VOLUME 1, ISSUE 21  •  MAY 23, 2015

Table of Contents

Copyright Notice

VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis reminds Christians to have a festive faith

Pope Francis shares the secret of the saints: life in Christ’s love

Pope appeals for peace in Burundi

For Arab Christianity, new women saints give encouraging example

Beware of ‘white-gloved’ terrorism, Pope tells Middle East nuns

For Pope Francis, the laity must be formed for their mission in the world

Could Mother Teresa be canonized during the Holy Year for Mercy?

Pope Francis: Are you ready for your final goodbye?

Brooklyn diocese receives two new bishops from Pope Francis

Pope Francis to parents: Come out of ‘exile’ and educate your children

Fr. Timothy Radcliffe: Controversial thinker and new Vatican consultant

WORLD NEWS

At Lourdes shrine, ‘wounded warriors’ can pray for peace and healing

A journey of pain and healing: one U.S. Marine’s prayer at Lourdes

Is economic growth the enemy of saving the environment? These Catholics say no

Is Islam a religion of war or peace? Both – and Muslims must decide, priest says

Paris’ stunning Sainte-Chapelle gets a makeover – with lasers

Despite support from their president, Egypt’s Christians are attacked by their neighbors

U.S. NEWS

Hundreds of U.S. priests ask Synod to stand firm on Church teaching

Will Francis build on Benedict’s legacy when he visits the U.S.?

Want more religious vocations? Improve your family life, nun says

U.S. bishops: Without disarmament, nuclear weapons still threaten peace

These twin friars are taking it to the streets – and your TV – to save souls

Boston bomber gets the death penalty – how should Catholics respond?

Nearly every House member voted for this anti-human trafficking bill

Converted by love, not ideology: An archbishop’s reflection on Dorothy Day

A priest’s powerful impact on the New York Times’ David Brooks

Judges shoot down Notre Dame’s appeal on contraception mandate

Nebraska bishops praise move to repeal death penalty

FEATURES

Untying Knots

Poverty, chastity, and obedience are all about money, sex, and power

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Sunday • May 24, 2015

Monday • May 25, 2015

Tuesday • May 26, 2015

Wednesday • May 27, 2015

Thursday • May 28, 2015

Friday • May 29, 2015

Saturday • May 30, 2015

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Volume 1, Issue 21 • May 23, 2015

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis reminds Christians to have a festive faith

by CNA/EWTN News • May 16, 2015

Pope Francis laughing outside of St. Peter’s Basilica during the general audience on April 1, 2015. (Petrik Bohumil/CNA)

Vatican City — Speaking to vowed religious, Pope Francis said Christianity must be festive. He praised the special nourishing power of a nun’s smile.

“The feast is a theological category of life. And you cannot live the consecrated life without this festive dimension. It’s a party. But partying is not the same as making noise,” he said May 16.

This festive dimension to life is “one of the things that we Christians forget,” he said, according to Vatican Radio.

For Pope Francis, the way to have a party is described in Deuteronomy Chapter 26. The believer brings his “first fruits” in sacrifice to God, thanking him for his kindness. He then goes home and celebrates by sharing his wealth with those who have no family, with neighbors and with slaves.

The Pope noted this Bible chapter has a prayer about “the joy of remembering all that God has done for us.”

The Pope’s remarks were for an audience of vowed religious men and women of the Diocese of Rome on Saturday in Paul VI Hall in Vatican City.

“One of the things that you must never, ever miss is a time to hear people! Even in the hours of contemplation, of silence,” he told the audience.

He noted that some monasteries have voice mail and people call to ask prayers.

“This link is important to the world,” he said.

While monastic religious should leave behind “media chatterers,” they should never leave behind knowledge of the world like “news of wars, diseases, of how much people suffer.”

The Pope said there are “many graces form the Lord” in the “tension” between the cloistered life of prayer and considering the situation of others. He noted that some monasteries dedicate time each day to give food to those who ask for it. This does not contradict the monastic’s “hiddenness in God,” he said. Rather, this is “a service” and a “smile.”

“The smile of the nuns open their hearts! The smile of the nuns feeds more than the bread that came.”

He told the vowed religious their vocation is not a “refuge.” Rather, their vocation is “to go into the field of battle and fight and knock at the heart of the Lord for that city.

Consecration has a spousal dimension both for men and women.

He stressed the “motherhood” of consecrated women and the qualities of “perseverance, loyalty, unity, heart.” Religious sisters are “the icon of the Church of Our Lady,” he said.

“Do not forget that the Church is feminine,” he continued, adding that the Church is the “bride of Jesus.”

The love and fidelity of consecrated women must “reflect the loyalty, the love, the tenderness of the Mother Church and mother Mary.”

Pope Francis said that the Church must help explain the “feminine genius,” noting his previous calls for women to be department heads in the Church.

“When we treat a problem among men we arrive at a conclusion, but if we treat the same problem among women, the conclusion will be different: it will go on the same road, but it will be richer, stronger, more intuitive.”

He encouraged consecrated religious to look to the concrete action Jesus Christ described in the Beatitudes and in Chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew. He said “the whole program is there.”

The Pope reflected on the virtue of fruitful obedience, connecting this to the “mystery of Christ” in which Jesus became incarnate “through obedience, up to the cross and death.”

While he warned against the temptation to take a “disciplinary attitude” towards obedience, he said that obedience is “the icon of the road of Jesus.”

Pope Francis also warned that monastic life can give rise to vices like jealousy, envy, and criticism of superiors. He cautioned against a wrongly competitive spirit between the diocese and congregations or between monastic congregations.

He stressed the need for collaboration and unity, despite self-interest and sin.

“The bishop should not use the religious as a stopgap, but the religious ought not use the bishop as if he owned a company that gives you a job,” the Pope explained.

Pope Francis announced plans to update the 1978 document “Mutuae Relationes,” which addresses relations between vowed religious and the local bishop. The bishops’ synod of 1994 had asked for a reform, but this request was never fulfilled.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis shares the secret of the saints: life in Christ’s love

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • May 17, 2015

Tapestries in St. Peter’s Square show four saints canonized on May 17, 2015: Marie Alphonsine Danil Ghattas, Jeanne Emilie de Villeneuve, Maria Cristina Brando, and Mariam Baouardy. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Vatican City — Pope Francis canonized the Church’s four newest saints on Sunday, praising their loving witness to Jesus Christ’s Resurrection.

He said “this is the secret of the saints: abiding in Christ, joined to him like branches to the vine, in order to bear much fruit.”

The four newest saints showed how “to abide in God and in his love, and thus to proclaim by our words and our lives the Resurrection of Jesus, to live in unity with one another and with charity towards all,” the pontiff said in his May 17 homily

The Pope’s words came during the canonization Mass of Saint Jeanne Émilie de Villeneuve, Saint Maria Cristina Brando, Saint Mariam Baouardy, and Saint Marie Alphonsine Danil Ghattas in Saint Peter’s Square.

These women — two Palestinians, a Frenchwoman, and an Italian — offered a “luminous example” challenging the lives of Christians, he said.

“How do I bear witness to the risen Christ? How do I abide in him? How do I remain in his love? Am I capable of ‘sowing’ in my family, in my workplace and in my community, the seed of that unity which he has bestowed on us by giving us a share in the life of the Trinity?” Pope Francis asked.

Tens of thousands of people took part in the Sunday morning Mass, as tapestries bearing the images of the new saints hung from the facade of Saint Peter’s Basilica.

During his homily, Pope Francis reflected on the Book of Acts’ account of the election of Matthias to replace Judas as one of the Twelve Apostles in being “a witness to Jesus’ resurrection.”

The Pope observed that many people believed in the Resurrection through the testimony of these witnesses, and Christian communities were born.

The pontiff said that the faith in the risen Lord which exists today is based upon the Apostles’ witness passed down through the Church’s mission.

“Our faith is firmly linked to their testimony, as to an unbroken chain which spans the centuries, made up not only by the successors of the Apostles, but also by succeeding generations of Christians,” he said.

Pope Francis added that all those who follow Christ are called to be witnesses to the Resurrection, “above all in those human settings where forgetfulness of God and human disorientation are most evident.”

“If this is to happen, we need to remain in the risen Christ and in his love,” the pontiff explained.

The Pope reflected on how each of the newly canonized women bore witness to Christ’s Resurrection by abiding in his love and promoting unity among Christians.

Sister Jeanne Émilie de Villeneuve (1811-1854), was the French foundress of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of Castres.

In his homily, the Holy Father observed how she “consecrated her life to God and to the poor, the sick, the imprisoned and the exploited, becoming for them and for all a concrete sign of the Lord’s merciful love.”

Sister Maria Cristina Brando (1856-1906) was an Italian religious who founded the Congregation of the Sisters, Expiatory Victims of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament at the beginning of the 20th century.

“She was completely given over to ardent love for the Lord,” the Pope said. “From prayer and her intimate encounter with the risen Jesus present in the Eucharist, she received strength to endure suffering and to give herself, as bread which is broken, to many people who had wandered far from God and yet hungered for authentic love.”

Pope Francis spoke also of the two Palestinian women canonized during Sunday’s Mass.

Sister Mariam Baouardy (1846-1878), a mystic and stigmatic also known as Mary Jesus Crucified, was the Palestine-born foundress of the Discalced Carmelites of Bethlehem. She and her family were members of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. As a vowed religious, she spent time in France and India before helping to found the Carmelite congregation in Bethlehem in 1875.

“Poor and uneducated, she was able to counsel others and provide theological explanations with extreme clarity, the fruit of her constant conversation with the Holy Spirit,” the pontiff said. “Her docility to the Spirit also made her a means of encounter and fellowship with the Muslim world.”

The fourth newly canonized saint, Sister Marie Alphonsine Danil Ghattas (1843-1927), was a Turco-British Palestinian and co-foundress of the Congregation of the Rosary Sisters. Born in Palestine, she spent much of her life in Bethlehem and its area, assisting the poor and establishing schools and orphanages.

As the pontiff explained, she understood “clearly what it means to radiate the love of God in the apostolate, and to be a witness to meekness and unity. She shows us the importance of becoming responsible for one another, of living lives of service one to another.”

Pope Francis stressed the importance of unity in witness to the resurrected Jesus, reflecting on the day’s gospel reading in which Jesus prays “that they may be one, even as we are one” (John 17: 11).

“An essential aspect of witness to the risen Lord is unity among ourselves, his disciples, in the image of his own unity with the Father,” the Pope said.

He concluded his homily by inviting the faithful to imitate the four new saints, praying that we may “take with us the joy of this encounter with the risen Lord,” cultivating “in our hearts the commitment to abide in God’s love.”

At the end of Mass around noon, Pope Francis delivered a short pre-Regina Caeli address. He greeted all the pilgrims and delegates from Palestine, France, Italy, Israel, and Jordan present for the canonizations.

“Through their intercession, the Lord will grant a new missionary impulse to their respective countries of origin,” he said.

“Inspired by their example of mercy, of charity, and of reconciliation, Christians from these lands look with hope to the future, continuing on the path of solidarity and fraternal coexistence.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope appeals for peace in Burundi

by CNA/EWTN News • May 17, 2015

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

Vatican City — On Sunday morning, Pope Francis called for prayers for the people of Burundi, where violent clashes have broken out following a failed coup last week.

“I also wish to invite you to pray for the dear people of Burundi, who are living in a delicate moment,” the pontiff said in his May 17 address ahead of the Regina Caeli prayers.

“May the Lord help everyone flee the violence and act responsibly for the good of the country.”

The Pope was speaking at the conclusion of Mass for the canonization of four saints in Saint Peter’s Square.

Violence broke out last week after a failed coup against Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza.

Around 20 people have been killed in the unrest, and tens of thousands have fled the country.

Eighteen suspected perpetrators of the coup were in court on Saturday, while the alleged ringleader, Major General Godefroid Niyombare, is still at large, according to BBC News.

Unrest began with protests starting April 26, one day after Nkurunziza announced he would be running to be reelected for a third term in office. Opponents said a third presidential term was unconstitutional. Some 600 protesters have been arrested.

A coup was announced on May 13, but it appears to have failed as of the following day.

Burundi is in southeast Africa and borders the Central African Republic, Tanzania, and Rwanda.

The country is the second poorest in the world. According to the World Bank, around 60 percent of its 10.4 million people do not have enough food.

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VATICAN NEWS

For Arab Christianity, new women saints give encouraging example

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • May 17, 2015

Tapestry of Sister Marie Alphonsine Danil Ghattas at St. Peter’s Basilica on May 16, 2015. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Vatican City — The Catholic Church’s celebration of the canonization of two new women saints from Palestine on Sunday helps recognize both women’s important role in Arab culture and Arabs’ important role in Christianity.

“These two humble and simple women, consecrated women, gives us also encouragement to pray for peace,” said Father Rifat Bader, general director of the Catholic Center for Studies and Media in Amman, Jordan.

He was in Rome for the May 17 canonizations of Saints Mariam Baouardy and Marie Alphonsine Danil Ghattas.

Saint Marie Alphonsine herself called for prayer of the Rosary “for peace and tranquility in our region,” Fr. Bader told CNA ahead of the event.

Pope Francis presided over the canonizations and Mass in Saint Peter’s Square, before a congregation of tens of thousands of people.

The canonization of these two women saints, Fr. Bader said, is “a good example for all the citizens,” Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike. The canonizations show “that the woman can do positive and good things in her society.”

“It’s very important issue to talk about the mission, or the role, of women in our Arab countries,” Fr. Bader said, explaining that the role of a woman within society and within her own family is not always recognized for its importance.

“Now, when we talk about these two examples, of saints, women, from the Holy Land, it gives encouragement for the woman to go ahead and to go forward.”

One of the new Palestinian saints, Sister Mariam Baouardy (1846-1878) was a mystic and stigmatic also known as Mary Jesus Crucified. She was a Palestinian and foundress of the Discalced Carmelites of Bethlehem. She and her family were members of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. She spent time in France and India before helping to found the Carmelite congregation in Bethlehem in 1875.

The other new Palestinian saint, Sister Marie Alphonsine Danil Ghattas (1843-1927), was a co-founder of the Congregation of the Rosary Sisters. Born in Palestine, she spent much of her life in Bethlehem and its area, where she helped the poor and established schools and orphanages.

Father Bader explained the joint identity of being Arab and Christian simultaneously.

“We have the possibility to be saints, even if we are Arabs,” he said. “It’s not something impossible.”

The region is not unknown for its saints. “The Virgin Mary herself was living in the Holy Land,” Fr. Bader observed. Also from the region were all the companions of Jesus Christ, including Saint Peter who was buried at the very basilica where the canonizations took place.

