VOLUME 1, ISSUE 19  •  MAY 9, 2015

Table of Contents

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis celebrates Junipero Serra, a ‘founding father’ of the U.S.

Unity with Christ will transform your life, Pope says

How do you remain in Jesus? Do what he did, Pope says

Want to help families? Evangelize them, Pope says

Pope Francis: A Bishop of Rome with a heart for Argentina

Pope to Lutherans: In Christian unity, don’t be afraid of the tough issues

Will Cardinal Tagle be the next president of Caritas Internationalis?

Pope Francis on marriage: It’s not about the dress or photos, it’s about the mission

Pope Francis to meet with Raul Castro May 10

New Swiss Guards swear oath to defend, protect Pope Francis

Vatican recognizes martyrdoms of missionary, lay catechist in communist Laos

Pope Francis to star athletes: Don’t forget to go to Mass

Pope urges bishops in African nation to oppose violence toward women

Statutes for Vatican commission on protection of minors released

Pope’s first South America stop: Ecuador’s sanctuary of Divine Mercy

Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez: The poor are the starting point of liberation theology

What’s unprecedented about Pope Francis’ Year for Mercy

WORLD NEWS

A crisis in the German church? Synod questionnaire would suggest so

Funeral for Germanwings crash victims held in Barcelona

Indonesia draws international outcry for executing drug traffickers

Facing uncertain future, Iraqi refugees sacrifice for education

Ahead of Ireland’s marriage referendum, Dublin archbishop looks to Pope Francis

Rome prepares for Holy Year of Mercy – with ice cream

How Chinese Catholics around the world are renewing their commitment to the Bible

Argentine family asks for help arriving at World Meeting of Families

U.S. NEWS

California’s soon-to-be saint hailed as a man ahead of his time

International Criminal Court should step up against ISIS, report advises

Shooting over Muhammad cartoon event draws prayers from Dallas bishop

For Catholics in West Baltimore, the only answer to violence is community

Ahead of National Police Week, D.C. cardinal honors fallen officers

Pope Francis blesses image of children killed in Maryland fire

‘Little Boy’ filmmaker to audiences: don’t let critics tell you what to think

‘Drinking with the Saints’ – new book encourages Catholic fellowship, good spirits

Prayer breakfast speakers urge supplication for religious liberty, family

Iraqi nun’s visa denial raises questions for U.S. State Department

Catholic Charities ready to help tornado, flood victims in Midwest

FEATURES

‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ and ‘Ex Machina’ movie reviews

‘The Avengers’ and Friedrich Nietzsche

Mothers of the Bible

Baptism by immersion is an authentic post-Vatican II development

‘Hot Pursuit’ isn’t high art, but fine for a summer weekend

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Sunday • May 10, 2015

Monday • May 11, 2015

Tuesday • May 12, 2015

Wednesday • May 13, 2015

Thursday • May 14, 2015

Friday • May 15, 2015

Saturday • May 16, 2015

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Volume 1, Issue 19 • May 9, 2015

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis celebrates Junipero Serra, a ‘founding father’ of the U.S.

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • May 2, 2015

Francis celebrates Mass at the Pontifical North American College on May 2, 2015. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Rome, Italy — Pope Francis marked a “day of reflection” for the soon-to-be canonized Junípero Serra by celebrating Mass at the Pontifical North American College, lauding the 18th century missionary who worked to defend the native people against the abuses of colonialism.

“He was one of the founding fathers of the United States, a saintly example of the Church’s universality and special patron of the Hispanic people of the country,” the Pope said in his May 2 homily.

Through Father Junipero’s witness of holiness, “may all Americans rediscover their own dignity, and unite themselves ever more closely to Christ and his Church,” he said.

Saturday’s Mass at the PNAC marks Pope Francis’ first visit to a seminary following his 2013 election. It is also the first time a pontiff has gone to the Rome-based seminary for the United States since Saint John Paul II’s visit in 1980.

The celebration was part a “Day of Reflection” hosted by the PNAC for Blessed Junipero Serra, who the Pope will canonize on Sep. 23 during his Apostolic Journey to the United States.

Born Nov. 24, 1714 in Spain, Father Junípero 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.

Father Serra helped establish the California missions in the 1700s, many of which became the centers of major cities like San Diego.

He was beatified Sep. 25, 1988 by Saint John Paul II.

Presiding over Mass in the PNAC’s Immaculate Conception chapel, Pope Francis based his homily on the day’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles which demonstrates the “missionary nature of the Church.”

“This was true also for the many missionaries who brought the Gospel to the New World and, at the same time, defended the indigenous peoples against abuses by the colonizers,” he said.

Father Junipero Serra was among the Franciscan missionaries who brought the faith to the Americas, he said, ushering “in a new springtime of evangelization in those immense territories, extending from Florida to California, which, in the previous two hundred years, had been reached by missionaries from Spain.”

Reflecting on the life of Junipero Serra, Pope Francis described him as a “tireless missionary.”

He was driven to leave his homeland, he said, by “the desire to proclaim the Gospel ad gentes, that heartfelt impulse which seeks to share with those farthest away the gift of encountering Christ:” a gift that he had first received and experienced in all its truth and beauty.”

Missionary disciples, like Father Junipero, challenge us, the Pope said. Having encountered Jesus, they were “moved by the grace of the Holy Spirit, (they) went out to all the geographical, social and existential peripheries, to bear witness to charity.”

Pope Francis asked whether we possess the same “generosity and courage” to respond to the same call to worship and follow God, “to rediscover him in the face of the poor, to proclaim him to those who have not known Christ and, therefore, have not experienced the embrace of his mercy.”

Pope Francis also spoke of Blessed Junipero’s devotion to Mary, having entrusted his missionary activity to her – in particular Our Lady of Guadalupe, the image of which accompanied him on twenty-one of his California missions.

Our Lady of Guadalupe cannot be separated from “the hearts of the American people,” he said, as “she represents our shared roots in this land.”

“She always hears and protects her American children.”

Looking ahead to the Extraordinary Jubilee year of Mercy, set to begin Dec. 8, the Pope appealed for his intercession, and that of the many other North and South American saints.

“May a powerful gust of holiness sweep through all the Americas,” he said.

Pope Francis concluded by appealing to Our Lady and these saints as he prepares for his visit to North and South America later this year.

“I ask Our Lady of Guadalupe, Friar Junipero and all the American saints to lead me and guide me during my approaching apostolic journeys to South America and North America.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Unity with Christ will transform your life, Pope says

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 3, 2015

Pope Francis greets pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square before the Wed. general audience on April 16, 2014. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Vatican City — In his Sunday Regina Coeli address Pope Francis focused on the parable of the vine and the branches, saying that it reveals the importance of uniting oneself to Jesus, who changes how we live.

“Jesus is the life, and through him – like sap in a tree – the love of the same God, of the Holy Spirit, passes to the branches,” the Pope told attendees of his May 3 Regina Coeli address.

“We receive a new way of being, the life of Christ becomes ours: we are able to think like him, act like him, to see the world and things with the eyes of Jesus.”

As a result of this union, we are better able to love others, “beginning with the poorest and those who suffer, with his heart and bring into the world the fruits of goodness, charity and peace,” he said.

Francis spoke to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the weekly address. Before leading the crowd the traditional Marian prayer, he drew attention to Jesus’ use of the parable of the vine and the branches in the day’s Gospel reading, taken from John Chapter 15.

Already getting close to the moment of his Passion and death, Jesus wanted to stress to his disciples the importance staying in communion with him, the Pope said.

Even though he wouldn’t be with them physically, Jesus would be with them in a new way that would bear a lot fruit, he continued. However, if instead the disciples lost communion with the Lord, rather than bearing fruit they would become “sterile,” and damage the community.

In the parable Jesus gives, “the branches are not self-sufficient, but depend totally on the vine, in which the source of their life is found. This is how it is for us Christians,” the Pope said.

Thanks to our baptism we have received new life in Christ, and thanks to the Church we are able to remain in “vital communion” with the Lord through both prayer and the sacraments, he continued.

Francis stressed the importance of daily prayer, of listening and being docile to the Word of God, reading the Gospel and participating especially in the sacraments of the Eucharist and Confession as particularly helpful in maintaining this communion.

By remaining “intimately united” to Jesus, a person also harvests the fruits of the Holy Spirit, he said, which St. Paul names in Galatians as love, joy, peace, magnanimity, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control.

In cultivating these a person “does so much good to others and to society as a true Christian,” the Pope said, observing that a Christian is recognized “from these attitudes, as a tree is recognized by its fruits.”

“The fruits of this profound union with Jesus are marvelous: our whole being is transformed by the grace of the Holy Spirit: soul, intelligence, will, affections and even the body, because we are united in body and spirit,” he said.

Pope Francis continued, noting that due to the “new way of being” we receive from this union with Christ, our own perspective changes and we are able to think and act like him, especially when it comes to the poor and suffering.

He then said that each person, each branch on the “one vine” that is Christ, are all together “called to bring the fruits of this common belonging to Christ and to the Church.”

The Pope concluded his address by invoking the intercession of the Virgin Mary, so that each person can be a living branch in the Church that gives a coherent witness to the faith.

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VATICAN NEWS

How do you remain in Jesus? Do what he did, Pope says

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 3, 2015

(CTV)

Vatican City — On Sunday Pope Francis paid a visit to a parish on the southern outskirts of Rome, where he told parishioners that in order to be a good Christian they must always be attached to Jesus, who gives life.

“To remain in Jesus, and this is the hardest of all, means to do what Jesus did. To have the same attitude as Jesus,” the Pope told parishioners at Mary Queen of Peace in Ostia Lido, in the south of the diocese of Rome, May 3.

“When we expel others, for example, when we gossip, we don’t remain in Jesus. Jesus never did this. When we are liars, we don’t remain in Jesus. He never did it. When we cheat others with these dirty affairs, which are the work of everyone, we find ourselves dead. We don’t remain in Jesus,” he said.

To remain in Jesus, Francis explained, means “to do the same that he did. To do good, to help others, to pray to the Father, to care for the sick, to help the poor, the have the joy of the Holy Spirit.”

“A good question for us Christians to ask ourselves is this: do I remain in Jesus? Or am I far away from Jesus? Am I close to the vine that gives me life? Or am I dead?”

The Pope arrived to Mary Queen of Peace at 4 p.m., where he met with groups of the parish, including the elderly and sick, children and youth, and spouses who have had children baptized during the year.

After meeting with the various groups, Francis heard the confession of some of the parishioners before celebrating Mass at 6 p.m.

In his homily he drew inspiration from the day’s Gospel reading from John chapter 15, in which Jesus tells his disciples the parable of the vines and the branches.

The main message Jesus is giving his disciples in the parable is something he repeated to them often, above all in the Last Supper: “remain in me.”

“And the Christian life is this remaining in Jesus. This is the Christian life. To remain in Jesus. And Jesus, to explain well what he wanted to say, uses this beautiful image of the vine,” he said.

Each branch that detaches itself from the vine or is not united to it can’t bear fruit, and is tossed outside into the fire, Francis noted. It takes a lot of branches to make this fire, he said, so the ones that get tossed “are very, very useful, but not to bear fruit.”

While we are all sinners, we are able to bear fruit to the extent that we are united to Jesus like the branches are to the vine, the Pope said, explaining that the Lord also has to prune us so that we can give more.

“If we detach ourselves from him, if we don’t remain in him, we are Christians in word only, but not in life. We are dead Christians, because we don’t give fruit like the branches attached to the vine,” Francis cautioned.

He also warned against “other branches” which Jesus refers to in another passage, saying that they are the “hypocrites” who pretend to be a disciple of Jesus, but who “do the opposite.”

These people might even go to Mass every Sunday, but they live “like pagans,” he said, and explained that remaining in Jesus means to have the desire to receive both forgiveness and pruning from him.

Pope Francis also pointed to the sacraments as a key means of strengthening our union with Jesus, who always invites to remain in him and forgives us when we sin “because he is merciful.”

What Jesus wants from us are these two things, he said: “that we remain in him, and that we are not hypocrites. And with this the Christian life goes forward.”

In turn, Jesus promises to give us whatever we ask for, Francis said, indicating how Jesus tells his disciples in the passage that “if you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done.”

“What a strength in prayer! Ask whatever you want … this is the omnipotent prayer.”

This omnipotence of prayer comes from remaining in Jesus and from being united to him as the branches to the vine, he concluded, and prayed that all would have the grace to remain in Christ.

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VATICAN NEWS

Want to help families? Evangelize them, Pope says

by CNA/EWTN News • May 4, 2015

Pope Francis greets pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square during the Wednesday general audience on Nov. 5, 2014. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

Vatican City — Speaking to the bishops from the Republic of the Congo on Monday, Pope Francis encouraged them in their ministry to families, urging the need for evangelization of peoples and cultures alongside inculturation.

Mentioning the importance of forming the laity for their apostolate in the socio-political sphere, Pope Francis said May 4 in the Vatican that “family pastoral ministry is an integral part of this accompaniment.”

“The reluctance of the faithful to embark on Christian marriage reveals the need for profound evangelization, which involves not only the inculturation of faith, but also the evangelization of local traditions and culture.”

He thanked the bishops for their contributions to the Synod on the Family, adding that they will not fail to benefit from better adapting pastoral care of families to their local reality.

The Congolese bishops were in Rome for their ad limina visit, which occurs every five years.

Pope Francis noted the elevation in the Republic of the Congo of one diocese in 2011, and the creation of two new dioceses in 2013, as evidence of “the vitality of the Catholic Church in your country, and of the zeal with which its pastors engage in the work of evangelization,” better serving Catholics as well as reaching out to those who have not yet heard the Gospel.

The Pope urged the bishops to keep the living conditions and sanctification of their priests at the heart of their concerns, saying, “continuing formation is indispensable, that they can always better serve the people of God and give them spiritual accompaniment as is fitting, notably through dignified liturgical celebrations and through homilies which nourish the faith of believers.”

Turning to the flourishing priestly and religious vocations in the country – 45 percent of Congolese are Catholic – Pope Francis praised the bishops’ apostolic zeal, adding that “the immense pastoral needs of the local Church require rigorous discernment, so that the people of God are able to count on zealous pastors who edify the faithful through their testimony of life, especially in relation to celibacy and the spirit of evangelical poverty.”

The Pope then turned to the economic challenges facing some Congolese dioceses: the Republic of the Congo had in 2014 an adjusted per capita GDP of $5,100.

“Some dioceses have great difficulties because of the lack of material and financial resources locally available. I am aware of the magnitude of the problems and the worries related to this situation in the heart of a pastor. Therefore, I encourage you to resolutely engage your dioceses in embarking on the path of autonomy, a gradual takeover of control and solidarity between the particular Churches in your country, following a tradition that dates back to the first Christian communities,” Pope Francis said.

“In this respect, you must be careful to ensure that economic aid to your particular Churches in support of your specific mission does not limit your freedom as pastors or obstruct the freedom of the Church, which must have a free hand to proclaim the Gospel with credibility.”

With respect to mutual aid and solidarity among local Churches, Pope Francis encouraged the Congolese to look to fellow Africans before seeking help from outside their continent: these values “must also be reflected in the promotion of the missionary spirit first within Africa,” he said.

Speaking of the Church’s role in the Republic of the Congo’s public sphere, Pope Francis said ecclesial communion should be manifested in “the exercise of the prophetic dimension of your pastoral charge. It is important that you can, with one voice, use strong words inspired by the Gospel to guide and enlighten your fellow citizens in every aspect of community life, in difficult moments for the nation or when the circumstances require it.”

Such cohesion “not only will allow you always to defend the common good and also the good of the Church in any circumstance,” he advised, “but will also support your efforts in facing the many pastoral challenges, including the proliferation of sects.”

A “profound evangelization” is another key challenge identified by the Pope, which he said “necessarily supposes special attention to the concrete conditions of life for the populations; that is, ultimately, to the development of the human person.”

He noted the importance of the Church’s commitment in the Republic of the Congo to education, healthcare, and refugees.

“As pastors, continue to ensure that your social ministry is increasingly carried out in the spirit of the Gospel and perceived as a work of evangelization, and not as the action of a non-governmental organization,” Pope Francis admonished.

Related to this, he noted the continuing wounds rooted in the country’s 1997-1999 civil war, saying that “the Church, strong in the Gospel of Jesus, has received the mission of building new fraternity anchored in forgiveness and solidarity. You, pastors, continue to be models and prophets in this sense!”

Pope Francis concluded his address by noting with gratitude the recently opened Divine Mercy shrine in Louvakou, in the Diocese of Dolisie: “I welcome it, and I hope that this sanctuary truly becomes a place where the people of God come to strengthen their faith, particularly during the upcoming extraordinary jubilee of Mercy, as well as other pastoral initiatives you undertake.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis: A Bishop of Rome with a heart for Argentina

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • May 5, 2015

Pope Francis waves an Argentine flag during World Youth Day 2013. (Alex Mazzullo/JMJ Rio 2013 via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Vatican City — Vicar of Christ to the entire world, yet still a son of his homeland: Pope Francis continues to be attentive to Argentina, as shown by the news that the Vatican may open its files on the country’s military dictatorship, as well as the possible advancement of the cause of beatification of an Argentine entrepreneur.

That the Vatican would open its files on Argentina’s military dictatorships was revealed a week ago by Msgr. Guillermo Karcher, one of the Pope’s masters of ceremonies.

In an interview granted Apr. 27 to Radio America, a Buenos Aires radio station, Msgr. Karcher stressed that the Pope wishes to open up the Vatican files, and so “he has asked the Secretariat of State to take charge of it, and work has already begun on declassifying the Vatican archives related to Argentina’s dictatorship.”

During much of the 1970s, Argentina was ruled by a right-wing military government, which “disappeared” thousands of left-wing activists and militants, accusing them of communism. From 1976 to 1983, the regime disappeared as many as 30,000 Argentines, and may have murdered as many as 15,000. Kidnappings, torture, and other violations of human rights were rampant.

Information on these cases was collected by the Vatican, laregly through the apostolic nunciature in Buenos Aires.

During the junta’s rule, numerous priests and religious were killed for their work in the poor neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, which was considered a communist act.

At that time, from 1973 to 1980, Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio - now Pope Francis - was the Jesuit provincial in Argentina. He used his position to create an underground network of assistance and escape for those targeted by the regime.

Msgr. Karcher added that “the work will take some time” to release the Vatican’s files, since their opening “is a challenging job, which consists in putting into order what is in the Vatican archive to allow research.”

