VOLUME 1, ISSUE 29  •  JULY 18, 2015

Table of Contents

Copyright Notice

VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis tells sick children of Paraguay they are close to Jesus

Pope calls on Paraguay’s women to build the future

Vatican postpones criminal trial of ex-nuncio on pedophilia charges

Pope visits foundation for AIDS victims verbally attacked by gay rights activist

Happiness and pleasure are not synonyms, Pope Francis reminds Paraguay’s youth

Pope prays with Paraguay clergy, urges conformity to Christ

Pope to Paraguay’s poor: faith without solidarity is dead

Want to preach the Gospel effectively? Be welcoming, Pope says

Pope Francis off-the-cuff to young people: Don’t waste your lives

No controversy here – Pope sets record straight on family synod remarks

Pope calls ‘communist crucifix’ protest art, but says he wasn’t offended

Full text of Pope Francis’ in-flight interview from Paraguay to Rome

Vatican applauds Iran nuclear deal, calls for commitment to make it ‘bear fruit’

After a two-week vacation, Benedict XVI heads back to Rome

Slavery and climate – there’s more in common than you think, Vatican says

To fight human trafficking – one of Pope Francis’ core commitments

Heroic virtue of Ukrainian bishop who sheltered hundreds of Jews recognized

WORLD NEWS

Korean cardinal praises medics’ courage in face of MERS outbreak

Spectacular Paraguay altar destined to be broken down, recycled

With freedom for Catholic education uncertain, English diocese charts a path

Chilean administration open to approval of adoption by homosexual couples

Catholics in Singapore celebrate 50 years of nation’s independence

Franciscan priest abducted in Syria set free by captors

Catholics in Bologna mourn Cardinal Biffi, a humorous, plain-spoken preacher

‘It’s hard to think there was no complicity’ – Mexican bishop on ‘El Chapo’ escape

Byte-sized faith: Young priests launch new Catholic podcast

The ‘angel’ of Guatemala: 12-year-old chooses death over gang violence

Venezuela’s bishops caution against the adoption of no-fault divorce

This Jewish man survived Nazi Germany – now he’s rescuing Christians from ISIS

U.S. NEWS

Why a doctor who treats Iraq War veterans is opposed to DC’s assisted suicide bill

The cost of violence: 15 million Africans displaced, with little hope for the future

Here’s what would happen if America’s Catholic outreach disappeared

Disappointment follows ruling against Little Sisters in mandate case

Planned Parenthood under fire for alleged trafficking of baby organs

Even if it’s legal, it’s not OK – Congress responds to Planned Parenthood scandal

Archbishop to priests: Here’s how to not give bad homilies

What a proposed US bill on religious liberty would and would not protect

After deadly Chattanooga shooting, bishop rallies ‘shaken’ community to prayer

FEATURES

A prophetic Pope and the tradition of Catholic social teaching

Our Young People, Summer Time, and the Language Arts

Judd Apatow’s ‘Trainwreck’: does it glamorize or criticize sin?

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Sunday • July 19, 2015

Monday • July 20, 2015

Tuesday • July 21, 2015

Wednesday • July 22, 2015

Thursday • July 23, 2015

Friday • July 24, 2015

Saturday • July 25, 2015

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Volume 1, Issue 29 • July 18, 2015

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis tells sick children of Paraguay they are close to Jesus

by CNA/EWTN News • July 11, 2015

Pope Francis speaks with patients outside Asuncion’s Niños de Acosta Ñu pediatric hospital, July 11, 2015. (CTV)

Asunción, Paraguay — There is one way to annoy Jesus, Pope Francis said on Saturday: Keep the children from coming to him.

The Roman Pontiff was speaking July 11 as part a question and answer session with a group of children receiving treatment at the “Niños de Acosta Ñu” pediatric hospital in Asunción, the Paraguayan capital. The visit was the first stop on his first full day in the South American nation.

“Dear children, I want to ask you a question; maybe you can help me. They tell me that you are all very intelligent, and so I want to ask you: Did Jesus ever get annoyed?”

The Pope answered that the only time Mark’s Gospel records Christ being “annoyed” was the instance in which the disciples try to prevent the children from coming to him.

“We would say that he was really ‘ticked off’.”

“Do you get annoyed every now and then?” he asked. “Jesus felt that way when they wouldn’t let the children come to him. He was really mad. He loved children.”

The pediatric hospital was one of the stops on Pope Francis’ visit to Paraguay, the last country in his tri-nation visit to the continent of his birth from July 5-13. The journey has also included visits to Ecuador and Bolivia.

The Pope clarified that it was not that Christ didn’t like adults, but rather he was especially happy being in the company of children, and “being friends with them.”

More than this, however, Christ wanted children to be an example to others, telling his disciples that that “unless you become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

“The children kept coming to Jesus, and the adults kept trying to keep them away, but Jesus called them, embraced them and brought them forward, so that people us could learn to be like them.”

Pope Francis said Christ has the same message for us today.

“We need to learn from you,” he told the children. “We need to learn from your trust, your joy, and your tenderness. We need to learn from your ability to fight, from your strength, from your remarkable endurance.”

“Some of you are fighters. And when we look at young ‘warriors’ like you, we feel very proud,” he said.

“Looking at you gives us strength, it gives us the courage to trust, to keep moving forward.”

Pope Francis then turned to the parents and grandparents of the children receiving treatment at the hospital, and the “moments of great suffering and uncertainty” they experience.

“There are times of heartrending anguish but also moments of immense happiness. These two feelings often collide deep within us,” he said.

Despite these difficulties, there is support which comes from the community of families, doctors, and hospital staff.

“There is no better relief than your tender compassion, your closeness to one another. It makes me happy to know that as families you help, encourage and support each other, so that you can keep going in these difficult moments.”

The Roman Pontiff expressed his gratitude in particular to the doctors, nurses, and staff at the hospital.

“I thank them for their vocation of service, for helping not only to care for, but also to be there, for these young brothers and sisters of ours who suffer,” he said.

Pope Francis once again reminded those present of Christ’s closeness to children.

“He is very near, in our hearts. Never hesitate to pray to him, to talk to him, to share with him your questions and your pain. He is always with us, he is ever near and he will not let us fall.”

The Pope concluded by encouraging those present to turn to Mary.

“Wherever there is a son or daughter, there is always a mother. Wherever Jesus is, there is Mary, the Virgin of Caacupé,” he said.

“Let us ask her to wrap us in her mantle, to protect and intercede for you and for your families. And also, please don’t forget to pray for me. I am certain that your prayers are heard in heaven.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope calls on Paraguay’s women to build the future

by CNA/EWTN News • July 11, 2015

Pope Francis listens to the proclamation of the Gospel during the Mass said at the shrine of Our Lady of Caacupé, July 11, 2015. (EWTN)

Caacupé, Paraguay — Saying Mass at the Marian shrine of Caacupé on Saturday, Pope Francis reflected that it is the task of the “women, wives and mothers” of Paraguay to keep alive their nation’s faith and heritage.

The Roman Pontiff said July 11 at the shrine that they are the “keepers of the memory, the lifeblood of those who rebuilt the life, faith and dignity of your people.”

Centering his homily on the difficulties Mary faced after having said “yes” to God, the Pope told the women to consider the greeting of angel to Mary – “Rejoice, the Lord is with you” – as a call for them to follow.

These words, he said, “are a summons to cherish your memory, your roots, and the many signs which you have received as a people of believers tested by trials and struggles.”

These are “women, wives and mothers of Paraguay, who at great cost and sacrifice were able to lift up a country defeated, devastated and laid low by war,” the Roman Pontiff said.

The Pope’s remarks harken back to his words at the presidential palace in Asunción upon arriving in Paraguay Friday evening, making reference to the 1866-1870 war between Paraguayans and Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. The conflict claimed the lives of 90 percent of its population, and resulted in an 8-to-1 ratio of women to men.

“Then and now, you found the strength not to let this land lose its bearings. God bless your perseverance, God bless and encourage your faith, God bless the women of Paraguay, the most glorious women of America.”

“Yours is a faith which has become life, a life which has become hope, and a hope which leads to eminent charity,” he reflected.

The basilica where Pope Francis said Mass holds a small statue known as Our Lady of Caacupé, to which numerous miracles have been attributed since the 16th century.

Saturday’s Mass was one of the highlights of the Pope’s visit to Paraguay, the last country in his tri-nation visit to the continent of his birth from July 5-13. The journey has also included visits to Ecuador and Bolivia.

In his homily Pope Francis spoke of the importance of visiting shrines, as pilgrims bring their needs before Mary.

“We come to give thanks, to ask forgiveness and to begin again. How many baptisms, priestly and religious vocations, engagements and marriages, have been born at the feet of our Mother! How many tearful farewells! We come bringing our lives, because here we are at home and it is wonderful to know there is someone waiting for us.”

The Pope spoke in particular of the significance of the Caacupé shrine to the people of Paraguay.

“How can we forget that this shrine is a vital part of the Paraguayan people, of yourselves? You feel it, it shapes your prayers, and you sing: ‘Here, in your Eden of Caacupé, are your people, Virgin most pure, who offer you their love and their faith’.”

Pope Francis reflected on the Gospel passage from the Mass, in which Mary responds with a “yes” to the Angel Gabriel’s greeting, telling her to rejoice.

“Mary was confused and asked herself what it could mean. She did not fully understand what was happening. But she knew that the angel came from God and so she said yes. Mary is the Mother of Yes. Yes to God’s dream, yes to God’s care, yes to God’s will.”

Observing that Mary’s “yes” to the will of God would not easy, the Roman Pontiff said: “That is why we love her so much. We find in her a true Mother, one who helps us to keep faith and hope alive in the midst of complicated situations.”

Pope Francis reflected on three particular difficulties which Mary experienced in her life after having said “yes” to God.

The first of these, he said, was at the birth of Jesus, when Mary had to give birth in a stable, being unable to find room in an inn.

“Surely she remembered the words of the angel: ‘Rejoice, Mary, the Lord is with you’. She might well have asked herself: ‘Where is he now?’.”

The second difficulty the Pope highlighted was the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt in order to escape the persecution of King Herod.

“They had to depart and go to a foreign land. They were migrants, on account of the envy and greed of the King. There too she might well have asked: ‘What happened to all those things promised by the angel?’”

Finally, Pope Francis turned to Mary’s greatest suffering: Christ’s death on the Cross.

“There can be no more difficult experience for a mother than to witness the death of her child,” the Pope said. “It is heartrending. We see Mary there, at the foot of the cross, like every mother, strong, faithful, staying with her child even to his death, death on the cross. Then she encourages and supports the disciples.”

The Pope said when we look at Mary’s life, “we feel understood, we feel heard,” and are able to pray with her with a “common language,” and identify with the various situations of her life.

“Mary is the woman of faith; she is the Mother of the Church; she believed. Her life testifies that God does not deceive us, or abandon his people, even in moments or situations when it might seem that he is not there.”

Pope Francis recounted the various Gospel accounts in which Mary helped others: for instance, asking Christ to turn water into wine at the wedding of Cana, and taking care of her expectant cousin Elizabeth for several months.

“She is the Mother who has stood beside us in so many difficult situations,” he said.

The Pope turned again to the significance of the Shrine of Caacupé.

“This shrine preserves and treasures the memory of a people who know that Mary is their Mother, and that she has always been at the side of her children,” he said.

“She has always been part of the history of this country, making it a nation. Hers has been a discreet and silent presence, making itself felt through a statue, a holy card or a medal. Under the sign of the rosary, we know that we are never alone.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Vatican postpones criminal trial of ex-nuncio on pedophilia charges

by CNA/EWTN News • July 11, 2015

Józef Wesolowski, former apostolic nuncio to the Dominican Republic. (Walter Sánchez Silva/CNA)

Vatican City — The criminal court of Vatican City State held on Saturday the first hearing in the trial of Jozef Wesolowski, the laicized, former apostolic nuncio to the Dominican Republic, who is charged with possession of child pornography and for pedophile acts.

Vatican City’s promoter of justice, Gian Piero Milano, testified July 11 that Wesolowski was not present, as he had been taken to hospital, following an unexpected illness. Wesolowski, 66, is currently in an intensive care unit.

Because of the defendant’s hospitalization, the Vatican City State Tribunal suspended the trial and postponed it until Wesolowski is able to be present.

The promoter of justice is being assisted by Alessandro Diddi and Roberto Zannotti, and the defense counsel for Wesolowski is Antonello Blasi.

The judges in the trial are Giuseppe Dalla Torre, Piero Antonio Bonnet, Paolo Papanti-Pellettier, and, as a substitute, Venerando Marano.

In 2013, allegations arose that then-Archbishop Wesolowski had engaged in sexual misconduct. He resigned as apostolic nuncio to the Dominican Republic on Aug. 21 of that year. After the printing of the original accusations, a 13-year-old boy came forward with further allegations that Wesolowski had solicited him for sexual favors in exchange for money.

In a June 2014 canonical trial, the tribunal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith found him guilty of sexual abuse. As a result, Wesolowski was laicized, a serious canonical penalty that renders one unable to celebrate the sacraments.

Following the canonical trial, Vatican City decided to also hold a criminal trial of Wesolowski. Due to his poor health, in September he was placed under house arrest, rather than being jailed in Vatican City’s prison.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope visits foundation for AIDS victims verbally attacked by gay rights activist

by CNA/EWTN News • July 11, 2015

Pope Francis greets the faithful in Asuncion, Paraguay, July 11, 2015. (David Ramos/CNA)

Asunción, Paraguay — Pope Francis modified his schedule on Saturday, July 11, deciding to include this afternoon a visit to the Saint Rafael Foundation, which cares for patients with AIDS and cancer, and which was recently verbally attacked by Paraguay’s most prominent gay rights activist.

Simon Cazal, cofounder of the NGO Somosgay (WeAreGay) and principal lobbyist for the legalization of homosexual unions in Paraguay, said recently that Fr. Aldo Trento, director of the Saint Rafael Foundation, is “appalling” and “should die sooner rather than later”.

On a May 15 radio program Cazal added – without any further justification – that Fr. Trento withholds medication from patients, saying God will cure them. He also charged that the clinic is run as “a place where people go to die.”

Regarding his possible participation in the Pope’s meeting with representatives of Paraguayan civil society later this afternoon, Cazal said “it is not a priority” for the gay community “to assist the Pope.”

Cazal’s accusations and insults against Fr. Trento provoked a quick reaction from the local press. The journalist Juan Manuel Salinas, who knows and who has often interviewed the gay rights activist, called him a liar, adding that Fr. Trento “has served transvestites and prostitutes. There was even a transvestite who came to live at the Foundation, helping the priest in his work – a transvestite to whom many people, including his own family, had turned their backs.”

Fr. Aldo Trento also responded to the gay rights activist’s accusations, saying in a Youtube video that “I forgive (Cazal)” and noting that “the clinic is a very beautiful work and exists solely for the poor who normally who have terminal illness, both from AIDS and cancer, as well as other diseases”.

The Saint Rafael Foundation which the priest directs is not only a palliative care clinic, but also has a farm available for AIDS patients who have recovered, as well as three homes for abandoned children (one dedicated to adolescent victims of rape in their homes) and three homes for the elderly.

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VATICAN NEWS

Happiness and pleasure are not synonyms, Pope Francis reminds Paraguay’s youth

by CNA/EWTN News • July 11, 2015

Pope Francis speaks to representatives of Paraguayan society in Asuncion, July 11, 2015. (EWTN)

Asunción, Paraguay — Meeting Saturday afternoon with representatives of Paraguayan society, Pope Francis addressed young people in particular, telling them they must realize that happiness is a result of working to make a more fraternal world.

“Youth is a time of high ideals,” he said July 11 at Leon Condou stadium in Asuncion. “It is important that you, the young, realize that genuine happiness comes from working to make a more fraternal world!”

“It comes from realizing that happiness and pleasure are not synonymous. Happiness is demanding, it requires commitment and effort. You are too important to be satisfied with living life under a kind of anasthesia!”

While pleasure is fleeting, he said, “happiness is a dream that builds, that constructs.”

Before Pope Francis spoke, he was greeted by Bishop Adalberto Martinez Flores of the Paraguayan Military Ordinariate, who said that Paraguay “urgently needs to strengthen the social and moral fabric of the nation, and also to build and strengthen social peace.”

The Pope was then posed with five questions, from a young person; an indigenous person; a peasant woman; a businesswoman; and the national development minister.

The young person, a Catholic, noted Paraguay’s inequality, weak government institutions, high poverty rates, and corruption, and despite these, the country’s enjoyment of civil liberty, strengthening democracy, and strong youth. He asked what this juxtaposed situation meant for the reign of fraternity, justice, peace, and dignity, which the Pope had written about in his 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.

Pope Francis responded, noting the idealism of youth, and the large number of young people in Paraguay, calling it “a great source of enrichment for the nation … I think that the first thing to do is to make sure that all that energy, that light, does not grow dim in your hearts, and to resist the growing mentality which considers it useless and absurd to aspire to things that demand effort. Be committed to something, be committed to someone. Don’t be afraid to take a risk. Don’t be afraid to give the best of yourselves … don’t look out for the easy wicket, in order to avoid having to do real, hard work.”

“But don’t do this alone,” he cautioned. “Try to talk about these things among yourselves, profit from the lives, the stories and the wisdom of your elders, of your grandparents. ‘Waste’ lots of time listening to all the good things they have to teach you. They are the guardians of that spiritual legacy of faith and values which define a people and illumine its path. Find comfort, too, in the power of prayer, in Jesus. Keep praying to to him daily. He will not disappoint you.”

Christ, he said, “is the secret to keeping a joyful heart in your quest for fraternity, justice, peace and dignity for everyone … yes, God is the guarantee of the dignity of man.”

Fraternity, justice, peace, and dignity run the risk of “becoming mere words,” the Pope said. “But justice, peace, solidarity, are concrete things … they are to be worked on everyday. So I ask you, young people, work on these things, every day, even if you make mistakes. If you do, rectify them, and keep going.”

The Pope then turned to the indigenous person’s question, which regarded the role of dialogue in building up society. He affirmed that it is “not easy. There are many difficulties to be overcome, and sometimes it seems as if our efforts only make things even harder.”

True dialogue entails “serious commitment,” he reflected, lamenting that “there’s also such a thing as theatrical dialogue – we act, we play at dialogue, and then we forget. Just talking is useless.”

Dialogue, he said, “presupposes and demands a culture of encounter … which acknowledges that diversity is not only good, it is necessary.”

“So we cannot start off by thinking that the other person is wrong. The common good is sought by starting from our differences, constantly leaving room for new alternatives … discuss, think, and discover together a better solution for everybody. Many times this culture of encounter can involve conflict. This is logical and even desirable. It is not something we should be afraid of or ignore. Rather, we are called to resolve it.”

Pope Francis added that unity should not “cancel differences, but experience them in communion through solidarity and understanding. By trying to understand the thinking of others, their experiences, their hopes, we will be able to see more clearly our shared aspirations. This is the basis of encounter: all of us are brothers and sisters, children of the same heavenly Father, and each of us, with our respective cultures, languages and traditions, has much to contribute to the community.”

“True cultures are not closed in on themselves, but called to meet other cultures and to create new realities. Without this essential presupposition, without this basis of fraternity, it will be very difficult to arrive at dialogue. If someone thinks that there are persons, cultures, or situations which are second, third or fourth class … surely things will go badly, because the bare minimum, a recognition of the dignity of the other, is lacking.”

The third question regarded poverty and inclusion, and Pope Francis answered that “a fundamental part of helping the poor involves the way we see them.” He then discussed the problem of seeing the poor through an ideological lens: “ideologies always end badly, they are useless. Ideologies have a sick and evil, an incomplete relationship with peoples … sure, ideologues and those who subscribe to ideologies have good intentions, but they end up doing nothing, and ultimately caring nothing, for the people.”

“An ideological approach is useless: it ends up using the poor in the service of other political or personal interests. To really help them, the first thing is for us to be truly concerned for their persons, valuing them for their goodness. Valuing them, however, also means being ready to learn from them. The poor have much to teach us about humanity, goodness and sacrifice,” he said.

“As Christians, we have an additional reason to love and serve the poor; for in them we see the face and the flesh of Christ, who made himself poor so to enrich us with his poverty.”

He reflected that every country needs economic growth and the extension of this wealth to each citizen, adding that “the creation of this wealth must always be at the service of the common good, and not only for the benefit of a few … those charged with promoting economic development have the responsibility of ensuring that it will always have a human face. They have in their hands the possibility of providing employment for many persons and in this way of giving hope to many families.”

Recalling the tradition of Catholic social teaching, the Pope said that “work is a right and it bestows dignity. Putting bread on the table, putting a roof over the heads of one’s children, giving them health and an education – these are essential for human dignity, and business men and women, politicians, economists, must feel challenged in this regard. I ask them not to yield to an economic model which is idolatrous, which needs to sacrifice human lives on the altar of money and profit.”

“In economics, in business and in politics, what counts first and foremost is the human person and the environment in which he or she lives.”

He then discussed the Reductions, settlements for indigenous peoples which were first set up by Jesuit missionaries in Paraguay in the 17th century. He called the Reductions “among the most significant experiences of evangelization and social organization in history. There the Gospel was the soul and the life of communities which did not know hunger, unemployment, illiteracy or oppression.”

“This historical experience shows us that, today too, a more humane society is possible. Where there is love of people and a willingness to serve them, it is possible to create the conditions necessary for everyone to have access to basic goods, so that no one goes without.”

Pope Francis concluded saying that “it is a great pleasure to see the number and variety of associations sharing in the creation of an ever more prosperous Paraguay. I see you as a great symphony, each one with his or her own specificity and richness, yet all working together towards a harmonious end. That is what counts.”

He then spoke again of justice, and said that “another thing that takes away liberty and restricts a people’s ability to build a real society, is the cultural ill of blackmail, of corruption, of threat … without dialogue no one can go anywhere. And if there is blackmail, threat, tit for tat, then there will be stagnation, and the country won’t go anywhere.”

“Love your country, your fellow citizens, and, above all, love the poor,” he exhorted. “In this way, you will bear witness before the world that another model of development is possible.”

“I ask Our Lady of Caacupe?, our Mother, to watch over you and protect you, and to encourage you in all your efforts. God bless you.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope prays with Paraguay clergy, urges conformity to Christ

by CNA/EWTN News • July 11, 2015

Pope Francis delivers his homily during Vespers with Paraguay clergy and religious on July 11, 2015. (EWTN)

Asunción, Paraguay — Pope Francis reflected on the nature of Christian vocation on Saturday during a meeting with Paraguay’s clergy, religious and seminarians.