“Now we have these new saints of the modern time,” he said. “That’s why we are happy: that modernity cannot forbid a person to be a saint.”

The Palestinian women were canonized alongside two others: Saint Jeanne Emilie de Villeneuve (1811-1854) and Saint Maria Cristina Brando (1856-1906), from France and Italy, respectively.

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VATICAN NEWS

Beware of ‘white-gloved’ terrorism, Pope tells Middle East nuns

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • May 18, 2015

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

Vatican City — One day after canonizing the first two Palestinian saints since the early days of Christianity, Pope Francis met with a group of sisters from the Holy Land – urging them to pray for peace against “white-gloved terrorism” and persecution.

Speaking of the newly canonized women, Saints Mariam Baouardy and Marie Alphonsine Danil Ghattas, the pontiff said: “I give you a mission: pray to the two new saints for peace in your land, in order that this never ending war may end, and that there may be peace among your people.”

He made these remarks during a May 18 audience with members of the Religious Carmelites of Bethlehem and the Middle East, and the Sisters of the Rosary of Jerusalem, who were in Rome for Sunday’s canonization.

Meeting with them in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace, the Pope urged the religious present to also pray for persecuted Christians suffering at the hands of what he described as “white-gloved terrorism.”

These Christians, he said, are “driven from their homes, from their lands, and are victims of persecution ‘with white gloves.’ It is hidden, but it is done!”

This is not the first time Pope Francis has made reference to “white-gloved terrorism.” In June 2014, he spoke of this persecution with “white gloves,” referring to those Christians forced out in a so-called “elegant way.”

The sisters present at the audience with the Holy Father were among the tens of thousands in attendance for the canonization Mass of the Palestinian sisters on May 17.

Saint Mariam Baouardy (1846-1878), canonized Sunday, was a mystic and stigmatic also known as Mary Jesus Crucified. She was a Palestinian and foundress of the Discalced Carmelites of Bethlehem. She and her family were members of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. She spent time in France and India before helping to found the Carmelite congregation in Bethlehem in 1875.

The other new Palestinian saint, Sister Marie Alphonsine Danil Ghattas (1843-1927), was a co-founder of the Congregation of the Rosary Sisters. Born in Palestine, she spent much of her life in Bethlehem and its area, where she helped the poor and established schools and orphanages.

Pope Francis expressed his happiness that the sisters had made the pilgrimage for the canonization. He then recounted a story told him by Mahmoud Abbas, president of the State of Palestine, of how he left Jordan in a plane full of nuns.

“Poor pilot,” the Pope joked. “Many thanks!”

The pontiff urged those present once again to “pray much for peace,” and invited them to recite the Hail Mary with him, each in their own language.

The Palestinian women were canonized alongside two others: Saint Jeanne Emilie de Villeneuve (1811-1854) and Saint Maria Cristina Brando (1856-1906), from France and Italy, respectively.

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VATICAN NEWS

For Pope Francis, the laity must be formed for their mission in the world

by CNA/EWTN News • May 19, 2015

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

Vatican City — Speaking to the Italian bishops’ general assembly on Monday, Pope Francis urged them to support the laity through Christian formation, so that they can assume their proper responsibilities in the public square.

An “ecclesial and pastoral sensibility” is “reflected in reinforcing the indispensible role of the laity, who are disposed to take on their responsibilities,” the Pope said May 18 in the Vatican’s Synod Hall.

“In truth, the laity who have an authentic Christian formation do not have need of a ‘bishop-pilot’ or a ‘monsignor-pilot’, or of clerical input to assume their proper responsibilities, on all levels: from the political to the social, from the economic to the legislative! They have, rather, all the need of a shepherding bishop!”

The Italian bishops’ general assembly, being held May 18-21 at the Vatican, is focused on the reception of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.

“Our Christian and episcopal vocation is to go against the tide,” the Pope reflected: “to be joyful witnesses of the Risen Christ, so as to transmit joy and hope to others.”

Pope Francis then quoted from Christ’s sermon on the mount: “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall it saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men.”

With that introduction, the Pope told the bishops that “it is very unsightly to encounter a dejected consecrated person, demotivated or shut down: he is like a dry well where the people cannot find water to quench their thirst.”

He said his questions and concerns “come from a global vision” gleaned from his meetings with bishops conferences worldwide throughout the past two years, “where I noticed how important is what might be called the ecclesial sensibility: namely the appropriation of the very sentiments of Christ, of humility, compassion, mercy … and of wisdom.”

This ecclesial sensibility implies that bishops be neither “shy nor irrelevant in disavowing and defeating the widespread mentality of public and private corruption, which has so shamelessly impoverished families, retired persons, honest workers, Christian communities, and discarded the young, who are systematically deprived of any hope for their future, and has marginalized the weak and the needy.”

Continuing to reflect on this sensibility, the Pope emphasized that the shepherds must “go out to the people of God, to defend them from ideological colonization, which strips away human dignity and identity.”

Ecclesial sensibility “is also manifested in pastoral choices and in the elaboration of documents,” he said, reflecting that abstract, theoretical, and doctrinal aspects “should not prevail” in pastoral documents “as if our guidelines are not destined for our people or our country – but are only for a few specialists and scholars – instead, we must pursue the effort to translate them into concrete and understandable proposals.”

Pope Francis’ final point in ecclesial sensibility was its manifestation in collegiality: between bishops and priests; among bishops and dioceses; the peripheries and the center; and between bishops and bishops conferences, and the Successor of Peter.

He denounced a lack of collegiality both in “designing pastoral plans” and in financial commitments, and his other example of “a lack of ecclesial sensibility” was found in asking “why religious institutes, monasteries, and congregations let themselves grow so old that they are no longer faithful, gospel witnesses to their founding charisms?”

“I will stop here,” Pope Francis stated, “having wanted to offer only a few examples of the ecclesial sensibility which is weakened because of a continual confrontation with the enormous problems of the world and because of the crisis which does not spare even the same Christian and ecclesial identity.”

“May the Lord – during the Jubilee of Mercy which will begin next December 8 – grant ‘the joy of rediscovering and rendering fruitful God’s mercy, with which we are all called to give comfort to every man and every woman of our time.’”

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VATICAN NEWS

Could Mother Teresa be canonized during the Holy Year for Mercy?

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 19, 2015

Mother Teresa, circa 1994. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi has said that Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta could be canonized during the upcoming Jubilee for Mercy, although he clarified that no concrete plans have been made.

Fr. Lombardi told CNA May 19 that the possible canonization of Mother Teresa during the Holy Year is “a working hypothesis.”

“There is no official date but you can say that the Congregation for the Causes of Saints is studying the cause.”

When asked if there was a second miracle attributed to the nun’s intercession, the spokesman said, “The cause is in the process.”

An Italian cardinal heading one of the Vatican dicasteries who preferred to remain anonymous told CNA May 19 that the canonization was brought up during a Monday meeting between Pope Francis and the heads of various dicasteries in the Roman Curia.

According to the cardinal, the Vatican’s prefect of the Congregation of the Causes for Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato, suggested Sept. 4, 2016 – which is being observed as a jubilee day for workers and volunteers of mercy – to the others as a possible canonization date, since it is close to Sept. 5, the nun’s feast day and the anniversary of her death.

The possible canonization of Mother Teresa was also brought up during the May 5 presentation of the Jubilee for Mercy. A journalist from the Italian publication Citta Nuova noted the date for the jubilee celebration on the eve of her feast day, and asked whether the decision signaled that her canonization could be close.

On that occasion Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, which is organizing the Holy Year for Mercy, responded by saying that “everyone is waiting for the canonization of Mother Teresa.”

“Who more than Mother Teresa can be recognized today as one who lived the works of mercy, and who more than she could be capable of sustaining the commitment of millions of people – men, women, youth – in various forms of volunteer work express the beauty of the mercy of the Church?” he asked.

Although no plans are official, the archbishop expressed his desire that all volunteer organizations would find “an opportunity of encounter” in the Sept. 4 jubilee day.

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu Aug. 26, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia. The youngest of three children, she attended a youth group run by a Jesuit priest called Sodality, which eventually opened her to the call of service as a missionary nun.

She joined the Sisters of Loretto at age 17 and was sent to Calcutta, where she taught at a high school. After contracting tuberculosis, she was sent to rest in Darjeeling, and it was on the way that she felt what she called “an order” from God to leave the convent and live among the poor.

The Vatican granted her permission to leave the Sisters of Loretto and to live her new call under the guidance of the Archbshop of Calcutta.

After she left her convent, Mother Teresa began working in the slums, teaching poor children, and treating the sick in their homes. A year later, some of her former students joined her, and together they took in men, women and children who were dying in the gutters along the streets.

In 1950, the Missionaries of Charity were born as a congregation of the Diocese of Calcutta. In 1952, the government granted them a house from which to continue their mission of serving Calcutta’s poor and forgotten.

The congregation quickly grew from a single house for the dying and unwanted to nearly 500 houses around the world.

Mother Teresa set up homes for prostitutes, battered women, orphanages for poor children and houses for those suffering from AIDS.

She was a fierce defender of the unborn saying, and is known to have said, “If you hear of some woman who does not want to keep her child and wants to have an abortion, try to persuade her to bring him to me. I will love that child, seeing in him the sign of God’s love.”

She died Sept. 5, 1997, and was beatified just six years later by St. John Paul II Oct. 19, 2003.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis: Are you ready for your final goodbye?

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 19, 2015

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

Vatican City — In his homily Tuesday Pope Francis focused on many different “goodbyes” that happen during life, and asked whether attendees were ready for the final, most important farewell before going to the Father.

“Am I prepared to entrust to God all that I have? To entrust myself to God? To say that word which is the word of the son entrusting himself to his Father?” the Pope asked May 19.

“I’m thinking of the great farewell, my great farewell, not when I must say ‘see you then,’ ‘see you later,’ ‘bye for now,’ but ‘farewell.’”

Pope Francis spoke to those present in the Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse for his daily Mass. He took his inspiration from the day’s readings where Jesus says farewell to the disciples before his Passion and death, and when St. Paul bids farewell before going to Jerusalem, and weeps on the beach with those who came to say goodbye to him.

He noted how both readings use the word “addio,” meaning “farewell” in the final sense. Paul, he noted, entrusts everything he has to the Lord while Jesus entrusts his disciples to God.

“We only say ‘addio’ at a time of final farewells, be they of this life or be they our final farewell,” he said, and spoke of the various types of small goodbyes we say in our lives.

There is the goodbye of a mother who hugs her son before he leaves for war, and every day she wakes up with fear that someone will come and to thank her for the generosity of her child in giving his life for his nation, Francis said.

He spoke of the goodbye of the “poor Rohingya from Myanmar,” who fled persecution in their homeland and are now stranded at sea.

These people, he noted, have “been in boats for months over there. They arrive in a town where people give them water and food and tell them to go away. That’s a farewell.”

Rohingya people are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group largely from the Rakhine state of Burma, in west Myanmar. Since clashes began in 2012 between the state’s Buddhist community and the long-oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority, more than 100,000 Rohingya’s have fled Myanmar by sea, according to the U.N.

In order to escape forced segregation from the rest of the population inside rural ghettos, many of the Rohingya – who are not recognized by the government as a legitimate ethnic group or as citizens of Myanmar – have made the perilous journey at sea in hopes of evading persecution.

Currently a number of Rohingya people – estimated to be in the thousands – remain stranded at sea in boats with dwindling supplies while Southeastern nations such as Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia refuse to take them in.

In his homily, Pope Francis also spoke of the “great existential farewell is taking place in our times,” particularly for the Christian and Yazidi populations in Iraq who have been “chased out of their homes” and believe that they can never come back.

“This is happening now,” he said.

He then turned his thoughts to the final farewell each person will make before leaving this world. Francis encouraged attendees to do an examination of conscience, asking themselves: “What will I leave behind?”

Saint Paul himself makes an examination of conscience when he speaks of the things he has done during his life and the uncertainty that faces him in Jerusalem, the Pope observed.

He said that it is good for each person to imagine their final farewell, saying that “We don’t know when it will happen, but it will be that moment when expressions like ‘see you later,’ ‘see you soon,’ ‘see you tomorrow,’ ‘goodbye for now,’ will become ‘farewell.’”

The Pope concluded his homily by praying that the Holy Spirit would teach each person how to say “farewell” and how to truly entrust themselves to God at the end of their lives.

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VATICAN NEWS

Brooklyn diocese receives two new bishops from Pope Francis

by CNA/EWTN News • May 19, 2015

A view of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, Jan. 25, 2015. (Bohumil Petrik/CNA)

Vatican City — Pope Francis on Tuesday named two priests to become auxiliary bishops of the Diocese of Brooklyn: Monsignor James Massa and Father Witold Morziewski.

Bishop Nicolas DiMarizio of Brooklyn praised the two as “men of faith who daily communicate the great joy of the Gospel.”

“These two men represent the very best of the diocese. One is a parish priest who at heart is a missionary pouring himself out for others. The other is a teacher but in fact very much a father to the young men of our diocese and beyond who are studying to be priests,” Bishop DiMarizio said in a May 19 statement.

Bishop-designate Massa voiced gratitude to Pope Francis for the appointment, saying the Pope “exemplifies in all he does ‘the joy of the Gospel’.”

“Aware of my own inadequacies and fears, I place all my confidence in Jesus, whose love never fails us on the journey of faith,” he added.

For his part, Bishop-designate Morziewski said he was “shocked” into silence when the apostolic nuncio told him of his appointment.

“Soon, it came to my senses and my conscience what grace and honor I had received,” he said, thanking Pope Francis.

The Polish-born priest thanked Bishop DiMarizio for his example and thanked all who had welcomed him since his arrival to the U.S. in 1992 to minister to the Polish community there.

“Because of their constant openness, sincere collaboration, spiritual support and great gift of fraternity, this place became my home,” he said. “I would like to offer everything I received from God with my service to Bishop DiMarzio and to all my brothers and sisters in Brooklyn and Queens as well as the Universal Church.”

Bishop-designate Massa was born in Jersey City, N.J. in 1960. He was ordained in 1986, the Brooklyn diocese said.

He graduated from Boston College. He earned a master’s degree in divinity from Yale University and received a doctorate in systematic theology from Fordham University, writing his dissertation under the late Cardinal Avery Dulles. He served as a parish priest in the New York City borough of Queens and was a campus minister at Queens College in the early 1990s.

The bishop-designate has served as a theology professor at several seminaries and universities, including Saint Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie.

In 2005, he became executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI named him a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and a member of the Joint Working Group between the Holy See and the World Council of Churches.