At the moment, the files of the archive of the Secretariat of State are open until the period of the Pius XI’s pontificate (1922-1939), as the work of classification and digitalization of documents has been completed through that period.

Since his election as Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis has met several times with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo – a group of mothers of disappeared children – always backing their efforts to uncover information about their missing family members.

Lilita Boitano, a leader of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, met with Pope Francis April 22, repeating her request that the Vatican files be opened.

In an interview with Radio del Plata, Boitano said she asked Pope Francis “if the Church could open its files on the Argentine dictatorship and eventually issue a statement of self-criticism for its behaviour under Argentina’s military dictatorship, and (the Pope) responded that they are preparing the documentation on the issue.”

Boitano then met with Msgr. Giuseppe Laterza, an official of the Secretariat of State. According to Boitano, Msgr. Laterza told her that “the collection of files is now over, and that “the files are now being scanned and digitized,” and they could be “accessible to the public within a year.”

The most important documents may be the reports of the late Cardinal Pio Laghi, who was apostolic nuncio to Argentina from 1974 to 1980.

Cardinal Laghi (then an archbishop) often met with the members of the junta, and the families of the disappeared also turned with frequency to him for help. His office maintained files on the reported disappearances.

Together with this commitment to shed light on the years of Argentina’s dictatorship, Pope Francis is also forwarding the cause for the beatification of Enrique Shaw, “a rich Argentine manager who was rich, yet saintly” as Pope Francis said in a March 13 interview with the Mexican television program Televisa.

Pope Francis started the diocesan procedure for the beatification of Shaw in 2005 when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires, and has now received it as Pope.

Shaw was born in 1921, started his business after the Second World War, and founded in 1952 the Christian Association of Business Executives. He also was among the founders of the Catholic University of Argentina and the Christian Familiar Movement, and served as president of the Argentine Catholic Action.

In 1955, he was a victim of the anti-Catholic waves that took place in the first phase of Juan Peron’s administration. According to Navarro Floria, the postulator of the cause of beatification, even after his arrest he proved altruistic, giving other inmates the mattresses his family brought to him, as well as food.

Shaw established a pension fund and a health care system to provide the 3,400 industry’s workers medical service, financial support in case of illness, and loans for important life events such as marriage, birth, and death.

In 1961, the industry led by Shaw was sold to an American trust fund which decided to fire 1,200 people. Shaw was already suffering an advanced cancer that was to lead to his death the following year, but he strongly opposed the layoffs and proposed a recovery plan that was to retain all the workers.

Shaw’s writings were collected and sent to Rome in 2013, and approved by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints this January. The next step in the process is choosing a postulator for the ‘positio’, a comprehensive document that collects the biography and testimonies of a possible saint.

The opening of the cause of beatification was encouraged by Cardinal Jorge Mejia, a fellow Argentine who was head of the Vatican Secret Archives from 1998 to 2003.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope to Lutherans: In Christian unity, don’t be afraid of the tough issues

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • May 5, 2015

Pope Francis celebrates Mass for the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple in St. Peter’s Basilica, Feb. 2, 2015. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

Vatican City — Christians in pursuit of unity should not be afraid to broach potential areas of disagreement such as marriage, family, and sexuality, Pope Francis said in a meeting with the head of Sweden’s Lutheran church.

“All Catholic faithful” are invited “to take up, recognize the signs of the times, the way of unity for overcoming divisions among Christians,” the pontiff said during the private audience with Lutheran archbishop Uppsala Antje Jackelen.

Division, he said – speaking in reference to the Vatican II decree on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio – is not only in opposition “to the will of Christ, but is also a scandal to the world and causes damage to the holiest of causes: the preaching of the Gospel to every creature.”

During the May 4 private audience at the Vatican, the Pope stressed that unity should be compelled by charity toward those suffering from poverty and violence, and those in need of mercy.

“Especially the witness of our persecuted brothers and sisters pushes us toward fraternal communion,” he said.

Pope Francis also warned against the avoidance of relevant issues today in the name of ecumenism. Topics, such as the respect for the dignity of the human person, or those pertaining “to the family, marriage, and sexuality,” he said, “cannot be silenced or ignored out of fear of putting the already established ecumenical consensus into jeopardy.”

“It would be a shame if, in these important matters, new denominational differences were strengthened.”

In the area of promoting unity of Catholics and Lutherans, such as in “visible unity in faith” and sacramental life, there is still much to be done, the Pope said.

However: “We can be certain that the Spirit Paraclete will always be light and strength for spiritual ecumenism and theological dialogue.”

The pontiff also acknowledged the upcoming anniversary of the Reformation in 2017, as well as the joint document “From Conflict to Communion” published by the Lutheran-Catholic commission for unity.

He expressed his hope that this initiative would encourage further steps toward unity, with God’s help, “and our collaboration with Him and one another.”

Born in Germany, Jackelen is the first female head of the Lutheran church in Sweden, and the nation’s first foreign archbishop since the 12th century.

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VATICAN NEWS

Will Cardinal Tagle be the next president of Caritas Internationalis?

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • May 5, 2015

Cardinal Luis Tagle of Manila participates in a conference at the Pontifical Council for the Laity, in Rome, Feb. 6, 2015. (Bohumil Petrik/CNA)

Vatican City — Two sources who work in Vatican charities told CNA on Tuesday that Cardinal Luis Tagle of Manila will likely be elected next week as head of Caritas Internationalis, a confederation of worldwide Catholic charities.

Caritas is due to elect a new president and a secretary general during its 20th general assembly, being held May 12-17 in Rome. The assembly is to include a Mass with Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica on its opening day.

Representatives of the 164 international members will elect their new top officials, and discuss the theme “One Human Family, Caring for the Creation.” The assembly will also provide a strategic framework to anchor Caritas’ work over the next four years.

Among the guest speakers at the assembly are Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez, considered to be the father of liberation theology, and Jeffrey Sachs, an economist at Columbia University who is an advisor to Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general.

The current president of Caritas is Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, and its secretary general is Michel Roy, who was formerly head of Secours Catholique, Caritas’ French branch.

Since a 2012 reform of its statues, candidates for the posts of president, secretary general, and treasurer are to be submitted for approval by the Pope, and once he has acceeded they can be presented to the general assembly for a vote.

Roy is the sole candidate for the post of secretary general, which he has held since 2011; he is certain to be confirmed.

Cardinal Rodriguez will step down as president, having served two mandates, from 2007-2011, and 2011-2015.

Cardinal Tagle was soon identified as a candidate for his successor when the process began earlier this year. The Filipino cardinal has been widely appreciated for his work carried out with local Caritas agencies in the face of frequent typhoons hitting the island nation.

According to a source within Caritas Internationalis, there is another candidate to the presidency: a Maronite archbishop who will remove himself from the running so that Cardinal Tagle can be the only candidate.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis on marriage: It’s not about the dress or photos, it’s about the mission

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • May 6, 2015

Pope Francis with crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly catechesis. (CNA)

Vatican City — Marriage is more than the wedding ceremony, the flowers, the dress, the photos, Pope Francis said in his weekly general audience: it is a participation in the Church’s mission.

“Men and women, courageous enough to carry this treasure in the ‘earthen vessels’ of our humanity … are an essential resource for the Church, as well as for the whole world!”

Speaking to the crowds gathered in Saint Peter’s Square for his weekly catechesis, the Pope explained that each marriage which demonstrates the beauty of the sacrament enriches the life of the Church. In the same way, it “is impoverished when marriage is disfigured in any way.”

Since the end of last fall, Pope Francis has been centering his Wednesday catechesis on the theme of family as part of the lead-up to the World Day of Families in September, as well as October’s Synod of Bishops on the Family.

During his May 6 address, the pontiff referenced Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, in which the apostle makes the analogy between the love between spouses and Christ’s love for the Church: namely, that “a husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the Church, by giving himself completely for her.”

The spiritual sense of this analogy is “revolutionary,” yet also simple and attainable for all who trust in God’s grace, the Pope said.

Regardless of their limitations and sins, men and women are able to live out their marriage, the pontiff said, because it “has been inscribed in creation’s design by God.”

“The Christian vocation to love, without reserve and without measure, with Christ’s grace, is the basis of the free consent which constitutes marriage,” he added.

Pope Francis also reflected on another characteristic of marriage: the choice to “marry in the Lord.” This decision, he said, carries with it a “missionary dimension,” through the willingness to be a channel of God’s grace and blessings for everyone.

Christian spouses are participants in the Church’s mission, the Pope said, insofar as they live for all people, not just for themselves.

Pope Francis challenged the faithful to ask themselves whether they – as believers and pastors – accept the “unbreakable bond” between Christ and the Church, and the history of marriage and family.

“Are we prepared to seriously accept this responsibility, which is that every marriage follows the path of love which Christ has with the Church?” he asked.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis to meet with Raul Castro May 10

by CNA/EWTN News • May 6, 2015

Pope Francis at the general audience on Sept. 25, 2013. (Elise Harris/CNA)

Vatican City — Pope Francis will receive Cuban president Raul Castro Sunday morning May 10, in a “strictly private” audience, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi announced. The meeting will take place in the Pope’s studio in the Paul VI Audience Hall.

“As we know, President Raul Castro has publicly thanked the Pope for the role he played in the rapprochement between Cuba and the United States, and the Pope will be going to the Caribbean island in September prior to coming to the United States,” Father Lombardi stated.

The Pope’s visit to Cuba was officially announced April 22, but the exact date and details of the visit are not yet known.

Cardinal Beniamo Stella, prefect for the Congregation for the Clergy, visited the island April 22-28. He was the papal nuncio in Cuba from 1993 to 1999 and helped organize Saint John Paul II’s visit in 1998, the first ever papal visit to Cuba. Pope Benedict XVI visited Cuba in March 2012.

Cardinal Stella’s visit took place after the announcement on December 17 last year that the U.S. and Cuba would reestablish diplomatic relations. Both countries credited the Holy See for its fundamental contribution to that process.

Pope Francis will travel to the United States to participate in the World Meeting of Families that will take place in Philadelphia September 22-25.

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New Swiss Guards swear oath to defend, protect Pope Francis

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 6, 2015

The new Swiss Guard swearing-in ceremony on May 6, 2015 at Saint Damaso Courtyard of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace. (CNA)

Vatican City — On Wednesday 32 new Swiss Guards swore an oath of allegiance to Pope Francis, who told them their role is one of courageously imitating Christ which ought to be rooted in prayer.

In an audience with the new guards and their families earlier in the week, Pope Francis said it was an occasion “to nurture a meaningful friendship, because you work so close to me.”

The friendship of the Pontifical Swiss Guard is special, he said, because it is based on “the love of Christ: that greatest love he referred to when he said: ‘There is no love greater than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’”

Pope Francis made his comments to the new guards in a Monday audience ahead of their May 6 swearing in ceremony, during which they took an oath of allegiance to Pope Francis, swearing to serve the Church by protecting him and all of his successors.

With a motto of “Courage and Loyalty,” the Pontifical Swiss Guard is the oldest standing army in the world.

The official swearing-in ceremony took place Wednesday in the San Damaso courtyard of the apostolic palace, where the new members of the Guard made their commitment like hundreds before them on the anniversary of the Sack of Rome.

May 6, 1527, is a date that marks the most significant and deadliest event in the history of the guard.

In the course of the battle, 147 members lost their lives while fighting the army of the Holy Roman Empire in defense of Pope Clement VII, who was able to escape through a secret passageway leading from the Vatican to Castel Sant’Angelo, which sits on the Tiber River.

In his comments to the new guards, Pope Francis noted how God has chosen to build his kingdom in collaboration with men, saying that he needs “willing and courageous people” to do it.

He also stressed the importance of frequenting the sacraments in the life of a Swiss Guard, saying that “Christ is the true king. He himself goes forward, and his friends follow him. A soldier of Christ participates in the life of his Lord.”

Swiss Guards are called to be companions of Christ and to learn how to “feel with Christ and the Church,” he said, and encouraged them to step-up their prayer life by reading scripture and praying the rosary.

“What I tell everyone, I’ll tell you too: always keep a small Gospel close at hand, read it as soon as you have a calm moment. It will help you in your personal prayer, especially the Rosary, during the honor guard,” he said.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin presided over a special Mass for the new guards in St. Peter’s Basilica just a few hours before their official May 6 swearing in.

In his homily, the cardinal reminded the guards that their task is not a mere job or profession, but a vocation they are called to live out in a time marked by “anxiety and lack of guidance” in which commitment and loyalty seem “to become secondary or particularly difficult to achieve.”

Cardinal Parolin recalled the death of the fallen guards during the Sack of Rome, noting that their heroic sacrifice constitutes the most “meaningful and emotional” moment of each guard, who on the battle’s anniversary vows to serve the Successor of Peter “with all of his strength.”

To have Mass before swearing their oaths serves as an act of thanksgiving and trust in the Lord, he said, “knowing that it’s God who enkindles in us the will and the work (because) in him every good work has it’s beginning and it’s end.”

During the swearing-in ceremony each, new guard approaches the flag off the Swiss Guard when his name is called out.

Firmly grasping the banner with his left hand, the new guard raises his right hand opens three fingers as a symbol of his faith in the Holy Trinity.

After making the gesture, the guard proclaims the oath, saying: “I, (name of the new guard), swear diligently and faithfully to abide by all that has just been read out to me, so grant me God and so help me his Saints.”

Patron saints of the Swiss Guard include St. Martin, St. Sebastian and St. Nicholas of Flue, known as the “Defensor Pacis et pater patriae.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Vatican recognizes martyrdoms of missionary, lay catechist in communist Laos

by CNA/EWTN News • May 6, 2015

Guerilla fighters of the Pathet Lao, the group which martyred Fr. Mario Borzaga and Paul Thoj Xyooj in Laos in April 1960, seen in Sam Nuea, 1953. (Kenneth Conboy via Wikipedia, public domain)

Vatican City — During a private audience on Tuesday, Pope Francis advanced the causes of canonization of 12 potential saints, two of whom were martyred by communist revolutionaries in Laos in 1960.

The May 5 audience with Cardinal Angelo Amato also formally approved the canonization of Bl. Junipero Serra – which had already been scheduled for Sept. 23.

The two martyrs recognized were the Servants of God Mario Borzaga and Paul Thoj Xyooj, who were killed in hatred of the faith in April 1960.

Born in Italy in 1932, Fr. Borzaga joined the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate at the age of 20, and was ordained a priest at 25. In 1957 he was sent as one of the first Italian missionaries to the Oblate mission in Laos, where the Pathet Lao, communist revolutionaries backed by North Vietnam, had begun a civil war four years earlier.

Fr. Borzaga spent the first year of his missionary life studying the Lao language. His diary, “To be a Happy Man,” describes the difficulty of the mission, which was aggravated by the Pathet Lao.

After visiting the Christian community in the Hmong village of Kiucatiàm in 1958, where he met with families and cared for the sick. Another group of Hmong from Pha Xoua asked him to visit their own village in 1960.

He set out April 25 on a three day mountain trek for the village, where he was to spend two weeks. He was joined by Paul Thoj Xyooj, a young lay catechist. The two vanished after a day of working with the sick and were never found, despite various searches.

Testimonies gathered since their disappearance confirm that the two were killed by the Pathet Lao.

The Pathet Lao defeated the royalist forces in 1975, and Laos has been a communist state ever since. Foreign missionaries were expelled or fled that year, and now fewer than two percent of Laotians are Christian.

Pope Francis and Cardinal Amato also recognized three miracles.

Two were attributed to the intercession of blesseds: Bl. Vincenzo Grossi, an Italian priest and founder of the Institute of the Daughters of the Oratory, and Bl. Maria of the Immaculate Conception, Spanish superior general of the Sisters of the Company of the Cross. With the approval of the miracles, a date now can be set their canonizations.

A third miracle was also approved for Venerable Giacomo Abbondo, an Italian diocesan priest who lived 1720-1788. A date can now be set for his beatification.

Francis also acknowledged the heroic virtue of seven Servants of God. Three were laypersons: Juliette Colbert de Falletti di Barolo, a widow who went on to found the Daughters of Jesus the Good Shepherd; and Sergio and Domenica Bernardini, a married couple and parents who died in 1966 and 1971, respectively.

The others Servants of God whose heroic virtues were recognized were Jacinto Vera y Duran, Bishop of Montevideo from 1859 to 1881; Antonio Antic, a Croatian priest of the Order of Friars Minor; Maria Brigida Postorino, Italian foundress of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate; and Maria Rafaela Jesus Hostia, a Spanish professed nun of the Order of Capuchin Poor Clares.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis to star athletes: Don’t forget to go to Mass

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 7, 2015

Pope Francis with the Harlem Globetrotters at the Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square, May 6, 2015. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — On Thursday Pope Francis demonstrated his keen interest in uniting sports with faith, telling members of Italy’s Lazio club not to let training or competitions trump the spiritual essentials.

“Sometimes it happens that a guy or a girl, due to training and competitions, forgets about Mass (and) catechesis … this is not a good sign; it means we have lost the scale of values,” the Pope told members of Italian sports club Lazio during a May 7 audience.

He spoke to the club on the second of three days meeting with different sports teams and associations, which have become a regular occurrence since his pontificate began.

The Pope met with United States basketball team the Harlem Globetrotters during yesterday’s general audience. Between snapping pictures and teaching the Pope how to spin the ball on his finger, the team gave him a jersey with the name “Pope Francis” along with the number 90.

Tomorrow he is scheduled to host the Italian Tennis Federation at the Vatican, which will bring the three athlete-filled days to a close.

In his speech to the Lazio club, Francis said that despite the many commitments related to sports, “we must also not neglect studies, friendship, service to the poor.”

He noted that there are many “beautiful examples” of athletes, including famous champions, who despite a rigid schedule have continued to practice their faith and serve others.

Francis praised the club – which is involved in 40 different types of sports – for its focus on different sports disciplines, and said that in Italy, as in his home Argentina, there is a risk of only talking about soccer, and neglecting the rest.

“Every sportive discipline has its value, not only social or physical, but also moral, since it offers the possibility to people, especially children and youth, to grow in balance, self-control, sacrifice and loyalty to others,” he said.

Last year Lazio’s main rival soccer team, Roma, also held an audience with Pope Francis.

The Pope’s attention to sports isn’t surprising, given the fact that he is a well-known soccer fan. His favorite team is San Lorenzo de Almagro, one of the most important teams in Argentina, and he still keeps his associate membership card for the team.

As a child and even as archbishop of Buenos Aires the Pope has been devoted to the team. In an April interview with the online sports news site TyC Sports of Argentina, Francis revealed that in 1946 he went to all of the team’s home games.

