.

The Catholic bishops’ abuse protection efforts include safe environment training programs for children and for adults who come into contact with children.

Almost 4.5 million children have received this training, as have 99 percent of priests, deacons and educators. Over 1.9 million volunteers at Catholic institutions have received the training, as have over 250,000 other employees and over 6,500 candidates for ordination. The percentages of adult training completion range from 97-99 percent.

CARA surveyed all 195 dioceses and eparchies in the U.S. except one, while one diocese and five eparchies did not participate in the Stonebridge audit.

From July 2013 to June 2014, the Church has spent over $31.6 million on safe environment training programs, background checks and other protective efforts, as well as $119 million on legal settlements for abuse victims, therapy for victims, attorneys’ fees, and other allegation-related costs.

Deacon Bernie Njoadera, executive director of the Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection, said in a March 1 letter included in the secretariat’s report that there is an “ongoing” obligation to protect children that will only be fulfilled “When everyone realizes and carries out their responsibilities.” He said the secretariat’s work is a result of “the willingness to look honestly at effectively confronting this evil of sexual abuse of minors.”

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U.S. NEWS

Beauty in Nebraska: College’s transformed church hopes to help students be saints

by Kate Veik (CNA/EWTN News) • April 21, 2015

Ceiling of St. Thomas Aquinas Church at the Newman Center in Lincoln, Nebraska. (Clark Architectural Collaborative)

Lincoln, NE — On a Friday night in spring of 2010, nearly 150 Catholic students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln gathered at their Newman Center to share their ideas for a rebuilding project.

With iPhones in hand, the students found photographs of churches around the world and pointed out their favorite features: soaring arches, intricate stained glass, communion rails.

Over the next five years, artisans and donors from across the world worked diligently to help the dreams of these Nebraskan students become a reality.

The resulting St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church and Newman Center is a bow to tradition and a beacon of hope and adoration of God in the heart of a secular campus.

The original mural of storm clouds behind the altar has been replaced with a massive, awe-inspiring stained glass window. At the center of the window is a youthful Christ with an exposed sacred heart. Fourteen saints and blesseds are gathered in adoration around Christ. Students hand-picked each of the men and women, with the exception of Saint Albert – the 13th century saint stands to the left of his student Saint Thomas Aquinas to depict the importance of student-teacher relationships.

The simple, gold tabernacle that used to stand alone behind the altar is now housed in a grand, repurposed 125-year-old altar of repose with gold, red, and blue detailing. An outdoor courtyard on the north side of the Church has been replaced with a Marian chapel.

A new dome floods the Church with natural light. The dome’s pendentives mirror those in St. Peter’s Basilica: depicting St. Longinus, St. Veronica, St. Andrew, and St. Helena.

Above the altar hangs a crucifix handmade in Italy by 4th generation wood carvers, who were reportedly surprised to hear that they were making the crucifix for a Church on a college campus in Nebraska.

Bishop James Conley of Lincoln dedicated the new church on Divine Mercy Sunday. He dedicated the also new Newman Center complex on Thursday after a highly anticipated student Mass.

In his homily at Sunday’s dedication of the church, Bishop Conley said he believed the new church will inspire students to become the saints of UNL.

“This church is a witness to the universal vocation of holiness,” Bishop Conley said. “Behind me, in this stained glass, are ordinary men and women who were made holy through God’s mercy … These saints lived different vocations, in different times, in different circumstances. Together they point to an enduring truth – in Jesus Christ, holiness is possible. And holiness can transform the world.”

Lead architect Kevin Clark told CNA St. Thomas Aquinas Church is transforming everyone’s understanding of what a church can be.

“A renovation of a church doesn’t have to follow trends,” Clark said. He explained that UNL students desired a church rooted in tradition; a church that could offer stability in the midst of tumultuous college life.

St. Thomas Aquinas Church was offering that stability even before its renovation.

“The Newman Center is more than just a place. It’s a community,” said UNL senior Travis Barrett. “When so many students have the choice to fall away from their faith, the Newman Center offers that steadfast support during this crucial time in people’s lives.”

Barrett said he had a solid foundation in the faith when he arrived at UNL as a freshman. And through his years of involvement at the Newman Center, that foundation has evolved into a personal relationship with Christ.

“I’m a better man for getting involved at the Newman Center,” he told CNA.

Recent UNL graduate Hannah Gokie echoed Barrett’s reflections in a recent blog post.

“Some say the heart of evangelization has to do with all these new forms of reaching people … But I have to disagree. To me, the New Evangelization, what St. John Paul the Great called us to, is based primarily through relationship.”

“And that’s what I found at the Newman Center.”

The primary relationship Gokie developed at the Newman Center was a relationship with Christ. But she also had the fortune of meeting her now-husband, with whom she attended Sunday’s emotional dedication Mass.

St. Thomas Aquinas’ thriving Newman Center was the driving force behind the entire rebuilding project; the old church building and Newman Center simply could not handle the crowds of students at Masses on Sundays and feast days.

UNL is home to more than 6,000 Catholic students. Nearly half of them are actively involved at St. Thomas Aquinas. A whopping 26 young people joined or entered full communion with the Catholic Church at this year’s Easter Vigil.

“Having a space that could truly handle a crowd was important,” Clark said. The new church has more than double its original capacity of 300 people.

The new Newman Center complex is also geared toward accommodating growing demand. The building boasts two student lounges, a library for studying, and four classrooms for the more than 100 student-led Bible studies on campus and non-credit classes on catechism and morality. A credited Catholic Studies program is also in the works. The program has a potential launch date of fall of 2017.

There are offices for three resident priests – the Newman Center currently has two – as well as FOCUS missionaries, local religious sisters, and even a counselor from Catholic Social Services of Lincoln. A social hall features a built-in dance floor with a DJ sound system. There is also a small oratory for private reflection.

Even with its cosmetic make-over, the heart and soul of St. Thomas Aquinas Church and Newman Center remains the same.

“I know that this new church will serve many more students just like I was – looking for a place to call home, a place to find Him,” Gokie said. “In place of the old building is a new space to love for students for years and years to come.

“Other hearts besides mine will be changed there … More trials and growth of souls than I can count will happen in this new church, and for that I am in awe and so very grateful.”

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Why no Catholic is exempt from caring about the environment

by Adelaide Mena (CNA/EWTN News) • April 22, 2015

(Danist Soh via Unsplash CC0 1.0)

Washington D.C. — What does it mean to be truly pro-life? Amid debates over abortion and the death penalty, Catholic ecologists say that one issue is often overlooked in discussions involving human life and dignity – the environment.

“Environmental truths are very much linked to and related to human life issues. They’re really one in the same,” said Bill Patenaude, a special lecturer in theology at Providence College and founder of the website “Catholic Ecology.”

He explained that recent Popes have drawn a clear connection between the dignity of the human person and the surrounding environment.

“The Church has had a fundamental respect for nature since the very beginning and has brought it to the world,” Patenaude told CNA.

Discussions abound regarding environmental problems, their causes and a proper Catholic response. Pope Francis is expected to weigh in with an upcoming encyclical later this year.

In wading through the often contentious debate surrounding environmental issues, Catholic ecologists say that the Church – both as individuals and communities – must take the opportunity to steer decisions that both steward the environment and respect humanity.

The Poor Bear the Burden

Many people think of air, water and land as an infinite resource, said Jim Ennis, executive director of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference. But pollution, contamination and other environmental struggle challenge this assumption and often have the greatest adverse effect on the poor.

The subject is one that hits close to home for Ennis. In his childhood home of rural Northern California, high levels of nitrates from fertilizers contaminated the local community’s groundwater.

When such problems arise, poor communities and individuals inordinately bear the burden, he continued, noting that the most vulnerable in society often lack access to technological remedies or protective resources.

Pollutants, such as nitrates, can impede the development of young and unborn children, or cause other health problems for the elderly, infirm and those with weakened immune systems. With issues such as drought or severe pollution, which can depress crop growth and thus agriculture income, the lack of treatment and prevention options can further compound economic hardships facing a community.

Ennis believes that Catholics have a duty to help address these challenges facing the poor and the environment more generally.

“Especially as a Catholic, we have a great understanding of how God has created all things,” he said. “He has created human beings to be in relationship with Him, but he has also created the universe and the world as a gift as men and women, to be stewards of it, and we really can’t live without it as human beings.”