He has been the Brooklyn diocese’s moderator of the curia since 2014.

Bishop-designate Morziewski was born in the northeastern Polish city of Augustow in 1966. He was ordained a priest in 1991. He has served as a parish priest in Poland’s Diocese of Lomza. He is presently pastor of Holy Cross Parish in Maspeth, N.Y.

He has been a judge in the diocesan tribunal, an adjunct promoter of justice for criminal causes in the diocesan tribunal, and a member of the presbyteral council.

Bishop-designate Morziewski has a doctorate in canon law from the Catholic University of Lublin, Poland and has master’s degrees in theology and canon law.

Bishop DiMarizio will ordain the two priests as bishops on July 20 at the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph.

There are three other auxiliary bishops now serving in the Diocese of Brooklyn, which includes the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens.

The Brooklyn diocese has about 1.5 million Catholics in a population of over 4.8 million people. It has over 600 priests, 225 permanent deacons, and over 1,000 vowed religious.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis to parents: Come out of ‘exile’ and educate your children

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 20, 2015

Pope Francis at the Wednesday General Audience in St Peter’s Square on May 20, 2015. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Vatican City — In his general audience Pope Francis spoke of the essential role parents play in educating their children – a role he said has been usurped by so-called experts who have taken the place of parents and rendered them fearful of making any correction.

“If family education regains its prominence, many things will change for the better. It’s time for fathers and mothers to return from their exile – they have exiled themselves from educating their children – and slowly reassume their educative role,” the Pope said May 20.

He gave harsh criticism to the “intellectual critics” that he said have “silenced” parents in order to defend younger generations from real or imagined harm, and lamented how schools now are often more influential than families in shaping the thinking and values of children.

“In our days the educational partnership is in crisis. It’s broken,” he said, and named various reasons for this.

“On one part there are tensions and distrust between parents and educators; on the other part, there are more and more ‘experts’ who pretend to occupy the role of parents, who are relegated to second place,” he said.

The Pope spoke to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly general audience. His focus on the vocation of families to educate their children is part of his ongoing series on the family.

Since the end of last fall 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.

In his address he stressed that educating and raising children in the human values which form the “backbone” of a healthy society is a responsibility that each family has.

However, many difficulties often impede parents’ ability to properly educate their children. Today parents are spending less and less time with their children, and meeting their needs after a long day of work can be exhausting, he noted.

In off the cuff remarks, Francis also highlighted the struggle faced by the increasing number of divorced or separated families. Many times children in these families are “taken as a hostage,” while their mother and father speak badly about each other.

To do this “does so much bad” to children, the Pope noted, and stressed the importance for parents in these situations to “never, never, never take your child hostage.”

“You are separated because of many difficulties and reasons, life gave you this trial, but may the children not be the ones who bear the weight of this separation! May children not be used as hostages, against the other (parent),” he said.

Although this important task can be very difficult for parents who are separated, the Pope said that it’s not impossible, and that “you can do it.”

Francis also observed how frequently parents are “paralyzed” by the fear of making mistakes, and hesitate to correct their children.

He recalled an episode from his own life when he had said a bad word to a teacher. The next day his mother came to the school and made him apologize, and then corrected him at home.

Nowadays this wouldn’t happen, because too often a teacher who tries to discipline a child is criticized by the parents, he said.

“Things have changed. Parents shouldn’t exclude themselves from the education of their children … The relationship between family and school ought to be harmonious.”

Pope Francis also cautioned parents against commanding or discouraging their children by asking them to do what they aren’t able to.

When a parent tells their small child to run up the stairs without taking them by the hand and helping them step by step, they are “exasperating” the child, and asking them to do something they can’t.

The relationship between parents and their children should be balanced and founded on wisdom, he said. Children should be “obedient to parents, which pleases God, and you parents, don’t exasperate your children asking them to do what they aren’t able to. Understood?”

Francis said that the Church and all Christian communities are called to accompany and support parents in their educative role. He noted that this is done by living according to God’s word and cultivating the virtues of faith, love and patience.

Jesus himself was raised in a family, he said, explaining that “when he tells us that all who hear the word of God and obey are his brothers and sisters, he reminds us that for all their failings, our families can count on his inspiration and grace in the difficult but rewarding vocation of educating their children.”

Pope Francis closed his audience by praying that all parents would have the confidence, freedom and courage needed in order to fulfill their educative mission.

He then went on to greet pilgrims present from various countries around the world, including Great Britain, Finland, Norway, South Africa, China, India, Korea, Canada, the United States of America, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Panama and Chile.

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VATICAN NEWS

Fr. Timothy Radcliffe: Controversial thinker and new Vatican consultant

by Catholic News Agency’s Vatican Observer, Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • May 21, 2015

Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, OP speaks at England’s National Congress for Catholics working with young people, Feb. 27, 2010. (Mazur/catholicchurch.org.uk)

Vatican City — Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, a Dominican priest who led his order for ten years and has stirred controversy in the past for his stance on certain ecclesial issues, was appointed May 16 as a consultor of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Consultors to the pontifical councils are officially appointed by the Pope, and while it is not formally acknowledged, such appointments are typically made at the suggestion of the heads of the councils. With Fr. Radcliffe, the number of consultors of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace comes to 14.

The pontifical council’s goal is to “promote justice and peace in the world in accordance with the Gospel and the social teaching of the Church,” and its consultors “can be called upon to participate in working groups on specific topics.”

The appointment of Fr. Radcliffe as a new consultor is an impromptu one, as Benedict XVI appointed nine consultors to the body on Sept. 29, 2012, almost completely renewing the list of consultors in doing so.

Consultors are appointed to five-year terms, and since the nine appointed by Benedict XVI in 2012 will conclude their service in only two years, Fr. Radcliffe’s appointment sounded strange to some.

A source in the top ranks of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace stressed to CNA May 20 that “the Pontifical Council is always seeking new collaborators,” and that “when you find a good one, you don’t want to lose him.”

The source added that “Fr. Radcliffe has already collaborated with the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.”

According to another source in the same Vatican office, Cardinal Peter Turkson – its president – had intended Fr. Radcliffe as the successor to Bishop Mario Toso.

Bishop Toso was the pontifical council’s secretary: its number two position. Bishop Toso had served from 2009-2014, and was appointed Bishop of Faenza-Modigliana on Jan. 19. According to a Vatican source, Bishop Toso had been offered the chance to continue on in the Vatican after curial reform, but he himself preferred to become a bishop of a diocese.

In fact, the appointment of a new secretary at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace is stalled, as the curia reform underway is almost certain to touch upon its structure and functions.

The pontifical council is expected to merge with the Pontifical Councils Cor Unum, for Migrants, and for Health Care Workers, to form a Congregation for Charity, Justice and Peace, which would be composed of five secretariats: Justice and Peace, Charity, Migrants, Pastoral Healthcare and Human Ecology.

Waiting for any decision to come, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace asked the Pope to enroll Fr. Radcliffe among its consultors, as a first step toward a more important commitment within the anticipated congregation.

According to a third source in the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Fr. Radcliffe is intended to take over the department of human ecology, as he was “entrusted last summer by Cardinal Turkson’s office to draft a first draft of Pope Francis’ upcoming encyclical on ecology.”

The source added that “ever since then, Fr. Radcliffe has been consulted more and more by Cardinal Turkson’s office, and at one point it had become clear that Cardinal Turkson thought of him as the ideal candidate to take over the post of ‘number 2’ in the dicastery.”

Ordained a priest of the Dominican order in 1971, Fr. Radcliffe has authored several books, including “What is the Point of Being a Christian?” From 1992 to 2001 he was head of the the Dominican Order, and has been a long-time contributor to Vatican Radio.

His statements, particularly those on homosexuality, have invited controversy in the Church, often challenging traditional teachings or attitudes. His prominent social justice work has been overshadowed at times by his comments on homosexual relationships.

He has also spoken up in support of the German bishops’ desire admit the divorced and remarried to Communion, a contentious suggestion which has been recently opposed by the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, as it was by Benedict XVI and St. John Paul II.

Last year EWTN chose not to cover Ireland’s Divine Mercy Conference, as it customarily does, because Fr. Radcliffe had been chosen as a keynote speaker at the event.

And in 2011, Fr. Radcliffe was scheduled to speak at the general assembly of Caritas International, a confederation of worldwide Catholic charities. The Vatican intervened to prohibit his address, and he was replaced by Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to the pontifical household.

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WORLD NEWS

At Lourdes shrine, ‘wounded warriors’ can pray for peace and healing

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 17, 2015

The grotto where Our Lady of Lourdes is said to have appeared, May 14, 2015. (Alessio Di Cintio/CNA)

Lourdes, France — Military service members’ annual pilgrimage to the Marian shrine of Lourdes can be a time of healing and peace, especially during the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, the head of the U.S. Archdiocese for Military Services has said.

“Lourdes is a place where healing occurs. It might not be the dramatic throwing away of crutches, or breaking a cane, but there is always that interior peace when we put ourselves in our mother’s hands,” Archbishop Timothy Broglio told CNA May 14.

“And that’s my hope, that everyone experiences that serenity and goes home enriched and strengthened with that serenity of a mother’s care.”

Archbishop Broglio was in Lourdes for a day for the Warriors to Lourdes Pilgrimage, which lasts from May 12-18. He has taken part in the pilgrimage since he became head of the U.S. military archdiocese in 2008.

The event brings together both active duty and retired American military personnel, including veterans who have been wounded while on their military tour.

The archbishop said that it was a blessing to have so many “wounded warriors” join the pilgrimage.

“If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last seven years, it’s that the people I’m privileged to serve desperately want peace,” he said.

“They are the first people to pay for that, so coming here and asking Our Lady to look with love upon all of us and perhaps to bring us together … I think that’s a fervent prayer that’s raised on the part of all of us.”

The Warriors to Lourdes Pilgrimage is part of the annual International Military Pilgrimage to Lourdes, which was established in 1946 in order to pray for global peace, healing and reconciliation after World War II. Military personnel from 35 nations gather in Lourdes in May, representing the military branches of their respective countries.

Lourdes is one of the most well-known pilgrimage destinations in the world following a series of Marian apparitions in 1858 in which the Virgin Mary appeared to a 14-year-old peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous.

The apparitions were approved by Pope Pius IX in 1862. Millions of pilgrims flock to the shrine each year to visit the grotto where Mary appeared to Bernadette, who is now a canonized saint. Pilgrims take water from a spring Bernadette dug at Mary’s request. The shrine’s waters have resulted in various types of healing for those who drink it or are immersed in it.

The pilgrimage for U.S. service members and veterans is organized jointly by the Archdiocese for the Military Services and the Knights of Columbus.

The pilgrimage was previously only open to active members of the military, but in recent years the pilgrimage has opened participation to retired soldiers.

Archbishop Broglio spoke of the importance of bringing the “wounded warriors” to the holy site, especially in honor of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.

For the military personnel and veterans to come on such an important anniversary is “extremely significant” since they have not only paid the price for freedoms that others enjoy, but also so they can “participate in that healing process, because Lourdes is a place of healing.”

“Allowing them to come here, facilitating their participation here, is a participation in that healing ministry of which the Church is very much a part and which Pope Francis has stressed very much during his pontificate,” the archbishop said.

Archbishop Broglio said that the number of Americans going on the pilgrimage, which has previously drawn mainly European participants, has increased in recent years.

He credited the increase to a growing consciousness among Americans about participation in international events. He also noted an increase in welcoming attitudes on the part of other participants.

“This began as a discourse of reconciliation, so obviously the more participants you have the better prospects of reconciliation there are,” the archbishop noted, explaining that the goal of the pilgrimage is to be “as universal as possible.”

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WORLD NEWS

A journey of pain and healing: one U.S. Marine’s prayer at Lourdes

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 20, 2015

American soldiers at a military ceremony at the WWI War Memorial in Lourdes, France on May 16, 2015. (Elise Harris/CNA)

Lourdes, France — After nearly losing his life in combat nine years ago, retired U.S. Marine Paul McQuigg journeyed to Lourdes with his wife and son this month to pray for healing and restoration from chronically painful injuries.

“We would like to see a healing of Paul in general. We all came to support him … He lives in chronic pain, and since seeing that healing from Jesus himself I know that this holy place can restore him and take him home without that pain,” Holly McQuigg told CNA May 16.

Before coming on the pilgrimage, Holly said the family had gone to several healing Masses and was saying daily prayers centered on Jesus’ healing of a deaf, mute man in Mark 7:35. She said they focused on that verse since most of her husband’s injuries were to the jaw and tongue.

“So that’s really what I’m hoping for; I’m hoping for restoration, I’m hoping for healing (with) just that faith of a mustard seed, which isn’t very much, so I know I can count on the Lord to fulfill that.”

Lourdes is one of the most well-known pilgrimage destinations in the world following a series of Marian apparitions in 1858 in which the Virgin Mary appeared to a 14-year-old peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous.

The apparitions were approved by Pope Pius IX in 1862. Millions of pilgrims flock to the shrine each year to visit the grotto where Mary appeared to Bernadette, who is now a canonized saint. Pilgrims take water from a spring Bernadette dug at Mary’s request. The shrine’s waters have resulted in various types of healing for those who drink it or are immersed in it.

Currently living in Oceanside, California, Paul McQuigg spent more than 15 years in the U.S. Marine Corp before being forced to retire when he was severely injured in Iraq.

After participating in two combat deployments that took him to 20 countries all over the world, Paul nearly lost his life in combat while leading a troop of Marines on tour in Iraq in 2006.

Although he survived, Paul sustained several serious injuries, including a shattered jaw, neurological damage to his left arm and leg, partial vision loss in his right eye and a traumatic brain injury. More than 60 percent of his tongue was amputated, and he continues to struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Paul said he’s been able to overcome his injuries and walk the path of recovery thanks to his faith in God and the support of his family.

Despite the chronic pain he continues to endure, the Marine said that he was glad it was him that was wounded rather than one of the men he was leading in combat.

“I really enjoyed my time in the Marine Corp. If I had to do it all over again I would, (but) I would not have wanted to have them go through what I did.”

McQuigg was one of many “Wounded Warriors” in Lourdes for the May 12-18 Warriors to Lourdes Pilgrimage. He was joined by his wife Holly and their son Sebastian.

The event brought together both active duty and retired American military personnel, including veterans who had been wounded while on their military tour.

The gathering was part of the annual International Military Pilgrimage to Lourdes, which was established in 1946 to pray for global peace, healing and reconciliation after World War II. Military personnel from 35 nations gather in Lourdes each May, representing the military branches of their respective countries.