The influence of sports on the now-Pope have stuck, and so far his pontificate has proven that as Pope Francis, athletics are not a mere leisure or recreational activity, but also as an active means of evangelization.

Since his election as Bishop of Rome Pope Francis has participated in many events with the educational foundation Scholas Occurentes, which he founded while still Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

An initiative designed to encourage social integration and the culture of encounter through technology, arts and sports, Scholas began with just a few youth. Today it has a current worldwide network of 400,000 state and religious schools.

Most recently the Pope took part in a February Google hangout session with 7 special needs children who have used technology to assist them with their disabilities. It was the second one Francis had participated in.

Last year’s interreligious Match for Peace, which is a soccer match the Pope called for in order to encourage global peace efforts, was organized by Scholas alongside the charitable Argentinian P.U.P.I. Foundation.

Pope Francis developed a friendship with retired Catholic soccer star Javier “Pupi” Zanetti while archbishop of Buenos Aires, and in an audience with the athlete some time after his election, the idea for the match came out.

Zanetti, who was captain of the Argentinean national team and of Inter Milan in Italy, said at the time that the interreligious match was the “explicit wish of Pope Francis.”

With Buddhists, Christians – Catholic and Protestant – Jews, Hindus, Muslims and Shintos present among the players, the match served a symbolic move used by the Pope to promote peace at all levels of society.

In his audience with Lazio, Pope Francis said that true sport always “encourages the building of a more fraternal and supportive world, helping to overcome situations of injustice and social and human distress.”

He encouraged the team to be welcoming, and to value diverse talents, saying “May your sports club always be an open house, where fraternity and harmony among people can be expressed.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope urges bishops in African nation to oppose violence toward women

by CNA/EWTN News • May 8, 2015

Street scene in Mauritania. (Geraint Rowland via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Vatican City — Pope Francis on Thursday encouraged Christians in the west African nation of Mali to provide a strong witness of the family, and exhorted their bishops to give special attention to the situation of women there.

“The Christian witness of the family still needs greater coherence: in your cultural context, also marked by divorce and polygamy, Catholics are called upon to concretely proclaim, through their witness, to the Gospel of life and of the family,” the Pope told the Malian bishops May 7, who were in Rome for their five-yearly ad limina visit.

“I also encourage you to continue your pastoral work,” he continued, “paying particular attention to the situation of women: promoting the role of women in society and fighting against abuse and violence toward women is also a way of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who chose to be born of a woman, the Virgin Mary.”

Human trafficking and female genital mutilation are both prominent challenges in the Saharan country.

Pope Francis began his address by turning “toward the person of Christ in the delicate situation that your country has faced in recent years.”

While 90 percent of Malians are Muslim, with equal minorities of Christians and followers of traditional African religions, it has traditionally enjoyed a healthy pluralism, and has a secular government. However, since 2012 there has been armed conflict in the country’s north which began with Tuareg separatists but drew the involvement of Islamists, who held portions of the country until French intervention.

This conflict, the Pope reflected, has at times “undermined the coexistence between the various sectors of society as well as the harmony between men and women of different religions present in the land of Mali, which is rich with a glorious past, synonymous with admirable traditions among which are tolerance and cohesion. I thank your Episcopal Conference for knowing how to preserve the spirit of interreligious dialogue in this delicate context.”

“The common commitment of Christians and Muslims to safeguard the Mali’s cultural treasures, especially the large libraries of Timbuktu, patrimony of humanity, is an eloquent example. When you return, I want you to express my nearness, not only to your faithful, but also to your fellow citizens of all social classes and religions, men and women of good will involved in the fight against intolerance and exclusion.”

The Pope also expressed his thanks to those Christians who have “spread the culture of solidarity and hospitality” in the face of the conflict, providing education and reconciliation “without consideration of ethnicity or religion.”

The situation also calls on Christians “to give an even greater witness to their faith based on unconditional adhesion to the values of the Gospel.” He commended the bishops’ efforts to do this through the translation of Scripture into local languages, as well as the preparation of catechetical texts, saying, “thanks to a solid formation, the lives of the faithful will be even more rooted in faith and strengthened to withstand all threats.”

Pope Francis commented that “despite the serious problems facing it, the Church in Mali shows a beautiful dynamic in its work of evangelization, preserving a profound respect of conscience,” adding that Christians are growing in number and fervor, while then discussing the need for a coherent witness to the value of family and of women.

He concluded, saying, that “strengthened by the Lord’s promise to be with his family until the end of time, I am convinced that despite the difficulties on their path, the Church in Mali will continue to be a testament to hope and peace.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Statutes for Vatican commission on protection of minors released

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 8, 2015

St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City. (Camille King CC BY-SA 2.0)

Vatican City — After meeting for the first time as a complete entity in February, the Vatican Commission for the Protection of Minors has published their formal statutes, effective for three years.

“The effective protection of minors and a commitment to ensure their human and spiritual development … are integral parts of the Gospel message that the Church and all members of the faithful are called to spread throughout the world,” the Pope said in his chirograph for the commission.

Dated March 22, 2014, the chirograph is the official papal document which established the foundation of the commission. It was published May 8 along with the statutes.

The statutes were approved by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin April 21 by mandate of Pope Francis. They were published in the original Italian and in English.

Effective “ad experimentum,” meaning “to the test” for three years, the statutes serve as temporary, yet formal acting guidelines for the commission.

Once the three years is up, modifications can be made before setting the permanent guidelines, which will be approved by the Pope.

Announced in December 2013, the commission is currently headed by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, while Boston priest Mons. Robert Oliver serves as its secretary.

Established by Pope Francis last March in order to explore various proposals and initiatives geared toward the improvement of norms and procedures for protecting children and vulnerable adults, the commission met for the first time with all of its members Feb. 6-8 in the Vatican.

Composed of a maximum number of 18 members, the commission is described in the statutes as an autonomous institution attached to the Holy See and an advisory body to the Holy Father with public judiciary rights.

With the protection of minors as a topic of “paramount importance,” the statutes emphasize that the purpose of the commission is to propose initiatives to the Pope which promote local responsibility in dioceses and for the protection of minors and vulnerable adults.

In his chirograph, the Pope noted how there have been many “painful actions” that have caused the entire Catholic Church to do a very critical examination of conscience, which has included asking victims and society for forgiveness due to the harm these actions has caused.

The commission, he said, is a response to these actions and marks “the firm beginning for initiatives of many different types, which are intended to repair the damage, to attain justice and to prevent, by all means possible, the recurrence of similar incidents in the future.”

Made up of a president, secretary and various officials, commission members don’t need to be Catholic, but must be persons “of recognized competence in the protection of minors.”

All members must be appointed by the Pope, and will serve in three year terms, which can be renewed when term comes to an end.

Members of the commission are divided into various working groups. Once the group finishes their area of study and issues a proposal, they move on to a different topic.

Proposals must be approved by two thirds of the commission before they are presented to the Holy Father. It not approved, the group will continue to study and redraft the proposal.

Each group is to have moderator appointed by the commission’s president, and each moderator is to choose 3 collaborators to assist in the topic being studied.

Various working groups have already been established within the commission. As of February, groups addressing the needs and care of abuse survivors and bishop’s accountability had already met.

Confidentiality regarding reports or information received in the course of the commission’s work was also addressed in the statutes.

Pope Francis stressed in his chirograph that he relies on the commission’s members “for the effective protection of minors and vulnerable adults, regardless of religion they profess, because they are the little ones on whom the Lord looks with love.”

“To my collaborators in this work, I ask for all efforts possible to assist me in responding to these needs of these little ones,” he said.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope’s first South America stop: Ecuador’s sanctuary of Divine Mercy

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 8, 2015

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

Vatican City — After arriving to Ecuador for his 10 day trip to South America, Pope Francis’ first stop will be Guayaquil’s Sanctuary of Divine Mercy – breaking with his usual custom of meeting the president first.

The second largest church in Guayaquil after the city’s cathedral, the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy will be the Pope’s first destination after landing in Quito July 5.

He will likely meet Ecuador’s authorities during the welcoming ceremony at the airport, however an official visit with the president, Rafael Correa, will not take place until after Francis spends the morning of July 6 visiting the sanctuary in Guayaquil and having lunch with the Jesuit Community at the Colegio Javier.

Although the move is not unprecedented, it’s unusual for Francis, who has met with the president and local authorities before anyone else in each of the country he’s landed in during trips abroad since his election.

The move demonstrates the continued emphasis the Pope places on the topic of mercy, which he has spoken of frequently since his election. The upcoming Jubilee for Mercy – which he declared in March – is set to begin Dec. 8.

Pope Francis first announced his plans to make two separate trips to South America during an in-flight news conference on his way back to Rome from the Philippines.

His plans to visit Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay this year were confirmed by the Vatican in April, and the trip will last from July 5-13. He will first stop in Ecuador before moving on to Bolivia, and finally Paraguay.

Another possible visit in 2016 or 2017 could include stops in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Peru.

While in Ecuador July 5-8, the Pope is also set to meet with the country’s bishops, as well as representatives of schools and universities at the Pontifical University of Ecuador.

He will also visit the Missionaries of Charity nursing home and will meet with priests, religious and seminarians at Quito’s national Marian Shrine before heading to Bolivia the afternoon of July 8.

Once he lands at the El Alto airport in La Paz, the Pope will give an address during the welcoming ceremony, and afterward will head to the government palace to visit the president, Evo Morales.

Shortly after the Pope will leave for Santa Cruz de la Sierra, where he is scheduled to spend the remainder of his time in Bolivia.

On the 9th he will celebrate Mass and meet with Bolivia’s men and women religious, after which he will participate in the World Meeting of Popular Movements. The next day Francis will visit the rehabilitation center of Palmasola, and meet with the country’s bishops before heading to Paraguay in the afternoon.

After arriving to the Silvio Pettirossi airport of Asuncion July 10, Pope Francis will pay a courtesy visit to the president, Horacio Cartes, and will then meet with authorities and the diplomatic corps.

The next morning the Pope is scheduled to visit a pediatric hospital, celebrate Mass and meet with members of civil society before bringing the day to a close with Vespers in the metropolitan cathedral of Our Lady of Asuncion.

Bishops, priests, deacons, men and women religious, seminarians and Catholic movements in Paraguay will join the Pope in the traditional evening prayer.

July 12 Francis will visit the people of Banado Norte before celebrating Mass and meeting with the country’s bishops in the Cultural Centre of the apostolic nunciature, where they will have lunch.

Pope Francis’ last meeting of the trip will be with youth at the Costanera riverside, after which he will leave for Rome. He is expected to arrive July 13 shortly before 2 p.m., and will likely make a stop by Rome’s basilica of Saint Mary Major on his way back to the Vatican.

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VATICAN NEWS

Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez: The poor are the starting point of liberation theology

by Catholic News Agency’s Vatican Observer, Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • May 8, 2015

Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez Merino, O.P., who is regarded as the father of liberation theology. (Notre Dame/Matt Cashore)

Vatican City — Attention to the poor was the point of departure for liberation theology claimed Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez Merino, widely acknowledged as the founder of the movement, in a May 8 article in the Vatican’s newspaper.

Fr. Gutierrez underscored that this attention to the poor came from what liberation theologians experienced in their own lives and lands.

“We referred to the poor as non-persons, but not in philosophical sense, because it is obvious that each human being is a person, rather in a sociological sense; the poor, that is, are not accepted as persons in our society. They are invisible and have not rights, their dignity is not recognized,” the Peruvian theologian wrote.

The publication of the article may be considered a sort of response to the assertions of Ion Mihai Pacepa, a former general in communist Romania’s secret police during the Cold War who defected to the West in the 1970s. In an interview with Catholic News Agency, Pacepa said the KGB created liberation theology and helped to foster it in Latin America, a claim which garnered attention within the Vatican’s walls.

The article published in L’Osservatore Romano is in fact an excerpt from one of Fr. Gutierrez’ books. It begins by saying there are two schools of thought about poverty, and both come from the Gospel: the first is focused on Christ’s sensitivity toward the poor and their suffering, and the second, that Christ himself “had lived a life of poverty, and so Christians, from their origin, understood that in order to be his disciples they also had to live a life of poverty.”

“Both of these schools are true,” he said, but “we have to interpret these two points of view on the bases of our historical context and of our lives.”

Fr. Gutierrez said the first perspective may be found in Luke’s version of the beatitude of the poor (Blessed are you poor, for the kingdom of God is yours), while the second is reflected in Matthew’s (Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven).

“I think both lines of thought – poverty as scandal and poverty of spirit – can be useful, although their meaning must be actualized in our historical period,” reflected Fr. Gutierrez.

He explained that “a new notion of poverty” has emerged in the past century. “Poverty, in Bible and in our times, is not a merely economic issue. Poverty is very much more than this. The economic dimension is important, perhaps primary, but it is is not the only one.”

Noting that we have become more aware of the multiple dimensions of poverty, Fr. Gutierrez said, “poverty was clearly the starting point of liberation theology, though we had not fully understood its complexity or variety.”

The Dominican priest, who will speak at next week’s general assembly of Caritas Internationalis, stressed that liberation theologians referred to the poor in a sociological sense, as persons “who are invisible and and have no rights.”

“We also defined them as the “insignificant.” It is possible to be insignificant for several reasons: if you do not have money, in our society you are insignificant; the colour of your skin may be another reason to be deemed insignificant … what is common among the poor is insignificance, invisibility, and a lack of respect,” Fr. Gutierrez said.

He then added that “these mutual complexities are different from one another” and that “the sense of non-person can be caused by several prejudices,” whether based on race, sex, culture, or economic status.

Fr. Gutierrez provided the example of a black Protestant pastor, who began a 1969 speech with the words: “We must feel that we exist!” “That strong declaration is the shout of the poor,” Fr. Gutierrez said.

The Dominican also provided the example of Peru’s indigenous people, who “are invisible, irrelevant … this is the sad story of an Indian’s daily life: even when he goes to the hospital to be cured, he is ignored,” wrote Fr. Gutierrez.

He then added that “poverty today is a phenomenon of our globalized civilization. For centuries, the poor have been close to us, they lived more or less near us, in the city or in the countryside. However, today we have realized that poverty goes very much beyond our gaze, it is a global phenomenon, if not universal. The majority of human beings in the world live in the condition we call poverty.”

This is a turning point, according to Fr. Gutierrez. He emphasized that in spiritual, moral or liturgical books of the past, writers “merely spoke of how to directly help the poor, who were close to us.” But “today we should be aware that our neighbors are both near and far. We must understand that a relation of ‘neighborhood’ is the result of our commitment.”

“This not a question of geography, it is now a global question.”

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VATICAN NEWS

What’s unprecedented about Pope Francis’ Year for Mercy

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 8, 2015

Pope Francis is presented an image of the Divine Mercy by members of the John Paul II Foundation, April 25, 2015. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — In tune with his knack for making history, Pope Francis’ Year for Mercy will include things no other jubilee has: worldwide “missionaries of mercy,” and “holy doors” in every diocese for pilgrims to walk through.

“For the first time in the history of the Jubilee tradition, there will be an opportunity for individual dioceses to open a Holy Door – the Door of Mercy,” Archbishop Rino Fisichella said May 5.

Each of the four major basilicas in Rome has a holy door, which are normally sealed shut from the inside so that they cannot be opened. The doors are only opened during jubilee years so that pilgrims can enter through them in order to gain the plenary indulgence that is connected with the jubilee.

The rite of the opening of the Holy Door is intended to symbolically illustrate the idea that the Church’s faithful are offered an “extraordinary path” toward salvation during the time of jubilee.

As part of the Holy Year for Mercy, holy doors will for the first time be designated in dioceses. Their location, the archbishop said, will be “either in the cathedral or in a church of special significance or a shrine of particular importance for pilgrimages.”

Head of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, which is in charge of organizing the Jubilee for Mercy, Archbishop Fisichella spoke with journalists at the presentation of the logo and calendar of the Holy Year.

The jubilee was announced by Pope Francis during a March 13 penitential service, the second anniversary of his papal election. It will open Dec. 8 – the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception – and will close Nov. 20, 2016, the Solemnity of Christ the King.

At the official proclamation of the jubilee during Vespers on the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday, the papal bull of indiction, Misericordiae Vultus, or The Face of Mercy, was presented.

The term “papal bull” refers to an official papal document of special importance. The papal bull of indiction refers to a document presented when something major is announced, such as a jubilee, and is a fundamental document detailing the intentions and outcomes hoped for by the Pope.

In the papal bull for the Jubilee on Mercy, it was noted that the diocesan opening of the Door for Mercy is a sign that the jubilee is not limited to Rome, but extends to local Churches around the world “as a visible sign of the Church’s universal communion.”

Archbishop Fisichella said that the idea of the doors on a local level is intended to be “a sign of the pilgrimage that is done, and the sign of receiving the indulgence.”

“The indulgence is the characteristic of the jubilee,” he said, so the doors will allow “all those who cannot come to Rome and who are living the jubilee in their dioceses to be able to have, also on the level of the expressive sign in their pilgrimage, the receiving of the indulgence … in passing through the Holy Door.”

The Holy Doors in Rome major basilicas will be open throughout the Year for Mercy, beginning with St. Peter’s on Dec. 8, when the jubilee will officially begin.

St. John Lateran’s door will open Dec. 13, St. Mary Major’s Jan. 1, 2016, while that of St. Paul Outside the Walls will open Jan. 26, 2016.

A special path leading toward the Holy Door in St. Peter’s will be marked out for pilgrims traveling to Rome during the jubilee year, so that they may pass through it and obtain the indulgence.

Another novelty Pope Francis has included in his jubilee are the “Missionaries of Mercy,” who will receive a special mandate from the Pope during the Ash Wednesday Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica in 2016 before going out to dioceses around the world as ambassadors of mercy.

The idea of the missionaries, Archbishop Fisichella noted, is to “build upon the central content of the faith and to call the Church once again to its missionary priority of being a sign and witness in every aspect of its pastoral life.”

The priests selected as missionaries will be chosen jointly by diocesan bishops and members of the pontifical council for evangelization, he said. The priests must be also patient and have a keen understanding of human frailty, but also a readiness to express God’s mercy in the sacrament of Confession.

He said bishops emeritus are being considered due to their years of experience and ability to anticipate the needs of others.

Although the reference to the Missionaries of Mercy in the papal bull of indiction gave special emphasis to their role during Lent, the archbishop said they would be available for the entire jubilee.

Pope Francis himself is set to make five “jubilee signs” as a witness of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy on designated days throughout the Holy Year. Although the dates of the Pope’s works are given in the official calendar, it has not been announced what the works will be.