“A person called by God does not show off; he or she does not seek recognition or applause; he or she does not claim to be better than others, standing apart as if on a pedestal,” Pope Francis said.

He pointed to the example of Christ who, though he took on the form of God “did not regard equality with God something to be exploited.”

The Pope encouraged the crowd to also mimic Christ’s life of prayer. He said Jesus achieved perfection “with prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears”.”

“This too is part of our calling,” he said.

“Prayer is the reflection of our love for God, for others and for all creation,” Pope Francis said. “The commandment of love is the greatest way for the missionary disciple to be conformed to Jesus.”

The Pope said prayer puts faith into action; lifting the poor from the dust and turning dry and barren lands into fertile grounds. He said prayer also plays an irreplaceable role in the defense of human life from conception to natural death.

“We are those who fight, speak up and defend the dignity of every human life, from birth to old age, when our years are many and strength fails.”

Pope Francis made his comments Saturday while praying Vespers at the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption with Paraguay’s clergy, men and women religious, seminarians and Catholic movements.

“How good it is for all of us to pray Vespers together!” the Pope exclaimed. “How can we not dream of a Church which reflects and echoes the harmony of voices and song in her daily life!”

The Pope said liturgical prayer is an expression of the whole Church striving to conform to Christ, “the great Shepherd of sheep.”

“The beauty of the ecclesial community is born of this union of each of her members to the person of Jesus, creation an “ensemble of vocations” in the richness of harmonic diversity.”

He said Paraguay’s Metropolitan Cathedral, too, is symbolic of the Church at large.

“This Cathedral symbolizes the Church and each of us,” Francis said. “At times, storms from without and within force us to tear down what had been built and to begin again, but always with the hope given us by God.”

“When we look at this building, we can surely say that it has not disappointed the hopes of the Paraguayan people … because God never disappoints!”

Pope Francis then praised Paraguay’s clergy and religious for their collaboration in diocesan pastoral plans and mission. He encouraged them to continue down the path of dialogue and respect for varying vocations and charisms.

“If our divisions lead to barrenness, then there is no doubt that communion and harmony lead to fruitfulness because they are deeply attuned to the Holy Spirit,” the Pope said.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope to Paraguay’s poor: faith without solidarity is dead

by CNA/EWTN News • July 12, 2015

Pope Francis waves to the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the Wednesday General Audience on May 27, 2015. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Asunción, Paraguay — On his final day in South America Pope Francis visited the poorest neighborhood in Paraguay’s capitol, encouraging residents to practice solidarity, because without it one’s faith is either hypocritical or dead.

“Jesus didn’t have any problem with lowering, humbling himself unto death for each one of us out of this solidarity among brothers, this love that his Father had for each one of us,” the Pope said in off-the-cuff remarks July 12.

“Remember; when a faith doesn’t have solidarity, it’s weak, it’s ill or it’s dead. It’s not the faith of Jesus.”

He said that faith makes us aware of our commitment and solidarity, with others, which he said is “a human and Christian virtue that many, many, including ourselves, need to understand. A faith which does not draw us into solidarity is a faith which is dead, or which lies.”

The strongest witness their community can give is one of solidarity, he said, explaining that the devil will try to cause division, and if that happens “he breaks you and steals your faith. Solidarity among brothers and sisters. This solidarity is the message for the whole city.”

On the final day of his July 5-13 tour of South America Pope Francis stopped to visit the Bañado Norte neighborhood in Paraguay’s capital Asunciòn, where roughly 100,000 of the poorest of the poor live. Before coming to Paraguay, the Pope visited the nations of Ecuador and Bolivia.

Before giving his speech, the Pope heard testimonies from two residents, who spoke out against the abuse of human rights, the low economy and poor living conditions in the neighborhood.

Angélica Viveros, a member of Bañado Norte’s Saint Philip and James parish, told the Pope that “in the sickness, death, uncertainty, hunger and now the floods forcing thousands of families to abandon our home, we feel the strength, the protection and the closeness of God our Father and Mary our Mother.”

For them to be a part of the Church, she said, means “to feel and touch the suffering flesh of Jesus in the poor who live excluded, in the child on the street, in the Father of the family without work, in the women who are victims of violence, in the youth without horizons due to a lack of opportunity to study and work.”

She said that this is part of their prayers, as well as for residents to participate in fostering unity and solidarity so that everyone lives a dignified live, and they “stop being manipulated by political opportunists who exploit our needs.”

María García, another resident and coordinator of the “Organizations of the Bañados,” lamented how high land and housing prices, low incomes and destruction of indigenous habitats cause the forced displacement of many people and the shantytowns to grow.

The state, she said, “isn’t concerned about us and doesn’t look at us with good eyes. We are not see as subjects with rights, but we are, as we often say, their ‘social liability.’ We are a problem to be solved.”

For the state, she said, the problem is not their needs and wants, but it is “us, our very existence.”

She demanded a “genuine recognition” of being an inseparable part of humanity as a whole, and called for regularized land tenure at affordable costs, that they have the means to improve the land that they already have, and for the possibility of health care and a dignified education.

In his speech, Pope Francis told the residents of Bañado Norte to think about how Mary and Joseph were also left with nothing when they were forced to leave their homes, family and friends in order to a place where they had nothing and knew no one.

“That was when that young couple had Jesus. That was how they gave us Jesus. They were alone, in a strange land, just the three of them,” he said.

However, soon shepherds began to arrive, people just like them who had to leave their homes to find better opportunities for their families, the Pope observed, noting that their lives were also affected by both harsh weather many other hardships.

(But) when they heard that Jesus had been born, they went to see him. They became neighbors. In an instant, they became a family to Mary and Joseph. The family of Jesus.”

This is what happens when Jesus enters into our lives, Francis continued, explaining that faith brings us closer and makes us neighbors to each other. It also awakens a commitment of solidarity, he said.

“A faith which does not draw us into solidarity is a faith which is dead. It is a faith without Christ, a faith without God, a faith without brothers and sisters.”

The first to show this solidarity was Jesus Christ, he said, explaining that “God came in the midst of this people that he elected to accompany them, and he sent his son to this people to save them, to help them … Jesus had solidarity with this people.”

“When faith doesn’t have solidarity, it’s weak, it’s ill or it’s dead. It’s not the faith of Jesus.”

Pope Francis told residents that he, like the shepherds, wants to be their neighbor and to bless their faith and communities. He said that the faith which Jesus awakens in us is what allows us to dream about the future, and to work for it even in the present moment.

He encouraged them to be missionaries, and “to keep spreading the faith in these streets and alleys. Be neighbors above all to the young and the elderly. Be a support for young families and all families which are experiencing difficulty.”

Francis concluded his speech by commending each of the residents and their families to the care of the Holy Family, praying that the witness of Jesus, Mary and Joseph would be light for their path and an encouragement in times of difficulty.

“May the Holy Family always help us to be shepherds who can accompany, support and encourage our families,” he said, and asked the residents to keep him in their prayers.

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VATICAN NEWS

Want to preach the Gospel effectively? Be welcoming, Pope says

by CNA/EWTN News • July 12, 2015

Pope Francis delivers his homily at Ñu Guazú field in Paraguay, July 12, 2015. (EWTN)

Asunción, Paraguay — In the final homily of his trip to South America Pope Francis said that a key aspect of Christian spirituality and evangelization is to have a welcoming attitude toward others, especially those most in need.

“How many times do we see evangelization as involving any number of strategies, tactics, maneuvers, techniques, as if we could convert people on the basis of our own arguments?” the Pope asked at his July 12 Mass in Asuncion, Paraguay.

In the day’s Gospel, taken from Matthew, “the Lord says to us quite clearly: in the mentality of the Gospel, you do not convince people with arguments, strategies or tactics. You convince them by learning how to welcome them.”

Pope Francis celebrated Mass at the Campo Grande in the Nu Guazú park of Paraguay’s capitol, Asuncion, on the last day of his July 5-13 trip to South America. Before coming to Paraguay, the Pope visited the nations of Ecuador and Bolivia.

Standing in front of a large altar locals made out of rice and coconuts, Francis focused his homily on the day’s Gospel from Matthew, in which Jesus sends his disciples out two by two.

When Jesus commissions the disciples, he gives them very clear instructions to “take nothing for the journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money,” and “when you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place.”

All of these are challenges the Pope said could seem unrealistic, exaggerated and even “absurd,” however Jesus was very clear.

Out of all the words that stand out in Jesus’ command, such as bread, money, staff, sandals or tunic, one that can easily go unnoticed, and which sits at the heart of Christian spirituality, is to “welcome,” he said.

“Jesus as the good master, the good teacher, sends them out to be welcomed, to experience hospitality,” Francis said. Rather than going out as men with influence, dominance or officials with rules, the disciples are being shown by Jesus that “the Christian journey is about changing hearts.”

“It is about learning to live differently, under a different law, with different rules. It is about turning from the path of selfishness, conflict, division and superiority, and taking instead the path of life, generosity and love.”

“The Church is the home of hospitality,” he said, explaining that she is a mother who knows how to welcome and accept with an open heart, particularly those who are in greatest need.

“How much good we can do, if only we try to speak the language of hospitality, of welcome! How much pain can be soothed, how much despair can be allayed in a place where we feel at home! Welcoming the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the prisoner, the leper and the paralytic.”

Pope Francis also stressed the importance of welcoming those who don’t think the same as us, who do not have faith or who have lost it, as well as the persecuted, the unemployed and those in different cultures.

He also emphasized the need to welcome sinners, saying that often it’s easy to forget that evil lies at the root of out sin.

“There is a bitter root which causes damage, great damage, and silently destroys so many lives. There is an evil which, bit by bit, finds a place in our hearts and eats away at our life: it is isolation.”

Isolation can have many different roots, the Pope observed, explaining that it does a lot of harm and “makes us turn our back on others, God, the community. It makes us closed in on ourselves.”

This, he said, is why the true work of the Church, as a mother, is not mainly to managing various projects, “but to learn how to live in fraternity with others.”

By living this way Jesus teaches us a have a new mentality, and opens up new horizons filled with truth, beauty, life and fulfillment.

“God never closes off horizons; he is never unconcerned about the lives and sufferings of his children. God never allows himself to be outdone in generosity,” the Pope continued.

Jesus, who is sent by the Father, provides a new horizon which sheds light on so many situations of exclusion, disintegration, loneliness and isolation, Francis said, explaining that Jesus ”is the Word which breaks the silence of loneliness.”

Although we can’t force anyone to welcome or accept us, neither can anyone force us from welcoming or being hospitable to others, he continued.

“No one can tell us not to accept and embrace the lives of our brothers and sisters, especially those who have lost hope and zest for life,” he said, and encouraged, communities, chapels to be “true centers of encounter between ourselves and God,” wherever there are Christians.

Pope Francis concluded his homily by noting that like the Church, Mary is also a mother and a model.

Just as Mary provided a home for Jesus in her womb, “we too must provide a home, like the earth, which does not choke the seed, but receives it, nourishes it and makes it grow.”

After closing his homily, Pope Francis led attendees in reciting the traditional Marian prayer of Angelus.

In his brief address, the Pope said that Mary is the “gift that Jesus gives to his people,” at that she was first given to us by Jesus at moment of his suffering on the cross.

“She is the fruit of Christ’s sacrifice for us. And from that moment, Mary has always been, and will always be, with her children, especially the poor and those most in need,” he said.

“Mary has become part of the tapestry of human history, of our lands and peoples, he said, noting that as in many other Latin American countries, the faith of Paraguay’s people is “imbued” with love of the Virgin Mary.

Whenever her children approach her with trust, open their hearts and entrust to her their joys and sorrows, their aspirations and sufferings to her, Mary “consoles them and with tender love fills them with hope,” Francis observed.

He prayed that Mary would watch over and strengthen the Church in mutual and fraternal love, so that “the Church be a home for all, a welcoming home, a mother for all peoples.”

Pope Francis concluded his Angelus address by asking for prayers, saying “I know how much the Pope is loved in Paraguay. I also keep you in my heart and I pray for you and your country.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis off-the-cuff to young people: Don’t waste your lives

by CNA/EWTN News • July 12, 2015

Pope Francis arriving in St. Peter’s Square for the Wednesday general audience on June 17, 2015. (Joseph Pota/CNA)

Asunción, Paraguay — Pope Francis tossed aside his prepared remarks in a talk to thousands of Paraguay’s young people – urging the crowd to go against the cultural current and to live for Jesus with a “free heart.”

“I wrote a speech for you, but prepared speeches are boring,” the Pope said as cheers erupted from the scores of young people who packed the “costanera” or beach front of the Paraguay river in Asuncion.

The inland nation is the last of the three stops on the Pope’s trip to South America. He visited Ecuador July 5-8 and spent a few days in Bolivia before heading to Paraguay on July 10 to finish his visit.

“We don’t need young people who waste their lives,” he said enthusiastically. “We need young people with hope! Because they know Jesus and they have a free heart.”

The idea of a liberated heart was central to the Pope’s address.

“Liberty is a gift that God gives us, but we must know how to receive it. We must have a free heart,” he said.

“Hunger, drug addiction, sadness: all of these things take our freedom from us,” he lamented, leading the young people present in praying for a transformed heart.

“Lord Jesus, give me a free heart that is not a slave to any evil in the world, that is not a slave to the community, that is not a slave to a comfortable life, that is not a slave of vice, that is not a slave to a false liberty that is the desire to do whatever we want, whenever we want to do it,” he prayed.

Much of the Pope’s off-the-cuff remarks came in response to the stories shared by young people present at the event.

One young woman, Liz, offered her testimony of caring for her mother, who has dementia and believes herself to be her daughter’s child.

The Pope noted that Liz, while saddened by the sickness of her mother, drew strength from her aunt and a community of young people.

“This is what we mean by solidarity,” he said.

Pope Francis also responded to the testimony of Manuel, who described growing up in poverty and being taken to the city, where he was exploited and beaten as a worker, fell into the trap of addiction, and eventually found support in a parish group.

Manuel’s life was not easy, the Holy Father said. “But instead of taking the wrong path, he went to work. He didn’t try to steal, even in his conditions. He is trying to go forward.”

Like Liz and Manuel, he continued, we can all draw strength and hope from knowing Christ. He encouraged gratitude among those who live comfortably, with the opportunity to eat every day and pursue studies.

“If your life is easy, there are others for whom it is not easy,” he said, reminding them to reach out and say to their struggling brothers and sisters, “We are here. We are with you. We want to give you hope.”

Pope Francis concluded with a call for the young people to “go against the current” and follow the path of Christ, not being afraid to dream big and “make a mess.”

“Keep making noise,” he said.

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VATICAN NEWS

No controversy here – Pope sets record straight on family synod remarks

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • July 13, 2015

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

Vatican City — During a press briefing on the return flight from South America, Pope Francis clarified that his call for prayer ahead of the upcoming Synod on the Family referred to today’s family crisis generally – not, as some media have sources speculated, to “any point in particular.”

“The family is in crisis, you know,” the pontiff told journalists in reference to remarks made near the beginning of his week-long voyage to the continent of his birth, stressing that he was speaking about this crisis “in general.”

The Pope explained his words were a call for prayer “that the Lord would purify us from the crises” among families, such as are described in the Instrumentum Laboris – or “working document” – for October’s Synod.

“The family is in crisis: May the Lord purify us, and let’s move forward!” he said.

Sunday’s wide-ranging press briefing on the papal plan en route to Rome came at the conclusion of Pope Francis’ July 5-13 trip to Ecuador, Bolivia, and Paraguay.

The journalist’s question about the Synod on the Family was in reference to the pontiff’s July 6 Mass, the first major event of his visit to Ecuador, in which he prayed for Christ to turn what seems “impure, scandalous or threatening” about the Synod into a “miracle.”

In the same homily, the Pope said the Synod would examine “concrete solutions to the many difficult and significant challenges facing families.”

Some media outlets have interpreted these remarks as heralding changes in the Church’s teaching on family issues. These speculations include a more “welcoming” approach to gay couples, and the allowance for divorced and remarried couples to receive the sacraments.

However, during the July 12 press briefing Pope Francis explained the context of his remarks were in reference to the Gospel account of the wedding feast of Cana, in which Jesus performed the miracle of turning water into “fine wine” at the request of his mother.

The pontiff said he was showing how Jesus had the power to turn the “dirty” water of purification into the finest wine.

“The jugs of water were full, but they were for the purification,” Pope Francis said. “Every person who entered for the celebration performed his purification and left his ‘spiritual dirt.’ It was a rite of purification before entering into a house or the temple, no? Now we have this in the holy water - that is what has remained of the Jewish rite.”

“I said that precisely Jesus makes the best wine from the dirty water - the worst water. In general, I thought of making this comment.”

This year’s Synod on the Family, to be held on Oct. 4-25, will be the second and larger of two such gatherings to take place in the course of a year. Like its 2014 precursor, the focus of the 2015 Synod of Bishops will be the family, this time with the theme: “The vocation and mission of the family in the Church and the modern world.”

The 2014 meeting became the subject of widespread media attention, largely owing to proposals by a small number of prelates to rethink the Church’s practice regarding the admission to Holy Communion for divorced persons who have remarried without obtaining an annulment.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope calls ‘communist crucifix’ protest art, but says he wasn’t offended

by CNA/EWTN News • July 13, 2015

Bolivian president Evo Morales presents Pope Francis with a ‘communist crucifix’ at the presidential palace in La Paz, July 8, 2015. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — Responding to waves of controversy after receiving a “communist crucifix” – a carving of Christ crucified on a hammer and sickle – from Bolivian president Evo Morales, Pope Francis said he took no offense, but understands the work as “protest art.”

“I would qualify it as protest art, which in some cases can be offensive,” the Pope said during an in-flight news conference on his July 12 overnight flight from Paraguay to Rome.

But given the context of this piece of art, he added that he understands the idea behind the crucifix, and “for me it wasn’t an offense.”

He recalled an exhibition in Buenos Aires several years ago in which an Argentinian artist he described as “a good sculptor, creative,” and who is now deceased, made a similar piece depicting a crucified Christ on an airplane.

“It was protest art, and I recall one, it was a crucified Christ on a bomber (airplane) that was falling down, no? It’s Christianity, but a criticism that let’s say Christianity allied with imperialism which is the bomber.”

The crucifix, which the Pope revealed was traveling with him back to Rome, was given to him by leftist Bolivian Evo Morales on Thursday, sparking controversy.

The cross with a hammer and sickle is a reproduction of another carved during the 1970s by Fr. Luis Espinal Camps, a Spanish Jesuit who was a missionary in Bolivia who was killed in 1980 during the Bolivian dictatorship.

The Pope’s reaction after receiving the crucifix has been a source of debate since the audio of the video is marred due to the clicking of journalists’ cameras.

Francis said that he had been unaware that Fr. Espinal, in addition to his work as a journalist, was also a sculptor and a poet.

He noted that during his life, Fr. Espinal had sympathies with the Marxist interpretation of Liberation Theology, which at that time was widely popular in South America.

It was criticized both within the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), to which both Pope Francis and Fr. Espinal belong, in 1980, and later in by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in their first declaration on Liberation Theology, in 1984.

Taking a “hermeneutic” approach to the crucifix – one that involves an interpretive act of understanding with an emphasis on dialogue – the Pope made an analysis of the times, saying that Fr. Espinal “was an enthusiast of this analysis of the Marxist reality, but also of theology using Marxism.”

It was from this perspective that Espinal created the work, he said, noting that the priest’s poetry was also “of this kind of protest.”

“But, it was his life, it was his thought. He was a special man, with so much human geniality, who fought in good faith, no?”

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VATICAN NEWS

Full text of Pope Francis’ in-flight interview from Paraguay to Rome

by CNA/EWTN News • July 13, 2015

Pope Francis arrives at the Quito airport in Ecuador during his South America trip on July 5, 2015. (L’Osservatore Romano/CNA)

Aboard the papal plane — In the course of his 64 minute in-flight press conference while en route to Rome, Pope Francis answered questions ranging from politics, his upcoming trip to the Unites States, and his feelings about taking selfies.

The Pope responded in Italian to 14 questions posed by journalists during his July 12 overnight flight from Asuncion to Rome.

Paraguay was the last of the three stops on the Pope’s trip to South America. He visited Ecuador July 5-8 and spent a few days in Bolivia before heading to Paraguay on July 10 to finish his visit.

Please read below the full text of the Pope’s in-flight interview:

Fr. Federico Lombardi: The Holy Father has said that he can give us an hour of his time and no more. So, know that this is the limit. We’ll move forward to that limit and then at a certain point, we’ll finish. Now, for the first question, let’s give the floor to Anibal Velazquez from Paraguay, unless you want to say something to us first.

Pope Francis: Good evening to everyone and thanks for the work you’ve done. It was tiring for you. Thanks!

Anibal Velazquez: Hello, Holiness. Anibal Velazquez of Paraguay. We thank you for elevating the shrine of our Lady of Caacupe to a basilica, but the people of Paraguay ask: Why don’t we have a cardinal? What is the sin of Paraguay that we don’t have a cardinal? Is it far off for us to have a cardinal?

Pope Francis: Well, not having a cardinal isn’t a sin. Most countries in the world don’t have a cardinal – the majority. The nationality of the cardinals, I don’t remember them, how many there are, but they are a minority compared to the whole.

It’s true, Paraguay has never had a cardinal up until now, but I wouldn’t be able to give you a reason. Sometimes an evaluation is made, the files are studied one by one, you see the person, the charisma, especially, of the cardinal that will have to advise and assist the Pope in the universal government of the Church. The cardinal, though he belongs to a particular Church, is incardinated to the Church of Rome, and needs to have a universal vision. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t a bishop in Paraguay who has it. But you always have to elect up to a number, you can’t have more than a limit of 120 cardinal electors, so it will be for that.

Bolivia has had two. Uruguay has had two. Antonio Maria Barbieri (editor’s note: he served as Archbishop of Montevideo 1940-1976 and was created cardinal in 1958) and the current one (editor’s note: Fernando Sturla). And other Latin American countries … some Central American countries haven’t had one either. I don’t remember well, but it’s no sin, and it depends on the circumstances and the people, the charisma to be incardinated. This doesn’t represent an insult, or that the Paraguayan bishops have no value. There are some that are great. The two [inaudible] made history in Paraguay. Why weren’t they made cardinals? Because there wasn’t an opportunity. It’s not a promotion, certainly. I ask another question: Does Paraguay deserve a cardinal, if we look at the Church of Paraguay? I’d say that yes, they deserve two. It doesn’t have anything to do with its merits. It’s a lively Church, a joyful Church, a fighting Church with a glorious history.