The pilgrimage for U.S. service members and veterans is organized jointly by the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services and the Knights of Columbus. Previously only open to active members of the military, the event has opened participation to retired soldiers the past few years.

Himself a fourth degree member of the Knights of Columbus, McQuigg said that he was grateful to be participating in the pilgrimage, since “not a lot of people in my position in the retired military that have the opportunity to come to a spiritual place like Lourdes and have an opportunity to witness what goes on here.”

“We’re all looking for healing in one way or another, every human is. Whether it be physical, mental, spiritual healing, we’re all in need of that,” he said, so coming as a family “brings us closer together.”

One of the highlights of the trip was going to the baths with his son. In addition to being proud of Sebastian – who helped other wounded veterans in and out of the baths – the marine said that his own experience was “very moving.”

At the Lourdes’ baths, volunteers are present to assist pilgrims, particularly the sick and disabled, and to help keep the environment prayerful.

Paul recounted his experience as prayerful and communal. Although the water was cold at first, he said the thought of it soon faded, and that he became focused on prayer. He noted how he was joined by the volunteers in praying a Hail Mary and an Our Father before getting out.

“You feel in union with those men and the Blessed Mother, and the reason you’re there. You’re not there for any other reason than to celebrate and to seek the Blessed Mother’s help … and then you walk out and you feel fulfilled. It gives you a brighter outlook on life,” he said.

Holly said her husband’s pain level had gone down since going to the baths, and expressed hope that it would continue to decrease.

Paul said several other men in the baths were moved to tears by the experience. He recalled how an American volunteer living in Lourdes was particularly struck at seeing so many wounded soldiers come from his home country.

Both he and the other “wounded warriors” present have not only paid the price for the freedom of their own countrymen, but for the whole world, Paul explained.

The experience of healing in the pilgrimage is important for all military men who come “feeling that they’ve done what they were called to do, and that is to go forth and protect people that are in their lives,” he said.

“They don’t ask for anything in return, they just go out there in selflessness … what we’re asked to do by the Lord and Jesus Christ is to give ourselves willingly for others.”

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WORLD NEWS

Is economic growth the enemy of saving the environment? These Catholics say no

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 20, 2015

(Gez Xavier Mansfield via Unsplash)

Rome, Italy — In an international forum on economic growth and environmental sustainability, Catholic leaders and experts in the field argued that rather than being opposed, the two go hand-in-hand, and can lead to greater prosperity all-around.

“Protecting the environment need not compromise legitimate economic progress,” Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington said May 20.

“There is an increasingly clear harmony between efforts on behalf of the environment and those that promote integral – including economic – human development. This is the ‘human ecology’ to which our efforts must contribute,” he said.

Cardinal Wuerl made his comments alongside a panel of experts during a half-day May 20 conference on “The New Climate Economy: How Economic Growth and Sustainability Can Go Hand in Hand.”

Held at Rome’s Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, the event was organized by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the World Resources Institute, the New Climate Economy organization and the Embassy of the Netherlands to the Holy See.

Other attendees were Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Vatican Council for Justice and Peace, Prince Jaime de Bourbon de Parme, ambassador of the Netherlands to the Holy See, and experts in various fields of climate and the economy.

In his speech, Cardinal Wuerl said that the need for sustainable development is both “a moral imperative and an economic incentive as a business issue,” and that to commit to taking the task up is “pro-business.”

“Government has a role, and we clearly need strong international agreements. But in moving ahead, business and economic interests necessarily play a significant role,” he said.

“We need to harness that wisdom and creativity in the service of the common good. Such collaboration aligns private and public interests, and reduces the gap between the privileged minority and the world’s great majority.”

He referred to the issue of sustainable development as a “sign of the times,” and said that in addressing it in his upcoming encyclical – set to be published this summer – Pope Francis is following in the footsteps of his predecessors, beginning with St. John XXIII in his revolutionary encyclical “Pacem in Terris” at the height of the Cold War.

Bl. Paul VI also gave heavy attention to the social and political changes of his time in his encyclical “Populorum progression,” while St. John Paul II provided the encyclical “Centesimus annus” as a reminder of the Church’s social teaching amid a time of societal transition, particularly in Europe.

In his encyclical “Caritas in veritate,” Benedict XVI connected fraternal and ecological development, as well as the environment and the development of people and technology, Cardinal Wuerl noted, saying that Francis is continuing their work.

The cardinal also stressed the importance of the role of the Church in the discussion, particularly in providing a moral framework to build on which puts the human person at the center.

In comments made to CNA, the cardinal noted how God created the world and gave it to humanity “to cultivate and to see that that world, which is now the great gift to all of us, is passed on to the next generation.”

“So talking about the environment, and talking about human flourishing and economic development, all go together, under the understanding that we are stewards of creation and that we’re meant to care for one another.”

In his opening address for the event, Cardinal Peter Turkson said that “God has done great things for us” in creating the world and giving humanity charge over it.

However, “we have been poor stewards of creation” and have failed in our obligation of maintaining a planet that continues to nourish and sustains us, he said. He pointed specifically to fossil fuels, saying that if we continue using them “at the current rate, we are on the road to ruin.”

Cardinal Turkson spoke with CNA after his speech, saying that the current dependence of fossil fuels “does a lot of damage to the environment,” and is a key point of contention in the debate surrounding economic growth and environmental development.

“The fear is that calling for climate change and wanting to do something about the climate is going to affect the economy and these sources of energy,” he said.

Rather than calling this fear a threat, the cardinal said that “it’s a challenge,” and that when referred to in this way, it invites all parties to consider the various opportunities that could come from a shift away from such potentially damaging forms of energy.

He recalled how the Industrial Revolution of the mid 17-1800s opened up new avenues for humanity to discover how to satisfy their needs, but that the energy for the growth which boomed during those years was taken from whatever was available at the time.

Now, after more than 150 years of using these sources of energy, “we begin to see the impacts (and) that is where the conflict is.”

While there is dispute on whether or not the environmental impact is real, the role of the Church is to “recognize that whether this is real or not, there is the other side to look at: the human person.”

The primary concern, the cardinal said, is “not just about statistics and graphs, it’s about those who are now being thrown out of their houses, who cannot feed themselves … So that’s why from the point of view of the Church the discussion has never been purely climate and science, but it’s been the human person.”

Cardinal Turkson spoke of the need for an “integral ecology” which takes both the needs of the environment and those of the human person into consideration.

“So (economic growth and development) go hand in hand. If, whatever the environment is, it does not promote to the well-being of the human person we have every reason to see what we can do to improve upon the conditions for the human person. That’s all.”

In his comments to CNA, Cardinal Wuerl said that in the United States, he believes the issue of the environment is something people are “just coming to grips with.”

One of their greatest tasks for the future, he said, will be to help people understand that current issues surrounding the topic “are able to be dealt with in a way that satisfies the needs of everyone.”

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WORLD NEWS

Is Islam a religion of war or peace? Both – and Muslims must decide, priest says

by CNA/EWTN News • May 21, 2015

Militant in Middle East. (Hani Amir via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Rome, Italy — Following last week’s online release of an audio message from the caliph of the Islamic State, one expert says the group’s understanding of Islam calls on all Muslims to re-evaluate Islamic history.

“The only solution is a radical reform to the internal reading of Islamic history,” Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, an Egyptian-born Jesuit and acting rector of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, wrote May 15 at AsiaNews.

A day prior, the Islamic State had released a recording of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, saying, “There is no excuse for any Muslim not to migrate to the Islamic State … joining (its fight) is a duty on every Muslim. We are calling on you either to join or carry weapons (to fight) wherever you are.”

The recording also says that “Islam was never a religion of peace. Islam is the religion of fighting. No-one should believe that the war that we are waging is the war of the Islamic State. It is the war of all Muslims, but the Islamic State is spearheading it. It is the war of Muslims against infidels.”

Fr. Samir said al-Baghdadi’s message is “very shrewd because it corresponds to the expectations of a part of the Islamic world,” and that Salafis – followers of a movement that takes the first generations of Islamic society as the model – “will be happy about it and will say: Finally, we find the true Islam!”

The word al Baghdadi used for migration, hijra, is of significance, according to Fr. Samir. The hijra was the migration of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622, which “represents the transition from a peaceful Islam to a bellicose Islam.”

Fr. Samir recounted that Muhammad was nonviolent in Mecca, but after a year in Medina “he began to fight, first against the Makkans, then against the tribes, in order to convert them … Most tribes in Arabia ended up following him. However, they did so because he was a military chief not a religious leader.”

The Jesuit backs up this claim by noting that when Muhammad died, tribes across the Arabian peninsula rebelled against his successor, Abu Bakr, the first caliph, in the Ridda wars. Abu Bakr consolidated the caliphate, and expanded it into modern-day Iraq and Jordan.

“It is interesting,” Fr. Samir wrote, “that this new ‘caliph’ chose Abu Bakr as his name and that he wants to launch a holy war around the world, to subjugate everyone to Islam.”

al Baghdadi’s message, he charged, “is meant to rekindle an idea that is deeply embedded in Islam, namely: let us all go through our hijrah, let us leave behind all those who want an Islam of peace, and let us move to the true Islam that conquered Arabia first, then the Middle East, then the Mediterranean.”

The Islamic State emerged amid the Syrian civil war, and expanded into Iraq in 2014, conquering sizable portions of both countries and declaring a caliphate. Last month, the caliphate was pushed out of the Iraqi city of Tikrit, though it seized Ramadi May 17, and is currently closing in on Palmyra, one of the Middle East’s greatest archaeological sites.

Fr. Samir considers the caliph’s message an appeal to young Muslims who are committed to their religion, and said it “will convince many Muslim traditionalists to become Salafis and fight.”

“Faced with such call to arms, what can be done?” the priest asked. Amid the Islamic State’s war “a military fight might be necessary, but it will not be decisive.”

“Military actions will reduce the violence, shed less blood, push back IS, but the movement will continue because it is part of Islam.”

Fr. Samir wrote that “the only solution is a radical reform to the internal reading of Islamic history.”

He writes that al-Baghdadi’s claim that “Islam was never a religion of peace” is an exaggeration, and that the religion has “also had periods of peace. To say that Islam is only war is also a mistake.”

“Islam is both war and peace,” Fr. Samir reflected. “And it is high time for Muslims to re-examine their history.”

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WORLD NEWS

Paris’ stunning Sainte-Chapelle gets a makeover – with lasers

by CNA/EWTN News • May 21, 2015

Inside Sainte-Chapelle, the thirteenth century chapel build by King Louis IX to house Christ’s crown of thorns. (Sean Munson via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Paris, France — Known for its ornate rose window and towering stained glass glory, the thirteenth century Sainte-Chapelle in Paris has finally been pieced back together after a seven year laser-cleaning project.

Seven hundred and fifty years of weather effects, candle smoke, and grime had become layered and built up in Sainte-Chapelle’s famous stained glass windows, causing the luminous panels to lose some of their luster.

The restoration workers who labored over cleaning the treasured stained glass called the centuries of grime the “Paris crust,” which had formed on the intricate stained glass windows in the French chapel, according to a report from the BBC.

For the past seven years, over 6,000 square feet of stained glass have been carefully taken apart, piece by piece, and cleaned with the precision of laser technology – just in time for the celebration of the 800th anniversary of King Louis IX’s birthday, according to the Guardian.

The crowning glory of the medieval gothic world, Sainte-Chapelle was commissioned by King Louis IX during the 1240s. The French king spent around 40,000 livres building Sainte-Chapelle, which would boast the dwelling place of Jesus’ crown of thorns, along with a piece of the holy cross and other relics.

Sainte-Chapelle, meaning ‘holy chapel’ in French, was designed not only to house sacred relics, but also to tell the story of the Bible through the old and new testament depictions in the stained glass windows.

The striking, two-story panels portray 1,130 biblical characters – a feat which the Christian King, Louis IX, used to emphasize the importance of religion.

The French chapel has survived much more than the tedious and time-consuming project of laser cleaning. Over the centuries, Sainte-Chapelle has endured fires, floods, and dismantlings. It has also been said that during the French Revolution, the sacred chapel was transformed into an administrative office.

It wasn’t until the mid-nineteenth century that the deteriorating gothic wonder of the world began to be restored to its original glory.

Although Sainte-Chapelle no longer houses the crown of thorns, King Louis IX’s beloved relics can be found in Notre Dame Cathedral, only minutes away from the chapel.

In order to preserve the newly-gleaned radiance of the cleaned windows, the restorers also added a glaze of additional glass for the panels facing the outside, to protect them from future weathering,

pollution, and natural effects.

Following the laser makeover, the newly cleaned Sainte-Chapelle was re-opened to the public this year. The French chapel, an ever-popular destination in Paris, attracts almost one million people annually.

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WORLD NEWS

Despite support from their president, Egypt’s Christians are attacked by their neighbors

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • May 21, 2015

. Teresa parish in Assiut, Egypt, attacked by Muslim Brotherhood members in August, 2013. (Aid to the Church in Need)

Cairo, Egypt — Egypt’s Christians continue to face worrisome persecution, despite the words and actions of its president to show goodwill to the community, an expert in religious freedom testified to the US Congress on Wednesday.

Egypt has historically has been more tolerant and relaxed towards Christians than its Middle Eastern neighbors, said Samuel Tadros, an Egyptian native and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom in Washington, D.C.

Although Copts – Egypt’s ethnic Christian group – have been bullied under previous regimes, the persecution there has recently become more personal, Tadros warned.

“What worries me is not just that a government does not allow a church to be built. What really worries me is the fact that normal people – not Islamists, not terrorists – just normal Muslim guys, would form a mob and attack their neighbors. Not people they don’t know: their very neighbors.”

Mob violence against neighbors is especially alarming in a country with a history of Christians and Muslims living together.

Egypt’s current constitution, adopted in January 2014, extended the rights of Christians and Jews to build places of worship, which had been strictly regulated before.

Tadros testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs’ subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa May 20, on the threats to religious freedom in Egypt.

The country has had a tumultuous past few years, with multiple regime changes. In 2011 Egyptians successfully forced the resignation of president Hosni Mubarak, who had held power for 30 years. Elections brought in the Muslim Brotherhood party headed by President Mohammed Morsi, but his rule proved to be an especially tense time for the country’s Christians.

The military, headed by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, ousted Morsi in July 2013. The remainder of that summer saw a wave of violence against Christians and against Church buildings.

el-Sisi was elected president in May 2014, and assumed office that June. His tenure has been marked by public speeches promoting religious tolerance and gestures of goodwill toward the Christian community, Tadros noted. His election was also welcomed by Copts.