One possible idea, the archbishop said, is to have a Mass with prisoners inside St. Peter’s Basilica so that they can participate in the jubilee “not just from their cells,” but together with the Church. The idea, however, has not been confirmed.

As a sign of the Pope’s charitable love, Archbishop Fisichella said that “effective measures” will also be taken “to meet real needs in the world that will express mercy through tangible assistance.”

The official website for the jubilee has already launched in seven languages: Italian, English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, and Polish.

Heavy emphasis will also be given to social media in promoting the events of the jubilee and informing followers of the different activities surrounding it.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Plus, and Flickr can all be found on the official website. Archbishop Fisichella also noted that his council is currently exploring the idea of an app that will better integrate information surrounding the jubilee.

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A crisis in the German church? Synod questionnaire would suggest so

by Carl Bunderson (CNA/EWTN News) • May 2, 2015

Marienplatz square in Munich, Germany. (Stefan Jurca via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0)

Vatican City — The Synod of Bishops began receiving in April responses to a questionnaire that had been sent to dioceses the world over in preparation for October’s Synod on the Family. The results from Germany indicate that most Catholics there hope for an openness to divorce and remarriage, as well as homosexual acts.

The synthesis of responses from Catholics in Germany was released by the nation’s bishops conference on April 16. The 17-page document, provided in an English translation, summarizes the responses, which filled some 1,000 pages.

According to the German bishops conference, the largest part of comments dealt with the issues of the divorced and civilly remarried, cohabiting couples, and same-sex unions.

The consultation “has led to considerable expectations among many faithful with regard to the Synod of Bishops, which they expect to provide a further development of the Church’s teaching and pastoral care in questions related to marriage and the family.”

The document’s introduction notes that “after having consulted the People of God, the German Bishops’ Conference is pleased to present its answers … which are implicitly intended to set the thematic emphasis.” (emphasis added)

The statements thus reflects the German bishops themselves, in consultation with their laity, as well as with official representatives of religious superiors, theologians, marriage and family pastoral offices, and priests councils.

Summarizing the totality of the responses, the German bishops wrote that “a large number of faithful would like to see clearer steps being taken towards overcoming the ‘divide between the reality practiced in families in our parishes and associations and the Church’s teachings’” and that there is “criticism … of the lack of a really appreciative language for forms of relationship which neither conform to the Church’s ideal nor take marriage and the family as an exclusive orientation.”

Catholics in Germany also criticized the lack of “discussion of contraception methods.”

The bishops wrote that there is “a longing for successful relationships,” but that there is at the same time fewer marriages, more divorces, and that “several aspects of the Church’s teachings on sexuality, partnership and marriage are hardly understood, even among church-going Catholics, and are also not practised.”

While noting that many aspects of Church teaching are neither understood nor accepted, the German bishops do add that Catholics in their nation do at least agree with some of the Church’s teachings: the values of monogamy, faithfulness, fertility, and marriage itself, as well as a rejection of abortion.

The document does have positive notes for pastoral care of marriage and families regarding the importance of marriage for people and the Church, marriage preparation and the accompaniment of young couples, the transmission of life, and the family’s role in evangelization.

It adds that pastoral care should not be too harsh on those who are violating the teachings of the Church.

“Pastoral care should also adopt an appreciative attitude towards those who do not, or do not yet, live up to the demands of the Gospel,” the German bishops wrote.

This pastoral care “submits offers from the Gospel,” yet also “must ensure that open, unprejudiced and non-moralising communication is also engaged in towards those who regard themselves as Christians and Catholics but who do not or cannot live in full congruency with the teaching of the Church in questions that are related to marriage and the family.”

Among these are those civilly married, many of whom are so because one partner is divorced.

“Pastoral care that regards such unions as sinful pure and simple and accordingly calls for conversion is not helpful as it contradicts the positive experience that couples have in such living arrangements. Values such as love, faithfulness, responsibility for one another and for the children, reliability and willingness to reconcile are also practiced when people live together and in civil marriages, and these deserve recognition in a Christian context. Pastoral care should be provided to young people in particular, and this must appreciatively support and accompany their various attempts to enter into and practice relationships.”

While discussing civil marriage and cohabitation, the German bishops emphasize that “a further development of the Church’s sexual morals” is needed. “This entails an enhanced appreciation of individuals’ ability to shape their lives in following Christ on their own responsibility and to form a personal conscience-based judgment.”

Turning to the cause celebre of the German bishops since the 1970s – the divorced and civilly remarried, and their admission to the sacraments – they said that this question “was answered by everyone, and in most cases also in a very detailed manner. It is a concern for many faithful, far beyond the group of those whose marriages have failed.”

“There can be no doubt that this remains a pivotal issue for the credibility of the Church. There is a very high expectation among the faithful that the Synod of Bishops will open up new paths for pastoral care in this respect.”

The document refers to paragraph 84 of St. John Paul II’s 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris consortio to support the thesis that the divorce and remarried “should be encouraged to play an active role in the parish.” It then immediately adds that “there is also an ongoing discussion on the question of possibly admitting Catholics who are civilly divorced and who have remarried to confession and sacramental communion … Exclusion from the sacraments, above all when it is permanent as with remarried divorcees, contradicts the conviction of faith held by the vast majority of Catholics that God forgives all sin, opens up the chance for conversion and makes it possible to have a new beginning in life.”

This addendum does not mention the remainder of Familiaris consortio 84, which teaches, “the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist … the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage.”

Instead, the German bishops referred to their June 2014 resolution to admit the divorced and remarried to Confession and Communion even if they do not resolve to live in continence.

They added that several dioceses and associations want a consideration of the Orthodox practice of second marriages after divorce: “it is also proposed to consider blessing a second (civil) marriage, which should however be quite distinct from a church marriage in liturgical terms.”

Furthermore, a streamlining of the nullity procedure, which has been much discussed and is being undertaken by a Vatican committee – was received as “certainly welcome,” though ineffectual, since most people who divorce and seek a second marriage don’t bother with annulment anyway.

Continuing an expansion of the admission to Communion, the German bishops then turned to the issue of marriages between a Catholic and a Protestant: “Considerable scope is attached in the responses to the question of the possible admission of the non-Catholic partner, particularly of a Protestant partner, to sacramental communion.”

“The exclusion from communion of the partner who belongs to a different denomination is regarded as an obstacle particularly for the Christian upbringing of the children and of the faith life of the family … in the interest of strengthening sacramental marriage, and when it comes to the Christian upbringing of the children, the question thus needs to be asked as to how the non-Catholic spouse is to take part in the life of the parish and under what circumstances he/she can in fact be admitted to communion. Do inter-denominational marriages which are bound by the dual sacramental tie of baptism and marriage not constitute a grave spiritual need permitting the admission of the non-Catholic partner in an individual case?”

Turning to pastoral care of persons with homosexual tendencies, the bishops noted that Germany has a broad consensus welcoming civil unions, which is “shared by a majority of Catholics.”

“Only a small number of respondents fundamentally reject homosexual relationships as constituting a grave sin. The vast majority expects the Church to carry out a differentiated moral theological evaluation which takes account of pastoral experience and of the findings of the humanities. Most Catholics accept homosexual relationships if the partners practice values such as love, faithfulness, responsibility for one another and reliability, but they do not thereby place homosexual partnerships on the same footing as marriage … Some of the statements also favour a blessing for such partnerships which is distinct from marriage.”

The document concluded that “pastoral care that accepts homosexuals requires a further development of the Church’s sexual morals which incorporates recent findings from the humanities, as well as from anthropological, exegetic and moral theology.”

The German bishops’ document, highlighting the expectation of Catholics there that the Synod on the Family will result in “development” of Church teaching, echoes a comment made Feb. 25 by Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, president of the conference, who said there are “certain expectations” of Germany in helping the Church to open doors and “go down new paths,” and that “in doctrine, we also learn from life.”

Cardinal Marx had added that “we are not a branch of Rome. Each conference of bishops is responsible for pastoral care in its cultural context and must preach the Gospel in its own, original way. We cannot wait for a synod to tell us how we have to shape pastoral care for marriage and family here,” explaining that the German bishops would pursue its own program of pastoral care for marriages and family regardless of the outcome of October’s Synod on the Family.

The Archbishop of Munich and Freising’s comments were promptly responded to by two fellow German prelates who now find themselves in Rome: Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, president emeritus of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, and Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Cardinal Mueller called Cardinal Marx’ understanding “an absolutely anti-Catholic idea that does not respect the Catholicity of the Church,” adding that bishops conferences “are not a magisterium beside the Magisterium, without the Pope and without communion with all the bishops.”

Yet the response of the German bishops to the synod questionnaire ostensibly affirmed that “there is no doubt that the local churches agree ‘cum Petro et sub Petro‘ in dogmatic questions regarding marriage and the family,” while continuing that “some of the responses favour regional agreements on pastoral guidelines at local church level. The basis could also be formed by diocesan discussion processes on the topic of marriage and the family the outcome of which would be discussed with other local churches.”

The much-talked about expectations of Catholics in Germany regarding “developments” in doctrine and pastoral care for the divorced and remarried, cohabiting, homosexuals, and those in mixed marriages, reflect the beliefs of those Catholics in Germany.

Recent surveys have found that only 54 percent of priests there go to confession even once a year; only 58 percent of priests pray daily; 60 percent of parishioners don’t believe in live after death; 66 percent don’t believe in Christ’s Resurrection.

Cardinal Cordes observed in March that only 16 percent of Catholics in western Germany believe God to be a personal being, adding that there is thus “no reason to pride ourselves on our faith if we stand in comparison to other countries.”

“If [Cardinal Marx] wanted to express that Germany is example in leading the faithful to a giving oneself up to Christ, then I think the bishop is fooled by wishful thinking,” Cardinal Cordes wrote.

“The existing German ecclesial apparatus is completely unfit to work against growing secularism.”

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Funeral for Germanwings crash victims held in Barcelona

by Blanca Ruiz (CNA/EWTN News) • May 3, 2015

Relatives remember the victims of Germanwings Airbus Flight 4U9525 near the crash site in Le Vernet, France. (Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)

Barcelona, Spain — Barcelona’s famous Sagrada Familia Basilica hosted a funeral for the 150 passengers of the Germanwings flight that crashed into the French Alps in March.

Cardinal Lluis Martinez Sistach of Barcelona presided over the April 27 ceremony. During his homily, Cardinal Sistach told the families of crash victims “we all carry your sorrow and your prayers in our heart.”

He also said “we have to have courage to live for the Lord and for our brothers and sisters, hoping that one day we meet again our loved ones in the heavenly Jerusalem.” He reflected that “mercy is the supreme act with which God comes to encounter us.”

The 150 people who died in the March 24 crash included 52 Spanish nationals as well as 15 German exchange students who had attended a secondary school in Linars del Valles, near Barcelona. An investigation found that the co-pilot deliberately crashed the plane on its flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf, Germany.

The Barcelona funeral was attended by 600 family members among about 1,500 people. The congregation included representatives of the Jewish, Protestant and Muslim communities. The mourners included King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain; Spain’s President Mariano Rajoy; and President Artur Mas of the autonomous region of Catalonia.

Before the ceremony began, friends of the exchange students who died in the crash placed 150 candles on the steps leading up to the church altar in memory of the deceased.

The funeral was held after some parties had questioned whether to have a Catholic funeral.

Father Jose Maria Gil Tamayo, the spokesman for the Spanish Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that the Archbishop of Barcelona met with representatives both of Spain’s central administration and of the autonomous government of Catalonia, telling them that the great majority of the Spanish victims were Catholics.

Fr. Gil Tamayo explained that Catholics “celebrate the Eucharist to aid the deceased with our prayers.” This means it is “the most important act of prayer on behalf of a Catholic. It’s the greatest and best thing we can do that comes from our faith.”

He also noted that ministers of other religions would speak at the end of the funeral.

“It’s important to highlight this joining together in prayer that the Lord may welcome the dead to his bosom, and at the same time to ask that that the feeling of peace that is born out of sharing faith in God is experienced by everyone and prevent events such as those the victims suffered,” Fr. Tamayo added.

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Indonesia draws international outcry for executing drug traffickers

by CNA/EWTN News • May 4, 2015

(Nicholas Erwin via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Sydney, Australia — The Australian bishops joined their voices to the international condemnation of the Indonesian government’s execution of foreign drug traffickers last week.

Two Australian men – Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran – were among eight convicted drug traffickers killed by firing squad. The other inmates executed April 29 include four Nigerians, an Indonesian, and a man from Brazil, who was reportedly mentally ill. The Indonesian government said the executions were part of a crackdown on drug trafficking.

“Drug crime is abhorrent. Appropriate penalties must be considered to protect the community, but the imposition of the death penalty is cruel and unnecessary for what it does to those found guilty and for what it does to our society,” wrote Archbishop Denis Hart, the president of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, in an April 29 statement.

“The imposition of the death penalty doesn’t achieve what people think it achieves. When it comes to crime and punishment, we must recognize and honor the human dignity of both victims and offenders.”

The execution has sparked international outrage. Australia has withdrawn its ambassador to Indonesia for the first time in history, according to the BBC. Brazil’s foreign ministry expressed deep regret that Indonesia did not spare the Brazilian man because of his mental illness. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urged an abolishment of the death penalty.

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo has been leading a war on drugs since his election in 2014. Widodo has said he will refuse all clemency applications from convicted drug smugglers, according to the BBC.

Chan and Sukumaran were arrested in 2005 as part of the drug smuggling gang the “Bali Nine.” The gang was in possession of nearly 18 pounds of heroin, which they intended to smuggle from Bali to Australia. During their decade in prison, Chan and Sukumaran reportedly expressed remorse for their actions. Sukumaran started teaching art in the prison and Chan was ordained a Christian minister.

Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney said that drug trafficking is an evil that must be stopped. But he stressed that the death penalty is not the solution.

“We are all aware of the terrible damage drugs cause,” Archbishop Fisher wrote in a April 29 statement. “But refusing even to entertain appeals for mercy – even after the pair had demonstrably turned their lives around – seemed to us to damage our neighbour’s reputation for justice.”

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Facing uncertain future, Iraqi refugees sacrifice for education

by CNA/EWTN News • May 5, 2015

Refugee children at the Sharia Al Haman Hope Refugee Camp in Duhok, Iraq 2 on March 28, 2015. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Erbil, Iraq — Less than a mile away from the local coffee shops, fancy restaurants, and the U.S. Consulate in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, some 60,000 displaced Iraqi Christians are taking refuge, tucked away in the mostly Christian neighborhood of Ankawa.

Having fled the violence of the Islamic State, some 150 Christian families have begun to settle into their new surroundings, which typically take the form of tents and shipment containers.

Displaced from their hometowns due to ongoing violence in Mosul, Tikrit, and Qaraqosh, they are accepting their temporary new living conditions, while realizing that for the foreseeable future, this is their life.

Despite the uncertain future that these families face living as refugees in Erbil, they make an effort to ensure that their children will receive an education.

The refugees in Ankawa have many needs – basic living conditions sometimes prove a challenge, such as ensuring food, drinking water, and hygiene. But amid these struggles, the refugees also strive to ensure that education of their children remains a high priority.

“They are very aware of how important education is for the already uncertain future their children face, and they want more than ever to make sure that they receive an education,” stated Sheelan Gebrael, a local Christian activist who works to help Christian and Yazidi refugees receive an education.

Some of the Christian refugees do not speak the local Kurdish language – one of the main reasons why they have trouble joining the government-run Istar school nearby, which has a mainly Christian attendance.

However, the refugees do not allow the language barrier to deter them from educating their children. Around 150 families have claimed a few abandoned classrooms and an empty lot in the back of the Ishtar school. These reclaimed classrooms are now being shared by the Christian refugee families in the Ankawa neighborhood.

In addition, the Iraqi Christians in Ankawa are utilizing two large tents which were set up by the U.N. to improve their living conditions. Instead of using them for housing, these families decided to turn one of the tents into a classroom, so that their children would have a space for their education.

Although they lack most of the materials that are necessary to make multiple classrooms, the refugee community makes due with what they have and make plans for improvement in the future.

One tent has been successfully turned into a Sunday school for religious education and also doubles as a functioning Kindergarten classroom. The young women of the refugee community take turns teaching the classes - everything from basic academic formation to the details about their faith.

The displaced Iraqi Christians are not stopping at the development of their classrooms. They hope to adapt the other empty tent near the classroom to make a playground for the children.

“Their hope is that, with the help of fellow Christians, they will be able to implement the other tent and build a playground in what today is just a patch of dirt and weed,” Sheelan told CNA.

A fund to help with the ongoing education of the refugee children has been set up through the crowdfunding site GoFundMe. More information can be found at gofundme.com/fund4christians.

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Ahead of Ireland’s marriage referendum, Dublin archbishop looks to Pope Francis

by CNA/EWTN News • May 7, 2015

Newly married couples at St. Peter’s Square awaiting to be blessed by Pope Francis, May 6, 2015. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Dublin, Ireland — Both Pope Francis’ clear affirmation of marriage as a union of a man and a woman and his efforts to reach out to those who reject this are vital for Christians in the gay marriage debate, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin said on Wednesday.

“We are all struck by the manner in which Pope Francis seems to be able to speak clearly about doctrine, and yet respect and embrace those who cannot find their way to follow that doctrine,” the archbishop said May 6 in a speech to diocesan communications officers at a gathering at All Hallows College, Dublin.

“In the debates around same-sex marriage in Argentina, Pope Francis was unequivocal in his judgment about its non-admissibility, yet he consistently told people not to judge any individual.”

The archbishop said many on both sides of the debate about marriage find this approach to be “untenable: certain things, they say, are simply wrong and to be condemned and there is no way in which we can countenance any response except repentance and change of life style. Others will say that the only way in which the Church can show mercy is by changing its teaching.”

“Pope Francis espouses neither of these positions in isolation.”

The Dublin archbishop’s comments come ahead of the Republic of Ireland’s May 22 referendum to consider whether to amend the country’s constitution to define marriage as a contract for “two persons without distinction as to their sex,” allowing the legal recognition of same-sex unions as marriages.

Civil partnerships for same-sex couples were introduced in Ireland in 2010.

The Republic of Ireland’s four main political parties all support the referendum, and polls suggest the referendum could win a majority of voters.

Referendum opponents have said redefining marriage would neglect the best interests of children in having both a mother and a father and would neglect the unique nature of motherhood and fatherhood. They have also warned that there are no appropriate conscience protections for people with religious and moral objections to assisting in same-sex ceremonies or otherwise recognizing such unions.