Fr. Federico Lombardi: Thanks a million. And now we give the floor, a single question they tell me, to our two colleagues from Bolivia who are Priscilla and Cecilia, who are here.

Priscilla Quiroga Sarmiento (Cadena “A” Red Nacional): Holiness, please, we would like to know your criteria on if you consider the yearning of the Bolivians just to have sovereign access to the sea, to return to having a sovereign access to the Pacific.

Cecilia Dorado Nava, (El Deber): And, Holiness, in the case that Chile and Bolivia asked for your mediation, would you accept?

Pope Francis: Answering the question, the issue of mediation is a very delicate one. And, it would be a last step. It’s to say that Argentina lived that with Chile, and it was truly to stop a war, a very extreme situation, and (it was) dealt with very well by those appointed by the Holy See, behind whom was always John Paul II, being interested, and with the good will of the two countries which said “let’s see if this works out.”

It’s curious, there was, at least in Argentina, a group that never wanted this mediation, and when the president (Raul) Alfonsin called for a plebiscite to see if the proposal for a mediation would be accepted, obviously the majority of the country said “yes,” but there was a group that resisted, that always resisted.

In the case of mediation, hardly ever is a whole country in agreement. But it’s the final resort, there are other diplomatic tools that can help in this case, facilitators, et cetera.

At this point, I have to be very respectful about this because Bolivia has made an appeal to an international court. So right now if I make a comment, as a head of state, it could be interpreted as me trying to mingle in the sovereignty of another state and as disrespectful of the decision of the Bolivian people who made this appeal. Isn’t that right?

I also know that there have been previous instances of wanting to dialogue. I don’t remember well. I was told once something like that: once they were very close to a solution. It was in the times of president Lagos, Chilean president Lagos, but I say it without having exact details. It was a comment made to me by Cardinal Errazuriz, but I don’t want to say something foolish about this.

But there’s something I want to make very clear: I, in the Cathedral of Bolivia, touched on this issue in a very delicate way, taking into consideration the situation of the appeal to the international court. I remember the context perfectly – brothers have to dialogue, the Latin American peoples to have dialogue. In order to create the Great Homeland, dialogue is necessary. I stopped, made a silence, and said, “I’m thinking of the sea,” and then I continued, “dialogue and dialogue.” I think it was clear that my intervention was referring to this problem, though respecting the situation as it’s presented now.

It’s in an international tribunal, one can’t speak of mediation or facilitation. We have to wait for that.

[Inaudible follow-up question from Bolivian journalists]

Pope Francis: There’s always a base of justice when there’s a change in the territorial borders, particularly after a war. So, there’s a continuous revision of this. I’d say that it’s not unfair to present something like this, this desire. I remember that in the year 1960, no, 1961, during my first year of philosophy, we were passed along a documentary about Bolivia, from a Father who had come from Bolivia. I believe it was called ‘The Twelve Stars’. How many provinces has Bolivia?

Dorado Nava: Nine departments.

Pope Francis: So it was called ‘The Ten Stars’. And it presented each one of the nine departments, and at the end, the tenth department, and you saw the sea without any word. That remained in my mind, so it’s visible that there’s a desire. After a war of this kind, losses come up and I believe it’s important: first dialogue, the healthy negotiation. But at this point dialogue is stopped because of this appeal to The Hague.

Fr. Federico Lombardi: A thousand thanks, Holiness. Now, we give the floor to Freddy Paredes of Ecuador.

Freddy Paredes (Caceres, Teleamazonas): Holiness, good evening. Many thanks. Ecuador was convulsed before your visit, and after you left the country those who oppose the government went back to the streets. It would seem that they would like to use your presence in Ecuador politically, especially because of the phrase you used, “the people of Ecuador has stood up with dignity.” I would like to ask you, if it’s possible, what do you mean by this? Do you sympathize in President Correa’s political project? Do you believe that the general recommendations you’ve made during your visit to Ecuador, that look to improve development, dialogue, the construction of a democracy in the hopes of leaving behind the throw away culture, as you call it, is already practiced in Ecuador?

Pope Francis: Evidently, I know there were some political problems and strikes. I know that. I don’t know the complications of politics of Ecuador. It would be obnoxious of me to give an opinion. Afterward, they told me that there was a type of parenthesis during my visit, for which I’m thankful, because it’s the gesture of a people on their feet, a certain respect for the visit of a Pope. I’m thankful for and value this. But if things resume, obviously, the problems of political debates … and concerning the phrase you talk about: I refer to the greater consciousness the people of Ecuador has been gaining, it’s courage … There was a border war with Peru not long ago, so there’s a history of war. Then, there’s been a greater awareness of Ecuador’s variety of ethnic diversity, and this gives dignity. Ecuador isn’t a country of throwing away, so it refers to the people as a whole and to all of the dignity of that people who after the border war stood up and once again took more consciousness of its dignity and the wealth it has in its diversity and variety, so it cannot be attributed to one concrete political situation, from one sign or another because that same phrase, someone told me, I didn’t see it, was used to explain both situations.

That Ecuador stood up or that those contrary to the government … One sentence can be manipulated, and I believe that in this we must be very careful. And I thank you for your question because it’s a way to be careful. You’re giving an example of being careful.

And if you allow me, and no one asked me this, but I give you five extra minutes more as a concession, if we need them. In your job, the hermeneutics of a text is very important. A text can’t be interpreted only in one sentence. The hermeneutic has to be applied to the entire context. There are phrases that are exactly the keys to the hermeneutic, and others that aren’t, that are spoken “by the way” or “plasticas.” So, in all of the context, looking at the situation. So looking at the history, so being the history from that moment or if we’re looking at the past we need to interpret an event with the hermeneutic of that time. I don’t know, for instance the crusades – let’s interpret the crusades with a hermeneutic of how they thought in that time, no? It’s key to interpret a speech, any text, with a comprehensive hermeneutic, not isolated. Forgive me, I don’t want to play the “plum teacher” (editor’s note: ‘maestro ciruela;’ Argentine idiom that refers to the teacher who is constantly giving lecturing rants), but I say this to help you.

Now, shall we move on to Guarani?

Fr. Federico Lombardi: Now we give the floor to Stefania Falasca of Avvenire for the Italian group and we await the response in Guarani. In the meantime, Anna Matranga, is getting prepared for the English group.

Stefania Falasca, (Avvenire): So, we thought this: you, in the speech you gave in Bolivia to the popular movements, you spoke of the new colonialism and of the idolatry of money that the economy subdues and of the imposition of methods of austerity that always adjust the “pocket,” the “belt” of the poor. Now this week in Europe, we have this case of Greece and the destiny of Greece, which risks leaving the European currency. What do you think about what is happening in Greece and how it concerns all of Europe?

Pope Francis: First of all, why this intervention of mine at the conference of the popular movements? It was the second one. The first was held in the Vatican, in the old synod hall. There were more or less 120 people. It is something that (the Pontifical Council of) Justice and Peace organizes, but I am close to this because it is a phenomenon in the whole world, in the whole world, also in the East, in the Philippines, in India, in Thailand. These are movements that organize among themselves, not just to protest but to move forward, to be able to live, and they are movements that have strength. These people, and there are many, many of them, don’t feel represented by the unions because they say that unions now are a corporation and they do not struggle – I am simplifying a bit – but the idea of many people is that they don’t fight for the rights of poorest. The Church cannot be indifferent. The Church has a social doctrine, and dialogues with these movements, and dialogues well. You saw it. You saw the enthusiasm of feeling that the Church is not far from us, the Church has a doctrine that helps us in the struggle with this. It is a dialogue. It is not that the Church has an option for the anarchic way. No, they not anarchists. They work. They try do many jobs, even connected with waste, the things that are left behind. They are real workers. That is the first thing, the importance of this.

Then, the other. Tell me.

(Inaudible, clarifying question).

Pope Francis: On Greece and the international system, I have a great allergy to economic things, because my father was an accountant and when he did not manage to finish his work at the factory, he brought the work home on Saturday and Sunday, with those books in those day where the titles were written in gothic. When I saw my father I had a great allergy and I didn’t understand it very well. Certainly, it would be all too simple to say that the fault is only on one side. If the Greek government has brought forward this situation of international debt, also they have a responsibility. With the new Greek government we see a revision and it’s a bit right … I hope that they find a way to resolve the Greek problem and also a way to have oversight so that the same problem will not fall on other countries. And this will help us move forward because that road of loans and debts, in the end, it never ends. They told me something about a year and a half ago but it is something that I heard, I don’t know if it’s true, that there was a project at the U.N. – if any of you know anything about it, it would be good if you could explain it – there was a project whereby a country could declare itself bankrupt, which is not the same as default. It is a project, they told me, that was in the United Nations. I don’t know how it ended it up or whether it was true or not … I am just using it to illustrate something that I heard. But, if a company can declare bankruptcy why can’t a country do it and we go to the aid of others? And, this is one of the foundations of the project, but I can’t say anything more about this.

And then the new colonizations. Evidently, all of them are about values. It’s the colonization of consumerism. The habit of consumerism was a product of colonization. It’s the habit, no? It brings about a habit that is not yours and it even causes disequilibrium in the personality; consumerism causes disequilibrium the internal economy and social justice and even physical and mental health, just to give an example.

Fr. Federico Lombardi: Now, Anna Matranga, if you can take a seat here.

Anna Matranga, (CBS News): Your Holiness, one of the strongest messages of this trip was that the global economic system often imposes a profit mentality at any cost, to the detriment of the poor. This is perceived by Americans as a direct criticism of their system and their way of life. How do you respond to this perception, and what is your evaluation of the impact of the United States in the world?

Pope Francis: What I said, that phrase, it’s not new. I said in Evangelii Gaudium. This economy kills. I remember that phrase well. It had a context. And I said it in Laudato Si’. It’s not a new thing, this is known. I cannot say … I heard that there were some criticisms from the United States. I heard about it, but I haven’t read about it, I haven’t had the time to study this well, because every criticism must be received, studied, and then dialogue must be ensue. You ask me what I think. If I have not had a dialogue with those who criticize, I don’t have the right to state an opinion, isolated from dialogue, no? This is what comes to mind.

Matranga: But now you are going to the U.S.

Pope Francis: Yes, I will go.

Matranga: Now you will go the United States. You must have an idea how it will be, you must have some thoughts about the nation.

Pope Francis: No, I have to begin to study now. Until now I studied these three beautiful countries [Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay]. Such richness, such beauty … Now I must begin to study Cuba, I will go for two and a half days. And then the United States. The three cities, the east. I cannot go to the west because … Washington, New York, Philadelphia, no? Yes, I must begin studying these criticisms, no? And then dialogue a bit with this.

Fr. Federico Lombardi: Now we give the floor to Aura Miguel from the Portuguese, whom you know well.

Aura Vistas Miguel, (Radio Renascenca): Well, there’s no group. It’s just me from Portugal. (laughing) Holiness, what did you think when you saw the hammer and sickle with Christ on it? And where did this object end up? What did you think when you saw the hammer and sickle with the Christ on it, given to you by Evo Morales? And where did this object end up?

Pope Francis: Ah, yes, truly. I heard ‘mantello’ (editor’s note: mantle, cloak: ‘mantello’ is similar to ‘martello,’ the Italian for hammer, that’s why the Pope needed the question repeated), and I didn’t understand. It’s curious, I didn’t know this, nor did I know that Fr. Espinal was a sculptor and also a poet. I learned this in these days. I saw it and for me it was a surprise. Secondly, you can qualify it in the genre of “protest art” – for example in Buenos Aires, some years ago, there was an exhibit of a good sculptor, creative, Argentine, who is now dead. It was protest art, and I recall one, it was a crucified Christ on a bomber that was falling down, no? It’s Christianity, but a criticism that, let’s say, Christianity allied with imperialism, which is the bomber. The genre that first I didn’t know, and secondly, I would qualify it as protest art, which in some cases can be offensive, in some cases. Thirdly, in this concrete case, Fr Espinal was killed in 1980. It was a time when liberation theology had many different branches. One of the branches was with Marxist analysis of reality. Fr Espinal belonged to this, this. Yes, I knew because I was in those years rector of the theology faculty and we talked a lot about it, about the different branches and who were the representatives, no? In the same year, the general of the Society (of Jesus), Fr. Arrupe, wrote a letter to the whole Society on the Marxist analysis of reality in theology. Stopping on this point saying, “it’s no good, these are different things, it’s not right, it’s not correct.” And, four years later in 1984, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published the first small volume, the first declaration on liberation theology that criticizes this. Then comes the second, which opens to a more Christian perspective. I’m simplifying, no? Let’s do the hermeneutic of that time: Espinal was an enthusiast of this Marxist analysis of the reality, but also of theology using Marxism. From this, he came up with this work. Also the poetry of Espinal was of this kind of protest. But, it was his life, it was his thought. He was a special man, with so much human geniality, who fought in good faith, no? Making a hermeneutic like this, I understand this work. For me it wasn’t an offense, but I had to do this hermeneutic, and I say it to you so that there aren’t any wrong opinions.

Vistas: Did you leave it there?

Pope Francis: No, it’s traveling with me. Maybe you heard that President Morales wished to give me two honors, the most important of Bolivia (editor’s note: the Condor of Andes) and the other of the Order of Fr. Espinal, a new order (editor’s note: the Senate of Bolivia approved it June 30). If I … first, I’ve never accepted honors. I don’t do it. But, he did it with so much good will and with so much pleasure to please me. And, I thought that this comes from the people of Bolivia. So I prayed about it, what I should do. (I thought,) If I bring it to the Vatican it’ll go to the museum and end up there and no one … I thought about leaving it with Our Lady of Copacabana, the Mother of Bolivia, which will go to the sanctuary. The two honors will be in the Shrine of Our Lady of Copacabana, the Madonna, while the Christ is coming with me. Thanks.

Fr. Federico Lombardi: Now we give the floor to Anais Feuga from the French group.

Anais Feuga, (Radio France): Good evening. During the Mass in Guayaquil, you said that the synod needed to help a true discernment to mature to find concrete solutions to the difficulties of the family, and then you’ve asked the people to pray so that what seems to be impure, scandalous, or scary, that God may transform it into a miracle. Can you explain to us what impure, scary or scandalous situations you were referring?

Pope Francis: Here, too, I will do some ‘hermeneutics’ of the text. I was speaking of the miracle of the fine wine. I said the jugs, the jugs of water were full, but they were for the purification. Every person who entered for the celebration performed his purification and left his “spiritual dirt”. It was a rite of purification before entering into a house or the temple, no? Now we have this in the holy water – that is what has remained of the Jewish rite.

I said that precisely Jesus makes the best wine from dirty water – the worst water. In general, I thought of making this comment.

But, the family is in crisis, you know. We all know it. It’s enough to read the “Instrumentum Laboris” (editor’s note: the “working document” for October’s Synod) – which you know well because it was presented to you – and there – I was referring to all of that, in general. That the Lord would purify us from the crises of so many things that are described in that book of the “Instrumentum Laboris.” But it was in general – I wasn’t thinking of any point in particular. That he would make us better, families that are more mature, better. The family is in crisis, may the Lord purify us, and let’s move forward. But the specifics of this crisis are all in the Instrumentum Laboris of the Synod that is finished and you have it.

Fr. Federico Lombardi: Now we pass the floor to Javier Martinez Brocal from the Spanish group, from Rome Reports.

Javier Martinez Brocal, (Rome Reports): Holiness, thank you so much for this dialogue which helps us so much personally, and also our work. I pose this question in the name of all of the Spanish language journalists: Seeing how well the mediation went between Cuba and the U.S., do you think it would it be possible to do something similar between other delicate situations in other countries on the Latin American continent? I’m thinking of Colombia and Venezuela. Also, out of curiosity, I have a father who is a few years younger than you and has half your energy. We’ve seen it on this trip and in these two-and-a-half years. What is your secret?

Pope Francis: ‘What is your drug?’ is what he wants to ask. That’s the question!

The process between Cuba and the United States was not a mediation. No, no, no, it did not have the character of a mediation. There was a desire that had arrived, then on the other side also a desire. And then – and in this I’m telling the truth – there passed – this was in January of last year – three months went by, and I only prayed over this. I didn’t decide to do anything, what could I do with these two who have been going on like this for more than 50 years. Then the Lord made me think of a cardinal, and he went there and talked. Then I didn’t know anything; months went by. One day the secretary of state, who is here, told me, “Tomorrow we will have the second meeting with the two teams.” How’s that? “Yes, yes, they are talking, between the two groups they are all talking, they are making …” It went by itself. It was not a mediation. It was the goodwill of the two countries, and the merit is theirs, the merit is theirs for doing this. We did hardly anything, only small things. And in December, mid-December, it was announced. This is the story, truly, there is no more to it.

Right now, I am concerned that the peace process in Colombia not halt. I must say so, and I hope that this process goes ahead. In this sense, we are always disposed to help, we have so many ways to help. It would be an ugly thing if it couldn’t go ahead. In Venezuela, the bishops’ conference is working to make a little bit of peace there, too. But there is no mediation, what you asked about. In the case of the United States, it was the Lord, and then two things maybe by chance, and then it went on. In Colombia, I have hoped and prayed, and we must pray, that this process does not stop. It is a process that has gone on for more than 50 years, too. How many dead? I’ve heard millions. And then, about Venezuela, I don’t know anything.

(Inaudible follow up).

Pope Francis: The drug! Well, mate helps me but I didn’t try the coca (tea). This is clear, eh!

Fr. Federico Lombardi: Good, now Ludwig Ring-Eifel, so we also have a representative of the German group. And then, if we still have time, there would be Vania di Luca.

Ludwig Ring-Eifel, (CIC): Holy Father, on this trip, we’ve heard so many strong messages for the poor, also many strong, at times severe, messages for the rich and powerful, but something we’ve heard very little was a message for the middle class – that is, people who work, people who pay their taxes, “normal people.” My question is why in the magisterium of the Holy Father are there so few messages on the middle class. If there were such a message, what would it be?

Pope Francis: Thank you so much. It’s a good correction, thanks. You are right. It’s an error of mine not to think about this. I will make a comment, but not to justify myself. You’re right. I have to think a bit.

The world is polarized. The middle class becomes smaller. The polarization between the rich and the poor is big. This is true. And, perhaps this has brought me not to take account of this, no? Some nations are doing very well, but in the world in general the polarization is seen. And the number of poor is large. And why do I speak of the poor? Because they’re at the heart of the Gospel. And I always speak from the Gospel on poverty, no? It’s not that it’s sociological. Then on the middle class, there are some words that I’ve said, but a little in passing. But the common people, the simple people, the worker, that is a great value, no? But, I think you’re telling me about something I need to do. I need to do delve further into this magisterium.

Fr. Federico Lombardi: Good. OK, now the floor goes to Vania de Luca for the Italian group.

Vania de Luca, (RAI - News 24): In these days you’ve insisted on the necessity of methods of social integration against the throwaway culture. You’ve also supported projects that go in this direction of living well, also if you’ve said you’ve still got to think of the visit to the United States. Will you touch on these things when you go to the United Nations, to the White House? Were you also thinking of that trip when you mentioned those issues?

Pope Francis: No. No, I was just thinking concretely of this trip and of the world in general – that is true.

The debt of countries at this moment is terrible; every country has debts. There are one or two countries that have purchased the debt of big countries. It’s a global problem. But I didn’t think specifically of the trip to the United States in this.

Fr. Federico Lombardi: Now, we’ve still got Courtney Walsh from the English group. I think it may be the last, the last question. (Inaudible) So, no, two more. Courtney and then after, if we can do another, Benedicte.

Courtney Walsh, (Fox News): OK, Holiness, we’ve spoken a bit about Cuba that before you go to the United States and the role the Vatican has had in bringing the two ex-friends back together. Now that Cuba will have a role in the international community, in your opinion should Havana improve its record on human rights, as well as religious freedom? And, do you think Cuba risks losing something in this new relationship with the most powerful country in the world? Thanks a lot.

Pope Francis: Human rights are for everyone. And human rights are not respected not only in one or two countries. I would say that in many countries of the world human rights are not respected. Many countries in the world .. and what will Cuba lose or the U.S. lose? Both will gain something and lose something, because this happens in negotiations. Both will gain, this is sure: peace, meetings, friendship, collaboration. These they will gain … but what will they lose, I cannot imagine. They may be concrete things. But in negotiations one always [both] wins and loses. But returning to human rights, and religious freedom. Just think of the world. There are some countries and also some European countries where you cannot make a sign of religion, for different reasons, and on other continents the same. Yes. Religious liberty is not present in all the world, there are many place that do not have it.

Fr. Federico Lombardi: Now, we pass the floor to Benedicte Lutaud for the French group.

Benedicte Lutaud, (I.Media): Holiness, you present yourself as the new world leader of alternative politics. I would like to know: why do you support popular movements so strongly, and not so much the business world? And do you think the world will follow you in your outstretched hand to popular movements, which are very secular?

Pope Francis: The world of popular movements is a reality. Popular movements are a very big reality, all over the world. What did I do? What I gave them is the social doctrine of the Church, just as I do with the business world. There is a social doctrine of the Church. If you look back at what I told the popular movements, which is a fairly large speech, it comes from the Church’s social doctrine, applied to their situation. But it’s the social doctrine of the Church. Everything I said is the social doctrine of the Church. And, when I need to speak to the world of business, I say the same, that is the social doctrine of the Church, what does it say to the world of business. In Laudato Si’ there is a passage on the common good and also on the social debt of private property, all of this that goes in that sense. But it’s applying the Church’s social doctrine.

Lutaud: Do you think the Church will follow you, in your closeness towards popular movements?

Pope Francis: It is I who follow the Church! Because I simply preach the Church’s social doctrine to these movements. It’s not an outstretched hand to an enemy. It’s not political, no, it’s a catechetical fact. I want it to be clear.

Fr. Federico Lombardi: Yet another question, from Cristina Cabrejas from the Spanish group.

Cristina Cabrejas, (EFE): Holy Father, the Spanish-speaking journalists want to ask if you are not somewhat scared that you or your speeches might be exploited by governments, by power (lobby) groups, by movements. Thanks.