Human Ecology and the Holy Life

The environment can be a topic fraught with controversy. Government and non-profit groups point to record snowfalls and unprecedented high temperatures as reasons for worry. In the ocean, “dead zones” and patches of garbage grow, while reports of rising Arctic temperatures and melting sea ice continue.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization says that changes in rain patterns contribute to the spread of mosquito-borne illnesses in some areas, while causing water scarcity that affects crops and vulnerable communities in other areas. In recent decades, questions about declining water and soil quality have become more prominent, while numerous organization say that global carbon dioxide levels are continuing to rise.

Debates on the science behind various claims is often heated. However, Patenaude explained, the key to a Catholic perspective on these issues is that environment must not be viewed in isolation, but rather as a matter of human dignity and living a holy life.

The three most recent Popes have focused heavily on the theme of “human ecology,” which finds its basis in both the physical laws of nature and the moral natural law. Both the natural and moral law are “laws that God has hardwired into human nature” that humans violate at their own peril, he explained.

The challenge of Catholic teaching is to work for the human good while caring for the creation God has made, he continued.

Pope Benedict in particular expanded on the theological roots of the connection between humanity and the environment, Patenaude noted. The pontiff emphasized the Church’s role in bringing constant truths to an often-changing world and taught that the Church is “is obliged to love in the present,” a demand that requires sacrifice.

“To be an environmentalist, we have to pick up our crosses, we have to sacrifice,” Patenaude said. “We have to have sacrificial self-restraint, so we sacrifice our desires for the sake of others.”

Pope Francis is now continuing on the groundwork his predecessor laid, the professor continued. He noted that the Pope often comments on the “culture of waste” and will focus on the environment in his upcoming encyclical.

The Pope also draws a link between environmental and human life issues in conversations on topics including food waste and the disregard for the human dignity of the unborn and elderly, Patenaude said.

Pope Francis’ teachings reject the idea that combating the culture of waste or caring for the environment should be an additional item to accomplish on top of other Catholic duties, he added.

“Lots of times we see accepting environmental responsibilities as another burden we have to add to our lives,” he said. But instead, “it’s part of our principal goal of trying to live a holy life.”

Patentaude pointed to monastic communities as an excellent example for Catholics to emulate in their daily lives. Religious “lived in accordance with the laws of nature, they grew what they needed, they worked for that with nature, and that freed up a lot of time to pray to God for themselves and for the good of the world.”

Adding additional prayers and sacrifices, such as those practiced during Lent, to one’s daily routine can not only help with the spiritual life, but also with detachment from material matters, which makes people “environmentalists without even thinking about it” he said.

The Church and Environmental Policy

Because of this strong understanding of the link between respecting human dignity and care for the natural world, Catholics have an important role to play in international discussions on the potential challenges of climate change and development, said Lucia Silecchia, a law professor at The Catholic University of America.

“It’s important to have a Catholic voice in that discussion, because a lot of what those secular environmental groups are proposing undermine the dignity of the human person,” she told CNA.

“There is a tendency to see the human person as no different than anything else, denying the notion that only the human is made in the image and likeness of God.” This shortsightedness, Silecchia said, can lead to ideas that threaten human life and dignity, such as population control.

By participating in the conversation about environmental protection, the Church can help to dispel false information and promote ideas that protect both the dignity of the human person and the environment, she stressed. Additionally, the Catholic Church has a perspective on the entirety of the world that secular voices engaged in environmentalism often lack, she said.

“One of the advantages of the Church is that it’s global and has a real sense of what’s going on around the world,” Silecchia explained.

Many international players lose track of the many issues related to environmental change – such as poverty, development, and care for humanity, which the Church routinely discusses – she said.

The Church and the writings of the Popes provide guidance for how to address these issues while still respecting humanity that can apply to the formulation of international policy, she explained. First, those addressing climate change should “take a look at whether or not ecological concerns are a symptom of other moral issues” like overconsumption, disregard for human life or exploitation.

The international community can also learn from the Church’s focus on solidarity and in promoting a sustainable model of economic development, Silecchia continued.

Developed nations can help to share technological knowledge and expertise with developing nations and can also help to support scientific and economic research to “look at what’s practical and what’s possible” to help persons in developing countries, she said.

“The Church has a very healthy respect for science and in some sense an optimism that there are some technological solutions possible if we set our minds to that,” she explained. She pointed to the example of alternative energy sources and other technologies that may help developing countries without as harsh of an impact on the environment.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is helping to promote domestic policies aimed at caring for the poor, the vulnerable and creation. Cecilia Calvo, environmental justice program coordinator for the conference, told CNA that the bishops have been involved in this discussion for decades. Most recently, they “have advocated for policies that address climate change and protect humanity,” including standards that reduce carbon pollution.

Because of the Church’s teachings, the bishops see engagement in this issue as a way to not only take better care of God’s creation, but also to care for the poor and vulnerable, she said, reinforcing that a failure to steward creation “also impacts humanity, particularly the least of these.”

“The bishops, in looking at environmental questions, have called for prudent action, action that promotes the common good for present and future generations, respects human life and dignity while giving a priority to the poor and vulnerable” when formulating their policies, Calvo said.

Cooperating with God: What Catholics can do at home

The U.S. bishops’ conference is also encouraging lay Catholics, parishes and families to engage more in helping to care for creation. They are asking for increased prayer, learning, assessment of one’s personal behaviors, action and environmental advocacy from Catholics across the country.

The goal, Calvo said, is not to separate care for the environment as a separate issue, but to support Catholics in looking “at environmental questions and challenges facing us in an integrated way.”

Also, as the publication of the upcoming encyclical on creation draws near, Catholics should “learn more about Catholic teaching on the environment and listen to Pope Francis on this issue,” Calvo advised.

“It’s a very special moment to place attention on environmental concern through the unique lens of Catholic teaching.”

Ennis also recommended steps that Catholics can take in their daily lives to work alongside nature. Most important, he said, was to cultivate a change in mindset, recognizing man’s role in stewarding the world that God created.

“Human beings are not just independent parts of creation,” Ennis stressed. “We as human beings are part of the overall creation, and we have a responsibility to tend and to keep the Earth.”

Environmental conservation, he said, should involve “a change of heart and a change of mind to understanding how our Lord works through nature.”

This is a matter of mindset, he said, likening it to the difference in approach between couples using artificial contraception versus those cooperating with their nature in Natural Family Planning.

“Just because, mechanically, you can do that, does that mean it’s right?” he asked, saying that the mindset behind both artificial contraception and a disregard for the environment results in an “alienation of men and women from nature.”

Instead, Ennis offered, “there’s a way we can cooperate with nature and be cooperators with God.”

Shifting one’s viewpoint and placing greater thought on cooperating with creation may lead to small changes – such as using fewer chemicals to treat a lawn. But these little steps are importance, Ennis said, because they break with the “very mechanistic, utilitarian view” of much of Western culture. This viewpoint instead asks, “How do I work with nature that God has created?”

Working through small, incremental changes, such as recycling or reusing materials when possible, is an effort that “starts in our homes, and then moves into our communities,” he said. These small changes are also measures parishes can put into effect that not only respect the environment, but can save money as well.

Ennis cautioned that skepticism over the political and social connotations associated with environmentalism could slow the creation of a culture of stewardship.

“This kind of transformation – it takes time,” he acknowledged.

But he encouraged Catholics not to shy from taking whatever small steps they can to cooperate with creation. “That’s the Catholic and Christian way anyway: we’re often countercultural.”

“It’s not just a trend or a fad,” Ennis said. It’s a way to “care for this earth in a way that can be responsible.”

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Marriage march in D.C. expects diverse, wide-ranging support

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • April 23, 2015

March for Marriage participants carry a banner in Washington, D.C. on March 26, 2013. (Addie Mena/CNA)

Washington, D.C. — People from a variety of faiths and backgrounds will unite in Washington, D.C., April 25 to uphold marriage as the union of a man and a woman in the third annual March for Marriage.

“It’s going to be a diverse group, and it’s going to highlight how people of different faiths and backgrounds all come together to support the truth, and marriage is the union of a man and a woman,” Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, told CNA.

The third annual March for Marriage will take place on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and precedes April 28 oral arguments at the Supreme Court on a critical marriage case that could determine the civil definition of marriage nationwide.