Archbishop Martin affirmed his intention to vote against the referendum.

He cited Pope Francis’ April 15 general audience remarks that man and woman are “made in the likeness of God.” The difference between man and woman is not meant to be a difference of opposition or of subordination. Rather, this difference is “for the sake of communion and generation, always in the image and likeness of God,” the Pope said.

Archbishop Martin said the principle of human equality should be understood in a wider context that includes the complementarity of the sexes, and other relationships in society.

“That we exist as male and female is not a marginal dimension of being human,” he said, again noting the significance of the relationship between man and woman in conceiving and nurturing children.

The archbishop made an understated criticism of referendum supporters who cite the Pope as a justification for their vote.

“I find it interesting that many of those supporting the yes campaign object to the use of religious language, but they are not shy in quoting Pope Francis in support of their arguments, although I feel that their knowledge of Pope Francis’ repertoire is somewhat restricted.”

Archbishop Martin also considered the future for the Church regardless of the referendum outcome.

“The referendum will come and go,” he said. “A yes vote will approve fundamental changes to the understanding of marriage with the consequences that this would involve. But the Church’s teaching on marriage and the family and its relevance to social ethics will remain the same, no matter the referendum result.”

The archbishop stressed the need to acknowledge problems in the Church’s past and present actions. “The Church has been negligent in presenting more effectively its own teaching, “ he reflected. “The Church in Ireland for far too long started out from the position that the majority of Irish men and women understood and accepted the Church’s teaching on the nature of marriage.”

“For too long Catholics felt that the fact that Catholicism was the majority faith in Ireland and thus numbers were on their side and were their strength. As time went on and the culture of Ireland changed, the numbers decreased and the cultural factors which affect all western countries are just as active in Ireland as elsewhere,” he said.

“The problem in many ways is that the Church has often in the past presented its message poorly. What is a message of love was presented in language that was harsh. What was rational argument was presented as a dogma which all should accept,” the archbishop continued.

He encouraged ongoing “rational societal debate” rather than dogmatism and a reliance on soundbites.

Archbishop Martin said that the Synod of Bishops’ October meeting on the family will be “a crucial moment in the renewal of the Church’s teaching, especially to young people who aspire to a happy and fulfilled marriage and family life as one of the most vital dimensions of their lives.”

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Rome prepares for Holy Year of Mercy – with ice cream

by Marta Jimenez (CNA/EWTN News) • May 7, 2015

Hedera Ice cream made for the Jubilee of Mercy. (Bohumil Petrik/CNA)

Rome, Italy — Pilgrims and tourists strolling down the streets of Rome in the coming months may come across an unexpected treat – a special “Jubilee of Mercy Ice Cream,” created in honor of the upcoming Holy Year.

Pope Francis has proclaimed the special Holy Year of Mercy, which is to last from Dec. 8, 2015, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, to Nov. 20, 2016, the Solemnity of Christ the King.

The special Jubilee ice cream can be sampled at the Hedera ice cream shop, situated on the legendary Borgo Pio, one of the streets most traveled by Rome’s tourists.

Hedera stands out from among the other restaurants and souvenir shops because of the sprawling ivy vines that completely cover the building and the adjacent old drinking fountain with a papal crest that slakes the thirst of passersby.

The sweet treat created for the Jubilee features the colors of the Vatican flag – yellow and white. It is made of milk, cream and limoncello, a lemon liqueur popular in Italy.

“We have tradition and innovation in our DNA. The idea came to us thinking about a product inspired by the Jubilee, something very significant,” said business owner Francesco Ceravolo.

“We didn’t want to make a product just to advertise, but an excellent product. We used the best milk available in the area, the best cream and limoncello, he explained, adding, “We lowered the alcohol in it so everyone could have it: children, adults, the elderly.”

Ceravolo is a big admirer of Pope Francis and a descendant of master ice cream makers. He said that the idea was to create a unique flavor that would represent penance. The lemon liqueur was therefore chosen to symbolize purification.

Hedera prides itself on high-quality products, all sourced from Italy and without preservatives.

The “Jubilee ice cream” is just one example of how the people of Rome are preparing to welcome the thousands of pilgrims that will visit the city for the Jubilee of Mercy that the Pope has declared.

Mercy is a theme that is dear to Pope Francis, and is the central topic of his episcopal motto “miserando atque eligendo,” which he chose when ordained a bishop in 1992.

In speaking about the upcoming Holy Year of Mercy, the Pope has emphasized that mercy is inseparable from the life and mission of the Church, as well as the role of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Upon making the public proclamation of the Holy Year, Pope Francis explained that he had declared this Jubilee of mercy because we are living at a “time of great historical change” which calls the Church “to offer more evident signs of God’s presence and closeness.”

This period in history is a time where the faithful “need to be vigilant and to reawaken in ourselves the capacity to see what is essential,” he said.

“This is the time for mercy.”

The aim of Jubilee Year of Mercy is to encourage the faithful to “welcome the numerous signs of the tenderness which God offers to the whole world,” the Pope stressed.

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How Chinese Catholics around the world are renewing their commitment to the Bible

by Antonio Anup Gonsalves (CNA/EWTN News) • May 8, 2015

The United Chinese Catholic Biblical Association, celebrating their 25th anniversary in Taiwan. (UCCBA)

Taipei, Taiwan — On the 25th anniversary of the founding of the United Chinese Catholic Biblical Association, groups across the globe are reaffirming their dedication to studying and praying with Scripture.

Pope Francis conveyed his apostolic blessing to the association, which has grown in the past quarter-century from its birthplace of Hong Kong to Catholic Mandarin-speaking communities around the world that carry out various Biblical apostolates.

The Pope blessed the members, who received a certificate highlighting the organization’s source of mission: “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”

Cecilia Chui, secretary of the association, told CNA that the silver anniversary was celebrated April 28, “together with the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of ‘Dei Verbum’ and 40th anniversary of ‘Evangelli Nuntiandi’ promulgated by Blessed Pope Paul VI.” These two papal documents deal with Scripture and Evangelization.

Marking the 25th anniversary of its founding, the United Chinese Catholic Biblical Association has dedicated 2015 as a Biblical Pastoral Ministry Year, with the aim of making “God’s Word ever more alive in the Church’s life and mission through continued implementation of the inter-related directives of Church teachings in Dei Verbum, Verbum Domini and Evangelii Gaudium.”

Partnering with its international network of members and collaborators, the Biblical association will work through a variety of programs, seeking to increase love of Christ through better Biblical knowledge, offer formation through Lectio Divina and Scripture-inspired pastoral activities, encourage witness through lives of discipleship aimed at the New Evangelization, and promote a missionary Church focused on the Gospel of salvation.

As part of this effort, the production of 165,000 copies of next year’s Daily Gospel publication is already set for distribution to Chinese Catholics across the globe.

Numerous initiatives will be held in Hong Kong, the birthplace of the United Chinese Catholic Biblical Association.

The Hong Kong chapter of the organization is hosting workshops with the theme, “Open the Bible for 73 Hours,” corresponding to the 73 books of the Bible. Classes and talks are offered through various Bible institutes, and the Friends of Jesus Passover Online School of Evangelization has announced an international conference on e-Evangelization in Hong Kong next month.

On the national level, Taiwan is holding its 12th Biblical Communion Meeting in 2015, along with the Scriptural campaigns, “A Bible for Each Person” and “The Bible in 100 Weeks.” Meanwhile, the Macau Catholic Biblical Association is offering a “Bible in 80 Weeks” formation program and will work with the Claretian Publications in Macau to distribute the recently-produced New Testament Chinese Bible with commentaries and reflections. In addition, some Chinese dioceses are promoting a Family Bible Reading Year, Chui said.

The Biblical association’s efforts extend far beyond China. In Kuching, Malaysia, a Chinese Biblical seminar will reflect on the Mysteries of the Rosary. The Brunei Biblical Association will be working to implement Monday as “Bible Reading Day” in parishes throughout the diocese, encouraging communities to study and pray God’s Word together each week.

In Singapore, the Mandarin-speaking Catholic Bible Association will focus on Lectio Divina, organizing talks on both the Old and New Testaments. Similarly, efforts will be made in Japan to strengthen Chinese communities in Tokyo and Osaka through Lectio Divina groups that will gather before Sunday Mass.

The Chinese Catholic community in Sydney, Australia, will form new Bible sharing groups and collaborate with other communities to organize Bible talks. The Auckland Chinese Catholic Community will be undertaking similar initiatives.

Chinese Catholics in Europe will also be participating in Scripture-based initiatives. A community in Italy has committed to form Bible-reading groups to promote Scripture reading among the laity. In Germany, the United Chinese Catholic Biblical Association and another group, China Zentrum, are exploring collaboration opportunities, including working to establish contacts in Munich and Munster.

Collaboration is also a goal in Canada, where the Fountain of Love and Life and the United Chinese Catholic Biblical Association will coordinate on a website, as well as TV episodes regarding the tenth Biblical association congress.

Chui stressed that as it expands and grows moving forward, the Biblical association is dedicated to its mission.

She said the organization “is committed to promoting ongoing study and implementation of papal exhortations ‘Dei Verbum’ and ‘Evangelii Gaudium’ and to discover diversified ways to allow the Bible to inspire the Church’s pastoral activities and missionary outreach.”

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WORLD NEWS

Argentine family asks for help arriving at World Meeting of Families

by CNA/EWTN News • May 8, 2015

The Walker Family. (America en Familia)

Buenos Aires, Argentina — A family from Argentina who has left everything behind to travel 11,000 miles to Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families is asking for monetary help in order to arrive at their destination.

The Walkers set out from San Isidro in the Buenos Aires Province in a VW camper from Buenos Aires. Their destination: Philadelphia, to attend the World Meeting of Families and see Pope Francis in September.

Alfredo “Catire” Walker and Noelle Zemborain had always thought about taking a big family trip when their children “were older.” However, the couple decided to take the journey this year on the occasion of the World Meeting of Families. They believed that the trip would be an opportunity to celebrate family.

The couple said that this trip is a gift to their children and also a chance to meet other families along the way and to share with them. When they began their voyage, they told CNA that they were hoping to learn how to travel light and not to be bogged down with unnecessary material goods.

The family left Argentina on March 7 after dedicating their journey to the Virgin of Lujan.

Their plans were complicated, however, when they arrived at a crossing between Colombia and Panama, where they planned to take a ferry that is no longer in service. Other crossing options are very expensive. The family is short on funds and is asking for donations so they can find another way to continue with their pilgrimage.

For more information, visit life.indiegogo.com/fundraisers/buenos-aires-philadelphia-a-family-on-a-vw-kombi.

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U.S. NEWS

California’s soon-to-be saint hailed as a man ahead of his time

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 3, 2015

Statue of Fr. Junipero Serra, Mission San Juan Bautista, California. (Ramon Lomeli via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Rome, Italy — Experts in California history, archeology and the life of Bl. Junipero Serra have praised him as a passionate missionary with a vision that extended far beyond his own generation.

“I think that’s a characteristic of great people. They’re not bound up by the restrictions of their generation, they see ahead,” Mons. Francis J. Weber told CNA April 30, in reference to the life of Bl. Junipero Serra.

He compared Serra to former president of the United States Abraham Lincoln, who despite being heavily criticized during his life for working to abolish slavery, “was one of the greatest presidents we’ve ever had. But he was generations ahead of his time.”

“I think you could say that most great people are ahead of their own generation. I would probably say that they see things the way they should be done, but not as they are,” the priest said.

Mons. Weber is the author of more than 100 books, many of which focus on California’s Catholic history, and the former archivist of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

A pupil of the well-known Catholic Church historian John Tracy Ellis, Mons. Weber also taught history at Queen of Angels Seminary in Los Angeles and served as president of the Association of Catholic Diocesan Archivists.

He was one of four panelists present in Rome for an April 30 discussion on the life and legacy of Bl. Junipero Serra, who will be canonized by Pope Francis during his visit to the U.S. in September.

Fr. Serra was born in 1713 on the Spanish island of Majorca in the Mediterranean. He left his position as a university professor to become a missionary to the New World, helping to convert many of the native community to Christianity and teaching them new technologies. The Franciscan priest founded several of the missions that would go on to become the centers of major California cities.

The priest’s mission work often took place despite a painful ulcerated leg which is said to have been caused either by cancer or a spider bite soon after his arrival in Mexico. He died in 1784 at Mission San Carlos Borroméo del Carmelo in what is now the state of California.

St. John Paul II beatified Fr. Serra in 1988. In January, Pope Francis praised the missionary as “the evangelizer of the West” when he announced his intention to canonize him.

In the panel discussion, specific attention was given to Serra’s zeal to be a missionary. Mons. Weber said this can be seen in the priest’s decision to leave his home in Spain despite the fact that he wasn’t young anymore, and knowing that he likely wouldn’t see his aged parents again.

While praising Serra’s visionary perspective and the good that came out of the missions, panelists also addressed criticisms surrounding Serra and the missions in a conversation with journalists after the panel.

Controversy over the canonization has stemmed from claims that Serra’s missions enacted forced labor and conversions as well as corporal punishment. Scholarship on the issue is divided, and Serra supporters contend that many of the accusations against Serra are rife with misinterpretations and factual errors.

Robert Senkewicz, a history professor at Santa Clara University in California and co-author of a newly released 500 page biography on Junipero Serra, was also present at Thursday’s press conference.

He said he’s not surprised that there is contention over Serra’s canonization, and noted that much of the dissatisfaction likely surrounds a history of poor policies the U.S. had toward native Americans in the past.

Inevitably native populations will interpret their past to be a “prison” of previous U.S. policies toward Indians, because “it wasn’t nice,” he said.

“It was a policy of removal and extermination … so I’m not surprised that there’s a lot of dissatisfaction against the canonization Fr. Serra, because Californian Indians are American Indians, and American Indians interpret their past through the most catastrophic parts of it, which were the U.S. policies.”

Ruben Mendoza, an archeology professor at California State University, Monterey Bay, also spoke on the panel from a cultural perspective, being of both Mexican and Indian descent.

With extensive experience in the field of archeology as well as working in the California missions of San Juan Bautista, San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, Nuestra Senora de la Soledad and the Royal Presidio of Monterey, Mendoza was initially hostile to Serra, but changed his view after studying about the blessed and working in the missions himself.

Mendoza pointed out that despite Serra’s critics, “many of us carry currencies in our pockets that contain the images of individuals who we see as heroes, they were the founders of our country, and yet if we judge them from the perspective of our histories then they were human traffickers.”

These people, he said, “were a whole host of things that today we would not even begin to dream of if we consider ourselves as patriots.”

Mendoza also referred to how some have argued that Serra had sought to be a martyr at one point in his life, saying that if we look at this life, the reality is that “if he had sought martyrdom he would have been mortified.”

Serra, he said, “would have realized that the very people that he loved, that he devoted his life to, would now see him as the culprit in their disintegration.”

“I believe that in the end, by virtue of the very attacks that those descendants bring to the table, they have martyred Junipero Serra and turned him into a saint.”

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U.S. NEWS

International Criminal Court should step up against ISIS, report advises

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • May 4, 2015

International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. (Vincent van Zeijst CC BY-SA 3.0)

Washington, D.C. — The atrocities committed by the Islamic State require a strong global response, including action by the International Criminal Court, said a prominent religious freedom report April 30.

“All nations should care about abuses beyond their borders not only for humanitarian reasons but because what goes on in other nations rarely remains there,” stated the 2015 report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

“Standing for the persecuted against the forces of violent religious extremism is not just a moral imperative; it is a practical necessity for any country seeking to protect its security and that of its citizens.”

The annual report on the global status of religious freedom is produced by USCIRF, an independent, bi-partisan federal commission that documents global threats to religious freedom and makes policy recommendations to Congress and the State Department.

Mass displacement of religious and ethnic minorities by states, non-state terror groups, and sectarian violence was an especially troubling phenomenon in 2014, the report said, noting that “a horrified world has watched the results of what some have aptly called violence masquerading as religious devotion.”

“Humanitarian crises fueled by waves of terror, intimidation, and violence have engulfed an alarming number of countries,” the commission said.

This was at its worst in Iraq and Syria where millions of native Yazidis, Assyrians, Christians, and Muslim minorities have been driven from their homes by the Islamic State, as well as other government and extremist sects.

In addition to displacement, the report said, atrocities “from summary executions to forced conversions, rape to sexual enslavement, abducted children to destroyed houses of worship” have been committed against Yazidis and Christians in “a systematic effort to erase their presence from the Middle East.”

The violence, which spans the borders of Iraq and Syria, calls for action by the International Criminal Court, the U.S. commission said in its report.

“For the first time, USCIRF recommends ICC prosecution of ISIL members for violations in Iraq and Syria. USCIRF recommends the U.S. government call for or support a referral by the UN Security Council to the International Criminal Court to investigate ISIL violations in Iraq and Syria against religious and ethnic minorities, following the models used in Sudan and Libya.”

The situation in Iraq in Syria adds to the tsunami of refugees worldwide, with the number at its highest since World War II.

The U.S. should help by expanding the number of refugees it can legally resettle and expedite the cases of those currently waiting in line, the commission said.

The country should “raise the annual U.S. refugee resettlement ceiling from 70,000 to at least 100,000, with additional reserves for the Middle East region and the flexibility to further increase the ceiling to respond to emergency situations,” the report recommended.

While violence in the Middle East is a major concern, violations of religious freedom are not limited to that region, the report continued.

More than a million Nigerians have been displaced by the terror threat of Boko Haram, the commission found, while also noting a positive note in the free elections in the past year that were devoid of “interreligious violence” and marked by a peaceful transition of power.

Additionally, conflict in the Central African Republic has led to massive displacement that has now escalated to “ethnic cleansing” levels as some 80 percent of Muslims in the country fled in 2014, according to the report.

“Militias formed along opposing Muslim and Christian affiliations in CAR have engaged in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief,” the report’s summary states, adding that the government has been ineffective in stopping the violence since a 2013 coup.

In response, the U.S. religious freedom commission asked the State Department to designate the Central African Republic as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC). This tiered designation denotes countries that are the worst violations of religious freedom. It can be a cause for U.S. sanctions of other penalties.

In another new development, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is now petitioning the State Department to add countries to the CPC list where the governments are not directly behind violence against freedom, but where non-state actors violate the human and religious rights of citizens with impunity and without fear of opposition from the government.

Meanwhile, Russia is recommended as a “Tier 2 Country of Particular Concern” by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and its human rights violations continued in 2014, the report said.

“Amid a sharp increase in human rights abuses, serious violations of freedom of religion or belief continue in Russia,” the report said.

