VOLUME 1, ISSUE 33  •  AUGUST 15, 2015

Table of Contents

Copyright Notice

VATICAN NEWS

‘No to war!’ – Pope pushes for nuclear disarmament on atomic bomb anniversary

The Pope’s new doctor is an expert in liver disease, surgical medicine

In ecumenical move, Pope Francis establishes World Day of Prayer for Creation

For Pope Francis, achieving peace means overcoming indifference

U.S. embassy to the Holy See begins move to new location

Pope Francis: Sundays are a gift from God – Don’t ruin it

Pope Francis baptizes children of an old friend at the Vatican

Benedict XVI and Christian Europe, as seen by a Japanese scholar

WORLD NEWS

Chilean legislators appeal to judicial branch over pro-abortion bill

The Miracle of Hiroshima – Jesuits survived the atomic bomb thanks to the rosary

Priest urges prayer for victims, perpetrators of latest Islamic State abduction in Syria

This Syriac bishop will be beatified on the 100th anniversary of his martyrdom

Stop chatting during the Sign of Peace, says Brazilian bishop

What a pro-life march looks like in Ghana

Take a hike – and you just might find God, these trekkers say

The divorced and remarried cannot receive Communion, Colombian bishops affirm

A street party for Don Bosco – 15,000 turn up to celebrate saint in Lima

In Burundi’s crisis, the Church stands with the people

What the Church is doing to help flood victims in Myanmar

Could the release of 22 Christians signal another Islamic State attack?

In U.K., assisted suicide vote looms as a key moment for disabled

U.S. NEWS

Not a taxing matter? IRS downplays gay marriage religious freedom threats

Archbishop Chaput: Other moral issues not equivalent to abortion

What do Pope Francis and Abraham Lincoln have in common?

For Bishop Stika, Planned Parenthood videos show need to cherish humanity first

A ‘Buzzfeed’ you can believe in – ChurchPOP marks one remarkable year

Former technician: Planned Parenthood took baby organs without consent

Latin Americans find post-abortion healing in Rachel’s Vineyard Hispanic outreach

Colorado court gives no relief to baker who declined to serve gay wedding

A voice missing from the synod: faithful Catholics with same-sex attraction

What’s destroying some Catholic marriages? The answer may surprise you

How the pill might be ruining your life

FEATURES

Omosessualità

Mother Nature is One Unreliable Lady

Lessons from the Mozart Playbook

Bishop Faces Three Years in Jail for Defending Marriage

Three movies to look out for this weekend

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Sunday • August 16, 2015

Monday • August 17, 2015

Tuesday • August 18, 2015

Wednesday • August 19, 2015

Thursday • August 20, 2015

Friday • August 21, 2015

Saturday • August 22, 2015

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Volume 1, Issue 33 • August 15, 2015

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VATICAN NEWS

‘No to war!’ – Pope pushes for nuclear disarmament on atomic bomb anniversary

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 9, 2015

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

Vatican City — On Sunday Pope Francis said the “horrific” atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the icon of man’s destructive misuse of scientific progress, and called for an end to all nuclear arms and weapons of mass destruction.

The “tremendous” atomic bombing of the two Japanese cities, which took place Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, “still arouses horror and repulsion,” the Pope said in his Aug. 9 Sunday Angelus address.

He told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square that the event “has become the symbol of man’s enormous destructive power when he makes a wrong use of scientific and technical progress.”

These bombings ought to serve as a permanent warning to humanity in order “to repudiate her forever from war and to banish nuclear arms and every weapon of mass destruction,” he said.

Francis then called for prayer and a decisive commitment to work for peace and to spread an “ethic of fraternity” in the world so as to foster a serene coexistence among peoples.

“From every land should arise one voice: no to war and violence and yes to dialogue and peace!”

Seventy years ago, the only wartime use of nuclear weapons took place in the Aug. 6 attack on Hiroshima and the Aug. 9 attack on Nagasaki by the United States.

The Hiroshima attack killed around 80,000 people instantly and may have caused about 130,000 deaths, mostly civilians. The attack on the port city of Nagasaki killed about 40,000 instantly and destroyed a third of the city, the BBC reports. The attacks took a heavy toll on all of Japan’s population.

Pope Francis has spoken against nuclear weapons before, including during a Dec. 7, 2014 message to an international gathering on the weapons.