The march normally takes place in June, but Brown told CNA that this year it was rescheduled to April to coincide with the oral arguments for Obergefell v. Hodges.

That case involves four marriage decisions by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in November. At that time, the court upheld traditional marriage laws in the four states in its jurisdiction – Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. It was the first major victory for defense of marriage advocates at the federal circuit court level.

The case is now before the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule on whether same-sex have the legal “right to marry” nationwide under the 14th Amendment.

An avalanche of amicus briefs have been filed for both sides of the case – hundreds of businesses, states, members of Congress, mayors, and religious leaders, as well as the U.S. Department of Justice, have all weighed in on marriage before the Court.

The final ruling will likely be issued near the end of June.

“The Court will be deciding the most important decision on marriage that it’s ever faced,” Brown said, adding that through the march, “we have a chance to tell the Court” not to “short-circuit the democratic process and put into the Constitution something that’s clearly not there.”

Defense of marriage advocates have argued that there is no legal right to “same-sex marriage” in the Constitution. They say that laws recognizing marriage as the union of man and woman are valid, as they recognize the uniquely procreative nature of the male-female union. Many also object to courts redefining marriage without any say from voters.

March participants have come from all over the country in the past, Brown said. The national march in D.C. is expected to draw crowds from all faiths, as smaller marches take place around the country.

“We’ll have a major turnout from Hispanic and African-American supporters,” Brown said, noting that New York Democratic state senator Rubén Díaz will join the New York Hispanic Clergy Association in leading “over 80, 90 buses coming up from the Bronx.”

Speakers will include the Papal Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is also supporting the march, along with various Orthodox Catholic churches and other Christian leaders including Pastor Jim Garlow of Skyline Church in San Diego and Ryan Dobson, son of Dr. James Dobson.

Orthodox and conservative Jews have also marched in the past, along with people of no religion who believe in traditional marriage, Brown noted.

“We’re marching for freedom, we’re marching for truth, and we’re marching to tell the Court that it does not have the right to re-define something as fundamental as marriage as the union of a man and a woman,” he said.

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Galveston-Houston’s vicar for clergy tapped to lead Victoria diocese

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • April 23, 2015

Fr. Brendan Cahill (L), hands an Apostolic Letter from Pope Benedict XVI to Msgr. Frank H. Rossi on May 4, 2012. (Jonah Dycus, The Daily Vine/Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston)

Vatican City — The Vatican announced Thursday that Fr. Brendan Cahill, Vicar for Clergy in the archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, has been named bishop for the diocese of Victoria, Texas.

In an April 23 statement Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston, said that Fr. Cahill has been “a faithful priest” in his diocese, and will bring “a wealth of gifts and experiences with him in this new ministry.”

“His appointment is a sign of the Holy Father’s care for the needs of the people of Southeast Texas, whose deep Catholic roots continue to be a vital presence in the region,” the cardinal said.

The priest’s “warm and pastoral heart” will be greatly missed, he said, assuring the bishop-elect of his personal prayers and fraternal support in his new mission.

Cardinal DiNardo also called on the faithful of the diocese to pray that Fr. Cahill might be “a wise and faithful shepherd of God’s holy people.”

Fr. Cahill, 51, will succeed Bishop David Eugene Fellhauer as the third shepherd of the Victoria diocese upon the bishops’ retirement, having reached the age limit of 75.

Born in Coral Gables, Florida in 1963, Fr. Cahill was ordained a priest for the diocese of Galveston-Houston May 19, 1990.

The bishop-elect holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology as well as a “Master of Divinity,” which he obtained in 1985 and 1990 from Houston’s Saint Mary’s Seminary and University of St. Thomas.

He later went on to study at the Xavier University in New Orleans, where in 1993 he received a master’s degree in theology with a specialization on the experience and theology of African-American Catholics.

In 1996 he obtained a licentiate in Dogmatic Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He received a doctorate in the subject from the same university in 1999.

Fr. Cahill’s degrees from the Gregorian University specialize in the history and theologians that were influential at the opening of the Second Vatican Council, as well as the Catholic doctrine on the interpretation of Scripture as developed in the council.

After his ordination to the priesthood, Fr. Cahill served as assistant priest for St. Francis Cabrini Parish in Houston for two years, after which he held the same position at Christ the Good Shepherd in the Spring area of the city until 1994.

From 1994 until 1998 the bishop-elect pursued his doctoral studies in Rome, after which he returned to Houston and served as first as the formation director, then as rector of his former seminary.

In 2010 the priest was nominated as the archdiocesan director of the Secretariat for Clergy Formation and Chaplaincy Services for Galveston-Houston, which is a position he held until 2014. He also served as head of the diocese’s Priest Personnel Board and was a member of the Council of Priests.

The bishop-elect is also a spiritual director for the Houston Senatus of the Legion of Mary and a chaplain of the Houston Serra Club and Knights of Columbus in Galveston-Houston chapter.

He is also an associate chaplain of the Knights of Malta, of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher and a fourth degree member of the Knights of Columbus.

The priest has served as Galveston-Houston’s Vicar for Clergy since 2014. In addition to English, Fr. Cahill also speaks Spanish and Italian.

Bishop Fellhauer will make a formal announcement on Fr. Cahill’s appointment alongside the bishop-elect during a news conference scheduled to take place at 10a.m. local time in Victoria, Texas, according to the Galveston-Houston diocese’s website.

Fr. Cahill’s episcopal ordination is scheduled to take place June 29, 2015, in Victoria.

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Senate reaches compromise on abortion funding in trafficking bill

by Adelaide Mena (CNA/EWTN News) • April 23, 2015

U.S. Capitol building. (CNA)

Washington, D.C. — After six weeks of gridlock, members of both parties in the Senate bridged a disagreement over abortion funding in a new human trafficking bill by dividing up funding streams for the new project.

“The fund really is supposed to be about shelters and housing and victims’ services and also, of course, law enforcement,” said Amy Klobuchar (D- Minn.), to NPR. Klobuchar has, along with party leaders, contributed to the legislative solution after facing pressure for not bringing the funding controversy to light earlier.

“When I looked back on speeches, that’s all we talked about. We didn’t talk about health care.”

The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, which was passed 99-0 by the Senate, sets up a new fund for victims of sex trafficking to pay for counseling, care, and other necessities after rescue.

Earlier in 2015, debate over a common provision against abortion caused division over the bipartisan bill.

Republican leaders wanted to apply the limits of the Hyde Amendment – a legislative provision often added to appropriations bills that bars taxpayer funding of abortion except in the case of incest, rape and danger to the mother’s life – to the whole of the human trafficking bill, barring any funding of abortion procedures under the legislation.

Some Democratic lawmakers objected, saying that non-taxpayer funds should not face these restrictions.

The resulting conflict lasted for six weeks, but with other decisions on the docket, lawmakers were eager to move on.

Funding for human trafficking victims and survivors will now come from two sources. The first major funding base will come from fines levied against perpetrators of trafficking-related crimes, which will go towards the general fund of the U.S .Treasury. This aid can be used to cover legal aid, law enforcement, shelter, counseling and other fees for victims.

Further funding for health care and medical expenses will come from tax money already allocated for Community Health Centers, which is already subject to the Hyde Amendment and thus cannot be used to sponsor abortions.

Sen. John Cornyn, (R-Texas), lead sponsor of the bill and pro-life senator said he was “thrilled we were finally able to come together to break the impasse over this vital legislation.”

President Barack Obama has not commented publicly on whether he will sign the bill, though press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters April 22 that the compromise was “encouraging.”

The bill’s passage also opens the Senate’s schedule for another long-awaited vote: the confirmation of a new Attorney General to replace the retiring Eric H. Holder Jr.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who sets the Senate’s schedule, had said previously he would not schedule the confirmation vote for nominee Loretta Lynch until the trafficking bill was passed.

After waiting more than five months – longer than any other cabinet secretary nominee in the past 20 years – the Senate has announced that a vote will be held April 23.

Currently, Lynch serves as the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

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Cardinal George praised at funeral for faith, conviction, courage in suffering

by CNA/EWTN News • April 23, 2015

George’s funeral vigil at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago, IL on April 21, 2015. (Chicago Tribune)

Chicago, IL — Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George received everything good from God and these gifts must now be passed on by those who mourn him, said the homilist at his funeral on Thursday.