The commission noted with gratitude that the U.S. has formally designated Turkmenistan as a “Country of Particular Concern” after USCIRF had lobbied for that designation for years.

In a holdover from its authoritarian days as part of Soviet Russia, Turkmenistan has consistently violated human and religious rights for years, USCIRF stated. Among the abuses detailed were “police raids and harassment of registered and unregistered religious groups,” no “civilian alternative to military service,” and a repressive 2003 religion law that outlaws religious activity by unregistered religious groups.

That law sets oppressive regulations even on registered religious groups, the report continued. Private religious worship is banned in the home and an official government council regulates who can and cannot be religious clerics.

The U.S. religious freedom group reiterated the importance of religious freedom for stability in nations across the globe.

“Rulers, regimes, and parties may come and go, but when a society commits itself to religious freedom, the security of religious communities – as well as that of dissenters from religion – is guaranteed no matter who holds power,” the report’s summary concluded.

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U.S. NEWS

Shooting over Muhammad cartoon event draws prayers from Dallas bishop

by CNA/EWTN News • May 4, 2015

Investigators work on a crime scene outside of Curtis Culwell Center after a shooting on May 4, 2015 in Garland, Texas. (Ben Torres/Getty Images)

Dallas, Texas — The attempted attack of two gunmen on a Texas venue hosting an event about cartoons depicting Islam’s prophet Muhammad has drawn a prayerful response from Bishop Kevin Farrell of Dallas.

“I am saddened by what occurred Sunday evening in Garland,” Bishop Farrell said May 4. “I pray for all those involved and offer a special prayer of thanksgiving for our law enforcement officers who put themselves in harm’s way every day to keep the public safe. Certainly, they saved many lives from being taken in this incident.”

“Let us continue to pray for tolerance and understanding in our world,” the bishop added.

Police shot and killed the two gunmen after they opened fire outside the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, which hosted an exhibit and contest for cartoons depicting Muhammad.

The gunmen shot an unarmed security officer before they were killed. The security officer was treated at a hospital for an ankle wound and then released, the Dallas Morning News reports. A bomb squad investigated the scene of the attack for any explosives.

About 200 people attended the May 3 event, organized by the New York-based American Freedom Defense Initiative. The organizers paid for 40 police officers to work security at the event. Its speakers included Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician who has been strongly critical of Islam.

The cartoon contest offered a top cash prize of $10,000 and another $2,500 prize awarded by the votes of readers of the website Brietbart.com. The contest was intended to support free speech following the Jan. 7 terrorist attacks on the offices French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the Los Angles Times reports.

The Paris attack, which killed 12 people, came in response to the magazine’s caricatures of Muhammad.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the attack “without reservation.”

“We also reiterate our view that violence in response to anti-Islam programs like the one in Garland is more insulting to our faith than any cartoon, however defamatory. Bigoted speech can never be an excuse for violence,” the organization said May 4.

One of the suspected attackers, Arizona man Elton Simpson, was previously the subject of a terrorism investigation. He was convicted in 2011 for making false statements to federal agents when he denied talking about traveling to Somalia in 2009 to engage in “violent jihad,” according to a federal indictment.

Officials suspect he was behind several Twitter messages appearing to pray that God would accept the two attackers as “mujahideen,” ABC News reports. Some analysts interpreted the messages as a pledge of loyalty to the leader of the Islamic State, which has declared a caliphate in the territory it controls in Syria and Iraq. Supporters of the Islamic State praised the Texas attack on Twitter.

The second person identified as a gunman was Nadir Hamid Soofi, 34.

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U.S. NEWS

For Catholics in West Baltimore, the only answer to violence is community

by Matt Hadro and Adelaide Mena (CNA/EWTN News) • May 5, 2015

People hold hands during a rally led by faith leaders in front of Baltimore City Hall on May 3, 2015 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

Baltimore, MD — After unrest erupted in Baltimore following the death of 25 year-old Freddie Gray, Catholics stepped up to restore their communities and pray for peace and justice in their neighborhoods.

“The community, to me, is not those people that come in and sell drugs. It’s the people that come out and volunteer to help clean up,” volunteer Ray Kelly told CNA.

Kelly is a member of the parish council at St. Peter Claver Church in the Sandtown neighborhood of Baltimore, just blocks away from where violent riots took place the night of April 27. The historically black parish was a bulwark for the neighborhood in the time of need, providing food and comfort to residents in need.

“The Church is built on charity, the Church is the refuge for the poor,” Kelly said.

Calls for prayer and action were a response to the arrest and death of 25-year-old Baltimore resident Freddie Gray. On April 12, Gray, an African-American, was arrested after running from the police and was charged with possessing an illegal switchblade knife. Later, the state’s attorney for the city said Gray actually carried a legal pocket knife.

The police shackled Gray’s legs and placed him in a transport van. Upon arriving at the police station 30 minutes later, Gray was taken to the local trauma center with injuries to his voice box, three broken vertebrae in his neck and a spinal cord that was 80 percent severed. Gray later slipped into a coma and passed away on April 19 from the injuries to his spinal cord.

The Baltimore State Attorney’s office later ruled that Gray’s death was a homicide, and the six officers involved with the arrest now each face charges of manslaughter and one count of second degree depraved-heart murder.

Communities around the country have since protested the treatment and death of Gray and have urged that attention be given to broader social problems of racism, police brutality, lack of public programming and support in urban areas, employment discrimination and other issues.

On the weekend of April 25 and the following Monday night, tensions came to a head in Baltimore. Violence broke out as some protesters engaged in looting and property destruction, prompting the activation of the Maryland National Guard and the institution of a city-wide curfew.

Many local residents responded differently, however.

On May 3, citizens gathered in prayer all over Baltimore, including a peaceful demonstration in front of City Hall.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore and local dioceses also joined in prayer for the city and for the communities most affected by the challenges facing the city. On May 3, Archbishop William Lori celebrated Mass at St. Peter Claver Church in Sandtown, the neighborhood in West Baltimore where Gray was arrested.

First and foremost, the person of Freddie Gray should not be lost amidst the riots and protests, emphasized Baltimore’s Archbishop William Lori.

“Freddie Gray was not merely a symbol but a real person who was beset by challenges that face countless young people in this city every day,” Archbishop Lori said in his Sunday homily at St. Peter Claver. “We should pray that he enjoy the happiness of life eternal. It was for him that Christ died on the Cross and rose from the tomb, just as Jesus died and rose for each one of us.”

The riots on the night of April 27 in Sandtown drew national attention as stores were looted and destroyed, a raging inferno blazed in what had been a senior home, and protesters clashed with police.

However, the efforts of the community to unite peacefully and clean up must not be ignored, residents insisted.

St. Peter Claver provided a locus point for action. Twenty-nine year old volunteer Greer Dorsey knew she would be at the church at the first opportunity. “When your spirit is led to do something, and you know that it’s from God, then that’s what you’re going to do,” she told CNA.

“On TV we were seeing the looting and the fires and stuff, all I could say was ‘Yeah, I have to go to work tomorrow, but after that I’ll be down in my church. I’ll be getting stuff done. I’ll be in the neighborhood helping people getting stuff done. Because I’m not going to sit at home on Facebook and be scared.’”

Volunteers flocked to the church parking lot on Wednesday afternoon to help run the food bank for local residents, as the neighborhood stores were either looted or closed, and transportation to other areas was limited.

“We had to still engage the community in some way to let them know that within ourselves we still had some kind of support,” said Ray Kelly, a parishioner and head of the No Boundaries Coalition, a resident-led initiative to rebuild the communities of Central West Baltimore.

“No one is seeing that we gave food to 450 people today, we didn’t have any police, we didn’t have any incidents,” he explained. “When I’m asked what do I think about Sandtown, I consider family. Because there are plenty of people when I’m tired, I can sit on their steps … we do embrace each other like that.”

“There are good people here,” Dorsey stressed when asked what is most misunderstood about the neighborhood.

Bill McCarthy, executive director of Catholic Charities of Maryland, told CNA that he also saw a lot of good people helping one another in the neighborhoods around St. Peter Claver and in other parishes and communities in Baltimore. Their witness and response, he said, was “inspiring.”

While touring the city after the initial protests on April 28, McCarthy said he saw local religious leaders and community members preventing looting and joining together to pray and stand between protesters and police. “I actually think things would have been much worse without the interventions of religious leaders and the ministers as well as the neighbors doing the right thing,” he said.

Msgr. Rich Bozzelli, pastor of St. Bernadine’s Catholic Church in West Baltimore, joined with other neighbors and parishioners to help clean up some of the shops affected by the looting and protests.

“Baltimore is a fabulous city, and the witness you’re seeing of the churches, the communities coming together to clean up, to really try to calm the place down I think that’s the true Baltimore that everyone really believes in,” he told EWTN News Nightly.

St. Bernadine’s also hosted a revival prayer service April 27, 28 and 29, which local teens said was helpful for them to see and attend. At least 100 people attended the first night of the service – in which parishioners and neighbors gathered together in prayer and song for peace and justice – with nearly as many returning for the second and third nights.

Keyon Smith, a junior at St. Frances Academy who attended the revival, told CNA that it was encouraging to see his classmates and members of the parish come together for the event. “It seems like with everything going on in Baltimore, everyone is breaking apart, but we should come together and realize that we matter, as a person and as a human being.”

Devin Phelps, a senior at St. Frances Academy who also attended, said he thought of the revival “as a restoration.”

“I actually think the service was to restore peace and to get everyone’s mind to get back on track,” he reflected. “Just to make sure everyone is focused and not skeptical about the situation.” Phelps said he hoped he would see better structure in his own neighborhood and justice for the people of Baltimore come as a response to the uprising.

Despite citizens rallying to clean up after the riots, Archbishop Lori acknowledged systemic injustices in Baltimore that need to be promptly addressed through prayer, dialogue, and action.

“Anybody who drives around the city of Baltimore, even when there are not disturbances, whether it’s West Baltimore or East Baltimore, you see how far we have to go. The needs are huge,” the archbishop told CNA.

In his Sunday homily, he preached that Gray’s tragedy points to a larger “social sin” or “structural sin” in the city.

“When we see loss of life, abandoned row houses, lack of jobs, failing schools, drugs, insecure family situations, mistrust between communities and civic officials, and we see this going on decade after decade, then we must acknowledge the right of people who see no way out to make their voices heard, to lift up their frustration and anger publicly – yet to do so in a way that does not create more injustice and more destruction,” he said.

Catholics cannot return to “business as usual” once the national spotlight is off Baltimore, he stressed.

“We need to be connected as branches to the Vine so we will remain in the Lord and we will remain together,” he said. “We need to allow the Father of mercies to cut away from us whatever is in our hearts that will make it harder to have those constructive conversations and engage in those joint efforts that will make a real and lasting difference in our community.”

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U.S. NEWS

Ahead of National Police Week, D.C. cardinal honors fallen officers

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • May 5, 2015

Police officers preparing for the 18th Annual Blue Mass in Washington, D.C., May 8, 2012. (National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Washington, D.C. — Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington called on Tuesday for gratitude to be given to the law enforcement officials who are protecting the order of communities nationwide.

“Enormous gratitude” is owed to police such as the late Officer Brian Moore of the New York Police Department, the cardinal said in his May 5 homily. “By all accounts he [Moore] was killed simply because he was a police officer.”

Moore was fatally shot behind the wheel of his cruiser on May 3, after he noticed a suspect was acting suspiciously and asked him if he had a firearm.

Such officers “are willing to stand between us and all the violence that Jesus spoke about when he said that the world can never give us real, true, meaningful peace if it does not first come from the heart that beats in tune with God’s command, love the Lord your God and one another.”

The cardinal’s remarks came in his homily at the Blue Mass for law enforcement officers nationwide, said at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., shortly before National Police Week.

Hundreds of local, state, and municipal police officers, firefighters, and first responders attended the Mass.

The Blue Mass dates back to 1934, though it was not said annually until 1994 for all law enforcement officials. In 2014, 117 officers were killed in the United States, and 1,466 died in the line of duty in the last 10 years, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

The violence and conflict throughout the world only underline the need for law enforcement to keep the peace, Cardinal Wuerl added.

“It is for this reason that this Blue Mass is so important,” he said. “The very fact that the message of love of God and love of neighbor can be proclaimed here in this Church and in faith communities across this country is because you are prepared to see that we are free.”

The Mass came a week after violent riots in Baltimore, Maryland over the death there of 25 year-old Freddie Gray. Gray died a week after coming into police custody, and six police officers face charges, pressed by the state’s attorney for Baltimore.

Outrage over the incident sparked a national debate over police brutality and policing tactics. Almost 100 police officers were injured in Baltimore riots that ensued.

On Tuesday, Cardinal Wuerl insisted that “death, violence, hatred are not the answer and never have been.”

The officers killed in the line of duty were working for a more just world, he added.

“The lives of those we remember today were given in the greatest of all causes, to allow God’s love to work in all of us to build a truly good and just society, a world truly reflective of that command, love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself.”

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U.S. NEWS

Pope Francis blesses image of children killed in Maryland fire

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 6, 2015

A statue of Jesus with children at the Pontifical North American College. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Rome, Italy — After reading a letter while visiting Rome’s North American Seminary detailing the death of two young girls in a house fire, Pope Francis blessed their picture and a small statue to be given to their parents.

“The Holy Father read the story about what happened and he was very moved by it. He prayed for the family and for the girls, and in fact he even put his hand on their picture as a sign of his affection for them,” Father Aaron Qureshi told CNA May 2.

Fr. Qureshi was ordained a priest for the archdiocese of Washington D.C. after studying at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. He is the one who wrote the letter at the request of a friend who is close to the family of the deceased.

The priest, who was present for Pope Francis’ May 2 visit to the seminary where he celebrated Mass in honor of Bl. Junipero Serra, also purchased a statue of Jesus embracing two children while on a trip to the Holy Land, which will be given to the girls’ parents.

The statue, which was blessed by the Pope when he stopped to pray for the girls, will be given to their parents on Mother’s Day as a sign that Jesus is now taking care of their daughters in heaven.

Lexi and Katie Boone, aged eight and seven, passed away Jan. 19, along with their cousins Charlotte and Wesley, aged eight and six, as well as their grandparents Don Pyle, 56, and Sandra Pyle 63 when a fire destroyed the Pyle’s large, waterfront home in Annapolis, Md.

Medical reports indicate that the six died from smoke inhalation and burns after a faulty electrical outlet ignited materials inside the largest room of the Pyle’s 16,000 square foot home, including a 15 ft. Christmas tree.

Lexi and Katie are survived by their parents, Randy, 38, and Stacey, 34, who also have an infant son that was at home with them the night of the fire. Lexi had been preparing to make her first communion this spring.

For Pope Francis to stop and pray for the girls and their family was a concrete sign of the emphasis he often places on mercy, Fr. Qureshi said.

“One of the things about Pope Francis has been that he is a Pope who speaks about mercy all the time,” he noted, saying that even amid life’s tragedies we can be assured that “God is reaching out in mercy toward us.”

Fr. Qureshi expressed his belief that God reaches out “through people, and today he did that through the Holy Father, who reminded us of God’s mercy and his love for all of his children.”

In reference to the statue of Jesus and the children that Francis blessed, the priest noted that it is made from olive wood, like many works that come from the Holy Land.

“Jesus, our Lord, was a carpenter himself, so I found this statue of Jesus embracing the children, and I thought this would be an appropriate gift for the parents who lost their children,” he said.

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‘Little Boy’ filmmaker to audiences: don’t let critics tell you what to think

by Hillary Mast (CNA/EWTN News) • May 6, 2015

Alejandro Monteverde speaks with Jakob Salvati on the set of the movie ‘Little Boy.’ (Metanoia Films)

Hollywood, CA — Following a string of negative reviews for his latest film, “Little Boy,” award-winning director and screenwriter Alejandro Monteverde said audiences should see the movie and draw their own conclusions about the film.

While the movie has won the overwhelming approval of audiences, it has drawn criticism from reviewers.

“‘Little Boy’ is a victim of labeling. It was labeled as a faith-based film and it is not a faith-based film. It is a film for everybody,” Monteverde told CNA April 30.

While his award-winning 2006 film, “Bella,” went largely unnoticed by the mainstream media, “Little Boy” gained the attention – and contempt – of some film critics, who described it as a “Sunday-school lesson” that would appeal only to “faith-based” audiences.

“Of course, of anything, when somebody says something offensive, in the beginning it hurts,” Monteverde admitted, “Then you have to ask, ‘where is this coming from?’”

For the director, the special hatred that many reviewers seem to have for his latest work comes from it being labeled a “faith-based Christian film.” This mischaracterization influenced critics before they even saw the film and that showed up in the “offensive” way they reviewed the movie, he said.

“The way the movie was presented to the critics might have influenced them in the wrong way and they came with everything in a very vicious attack.”

On the popular movie review site, Rotten Tomatoes, “Little Boy” received an average score of 89 percent from audiences, 17 percent from industry film critics, and 10 percent from “top critics.”

“I think we broke the record,” Monteverde said of the rating discrepancy, “it’s the first time there was such a large gap; we’re talking almost 80 points.”

Of course, critics should be able to voice their opinions “if they really understand what an artist goes through to make a movie or to make a painting,” he said, but in this case it seems that they are simply telling people what to think.

“It’s just very dangerous when one person tells everybody, ‘You will feel this way’,” he said.

Audiences should see the film before making up their minds about it, otherwise they are letting those in positions of power dictate their opinions, he continued.

“We need to allow people to read their own hearts, (and for) critics to say, ‘No, this is my point of view, you should see it and see if you agree with me,’” he said.

Monteverde invited audiences to see the film and form their own opinion.

“I would even dare to say that if they don’t like it, to call me and I will actually personally pay their ticket back,” he said. “I have screened the movie to thousands and thousands of people and it’s a movie for the audience.”

The film follows the spiritual journey of the town runt, Pepper Busbee / Little Boy (Jakob Salvati), while his dad – and only friend (Michael Rapport) – is fighting in the Pacific during WWII. After seeing his favorite magician Ben Eagle (Ben Chaplin) perform, Pepper is led to believe that he has magical powers that can do anything if he just believes strongly enough.

After he and his brother, London (David Henrie), are caught terrorizing the town outcaste, Mr. Hashimoto (Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa), for being Japanese, his mother (Emily Watson) sends him to the parish priest, Father Oliver (Tom Wilkinson), who redirects his enthusiasm for magic to growing his faith in God by serving others and befriending Mr. Hashimoto.

“Little Boy” is now in select theaters nationwide.