Pope Francis: I repeat a bit what I said at the beginning. Every word, every sentence can be exploited. What the journalist from Ecuador asked me, that very sentence, some said it was for the government, others said it was against the government. That is why I allowed myself to speak of the hermeneutics of the whole (speech). They can always be exploited. At times some news takes a phrase, out of context. I am not afraid. Simply I say look at the context. And if I make a mistake, with a bit of shame I ask forgiveness, and move forward.

Cabrejas: Can I ask another quick question? What do you think of people taking selfies at Mass, which young people and children want to take with you?

Pope Francis: What do I think of it? I feel like a grandfather! It’s another culture. Today as I was taking leave (from Asuncion), a policeman in his 40s asked me for a selfie! I told him, listen, you’re a teenager! It’s another culture – I respect it.

Fr. Federico Lombardi: Now, let’s do a final question and we’ll let a person who knows the Pope knows well do it, Andrea Tornielli from the Italian group.

Andrea Tornielli, (Vatican Insider): I wanted to ask you, Holy Father, in synthesis what was the message you wished to give to the Latin American Church during these days and what role can the Latin American Church have also as a sign to the world?

Pope Francis: The Latin American Church has a great wealth. It’s a young Church. And this is important. It’s a young Church with a certain freshness. Also, with some informalities, not so formal, no? It also has a rich theology of research. I’ve wished to give encouragement to this young Church and I believe that this Church can give us much. I’ll say something that really struck me. In all three countries, all three, along the streets there were moms and dads with their children, showing their children. I’ve never seen so many kids! So many kids. It’s a people, and also the Church is like this, no? It’s is a lesson for us, isn’t it? For Europe, where the decrease in birthrate is a bit scary, no? And also the policies for helping big families are few. I think of France, which has a good policy for helping big families. It has arrived to a higher than two percent birthrate, but others are at zero percent or less. (Inaudible) In Albania, for example, I believe the level of age is at 45 percent. (In) Paraguay 72 or 75 percent of the population is younger than 40 years old. The wealth of this Church, this nation, but also this living Church. This is a Church of life, no? And, this is important. We also need to learn from this and correct it because on the contrary if children don’t come … For me, it’s the same, waste. Children are thrown away. Elderly are discarded. We all know that the elderly … With the lack of work, we discard young people, no? And these new nations of young people give us more strength in this, no? And for the Church I’d say a young Church with so many problems. It has problems and this is the message I find. Don’t be afraid. This youth has this freshness of the Church. It can also be an undisciplined Church, but with time it will become disciplined. But it will give us so much good. I don’t know if this is what you wanted to ask me. Thanks.

Fr. Federico Lombardi: Thanks a lot, Holiness. So, we’ll close the series of questions. As every once in a while when we’re here together, we inform you about the birthdays of our colleagues, between today and tomorrow or yesterday and today we have two. One is Cristiana Caricato of TV2000 and the other is Antoine Marie Izoarde. What’s that? Pablo too, the day before yesterday. Great.

(Fr. Lombardi begins singing Happy Birthday).

Thanks so much for this answers and questions and for all the work you do. I wish you a good trip. See you tomorrow.

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VATICAN NEWS

Vatican applauds Iran nuclear deal, calls for commitment to make it ‘bear fruit’

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • July 14, 2015

Vatican spokesman Fr. Lombardi SJ speaks with journalists during a July 14, 2014 press conference. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

Vatican City — After global powers reached an agreement with Iran Tuesday limiting the country’s nuclear activity, the Vatican said the deal was an important step and expressed their hope the fruits would spread to more than just the nuclear field.

“The agreement on the Iranian nuclear program is viewed in a positive light by the Holy See,” Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi SJ said in a July 14 statement, shortly after the announcement of the deal.

“It constitutes an important outcome of the negotiations carried out so far, although continued efforts and commitment on the part of all involved will be necessary in order for it to bear fruit.”

He said the Holy See hopes these fruits will not be limited to just the nuclear sphere, “but may indeed extend further.”

On Tuesday representatives of the United States, Iran and other nations met in Vienna, reaching a long-awaited deal aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear activity in exchange for the lifting of international economic sanctions.

Negotiations between Iran and six world powers – the U.S., the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany official began in 2013 with the election of Hassan Rouhani, the seventh and current president of Iran.

The formal July 14 announcement of the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” comes at the end of more than two weeks of intense discussion, during which negotiators surpassed three self-imposed deadlines, the original having been set for June 30.

According to CNN, the U.S. congress is reported to have 60 days to review the plan.

After the April 2 agreement on the initial framework of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the head of the U.S. Bishops’ international peace committee, Bishop Oscar Cantu of Las Cruces, N.M., offered his support, and called on the U.S. Congress not to “undermine” the deal.

His warning came as the Senate was set to debate the bipartisan Corker-Menendez bill, S. 615, which allowed congress to make the review of the final agreement with Iran.

The framework set in April reduced the number of Iran’s centrifuges by two-thirds, down to just over 6,000. It limited the level of uranium that may be enriched and the amount of low-enriched uranium stockpiled. No new uranium enrichment facilities may be constructed for 15 years.

The underground nuclear facility at Fordow must be turned into a research facility, and cannot research uranium enrichment there for 15 years.

Nuclear-related sanctions on Iran will be lifted if the country abides by the framework, but sanctions related to “terrorism, human rights abuses and ballistic missiles” will remain.

Bishop Cantu warned Congress not to get in the way of the final agreement, the “alternative” to which “leads toward armed conflict.”

“(O)ur Committee continues to oppose Congressional efforts that seek to undermine the negotiation process or make a responsible multi-party agreement more difficult to achieve and implement. The alternative to an agreement leads toward armed conflict, an outcome of profound concern to the Church,” he said.

Iran’s hostility to its neighbors in the Middle East is all the more reason for the international agreement on its nuclear program, Bishop Cantu insisted.

“As we have noted in the past, Iran’s statements and actions have threatened its neighbors, especially Israel, and contributed to instability in the region,” he said. “We hope the agreement is a first step in fostering greater stability and dialogue in the Middle East.”

Pope Francis also praised the plan in his “Urbi et Orbi” blessing on Easter Sunday, saying that “in hope we entrust to the merciful Lord the framework that had been recently been agreed to in Lausanne, that it may be a definitive step toward a more secure and fraternal world.”

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VATICAN NEWS

After a two-week vacation, Benedict XVI heads back to Rome

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • July 14, 2015

Pope Benedict XVI, May 11, 2010. (Mazur/thepapalvisit.org.uk CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Vatican City — With two restful weeks outside of the Vatican behind him and two honorary doctorates in hand, Benedict XVI has again returned to Rome, where he has a rare public event set for the summer.

“Holiness, thank you very much for your unexpected and most welcome words, for the blessing that you have given to Castel Gandolfo and its inhabitants,” mayor Milvia Monachesi told the retired Pope as he left the city July 14.

In addition to expressing her gratitude for the special blessing Benedict gave to the city and all who live in it, Monachesi also thanked him for a book he had given to her, reported Italian agency Castelli News.

“We are happy that you have received our silent closeness, full of love and our great excitement for your presence,” she said, adding that his blessing “was for us a great gift and the confirmation of a deep and lasting bond.”

She wished him a good trip back to Rome, and assured the former pontiff that “wherever you will be you will not ever lack our prayer and affection.”

Benedict left for a two week stay in the small Italian city Castel Gandolfo June 30, and returned July 14.

The city, which lies about 15 miles southeast of Rome, has not been officially used as a papal residence since Benedict XVI – who now goes by “Fr. Benedict” – spent just over two months there following his Feb. 28, 2013 resignation. He currently lives in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in the Vatican Gardens.

While there, Fr. Benedict received two honorary doctorates from both the Pontifical John Paul II University of Krakow and the Krakow Academy of Music.

The university specifically recognized Benedict’s “great respect for musical tradition of the Church,” and “special concern for the noble beauty of sacred music and its proper place in the celebration of the sacred liturgical rites of the Church.”

However, Benedict’s busy summer isn’t over. At the end of August he will also take part in the inauguration of the “Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Roman Library” at the Pontifical Teutonic College, scheduled for Aug. 30.

The Ratzinger Foundation confirmed to CNA that he will first celebrate Mass at the College for this year’s meeting of his former theology students called the “Schulerkreis.” Following Mass, he will take part in an inauguration ceremony at the library.

The library section dedicated to his life and thought is currently in the process of being catalogued. It includes books by or about him and his studies, many donated by Benedict XVI himself.

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VATICAN NEWS

Slavery and climate – there’s more in common than you think, Vatican says

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • July 15, 2015

(CC0 1.0)

Vatican City — The link between climate change and human slavery is the topic of an international conference to be hosted by the Vatican later this month, in which Pope Francis will take part along with the mayors of major cities from around the world.

“These issues are intertwined: The objectification of people, and the objectification of the planet,” said Michael Shank, George Mason University fellow and media consultant for the conference, during a briefing Wednesday at the Holy See Press office.

“This meeting is unique to many global meetings in that it’s very practical,” Shank continued, in that it involves “actors who can move quickly on the ground with their constituencies and voters, actors who are dealing with crises already.”

“Modern Slavery and Climate Change: the Commitment of the Cities” is the title of the workshop presented during the July 15 press briefing. The event is part of the larger symposium sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) from July 21-22, with the title: “Prosperity, People and Planet: Achieving Sustainable Development in Our Cities.”

The conference will bring together mayors and other leaders from cities around the world, many of which have a history of environmental awareness, including several from the United States.

The gathering also comes just one month after the release of Pope Francis’ long-awaited encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si, meaning “Praise be to You,” was published on June 18.

While the 184-page encyclical wades into controversial topics such as climate change, the document also argues it is not possible to effectively care for the environment without first working to defend human life.

“There is a clear link between the two human-induced emergencies of the climate crisis and the social crisis,” said Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, PAS chancellor, citing Pope Francis’s recent encyclical on the environment, Laudato, Si.

“Following the Encyclical, our commitment is to make the whole of society aware of these phenomena and of the human responsibilities of these crises and to react firmly, as a new moral imperative for all of humanity in favour of the common good.”

Bishop Sanchez told journalists the decision to bring these mayors together stemmed from a previous conference between police chiefs and bishops. Presumably speaking about the 2014 conference on Human Trafficking hosted by the PAS, the bishop said that, during that gathering, police chiefs explained that, while committed in their work, they answered to mayors and governors – not bishops.

“Following their advice, we have thus tried to bring together the mayors to determine the best practices to mitigate climate change and eradicate modern slavery,” he said.

Bishop Sanchez went on to call on these mayors to commit to “promoting the empowerment of the poor” and vulnerable living in cities and urban settings, to ending “all forms of modern slavery,” and to “developing resettlement and social integration programs for the victims” of trafficking.

“In short, we would like our cities and urban settlements to become more socially inclusive, safe, resilient and ecologically integrated,” he said.

The symposium comes ahead of several international events focused to environment. These include the United Nations General Assembly’s upcoming adoption of sustainable laws on Sept. 25, followed by the climate summit in Paris in late November which will center on reducing the impact of climate change.

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VATICAN NEWS

To fight human trafficking – one of Pope Francis’ core commitments

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • July 16, 2015

Pope Francis delivers a General Audience address in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, Jan. 28, 2015. (Bohumil Petrik/CNA)

Vatican City — An upcoming conference being held at the Vatican examining the link between climate change and human trafficking is a reflection of the importance that ending modern slavery holds for Pope Francis, according to one of its organizers.

Presenting the meeting on “Modern Slavery and Climate Change: The Commitment of the Cities,” Archbishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences, showed a copy of the handwritten letter Pope Francis had sent him suggesting that his office focus its efforts on the issue of human trafficking.

Pope Francis has been committed to combating human trafficking ever since he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires, when he established an annual Mass for the victims of human trafficking.

In a Sept. 23, 2011 homily, he stressed that “Jesus has not come to propose a theory of freedom,” but rather “stands with our brothers and sisters who live under slavery.”

“We have been taught that slavery has been abolished, but you know what? It is not true, because in the city of Buenos Aires slavery is not abolished. In this city slavery is present in different forms,” the then-Cardinal Bergoglio said. And he gave as examples exploited workers, and the women and children forced into prostitution, and thus deprived of their dignity.

All these topics have been among the core issues of his pontificate.

The first time it was raised was during the speech Pope Francis gave Dec. 12, 2013 to a group of ambassadors newly accredited to the Holy See. The Pope underscored that it is a disgrace that persons “are treated as objects, deceived, assaulted, often sold many times for different purposes and, in the end, killed or, in any case, physically and mentally harmed, ending up discarded and abandoned,” adding that the issue worries him very much.

Then on March 5, 2014 he sent a message to the faithful in Brazil on the occasion of the Annual Lenten “Fraternity Campaign,” whose theme was “Brotherhood and human trafficking.”

“It is not possible to remain indifferent before the knowledge that human beings are bought and sold like goods,” Pope Francis wrote. “I think of the adoption of children for the extraction of their organs, of women deceived and forced to prostitute themselves, of workers exploited and denied their rights or a voice, and so on. This is human trafficking!”

The anti-human trafficking effort took an ecumenical angel when Pope Francis signed an agreement March 18, 2014 with Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby, by which the Church and the Anglican Communion will support an anti-slavery, anti-human trafficking initiative, the Global Freedom Network. The agreement was also underwritten by a Sunni scholar on behalf of the grand imam of al-Azhar University in Cairo.

The Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences took the floor Nov. 2-3, 2014, organizing a workshop on ‘Trafficking in Human Beings: Modern Slavery.’ Upon the close of the seminar, conference organizers issued a “joint statement based on the suggestions presented by the participants,” which included proposals for media, religious institutions, civil organizations, and the business sector to work together in order to combat human trafficking.

One month later, Dec. 2, 2014, Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist leaders signed a Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders Against Modern Slavery as a public statement of their commitment to work together in spiritual and practical action to eradicate this crime against humanity and restore dignity and freedom to its victims.

In the mean time, the Pope had chosen the theme of the 2015 World Day of Peace, “No longer slaves, but brothers and sisters,” thus making human trafficking one of the core issues of Vatican diplomacy during the year.

The Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences organized Apr. 27, 2015 a conference on “Trafficking with a special focus on children,” together with the Swedish embassy to the Holy See.

The upcoming conference with the mayors of some 70 prominent cities worldwide is intended to combine environmental issues with human trafficking issues, through Pope Francis’ approach.

In the encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis had in fact backed this combination between ecology and human trafficking issues.

In paragraph 91 of the encyclical, Pope Francis wrote that “a sense of deep communion with the rest of nature cannot be real if our hearts lack tenderness, compassion and concern for our fellow human beings. It is clearly inconsistent to combat trafficking in endangered species while remaining completely indifferent to human trafficking, unconcerned about the poor, or undertaking to destroy another human being deemed unwanted. This compromises the very meaning of our struggle for the sake of the environment.”

This way, Pope Francis has brought his care for the victims of human trafficking to a higher lever. From care for victims, to diplomatic effort, up to a theological approach based on the notion of ‘human ecology’.

These are the steps Pope Francis has undertaken in combating human trafficking, on the basis of his past experiences as Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

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VATICAN NEWS

Heroic virtue of Ukrainian bishop who sheltered hundreds of Jews recognized

by CNA/EWTN News • July 17, 2015

Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky. (CNA)

Vatican City — On Thursday, Pope Francis authorized a decree recognizing the heroic virtue of Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky, who was head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church from 1900 to 1944, and who personally protected dozens of Jews from Nazi occupiers during World War II.

The Pope’s July 16 audience with the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints also recognized the heroic virtue of seven other potential saints, who will now be called ‘Venerable’.

“During this time of foreign aggression against Ukraine – as well as turmoil in so many other historically Eastern Christian lands – this recognition brings particular consolation,” Fr. Peter Galadza, acting director of the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, stated July 17. “Archbishop Sheptytsky demonstrated saintly courage when he sheltered more than 160 Jews during the Nazi Holocaust.”

Venerable Andrey Sheptytsky was born as Roman Aleksander Maria Sheptytsky in 1865 to a polonized family of Ukrainian heritage, who were Roman Catholics. He was born in a village 30 miles from Lviv, which was then part of the Austrian Empire.

He entered the Order of St. Basil, associated with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, taking the name Andrey (Andrew), and was professed in 1889. In 1892, he made solemn profession and was ordained a priest.

In 1899 he was consecrated a bishop, and appointed Bishop of the Ukrainian Eparchy of Stanislaviv (now Ivano-Frankivsk). Then in 1901 he was appointed Metropolitan Archbishop of the Ukrainian Eparchy of Lviv, making him head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. He maintained his position until his death on Nov. 1, 1944, at the age of 79.

His time as Metropolitan Archbishop was marked by conflict with and persecution by the successive governments that ruled Ukraine, including the Russian Empire, the Second Polish Republic, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union.

Under the Russian Empire, he was jailed from 1914 to 1917 for his pro-Ukrainian position and his promotion of Catholicism. The Second Polish Republic twice held him for supporting an independent Ukrainian state and for opposing Latinization.

When the Soviet Union occupied Poland in 1939, he opposed the atheist regime and supported an independent Ukraine, and at first welcomed Nazi armies as liberators when they pushed back the Soviets in 1941.

However, he spoke up against Nazi policy toward Jews, encouraging his faithful to treat Jews well, with a 1942 pastoral letter. He also encouraged his priests and local abbots to follow his example, and shelter Jews. In this he was helped by his brother, Blessed Klymentiy Sheptytsky, archimandrite of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s Studite monks.

Archbishop Sheptytsky also promoted Christian unity: Fr. Galadza noted that the archbishop “worked tirelessly throughout his lifetime for reconciliation between Ukrainians, Russians and Poles, as well as other nations and groups. Particularly legendary were his efforts to see Catholics and Orthodox overcome their historical estrangement. Sheptytsky was a precursor of the ecumenical movement long before the Catholic Church officially endorsed the movement.”

Fr. Galadza also reflected on Venerable Sheptytsky’s concern for the poor, saying he “used his resources to create a free clinic, provide countless scholarships and help victims of famine, flooding and war.”

The other persons whose heroic virtue were recognized July 16 are: Bishop Giuseppe Carraro, who led the Diocese of Verona from 1958-1978; Fr. Agostino Ramírez Barba, a diocesan priest who founded the Sister Servants of the Lord of Mercy; Fr. Simpliciano della Natività, OFM, founder of the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart; Maria del Rifugio Aguilar y Torres, foundress of the Mercedarian Sisters of the Most Holy Sacrament; Maria Teresa Dupouy Bordes, foundress of the Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary; Elisa Miceli, foundress of the Rural Catechist Sisters of the Sacred Heart; and Isabella Méndez Herrero, a sister of the Congregation of the Servants of St. Joseph.

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WORLD NEWS

Korean cardinal praises medics’ courage in face of MERS outbreak

by CNA/EWTN News • July 11, 2015

Cardinal Yeom of Seoul visits healthcare workers who have cared for MERS patients, July 8, 2015. (Archdiocese of Seoul)

Seoul, South Korea — The recently-elevated cardinal of Seoul has expressed his gratitude to the doctors and nurses of the Catholic Medical Center for their service during the ongoing MERS outbreak in South Korea.

“The medical team of CMC (Catholic Medical Center) has played a critical role in bringing an end to the MERS crisis,” Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung said, during a July 18 visit to St. Mary’s Hospital at the Catholic University of Korea.

“You have shown real courage in dreadful situations and truly lived out the spirit of the hospital founded in respect for human beings.”

South Korea has had 186 confirmed cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS ) in the past two months and at least 33 people have died, according to the BBC. Hundreds of people remain under quarantine.

Cardinal Yeom met with around 15 doctors, nurses, and staff who had direct contact with patients, giving a rosary to each of the medics and encouraged them to “always give their best effort with a prayerful heart.” He also promised his prayers for the medical staff and their work.

Nearly 2,500 schools were temporarily closed at the start of the outbreak. Some buildings installed temperature screening booths to recognize people running fevers. South Korean officials issued public health guidelines that included wearing masks.

Cardinal Yeom, too, wore a mask during his meeting with medics at St. Mary’s Hospital.

“I seldom wear a mask and I am already feeling the discomfort,” the cardinal said. “Imagine how much discomfort the medical team has to endure while taking care of the patients in the protective suit.”

St. Mary’s Hospital and other affiliates of the Archdiocese of Seoul’s Catholic Medical Center were among the few hospitals to accept suspected MERS patients during the outbreak. Last month, the government named the Catholic Medical Center the “trustworthy hospital of Korea” for its response to the outbreak.

When Catholic nurse Stella Yun Sun-hee heard of the outbreak, she immediately volunteered to help treat patients at St. Mary’s Hospital.

“I felt the urge to offer my service as a medic,” Yun said. “I was very touched when the patient said to me, ‘thank you so much for coming here, I know it wouldn’t be easy’.”

MERS is caused by a virus similar to the common cold and Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome). Symptoms include fever and breathing difficulties and there is no vaccine or special treatment. MERS can also cause pneumonia and kidney failure, according to the BBC.

There have also been confirmed MERS cases in the Philippines, China, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Medical staff from all eight affiliates of the Catholic Medical Center will gather for a Mass this Sunday for those affected by the MERS outbreak.

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WORLD NEWS

Spectacular Paraguay altar destined to be broken down, recycled

by CNA/EWTN News • July 12, 2015

Papal altar at Asuncion’s Ñu Guazú park in Paraguay, July 2015. (CNA)

Asunción, Paraguay — The more than 60,000 corncobs, 20,000 squashes and 150,000 coconuts that adorn the altarpiece in Asuncion’s Ñu Guazú park where Pope Francis celebrated Mass on the last day of his visit to Paraguay won’t be going to waste.

Now that the Mass and the Pope have come and gone, the products will be recycled.

“The coconuts will be used to make soap and the corncobs are destined to feed animals. The squash will be given to people. From it, a sweet called ‘andai’ is made,” the artist, Kiko Ruiz, told CNA days before the celebration.

“It’s made me very happy to do this job. There’s a great excitement among the people who collaborated with me in making the altar. This happiness motivated me to make this artwork,” he said.

“I know that the Pope’s visit has great significance because it’s bringing happiness and a message of peace.”

Ruiz is the plastics artist who was charged with the creation of the altar. The structure’s base is 131 feet long and nearly 56 feet tall with a pyramidal shape. The total surface area is more than 4,305 square feet covered with corn, coconuts and squash. In the center, there’s a cross.