“The cardinal’s faith was simple, direct, without pretense or embarrassment. Spontaneous, bold, profound and even childlike,” Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle said in his homily at the cardinal’s Funeral Mass.

“He was so utterly a Christian, so utterly a priest, that no circumstance would seem inappropriate to give witness to Christ. How could he not give witness to Christ everywhere?”

Cardinal George was the first Chicago native to become the city’s archbishop, and the first Archbishop of Chicago to retire from office. He passed away April 17 at the age of 78, after fighting cancer for several years.

Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago was main celebrant for the April 23 memorial Mass at Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral. Nine cardinals and more than 50 bishops, including apostolic nuncio Archbishop Carlo Vigano, concelebrated the Mass.

Archbishop Sartain praised Cardinal George’s “profound interior life” that was motivated by “hope in the Lord.” He said the cardinal lived “a life of faith, conviction and courage.”

The archbishop paraphrased one of the cardinal’s sayings: “The only thing we take with us when we die is what we have given away. The only things that endure are our relationships with God and with each other.”

Cardinal George had “a soul devoted to prayer, a brilliant mind in love with God,” Archbishop Sartain continued.

“Because he gave these things, and more, away, he took them with him to meet the Lord last week.”

Cardinal George was a member of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, for whom he served as a superior. He was a past president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and was a deeply respected advisor and commentator on Catholicism in the United States.

He worked to implement the Church’s response to the sexual abuse crisis and played a leading role in religious freedom advocacy in response to Obama administration rules that would require Catholic institutions to provide insurance coverage for drugs and procedures that violate Catholic belief.

He served as Bishop of Yakima, Washington, and Archbishop of Portland, Oregon, before becoming Chicago’s archbishop in 1998.

“No one could ever dispute the extraordinary intellectual gifts God gave Francis George. Nor could one dispute the enthusiasm with which he put these gifts to use,” Archbishop Sartain continued.

“When one is joined to Christ, the savior of the world, the beauty and the mystery of the world become the object of one’s love.”

The Seattle archbishop cited one of Cardinal George’s final homilies, in which the cardinal said “revealed truth and self-sacrificing love are more real, more trustworthy, than anything else.”

While Cardinal George was uncomfortable with questions about his legacy, Archbishop Sartain explained, he suggested “you and I are his legacy, because what he gave was not his at all, but the living Christ, the truth, the life.”

“What Francis George had received, he handed on to us,” Archbishop Sartain concluded. “So has it ever been in the Church. And so shall it ever be. Now, through you, and me.”

Archbishop Cupich thanked Cardinal George’s friends and family at the close of the Mass, as well as all who came to mourn a “great leader.” He asked Archbishop Vigano to convey to Pope Francis the archdiocese’s “deep gratitude” for his message upon the cardinal’s death.

The cardinal will be interred at All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines, Ill. next to his parents’ graves.

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Leader, son, friend: Cardinal George remembered through the eyes of his superior

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • April 24, 2015

Cardinal Francis George at U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops meeting in Chicago. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Chicago, IL — A strong leader, yet humble. Approachable, yet not preoccupied with a desire to be liked. A high-ranking prelate and intellectual powerhouse, yet a friend to the poor who embraced the sufferings in his own life.

The late Cardinal Francis George of Chicago might seem a man of contrasts, but his life was one of different virtues lived in harmony, said his superior in the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

The oblates are an international missionary congregation of priests and brothers. As a leader in the order back in the 1970s and ‘80s, Cardinal George helped steer the oblates through much tumult and confusion that was rampant in the Church at the time, said the congregation’s current superior general, Fr. Louis Lougen, OMI.

“(I)n those troublesome years, he helped the congregation be focused on our real strong values of religious life, consecrated life, life of prayer. The outreach to the poor through justice and peace,” Fr. Lougen told CNA.

Cardinal George passed away April 17 at age 78 after a years-long bout with cancer. He was Archbishop of Chicago from 1997 until his retirement in 2014.

Although he was a high-ranking U.S. Catholic prelate – in addition to heading a major archdiocese, he led the U.S. Bishops’ Conference for three years – Fr. Lougen saw Cardinal George as his “son,” noting that he was, after all, still one of the oblates.

And as Fr. Lougen stood at the head of the casket where the cardinal lay in repose, he said goodbye to his spiritual son.

At the April 22 vigil for men and women religious and deacons, Fr. Lougen recalled Cardinal George’s observation that “we have kind of lost or forgotten in our congregation the superior general is both a father and a brother to all of the oblates.”

“Because of what he said, I discovered my fatherhood as the superior general of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. And I come tonight to bless my son, for the son came to the Father’s house.”

Cardinal George was foremost a strong leader, both with the oblates and in his own archdiocese, the superior recalled.

“Maybe some people thought he was hard, demanding. He never was running to be popular,” Fr. Lougen reflected. “He was never doing things so that people would like him or love him. He was doing what he really believed was right in prayer before God, and he wanted God to have the glory.”

Giving God the glory – this was a theme of Cardinal George’s life that Fr. Lougan repeatedly emphasized.

“It wasn’t about Francis. It was about God and the Church and Jesus, and living for that,” he said. “He tried to do what was right and he didn’t worry about whether people didn’t like him … There was a lot of courage in that, I think, a lot of courage to do what he believed his convictions, his discernment, his prayer called him to do.”

But the cardinal was not only a strong leader. He was also personable and approachable, especially with the poor, Fr. Lougen said.

“He didn’t blow his own trumpet … he was helping the poor in many ways, interested in the plight of the poor without making a lot of noise about it.”

And although he was widely acclaimed as an astute intellectual, he was still very down-to-earth.

“He really was intellectual, but a simple man, a man close to the poor, he could talk to the poor on the street, he could talk to the poor at a meeting,” Fr. Lougan said.

“Among us he was a brother. He had a good sense of humor,” the superior continued. “And you could banter, banter with him. And even we would argue and discuss with him,” he added.

“So he was never, ‘I’m the cardinal and you better listen to me.’ Among us, he was a brother and a good friend. Very real.”

Fr. Lougan also reflected on the suffering the Cardinal George bore throughout his life. The cardinal contracted polio as a teenager, which left him with permanently damaged legs. He would go on to beat cancer in 2006, although it later returned, and he struggled with it for several years before passing away.

Although he obviously suffered from the effects of both diseases, he never gave an appearance of suffering, choosing instead to help others, Fr. Lougan said.

“He had the physical disability. I never heard him complain, I never heard him cry about that,” the priest explained. Rather, “he empowered, he helped other people with difficulties, with challenges, to move ahead. To go out and to see the good things in life.”

The superior recalled Cardinal George’s to his chapter of the congregation in 2010.

“We were talking about conversion to Christ as Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate,” he said at the vigil, and the cardinal emphasized that “when you speak of conversion to Christ, it’s conversion to Christ crucified.”

“That came from his own experience of limitations in his life. Never a victim, he lived his oblation with joy, with dedication,” Fr. Lougen said.

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New Greensburg bishop seeks to emulate Francis’ focus on mercy

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

Bishop-elect Fr. Edward C. Malesic. (Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania)

Vatican City — The Vatican announced Friday that Fr. Edward C. Malesic of Harrisburg, Penn. has been nominated to lead the Greensburg diocese, a role he wishes to carry out by imitating Pope Francis’ compassion.

In a prepared April 24 statement Fr. Malesic said he was both honored and humbled by Pope Francis’ decision to appoint him as the fifth bishop of Greensburg, Penn., according to the Harrisburg diocese’s website.

The bishop-elect described the style that he wishes to lead with, saying that “In short, as Pope Francis said of himself, I too am a fellow sinner. But because I am a fellow believer I have also received the mercy of God.”

“I want to proclaim that. With God there is mercy and fullness of redemption,” he said, and thanked the people of the Harrisburg diocese for forming him in what it means to be a Christian.

Fr. Malesic, 54, will succeed Bishop Lawrence E. Brandt as the fifth bishop of Greensburg, after the latter submitted his resignation to Pope Francis last year having reached the age limit of 75.

Born in Harrisburg Aug. 14, 1960, the priest graduated from Central Dauphin East High School in 1978 and studied biology at Lebanon Valley College for three years prior to entering the seminary.