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‘Drinking with the Saints’ – new book encourages Catholic fellowship, good spirits

by Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • May 6, 2015

Drinking with the Saints. (Michael Foley)

Waco, TX —”I should like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings. I should like the angels of Heaven to be drinking it through time eternal.”

While that might not exactly sound like a quote from a Catholic nun, it is actually an excerpt from a poem attributed to St. Brigid of Ireland, who founded several convents in her lifetime.

Some people might find the intersection of saints and alcohol surprising, but not Michael Foley, author of the new book, “Drinking with the Saints: A Sinner’s guide to a Holy Happy Hour.” For him, the experiences of Catholicism and celebration always went hand in hand.

“Our family has always observed as many of the traditional customs surrounding the liturgical year that we could,” he told CNA. “We had special foods for special feast days, and after a while it occurred to me, well we have special foods, are there special drinks?”

Foley discovered that while there were a few saint-drink pairings, there weren’t many, and so he set about creating a comprehensive liturgical guide that matches cocktails, wine and beer selections with saints and feast days of the Church.

His doctorate in Catholic theology helped him with the liturgical aspect of the book, but he relied on friends and family to help him with mixology and taste-testing.

“I had a group of about 20-30 friends that we would either meet in person or communicate through e-mail about various ideas and swapping suggestions,” he said, “and then the other research was either done online or by consulting old bartenders manuals that I collected.”

The resulting book has two parts: the first provides brief saint biographies and paired beverages for almost every day of the calendar year, while the second recommends drink selections based on the liturgical season of the year, such as Lent or Advent. More than 350 cocktail recipes are included, as well as toasts, fun facts, and ideas for ways to celebrate.

Figuring out which drinks to pair with which saints was easy in some cases, where there were already wines or beers or cocktails named after saints, or whose names very closely resembled saints.

“(I)n France alone there are over 120 wines named after the saints, and I try to mention as many of those as possible for the sake of being comprehensive but I definitely didn’t try every one of those wines,” Foley said.

For some saints, the author had to get a little more creative. He was always on the lookout for any “hook” he could find – whether it was alcohol from the same region as the saint, or something peculiar about their biography that stood out, or if he could somehow connect a drink to the way a particular saint might be represented in Church art.

“We discovered a really old recipe called the Life Blood Warmer; we used it on the feast of St. Januarius, because his blood froths up on his feast day,” he said. A martyr of the fourth century, St. Januarius’ blood is kept in a vial in Naples, where it “becomes liquid and bubbles up as though it were fresh” when it is set near the saint’s severed head on certain days.

In addition to revived cocktails from years past, the book includes more than 30 original recipes, and Foley’s wit is on display with some of the invented names such as Prompt Succor Punch for Our Lady of Prompt Succor, or Lady Continence for St. Augustine’s feast day.

“I’ve always been a martini man, that’s kind of my go-to cocktail, but this book definitely expanded my horizons,” he said. “I have to confess that I’m partial to some of the cocktails we invented especially for the book.”

Concocting and inventing drinks became a little complicated for the Waco, Texas author, who daylights as a literature professor at Baylor University, a Baptist college with a dry campus.

“We have sort of a moderate access to various forms of alcohol, we’re not the driest part of the country, but we’re not the wettest either,” he said. “So there were some ingredients I just couldn’t get locally, but aside from the sort of rare ingredient that I couldn’t get, I think we tested most of the cocktails.”

In his research for the book, Foley said he was impressed at how much of an impact Catholicism has made on the history of alcohol.

“The great orders of the Middle Ages developed further the production of beer and wine of course, but they actually invented all kinds of distilled spirits that didn’t exist before,” he said. “It’s believed that whiskey was invented by Irish monks. Chartreuse is this still-produced, magical liqueur made by the Carthusians. Lots of liqueurs were invented by various orders.”

With this book, Foley said he hopes to champion all that is good in the worlds of alcohol and Catholicism without encouraging drunkenness and debauchery.

“This book promotes the very best kind of drinking there is, which is drinking in moderation,” Foley said. “Moderation is not only the morally responsible thing to do, it’s also the most pleasurable thing to do. It slows you down and enables you to actually savor the drink that you’re drinking.”

Moderation and slow-sipping were key for Foley as he created this book as well, so that he could fully experience the flavor profiles of each cocktail.

The goal of the book is to cultivate authentic Catholic fellowship and festivity, the author explained.

“We live in trying times,” he said, “and it’s all the more important for us to get together and celebrate the culture of life and the good news that is the Gospel, and you know, drinking used in moderation is a part of that fellowship, so I hope that this encourages a greater sense of Catholic camaraderie.”

Foley hopes to further promote that Catholic camaraderie through the book’s website and social media pages, where he hopes to create an ongoing community and conversation, with occasional updates to the book such as new saints and recipes.

“In a sense we want this to be kind of a living book, to generate more conversation about ideas for Catholic festivity.”

The online community based on “Drinking with the Saints” can be found at:  drinkingwiththesaints.com

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Prayer breakfast speakers urge supplication for religious liberty, family

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • May 7, 2015

(Catholic Charities/Jeffrey Bruno CC BY 2.0)

Washington, D.C. — Prayer is sorely needed as existential threats face faith, the family, and religious liberty in the U.S., Catholic leaders insisted at a prayer breakfast held in the nation’s capital on Thursday.

“The crisis of marriage and family today cannot be separated from a crisis of faith and a crisis of meaning. And so we must pray for our nation and for our families,” said Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. on May 7.

The prayer breakfast has taken place each year in Washington, D.C. since 2004. Catholic leaders in business and politics, as well as bishops, priests, and religious attend. Attendance at the 2015 breakfast was estimated at over 1,000. Past speakers have included President George W. Bush, Sean Cardinal O’Malley of Boston, and Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) joined Bishop Malone in addressing the crowd about the need for prayer, as challenges are presented to religious liberty and the family in today’s “crisis of faith,” as Bishop Malone said.

Abbott, a Catholic, shared his deeply personal story of a horrific accident that left him confined to a wheelchair as an adult. He prayed that God would grant him “the best possible outcome.” God answered his prayers, but not in the manner he expected.

“[God] responded by giving me challenges that made me stronger,” Abbott said. “I learned, as it turned out, that faith doesn’t mean trusting God to stop the storm. Instead it means trusting him to strengthen us as we pass through the storm.”

In the same way, the Church in the U.S. must pray for strength to weather the storm that threatens its ability to practice the faith in public, he said.

“In America today, we are in a time of great need. There is an urgent need to pray, now more than ever, especially the need to pray for our religious liberties,” he insisted, citing the contraception mandate, legalized abortion, and the push for acceptance of same-sex marriage.

“We see these assaults of faith continue across the entire country. We see this with the Catholic Little Sisters of the Poor being forced to choose between a law being imposed upon them by their government or instead choose to follow the law of their Lord,” he said, referring to an ongoing lawsuit between the nuns and the federal government over their being forced to violate their consciences and provide their employees coverage of contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortions through a third party.

Yet through prayer there is hope, he added, quoting Pope Francis and exhorting the faithful to prayer.

“I have found that there is no force as indomitable, as formidable, as prayer to almighty God. And as Pope Francis has said, and I quote, ‘To not pray is to close the door to God so that he can do nothing.’ He went on and said that ‘On the other hand, in the face of a problem, a difficult situation, a calamity, is opening the door to the Lord so that he can come in.’”

The family also faces a crisis of faith, Bishop Malone insisted. Recent Popes have connected this crisis of faith with a crisis of the family, he added, noting that faith and family are interwoven.

“The family needs to be reawakened and supported in its vocation and its mission,” he said, noting that young Catholics need to be taught to pray in order to be goods husbands and wives as adults.

He also noted the importance of “a close accompaniment that encourages baptized married couples to rely on the grace received in the sacrament and that demonstrates the Church’s great affection and esteem for the vocation of marriage.”

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Iraqi nun’s visa denial raises questions for U.S. State Department

by Kevin J. Jones (CNA/EWTN News) • May 8, 2015

(Catholic Charities/Jeffrey Bruno CC BY 2.0)

Washington, D.C. — Sister Diana Momenka, a Catholic nun from Iraq, intended to visit the U.S. to talk about the persecution of religious minorities in her country – until the local U.S. consulate denied her visa application.

Now the Department of State is facing questions about whether that action has interfered with efforts to help persecuted Christians and other minorities.

“Sister Diana represents tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians, forced to convert or die or flee their homes. She’ll tell us the truth about what’s happening,” U.S. Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) told CNA May 7.

“Like thousands of other Christians in the region, Sister Diana is a victim of ISIS,” Collins said in a May 5 letter to Secretary of State John Kerry. “She has devoted her life to helping other victims and advocating for them.”

Collins, a member of Congress’ Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, is investigating the rejection of her visa application. He said the state department’s actions indicate that it does not believe sharing her story with policymakers and others “merited even the consideration of her application.”

“Rather, it appears the State Department has chosen to continue to largely ignore the persecution of Christians at the hands of ISIS,” he charged. “I find that unacceptable.”

Sister Diana, a Dominican Sister of Saint Catherine of Siena, intended to take part in an Iraqi delegation planning to travel to Washington. She was to meet with the Senate and House foreign relations committees, the state department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and several NGOs, according to Nina Shea, writing at the National Review blog The Corner May 3.

Her visit had the endorsement of U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and was supported by two groups involved in international human rights.

On April 28, the U.S. consulate in Erbil told the nun that her visa application had been rejected. Sister Diana told Shea that a consular officer said that the visa was denied because she was an internally displaced person.

Displaced persons are considered at risk of overstaying their visas or otherwise seeking to remain in the U.S. However, this status is not always a barrier: according to Shea, a delegation of internally displaced Iraqi Yazidis received visas in October to travel to the U.S. to speak.

Sister Diana had been a teacher at St. Ephrem Seminary in Bakhdida until the Islamic State invaded the city in August 2014. The caliphate forced Christians to flee if they would not convert to Islam or pay the jizya, a tax on non-Muslims.

Like tens of thousands of other Christians, Sister Diana has fled to Iraqi Kurdistan for her safety. She has been teaching at the Babel College of Philosophy and Theology in Erbil.

She was the only Christian in her delegation, which also included members of the Yazidi and Turkmen Shia religious groups.

Sister Diana’s visa application was the only one rejected.

A state department spokesman told CNA the department cannot discuss individual visa applications due to privacy concerns.

Shea said at National Review that “as an articulate, English-speaking Iraqi Christian, who is not only personally a victim of ISIS but also an aid worker with a broad perspective on the suffering of the Christian community there, Sister Diana would make an exceptional witness.”

CNA sought comment from Sister Diana, but she was unable to respond by deadline.

Collins said Sister Diana did not appear to be at high risk of remaining in the U.S. beyond her visa period. His letter noted her previous travels to the U.S. and asked why the state department would bar a persecuted Catholic nun from coming to the U.S. to speak about her experiences and to advocate for religious freedom.

Collins told CNA that his job on the Lantos Human Rights Commission is to focus on issues of religious persecution and religious freedom that he believes the U.S. administration “refuses to recognize.”

“Islamic radicalism is real, and so is its conquest of religious minorities in the Middle East and Africa,” he said, charging that Kerry and President Obama are failing to talk about the persecution of Iraqi Christians.

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Catholic Charities ready to help tornado, flood victims in Midwest

by Kevin Jones (CNA/EWTN News) • May 8, 2015

Oklahoma City tornado, 2013. (Daniel Rodriguez Global Panorama via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0)

Oklahoma City — After a series of damaging tornadoes and flooding in Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, a Catholic Charities affiliate said it is ready to provide long-term help.

“People today are showing back up at their homes and finding out that there’s no roof, or that there’s just a foundation,” Sonny Wilkinson, senior director of mission advancement for Catholic Charities of Oklahoma City, told CNA May 7.

“They don’t even know where to begin, it’s so overwhelming.”

Oklahoma was hardest hit in the latest weather. Storms spawned over a dozen tornadoes and dropped over eight inches of rain in some communities across the state’s western and central regions beginning the evening of May 6.

One woman died when a tornado shelter in Oklahoma City flooded. At least 12 people were injured and dozens of homes were destroyed, The Oklahoman newspaper reports.

“There was flooding, there was wind, the raw emotion of it brought back memories of previous storms,” said Wilkinson.

He said the storm reminded some people of the far more powerful storm which had produced the deadly tornado which struck Moore, Oklahoma in 2013.

“The impact wasn’t as bad as it could have been, thankfully,” said Wilkinson, who credited community awareness in responding to the latest storm appropriately.

While other agencies are engaged in immediate disaster response, Oklahoma City’s Catholic Charities is focused on preparing to help storm victims’ long-term recovery to help them in “getting back to normal.”

Catholic Charities case managers will help them navigate insurance claims and unmet needs like financial, emotional and community support.

Other states also suffered from the weather.

In Nebraska, storms caused rainfall ranging from six to 10 inches. Several towns and parts of the city of Lincoln were evacuated. Tornados damaged homes and buildings, but there were no major injuries reported, according to the Lincoln Journal-Star.

In north-central Kansas, several homes and an ethanol plant suffered damage and as many as 150 cattle were killed, the Associated Press reports.

Wilkinson said disaster response agencies in Oklahoma are still assessing needs.

He said that Oklahomans often act self-reliant after suffering a disaster and sometimes are reluctant to accept aid.

“The reality is they all need it. They just haven’t discovered all the different ways they were affected,” the Catholic Charities official said.

“We’ll be the agency that stands with them in the next two years.”

He encouraged people concerned about disaster victims to give cash donations to the charity of their choice.

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‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ and ‘Ex Machina’ movie reviews

by Carl Kozlowski • May 2, 2015

The summer movie season is officially upon us this weekend, with the release of the new “Avengers: Age of Ultron” leading the annual flood of superheroes, action movies and broad comedies into theatres. But while the new movie costs $250 million and features an array of star actors including Robert Downey, Jr., Scarlett Johannsen and Jeremy Renner in its cast, there is a more intriguing science fiction film that’s also in theatres now, called “Ex Machina.”

The two movies couldn’t be more different in terms of style, tone, scope and the audience they’re trying to reach, but both are dealing with the same moral and ethical question: can mankind create robots with artificial intelligence (AI), and if it can, will the robots prove to be a danger to our very existence? “Avengers” handles the topic as a backdrop to fast-flying wisecracks and high-flying action that’s fine for most kids (certainly over age 10) to handle, while “Ex Machina” is a thoughtful yet occasionally disturbing mind-bender for adults.

I’ll get my thoughts on “Avengers” out of the way first, because most of the planet is going to see this movie without giving a thought to how critics feel about it. Packed to the gills with about a dozen superheroes and their human allies like Nick Fury (played by the reliably cool Samuel L. Jackson) facing off against a giant force-field called Ultron that Tony Stark/Iron Man hoped would help save mankind from alien attack but which becomes evil itself, the movie is filled with frenzied action and a steady stream of hilarious one-liners that fans will appreciate in direct proportion to how much they’re obsessed with the characters and the Marvel universe they operate in.

There’s no sex or nudity, although an ongoing flirtation between Hulk’s human alter ego, David Banner, and Black Widow has a couple of mildly racy comments. The fact that Captain America is trying to navigate present-day society with a 1940s mindset provides comical reasons to remind other characters like Tony Stark not to swear, so foul language consists of a couple of s-words.

And while the movie is packed with fights and chases that I occasionally felt were a little intense for kids – and Ultron takes a robot form that’s a bit scary as its earthling persona – overall “The Avengers” continue the Marvel tradition of good clean fun that emphasizes a strong love of the U.S. and the positive message that even the oddballs among us can team up and save the world.

“Ex Machina,” meanwhile, is largely a three-person tale taking place over a week in the middle of the Norwegian nowhere. Meaning, it follows the strange adventure that a brilliant young techie named Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) experiences when he wins a company-wide contest to be the new assistant to the brilliant inventor named Nathan (Oscar Isaacs) who owns the company at his massive Scandinavian estate on his latest project: creating an AI robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander) whom Nathan hopes will revolutionize human/robot relations.

Caleb is to test Ava and see if he can tell that she is a robot, or if she has developed so strongly that she has a genuine free will of her own. Ava has a beautiful face and a body that mixes visible wiring with alluring curves, leaving Caleb off-balance from the beginning, while Nathan is an alcoholic, anti-social recluse who treats his female Asian assistant with an utter lack of empathy.

At first, the interaction between Caleb and Ava seems innocent, and viewers are absorbed into the hypnotic rhythms of life in the middle of nowhere. But when the scientific home base starts getting hit by a string of blackouts, things get really strange: Ava secretly tells Caleb that Oscar can’t be trusted, before slipping back into fully-friendly mode the moment power is restored and the omnipresent surveillance cameras are turned back on.

Thus, “Ex Machina” becomes an edge-of-your-seat mind game that one could easily imagine Alfred Hitchcock making in the 21st century, though its cold visual sense and intensely creepy atmosphere are torn straight out of the Stanley Kubrick playbook of “2001” and “The Shining.” It raises some truly interesting and frightening alarms about the ethics on the frontiers of science, at a time when in reality we are being told that scientists in real life can likely create artificial intelligence by 2050.

The movie, written and directed brilliantly by British cult-favorite writer Alex Garland (who previously wrote the Leonardo DiCaprio movie “The Beach” and the zombie-movie classic “28 Days Later”) , leaves the biggest moral lessons up to the viewer, which means the movie refrains from heavy-handedness in either direction and will inspire intense discussions among viewers afterwards. There are about 20 to 30 varying levels of swear words throughout the movie (a few F words, a few milder, a few uses of God’s name in vain, but none on an excessive level), a minimum of violence (although it’s a tad bloody when it finally happens) and some graphic female robotic nudity from other robots on the estate, so “Ex Machina” is definitely for adults even as it is as shot as tastefully as possible.

All told, both movies are worth seeing, but “Avengers” is good family fun while “Ex Machina” is something that only adults should encounter.

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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‘The Avengers’ and Friedrich Nietzsche

by Very Rev. Robert Barron • May 4, 2015

C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their colleagues in the Inklings wanted to write fiction that would effectively “evangelize the imagination,” accustoming the minds, especially of young people, to the hearing of the Christian Gospel. Accordingly, Tolkien’s Gandalf is a figure of Jesus the prophet and Lewis’s Aslan a representation of Christ as both sacrificial victim and victorious king. Happily, the film versions of both The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia have proven to be wildly popular all over the world. Not so happily, Joss Whedon’s “Avenger” films, the second of which has just appeared, work as a sort of antidote to Tolkien and Lewis, shaping the imaginations of young people so as to receive a distinctly different message. It is certainly relevant to my purpose here to note that Whedon, the auteur behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and many other well-received films and television programs, is a self-avowed atheist and has, on many occasions, signaled his particular dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church.