On either side are mosaics, St. Francis on the left and St. Ignatius of Loyola on the right, in honor of the Franciscan and Jesuit missions that evangelized Paraguay. For this job, thousands of local seeds were used.

Ruiz worked with 20 other people on the design, while for the actual adornment of the altar, the numbers were boosted by 200 volunteers. Many of them found out about the work on social media and offered to help.

“With this work, I’d like to show that art is not exclusive to any inspired person. Art is in reach of everyone and it doesn’t need anything strange, but normal everyday things, and what one produces can become a part of them,” said Ruiz.

Aside from those who got their hands on the work, the artist explained that it was Paraguayan farmers who donated the fruits used in the altar. All of them knew that the products would be “valued and appreciated by the whole world,” he said.

And the reaction was formidable. It was by far the most discussed part of the day on social media. A hashtag was even created on Twitter solely to speak of it: #altardemaiz, meaning “altar of corn.”

For each square meter, 1,200 coconuts were used, and a special glue was made to stick them together. The 60,000 corncobs were tied to wooden bases.

The Guarani coconut is small and lasts up to 14 months. “It has a very hard shell that can be easily painted because when they peel them, they have a very smooth and hard surface. That’s why you can draw on a coconut,” Ruiz explained.

The coconuts were placed in the altar weeks prior to the July 12 Mass. When all the decorations were ready, a special ointment was applied that would preserve it from the elements and dirt.

The structure of the altar was built in modules to facilitate its decoration and transport. Ruiz, artisans and volunteers first built and decorated the pieces in Tañarandy, a part of San Ignacio Iguazu in Paraguay’s Misiones.

Ruiz has done artistic work in the area for the last 23 years. His most recognizable pieces are the altarpieces for Holy Week celebrations that were also created with fruits of the earth.

The artist commented that the objective of these altars is to represent the nation’s mixed culture as well as the Guarani culture.

“Two years ago we made the first altar where the culture mix of Paraguayan history with Baroque motifs was represented. It was adorned with the fruits of the earth that Guaranis used,” Ruiz said.

“These fruits were corn, coconut and andais – we call it squash – and they were the most prized possession.”

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WORLD NEWS

With freedom for Catholic education uncertain, English diocese charts a path

by Kevin J. Jones (CNA/EWTN News) • July 13, 2015

(Bill Erickson via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Portsmouth, England — Catholic schools in England could face problems under both a new “British values” government mandate and demands to approve same-sex relationships. But in the Diocese of Portsmouth, new education guidelines focus on Catholic fidelity, love of neighbor, and the love of Jesus Christ.

Bishop Philip Egan has written a letter introducing the diocese’s guidance on sex and relationship education. He said the document aims to “articulate the Christian vision of human happiness in a life lived in fidelity to Christ with love and respect for neighbor.”

The June 29 guidance was issued because the bishop and the diocese’s trustees recognize “the need for Catholic schools to navigate carefully through the current statutory landscape whilst critically engaging with its requirements.”

He said that everyone faces challenges in living up to Christian ideals. Those who fall short of these ideals or view them differently should be shown “genuine pastoral sensitivity.” At the same time, Catholics must also recognize that God gives the grace and help to “grow in human maturity and to aspire in practice to what Christians profess.”

Bishop Egan’s letter did not mention specific regulations. However, the British Department for Education has required schools to teach “fundamental British values.” The requirements were created after reports that extremist Muslim groups were trying to infiltrate schools.

The education department’s November 2014 guidance added stronger language that requires schools actively to promote what it sees as British values. The rules require all schools to promote equality and diversity, as defined by the education department’s guidance.

This requirement includes “challenging opinions or behaviors in school.” According to the British newspaper The Guardian, these rules are likely to conflict with Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and other religious schools because they require them to prioritize secular law over religious teachings.

Last year government inspectors criticized a highly ranked Catholic school in Suffolk for allegedly failing to prepare pupils for modern life in Britain. The school filed a formal complaint about the investigation. The school said parents complained that the inspectors asked children as young as ten about same-sex sexual acts and transsexualism, the Catholic Herald reports.

Some U.K. leaders have strongly criticized the “British values” mandate, including Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh, president of the Catholic Union of Great Britain. In a March speech, he said the requirement is “damaging Christian schools.” He charged that the British education standards office, known informally as Ofsted, “appears to be guilty of trying to enforce a kind of state-imposed orthodoxy on certain moral and religious questions.”

Others leaders, such as Labour Party leadership front-runner Andy Burnham, have said that religious schools must teach about same-sex relationships. In an interview with the LGBT newspaper Pink News, he rejected Catholic schools’ claims that it would violate their religious freedom to force them to teach about same-sex couples in schools.

Burnham said the Catholic schools are “straightforwardly wrong.” He called for more action to counter “homophobic bullying,” including teaching all relationships on terms of “absolute equality.”

Bishop Egan’s introduction did not mention specific rules or political figures. He said the diocese’s guidance “addresses some of the difficulties arising today both in transmitting the Church’s teaching and in living up to it.”

For the Diocese of Portsmouth, sex and relationship education (SRE) is “an education in love and responsibility.” This means that the moral dimension must always be incorporated in education and consciences must be formed so that students can recognize the value of their peers.

The guidance said that all Catholic school staff’s daily dealings with students are expected to support Catholic teaching. This is “especially important” concerning personal relationships and sexual morality.

Classes should refer to God’s Word as revealed through the Bible and Church teaching, with an emphasis on teaching the love of Jesus Christ.

Alternative views about non-marital sexual relations, contraception, homosexual acts, and artificial reproduction “should not be presented as neutral or value-free information, but always in relation to Church teaching on marriage and loving relationships.”

At the same time, because students come from a variety of families, SRE must be “taught in the context of God’s unconditional love, with mercy and compassion” so that parents and students feel supported. The guidance voiced respect for the presence of communities from other faith traditions in Catholic schools, while acknowledging that it might not be able to support these religions’ teachings.

The guidance said students should be encouraged to grow towards maturity and responsibility to realize the Christian life. For this goal, it is essential for students to have “constant prayer, frequent confession, receiving the Holy Eucharist, along with the cultivation of self-discipline and virtuous habits.”

SRE teaching must help assist students with the physical and emotional changes of puberty and encourage them to think “about the sacredness of their body.” SRE class content must not offend against modesty or privacy.

“Purity and the virtue of chastity must be promoted. We must help students recognize that the proper place for sexual relationships is within the loving and permanent relationship of marriage,” the diocese said.

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WORLD NEWS

Chilean administration open to approval of adoption by homosexual couples

by Barbara Bustamante (CNA/EWTN News) • July 14, 2015

(Vera Kratochvil CC0 1.0)

Santiago, Chile — Shortly after the legalization of same-sex civil unions in Chile, the nation’s secretary of justice said in an interview last week that the government “is not going to oppose” a bill legalizing the adoption of children by homosexual couples.

A bill has been introduced in the Chilean legislature to modify the country’s adoption system to allow adoption by homosexual couples. Civil unions were approved six months ago, and will begin in October.

“We’re not going to oppose it in the coming debate. This is a debate that has to take place with a view to the citizenry,” Javiera Blanco told the TV program Ahora Noticias July 7.

Hernán Corral, a professor of civil law at the University of the Andes, told CNA that adoption by homosexual couples “would strike a strong blow against the family, which in its essence is composed of the permanent union of a man and a woman with children that issue from their union.”

“The common good is undermined when the family properly as such is no longer recognized in the law and by public policy and the idea is conveyed to the people the idea that ‘family’ can be any group of persons who live together and have, even if it’s provisional, affection for each other,” he added.

According to the lawyer, the presence of gender ideology behind the Chilean initiative is “unquestionable,” since “it denies the difference between man and woman is required by human nature, and along with that it rejects not only the notion that marriage as the union between a man and a woman but also the dual aspect of the conception of a child, as deriving from the motherhood (of the woman) and the fatherhood (of the man.)”

“The concepts of father and mother disappear and are substituted by a neutral expression like ‘parent’,” he added.

Consequently “the law is being presented as a right of homosexual couples to be able to have children. And this is accomplished by means of adoption [and] artificial reproduction technologies.”

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WORLD NEWS

Catholics in Singapore celebrate 50 years of nation’s independence

by Antonio Anup Gonsalves (CNA/EWTN News) • July 15, 2015

Archbishop Goh of Singapore says Mass at the city-state’s Indoor Stadium, July 4, 2015. (Archdiocese of Singapore)

Singapore — Anticipating this autumn’s 50th anniversary of Singapore’s independence from Malaysia, the nation’s Catholics gathered earlier this month to celebrate a Mass pledging the Church’s support for the city-state.

While Singapore achieved independence from Great Britain in 1963, it was first a state of Malaysia. It achieved full independence in 1965, when it was expelled following political turmoil and troubled race relations.

“It is the jubilee year, it is a year of rejoicing because God is restoring all to wholeness,” Fr. Derrick Yap, OFM, chairman of the Singapore 50 celebration committee, told CNA.

Fr. Yap said: “We are called to sanctify the nation and this event is to celebrate what we have done but to propel into the future with a renewed vigour and hope – Let the light of Christ shine forth to the nations!”

Some 10,000 people gathered at the Singapore Indoor Stadium July 4 for a Mass of thanksgiving, joined by the apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli; the prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong; and representatives of other religions.

The Mass paid tribute to the missionaries who first brought the faith to Singapore and who sacrificed their lives serving the people and building the nation.

Fr. Yap said, “Joy captures all the dynamics of the occasion as we celebrate the nation’s 50th anniversary,” the priest reflected. “As a Church, it is also an event for rejuvenation, restoration, and healing, where needed, and of looking forward with hope. The occasion not only serves as a platform for the Church to celebrate her share in nation-building, but also to bring together Catholics here to forge stronger bonds with each other.”

Archbishop William Goh Seng Chye of Singapore in his opening address praised the untiring zeal of the pioneer missionaries in proclaiming Christ and stressed that “they have been true to their mission.”

The prelate, noting the Church’s distinctive pastoral role in the areas of education, healthcare, social services, and integral human development, said, “The Church had always stood as a voice of the poor, the marginalized, and those who are very close to the heart of God.”

He further added, “She continues in the mission to unity to recognize the new poor in our midst who are vulnerable to … relativism , individualism, materialism, consumerism, and the negative impact of the internet and social media, particularly youth and families, which form the building blocks of society.”

Archbishop Goh’s homily also echoed Pope Francis’ recent encyclical Laudato Si’ and he urged: “We need to care for the environment so that generations to come can continue to enjoy the fruits of the earth.”

Archbishop Goh emphasized that the Church will work closely with the Singaporean government “to prevent moral decadence, to strengthen institution of marriage, to promote justice, peace, and harmony … and to form us as responsible citizens.”

Prime minister Lee addressed the faithful, lauding the Church’s immense pastoral work and saying, “the Church has been a responsible, reliable, and sensitive partner, helping us to strengthen our multiracial and multireligious society.”

Lee went to a secondary Catholic school, and added a word of “thanks to the pioneers who secured our future, including the pioneers in the Church who built it up.”

He noted that Church has been a “light and hope nurturing the young, moulding people into upright citizens, uplifting the downtrodden, succoring the needy, ministering to the sick … building a community with sound values and a sense of social responsibility, duty, and obligation to one another.”

In his homily, Archbishop Goh noted the “greater need for formation” of the laity, adding that “until the laity takes part in the mission of the Church, we have not grown.”

He urged the faithful to promote s culture of life from conception to natural death, especially through a strengthening of marriage and the family.

Archbishop Goh also examined four pillars which brought Singapore from the third to the first world, enumerating self sacrifice; justice and equality; economic development; and moral and spiritual development.

Among its preparations for the jubilee, the Archdiocese of Singapore encouraged the faithful to offer five pledges of faith and works for the intentions of the nation – to attend a daily Mass, to recite the rosary, to offer a fast, to share a meal with the poor, and to partake in Eucharistic adoration.

Fr. Yap explained that “the five pledges were meant to provide some challenge for the pledgers, because a rosary or a weekday mass just doesn’t seem challenging enough; so we invite Catholics to perform five different acts of love and hope that they will actively pursue feeding the poor … this is catechesis and faith formation in action.”

“This event for me is to help build bridges within the various organisations of the archdiocese. Relationships are very important … if the Church is to move forward in Singapore for the next 50 years and beyond, we will all need work together.”

“If we are united with one heart, and united with the Lord, we can bring the Gospel farther than we’d ever imagined,” Fr. Yap said.

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WORLD NEWS

Franciscan priest abducted in Syria set free by captors

by CNA/EWTN News • July 15, 2015

(Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk)

Latakia, Syria — The organization of Franciscan missionaries serving in the Holy Land announced that Father Dhiya Aziz, who had been kidnapped early last week in Syria, was liberated.

“The Custody of the Holy Land thanks those around the world who prayed for a successful outcome to this trial that Fr. Dhiya endured, as well as the faithful of Yacoubieh, of which he is the pastor, his religious family and his family in Iraq,” the group announced July 9.

“The Custody does not forget that other religious are still missing in Syria and it invites everyone to continue praying for peace in this country.”

The group had lost contact with Fr. Aziz on July 4. He is a Franciscan priest of the organization, and was parish priest at Yacubiyeh, a village in Syria’s Idlib province, more than 56 miles northeast of Latakia.

He had been taken by unknown militants, who were suspected to be from al-Nusra Front, which has a strong presence in Idlib province. However, “this group has denied any involvement in his kidnapping and allegedly led the police investigation in neighboring villages which led to his liberation,” the Custody of the Holy Land stated.

“Fr. Dhiya was allegedly abducted by another group (of) jihadists eager to profit on his release,” they added, noting that there are large number of rebel groups operating in the area. The Custody also stated that Fr. Aziz “was allegedly treated well during his kidnapping.”

Fr. Aziz was born in Mosul, Iraq, in 1974. He studied medicine, and then entered religious life, making a first profession of vows in 2002. The following year he was transferred to Egypt, and in 2010 to Jordan. Fr. Aziz was later moved to Latakia, and he then volunteered to come to Yacubiyeh, a predominantly Christian village.

Fr. Aziz’ kidnapping was the latest in a series of attacks on Christian religious since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

In 2013, militants kidnapped a group of Greek Orthodox nuns, Fr. Paolo Dall’Oglio, S.J., and the Greek and Syriac Orthodox bishops of Aleppo. The nuns were eventually returned to their convent unharmed, but Fr. Dall’Oglio and the bishops remain missing.

In 2014, Dutch priest Fr. Frans van der Lugt, S.J., was murdered in Homs. The priest served in Syria for more than four decades. He was involved in interreligious dialogue and had built as spirituality center that housed children with mental disabilities.

The same year, another Franciscan priest, Fr. Hanna Jallouf, was kidnapped together with as many as 20 people from his parish in Qunaya, a neighboring village of Yacubiyeh – the two are less than a mile apart.

In February, the Islamic State kidnapped at least ninety Christians from villages in northeast Syria.

And in May, Fr. Jacques Mourad was kidnapped at gunpoint from a monastery southeast of Homs.

The Syrian civil war began in March 2011 with demonstrations against the nation’s president, Bashar al-Assad. The war has claimed the lives of more than 230,000 people, and forced 4 million to become refugees. Another 8 million Syrians are believed to have been internally displaced by the violence.

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WORLD NEWS

Catholics in Bologna mourn Cardinal Biffi, a humorous, plain-spoken preacher

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • July 15, 2015

Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, emeritus Archbishop of Bologna, who died July 11, 2015. (Archdiocese of Bologna)

Bologna, Italy — Humour, realism and culture characterized the life of Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, who died July 11 at the age of 87. The former Archbishop of Bologna had retired in 2003 and was living in small house near Bologna, but had been hospitalized for the past year in a clinic, where he died after a long sickness.

The news of Cardinal Biffi’s sickness reached Pope Francis during the 2014 Synod on the Family, and the Pope sent the cardinal a letter June 5 saying he was close to the cardinal’s suffering.

Giacomo Biffi was born June 13, 1928 in Milan, and was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Milan in 1950, when he was but 22. Cardinal Colombo, then Archbishop of Milan, assigned him as parish priest in the parish of Santi Martiri in Legnano (a small town close to Milan) and in the Milanese parish Sant’Andrea. Bl. Paul VI appointed him auxiliary bishop of Milan in 1975, and he was consecrated a bishop early the following year. He became Archbishop of Bologna in 1984.

St. John Paul II made him cardinal during the May, 1985 consistory, and he was among the members of the Congregations for the Evangelization of Peoples, the Clergy, and Catholic Education.

Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, who succeeded Cardinal Biffi as Archbishop of Bologna, said his funeral Mass June 14. In a crowded church, he explained that “Cardinal Biffi profoundly loved the Church of Bologna,” and “from this mystic jealousy comes the way he identified the errors of this holy flock of Bologna.”

Once he was appointed Archbishop of Bologna, Cardinal Biffi had described the city as “comfortable and desperate,” and this formula became even more famous than his episcopal motto, “Ubi fides ibi libertas” (where faith is, there is freedom).

Benedict XVI held him in great esteem – it is widely acknowledged that Cardinal Ratzinger voted for Cardinal Biffi during the 2005 conclave which eventually elected him as Benedict XVI.

Two years after his election as Roman Pontiff, Benedict XVI wanted Cardinal Biffi to preach the Lenten spiritual exercises for the Roman Curia. At the end of the exercises, Benedict XVI thanked Cardinal Biffi “for your realism, sense of humour, and concreteness.”

Benedict XVI also thanked him for “mentioning the daring theology of one of your housekeepers: I would not dare to submit the phrase ‘The Lord has perhaps his defects’ to the judgement of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.”

Cardinal Biffi’s theology was one mixed with concrete thoughts. Speaking about eternity, he theorized the “theology of tortellini” – the stuffed pasta which originated in Bologna – by saying: “Eating a tortellino with the aim of eternal life is always better than eating it thinking that you will go into the abyss.”

And when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued the declaration “Dominus Iesus” on the unicity and salvific universality of Christ in 2002, he strongly defended it from critics who arouse even from within the Church – one of the most prominent of whom was Cardinal Walter Kasper, then president of the Pontifical Council for the Promoting Christian Unity.

Cardinal Biffi stood with the declaration and said: “That Jesus is the only and needed Saviour for everyone is a truth that for 20 centuries – starting from the Peter’s speech after Pentecost – no one felt obliged to recall. The fact that nowadays it was recalled is a measure of how grave is the current situation. This document, which recalls the primordial, simplest, most essential certainty, has been criticized. And it was criticized at every level: in pastoral action, theological teaching, and the hierarchy.”

In his memoirs (“Memorie di un italiano cardinale”) he also addressed the issue of homosexuality, a reflection particularly relevant in view of the 2015 Synod on the Family.

“Regarding homosexuality” – Cardinal Biffi wrote – “Christian thought teaches us to distinguish between the respect we owe to persons, which implies the rejection of every social or political marginalization of homosexuals (with the exception of the issues of marriage and family, which are inderogable), and the rejection of any applauded ‘ideology of homosexuality’.”

He added that “the ideology of homosexuality – as every ideology which becomes aggressive and aspires to political gain – has become a threat to our legitimate autonomy of thought: who does not share it, risks being condemned to a sort of cultural and social marginalization.”

According to Cardinal Biffi, “attempts on freedom of judgment begin with language. Who is not resigned to welcome ‘homophilia’ (that is, a theoretical appreciation of homosexual relationships) is then accused of ‘homophobia’.”

Reading Cardinal Biffi’s words can provide a snapshot of the current reality, as he identified many of the Church’s current challenges.

In another book, “La Bella, la Bestia e il Cavaliere” (The Beauty, the Beast and the Knight),Cardinal Biffi addressed the issue of the Second Vatican Council, constrasting the real council with the “council of the media”, which Benedict XVI made famous in his Feb. 13, 2013 speech to Roman clergy, delivered two days after the announcement of his abdication.

Cardinal Biffi wrote that “a virtual council arose, which has a place not in the history of the Church, but in the history of ecclesiastical imagination.”

Rest in peace, Cardinal Biffi.

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‘It’s hard to think there was no complicity’ – Mexican bishop on ‘El Chapo’ escape

by CNA/EWTN News • July 16, 2015

(Niklas Morberg via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Toluca, Mexico — Three Mexican bishops have spoken out in recent days about public sector corruption in their nation, highlighting the escape of the drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera, from a maximum security prison on Saturday.

Guzmán, known as “El Chapo”, is head of the Sinaloa Cartel, and has an estimated wealth of $1 billion. He had been captured by Mexican authorities in February 2014, and escaped from a prison in Almoloya de Juarez, 12 miles northwest of Toluca, on July 11.

Bishop Eduardo Patiño Leal of Córdoba said the incident is a clear example of corruption, adding, “we would be very naïve to think that no one noticed, we didn’t know anything about it, or have any evidence.”

He said that “it would be up to the authorities in that locale to have the evidence, but it’s hard to think that there was no complicity on the part of some official, something that had to have happened.”

“What’s necessary is that when someone is handed over, that the processes are carried out with transparency, clarity; and if somebody has to pay, he should pay, but also he should be given rehabilitation so he can be reintegrated into society,” Bishop Patiño concluded.

Guzmán escaped from prison through a hole in the shower area of his cell, which led to a a tunnel about one mile long. The tunnel included a motorcycle on rails, and led to a safe house.

Bishop Francisco Moreno Barrón of Tlaxcala criticized the “fragility” of the nation’s maximum security prisons.

Mexico’s national security commissioner, Monte Alejandro Rubido, said at a July 14 press conference that as soon as an employee notices that an inmate is missing, a “code red” should be issued. Yet Reforma, a Mexico City daily, reported the following day that it took 23 minutes from the moment of Guzmán’s before such an alert was issued.

“Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, has escaped by a tunnel from a maximum security prison for the second time, weakening even more the little credibility that the citizenry has for the federal authorities,” commented Bishop José Martínez Zepeda of Irapuato.

The drug kingpin had also broken out of a Mexican prison in 2001, having bribed several guards to assist him.

“This is another drama for Mexico,” Bishop Martínez said, “since everything that is being said about how the country is more peaceful fades away when a drug dealer escapes for the second time from a maximum security prison, which is a mockery for the citizens.”

“We all have to work to get through this crisis of credibility, of justice, of lawfulness, and then try to reconstruct the country on the firm foundations of truth, justice, and transparency.”