He then went on to study at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, where he received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 1983, and a Master of Divinity in 1987.

Bishop-elect Malesic was ordained a priest for Harrisburg May 30, 1987, by then-bishop William H. Keeler.

After his ordination he served in various pastoral assignments in the diocese, the first being as assistant pastor of St. Theresa Parish, New Cumberland, Penn. until 1989. He was then assigned to St. Rose of Lima Parish, where he served in the same capacity.

While at St. Rose of Lima, Fr. Malesic also served as campus minister of York College of Pennsylvania. In 1992 he was appointed to full time campus ministry, and went on to serve for four years at Millersville University and later Franklin and Marshall College in nearby Lancaster.

In 1996 the bishop-elect was sent to study canon law at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he received his licentiate in in the subject.

He has served the diocesan tribunal in various capacities, such as auditor, Adjutant Judicial Vicar and secretary for Canonical Services. In 2006 he was appointed as Judicial Vicar, which is a position he holds to this day.

The priest was appointed as administrator of Holy Infant Parish in York Haven, Penn. in 2004, and was later named pastor of the parish.

Fr. Malesic has overseen the parish for the past 11 years, and is currently in charge of the relocation and construction of a new church and parish center, scheduled for to conclude in 2016.

In an April 24 statement on the priest’s nomination as bishop for Greensburg, the current head of the Harrisburg diocese, Bishop Ronald Gainer, said that Fr. Malesic served has fulfilled his duties “with exceptional dedication and fruitfulness.”

He praised the bishop-elect’s “quick wit and exemplary commitment to priestly ministry,” saying that it will be a challenge to find someone to take his place.

Bishop-elect Malesic will be introduced at a news conference in the Bishop Connare Center in Greensburg at 10a.m. His episcopal ordination will take place July 13, 2015, at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Greensburg.

The Diocese of Greensburg was established March 10, 1951, and is composed of four counties in southwestern Pennsylvania. The diocese’s Catholic population is currently at 148,937 faithful in 78 parishes.

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A shepherd who smelled like his sheep – Chicago faithful pay final respects to Cardinal George

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

Cardinal Francis George. (CNA)

Chicago, IL — As Cardinal Francis George of Chicago was laid to rest Thursday, religious and lay members of the archdiocese revered him as a caring shepherd who wouldn’t let cancer get in the way of his ministry.

Sister Mary Paul of the Daughters of Divine Love, an international women’s religious order with a congregation in the Archdiocese of Chicago, recounted how Cardinal George’s predecessor, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, had invited the order to Chicago. When he died in 1996, they didn’t know what would happen next.

“When Cardinal George came in, he continued to be a father to us. He knows us personally and he calls us by name,” she told CNA the night before the funeral.

Cardinal George passed away April 17 at age 78 after a years-long bout with cancer. He was Archbishop of Chicago from 1997 until his retirement in 2014.

That the late cardinal was a warm, fatherly figure to those who knew him was a common sentiment from many who attended prayer vigils for his repose, the Funeral Mass, and the subsequent funeral procession ending in his burial at All Saints Cemetery.

They described him as a man close to the people, evoking the image used by Pope Francis of good priests as “shepherds living with the smell of the sheep.”

“I love the fact that he was a Chicagoan at heart, and he came back to serve this great diocese,” said Michael Czyzewicz, commander of the Knights of Columbus Bishop Boylan Assembly in Woodstock, Ill.

After the evening prayer vigil for men and women religious the night before the funeral, Sister Mary Paul spoke with gratitude for all that Cardinal George had done for her order.

When asked what stood out most about his example, Sister Mary Paul answered, “His humility.”

She gave multiple examples of the cardinal’s fatherly care for them, and their love and affection for him in return. One time, when he was too sick to attend the Funeral Mass for one of the sisters, he still came to the wake – obviously in pain – and received applause from everyone there.

Another time when the sisters were looking for a new home in the archdiocese, the arrangement fell through, and he gave a sincere apology. “He has the humility to say I am very sorry that this didn’t work, before he passed,” Sister Mary Paul said. “So for me that was a great humility.”

“Any time you see him, he will greet you,” said Sister Immaculata, regional superior for the order. “He’s just humble. He doesn’t mind that he’s the big boss, but he will humble himself to be the first to say hi.”

Shortly after the vigil for religious, the public began streaming in to pay their respects to the cardinal. The line ran out of the church as the all-night prayer vigil began.

The local Knights of Columbus were particularly impressed by his support for the Knights – “He was a Knight,” they said with pride – but also his silent fight with cancer which he had endured on and off since 2006.

“I don’t know how he was able to go on with his daily tasks the way he did,” said Greg Verbick, a member of the Knights. “He hid it quite well, let’s put it that way. He suffered very silently, I can assure you of that. I don’t think he wanted anybody to realize the pain that he had. He just wanted to continue doing God’s work.”

Standing in line for the Funeral Mass the next morning, Jim Goeward, student body president at Benedictine University in Lisle, Ill., told CNA about how he and Cardinal George had worked together to plan a big Mass for high-schoolers from Chicago and surrounding dioceses.

“We were able to build a great friendship, and he became just a great friend and hero to me,” said Goeward.

After the Mass, the funeral procession traveled by the cardinal’s home parish of St. Pascal’s in the Western suburbs of Chicago. The parish celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, and the school’s 100th anniversary is next year.

Cardinal George graduated from the parochial school in 1951. He would sometimes stop by and say Mass when he visited his parents in that neighborhood, parishioners recalled.

The parish is quite proud of its cardinal – pictures of him were displayed in the gym as students watched a live feed of his Funeral Mass, and the school has copies of his two books.

“I think it gives all students, but especially our students from St. Pascal someone to look up to, to follow,” said the school’s principal Denise Akana.

“Knowing that he graduated from here and knowing that he walked the same halls that the kids walk now and was in the same classrooms is sort of mind-boggling,” she added.

As the funeral procession approached, dozens of parishioners lined both sides of the street to wave goodbye.

Asked to describe the cardinal, parishioners painted the picture of a man who was “down to earth,” “very personable,” and “very easy to talk to.” They related how he attended the parish’s 100th anniversary picnic last year and was seen “sitting at the table like an ordinary person,” chatting away with parishioners.

“He’s going to be sorely missed,” Verbick said at the Wednesday night prayer vigil.

“You would typically think that a cardinal wouldn’t be approachable. But that wasn’t the case with him. And you could feel the love coming from him for everyone.”

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A Lion of the American Church: Thoughts on the Passing of Cardinal George

by Very Rev. Robert Barron • April 20, 2015

Cardinal Francis George, who died last week at the age of 78, was obviously a man of enormous accomplishment and influence. He was a Cardinal of the Roman Church, a past president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Archbishop of one of the largest and most complicated archdioceses in the world, and the intellectual leader of the American Church. A number of American bishops have told me that when Cardinal George spoke at the Bishops’ meetings, the entire room would fall silent and everyone would listen.

But to understand this great man, I think we have to go back in imagination to when he was a kid from St. Pascal’s parish on the Northwest side of Chicago, who liked to ride his bike and run around with his friends and who was an accomplished pianist and painter as well. At the age of thirteen, that young man was stricken with polio, a disease which nearly killed him and left him severely disabled. Running, bike riding, painting, and piano playing were forever behind him. I’m sure he was tempted to give up and withdraw into himself, but young Francis George, despite his handicap, pushed ahead with single-minded determination. The deepest longing of his heart was to become a priest, and this led him to apply to Quigley Seminary. Convinced that this boy with crutches and a brace couldn’t make the difficult commute every day or keep up with the demands of the school, the officials at Quigley turned him away. Undeterred, he applied to join the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a missionary congregation. Recognizing his enormous promise and inner strength, they took him in.

I bring us back to this moment of the Cardinal’s life, for it sheds light on two essential features of his personality. First, he was a man who never gave up. I had the privilege of living with Cardinal George for six years and thus I was able to see his life close-up. He had an absolutely punishing schedule, which had him going morning, noon, and night, practically every day of the week: administrative meetings, private conversations, banquets, liturgies, social functions, public speeches, etc. Never once, in all the years I lived with him, did I ever hear Cardinal George complain about what he was obliged to do. He simply went ahead, not grimly but with a sense of purpose. When he first spoke to the priests of the Archdiocese as our Archbishop, he said, “Never feel sorry for yourself!” That piece of advice came, you could tell, from the gut.