I won’t rehearse in too much detail the plot of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Suffice it to say that the world is threatened by an artificial intelligence, by the name of Ultron, who has run amok and incarnated himself in a particularly nasty robotic body. Ultron wants to destroy the human race and has produced an army of robots as his posse. Enter the Avengers — Tony Stark (Iron Man), the Hulk, Black Widow, Captain America, Hawkeye, and Thor — to do battle with the dark forces. There is an awful lot of CGI bumping and banging and blowing things up, but when the rubble settles, we see that the real struggle is over a perfect body — a synthesis of machine and flesh — that Ultron, with the help of brainwashed scientists, is designing for himself. After pursuing the bad guys on a wild ride through the streets of Seoul, the Avengers recover the body, and Thor, using one of the fundamental building blocks of the universe or lightning or something, brings it to life. Exuding light, intelligence, and calmness of spirit, this newly created robot/human/god floats above the ground and announces that his name is “I am.” Just before his climactic battle with Ultron, “I am” declares that order and chaos are two sides of the same coin and that wickedness is never eliminated but keeps coming around in an endless cycle.

Although some have seen Biblical themes at work in all of this, I see pretty much the opposite, namely, an affirmation of a Nietzschean view of life. Whedon, who was a philosophy student at university, delights in dropping references to the great thinkers in his work, and one of the most cited in “Ultron” is none other than the man I take to be the most influential of the 19th century philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche. At a key moment in the film, Ultron in fact utters Nietzsche’s most famous one-liner: “what does not kill me makes me stronger,” and the observation made by the newly-created “I am” is a neat expression of Nietzsche’s doctrine of the eternal return of the same. At the heart of the German philosopher’s work is the declaration of the death of God, which signals that all values are relative, that we live in a space “beyond good and evil.” Into that space, Nietzsche contends, the Ubermensch, the superman, should confidently stride. This is a human being who has thrown off the shackles of religion and conventional morality and is able to exercise fully his Wille zur Macht (Will to Power). Asserting this will, the superman defines himself completely on his own terms, effectively becoming a god. Here we see the significant influence of Nietzsche on Sartre and the other existentialists of the twentieth century.

The Avengers is chock-a-block with Ubermenschen, powerful, willful people who assert themselves through technology and the hyper-violence that that technology makes possible. And the most remarkable instance of this technologically informed self-assertion is the creation of the savior figure, who self-identifies with the very words of Yahweh in the book of Exodus. But he is not the Word become flesh; instead, he is the coming together of flesh and robotics, produced by the flexing of the all too human will to power. I find it fascinating that this pseudo-savior was brought about by players on both sides of the divide, by both Iron Man and Ultron. Like Nietzsche’s superman, he is indeed beyond good and evil — which is precisely why he cannot definitively solve the problems that bedevil the human race and can only glumly predict the eternal return of trouble. If you have any doubts about the Nietzschean intention of Joss Whedon, take a good look at the image that plays as The Avengers comes to a close. It is a neo-classical sculpture of all of the major figures in the film locked in struggle, straining against one another. It is in complete conformity with the aesthetic favored by Albert Speer, Leni Riefenstahl, and the other artists of the Nazi period.

What the Christian evangelist can seize upon in this film is the frank assertion that the will to power — even backed up by stunningly sophisticated technology — never finally solves our difficulties, that it, in point of fact, makes things worse. See the Tower of Babel narrative for the details. And this admission teases the mind to consider the possibility that the human predicament can be addressed finally only through the invasion of grace. Once that door is opened, the Gospel can be proclaimed.

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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Mothers of the Bible

by Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J. • May 5, 2015

Mother’s Day has been celebrated throughout the world since the time of Ancient Greece. Most countries designate the second Sunday in May to recognize mothers in a special way. The Bible records the names of strong, courageous women — wives and mothers — who contributed mightily to the plan of salvation, and we call attention to those women in this essay.

Mothers of the Old Testament

Eve is the name we give to the mother of humankind. She is followed by the saintly Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel, the wives of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob respectively. As they approached old age, they remained childless, generally viewed as an embarrassment if not a punishment from God. But through their persevering trust, God’s plan turned their barrenness into fecundity with the birth of sons to lead their people.

Rahab

The Canaanite woman Rahab plays an important role in the genealogy of the Matthean Gospel. Though she was a prostitute, her courage in protecting the Israelite spies made the conquest of Jericho possible (Joshua 2). Boaz, Obed, Jesse, and King David were Rahab’s son, grandson, great-grandson, and great-great-grandson, respectively. Her most famous descendent was Jesus of Nazareth. In Rahab, we see that, with God’s grace, a person can change, for she became a worthy mother and God’s effective instrument for future generations.

Ruth

Ruth was a woman from the Moabite tribe. She was married to Naomi’s son, and when he died, Ruth was left childless. In time, when she was about to marry her new husband Boaz, son of Rahab, she asked Naomi to join the family. Ruth gave birth to a son, Obed whom Naomi adopted as her grandson. The Book of Ruth describes the loving relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.

An Italian institute of consecrated women in Caserta, Southern Italy has opened up the shelter Casa Ruth to care for women who are sold into prostitution, forced slavery or trafficking. This institute is one of 100 safe havens throughout Europe with 250 nuns participating in them from 28 congregations. Many have missionary experience. The umbrella organization for Casa Ruth is Talitha Kum, the International Network of Consecrated Life against Trafficking in Persons. Talitha Kum is a phrase spoken by Jesus which means “Little girl, arise” (Mk 5:41). Under the loving care of the nuns, the women and their children retrieve their human dignity and worth. The women learn a useful trade, and their children receive a fine education.

Hannah

Hannah prayed to the Lord in anguish and bitterness, for she too was childless. She prayed ceaselessly and promised that if God blessed her with a son, she would dedicate him to the temple. When her prayer was answered, the child Samuel was brought to Eli for training as a priest. He became the last of Israel’s judges and a counselor to Saul and David. Hannah and her husband Elkanah were blessed with three more sons and a daughter (1 & 2 Samuel). In this story, perseverance in prayer and generosity are richly rewarded.

Mothers of the New Testament

Elizabeth

The narrative of Elizabeth runs parallel to that of Mary’s Annunciation. Advanced in age, Elizabeth was childless. But the angel appeared to tell her that she would conceive and bear a son, John the Baptist. Zachary, her husband, doubted the messenger, and for his disbelief, he was struck mute. She welcomed her cousin Mary of Nazareth, and together they rejoiced at their approaching motherhood, miraculous in every way.

Rachel

Perhaps one of the most heartbreaking stories of the Christian Scriptures is that of the Holy Innocents whose feast day the Church celebrates on December 28th. To make certain that the Child born in Bethlehem would not challenge his power, King Herod decreed that all infants under the age of two were to be killed. St. Matthew’s Gospel quotes the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled because they are no more” (Ch 2). A similar scene continues to be played out in Africa, the Mideast, and in other parts of the world, where mothers and their newborn infants are put to death for the Christian faith.

Mrs. Zebedee

Zebedee and his wife had two sons, James and John. She asked Jesus for a personal favor: “Grant that one of these sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at you left in your kingdom” (Mt 20:21). Though she probably didn’t realize the weight of her request, who can blame her for seeking preferential treatment of her two sons?

Mary of Nazareth: the Loveliest Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valleys (Song of Songs 2:1)

Traditionally, May is Mary’s month. In Washington’s Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, one Mary Chapel after another represents various countries in their depictions of this loveliest of women holding her Child, each garbed in ethnic clothing. Whether it’s in literature, architecture, iconography, painting, statuary, or in music, the burst of creativity continues among artists in singing Mary’s praises. In fact, since the Middle Ages, about 15,000 hymns are directed or addressed to her.

In the Christian East, Mary plays an integral role in liturgical celebrations where she is mentioned several times. Her presence in the liturgy is based on the centrality of her role in the economy of redemption. Most often addressed as Theotokos, the God-bearer, or the Mother of Life, Mary is hardly ever depicted without her son, for she is intertwined with the mystery of Jesus. She holds the God-Man and shows him to the world.

The Christian East praises Mary as the Virgin of Motherhood as expressed by St. John in the verse: “Woman, here is your son” (Jn 19:26). A woman, full of grace and strength, Mary is not simply a type of ideal womanhood. She is a prototype of the Church and a model for Christians.

Mary in Islam

Not only revered in the universal Catholic Church, Mary is also greatly honored in the Islamic tradition. She is the only woman mentioned by name in the Quran. Maryam is mentioned thirty-four times as contrasted with nineteen in the Gospels. She is never referred to as the Virgin Mary, but the account of the Annunciation and Nativity is extensive. The Quran reverently approaches the narrative on Jesus’ birth from Mary. He was a prophet who respected his mother and whose mission was to offer an example through a life of prayer and good deeds. Our church leaders should take note that Maryam is a bridge between Islam and Christianity.

Mary and the Spiritual Exercises

In the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola presents a lovely tableau not found in the Gospels, the Appearance of the Risen Lord to his Mother. Ignatius reasons that it would have been impossible for the Son not to appear to his Mother before appearing to his disciples.

The simple chant, “Mary the Dawn,” is lovely to pray on Mother’s Day:

Mary the Dawn, Christ the Perfect Day;

Mary the Gate, Christ the Heav’nly Way!

Mary the Root, Christ, the Mystic Vine;

Mary the Grape, Christ the Sacred Wine!

May the Wheat-Sheaf, Christ the Living Bread

Mary the Rose-Tree, Christ the Rose-Blood-red.

Mary the Font, Christ the Cleansing Flood;

Mary the Chalice, Christ the Saving Blood!

Mary the Temple, Christ the Temple’s Lord;

Mary the Shrine, Christ the God adored.

Mary the Beacon, Christ the Haven’s Rest;

Mary the Mirror, Christ the Vision Blest!

Mary the Mother, Christ the Mother’s Son.

Both ever blest while endless ages run.

“Credentials,” a poem by Father Daniel Berrigan, S.J., describes the essence of a rose and the loveliest rose God ever made:

… So the rose is its own credential, a certain

unattainable form: wearing its heart visibly,

it gives us heart too: bud, fullness and fall.

Happy Mother’s Day, Valiant Women All.

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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FEATURES

Baptism by immersion is an authentic post-Vatican II development

by Msgr. M. Francis Mannion • May 7, 2015

The Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City underwent a major renovation in the early 1990s. One of the more notable liturgical changes was the installation of an immersion baptismal font.

Since I was Cathedral rector during the renovation, I now give regular tours of the building. The thing that most puzzles visitors, especially Catholics, is the presence of the immersion font. What is the warrant for it? Why is it necessary? Does the Church approve of immersion fonts?

So, I find that I have to rehearse constantly the Church’s rationale for baptism by immersion. Here it is.

The General Introduction to the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) states: “As the rite for baptizing, either immersion, which is more suitable as a symbol of participation in the death and resurrection of Christ, or pouring may lawfully be used” (no. 22).

The documentation of the RCIA itself directs: “Therefore in the celebration of baptism the washing with water should take on its full importance as the sign of the mystical sharing in Christ’s death and resurrection through which those who believe in his name die to sin and rise to eternal life. Either immersion or the pouring of water should be chosen for the rite, whichever will ensure the clear understanding that this washing is not a mere purification rite but the sacrament of being joined to Christ” (no. 213).

The rite of baptism provided in the RCIA states as follows: “If baptism is by immersion, of the whole body or of the head only, decency and decorum should be preserved. … The celebrant, immersing the candidate’s whole body or head three times, baptizes in the name of the Trinity” (no. 226).

The National Statutes for the Catechumenate approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1986 contains the strongest statement on baptism by immersion: “Baptism by immersion is the fuller and more expressive sign of the sacrament and, therefore, is preferred. Although it is not yet a common practice in the United States, provision should be made for its more frequent use in the baptism of adults. At the least, the provision of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults for partial immersion, namely immersion of the candidate’s head, should be taken into account” (no. 17).

Clearly the preference for baptism by immersion is in accord with the mind of the Church. (Full immersion is not the same thing as partial immersion. The first involves the lowering of the whole body under the water; partial immersion means having the candidate stand in water up to his or her knees while water is poured over the head.)

Baptism by immersion makes tangible the theological motif of baptism as going down into the waters of death and rising again with Christ; it underscores the Exodus theme of crossing the Red Sea from slavery to freedom; it provides visible expression of baptism as encounter with the tomb of death, and the womb of new life.

One of the aims of the modern liturgical movement before and since the Vatican II has been to make the symbols of Christian life more real and tangible. Of course, all one needs for a valid baptism is a small amount of water poured over the forehead, but how much more expressive is the use of a large font in which a significant body of water is used and where the candidate may encounter the meaning of baptism in a fuller way.

It’s time for all Catholic churches to install immersion fonts!

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 Society’s journal, Antiphon. At the invitation of Cardinal Francis George of Chicago he founded the Mundelein Liturgical Institute in 2000.

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FEATURES

‘Hot Pursuit’ isn’t high art, but fine for a summer weekend

by Carl Kozlowski • May 8, 2015

It’s rare to find a mainstream Hollywood movie where the heroine is a Christian who’s open and proud about her faith, and is never shown to be a hypocrite. Unfortunately, that’s one of the few pleasant surprises of the new comedy “Hot Pursuit,” in which Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara of TV’s “Modern Family” improbably team up in the kind of storyline that makes you cringe even as you’re realizing you’ve seen something like it a thousand times before.

It’s a broad comedy about two women – a policeman and a drug lord’s wife – who have to go on the run from killers who are determined to stop the wife from testifying against the drug cartel in court. The female cop is Cooper (Reese Witherspoon), whose father was the best cop in her city, even though she’s turned out to be a bumbling klutz relegated to the evidence room.

Cooper finally gets a chance at a big case when her chief assigns her to be the protector of Daniella Riva (Sofia Vergara), the wife of a drug kingpin who is headed with her husband to testify against the head of their cartel. But when Cooper goes to pick up Daniella, two teams of men enter the Rivas’ house and kill her husband and the US Marshal assigned to oversee Cooper.

Thus, Cooper and Daniella go on the run in a desperate attempt to stay alive and make it to the testimony. Along the way, numerous car chases, foot chases and other comic mayhem abound, with the two women bonding along the way. Yes, this is the kind of plot you’ve seen a thousand times before in buddy-cop movies, but the twist that the filmmakers are hoping will make it seem fresh is that this time the buddies are women.

It’s far from enough, despite the fact that Witherspoon and Vergara put a lot of manic energy into their parts under the frantic direction of Anne Fletcher (“The Proposition”). They’re trying too hard the whole time, and often the humor arises from such gross discussion topics as menstruation, or a cheap and easy reliance on lesbian humor, from when Daniela starts to grab and kiss Cooper to make a dumb redneck lust after them as a lesbian couple.

It’s a shame that such prime talent is put to waste in the service of such a formula movie, because there are other moments that are a great deal of fun, including a big chase scene in which two different cars filled with bad guys are shooting at a bus filled with vacationing seniors in the seats and Witherspoon and Vergara fighting for control of the wheel.

Audiences will likely find it enjoyable enough, even though several scenes cross into stupidity and this is hardly the material that earned Witherspoon her Oscar. But even the most serious of actors need to have fun once in a while, and she likely saw this as giddy fun. The strongest surprise from a Christian perspective is that Cooper and Daniella are both shown as believers and speak of prayer, God, and the angels in matter of fact and positive ways.

Altogether, “Hot Pursuit” isn’t high art, but it’s enough basic fun for most adults and older teens to enjoy on a summer weekend.

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 • MAY 10, 2015

Sixth Sunday of Easter

First Reading (Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48; NRSVCE)

On Peter’s arrival Cornelius met him, and falling at his feet, worshiped him. But Peter made him get up, saying, “Stand up; I am only a mortal.”

Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

Second Reading (1 Jn 4:7-10; NRSVCE)

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Gospel Reading (Jn 15:9-17; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

MONDAY • MAY 11, 2015

Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter

First Reading (Acts 16:11-15; NRSVCE)

We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us.

Gospel Reading (Jn 15:26 — 16:4a; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

“I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me. But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them.”

TUESDAY • MAY 12, 2015

Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter

First Reading (Acts 16:22-34; NRSVCE)

The crowd in Philippi joined in attacking Paul and Silas, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

Gospel Reading (Jn 16:5-11; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.”

WEDNESDAY • MAY 13, 2015

Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter

First Reading (Acts 17:15, 22 — 18:1; NRSVCE)

Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens; and after receiving instructions to have Silas and Timothy join him as soon as possible, they left him.

Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him — though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’

Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, “We will hear you again about this.” At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.

Gospel Reading (Jn 16:12-15; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

THURSDAY • MAY 14, 2015

Feast of Saint Matthias

First Reading (Acts 1:15-17, 20-26; NRSVCE)

In those days Peter stood up among the believers (together the crowd numbered about one hundred twenty persons) and said, “Friends, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit through David foretold concerning Judas, who became a guide for those who arrested Jesus — for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.”

“For it is written in the book of Psalms,

‘Let his homestead become desolate,

and let there be no one to live in it’;

and

‘Let another take his position of overseer.’

So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us — one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection.” So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias. Then they prayed and said, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.

Gospel Reading (Jn 15:9-17; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

FRIDAY • MAY 15, 2015

Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter

First Reading (Acts 18:9-18; NRSVCE)

One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.” He stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal. They said, “This man is persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to the law.” Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of crime or serious villainy, I would be justified in accepting the complaint of you Jews; but since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves; I do not wish to be a judge of these matters.” And he dismissed them from the tribunal. Then all of them seized Sosthenes, the official of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of these things.

After staying there for a considerable time, Paul said farewell to the believers and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchreae he had his hair cut, for he was under a vow.

Gospel Reading (Jn 16:20-23; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.”

SATURDAY • MAY 16, 2015

Saturday of the Sixth Week of Easter

First Reading (Acts 18:23-28; NRSVCE)

After spending some time in Antioch, Paul departed and went from place to place through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

Now there came to Ephesus a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria. He was an eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures. He had been instructed in the Way of the Lord; and he spoke with burning enthusiasm and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue; but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the Way of God to him more accurately. And when he wished to cross over to Achaia, the believers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. On his arrival he greatly helped those who through grace had become believers, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the scriptures that the Messiah is Jesus.

Gospel Reading (Jn 16:23b-28; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

“I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but will tell you plainly of the Father. On that day you will ask in my name. I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father.”