Three of the prison’s senior officials have been dismissed from their positions.

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Byte-sized faith: Young priests launch new Catholic podcast

by Jan Bentz and Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • July 16, 2015

Recording studio. (Unsplash)

Rome, Italy — Podcasts are arguably the greatest comeback-kids of the internet. Once thought to be slowing fading into oblivion, the boom of smartphones and Bluetooth technology, and hits like “Serial,” brought the medium back with a force.

There are podcasts about every subject under the sun, from sports to mystery stories to in-depth explanations of how things work (think Mr. Rogers’ picture-picture, but for adults), and often the listener has to commit 20 or more minutes to get the full story. While these can be perfect for long road-trips or time-sucking commutes, sometimes listeners don’t have much time to devote to a podcast.

And that’s where Catholic Bytes wants to step in. It’s a new podcast started by three young American men – two priests and one deacon – studying in Rome who want to tell everyone about the beauty of Catholic faith and culture in, well, byte-sized pieces.

“Each episode is under 10 minutes, and therefore it can be easily listened to while traveling to and from school or work, during a break, or whenever you have a few minutes to spare,” Catholic Bytes co-creator Deacon Greg Gerhard told CNA.

Just because the podcast is brief, does not mean it will lack depth. Rome is a great place to access all kinds of Catholic experts in various vocations and fields, co-founder Fr. Andrew Mattingly said, allowing Catholics and those curious about Catholicism from around the world to learn from them without having to travel all the way to the Vatican.

“(There is a) vast number of English-speaking priests, deacons, seminarians, religious, and lay people that live, work, and study in Rome – and many of these people are here working on advanced degrees, such as in dogma, morality, biblical studies, liturgy, or church history, to name a few,” he said.

The three founders also sat down and strategically planned out over 400 episodes that, once finished, will cover several years and a wide range of topics. The podcast is set to release an episode every Monday, Wednesday, and first Friday.

“Our goal for the entire project is to convey a systematic presentation of the faith,” Gerhart said, “with topics ranging from scripture, ethics, spirituality, the sacraments and also personal witness to living the faith, as well as apologetics.”

Although Gerhard has some previous media and technology training, the three founders have also been learning a lot from trial and error. They listened to other podcasts – “Catholic Stuff You Should Know,”

“This American Life,” and “The Moth” to name a few – to get a feel for the platform and how an episode should flow.

The third co-founder, Fr. George Elliot, said the project has given him a lot of hope and confidence in the ability of Catholics to use their gifts to evangelize.

“I’ve become more aware that the future of the Church is bright, talented, and capable. From writing code for the website, to making graphics, to speaking on a variety of topics – I’ve seen that the future leaders of the Church have something worthy to say and know how to communicate it to the world today,” he said.

It’s also been a humbling process, Fr. Mattingly admitted, and a challenging task to make so many people’s ideas mesh.

“As we’ve met and discussed over the past eight months or so and have made decisions on everything from how long the podcasts should be, to what kind of music there should be at the beginning and end of each episode, to what the role of the host in each episode should be, to hundreds of other little things, it has become abundantly clear to me of the importance of that humility to let go of my own ideas or opinions when I’m shown that in fact there’s a better way of going about (it),” he said.

The founders are hoping to draw everyone to Christ through their podcast, whether they are an already-engaged Catholic looking to know more, or someone who knows next to nothing about the Church but

is curious and wants to learn.

“In themselves, the truths of our faith are astoundingly beautiful and profound, yet more often than not they are portrayed as boring and stale,” Fr. Mattingly observed. “We want to change that perception, and we hope that this podcast will be a small contribution towards that goal.”

The Catholic Bytes podcast can be downloaded (for free!) from their website, catholicbytespodcast.com. Users can also subscribe through iTunes, and connect with the hosts through Facebook or Twitter.

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The ‘angel’ of Guatemala: 12-year-old chooses death over gang violence

by Walter Sanchez Silva (CNA/EWTN News) • July 16, 2015

(Pietro Izzo via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Guatemala City, Guatemala — When 12-year-old Ángel Ariel Escalante Pérez was confronted by gang members demanding that he kill a bus driver in Guatemala, he said no.

It turned out to a life or death decision.

The gang members threatened to kill Angel if he did not murder the bus driver. He refused to do so and was thrown off a bridge.

Angel was found in critical condition on June 18, around 1 p.m. He was discovered below the Belice bridge in Guatemala City by a group of neighbors from the Jesús de la Buena Esperanza (Jesus of Good Hope) settlement.

Some six gang members threw him from the bridge, according to local media. The medics heard him say, “They wanted me to kill a driver and they threw me from the bridge.”

Javier Soto, spokesman for the city firemen, commented that the branches of the trees and the underbrush in the area cushioned the Angel’s fall. He suffered two fractured legs.

The fall was more than 400 feet, Soto said. “Usually people who are thrown off or who jump off the bridge don’t survive.”

A picture of Angel being embraced by his father after he was found was posted on social media.

After 15 days in intensive care, the young boy died at the Saint John of God General Hospital.

The young boy was in the 6th grade at Carlos Benjamín Paíz Ayala School, located near where he was thrown off the bridge. He liked drawing, music and soccer.

After a funeral wake in Guatemala, he was taken to Managua, Nicaragua, where he was buried next to his uncle, who was murdered in 2007.

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Venezuela’s bishops caution against the adoption of no-fault divorce

by CNA/EWTN News • July 17, 2015

(Steve Buissinne via Pixabay CC0)

Caracas, Venezuela — The Venezuelan bishops last week warned that marriage and families in their nation will be weakened as a result of a court decision ruling that spouses can divorce without any evidence of wrongdoing on either’s part.

“The theoretical basis for the ruling signals a jurisprudence that can dismantle at will the protection of the family and marriage in the law as we understand them today,” the Venezuelan bishops conference’s committee on family and childhood wrote July 9.

The bishops were commenting on a June 6 ruling by the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, Venezuela’s supreme court. The ruling found that spouses can divorce “by mutual consent, without any other conditions,” and called for the civil law to be changed to adjust to its finding.

The ruling opens “the doors to a regimen of divorce for any reason, thus weakening the family structure,” the bishops wrote. “This denies the natural rights of marriage and destabilizes the family, and plays down the importance of marriage as the natural foundation of the family.”

In the face of this, they pointed out that the Church is Mother and Teacher, and that with the teaching of the Popes and the Magisterium “we proclaim the primacy and inviolability of the family, and of every human life from the moment of conception to natural death. Therefore, the most appropriate place for its natural development is ordinarily the family.”

“So to safeguard and protect the family is to safeguard life,” they said.

The bishops noted that the Church promotes and defends marriage as constituted between a man and a woman, writing that “marriage and family must be respected according to their actual nature. Today, they both are being threatened by pressure groups working on legislators, businesses, the media, etc. In the face of this reality we affirm the family as a gift from God to humanity; it is the greatest good that each person can have and as such the way for the common good of society.”

“The Merciful God who never abandons the spouses when they are having a difficult time, looks after them with tender and paternal love. We believers must rekindle our commitment to protect and support this covenant of life and love that God has desired for man and woman in marriage and, consequently, the family,” they stated.

In response to the supreme tribunal’s ruling, the bishops encouraged the faithful, as well as persons of good will, “to work for and to commit to spreading, explaining and showing the truth about the beauty of the family and marriage according to God’s plan.”

“There are a lot of ways in addition to stating the truth about it. We need to ask God so we can be diligent at our task so we can creatively invent ways of proclaiming the loving plan of God for marriage and family so we can responsibly put them into practice in our lives.”

The concluded, “This is a very noble task to which we must commit all our strength with God’s help. The future of humanity is at stake in the family and marriage, in children and our youth, in the solidity of our homeland and of the Church!”

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This Jewish man survived Nazi Germany – now he’s rescuing Christians from ISIS

by CNA/EWTN News • July 17, 2015

George Weidenfeld at the Axel Springer 100th Anniversary Ceremony on May 2, 2012. (Getty Images)

London, England — George Weidenfeld was barely eighteen when Nazi forces occupied his homeland of Austria in 1938. He may not have lived to see his 95th birthday – celebrated this year – if not for the selflessness and generosity of Christians during World War II.

Weidenfeld was one of countless other Jewish youths who were evacuated from Nazi-occupied countries and resettled in England through Christian-led initiatives similar to the famous Kindertransport train program. When he arrived in England, Weidenfeld said Christians fed him, clothed him and supported his resettlement.

Today it seems the tables have turned as Christian persecution across the globe reaches unprecedented levels. And in an effort to repay some of the generosity he received during World War II, Weidenfeld has launched a new program to rescue persecuted Christians in the Middle East.

The Weidenfeld Safe Havens Fund aims to rescue a projected 2,000 Christians from Syria and Iraq over the next two years.

“I had a debt to repay.” Weidenfeld told The Times. “It applies to so many young people who were brought on the Kindertransports. It was the Quakers and other Christian denominations who brought those children to England.”

“It was very (a) very high-minded operation and we Jews should also be thankful and do something for the endangered Christians.”

The Fund sponsored its first rescue just last week, flying 150 Syrian Christians to Poland on a privately chartered plane.

The new initiative has faced some criticism for its exclusion of other persecuted religious minorities in the Middle East, including Yazidis, Druze and Shia Muslims. But Weidenfeld has defended his initiative’s narrow focus.

“I can’t save the world,” he said. “But there is a very specific possibility on the Christian side.”

Weidenfeld appears to have been inspired by the late Nicholas Winton, who rescued more than 10,000 Jewish children during World War II through his Kindertransport train initiative.

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Why a doctor who treats Iraq War veterans is opposed to DC’s assisted suicide bill

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • July 14, 2015

(NikonGirl1969 via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Washington, D.C. — Medical professionals, attorneys and disabilities rights advocates have united in opposition to a proposal that would legalize assisted suicide in Washington, D.C., warning that it preys on the most vulnerable.

“Allowing anyone, especially doctors to kill, or help kill a person is too dangerous to patients, doctors, the health care system, and society,” Dr. Karl Benzio of the Lighthouse Network said during a hearing on the proposed “Death with Dignity Act” of 2015.

Dr. Benzio revealed that he has helped numerous suicidal patients suffering from severe emotional trauma, including those in war-torn areas like Iraq. The “real solution is providing proper expertise and true compassion,” he said, not a lethal prescription.

Patients can recover from their desire to die, he insisted. “In many life conditions, we leave at intermission,” he said, “and miss the star’s great comeback.”

Dr. Benzio was one of numerous witnesses who testified July 10 before the city’s Committee on Health and Human Services on the proposed “Death with Dignity Act,” which would allow persons with terminal diagnoses to obtain lethal prescriptions from doctors.

Certain conditions would be required under the legislative proposal. Patients must make a written request witnessed by two parties, one of whom is a “disinterested” party – not the person’s family or beneficiary.

Additionally, another physician must ensure that the patient is suffering from a terminal illness and is mentally competent to make the decision. However, the doctor would only need to “recommend” that the patient notify their “next of kin” of their decision.

A patient would have to seek mental health counseling only if a physician deems it appropriate. Patients would be eligible to receive the lethal prescription if the “attending physician” determines that they are mentally competent to make the decision, and are not suffering from a psychological disorder.

These conditions have raised red flags among doctors, disability rights groups and pro-life organizations, who argue that the bill targets the vulnerable and promotes suicide as an accessible solution to suffering in life.

If leaders and lawmakers devalue life with proposed laws like this, Dr. Benzio said in his testimony, “why are we surprised” when youth “do the same” in devaluing their own lives and the lives of others.

Other witnesses cautioned that the physicians might not know their patients well at all. Advocacy organizations in favor of physician-assisted suicide have been known to simply direct patients to doctors who will honor their requests, said Molly Greenberg of the National Council on Independent Living, delivering the testimony of the organization’s executive director Kelly Buckland.

There is also a fear that patients may be vulnerable to be coercion. The bill contains no actual requirement that they be evaluated by a psychiatrist or psychologist for mental health disorders like depression that might cloud their judgment. A doctor may recommend them to such a specialist, but he is not required to do so.

The D.C. Department of Health’s Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt admitted as much in her testimony – there is no such requirement that a physician be qualified to judge the mental competency of the patient. She did not endorse or oppose the bill but warned of its weighty consequences.

Also, only one of the two witnesses required for the written request of lethal medication is required to be a “disinterested” witness, said Dr. Lucia Silecchia, a law professor at The Catholic University of America testifying in a strictly personal capacity as a D.C. resident.

In contrast, she said, “traditionally, wills have required multiple disinterested witnesses.”

Seattle-based attorney Margaret Dore further argued that the bill leaves open the possibility of sick persons to die without their own consent.

If a patient obtains a lethal prescription, there is “no oversight” for when they take the dose, making it possible that another person could administer the lethal dose while the patient is asleep or incapacitated, she said.

Persons who stand to benefit from the patient’s death may try to “hasten” it, she warned. The pills used for such a procedure are water and alcohol soluble, and could also switch hands, either intentionally or unintentionally, without regulation.

The bill also ignores the fact that terminal diagnoses given by doctors can sometimes be wrong, witnesses said, with examples of patients possibly living for years after they receive a six-month terminal diagnosis.

It is “very difficult for a physician to accurately predict” the six-month window for a terminal illness, said Dr. Nesbitt.

“We can all agree that there are worse things in life than death,” she said, while noting that D.C. is entering “unchartered territory” by considering physician-assisted suicide.

“The organized medical community is opposed to physician-assisted suicide,” she told the city council. The American Medical Association has consistently opposed it, she added, insisting that doctors need to ensure their patients receive care and support rather than a lethal dose of medication. Their opinion has not changed for over 20 years.

Other national organizations opposing the practice include the American Nurses Association, the National Council on Disability, and the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization, which stated in 2005 that “effective therapies are now available to assure relief from almost all forms of distress during the terminal phase of an illness without purposefully hastening death as the means to that end.”

Oregon, Vermont, and Washington have all legalized physician-assisted suicide, while judicial rulings have allowed the practice in Montana and in one New Mexico county. Measures to legalize the practice have failed in other states, including Maryland, Colorado, California, and Maine.

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The cost of violence: 15 million Africans displaced, with little hope for the future

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • July 14, 2015

Nigerian Christians displaced from their homes by Boko Haram attacks. (Diocese of Maiduguri)

Washington, D.C. — Plagued by wars, terrorism, and repressive governments, sub-Saharan Africa is in the throes of a humanitarian crisis that the international community is not ready to address, witnesses testified on Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Hill last Thursday.

The number of displaced persons has reached an all-time high of 60 million, but a quarter of those are in sub-Saharan Africa.

“Of that total, 3.7 million are refugees and 11.4 million are internally displaced,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) stated July 9 at a Congressional hearing on “Africa’s Displaced People.” Smith chairs the Global Human Rights Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“African refugees and internally displaced people face numerous issues – from security in the places in which they seek refuge, to death and mayhem trying to reach places of refuge, to conflict with surrounding populations to warehousing that consigns generations to be born and live in foreign countries,” he continued.

Witnesses from the State Department and international humanitarian organizations testified that social chaos in sub-Saharan Africa has created a full-blown humanitarian crisis. African host countries already cannot meet the needs of refugees pouring across their borders, and the international community is also stretched thin having to address the soaring number of refugees across the world.

This creates an urgent problem, explained Natalie Eisenbarth, policy and advocacy officer for the International Rescue Committee in her testimony, because displaced persons, many of whom are women and children, are “particularly vulnerable to economic shocks, at risk of human rights violations, without access to basic services.” Once they leave home, they are dependent upon friends, family, governments, and international organizations for basic needs.

And their needs are myriad. Not only must they receive water, food, and shelter to survive, but they also face long-term problems like finding a livelihood in a new country. They also need psychological assistance, many of them having experienced severe trauma along their route or having fled violence and torture in their country of origin.

The rise of the terror group Boko Haram in Nigeria, along with the state’s military response, has displaced upto 3.2 million Nigerians. Violent conflict in South Sudan between the government and rebels – both entities have terrorized the populace through mass killings, torture, and rape – has driven masses of people into refugee camps but also into the “bush,” a wilderness area where they are completely dependent on humanitarian aid to survive.

But South Sudan, said Natalie Eisenbarth, policy and advocacy officer for the International Rescue Committee, “is a difficult aid delivery environment in the best of circumstances.”

Eritreans have suffered egregiously on their journey out of what some call the “North Korea of Africa,” noted John Stauffer of the America Team for Displaced Eritreans in his written testimony.

They flee one of the most oppressive governments in the world. The U.N. Human Rights Council in June reported “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations” to have been committed by the Eritrean government. There is “organized repression of the freedoms of opinion, expression, assembly, association and religion,” the report added.

The government forces many men and women into “abusive, essentially unpaid endless” military service, referred to by survivors as “slave labor,” Stauffer noted. Soldiers are tortured for slight infractions.

However, those fleeing Eritrea face a quagmire of hopelessness in refugee camps in Sudan and Ethiopia, with no positive future outlook, he continued.

Some ran into a horrific system of torture where traffickers would capture them in Sudan and sell them to Bedouins in Egypt, where they would be taken to torture camps in the Sinai Peninsula. Victims were subject to gruesome suffering while a ransom was demanded of their families.

The advent of the el-Sisi government in Egypt resulted in a greater security presence in the Sinai which helped stop the tortures, Stauffer noted.

“The plight of Eritrean refugees is so dire, so complex, so little known, and in some countries so misunderstood that it shocks all normal sensibilities,” he said in his written testimony.

Other persons decide to making the dangerous crossing to Europe through the Mediterranean, but even then many are trafficked by their smugglers and their families are forced to pay more for their release. Some are forced to pay more and board an obviously unsafe boat under threat of death.

Over 1,000 migrants have died trying to make the passage because of “gross overloading or grossly inadequate boats,” Stauffer testified.

Elsewhere in Africa, the Central African Republic was gripped by violence for two years after Muslim-supported rebels ousted the regime in March 2013 and terrorized the populace. Largely Christian militia groups formed to resist their reign of terror and have carried out violent acts of revenge. Almost a million people have been displaced there and almost a half million are living as refugees in neighboring countries.

Countries that have not seen extensive violence lately, such as Chad, have borne the burden of taking in refugees from war-torn areas. But Chad is one of the poorest countries in the world and does not have the infrastructure capable of sustaining the myriads of refugees that are pouring in by the month, said Ann Hollingsworth of Refugees International.

In addition, the World Food Program cut its rations for Sudanese refugees in Chad by 50 percent in 2014, she said. Mothers left their children for weeks on end to find work for food, putting both themselves and their children at risk of exploitation.

Ultimately, international aid must focus on the long-term needs of refugees and displaced persons on the continent, Eisenbarth argued. Parents must be able to provide for their children, and children must have access to education and professional development.

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Here’s what would happen if America’s Catholic outreach disappeared

by Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • July 14, 2015

(Edward Conde via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Denver, CO — A few months ago, Erin McCroy was walking the streets of Denver with Murphy, a 20-something missionary with Christ in the City, an outreach for people who are homeless.

McCroy, who had just become the office manager for the group, was trying to learn what the daily life of a missionary looked like.

“I was out walking with him to get familiar with the ministry, and they’re all so happy to see him,” she said. “He’s only 22, and all of these 50 or 60 year-old men, they look to him like a spiritual father. He’s the only non-homeless person they interact with who talks to them, who knows anything about them.”

On this particular day, one of Murphy’s friends pulled him aside and asked if he could talk.

“Later, I asked Murphy what they wanted to talk about, and he said, ‘Oh, his mom had just passed away, and he just really hadn’t been able to process those feelings with anyone. So I just listened to him and empathized.”

That day, McCroy saw firsthand what the Christ in the City mission is all about – friendship with the poor comes first, material support is secondary.

But it all could come to an end, should Christ in the City and other religiously affiliated non-profits lose their tax exempt status in the coming months and years following the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage.

Just days after the June 26 decision, New York Times columnist Mark Oppenheimer declared in a column that “now is the time” to abolish tax exempt status for religious institutions that do not recognize same-sex marriages. Even prior to the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. told Justice Samuel Alito that tax exemption statuses for religious schools and universities opposed to same-sex marriage is “certainly going to be an issue.”

The Catholic Church is among the largest charitable organizations in the country. A 2013 report by Forbes ranked Catholic Charities alone as number five in the nation, and this doesn’t account for other Catholic charitable organizations such as Christ in the City, St. Vincent de Paul societies or charities run by religious orders or local parishes.

But according to Oppenheimer, the holes left in the public service arena by all the non-profits that would have to downsize, or even close, could be filled by the government.

“Defenders of tax exemptions and deductions argue that if we got rid of them charitable giving would drop. It surely would, although how much, we can’t say. But of course government revenue would go up, and that money could be used to, say, house the homeless and feed the hungry. We’d have fewer church soup kitchens — but countries that truly care about poverty don’t rely on churches to run soup kitchens,” he argues.

But Christ in the City is about so much more than mouths to feed and bodies to house, said Irma Montes, outreach coordinator and former missionary with the ministry. The Christ in the City missionaries are able to be involved in aspects of their friends’ lives (they call them friends, not the homeless) that government programs simply could not reach, due to liability and funding limitations.

“What needs to happen first is you need to befriend the people on the streets and show them that you love them and that they have dignity and they deserve to live a better life,” Montes explained.

“I don’t think the government, because it is the government, has that capacity of showing people that they have human dignity and that they deserve to have a better life,” she added. “It’s much more about cost-effectiveness. It’s going to be cheaper for the government to build housing units to put people in, but now you have isolated people that don’t have community. So they might be out of sight, but that doesn’t solve the problem of that person changing and living a different kind of life.”

As part of their mission, Christ in the City hosts lunch in the park every Wednesday and every second Saturday. They ask local parishes and church groups to take turns preparing and serving the food, and everyone sits down to share the meal in downtown Denver.

McCroy said pulling off lunch in the park, without the free food and volunteer hours from local parishes, would cost the organization around $260,000 a year.

“That figure would be if you only had one employee who oversaw it and still had volunteers to help,” she said, “and we do it for nothing.”

But without tax exempt status?

“I don’t think we would exist,” said Montes.

In a July 13 article for The Week, correspondent Damon Linker wrote an opinion piece about why everyone – conservatives and liberals – should fight to maintain tax exempt status for religious institutions. The whole purpose of the exemptions, he said, came about because it is assumed that churches and their outreaches do something the government cannot when it comes to forming good morals and values in people, making them better citizens.