Second, his identity as an Oblate of Mary Immaculate deeply marked him as a man of mission. The OMI’s are a missionary congregation, whose work takes them all over the world, from Africa and Asia to Latin America, the Yukon, and Alaska — not to mention Texas and Belleville, Illinois. When he was a novice and young OMI seminarian in Belleville, Francis George heard the stories of missioners from the far reaches of the globe, and he imbibed their adventurous spirit. As the vicar general of his order, he undertook travels to six continents, dozens of countries, visiting with thousands of OMI evangelist priests. I was continually amazed at his detailed knowledge of the politics, culture, and history of almost any country or region you could name. It was born of lots of direct experience.

This missionary consciousness is precisely what informed the intellectual and pastoral project that was closest to his heart, namely, the evangelization of the contemporary culture. In this, he showed himself a disciple of his great mentor Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II. What Cardinal George brought rather uniquely to the table in this regard was a particularly clear grasp of the philosophical underpinnings of the Western and especially American cultural matrix. Cardinal George often signaled his impatience with the term “counter-cultural” in regard to the Church’s attitude vis-à-vis the ambient culture. His concern is that this can suggest a simple animosity, whereas the successful evangelist must love the culture he is endeavoring to address. But he saw a deeper problem as well, namely, that, strictly speaking, it is impossible to be thoroughly counter-cultural, since such an attitude would set one, finally, against oneself. It would be a bit like a fish adamantly insisting that he swims athwart the ocean. Therefore, the one who would proclaim the Gospel in the contemporary American setting must appreciate that the American culture is sown liberally with semina verbi (seeds of the Word).

The first of these, in Cardinal George’s judgment, is the modern sense of freedom and its accompanying rights. Following the prompts of Immanuel Kant, modern political theorists have held that all human beings possess a dignity which dictates that they should never be treated merely as a means but always as an end. It is interesting to note that the young Karol Wojtyla, in his early work in philosophical ethics, put a great premium on this second form of the Kantian categorical imperative. What Cardinal George has helped us see is that, at its best, this modern stress is grounded in a fundamentally theological understanding of the human person as a creature of God. Were the human being construed simply as an accidental product of the evolutionary process, then he would not enjoy the irreducible dignity that is assumed by Kant. Indeed, Kant’s contemporary Thomas Jefferson rather clearly indicated that his understanding of human rights was conditioned by the Christian theological heritage when he specified that those rights are granted, not by the state, but by the Creator.

The Kantian-Jeffersonian philosophical anthropology must be distinguished, Cardinal George insisted, from Thomas Hobbes’ account. On the Hobbesian reading, rights are grounded, not so much in divine intentionality, but in the unavoidability of desire. Hobbes opined — and John Locke essentially followed him — that we have a right to those things that we cannot not desire. For Hobbes this meant the sustenance of biological life and the avoidance of violent death, whereas for Locke, it was somewhat broadened to mean life, liberty, and property. The problem is that Hobbes’s interpretation is thoroughly non-theological and his consequent understanding of the purpose of government is non-teleological, purely protective rather than directive. Government exists, not for the achievement of the common good, but for the mutual protection of the citizens. That the Hobbesian strain found its way into the American political imagination is clear from Jefferson’s refusal to characterize the nature of happiness, even as he insisted on the universal right to pursue it. In a word, therefore, the Church can and must affirm, at least in its basic form, the Kantian understanding of freedom and rights, even as it can and must stand against the purely secularist Hobbesian notion.

Cardinal George knew that the prime spokesperson for this deft act of affirmation and negation was Pope John Paul II, who emerged, in the late twentieth-century, as the most articulate and vociferous defender of human rights on the world stage. The Cardinal drew attention to a speech that the Pope made in Philadelphia in 1979. John Paul sang the praises of our Declaration of Independence, with its stress on God-given rights, but he filled in the theological background by referencing the Genesis account of our creation in the image and likeness of God. Pressing well past any sort of Hobbesian secularism and utilitarianism, the Pope insisted that Jefferson’s ideal should inspire Americans to build a society that is marked by its care for the weakest and most vulnerable, especially the aged and the unborn.

The second major feature of modernity that Cardinal George identified is an extreme valorization of the physical sciences, or in his own words, “the imposing of scientific method as the point of contact between human beings and the world and society into which they are born.” The founders of modernity appreciated the sciences not only for their descriptive and predictive powers, but also for their liberating potential. Bacon, Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, Kant, and many others, held that the mastery over nature provided by burgeoning physics, chemistry, medicine, etc. would free the human race from its age-old captivity to sickness and the strictures of time and space. But what this led to — and I see it practically every day in my evangelical work — was the development of a “scientism” which, as a matter of ideological conviction, excludes non-scientific or extra-scientific ways of knowing, including and especially religious ways. The scientistic attitude has also obscured the undeniably theological foundations for the scientific enterprise, namely the assumptions that the world is not God (and hence can be analyzed) and that the world is stamped, in every detail, by intelligibility. Both of these assumptions are predicated upon the doctrine of creation, which the founders of modern science took in, along with their astronomy, mathematics, and physics, at church-sponsored universities. In the measure that the sciences flow from and rest upon the properly theological presumptions that non-divine universe is well-ordered and intelligible, Catholic theology can involve itself in a very fruitful dialogue with them; but in the measure that scientism comes to hold sway, the Church must resist.

One of Cardinal George’s most memorable remarks is that liberal Catholicism is an exhausted project. It is important that we parse his words here carefully. By “liberal Catholicism” he means an approach to the Catholic faith that takes seriously the positive achievements of the modern culture. In this sense, Lacordaire, Lord Acton, Lamennais, von Dollinger, and Newman were all liberal Catholics — and their successors would include De Lubac, Rahner, Guardini, Ratzinger, and Congar. One of the permanent achievements of the liberal Catholic project, in Cardinal George’s judgment, is “restoring to the center of the Church’s consciousness the Gospel’s assertion that Christ has set us free, but also for the insight and analysis that enabled the Church herself to break free of the conservative social structures in which she had become imprisoned.” In the 1950’s Hans Urs von Balthasar called, in a similar vein, for a “razing of the bastions,” behind which the church had been crouching, in order to let out the life that she had preserved. And this is very much in line with Vatican II’s limited accommodation to modernity in service of the evangelical mission. Liberal Catholicism also took into account the second great achievement of modernity, stressing that certain doctrinal formulations and Biblical interpretations had to be reassessed in light of the findings of modern science. One thinks in this context of the vociferous interventions, made by a number of bishops on the Council floor at Vatican II, concerning certain naïvely literalistic readings of the Old Testament.

All of this assimilation of the best of the modern represents the permanent achievement of Catholic liberalism, and this is why Cardinal George never argued that liberalism is simply a failed or useless project. He said it was an exhausted project, parasitical on a substance that no longer exists. What are the signs of exhaustion? The Cardinal explains that the liberal project has gone off the rails inasmuch as it “seems to interpret the Council as a mandate to change whatever in the Church clashes with modern society,” as though, in the words of the notorious slogan from the 1960’s, “the world sets the agenda for the Church.” If the Church only provides vaguely religious motivation for the mission and work of the secular society, then the Church has lost its soul, devolving into a cheerleader for modernity. The other principal sign of the exhaustion of the liberal project is its hyper-stress on freedom as self-assertion and self-definition. In Cardinal George’s words: “the cultural fault line lies in a willingness to sacrifice even the Gospel truth in order to safeguard personal freedom construed as choice.” We might suggest that another shadow side of Catholic liberalism is a tendency to accept the scientific vision of reality as so normative that the properly supernatural is called into question. We see this both in a reduction of religion to ethics and the building of the kingdom on earth, as well as in extreme forms of historical critical biblical interpretation that rule out the supernatural as a matter of principle.

What is too often overlooked — especially in liberal circles — is that Cardinal George was just as impatient with certain forms of conservative Catholicism. Correctly perceiving that authentic Catholicism clashes with key elements of modern culture, some conservatives instinctively reached back to earlier cultural instantiations of Catholicism and absolutized them. They failed thereby to realize that robust Catholicism is, in Cardinal George’s words, “radical in its critique of any society,” be it second-century Rome, eighteenth-century France, or the America of the 1950’s. What he proposed, finally, was neither liberal nor conservative Catholicism, but “simply Catholicism,” by which he meant the faith in its fullness, mediated through the successors of the Apostles.