After 21 Copts were slaughtered by the Islamic State, the Egyptian military struck back with a vengeance against Islamic State-affiliated bases in Libya, an action seen as a “shield” for the country’s Christians as Peter Smith of the National Catholic Register reported. Sisi called for a week of mourning for the slain Copts.

Despite these national expressions of solidarity and goodwill, Christians still face persecution on a daily basis throughout the country, especially in rural villages in Upper Egypt far from the capital city of Cairo.

Mobs have targeted the building of Christian churches and have become more emboldened because of the failure of local authorities to protect Christian citizens. One example Tadros gave in his testimony before Congress illustrated the greatest threats to Copts – mob violence, lack of legal protection, and the impotence of local law enforcement.

Christians in the village of El Galaa have been trying, unsuccessfully, to build a new church since 2004, when they received a permit to do so. Recently they settled for renovating their old church.

But mobs attacked them in January and demanded the church have no external sacred symbols such as crosses or bells, and that its entrance be moved to a side street.

Rather than defending the Christians’ rights to religious freedom, local authorities forced them to have a “reconciliation session” with the Muslim mob, who saw the opportunity to make another demand – the Christians had to issue a public apology in the newspapers for going public with their grievances, and also had to promise not to build another church if their existing church was damaged or destroyed.

The Christians refused, and the mob attacked Christian homes and shops in the village on April 4.

Such stories are typical in today’s Egypt, despite gestures of goodwill from el-Sisi’s administrastion. The president has a “very good working relationship” with Tawadros II, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, and has made a public visit to his cathedral. He has spoken out about the need for tolerance among religions.

Yet many local authorities predate the el-Sisi administrastion, Tadros explained, some of them having held power since the days of Mubarak. In a country where the crime is prevalent at the local level, those holding the positions of power in the villages usually have the last word, and fail to protect Christian citizens.

“These local conditions, the bureaucracy, doesn’t change,” Tadros said, “and these then create those conditions the Copts are suffering from.”

Yet mob violence is not the only problem for Copts. They face employment discrimination, as no Christian holds a position of dean at any university. An unofficial employment cap exists in the police force and the army at around one percent for Christians, Tadros said – though Christians account for 10 percent of Eygpt’s population.

Another new threat is blasphemy accusations, he added, which have risen since the overthrow of the Mubarak regime. Citizens are accused of making a Facebook post deemed insulting to Islam or of even being tagged in such a post. These accusations invite mob violence and blasphemy trials that are all but a mockery of due process.

Copts have already been leaving Egypt, and current threats to their livelihood risk upsetting the religious mosaic that has existed for centuries. Coptic Christians have lived in Egypt since the time of Christ, tracing their heritage back to St. Mark the Evangelist.

“Historically, minorities have played a very important role as a bridge between the West and the Middle East,” Tadros said, but the number of Christians in the Middle East has declined steeply since the beginning of the 20th century.

“That’s a more important demographic change than the youth bulge that millions of articles have been written about,” he said.

Hundreds of thousands of Copts have made successful careers in the U.S., he noted.

“Egypt has lost because of its policies. Egypt’s future could have been much better if all those good educated people had been investing in their country’s future.”

Egypt must take anti-Christian persecution much more seriously, Tadros warned. The attacks on churches are so predictable, even someone in the U.S. can know the villages where such an incident will likely occur.

The government must prevent these attacks from even occurring, rather than hold a “reconciliation session” between Christians and Muslims after the fact, Tadros urged.

Laws must fuel a crackdown against anti-Christian violence, while enabling the building of churches. Currently, local governors have to approve even simple church renovations like a new bathroom or a new wall.

However, those changes will ultimately prove futile if the culture’s acceptance of public Christianity does not quickly improve.

“You can change laws. You can change the educational system. But once the hatreds have taken over the hearts and minds of a local population, that’s much harder to change,” Tadros said.

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U.S. NEWS

Hundreds of U.S. priests ask Synod to stand firm on Church teaching

by Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • May 16, 2015

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

Washington, D.C. — Nearly 1,000 United States priests made their own a petition to the fathers of the upcoming Synod, originally made public and signed by nearly 500 English priests.

The statement’s wording is exactly that of the English version, and urges the fathers of the upcoming Ordinary Synod on the Family to issue a “clear and firm” proclamation of Church teaching on marriage and sexuality.

The organization Credo Priests has been circulating the petition and collecting online signatures, which are verified as U.S. Catholic clergy before appearing on the site. The signatory priests, sensing confusion among the laity after last year’s synod, said they wished to “re-state our unwavering fidelity to the traditional doctrines regarding marriage and the true meaning of human sexuality, founded on the Word of God and taught by the Church’s Magisterium for two millennia.”

Among the U.S. signatures are seven bishops - three active and four retired. According to the Credo Priests website, the petition was signed in keeping with Pope Francis’ call for open and honest dialogue during the preliminary Extraordinary Synod on the Family last fall.

“… it is necessary to say all that, in the Lord, one feels the need to say: without polite deference, without hesitation. And, at the same time, one must listen with humility and welcome, with an open heart, what your brothers say,” Pope Francis said to the Extraordinary Synod fathers last October.

“The Holy Father has been very clear about the invitation for all people to comment on certain questions related to the synod and to provide their views,” said J.D. Flynn, director of communications for the Diocese of Lincoln, whose own Bishop Conley is one of the three active U.S. bishop signatories.

According to Flynn, Bishop Conley signed the petition because he saw it as a way of encouraging and supporting the Synod fathers in their upcoming work.

“I think he really saw it as something that supports the work of the synod because the synod is intending to do things that effectively proclaim the Gospel to the world of today and to the situations and the culture of today.’

An incorrectly translated midterm document as well as skewed media coverage of last year’s preliminary Synod led to confusion among many Catholics about the purpose and practical effects of a Synod. The purpose of this signed statement is to clarify where the Church stands in regards to its teachings on marriage and family, Flynn said.

“At times the secular media lacks an understanding of the context … (and) has tried to turn the conversation around the synod into something that’s partisan or divisive or that resembles the American political process, and that’s just not how the church works,” he added.

Bishop Kagan of Bismark, N.D., said he also thought the secular media was trying to understand the synod from the point of view of a political process, rather than as a dialogue amongst bishops who are in union under the same Pope.

“The secular media gave the impression that Cardinal Kasper was the pope’s spokesman,” Bishop Kagan said. “Well, he isn’t, the pope is perfectly capable of speaking for himself. Cardinal Kasper was not intellectually dishonest, he was expressing his own thoughts, and he’s free to do that.”

A look at Church history and the various synods and councils that have taken place will show that there has often been differences of personal opinion and perspective among the faithful during discussions, but this does not mean that everything everyone says will then be codified into official Church teaching, Bishop Kagan explained.

“If people in general want a good idea of how the synod works, or how a council works, read the section (in Acts of the Apostles) where Paul and Barnabas come to Jerusalem and meet with the apostles to clarify whether Gentile converts needing to be circumcised in order to be true Christians,” Bishop Kagan said. “That’s a very good analogy to keep in mind.”

Bishop Kagan said while he was aware of the English statement, he didn’t know a United States version existed until a priest in his diocese approached him and asked permission to sign it. After re-reading the statement himself, Bishop Kagan said he had no qualms with signing it himself.

“The credo statement certainly isn’t new, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to any Catholic,” he said. “I see it as an expression of my fraternal support for my brother bishops and for the Holy Father, and it’s a great teaching moment for the whole church.”

Much of the media coverage during last year’s synod focused on the issue of whether or not divorced and re-married Catholics could receive communion, and whether any changes could be made to the annulment process. Bishop Kagan, who worked on annulment tribunals for 29 years, is well aware of the difficult and painful annulment process, and remains “hopeful that all of these issues will be addressed.”

However, the heart of the Synod is actually reaffirming marriage and family as the foundation of society itself, Bishop Kagan noted, and the credo statement simply supports that.

“Hopefully it isn’t misinterpreted,” he said. “It’s not a political agenda being pursued here.”

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U.S. NEWS

Will Francis build on Benedict’s legacy when he visits the U.S.?

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • May 17, 2015

Benedict XVI greets Pope Francis during a consistory in St. Peter’s Basilica, Feb. 22, 2014. (Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Washington, D.C. — Pope Francis will remain within the tradition of previous papal visits to the U.S. when he comes to the east coast this autumn said Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, who added that the Pope’s voyage would build upon Benedict XVI’s papacy if he addresses the environment.

“Pope Benedict initiated a lot of commentary on climate change,” Bishop Soto explained, “and I think Pope Francis is going to be pushing that significantly, especially from the perspective of how that affects the poor.”

Benedict talked repeatedly about the need to care for the environment as God’s creation, and made the theme of the 2010 World Day of Peace “If you want to cultivate peace, protect creation.”

During his 2008 visit to the U.S., he told the United Nations General Assembly that “international action to preserve the environment and to protect various forms of life on earth must not only guarantee a rational use of technology and science, but must also rediscover the authentic image of creation.”

Pope Francis, meanwhile, has written an encyclical on ecology which is expected to be published this summer. He too has often spoken out about the need to protect creation.

“This is one of the greatest challenges of our time: changing to a form of development which seeks to respect creation,” he said at a meeting with laborers at the University of Molise on July 5, 2014. “I see America — my homeland, too: many forests, stripped, which become land that cannot be cultivated, which cannot give life. This is our sin: exploiting the land and not allowing it to give us what it has within it, with our help through cultivation.”

Pope Francis will make a three-stop tour of the U.S. east coast in September, first to Washington, D.C. where he will canonize Blessed Junipero Serra outside the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Sept. 23. He will meet with President Obama in the White House and address a joint session of Congress on Sept. 24.

He will address the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on Sept. 25, and then head to Philadelphia for the culmination of his visit, the World Meeting of Families, on Sept. 26 and 27. An estimated 1 million are expected to attend his Sept. 27 Mass.

Bishop Soto spoke about the upcoming visit with CNA at a Catholic-Evangelical Summit on Overcoming Poverty in Washington, D.C. on May 11, hosted by Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life.

He took part in a panel discussion on poverty and also addressed reporters about the need to overcome the tolerance of injustices such as the high incarceration rate among the poor.

Poverty and the family are intricately connected, and the Church must address poverty if it seeks to support families worldwide, he explained.

Environmental problems – particularly a severe drought – acutely affect the poor in Bishop Soto’s Sacramento diocese, which spans northern California.

Unemployment pushes 20 percent in some largely agricultural parts of his diocese, he said. He cited an Environmental Protection Agency report showing the worst environmental problems are also in the poorest areas of the state.

There are social problems affecting the family, he reflected, and with the World Meeting of Families and the Synod on the Family coming this autumn, the Church has an opportunity to address these issues.

Family poverty in the U.S. is exacerbated by problems in the immigration and education systems, he said. The lack of a comprehensive immigration reform bill has kept immigrants in California from starting businesses and establishing themselves in society.

The public education system has also failed poor families, he said. “Public education in California is not serving well our families, immigrant families and working-class families. Their children are not getting the kind of education they deserve, and that is undermining their ability to escape the cycles of poverty, and so with poor educational outcomes … those children get caught up in cycles that are very hard to escape.”

“There seems to be almost a reluctance to want to have parents have too much choice in how schools do their job,” he said. “I do think that we have to continue to explore how to engage parents and families in the education of children. And charter schools is one way to do that. And if there are other ways, better ways to do that, then we’ll explore that.”

And here is an opportunity for the Church to reach families, through parochial schools. There is a “national inquietude” on the matter of Catholic schools reaching out to low-income families and changing the trajectory of poverty for many children, he said.

“Catholic schools not only produce, I believe, good Catholics, but also produce good citizens. And so how can we use that formula that worked so well and make sure that it’s serving immigrant and working class families better.”

With the 2016 presidential election looming, that brings other social concerns of civic disengagement and the marginalization of religion to the forefront, he acknowledged.

“I am concerned that there is a tendency to want to push religious discourse off to the margins,” he said of the 2016 presidential election prospects.

Catholic institutions already do much for the poor in the U.S. “And I hope that the candidates will see the value of having vigorous, vibrant religious institutions, like Catholic schools, Catholic hospitals, Catholic social services involved as partners in society, and their ability to be able to participate while maintaining the integrity of their institutions,” he said.

The silencing of faith in public life was something Benedict addressed in his previous visit to the U.S., Bishop Soto said, and Pope Francis will call attention to it through the lens of the Church’s role in serving the poor.

“He’s also going to challenge us as pastors to go further,” the bishop said, “to ‘smell like the sheep’ and really take the Church back to its primary mission … of announcing the good news to the poor.”

The recent unrest in Baltimore and Ferguson has also highlighted the danger of civic disengagement, he continued. While noting that some of the protests were peaceful and some were not, he added that “part of that is they want their voice to be heard. What that is is the condemnation of the political process, that doesn’t allow that voice to be heard.”

“There’s a serious disengagement of people, and that is not good for our political system,” he continued. “Voter participation in California is dismal, and that doesn’t bode well for the social covenant when a lot of people, for whatever reasons, are disengaged.”

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U.S. NEWS

Want more religious vocations? Improve your family life, nun says

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • May 18, 2015

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

Rome, Italy — As the Church brings the needs of the family to the forefront with the upcoming Synod this fall, one Dominican sister says it is no surprise that Pope Francis should also dedicate this year to the consecrated life.

“One nourishes the other,” explained Dominican Sister Maria Magdalene in an interview with CNA. “You don’t have vocations just materialize out of thin air. They’re fed by good families.”

“I think it’s really beautiful that Pope Francis has called this Year for Consecrated Life,” said the Chicago, Illinois native, observing the year’s overlap with a period in which the Church is giving special attention to the family.

The Year for Consecrated Life began Nov. 30, 2015, and will conclude Feb. 2, 2016, the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.

It coincides with two major Church events dedicated to the family: the World Meeting of Families this September, and the Synod on the Family in October, which follows a synod on the same topic last year.

Having entered the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist 15 years ago, Sr. Magdalene described the mystery of discovering one’s vocation as not unlike that of finding a spouse.

“Vocation is a mystery,” she said. For instance, when two people are getting married, one might ask: “Why that person?”

“It is kind of a falling in love. You trust in the Lord, and you trust where he’s leading you.”

Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist was founded in 1997 by four members of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia – commonly known as the Nashville Dominicans. As of 2014, they have over 100 members.

Sr. Magdalene recounted her own story, explaining that while she had considered a vocation when she was young and growing up in a large Catholic family, she had drifted from the idea of religious life.

It was not until what she described as a “reconversion” after college, following a broken-off engagement, that she began to seriously consider the possibility of a vocation.