“That might sound quaint to our cynical, hyper-modern ears,” Linker writes. “Some of the most secular among us may even think that this thumb on the scale in favor of encouraging faith smacks of the government ‘establishing’ religion.”

“But of course the First Amendment doesn’t just preclude a religious establishment. It also protects religious ‘free exercise,’ and it is on those grounds that the elimination of tax exemptions for churches should be opposed by all Americans, liberal and conservative alike.

The issue lies in the definition of ‘free exercise.’

Robert Gilligan, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, said his perspective on the matter may be a bit jaded because of what happened to the Catholic foster care system in Illinois just a few years ago.

In 2011, Illinois began denying contracts for most of Illinois’ Catholic Charities affiliates that were involved in foster care and adoption, because they refused to place children with same-sex couples. The result: the Catholic Church was forced out of a service in which they had played a vital role for more than 40 years, and hundreds of children were moved to other non-profit adoption and foster care agencies.

“In the name of tolerance, we’re not being tolerated,” Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield told the New York Times in 2011.

If attacks against tax exemption became more widespread against other Church charities and institutions, it’s not hard to imagine that many other Catholic ministries would be similarly forced out of business, Gilligan said.

“It’s simple math. If our institutions are taxed, that money will have to come from somewhere, they will begrudgingly comply, therefore less money will be available to provide the services that we once provided. And the ones who will suffer the most are those most in need.”

“And then the next step is, one could argue the most dangerous, is the growth in government to now do those services,” Gilligan added. “Is that the society we want in the quest for redefinition of marriage? I don’t know. We’re concerned about the answer to that question.”

At the parish level, Fr. Javier Nieva, DCJM, of St. Mary’s in Littleton, Colo., is concerned about tuition at his school and the parishes various outreaches, should their tax exempt status come under fire.

“Tuition would go up: it probably wouldn’t be affordable anymore, at least for the majority of people who are currently enrolling their children in the school,” he said, adding it could displace many of the school’s 470 students.

“I would have to let many people go, reduce the staff to the bare minimum, and get rid of some programs,” he added. “We would also have to downsize. We have property, about 20 acres or so, so we’d have to pay taxes on it, and it’s not cheap.”

A loss of tax exempt status could also mean a loss in revenue for the parish and school, since the tax break on charitable giving is among the motivations for some people’s donations.

“If the parishioners are really committed and they don’t mind that much, it won’t be so radical; but it would probably change the face of the Church,” Fr. Nieva explained.

Not only would the parish have to rely on people’s now-taxed donations, they would also need to lean more heavily on their parishioners for volunteer support for various programs and ministries in case they would need to let people go.

“The Church has been around for 2,000 years as a divine institution, so we wouldn’t disappear,” Fr. Nieva said, “but it would change. Economically we know the consequences of paying taxes.”

In the meantime, Fr. Nieva said that Catholics need to be more vigilant about what the Church teaches and why, and to be prepared to defend it in the public arena.

“What many people don’t realize is that things most likely are not going to stop with this decision, and everybody goes back home,” he said. “Most likely they’re going to be pushing, and they’re going to see how it’s going to affect the services that the Church can offer, but we cannot be silent about it.”

The best thing Catholics can do is to listen to their bishops, to pray for conversion, and to fight the temptation to hide from the world.

“We still have to be visible, to fight for these and other rights in the public arena.”

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Disappointment follows ruling against Little Sisters in mandate case

by CNA/EWTN News • July 14, 2015

Little Sisters of the Poor. (Becket Fund for Religious Liberty)

Denver, CO — The Little Sisters of the Poor have reiterated their commitment to following their conscience as they care for the poor and dying, following a federal appeals court ruling that they must obey the federal contraception mandate.

“As Little Sisters of the Poor, we simply cannot choose between our care for the elderly poor and our faith,” said Mother Provincial Sr. Loraine Marie Maguire.

“And we should not have to make that choice, because it violates our nation’s commitment to ensuring that people from diverse faiths can freely follow God’s calling in their lives. For over 175 years, we have served the neediest in society with love and dignity. All we ask is to be able to continue our religious vocation free from government intrusion.”

Sr. Maguire responded to a Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the Little Sisters of the Poor on July 14.

The sisters are among several hundred plaintiffs that have challenged the federal contraception mandate, which requires employers to offer health insurance plans covering contraception, sterilization and some drugs that can cause early abortions.

Employers who fail to comply with the mandate face crippling penalties. In the case of the Little Sisters, the fines could amount to around $2.5 million a year, or about 40 percent of the $6 million the Sisters beg for annually to run their ministry.

Met with a wave of protest, the contraception mandate has undergone a number of revisions. However, the sisters say that it still requires them to violate their beliefs.

Because the Little Sisters of the Poor are not affiliated with a particular house of worship, they do not qualify for the religious exemption to the mandate. The federal government has argued that it has sufficiently provided for the religious freedom of the Little Sisters and other religious organizations through an “accommodation” under which the faith-based employers can pass the burden of providing the objectionable coverage to insurers, who must then offer it directly to employees without cost.

The government says that providing contraception coverage is ultimately free for insurance companies, because birth control results in better health for women and lower pregnancy rates, resulting in lower overall costs for insurers.

Critics, however, reject this claim, arguing that the costs of the coverage will ultimately be handed on to the employer in some way. Several religious organizations have also said that they still object to signing a form that passes the burden of providing the objectionable content to another party.

The Tenth Circuit Court ruled that because the Little Sisters had the option of signing the form, they failed to show that the mandate required a substantial burden on their free exercise of religion.

Last year, the Little Sisters had received temporary protection from the mandate under two orders from the U.S. Supreme Court – one order from the full court and the other from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who oversees the section of the country where the sisters’ case originated. The orders had protected the Little Sisters from mandate penalties while their case was working its way through the court system.

The Supreme Court has also rule directly on the mandate. In June 2014, it struck down the mandate as it applied to Hobby Lobby and other closely-held for-profit companies.

In its July 14 decision, the Tenth Circuit said that the Hobby Lobby reasoning did not apply in the Little Sisters’ case because they were a non-profit and therefore fell under the terms of the “accommodation,” which were not offered to Hobby Lobby as a for-profit company.

The Tenth Circuit’s order also applies to Christian Brothers Services and Christian Brothers Employee Benefit Trust, the Catholic organizations through which the Little Sisters obtain their health coverage.

“We’re disappointed with today’s decision,” said Mark Rienzi, senior counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is helping to defend the Little Sisters in court.

“After losing repeatedly at the Supreme Court, the government continues its unrelenting pursuit of the Little Sisters of the Poor,” he continued. “It is a national embarrassment that the world’s most powerful government insists that, instead of providing contraceptives through its own existing exchanges and programs, it must crush the Little Sisters’ faith and force them to participate.”

“Untold millions of people have managed to get contraceptives without involving nuns, and there is no reason the government cannot run its programs without hijacking the Little Sisters and their health plan,” Rienzi said.

The Becket Fund said that the Little Sisters and their attorneys are looking into the possibility of appealing the ruling to the Supreme Court.

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Planned Parenthood under fire for alleged trafficking of baby organs

by Adelaide Mena and Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • July 14, 2015

(Steve Rhoades via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Washington, D.C. — Abortion giant Planned Parenthood is facing harsh criticism after the release of footage allegedly showing its top doctor describing how the organization offers body parts from aborted babies for money.

“A lot of people want intact hearts these days, they’re looking for specific nodes,” Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s senior medical director, appears to say in a recently released undercover video.

“Yesterday was the first time she said people wanted lungs. And then, like I said, always as many intact livers as possible.”

The video was released July 14 by the Center for Medical Progress, a non-profit group focused on medical ethics. It is the first in the center’s “Human Capital” series, a nearly three-year-long investigative study of Planned Parenthood’s practice.

In the video, two members of the investigation team are seen presenting themselves as part of a “Fetal Tissue Procurement Company” and asking about how they could work with Planned Parenthood clinics to procure fetal tissue for research.

The video purports to show Nucatola explaining to the undercover investigators how Planned Parenthood provides organs from aborted babies for a “reasonable” fee.

A nine-minute long edited video of the conversation was released alongside the nearly-three-hour long complete footage.

Eric Ferrero, vice president of communications for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, defended the practice in a statement, saying that Planned Parenthood clinics help patients “who want to donate tissue for scientific research, and we do this just like every other high-quality health care provider does – with full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards.”

He said that neither Planned Parenthood not the patients receive a financial benefit from these donations, but that “actual costs, such as the cost to transport tissue to leading research centers, are reimbursed, which is standard across the medical field.”

Ferrero accused the video of being a “heavily edited, secretly recorded videotape” produced by a “well-funded group established for the purpose of damaging Planned Parenthood’s mission.”

While selling human body parts in general is illegal, federal law does not prohibit tissue donations, with “reasonable payments” for the “transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue.” State laws governing organ donation – including from aborted babies – vary from state to state.

The undercover video appears to show Nucatola discussing what constitutes a “reasonable” payment for the donation of an aborted baby’s organs: “They just want to do it in a way that is not perceived as, ‘This clinic is selling tissue, this clinic is making money off of this. I know in the Planned Parenthood world they’re very, very sensitive to that.”

“(T)hey want to come to a number that doesn’t look like they’re making money. They want to come to a number that looks like it is a reasonable number for the effort that is allotted on their part.”

The Planned Parenthood medical director then appears to suggest a price of $30-100 per “specimen,” noting that liver is in high demand, before describing a grisly procedure for removing the organs from aborted babies “under ultrasound guidance.”

“So then you’re just kind of cognizant of where you put your graspers, you try to intentionally go above and below the thorax so that, you know, we’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not going to crush that part. I’m going to basically crush below, I’m going to crush above, and I’m going to see if I can get it all intact.”

“And with the calvarium [head], in general, some people will actually try to change the presentation so that it’s not vertex, because when it’s vertex presentation, you never have enough dilation at the beginning of the case, unless you have a real, huge amount of dilation to deliver an intact calvarium,” she appears to say.

According to the Center for Medical Progress, Nucatola “has overseen medical practice at all Planned Parenthood locations since 2009,” “trains new Planned Parenthood abortion doctors,” and “performs abortions herself at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles up to 24 weeks.”

Pro-life groups were outraged by the report. Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, called it “truly horrific.”

“This generation is already turned off by Planned Parenthood once they learn that they have abortion quotas, the extraordinary amount of money they receive from taxpayers and that they commit a quarter of all abortions done yearly,” she said in a statement.

“This video provides a shocking reality check about the grisly, inhumane business model of Planned Parenthood,” added Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life. She added that “the time is now to de-fund Planned Parenthood. The American taxpayer should not be in business with such callous profiteers.”

“Planned Parenthood’s barbaric practices reveal their contempt for rule of law and human life,” said Lila Rose, president of the pro-life advocacy group Live Action. “This latest expose of Planned Parenthood’s trafficking of baby parts for profit should be the final nail in the coffin for the abortion giant.”

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Even if it’s legal, it’s not OK – Congress responds to Planned Parenthood scandal

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • July 16, 2015

(Marcelo Cantarela Junior via Flickr CC BY 2.0)

Washington, D.C. — An undercover video report on Planned Parenthood providing fetal body parts for harvesting and research should shock the conscience of the country, pro-life members of Congress insisted Wednesday.

“That which is legal is not necessarily moral and ethical,” Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) said at a Capitol Hill press conference on July 15.

He was referring to a nine-minute video released Wednesday showing a top Planned Parenthood doctor casually discussing how clinic affiliates offer body parts of aborted babies for research, in exchange for money.

“Is this what we do as a country?” Rep. Murphy asked. “When confronted with the facts of this, we have to ask ourselves is this what we want as a nation as a practice?”

The congressman, who chairs the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, announced an investigation into Planned Parenthood over the report. He was joined at the press conference by other pro-life members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat.

The report on Planned Parenthood was released by the Center for Medical Progress, a group of citizen journalists that cover medical ethics.

This was the group’s first installment of its “Human Capital” series – a three-year investigative study on Planned Parenthood and its practice of offering the organs for research.

In the video, two actors presented themselves as members of a “fetal tissue procurement company” and asked Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, how they could work with Planned Parenthood clinics to obtain body parts of aborted babies for research.

Over glasses of wine and salad, Nucatola explained in grisly detail how the clinics extract organs from aborted babies and donate them to researchers through procurement companies that act as the middle man in the transactions, receiving a “reasonable” fee from the clinics for the expenses of obtaining, preserving, and delivering the organs, which include hearts, lungs, and livers.

“(T)hey want to come to a number that doesn’t look like they’re making money. They want to come to a number that looks like it is a reasonable number for the effort that is allotted on their part,” she said.

While the sale of human body parts is generally illegal, federal law does permit donation of fetal tissue for research purposes with the consent of the mother.

“Reasonable payments” can be made for the operation costs, such as storage, preservation, and transport of the tissue.

State laws governing the donation of organ tissue, however, vary by state.

But even if the transactions may be legal, they should be repugnant to any American, Rep. Murphy insisted.

“This is not what we do in health care practice,” he said. “This is not what we do as families. This is not what we do as a nation.”

Planned Parenthood has defended the practice, saying that it is not making significant or illegal profits from the process. But the group Democrats for Life has called for a congressional investigation into the matter.

The group’s executive director, Kristen Day, noted Nucatola’s comment that the organs requested for shipment can impact the way that the abortion is performed, to ensure that the body parts in question are not damaged.

“Why would you risk the health of a woman to … try to harvest these organs and put the woman’s life or health in further danger if you weren’t profiting?” she asked

“So I think there’s a lot more questions that need to be answered.”

The story should make everyone reconsider the legality of late-term abortion, or abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, she added.

“This reinforces that this is a human being, and maybe these late-term abortions are really not humane or good things, especially if this opens up a marketplace, like Planned Parenthood has obviously found,” she said.

The gruesome practice is just further reason for the need to investigate Planned Parenthood and reconsider any laws that permit such transactions, members of Congress insisted.

“Just last week, Planned Parenthood brought a multitude of young people to Capitol Hill to legitimize its operation. Yet the organization remains a façade for terrible actions,” said Congressman Jeff Fortenberry, (R- Neb.) to CNA.

“Now an undercover video shows it trafficking in the remains of aborted babies. What gruesome developments will finally awaken us to the reality of this twisted organization?”

Some representatives said they had been awoken by the terrible details in the report.

“Congress is right to use its oversight,” said Congresswoman Martha Roby (R- Ala.) with tears in her eyes, “to get to the bottom of this and hold this organization accountable.”

“This is one of the moments where we as a nation have to ask ourselves, who are we?” she asked. “Are we really going to tolerate this kind of inhumanity? Are we going to look the other way while babies are being brutally killed and organs harvested?”

Representative Chris Smith (R, N.J.), co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, also spoke at the press conference, asserting that “Congress must – and will – investigate and put an end to these barbaric practices.”

Congress also expects to investigate changes to abortion procedures for the sake of organ harvesting that may violate the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act, as well as “potential violations of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban,” said a spokesperson for Rep. Sean Duffy (R- Wisc.), who is chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

The congressional investigation will also complement state investigations, Duffy’s office commented. Within hours of the video’s release, several states have already announced their own investigations into the information revealed in the video and Planned Parenthood’s actions within their borders.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission will “conduct an immediate investigation of this alleged practice in addition to a separate investigation ordered by the Texas Office of the Attorney General,” said Texas Governor Greg Abbott in a July 14 statement.

Louisiana too will investigate Planned Parenthood’s actions, said Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is also running for the Republican nomination for president. Other GOP candidates – including Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson – also spoke out against the video’s findings.

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Archbishop to priests: Here’s how to not give bad homilies

by CNA/EWTN News • July 16, 2015

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

Detroit, MI — In a practical bullet-pointed letter to priests and deacons, Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron of Detroit spelled out the types of people who attend Mass and how clergy can best speak to them.

“The key is not to offer commentary but to help the people in the pews understand what is happening in the text so that they can understand what is happening now and respond in faith,” he said in a June 30 pastoral letter entitled “The Preacher – Servant of the Word of God.”

Emphasizing the importance of the homily as an opportunity to act as instruments of God, the archbishop encouraged the priests of Detroit to focus on preaching aimed at evangelizing their flock.

Much of his letter focused on identifying types of audiences for priests to keep in mind as they preach, realizing that each person in the pew is there with his own worries, anxieties and life story.

“Many people have been sacramentalized but never evangelized,” Archbishop Vigneron said. Although they encountered Christ in the sacraments, they had little awareness of it, and so “they knew about God but they didn’t know Him.”

“Unfortunately, we have to bear our share of responsibility for this,” the archbishop continued. He said that preaching the Gospel to this group, which may be the majority of a Sunday Mass congregation, is “like trying to plant seeds in concrete – nothing will grow.”

Therefore, evangelization that fosters an encounter with Christ is key, he emphasized. The Archdiocese of Detroit is preparing for an upcoming diocesan Synod on the New Evangelization to explore the topic in more depth.

Another group of people in the typical Mass congregation are the “practical atheists,” Archbishop Vigneron said. These people do not reject God outright, but compartmentalize their faith and spend most of their lives in a “secular, consumer world,” living as if God did not exist or had no meaning in their lives.

In addition, the archbishop said, many people today consider themselves to be spiritual. They have a great hunger for “sort of inner peace that will help them more or less achieve their agenda for their lives.” Other people come to Mass “biased” by media, entertainment and academia, which tell them that faith is incompatible with reason.

Also present at Mass are the “seemingly dead,” who arrive late and leave early, do not pay attention or participate, and do not seem to want to be there, as well as “the bored and the blasé,” those who have seen only a “dumbed down and neutered” version of Christ and the Gospel.

But deep down, Archbishop Vigneron said, everyone at Mass wants the same thing – an encounter with Christ, and it is the priest’s responsibility to help facilitate that through his preaching.

The archbishop offered practical tips for how to achieve this. He encouraged occasionally preaching in an ordered series of homilies on a certain theme of the faith, such as prayer or the sacraments.

Noting the power of personal witness, he also suggested that priests and deacons offer examples from their own lives.

Rather than allowing the readings to remain at the level of the theoretical, preachers should apply them to the “concrete situation” of the community and offer suggestions for ways that people can put them into practice, he said, noting that this requires adequate preparation beforehand.

Sadly, Archbishop Vigneron noted, many people in the pews have heard the phrase “God loves you,” but have not internalized it.

“Sobering recent statistics reveal many Catholics don’t even think it’s possible to have a friendship with God, so they certainly don’t know, with every fiber of their being, that they are loved, infinitely and passionately, by the One who has made it all,” he said.

“And this love, knowledge of this love, an encounter with this love, is what changes lives; it’s what leads to a decision to make a response to follow the One who has laid down His life for us.”

Just as steel must be warmed before it can be molded or bent, the human heart must be warmed by the love of God in order to overcome fear and be molded by the truth of Gospel, the archbishop said. Without encountering the love of Christ, “the faith simply looks like rules and regulations.”

Ultimately, priests and deacons foster an encounter with God when they preach Christ crucified, he said.

“The cross is the single greatest demonstration of love ever seen. Help them to understand it. Repeatedly call their attention to it. Help them to understand God doesn’t simply tell us He loves us; He shows us.”

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What a proposed US bill on religious liberty would and would not protect

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • July 16, 2015

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

Washington, D.C. — With same-sex marriage now legal throughout the United States, some members of Congress are trying to protect the religious rights of those who disagree with marriage’s new definition – but their efforts may be limited.

The First Amendment Defense Act, introduced by Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), would prohibit “discriminatory action” by the federal government against those who believe marriage is between a man and a woman or who believe sex outside of marriage is wrong.

“No group should lose its tax-exempt status because of its views on marriage,” stated Labrador.

“Religious non-profits fulfill a vital humanitarian role in our nation, and they must remain free to staff and operate according to the same religious tenets that motivate their compassion for their communities,” Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) said at a July 16 press conference on Capitol Hill on the bill. Hartzler co-chairs the House Values Action Team.

The prevailing concern with the Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage licenses nationwide is that those opposing the law of the land might see their federal benefits cut as a result.

The bill intends to protect the tax-exempt status of such organizations, along with other federal benefits such as contracts with religious non-profits and businesses. Those could not be terminated simply because of an entity’s religious beliefs on marriage. For example, charities such as The Salvation Army or Samaritan’s Purse could not lose federal funding simply because of their religious beliefs on marriage, members of Congress explained.

Two bishops who publicly supported the act – Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore and Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco – called it a “federal non-discrimination act.”

However, while the bill is hailed as an important measure for religious freedom, it does its limits.

It would not protect any entity against the federal birth control mandate, since it only protects religious beliefs on marriage and on sex outside of marriage.

Thus even religious houses like the Little Sisters of the Poor, who have opposed the mandate in court and lost, would not be protected by the law.

“This would not apply to them at all,” Lee acknowledged.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court recently ruled that the sisters must obey the federal mandate that their insurance plans for employees cover contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilizations. The sisters had refused, saying that doing so would violate their religious beliefs.

More than 300 plaintiffs have filed lawsuits claiming the mandate – including later modifications made to “accommodate” the religious beliefs of certain non-profits and businesses – violates their religious beliefs.

The bill would also not apply to another prominent religious liberty case, in which an Oregon bakery was sued by a same-sex couple because it refused for religious reasons to serve their wedding. The state fined the bakery $135,000 for emotional damages inflicted on the couple in the case.

In cases like that one, “you’re dealing with discrimination occurring between private parties,” Lee said, and not between a business and the federal government. Thus FADA would not apply to the case.

Neither would the bill protect anyone against action from state and local governments. For example, the Christian couple who run a for-profit wedding chapel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, would not be protected by the bill in their fight against a city ordinance mandating that they conduct same-sex weddings.

In Washington, D.C., religious schools and organizations are already facing a law forcing them to violate their religious beliefs. The Human Rights Amendment Act would force religious schools in the district to recognize LGBT student groups and supporters of same-sex marriage, and allow them use of theier facilities.

Thus the bill would not protect the schools against D.C. government specifically; but it is created to guard against similar actions taken by the federal government.

To make the case for the bill, supporters cited comments by the solicitor general acknowledging that the tax-exempt status of some colleges could be ended if same-sex marriage became legal and they still opposed it.

“It’s certainly going to be an issue,” soliciter general Donald Verrilli said of maintaining the tax-exempt status of colleges who opposed legal same-sex marriage.