At the heart of this Catholicism in full is relationality. Cardinal George has often pointed out that Catholic ontology is inescapably relational, since it is grounded in the Creator God who is, himself, a communion of subsistent relations. More to it, the Creator, making the universe, ex nihilo, does not stand over and against his creatures in a standard “being-to-being” rapport; rather, his creative act here and now constitutes the to-be of creatures, so that every finite thing is a relation to God. Aquinas expressed this when he said that creation is “a kind of relation to the Creator, with freshness of being.” This metaphysics of relationality stands in sharp distinction to the typically modern and nominalist ontology of individual things, which gave rise to the Hobbesian and Lockean political philosophy sketched above, whereby social relations are not natural but rather artificial and contractual. Since grace rests upon and elevates nature, we should not be surprised that the Church is marked by an even more radical relationality. Through the power of Christ, who is the Incarnation of the subsistent relation of the Trinity, creation is given the opportunity of participating in the divine life. This participation, made possible through grace, is far more intense than the relationship that ordinarily obtains between God and creatures and among creatures themselves, and Catholic ecclesiology expresses that intensity through a whole set of images: bride, body, mother, temple, etc.

In Cardinal George’s striking language: “the Church is aware of herself as vital, and so calls herself a body. The Church is aware of herself as personal, and so calls herself a bride who surrenders to Christ. The Church is aware of herself as a subject, as an active, abiding presence that mediates a believer’s experience, and so calls herself mother. The Church is aware of herself as integrated, and so describes herself as a temple of the Holy Spirit.” Notice please the words being used here: vital, personal, present, surrendering, mother, integrated. They all speak of participation, interconnection, relationship, what Cardinal George calls esse per (being through). This is the living organism of the Church which relates in a complex way to the culture, assimilating and elevating what it can and resisting what it must. This is simply Catholicism.

Cardinal George was a spiritual father to me. In his determination, his pastoral devotion, his deep intelligence, his kindness of heart, he mediated the Holy Spirit. For this I will always be personally grateful to him. I believe that the entire Church, too, owes him a debt of gratitude for reminding us who we are and what our mission is.

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 two award-winning documentary series, Catholicism and Catholicism: The New Evangelization.

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‘They did not believe’

by Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J. • April 22, 2015

The Gospels record at least seven instances of disbelief in the Lord’s Resurrection. The words were spoken not by outsiders but by the disciples themselves. They didn’t believe the women who, on returning from the empty tomb, couldn’t wait to announce the good news to them. Idle chatter they called it.

On finding only linen cloths at the tomb, Peter went home wondering at what happened to the body. The two disciples at Emmaus had just about given up on the Lord’s promise and prediction. They had hoped as well …

Then there was Thomas. You can almost hear his brashness, ‘I will not believe unless I can see the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side.’ Only then would he condescend to believe.

Jesus doesn’t reprove Thomas but indulges him. Once Thomas professes his belief, he becomes “the very one who most completely affirms the fullness of Christ’s nature found on the lips of anyone in the Gospel when he acclaims, “My Lord, and my God.” His acclamation has become a common confession of faith concerning Christ. (Jerusalem Biblical Commentary, #178).

You can understand the disciples’ doubt or anyone’s doubt for that matter about the resurrection of a mere person. Yet throughout his short ministry, Jesus foretold his Resurrection. Didn’t they listen to him? Weren’t they the ones who had protested that he was the Christ and expected Messiah? For days, their vision remained clouded.

The Women at the Tomb; Mary Magdalene

Not so with the women. Seeing the empty tomb, initially they were afraid. Then, assured by the angel, they believed. There was no doubt about it. No need to rationalize, they hurried back to the Eleven with the joyful news.

It was a slightly different story with Mary Magdalene, a woman with much love to give. Yet, there was nothing gullible about her, nothing naïve. Unlike Peter, she stayed behind at the tomb weeping, all the while trying to sort things out attempting to unravel the mystery of the missing body. Distress aside, she was sleuthing around for any clue as to the Lord’s whereabouts. Little did she suspect.

To recapitulate the scene: “Why are you weeping,” ask the angels? She ignores their question but observes that “they” took away the body, whoever “they” are. She doesn’t know where they laid him implying that she ought to know.

Then Jesus, disguised as a gardener asks what she’s looking for. This time, assuming that this gardener has some information, she blurts out “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I’ll take him away.” She will look after the body? How? Such is the language of love that blurts out a protestation, both unrealistic and impossible. Love knows no reason. Or as Blaise Pascal would say in the seventeenth century, “the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.”

It was only a few days before that Mary, in an act of profligate love, had poured out perfume on Jesus’ feet. ‘What a waste,’ sneered Judas. But Jesus told Judas to his face that he needed human consolation before his passion and death.

This encounter in the garden is lovely. Jesus consoles Mary with her very own name. His voice entirely transforms her. The Risen Lord won’t allow her to cling to him because a new relationship now exists between them. She hurriedly goes to the disciples to announce what the Lord has done for her. Not unlike Mary of Nazareth.

Do we wonder that Magdalene’s name has been placed at the head of the named women in the Gospels? She is the “apostle to the apostles” signaling her special place among them all.

The Johannine encounter between Jesus and Mary Magdalene parallels that of Isaiah 43:1:”Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.”

Contemplation as Event

If, in prayer, you can recreate this scene and sense that Jesus is calling you by name, it may be difficult to utter those harsh words, “I will not believe.” It may not be possible to share the news of the Risen Christ in the way Magdalene did. But sensitivity to others brings possibilities that are perhaps more creative. For most of us, it means living our faith quietly, firmly, but without hesitation.

God’s gracious presence at work in our lives gives them purpose and directs them with dynamism. God’s face also shines on other persons, places, things, and events. You and I proclaim our belief to a world that often shouts the harsh words, ‘We will not believe.’ You and I are called to participate in the Trinity’s ongoing redemption in the world because we pray, “Lord, we believe; help our unbelief” (Mk 9:24).

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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What’s broken in the Church’s liturgy that needs fixing?

by Msgr. M. Francis Mannion • April 23, 2015

I think that by now readers know that I am an unambiguous supporter of the liturgical reforms brought about by the Second Vatican Council. These reforms were sorely needed, and there is no going back, as some “conservatives” would wish.

The reform in the liturgy, particularly of the Mass, was undoubtedly the centerpiece of post-Vatican II developments. The liturgical changes impinged immediately on the life of worshipers. Practicing Catholic experienced the liturgical reforms first hand in their parish churches.

However, not everything is as it should be in the Church’s liturgical life. There is much unease in some quarters, and many people have a vague feeling that something is amiss with the liturgy.

What is wrong? In my opinion, the fundamental problem has to do with the manner in which the liturgy is celebrated.

Speaking generally, I do not give high marks to the way in which clergy preside at liturgy (sloppy, mechanical, soulless, artless), and the way they homilize (superficial, disorganized, prosaic, and unable to connect with people’s deepest needs).

Lay liturgical ministers are very often trained inadequately, and are unprepared to assist at Mass (this is especially true of lectors). On a regular basis, liturgical ministers simply do not show up when assigned; and they are often sloppily dressed (I continue to argue that lay ministers should wear albs, not least to cover a multitude of wardrobe sins).

Besides lay and ordained malfeasance, there are two areas in which the condition of the Church’s liturgical life is in very bad shape. These are liturgical music and church architecture.

Church music continues to have the folksiness carried over from the 1970s, and has a very outdated feeling; and there are almost no (and I mean no) good composers in the field of liturgical music today. Pastors are not willing to employ professional musicians, and musical leadership is often left in the hands of well-meaning, but poorly trained, amateurs.

The situation with church architecture is even worse, even disastrous (and I do not use that word lightly). Music programs can be improved quickly, but (modern) church buildings are apt to last for a century or more. For the first time in 2000 years, our churches are not designed to be replicas of the New Jerusalem; they do not point to heaven, and do not make present in icons, paintings, and murals the celestial hosts of angels and saints.

Modern churches are merely functional: They provide high-priced, colorless, and lifeless auditoriums for worship. (One prominent church architect who designed many Catholic churches — and renovated at least one cathedral — called his designs “non-churches”!)