“I really just started falling in love with the Lord, and going to Eucharistic Adoration,” she said. “The thought of religious life just kept coming back to me.”

Although she had not verbalized her thoughts about a vocation to anyone, her parents told her about a retreat with the Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist, during which she experienced a “moment of grace” in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

“I felt more attracted to this than I’d ever felt to anything else, and knew I was free to say yes to Him, or free not to,” she said. “But, if I was really going to be honest with myself, this was where my happiness was.”

She said she was particularly struck by one of the community’s mottos: “to contemplate and to give to others fruits of contemplation.”

Unlike a simply job searching, Sr. Magdalene explained, the discernment process is about a call, not comparing benefits.

She never had the desire to go visit numerous other convents to “discern what they had to offer,” she said. “It’s not a career. It’s a vocation.”

The charism of the order is in keeping with the Dominicans, founded by Saint Dominic in the 13th century, as an “Order of Preachers.”

For the Michigan-based order, the central apostolate – which is education – flows from prayer, especially in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

The Eucharist is at the center of the sisters’ lives, Sr. Magdalene explained. “Dominicans are very at home in the sanctuary.”

A teacher for the past nine years, the Dominican sister was sent to study for one year in Rome at the Pontifical University of Thomas Aquinas, otherwise known as the Angelicum.

“Being in Rome here as a consecrated is just pure gift,” she said. “I can be here again in the footsteps of the saints, and receive first hand some of the experiences that will be given to us as consecrated.”

Asked whether this Year for Consecrated Life will inspire new appreciation for the religious life, the sister observed that while religious vocation remains “a little on the hidden side,” the awareness is increasing.

She recounted an anecdote from when she was younger. A former roommate – who was not discerning at the time, but would later enter the religious life – once said: “If I were a man I would be a priest!”

“We saw around us good priests,” she explained, “but we didn’t really see sisters as much. It took going to my community to see a lot of sisters all in one place.”

“If every parish is praying for vocations to the priesthood and to religious life, or doing hosting events, or doing things to foster this year of consecrated life, then you hope that yes, of course, that there will be more of an awareness.”

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U.S. NEWS

U.S. bishops: Without disarmament, nuclear weapons still threaten peace

by CNA/EWTN News • May 19, 2015

Nuclear bomb explosion at the Nevada Test Site, April 18, 1953. (National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office)

Washington, D.C. — The U.S. bishops have urged more action to ensure nuclear disarmament and to combat the proliferation of nuclear weapons

“For most Americans, there is an assumption that the nuclear threat receded with the end of the Cold War. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth,” said the May 12 letter from Bishop Oscar Cantu to Secretary of State John Kerry.

“In a multi-polar world where there are risks of nuclear proliferation and even nuclear terrorism, it is imperative that the world move systematically and relentlessly toward nuclear disarmament and the securing of nuclear materials.”

Bishop Cantu, who heads the Las Cruces, N.M. diocese, wrote the Secretary of State in his role as chair of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace.

“Please be assured of our prayers as you work for a world without nuclear weapons,” the letter said.

The letter comes as the ninth review conference on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is underway at the United Nations in New York City until May 22. The bishops said it is “critically important” for the U.S. to help this conference succeed.

The United States and other countries that have nuclear weapons have a “particular responsibility for nuclear disarmament,” it continued.

The bishops encouraged “bold and concrete commitments” to speed the process of “verifiable nuclear disarmament.” This includes taking weapons off of “launch on warning” status to avoid a “catastrophic accident.” The bishops urged deeper cuts in nuclear arsenals, ratification of a test ban treaty, and “serious negotiations” concerning fissile material.

The letter to Secretary Kerry cited the Holy See’s statement at the beginning of the latest non-proliferation treaty conference.

Archbishop Bernadito Auza on April 30 told the treaty review conference that “ethics based on the threat of mutually assured destruction is not worthy of future generations.”

“Lack of concrete and effective nuclear disarmament will lead sooner or later to real risks of nuclear proliferation,” added the archbishop, who is the Holy See’s permanent representative to the United Nations in New York.

The U.S. bishops said they share the view that any eroded credibility of the non-proliferation treaty could have “catastrophic consequences for all countries and for the future of humanity as a whole.”

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These twin friars are taking it to the streets – and your TV – to save souls

by Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • May 19, 2015

ICONS: Real People, Real Presence promotional video. (On My Mind Productions/Vimeo)

New York City, N.Y. — It’s a good thing Brother Angelus wears glasses, otherwise it would be really hard to tell him apart from Brother Innocent.

It’s tricky enough as it is, given that they’re brother-Brothers: siblings and consecrated Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (or CFRs). They’re also twins – or rather, two-thirds of a triplet. Their triplet sister Katie is (no, not a nun) back home in Nebraska with her husband and family.

Besides their looks and matching grey habits, Brothers Angelus and Innocent share an infectious zeal and joy for the Gospel that they’re taking to the streets – and to TV – come fall 2015 with a new documentary-style show called “Icons”.

“The traditional concept of icons, especially in the theology of the East, is that icons are really a sacramental, there’s a real presence of Christ there,” Brother Angelus told CNA. “So the fact is that young people are icons in the world. They reveal Christ in their relationships, in their work, in their vocations, in their family, whatever they do.”

For their show, the Brothers are seeking out young people who are icons in the real world – those who are living and working for the Lord and inspiring others to do so as well. And rather than inviting them into the same studio for a talk show every week, the Brothers are hitting the road to film them in action.

“It was kind of inspired by CNN heroes, where they honor heroes throughout the year and do documentaries on them,” Brother Angelus said, “so we were like yeah, that is exactly the kind of model we want, we want to go out and tell people’s stories.”

The first season of “Icons” will have 13 episodes, and the Brothers are hoping that young people will send in their nominations through the website for people who are icons in their life who should be featured on the show.

“We want people from every walk of life who have met the Lord who have really become a disciple of him, and now they go out in the world and reveal him to all those they meet,” Brother Angelus said. “Those are the kinds of people that the world needs right now, because people are hungry for the Lord.”

Even though the Brothers spend much of their days studying to be priests and serving in their apostolates in New York, they are no strangers to television. Starting a few years ago, they helped host EWTN’s Sunday Night Prime after Father Benedict Groeschel, the late founder of the CFR brothers, retired from the position. They loved being able to share people’s inspiring stories of faith, but they wanted and were encouraged to develop a show that would reach a younger audience.

“Catholic media is really irrelevant right now to a lot of young people,” Brother Angelus said. “That’s a dramatic statement, but it’s true. So we wanted to wrestle with that question and wrestle with that reality that Catholic media is irrelevant to a lot of young people today.”

Brother Angelus said they realized that in order to make a compelling show, they had to tell real stories about real people, and they had to make it as high-quality as possible.

“If it’s not high quality young people aren’t going to be interested,” he said. “They’re used to secular media, they’re used to secular TV shows, they’re used to the internet. So we want to tell people’s stories, but we also wanted it to be the highest quality we could so that people couldn’t write the show off.”

Keeping that in mind, the brothers teamed up with media professionals in the Catholic world and started fundraising. The show is owned and being produced by the Live Greater Foundation, a non-profit that was the fruit of many years of the Live Greater movement established by the Brothers even before they were both in the friary.

“There was always this movement to really take our faith and live passionately, like in John 10:10, ‘I came that you might have life and have it abundantly,’” said Brother Innocent. “And that’s the whole concept behind the Live Greater Foundation, as it’s grown to be.”

The Live Greater Foundation is also a family business: the Brothers’ parents, sister Katie and brother Bob are all a part of the foundation’s work, which has three main outreaches: media, charity, and family life.

Working with family, and especially as brother-Brothers, has been one of the greatest blessings of this endeavor so far, Brother Innocent added.

“It’s just such a gift to do this together, we’ve been best friends our whole life, and then having this opportunity to do this together as brothers, that’s definitely a unique gift and I find myself grateful just to do that with him,” he said.

With their new show, the Brothers feel they are answering their call as Franciscans and the call of Pope Francis to reach out to the peripheries and to spread the Gospel.

“We were really inspired by Fr. Benedict, our founder and hero,” Brother Innocent said. “He was a father to the poor but also he had this kind of amazing gift to use evangelization and media.”

“The world sees the bad news of the Catholic Church, the scandals, and young people are really formed by that,” said Brother Angelus. “We want to tell the good news of young people who are living the faith, and then also, we want to create a community around ‘Icons’ so young people know that they belong to something, because there are other people who are living for the Lord, I’m not alone in this.”

Part of that relatability and community is going to come from telling real stories which show that the Church is not a “place for the perfect” but for those who fall but get back up, Brother Angelus explained.

They are also hoping to dispel the myth that having a relationship with Christ means begrudgingly following a list of cumbersome rules, he added.

“Sometimes young people say if they live for the Lord then they’re going to have to follow all these rules and life’s going to be miserable,” he said. “But people who live for the Lord, especially young people, are some of the most joyful people we know, so they’ll see that being Christian and being joyful and authentic and real is possible.”

The “Icons” team is currently is in the midst of a fundraising campaign to raise funds for the first season and hopes to begin production late 2015. To learn more about the show, to nominate an icon, or to pledge support, visit their website at: iconstv.org

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U.S. NEWS

Boston bomber gets the death penalty – how should Catholics respond?

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

(CDC/Debora Cartagena)

Washington, D.C. — The death sentence for convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a legitimate use of state authority, even if Catholics may disagree with it, said a moral theologian in the nation’s capital.

“We accept that the state has done its job, that this is the decision of the state which the state is morally free to make, according to the Church’s teaching,” Fr. Thomas Petri, O.P., dean at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., told CNA.

“I think a Catholic response now is to pray for Tsarnaev, to pray that he repent, that he repent and come to the Lord.”

Catholics were among the most vocal proponents of sparing Tsarnaev the death penalty. The 21-year-old former student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was convicted in a federal court for his role in the bombings that killed three and injured hundreds at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon.

Sister Helen Prejean, a well-known Catholic activist against the death penalty who wrote the book “Dead Man Walking” about her experience ministering to a convict on death row, testified against capital punishment for Tsarnaev. She insisted after meeting with him that he was remorseful for what he did.

The Massachusetts Catholic bishops also advocated that Tsarnaev be spared the death penalty, saying in a statement that any threat he posed to society had been neutralized and that “society can do better than the death penalty.”

They quoted a 2005 statement by the U.S. Bishops that “no matter how heinous the crime, if society can protect itself without ending a human life it should do so.”

Recent months have seen increased discussion on the role capital punishment plays in society, if any.

Recent Popes have spoken about the matter. In a March letter to the International Commission against the Death Penalty, Pope Francis emphasized that in present times “the death penalty is inadmissible” and is “an offence against the inviolability of life” since the threat a person might pose to society has been neutralized with his being in state custody.

Pope Benedict expressed his hope that more countries will eliminate the death penalty at an international conference organized by the Sant’Egidio Community in 2011.

In his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, Pope St. John Paul II said that “the primary purpose of the punishment which society inflicts is “to redress the disorder caused by the offence’,” quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

He added that the state’s punishment “ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society.”

“Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent,” he said.

The Church has always taught that states have the authority to dispense justice – which includes the penalty of death when an offense is grave enough – Fr. Petri said, and recent Popes have not departed from this tradition.

“There’s a very important nuance here that Catholics need to understand,” he said, “which is that the Church’s tradition and its magisterial teaching, which is unchanged by Pope Saint John Paul II, Benedict, and Francis, is that states and governments have the right to inflict the penalty of death when guilt is absolutely known and when the gravity of the crime rises to the death penalty.”

And that prudential determination of when it must be applied is left to the state – in Tsarnaev’s case, the jurors picked by the state to determine his guilt, the priest added.

The judgment is ultimately a prudential one, he continued, and this is clear even when John Paul II said in Evangelium Vitae that the need for capital punishment to protect society from offenders is “very rare, if not practically non-existent.”

“Protecting society is not the primary purpose of punishment,” he said. “The primary purpose of punishment is retribution, by which we don’t mean revenge but by the society expressing its moral outrage, its outrage at the heinous gravity of a particular crime.” It is here where “prudence” determines the proper response to an offence.

Thus, prudential application of the death penalty differs from support for intrinsic evils like abortion and euthanasia, he explained.

“So the death penalty, when, if, and how it is applied, is a matter of prudence for Catholics, which means that Catholics can in fact disagree with even papal teaching on this,” he said, while also cautioning that “Catholics really need to take seriously” the papal teaching.

“But they’re still free to say ‘well I normally agree that we shouldn’t be doing this, but in this case I can see why it would be merited’.”

Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger addressed this topic in a 2004 letter to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C.

After reiterating Church teaching that “abortion or euthanasia is a grave sin,” Ratzinger wrote that “not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia.”

“While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment,” he stated.

“There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia,” he added.

What is the role of a Catholic juror in such a case as the Boston bombing case? It’s not entirely clear, Fr. Petri admitted.

Catholics opposing the death penalty on grounds of conscience were “effectively disqualified” from jury duty in the case, USA Today reported in April, since they from the beginning would not consider the possibility of a death sentence.

“Firstly, I think that if they feel convicted in conscience that they can’t vote for the death penalty, then that is a moral duty not to,” Fr. Petri said.

However, whether the Church permits or prohibits Catholics from voting for the death penalty on a jury “is not as clear,” he continued, and even if the Church actually does not permit it, “it’s not being taught and therefore Catholics will not be culpable for voting for the death penalty.”

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U.S. NEWS

Nearly every House member voted for this anti-human trafficking bill

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

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

Washington, D.C. — The House overwhelmingly passed a bill on Tuesday establishing a fund for victims of human trafficking and strengthening federal and state enforcement against trafficking.

The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act passed on May 19 by an unusually large bipartisan margin of 420-3, almost a month after it passed the Senate following a weeks-long hold-up by Senate Democrats.

The bill hikes penalties against convicted traffickers and directs the fines to a fund for human trafficking victims, for aid to the victims and grants to local and state enforcement against trafficking.

The Democrats had derailed its passage because of provisions restricting abortion funding. The original legislation extended Hyde Amendment protections to the fund, meaning that no money from the fund could go to abortions. Democrats successfully stalled the bill’s passage in the Senate for weeks.

The Hyde Amendment prohibits taxpayer funds from going to abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake. It is often attached to appropriations bills.

The Republican leadership would not hold a vote to nominate President Obama’s candidate for Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, until the bill passed. A compromise was then reached – two funding streams were established for the victims’ fund, one from trafficking fines which could not go toward any health care, and the other from public funds already marked for community health centers, which are already subject to Hyde Amendment protections.

The Senate passed the bill 99-0 and then nominated Lynch to be the next U.S. Attorney General.