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After deadly Chattanooga shooting, bishop rallies ‘shaken’ community to prayer

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

College students and others gather in prayer across the street where a gunman attacked a recruiting office in Chattanooga, Tennessee on July 17, 2015. (Getty Images)

Chattanooga, TN — Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville is calling the faith community to prayer after Thursday’s fatal shooting at a military recruiting center in Chattanooga, on the southern end of his diocese.

“We ask for your prayers for the souls of those who lost their lives, the recovery of the police officer wounded in these shootings, and for all of their families,” Bishop Stika said in a statement.

Muhammed Youssef Abdulazeez, age 24, is suspected of attacking two military facilities in Chattanooga on Thursday morning, killing four U.S. Marines and wounding a police officer and two others.

According to authorities, Abdulazeez fired into the first facility, a military recruiting center, from his car before driving a few miles to the second site, a Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center. He exited his car and killed the four Marines there, reports said, and was later killed in a shootout with police.

The tragedy has stunned not only the local community but also the diocesan seat in Knoxville, more than 100 miles away.

“It’s been foremost in the bishop’s mind,” the diocese’s communications director Jim Wogan told CNA. “It’s saddened him, it’s disturbed him.”

“Clearly it’s shaken the community, it’s shaken the diocese.”

The rector of the city’s Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul, Fr. David Carter, held a prayer service Thursday night and the bishop will travel down to say Mass there for the deceased Marines on Sunday at 9 a.m., Wogan confirmed. He will address the tragedy there.

In addition, the bishop is expected to release a video message calling for prayers for all involved in the tragedy.

The tragedy hits close to home for Bishop Stika, who noted in his statement that he has two brothers that have served in the U.S. Marine Corps. “I recognize and appreciate the selfless service all members of the military give to protect us,” he said.

Chattanooga holds a special place in the history of the diocese, Wogan explained. There is a “deep tradition of Catholicism in that area,” he said. In fact, the history of the basilica there goes back to the 1850s when it was founded as a parish.

Other bishops and dioceses weighed in to express their condolences and support for Chattanooga.

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A prophetic Pope and the tradition of Catholic social teaching

by Very Rev. Robert Barron • July 14, 2015

In the wake of the publication of Pope Francis’s encyclical letter Laudato Si and of the Pope’s recent speeches in Latin America, many supporters of the capitalist economy in the West might be forgiven for thinking that His Holiness has something against them. Again and again, Pope Francis excoriates an economy based on materialism and greed, and with prophetic urgency, he speaks out against a new colonialism that exploits the labor of those in poorer countries. With startling bluntness, he characterizes the dominant economic form in the developed world as “an economy that kills.” Moreover, in a speech delivered in Bolivia, a country under the command of a socialist president, the Pope seemed, almost in a Marxist vein, to be calling on the poor to seize power from the wealthy and take command of their own lives. What do we make of this?

Well, a contextualization is in order. Pope Francis’s remarks, though strong, even a bit exaggerated, in the prophetic manner, are best understood in the framework of Catholic social teaching. One of the most significant constants in that tradition is a suspicion of socialism, understood as an economic system that denies the legitimacy of private property, undermines the free market, and fosters a class struggle between the rich and the poor, or if I can use the more classical language, between capital and labor. The modern popes, from Leo XIII to Benedict XVI, have all spoken clearly against such systems, and it is hard to deny that experience has borne them out. Economies in the radically socialist or communist mode have proven to be, at best, inefficient and, at worst, brutally oppressive. Robert Sirico, Michael Novak, Arthur Brooks, and many others are therefore right in suggesting that Catholic Social Teaching does not represent a tertium quid beyond capitalism and socialism; rather, it clearly aligns itself against socialistic arrangements and clearly for the market economy. John Paul II appreciated the free market as the economic concomitant of a democratic polity, since both rest upon the dignity of the individual and his right to self-determination.

But this valorization of the market by no means implies that the Church advocates an unfettered capitalism. The modern Popes have consistently taught that the market functions properly only when it is circumscribed both politically and morally - and it is precisely in this context that Pope Francis’s remarks should be understood. Let us look first at the political circumscription. Pope Leo XIII and his successors have deeply felt the suffering of those who have been exploited by the market or who have not been given adequate access to its benefits. And this is why they have supported political/legal reforms, including child labor laws, minimum wage requirements, anti-trust provisions, work day restrictions, the right of workers to unionize, etc. All of these legal constraints, they have taught, should not be construed as erosions of the market, but rather as attempts to make it more humane, more just, and more widely accessible. To be sure, people of intelligence and good will can and do disagree regarding the precise application of these principles, debating for example just how high the minimum wage should be fixed, just how stringently anti-trust laws should be interpreted, just how the rights of labor and capital should be balanced, etc. And neither popes nor bishops nor priests should get into the nitty-gritty of those conversations, best leaving the details to those expert in the relevant disciplines. But popes, bishops, and priests can indeed call for political reforms if a market has become exploitative and hence self-destructive.

The second circumscription that the Popes speak of - the moral - is even more important than the first. A market economy enjoys real legitimacy if and only if it is set in the context of a vibrant moral culture that forms its people in the virtues of fairness, justice, respect for the integrity of the other, and religion. Indeed, what good are contracts - fundamental to the functioning of a market economy - if people are indifferent to justice? What good is private property if people don’t see that stealing is wicked? Won’t wealth destroy the rich man who doesn’t appreciate the value of generosity or fails to develop sensitivity to the suffering of the poor? Won’t the drive for profit lead to the destruction of nature, unless people realize that the earth is a gift of a gracious God and meant to be enjoyed by all? This is precisely why the moral relativism and indifferentism that holds sway in many parts of the West - fostered by the breakdown of the family and the attenuating of religious practice - poses such a threat to the economy.

In light of these clarifications, we can hear the Pope’s words with greater understanding. He asks, “Do we realize that that system has imposed the mentality of profit at any price, with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature?” He is not speaking here of the market as such, but of a deeply immoral attitude that has seized the hearts of too many who use the market. And he complains, “An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women.” These are strong words indeed, but we notice again that the Pope’s attention is not so much on the mechanisms of capitalism, but rather on the wickedness of those who are using the market economy in the wrong way, greedily making an idol of money and becoming indifferent to the needs of others. In his call for an ethical circumscription of economic life, Francis’s language is, if anything, milder than Leo XIII’s (“once the demands of necessity and propriety have been met, the rest that one owns belongs to the poor”) or St. Ambrose’s (“if a man has two shirts in his closet, one belongs to him; the other belongs to the man who has no shirt”).

Therefore, we should attend to Pope Francis’s prophetic speech and allow it to bother us. But we should always situate it in the context of the rich and variegated tradition of Catholic social teaching.

Father Robert Barron is the founder of the global ministry Word on Fire (wordonfire.org) and the Rector/President of Mundelein Seminary. He is the creator of two award-winning documentary series, Catholicism and Catholicism: The New Evangelization.

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FEATURES

Our Young People, Summer Time, and the Language Arts

by Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J. • July 15, 2015

With the close of the academic year, parents must find ways for their children to spend the summer in safe environments. If during the school year, texting others takes precedence over most activities, what is to be expected during the summer? Statistics report that young teenagers text others more than one hundred times a day.

Summer Chores

Our young people deserve some respite from the typical structure of the school day. Still, the wise use of the leisure time is a lesson to be learned. While many attend camp, others do not.

During the summer months, children should contribute to the family good by helping with household chores or those linked to family business. Manual work can help them mature by stimulating their imaginations. This is an important by-product of manual work, whether in the home, field, or factory.

Language Arts: An Overall View

When parents read to their toddlers at night, an intimate bond grows between them. Children feel loved because their parents’ attention is focused wholly on them. Positive attitudes are formed in early childhood as children associate good experiences with reading. They will sleep more soundly with happy thoughts. As they grow older, the positive habit of reading is formed and implemented. In all likelihood, they will become independent readers. Children who are accustomed to seeing books in the home, and children who hold books in their hands are inclined to be readers in their adolescent years.

Read, and Your World Will Grow Larger

Reading good literature enlarges a child’s world. Vocabulary increases, and language skills improve.

Emily Dickinson begins one of her poems with lines that expand our own thinking: “There is no frigate like a book, to take us lands away.”

There was no one who understood this thought more than Abraham Lincoln whose speeches with their beautiful cadences reflect the great literature he read.

In our own day, Dr. Ben Carson, the world-renowned pediatric surgeon and candidate for the Republican Party, grew up in a very poor household in which his parents divorced when he was a child. Dr. Carson developed such a violent temper that one day, over a trivial matter, he nearly stabbed a classmate with his knife. Determined that her son would not grow into a delinquent and join the prison population, his mother pressed him to read. She became the instrument through which new worlds were opened up to him as he read voraciously one book after the other.

When speaking to parents and young people, Dr. Carson repeats: “Read and you can go everywhere and anywhere with anyone.” In other words, “Read and your world will grow larger.” Dr. Carson’s world did grow much larger as he embraced the medical profession with purpose and distinction.

Reading as Intelligent Enjoyment

When parents read uplifting and inspiring stories to their young children at their bedtime, certain favorite topics will emerge. Animals, children living in faraway places, sports, suspense mysteries, the arts are only a few topics. Reading biographies is a fine way to learn about the lives of great people who preceded them. Biographies show children the worth of human life and how men and women have woven their own lives into the lives of historical figures. Reading biographies of these men and women and of saints too can inspire their imitation. Lives of the saints do this better than most.

Reading good literature can change life for the better in practical ways. It improves vocabulary and language skills. Children whose parents know a minimum of English need to read a great deal to increase their vocabulary.

The Language Arts as a Way to Virtue

Where do our children derive their inspiration? And by whom or what? Reading good literature offers virtue to them as an attractive way of life. In fact, reading can be a way to virtue. When children read stories about people who live virtuously, they are inspired to imitate them.

The ancient Greeks, a growing number of theologians, and other educators hold that the cultivation of virtue makes individuals happy, wise, courageous and competent. Summer is the time when our children should grow in virtues like faith, loyalty, hard work, and respect for elders. Virtue is that quality of character by which individuals habitually recognize the right thing and do it. Virtue is always in style and never takes a vacation.

The Joy of Memorizing Poetry

Readers ought not to be surprised at how many people learn poetry by heart. They do it while jogging, traveling by public transportation, doing manual chores, going on errands. Some years ago, learning poetry formed an essential part of the language arts curriculum. Children loved poems like “If,” “The House with Nobody in It,” “Casey at the Bat,” and “St. Catherine, St. Catherine, o come to my aid.”

“Marlon Brando memorized heaps of Shakespeare,” writes Robert Pinsky. Maria Bartiromo, the daughter of Italian immigrants and a Wall Street Whiz, recites Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “If” whenever she delivers a commencement address.

Memorizing poetry, apart from the sheer joy it gives, is power — power of mastering the beauty of the English language. It brings with it its own reward.

“Over the last two hours, my 11-year old kid has memorized 14 lines of Keats,” boasts a mother, “the result of sheer bribery.” Other parents confess to rewarding their children with a dime for each poem they learn.

The Art of Beautiful and Distinctive Handwriting

Handwriting is an effective and reliable indicator of personality and behavior. Handwriting reveals the kind of person one is. In fact, handwriting analysis is used in interviews, job selections, and many other aspects of business. Yet, in public schools, handwriting is no longer taught. In Catholic schools, the handwriting class was the most rewarding for the children. And … for the duration of the lesson, the breathing of the children was the only sound heard, intent as they were on the art of beautiful and distinctive handwriting.

During the summer, children can discover that practicing their handwriting is a rewarding exercise. They can follow one of two methods: the Zaner-Blöser method or the Palmer method explained on their webpages, too numerous to list here. There are also websites that analyze your personality through your handwriting. Be ready for a surprise.

One Hour a Day

An hour a day, divided into segments, should be expected from children and young people to devote to the Language Arts. After a short time, they will experience the joy of having gained an intellectual power that no one can take from them.

Some References

Parents may wish to consult three short but excellent essays on poetry for children and for adults: (1) Jim Holt, “Got Poetry? The Case for Memorizing Poetry” (NY Times April 2, 2009); (2) Kate Haas, “The Case for Bribing Kids to Memorize Poetry,” (NY Times, August 3, 2014); (3) William Logan, “Poetry: Who Needs It?” (New York Times Sunday Review June 14, 2014).

The comprehensive book engines given below are only two of many that can be found on the internet. Age-appropriate suggestions are provided.

frcoulter.com/books/novels.html

fordham.readingprograms.org

Here are some poems that children can easily memorize:

Swift Things Are Beautiful

by Elizabeth Coatsworth

(recited quickly)

Swift things are beautiful:

Swallows and deer

And lightning that falls

Bright-veined and clear,

River and meteors,

Wind in the wheat,

The strong-withered horse,

The runner’s sure feet.

(recited slowly)

And slow things are beautiful:

The closing of day,

The pause of the wave

That curves downward to spray,

The ember that crumbles,

The opening flower,

And the ox that moves on

In the quiet of power.

The Well of Beauty

by Eileen Lomasney, C.S.J.

A canticle of color,

A symphony of sound,

Asks the eager-hearted

“Where is beauty found?”

The liturgy of seasons,

The rhythm of the skies,

Reads like Wisdom’s Primer

Furnishing replies.

We marry moods to beauty

Early in our youth

And find our spirit tutored

In goodness and in truth.

We search our inner being,

Our birth, our life and death,

To learn we are dependent

On beauty’s very breath.

All syllabled creation

Spelleth last and first,

The Word is Beauty’s Well-Spring,

O come, all ye that thirst.

Prayer to St. Catherine to Find a Husband

St. Catherine, St. Catherine, O lend me thine aid.

And grant that I never shall die an old maid.

A husband, St. Catherine,a good one, St. Catherine.

But anyone’s better than no one, St. Catherine.

A husband, St. Catherine,

Young, St. Catherine,

Handsome, St. Catherine,

Rich, St. Catherine,

Soon, St. Catherine!

René Descartes once remarked that “the reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.” And F. Scott Fitzgerald echoes the French philosopher and mathematician: “That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.”

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

Judd Apatow’s ‘Trainwreck’: does it glamorize or criticize sin?

by Carl Kozlowski • July 17, 2015

It’s been impossible to miss the ads for the movie “Trainwreck” this month, and thanks to its extensive cast of comedy stars and basketball great LeBron James, you couldn’t watch a talk show this week that didn’t have someone from the movie as a guest. Every ad and actor made it seem like it was a raunchy celebration of a drunk and promiscuous woman’s wild life.

And that it is, to a point. But because it’s a movie directed and produced by Judd Apatow, (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin”, “Knocked Up,” “This is 40”), there’s much more on its mind and in its heart as well. The question is, does it coarsen the culture further with its boundary-pushing comically risqué moments, or is it actually criticizing how smutty our culture has become and seeking to improve it?

The movie opens with a scene that is darkly funny in the movie but tragic if taken as reality: Amy’s father Gordon (Colin Quinn) abandons them as young children, but before he leaves he explains marriage and divorce in terms that mess up their minds. He uses the analogy of having a favorite doll and then “having to play with it forever,” when there are other dolls they might find attractive as well. He then drills them to say that monogamy is bad, infusing that idea in their minds.

Cut to Amy’s life in her early 30s, working at a men’s magazine that has a mean-spirited sense of humor and an obsession with discussing sex. Amy’s boss decides to challenge her and give her the assignment to cover a famous sports doctor named Dr. Aaron Conners (Bill Hader), even though she hates sports.

The idea is that the conflict between their interests will spark deeper questions and a better story. Aaron introduces her to basketball’s biggest current star (LeBron James, playing himself) and he finds it charming that she is so clueless about sports and who he is. James, who is a comic delight in the movie, is determined to make Aaron and Amy a couple.

It turns out that he doesn’t have to try hard. At the end of their first day together, Amy tells the cab driver they only need one address: Aaron’s. After she surprises him by initiating sex, Aaron – a “nice guy” who hasn’t quite reserved sex for marriage but has only had sex with the three women he loved – surprises her in return by managing to keep her sleeping next to him all the way to morning, and breaking a fundamental rule of hers.

In keeping with his breakthrough movie, “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” Apatow isn’t looking to mock the sexually inexperienced Aaron here despite how easily most Hollywood filmmakers would do so. Just as in “Virgin,” Hader’s more traditional-values-minded character, who’s eager to find a wife even as Amy abhors monogamy due to her father’s poisonous lessons, starts to have a positive influence on her in many ways.

Meanwhile, Amy’s dad is now dying of Muscular Dystrophy, in a touching subplot that gives the movie surprisingly strong emotional and dramatic depth. Despite his abandonment of her, she visits him regularly and fights with her sister to keep him in the best nursing home possible. When he dies and Amy delivers the eulogy, her realizations about his life spur her to improve her own as well.

But can she really change? That question, which is as old as time for every man and woman who has to make the choice in life to be a willful sinner or a person who struggles to be good, is addressed here in extremely modern terms.

The question that faithful viewers have to ask is: does a movie like “Trainwreck” drive more people into lives of sin by the fact that their comedic tone lightens the real-life sadness derived from moral decadence? Or is a filmmaker like Apatow striving to wake modern society up and believing the only way to reach the people who need a moral message the most is by appearing on the surface to be as raunchy as so much of today’s entertainment? In effect, Apatow is luring people in with the promise of decadent fun and then reaching them with a moral message they might otherwise have tuned out from more conventionally moral forums.

Having spoken to Apatow in the past and having heard him personally tell me that “Virgin” was an attempt to take a stand for goodness in a sex-drenched society, I believe he is still working that mission field. Beneath the raunch, his movie “Knocked Up” was unquestionably a pro-life movie, and he defended it as such to major media. “This Is 40” showed a long-time marriage undergoing major crises in a highly profane way, yet true love and family learned the need to take a kinder tone among themselves.

Thus, “Trainwreck” is a movie that is made for our times. Times that have grown far too crass, and this movie has plenty of that material in its four depicted sex scenes (all played for laughs, but graphic nonetheless) and plethora of sex jokes and foul language. Yet its portrayal of a woman who comes to realize she’s miserable as the proverbial trainwreck of the title is one that might be sorely needed to be seen by the people who are living in that fashion.

Discerning viewers should take extreme caution with this movie, and absolutely no one under 17 should see it. But for those who know what they’re getting into and are willing to embrace its ultimately good messages and terrific performances by all involved, “Trainwreck” can be worth the ride.

Carl Kozlowski has been a professional film critic and essayist for the past five years at Pasadena Weekly, in addition to the Christian movie site Movieguide.org, the conservative pop culture site Breitbart.coms Big Hollywood, the Christian pop culture magazine Relevant and New City newspaper in Chicago. He also writes in-depth celebrity interviews for Esquire.com and The Progressive. He is owner of the podcasting site radiotitans.com, which was named one of the Frontier Fifty in 2013 as one of the 50 best talk-radio outlets in the nation by talkers.com and will be relaunching it in January 2014 after a five-month sabbatical. He lives in Los Angeles.

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SUNDAY • JULY 19, 2015

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Jer 23:1-6; NRSVCE)

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord. Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

Second Reading (Eph 2:13-18; NRSVCE)

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.

Gospel Reading (Mk 6:30-34; NRSVCE)

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

MONDAY • JULY 20, 2015

Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Ex 14:5-18; NRSVCE)

When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the minds of Pharaoh and his officials were changed toward the people, and they said, “What have we done, letting Israel leave our service?” So he had his chariot made ready, and took his army with him; he took six hundred picked chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them. The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt and he pursued the Israelites, who were going out boldly. The Egyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, his chariot drivers and his army; they overtook them camped by the sea, by Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon.

As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites looked back, and there were the Egyptians advancing on them. In great fear the Israelites cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” But Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry out to me? Tell the Israelites to go forward. But you lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the Israelites may go into the sea on dry ground. Then I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them; and so I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army, his chariots, and his chariot drivers. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gained glory for myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his chariot drivers.”

Gospel Reading (Mt 12:38-42; NRSVCE)

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth. The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here! The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here!”

TUESDAY • JULY 21, 2015

Tuesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Ex 14:21 — 15:1; NRSVCE)

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided. The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. The Egyptians pursued, and went into the sea after them, all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and chariot drivers. At the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and cloud looked down upon the Egyptian army, and threw the Egyptian army into panic. He clogged their chariot wheels so that they turned with difficulty. The Egyptians said, “Let us flee from the Israelites, for the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and chariot drivers.” So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained. But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.

Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord:

“I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;

horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”

Gospel Reading (Mt 12:46-50; NRSVCE)

While Jesus was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

WEDNESDAY • JULY 22, 2015

Memorial of Saint Mary Magdalene

First Reading (Ex 16:1-5, 9-15; NRSVCE)

The whole congregation of the Israelites set out from Elim; and Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days.”

Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, ‘Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’” And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. The Lord spoke to Moses and said, “I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’”

In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”

Gospel Reading (Jn 20:1-2, 11-18; NRSVCE)

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

THURSDAY • JULY 23, 2015

Thursday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Ex 19:1-2, 9-11, 16-20b; NRSVCE)

On the third new moon after the Israelites had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day, they came into the wilderness of Sinai. They had journeyed from Rephidim, entered the wilderness of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness; Israel camped there in front of the mountain.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after.”

When Moses had told the words of the people to the Lord, the Lord said to Moses: “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes and prepare for the third day, because on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.”

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick cloud on the mountain, and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled. Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God. They took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently. As the blast of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses would speak and God would answer him in thunder. When the Lord descended upon Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain, the Lord summoned Moses to the top of the mountain.

Gospel Reading (Mt 13:10-17; NRSVCE)

Then the disciples came and asked Jesus, “Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?” He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:

‘You will indeed listen, but never understand,

and you will indeed look, but never perceive.

For this people’s heart has grown dull,

and their ears are hard of hearing,

and they have shut their eyes;

so that they might not look with their eyes,

and listen with their ears,

and understand with their heart and turn —

and I would heal them.’

But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.”

FRIDAY • JULY 24, 2015

Friday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Ex 20:1-17; NRSVCE)

Then God spoke all these words:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

“You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

“Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work — you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

“Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

“You shall not murder.

“You shall not commit adultery.

“You shall not steal.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Gospel Reading (Mt 13:18-23; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

SATURDAY • JULY 25, 2015

Feast of Saint James

First Reading (2 Cor 4:7-15; NRSVCE)

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture —”I believed, and so I spoke”— we also believe, and so we speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

Gospel Reading (Mt 20:20-28; NRSVCE)

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favor of him. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

When the ten heard it, they were angry with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”