The fundamental problem here is that few church architects are trained in liturgical theology, know very little about the history of church architecture, and simply ape one another. And the situation is not getting better. Church design in mired in the severe, cold, and lifeless style that began in Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Some people think that all the problems would be solved if only the Church would make further structural changes in the liturgy. “Conservatives” think that we must go back to what obtained before the Council); and “liberals” think that, if only we would move forward and adapt the liturgy to the culture, things would improve vastly.

How can the problems I identify be resolved? Largely, by a massive liturgical education of clergy, lay ministers, musicians, architects, and artists. (On the matter of liturgical education in the seminaries, I’m afraid the outlook continues to be rather bleak.)

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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FEATURES

‘Little Boy’ strong in faith, but not wavering in quality

by Carl Kozlowski • April 24, 2015

The idea of a little faith being able to change lives, and even the world, goes back as far as the parable of the mustard seed: that even faith as small as a mustard seed can move a mountain. The new movie “Little Boy,” out in theatres today, hinges on that parable but also is a prime example itself of that tale’s principles in action.

Starring the remarkable child actor Jakob Salvati as an 8 year old kid nicknamed “Little Boy” by everyone around him because he’s tiny for his age, the movie depicts his life during WWII in the small town of O’Hare, California, as he struggles with the fact his father got drafted into the war against the Japanese. His father, played by veteran actor Michael Rapaport in a relatively brief but superb performance, had to leave his family and mechanic business behind when his older son, London (David Henrie), was rejected from service due to having flat feet.

With his father away, Little Boy feels alone in the world, as he is bullied by the rest of the kids in town and treated with condescension by adults. Under the sway of his bitter older brother, who harbors hatred for Japanese people that’s fueled by US propaganda films and news that his father been captured by Japanese soldiers, he throws rocks at the house of an old Japanese townsman named Hashimoto (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), breaking a window.

London does even worse, lobbing a Molotov cocktail at Hashimoto’s house but thankfully missing the mark. He winds up in jail, while Little Boy winds up getting a lecture from his priest (Tom Wilkinson), who tells him to get rid of his anger and frustration about his father and channel his energy into positive action.

Little Boy believes in the powers of a famous movie magician and wants to believe that he has the power to save his father, so the sympathetic priest gives him a list of good works based on the beatitudes – such as visiting the sick and clothing the naked – and tells him he has to complete the list to truly have his faith give him power. But the priest also adds one extra duty to the list – to befriend Hashimoto.

The heart of “Little Boy” develops from the friendship between the young kid and the older Japanese man, who turns out to be as well-drawn and powerful a character as the immortal Mr. Miyagi of the “Karate Kid” films. As Little Boy learns life lessons from his accomplishing his list of duties and from the sage older man, the movie delves into a number of surprising directions, which all have a remarkable payoff.

While this is a family film and counts Mark Burnett – the most powerful Christian in Hollywood due to his work on everything from creating “Survivor” to producing the epic miniseries “The Bible” – among its producers, “Little Boy” manages to tackle issues of racism and war in a mature, realistic fashion. Viewers see the world largely through Little Boy’s eyes, but at no point does the film – co-written by Alejandro Montaverde and Pepe Portillo, and directed by Montaverde – ever feel dumbed down, and it will definitely move adult audiences as well.

Montaverde was also the writer and director of the pro-life drama “Bella,” which was an art-house hit in 2006. That movie drew a lot of support from Catholics and other Christians, but to be honest, its storytelling was not a strong suit beyond its message. “Little Boy” represents an enormous growth on every level, and it shows in the fact that it has drawn acclaimed, recognizable actors like Rapaport, Wilkinson and Emily Watson (as Little Boy’s mom) to the film.

Special praise must be reserved for Eduardo Verastegui, who plays a small part in the film as another Catholic priest but who was a major producer on the film. Having already succeeded with “Bella,” he has dedicated his life to making films that advance Catholic beliefs when possible, but to absolutely never make a movie that violates his faith principles.

Here’s hoping that a bigger mainstream audience finds this movie and supports it, as “Little Boy” is exactly the kind of Christian – and more specifically Catholic – filmmaking we need. Strong in faith but not wavering in quality, respecting every viewer’s intelligence without having to be inappropriate for children, it is quite an achievement and well worth every penny spent on tickets.

Please make sure you support it with your family and friends this weekend. With the crush of summer movies coming up, it needs a strong start and if you don’t support a faith-based, family-friendly movie of this caliber, you have no right to complain that Hollywood doesn’t make more like it.

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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SUNDAY • APRIL 26, 2015

Fourth Sunday of Easter

First Reading (Acts 4:8-12; NRSVCE)

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. This Jesus is

‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders;

it has become the cornerstone.’

There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.”

Second Reading (1 Jn 3:1-2; NRSVCE)

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

Gospel Reading (Jn 10:11-18; NRSVCE)

Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away — and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

MONDAY • APRIL 27, 2015

Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter

First Reading (Acts 11:1-18; NRSVCE)

Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

Gospel Reading (Jn 10:1-10; NRSVCE)

Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

TUESDAY • APRIL 28, 2015

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter

First Reading (Acts 11:19-26; NRSVCE)

Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that took place over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, and they spoke the word to no one except Jews. But among them were some men of Cyprus and Cyrene who, on coming to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists also, proclaiming the Lord Jesus. The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number became believers and turned to the Lord. News of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast devotion; for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were brought to the Lord. Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for an entire year they met with the church and taught a great many people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called “Christians.”

Gospel Reading (Jn 10:22-30; NRSVCE)

At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

WEDNESDAY • APRIL 29, 2015

Memorial of Saint Catherine of Siena

First Reading (Acts 12:24 — 13:5a; NRSVCE)

But the word of God continued to advance and gain adherents. Then after completing their mission Barnabas and Saul returned to Jerusalem and brought with them John, whose other name was Mark.

Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a member of the court of Herod the ruler, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia; and from there they sailed to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews.

Gospel Reading (Jn 12:44-50; NRSVCE)

Then Jesus cried aloud: “Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness. I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge, for I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me.”

THURSDAY • APRIL 30, 2015

Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter

First Reading (Acts 13:13-25; NRSVCE)

Then Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. John, however, left them and returned to Jerusalem; but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. And on the sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down. After the reading of the law and the prophets, the officials of the synagogue sent them a message, saying, “Brothers, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, give it.” So Paul stood up and with a gesture began to speak:

“You Israelites, and others who fear God, listen. The God of this people Israel chose our ancestors and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it. For about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. After he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance for about four hundred fifty years. After that he gave them judges until the time of the prophet Samuel. Then they asked for a king; and God gave them Saul son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, who reigned for forty years. When he had removed him, he made David their king. In his testimony about him he said, ‘I have found David, son of Jesse, to be a man after my heart, who will carry out all my wishes.’ Of this man’s posterity God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised; before his coming John had already proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his work, he said, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but one is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of the sandals on his feet.’”

Gospel Reading (Jn 13:16-20; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But it is to fulfill the scripture, ‘The one who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’ I tell you this now, before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am he. Very truly, I tell you, whoever receives one whom I send receives me; and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.”

FRIDAY • MAY 1, 2015

Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter

First Reading (Acts 13:26-33; NRSVCE)

Paul said, “My brothers, you descendants of Abraham’s family, and others who fear God, to us the message of this salvation has been sent. Because the residents of Jerusalem and their leaders did not recognize him or understand the words of the prophets that are read every sabbath, they fulfilled those words by condemning him. Even though they found no cause for a sentence of death, they asked Pilate to have him killed. When they had carried out everything that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead; and for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, and they are now his witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news that what God promised to our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm,

‘You are my Son;

today I have begotten you.’”

Gospel Reading (Jn 14:1-6; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

SATURDAY • MAY 2, 2015

Memorial of Saint Athanasius

First Reading (Acts 13:44-52; NRSVCE)

The next sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy; and blaspheming, they contradicted what was spoken by Paul. Then both Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. Since you reject it and judge yourselves to be unworthy of eternal life, we are now turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us, saying,

‘I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles,

so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”

When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and praised the word of the Lord; and as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers. Thus the word of the Lord spread throughout the region. But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, and stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their region. So they shook the dust off their feet in protest against them, and went to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

Gospel Reading (Jn 14:7-14; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”