The act originated from a collection of House bills fighting trafficking that were passed earlier in 2015. After the updated Senate bill passed the house on May 19, members of Congress applauded the passage on an issue they say transcends partisanship.

Around 100,000 children are trafficked in the U.S. each year, stated Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) on May 18, most of them young girls. Most of them, once they are rescued, are prosecuted instead of being cared for.

“These children when found are often charged for prostitution, fined, or put in juvenile detention where there are or should be other options available. These children, mostly young girls, need to be protected and cared for, and treated with compassion and respect, not prosecution,” he said.

”It is a harsh reality that sexual slavery persists across America. With this legislation, Congress has taken a firm stand against the pimps and Johns and for women and children,” stated Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.).

“When 25,000 women and children are trafficked in Illinois alone each year, and millions more across the globe are caught in this modern-day slavery, it is our responsibility to stand up for victims and prosecute predators,” stated Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.).

Pope Francis has been particularly vocal in his papacy about fighting human trafficking. He helped spur the first international “Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking,” which was held Feb. 8.

That day, he offered his encouragement to those working to end the trafficking of those are “enslaved, exploited, abused as instruments of work or pleasure, and often tortured and humiliated.”

He then called governments to action in “removing the cause of this shameful wound … a wound unworthy in a civil society.”

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U.S. NEWS

Converted by love, not ideology: An archbishop’s reflection on Dorothy Day

by CNA/EWTN News • May 20, 2015

Dorothy Day, American journalist, social activist and Catholic convert, circa 1916. (Gobonobo at Wikimedia Commons)

Fort Wayne, IN — Last week, Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles told scholars at the Dorothy Day Conference at St. Francis University that the social activist was not converted by ideology, but by love.

“It was not the teachings of the Church that convinced her to leave the past behind and change her life. She was changed by Love, changed by the over-powering awareness of the reality of God’s love and mercy,” the archbishop said during his May 14 keynote address at the Dorothy Day Conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Archbishop Gomez said he admires the social activist for the example of holiness that she has left for today’s Catholics.

As a young woman in the early 20th century, Day embraced what she and many others in her generation believed would bring happiness: a life that included abortion, communism and “free love.”

“Dorothy and many others thought they had found the ‘answers’ they were looking for in the ‘progressive’ vision of a society liberated from Christian morality and the capitalist economy,” Archbishop Gomez said, but what followed was a period of great pain and suffering in her life, including the abortion of her child.

When Day converted to Catholicism years later in 1929, it was not due to the hardships she had endured, the archbishop continued. Rather, Day converted because she found love – first in the birth of her beloved daughter, Tamar, and then in God.

“As she described it, the beauty of the created world convinced her that there must be a Creator. The joy of human love helped her to realize the beauty of divine love,” he explained. “She came to see that her life – and all our lives – are a search for love, a search for a love that is Supreme, for God.”

While it remains to be seen whether the Church will declare Day a saint – she is currently recognized as a Servant of God – Archbishop Gomez said that her life makes him want to be a saint.

“And I know a lot of people feel the same way – including some of you, probably,” he said.

Archbishop Gomez reflected that the great Catholic social activist has left a legacy that illustrated how to live in and evangelize a culture that has rejected God. Day believed that the surest way to do this “was to raise up a new generation of saints.”

While not everyone is called to a radical life among the poor like Day, we are all called “to take personal responsibility” in caring for the poor and to live out something she called “heroic charity,” the archbishop said.

When we see Christ in others, we are moved to serve Christ in others, he explained.

“Dorothy Day helps us to see that Jesus made the works of mercy the way for every Christian. She told us over and over what Jesus said – that in the evening of our lives, our love for God will be judged by the mercy we have shown to others – especially those who are the most vulnerable, those who cannot defend themselves,” he said.

Day’s example of holiness and service is echoed today in Pope Francis’ teachings when he talks about going “to the peripheries” to evangelize and serve, Archbishop Gomez continued.

Just like Pope Francis, everything for Day “was rooted in the encounter with Jesus Christ,” – and not simply an ideology – he said.

The Dorothy Day Conference also featured talks from Day’s granddaughter Martha Hennessy; author Brandon Vogt; Kathryn Jean Lopez of the National Review; and publisher and editor of Day’s diaries Robert Ellsberg.

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U.S. NEWS

A priest’s powerful impact on the New York Times’ David Brooks

by CNA/EWTN News • May 21, 2015

David Brooks. (David Burnett B&W 2011)

Denver, CO — New York Times columnist, best-selling author and all-around pundit David Brooks has made headlines recently for his bold new book making the case for a societal return to morality.

Perhaps lesser known, however, is some of the inspiration behind the work – a humble priest described by Brooks as an “insanely joyful” man who sparked a nagging, internal question. Why was this cleric so happy and fulfilled?

What followed was a meticulously researched and engaging book which poses a provocative thesis: we as a modern society are cultivating outwardly impressive but ultimately superficial “resume virtues” – not character. And it’s costing us dearly, the author says, both personally and communally.

In a conversation with CNA editors, Brooks recounted his experience with the priest along with his thoughts on why his book – The Road to Character (Random House, 2015) – is so important, and how it speaks to everything from politics, to religion to education.

He also gave a hat tip to Pope Francis, whom he called “the embodiment of being a Christian.”

Below is the full Q&A, edited for clarity.

You’re very brave – all of your recent headlines explicitly touting the need for “morality.” Your book’s glaring reference to “sin.” Has there been any fallout from this? What’s the reaction been from your peers?

A friend of mine who is an editor at another publishing house – a really good editor – called me and said, you know, I love the way you talk about your book, but I wouldn’t use the word “sin” – it’s just such a downer, so you should use the word “insensitive.” I of course think that “insensitive” is very paltry substitute for the word “sin,” so there has been some pushback on that. And, there’s some hostility towards religion in general. The book is not super religious, but it does have religious characters, and certainly religious words and religious context. But I’d say the main reaction has just been welcoming. People are hungry for a conversation. And so, whether people are Christian, Jewish, atheist – I’ve been sort of surprised by the general desire to be in this general field of conversation.

When did you realize in your own life that you’d been building “resume virtues” instead of forming your character?

There wasn’t one big thing – but there were certain moments in my life when I saw people who had spiritual and moral gifts that I lacked. One of them was a guy named Monsignor Ray East, who is a priest in the Anacostia neighborhood in D.C. – a very poor neighborhood. He was part of a lunch I do every year for Catholic Relief Services, which I do with my friend, Mark Shields. And every year, Monsignor East would give the benediction. He was just insanely joyful – such an insanely joyful man, and I was just so struck by him. Just being in his presence would lift me up for a few weeks. I had the realization that whatever I had achieved in career terms, I haven’t achieved the inner joy that he possesses. And I was just curious: how do you get that?

In your book, you talk about a cultural shift over the last 50 plus years away from humility – and a natural sense of self-effacement people had – into the notion of the “big me.” What caused this?

There are many aspects, of course. One of them derives from the consumer society, that teaches that you have these desires and you should satisfy them, and so you should just go around satisfying your desires. And so I think you come to believe that your desires are good and to have tremendous trust in them – and that is a shift away from what people thought in previous centuries. Second, after WWII, people had been through deprivation and had seen a lot of darkness, from the Holocaust and just the death that WWII created. (A series of books from the time promoted the idea) that when we look inside ourselves, we see that our nature is beautiful and full of good and that we need to love ourselves more. That too is a sharp break from the biblical tradition which says that we are broken – so there was both a commercial and philosophical shift that happened.

A recent Pew survey documents the rise of “nones” – religiously unaffiliated people – in the U.S. With the general decline of those who identify as religious, would you say this correlates to a general lack of emphasis on character?

They go along together – character is the ability to commit to things outside of yourself, whether it is a political movement, or faith, or friendship, or a love affair, or a cause. I think people have a harder time committing. They are more autonomous, more individual, they have FOMO (fear of missing out) so they don’t want to ruin any option, and that leads to a general era of de-commitment. People are walking away from political parties, from organized faith – they are just living more individually. And I think that’s due to our inability to commit to things.

What about education? How does the school system help or hinder your concept of the need for more virtuous people?

I think obviously Catholic schools can teach us specific code, specific theology, but public schools really can’t. I do think that they can familiarize students with the religions and the faiths and the philosophies that are out there. So what I do when I teach a course is say: here are a bunch of moral ontologies, different systems that people have come up with. There is a Greek system favoring honor and courage, the Jewish faith favoring obedience and law, the Christian system favoring grace and humility – I’m not going to tell you which one to pick, but here are a bunch of systems, do what seems true to you. But we don’t even give students the words or an education there. I think we have to at least make them literate in spirituality and moral matters.

Let’s move to politics. Many of the U.S. founding fathers either implied or explicitly said that democracy will only work if we are a nation comprised of people with character. What are the implications of your thesis for the American experiment?

I think that our founders were very clear on that. A healthy country requires a decent citizenry. And they also believed that statecraft is soulcraft – that in forming a government we’re helping to shape the character of the people within it. I think as we’ve lost the whole vocabulary and the whole focus, we now focus a lot on economics and economics as really the gateway between all social thinking and government policy.

And that’s not true – that doesn’t evaluate what people seek … And so we’ve kind of neutered the public square. I’m not the kind of person who thinks we’re in a state of national decline or anything like that. I think people find ways to behave decently towards one another as best as they can. But I just think we’re inarticulate and that we could be living satisfying and more fulfilling lives if we actually had words and more – greater – self-consciousness and better road maps for how to lead a life of depth and kindness.

Is social media to blame for some of our narcissistic, “big me” tendencies as a society?

I’m not hugely fearful about it. I don’t think Facebook is making us lonelier. I don’t think video games are making us more violent. The two things I do think are: first, social media and the desire for likes and attention on Instagram and such is amplifying the self where we are broadcasting ourselves and just sort of being big about ourselves and win fame. And I do think social media damages our attention span. I’ve certainly noticed that in myself where I have trouble reading for long periods of time without checking my phone. So I do think that’s probably the most harmful thing that’s happened to us. Moral reflection takes stillness. You’ve got to hear that soft voice inside … So I think those are the two things I worry about.

What, in a concrete, practical sense can your readers take away from your book? What effect do you want to have on people?

First, I just want them to live in this space and think about this world. Second, I think we become better people by copying others. So I hope they’re excited by some of the characters and they just want to live a life like Dorothy Day or live a life like Philip Randolph. I think that’s how we are motivated – by exemplars.

As for the practical things, some of them are mundane. I have a friend who when he goes home at night he asks how he did in his struggle against his core weakness that day and he resolves ways to do better. I think you can surround yourself by friends and also by heroes – people you can put on your walls in your room who remind what a decent, good life looks like. I think you can have discussion groups raising the subjects of: how do you turn suffering into a moral occasion? How do you build your relationships?

So there’s a spiritual component. I think you learn from Samuel Johnson the virtue of reading and how just having a settled philosophy of life is important in having and living a life of character. You can learn from Francis Perkins about a vocation. You can ask, what is the mortal world around me calling me to do right now?

I think there are a few different things that can be done. There’s no seven step process to doing it but there’s a lifelong journey that I’m hoping people find different avenues towards.

As a Catholic news entity, we’d be remiss if we didn’t ask your opinion on Pope Francis …

I have a quote in the book from Dave Jolly, a veterinarian, who says ‘the message is the person’ - the way we communicate, what we value is not necessarily from the theology that we found, but by the way we act, the way we are. And I think Pope Francis is the perfect exemplification of that. I’m not a huge expert in Catholic theology but I like the way he handles himself and I admire the way he behaves in matters large and small. So to me, he simply is the embodiment of being a Christian. He radiates love, radiates joy, shows mercy, shows empathy. That’s the way Jesus asks Christians to live and Pope Francis lives that way. And so the message is the person.

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U.S. NEWS

Judges shoot down Notre Dame’s appeal on contraception mandate

by Kevin J. Jones (CNA/EWTN News) • May 21, 2015

(Selbe via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

South Bend, IN — A federal court has again denied the University of Notre Dame’s request for a preliminary injunction against federal mandates it says violate its religious freedom, though a trial can still go forward.

“We are reviewing the opinion and weighing our options,” the University of Notre Dame’s vice president for public affairs and communications said in a statement provided to CNA.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals denied the request for a preliminary injunction on May 19.

In February the same court also rejected the university’s request for an injunction, upholding the decision of a lower court.

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court nullified the decision and returned the case to the federal appeals court, instructing the court to take into account the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision that ruled the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act protects the Evangelical Christian owners of Hobby Lobby from mandates that required their company to cover contraceptives in their employee health plans.

The Department of Health and Human Services Mandate requires non-exempt employers to provide health care plans covering contraception, sterilization and some drugs that can cause early abortions — drugs and procedures whose use Catholic teaching recognizes as immoral. The government has developed a provision it considers a sufficient accommodation for objecting employers. Objecting employers must send a notice of their objection to a third party which would then offer the coverage to employees.

Notre Dame and other objecting organizations have said this form of the mandate still forces them to violate their religious convictions, which bar complicity in providing such coverage.

Refusal to comply with the mandate could result in heavy fines.

Circuit Judge Richard Posner authored the main opinion in the 2-1 decision against the university, saying it failed to show it was entitled to a preliminary injunction.

He noted the university’s “awkward” delay in challenging a later version of the accommodation, adding that little evidence had been presented to the court. He rejected claims that the mandate forced the university to serve as a conduit for coverage it deemed morally unacceptable. He also noted that the university initially complied with the accommodation, albeit under protest.

Posner said it wasn’t clear that the federal government was forcing the university to do business with an entity that provides objectionable services. He said that the effort to secure an injunction would enjoin “nonparties” to the lawsuit, namely the university’s insurance companies.

Circuit Judge Joel Flaum dissented from the Tuesday decision, saying he would have granted an injunction. He called the mandate is a substantial burden on the university’s rights and would turn Notre Dame into a “conduit for the provision of cost-free contraception.” The mandate would compel it to contract with insurance companies in a way that the university believes would make it “complicit in moral wrong.”

Flaum said the government has the legal burden of proving that the accommodation is the “least restrictive means of serving a compelling interest.”

His dissent noted that the mandate engages a Catholic university like Notre Dame in a process that the law itself exempts the Catholic Church from.

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U.S. NEWS

Nebraska bishops praise move to repeal death penalty

by CNA/EWTN News • May 21, 2015

Bishop James Conley of Lincoln blesses prisoners at the Nebraska State Penitentiary during the recessional of a Mass said March 31, 2015. (Southern Nebraska Register)

Lincoln, NE — Nebraska’s Catholic bishops on Wednesday praised the Nebraska legislature’s veto-proof vote to end the death penalty, saying capital punishment “cannot be justified” in the state at present.

The bishops said their support for the bill was based on Catholic teaching and their prudential judgement that the death penalty is now unjustifiable. Their support “also flows from our prayerful reflection on the words of Jesus Christ himself: ‘love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father’,” they said.

Nebraska’s unicameral legislature on May 20 voted 32-15 to pass LB 268. The legislation replaces the death penalty with life in prison without parole.

The state last executed a prisoner in 1997, and there are currently 11 men on death row in Nebraska, the Associated Press reports.

Legislators opposed to the death penalty voiced various objections including religious reasons, the cost to taxpayers of executions and legal appeals, and whether government can be trusted to administer the death penalty.

Gov. Pete Ricketts, who supports capital punishment, said he would veto the bill, though only 30 votes in the Nebraska Legislature are needed to override a governor’s veto.

The Republican governor said the state has imposed the death penalty judiciously and charged that the legislature’s vote is “completely out of touch with the overwhelming majority of Nebraskans that I talk to.”

Prior to Nebraska, Connecticut was the last U.S. state to end the death penalty, in 2013.

In a March 17 statement, the Nebraska bishops voiced compassion for the victims of violent crime and their families, while adding that the dignity even of the guilty must be recognized.

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FEATURES

Untying Knots

by Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J. • May 20, 2015

Most of us love television mysteries. We follow our sleuth in detecting clues that will ultimately loosen the knots and solve the mystery. Whether it’s Agatha Christie with Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Jessica Fletcher, or Columbo, Sherlock Holmes, Inspectors Lewis and Foyle, or Father Brown, they delight us with their unique approaches to solving mysteries.

Greek and Roman Drama

In Greek tragedy, like Superman, the gods insert themselves into a knotted problem — it may deal with a family or a national dilemma. Not above mischief, the gods themselves may initiate the problem. Then suddenly, abruptly, they swoop down, intervene, loosen the knot, and resolve the mystery. Collectively, the gods are the deus ex machina, the god from the machine.

The difference between modern-day sleuths and the deus ex machina is that the latter work with the speed of lightning to resolve the narrative. The former take a little longer to solve the mystery in which the writer has painted the culprit into a corner.

Knots in Mary’s Life

With the angelic message, Mary’s placid life at Nazareth was suddenly thrown into turmoil, as was Joseph’s. Once they were married and traveled to Bethlehem to enroll in the census, there were concerns about a suitable place for the Child’s birth. In escaping Herod’s wrath, they were filled with tension trekking off to Egypt in the middle of the night like fugitives. Then there were predictions by Simeon and Anna about the Child’s future. And what of the loss in the temple? It would be one stressful event after the other — a series of knots.

Mary at the Wedding Feast of Cana

It’s at the wedding at Cana that we see Mary untying a knot for others, at least in its initial stage (Jn 2:1-11). The wine has run out. On a day when the bride and groom should be rejoicing, they’re in great distress. What will the guests think and say?

Mary notices the problem before the guests and intends to do something about it. Jesus sees but plans to remain uninvolved. They’re her friends. Still, he will not refuse his mother’s request, this she knows.

Just one sentence to him, stating the problem. ‘Now is not the time for a miracle,’ comes his ready response. She looks past him as though not listening. “Do whatever he tells you,” come her confident words to the waiter. You have to love her cool, as our young people might say.

The Story behind Our Lady, the One Who Unties Knots

The story of Our Lady under this title begins in 1612 in Augsburg, Bavaria in Germany. Wolfgang Langenmantel and Sophia Rentz, husband and wife and both of noble estate, were on the verge of a divorce. Over a period of twenty-eight days, Wolfgang sought help from Jakob Rem, a Jesuit priest who prayed with him to Our Lady to untie the knots of their marital problems. They prayed that she smooth out the ribbon that had bound them together at their wedding ceremony. The divorce did not happen, and together the couple lived a peaceful married life. Years later, to commemorate this turn of events, their grandson, Fr. Hieronymus Langenmantel of St. Peter’s Monastery in Augsburg commissioned the painting, “Untier of Knots.”

Earliest Reference to Our Lady, Untier of Knots

The earliest reference to this depiction of Our Lady is found in Adversus haereses, “Against Heresies,” written by St. Irenaeus of Lyons in the second century. In Book III, Chapter 22, he draws a parallel between Eve and Mary. “The knot of Eve’s disobedience,” he writes, “was loosed by the obedience of Mary” (Gen 3:15). In its basic theological meaning, the image symbolizes Mary untying the knot of the first sin and first act of disobedience in the Garden.

The painting, oil on poplar, was executed in 1700 by Johann Georg Schmidtner and is cast in the typical Baroque style with its dramatic flair and didactic effect. Our Lady is flanked by two angels. She is untying knots from a long marriage ribbon which, in the seventeenth century, represented the marital union. It has also come to symbolize the knots that are part of any marriage. At the same time, she presses her foot crushing the head of a coiled (or knotted) serpent. The painting is located in St. Peter’s Church in Augsburg.

Pope Francis and Our Lady, Untier of Knots

Our Lady’s ingenuity and her practical streak are captured in the title dear to the heart of Pope Francis. He has cultivated a special devotion to Our Lady depicted as the one who unties knots. While a graduate student in Germany, he was inspired by a Bavarian painting entitled, “Holy Mother, Our Lady, Untier of Knots.” When he returned to Argentina with a copy of that image on a postcard, he had an icon struck with this same title. He seems intent on following Our Lady’s example by untying knots within the Church and in the wider community of nations.

Today, devotion to Our Lady under this title is growing by leaps and bounds. It can touch those beset by sudden illness, sudden financial trouble, sudden ‘anything.’ Devotion to Our Lady under this title is especially popular among married people, given her active role at the wedding at Cana.

There are countless visuals depicting the wedding at Cana but none more telling than that of Giotto, the fourteenth-century Florentine painter. The fresco of Cana is the eighth of twenty-four in the life of Christ painted on the walls of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. The unusual fresco shows Mary with her hand raised in blessing as her son performs the miracle that she has initiated. The feast day of Mary, “untier of knots,” falls on September 28th.

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

Poverty, chastity, and obedience are all about money, sex, and power

by Msgr. M. Francis Mannion • May 21, 2015

The evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience correlate with the fundamental human issues of money, sex, and power, and may be seen as the Christian “response” to these issues. While professed religious undertake a life vowed to the evangelical counsels, all Christians are called to follow these counsels.

Let us take poverty first. We are inclined to think that poverty is possible only for religious who live in community. The truth is that poverty is incumbent upon all of us. How is that possible? Because all who follow Christ are called to live simply and frugally. That, of course, is easier said than done.

Living simply and frugally means that we always consider the needs of others when making economic decisions. We should not live luxuriously and indulge ourselves in lavish ways, but make sure that we keep the needs of our fellow men and women — whether in our own family or in the larger world — in mind when we plan the use of our income and property.

The call to poverty does not mean giving away everything. We would not be able to survive if we did. But it does mean that we avoid piling up money and goods, and that we get into the habit of giving generously, realizing that the goods of the world belong to all humankind. We are called to be good stewards of what we own, living simply, as the saying goes, so that others may simply live.

Sexuality, the second issue, is one of the most complex aspects of human existence. Indeed, when considered in its totality, human life is immensely complicated by the matter of sex. There are few who do not struggle with sexuality, and the practice of virtue in this area is no easy feat. The fact that we live in an increasingly sexualized culture makes chastity all the more difficult.

The virtue of chastity is incumbent upon every person, no matter his or her way of life. Clergy, laity, and religious, married or single, are called to let the Gospel of Christ and the wisdom of Christian tradition inform the area of sexuality.

Chastity means sexual discipline, training one’s sexuality to have a Christian character, ensuring that one’s sexuality never slides in the direction of what is degrading, self-centered, and dehumanizing of others.

The matter of obedience, the third issue, is associated almost exclusively with monastics, religious, and clergy. However, the Christian virtue of obedience means at heart a constant and fundamental willingness to consider and serve the common good.

The life issue with which obedience deals is power. The human being is endowed with enormous power for good and evil; he or she is often tempted to seek to control life and to organize it according to particular likes and dislikes.

Living out the counsel of obedience means that we listen to others — which is what obedience means literally — and refuse to make the self the center of the universe. The obedient outlook means openness to the wisdom of others, having a constant attitude of self-examination, being ready to serve our brothers and sisters, and letting the greater good impel us.

In the Rule of Saint Benedict, the monks are called to be obedient not only to the abbot — but to each other. The idea is that living in community means always listening to the other, and being available to be of service to the other. That’s an ideal we can all strive for.

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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SUNDAY • MAY 24, 2015

Pentecost Sunday

First Reading (Acts 2:1-11; NRSVCE)

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples of Jesus were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs — in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”

Second Reading (1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13; NRSVCE)

No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Gospel Reading (Jn 20:19-23; NRSVCE)

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

MONDAY • MAY 25, 2015

Monday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Sir 17:24-29; NRSVCE)

Yet to those who repent he grants a return,

and he encourages those who are losing hope.

Turn back to the Lord and forsake your sins;

pray in his presence and lessen your offense.

Return to the Most High and turn away from iniquity,

and hate intensely what he abhors.

Who will sing praises to the Most High in Hades

in place of the living who give thanks?

From the dead, as from one who does not exist, thanksgiving has ceased;

those who are alive and well sing the Lord’s praises.

How great is the mercy of the Lord,

and his forgiveness for those who return to him!

Gospel Reading (Mk 10:17-27; NRSVCE)

As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

TUESDAY • MAY 26, 2015

Memorial of Saint Philip Neri

First Reading (Sir 35:1-15; NRSVCE)

The one who keeps the law makes many offerings;

one who heeds the commandments makes an offering of well-being.

The one who returns a kindness offers choice flour,

and one who gives alms sacrifices a thank offering.

To keep from wickedness is pleasing to the Lord,

and to forsake unrighteousness is an atonement.

Do not appear before the Lord empty-handed,

for all that you offer is in fulfillment of the commandment.

The offering of the righteous enriches the altar,

and its pleasing odor rises before the Most High.

The sacrifice of the righteous is acceptable,

and it will never be forgotten.

Be generous when you worship the Lord,

and do not stint the first fruits of your hands.

With every gift show a cheerful face,

and dedicate your tithe with gladness.

Give to the Most High as he has given to you,

and as generously as you can afford.

For the Lord is the one who repays,

and he will repay you sevenfold.

Do not offer him a bribe, for he will not accept it;

and do not rely on a dishonest sacrifice;

for the Lord is the judge,

and with him there is no partiality.

Gospel Reading (Mk 10:28-31; NRSVCE)

Peter began to say to Jesus, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age — houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions — and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

WEDNESDAY • MAY 27, 2015

Wednesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Sir 36:1-2, 5-6, 13-22; NRSVCE)

Have mercy upon us, O God of all,

and put all the nations in fear of you.

Then they will know, as we have known,

that there is no God but you, O Lord.

Give new signs, and work other wonders;

Gather all the tribes of Jacob,

and give them their inheritance, as at the beginning.

Have mercy, O Lord, on the people called by your name,

on Israel, whom you have named your firstborn,

Have pity on the city of your sanctuary,

Jerusalem, the place of your dwelling.

Fill Zion with your majesty,

and your temple with your glory.

Bear witness to those whom you created in the beginning,

and fulfill the prophecies spoken in your name.

Reward those who wait for you

and let your prophets be found trustworthy.

Hear, O Lord, the prayer of your servants, according to your goodwill toward your people,

and all who are on the earth will know

that you are the Lord, the God of the ages.

Gospel Reading (Mk 10:32-45; NRSVCE)

The disciples were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.”

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

THURSDAY • MAY 28, 2015

Thursday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Sir 42:15-25; NRSVCE)

I will now call to mind the works of the Lord,

and will declare what I have seen.

By the word of the Lord his works are made;

and all his creatures do his will.

The sun looks down on everything with its light,

and the work of the Lord is full of his glory.

The Lord has not empowered even his holy ones

to recount all his marvelous works,

which the Lord the Almighty has established

so that the universe may stand firm in his glory.

He searches out the abyss and the human heart;

he understands their innermost secrets.

For the Most High knows all that may be known;

he sees from of old the things that are to come.

He discloses what has been and what is to be,

and he reveals the traces of hidden things.

No thought escapes him,

and nothing is hidden from him.

He has set in order the splendors of his wisdom;

he is from all eternity one and the same.

Nothing can be added or taken away,

and he needs no one to be his counselor.

How desirable are all his works,

and how sparkling they are to see!

All these things live and remain forever;

each creature is preserved to meet a particular need.

All things come in pairs, one opposite the other,

and he has made nothing incomplete.

Each supplements the virtues of the other.

Who could ever tire of seeing his glory?

Gospel Reading (Mk 10:46-52; NRSVCE)

As Jesus and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

FRIDAY • MAY 29, 2015

Friday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Sir 44:1, 9-13; NRSVCE)

Let us now sing the praises of famous men,

our ancestors in their generations.

But of others there is no memory;

they have perished as though they had never existed;

they have become as though they had never been born,

they and their children after them.

But these also were godly men,

whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten;

their wealth will remain with their descendants,

and their inheritance with their children’s children.

Their descendants stand by the covenants;

their children also, for their sake.

Their offspring will continue forever,

and their glory will never be blotted out.

Gospel Reading (Mk 11:11-26; NRSVCE)

Then Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written,

‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’?

But you have made it a den of robbers.”

And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.

In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

“Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”

SATURDAY • MAY 30, 2015

Saturday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Sir 51:12c-20; NRSVCE)

I thank you and praise you,

and I bless the name of the Lord.

While I was still young, before I went on my travels,

I sought wisdom openly in my prayer.

Before the temple I asked for her,

and I will search for her until the end.

From the first blossom to the ripening grape

my heart delighted in her;

my foot walked on the straight path;

from my youth I followed her steps.

I inclined my ear a little and received her,

and I found for myself much instruction.

I made progress in her;

to him who gives wisdom I will give glory.

For I resolved to live according to wisdom,

and I was zealous for the good,

and I shall never be disappointed.

My soul grappled with wisdom,

and in my conduct I was strict;

I spread out my hands to the heavens,

and lamented my ignorance of her.

I directed my soul to her,

and in purity I found her.

Gospel Reading (Mk 11:27-33; NRSVCE)

Again Jesus and his disciples came to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him and said, “By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them?” Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin? Answer me.” They argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But shall we say, ‘Of human origin’?” as they were afraid of the crowd, for all regarded John as truly a prophet. So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”