“Nuclear deterrence and the threat of mutually assured destruction cannot be the basis for an ethics of fraternity and peaceful coexistence among peoples and states,” he said.

“A global ethic is needed if we are to reduce the nuclear threat and work toward nuclear disarmament,” the Pope explained, adding that the many victims of nuclear arms are a warning “not to commit the same irreparable mistakes which have devastated populations and creation.”

In his Angelus address, Francis also offered his thoughts and prayers to the people of El Salvador, where he “follows with concern” the news of increasing hardships due to famine, the economic crisis, acute social conflicts and growing violence.

“I encourage the dear Salvadorian people to persevere united in hope, and I urge all to pray so that in the land of Blessed Oscar Romero, justice and peace will flourish again,” he said.

Archbishop Romero was killed due to hatred of the faith March 24, 1980, in the midst of the birth of a civil war between leftist guerrillas and the dictatorial government of the right. At the beginning of this year Pope Francis approved of his martyrdom and he was beatified May 23, 2015.

Violence in El Salvador skyrocketed after a treaty between local gangs and the government collapsed early last year.

According to the Associated Press, a recent spike in murders – with a reported 600 in May alone – is due to the fact that gangs are seeking to pressure the government into negotiating a new treaty, much like a previous one which resulted in a significant drop in homicides. However, the government has frequently repeated that it will not negotiate with criminals.

In his reflections on the day’s Gospel reading from John, Pope Francis focused on Jesus’ declaration that he is the true bread come down from heaven, and that “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him … He who believes in me has eternal life.”

Jesus’ words, he said, introduce a relationship into the dynamic of faith, which is the relationship between the human person and the person of Jesus. Both the Father and the Holy Spirit naturally play a decisive role in this relationship, he noted.

Pope Francis said that “it’s not enough to encounter Jesus to believe in him, it’s not enough to read the Bible, it’s not enough either to witness a miracle,” even though all of these things are good.

What’s needed, he said, is an open heart, because there are many who have come into close contact with Jesus, but have still not believed and have even despised and condemned him.

“Why? Because their hearts were closed, (and) when the heart is closed faith can’t enter,” he said, explaining that faith is a gift from God.

“Faith … blooms when we allow ourselves to be drawn from the Father to Jesus, and we go to him with an open mind, without prejudice; so we recognize in his face the face of God and in his words the Word of God, because the Holy Spirit allows us to enter into the relationship of life and love there is between Jesus and the Father,” he said.

Pope Francis concluded his address by turning to the example of Mary, who is the first one to both believe in Jesus and welcome his flesh. He prayed that all would learn from her how to receive the gift of faith before leading those present in the traditional Angelus prayer.

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VATICAN NEWS

The Pope’s new doctor is an expert in liver disease, surgical medicine

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 9, 2015

Pope Francis walking up to St. Peter’s Basilica on June 3, 2015 before the Wednesday general audience. (Bohumil Petrik/CNA)

Vatican City — The Vatican announced Saturday that Pope Francis has selected Professor Fabrizio Soccorsi – an expert in liver diseases and surgical medicine – as his new personal doctor, who will accompany Francis on his upcoming trip to the United States and Cuba.

The Pope’s choice comes after he decided at the end of May not to renew the term of his former doctor – Patrizio Polisca – as papal doctor and head of the Vatican’s healthcare services, leaving his position open as of Aug. 1.

Soccorsi, 73, is the Emeritus Chief of Hepatology at the San Camillo Hospital in Rome and is an adviser of Health and Hygiene for the Governorate of Vatican City. He is also an expert on the Medical Committee for the Congregation of the Causes of Saints.

Since St. John Paul II’s pontificate, it has been customary that the position as director of the Vatican City State’s healthcare facilities was tied to the post of the Pope’s personal doctor. However, Francis has branched out from the tradition by selecting a new doctor who is not in charge of the Vatican healthcare system.

Born Feb. 2, 1942 in Rome, Soccorsi graduated from Rome’s La Sapienza University in 1968 with a degree in Medicine and Surgery, and received his license to practice the following year.

Following a full professional teaching career, he was appointed Chief of the Department for Hepatology and Director of the Department for Illnesses of the Liver, the Digestive System and Nutrition and of the Department of Internal and Specialized Medicine at the San Camillo Forlanini Hospital in Rome.

He has taught immunology at the Medical School hospital in Rome as well as throughout Italy’s Lazio Region, taking ongoing education classes on liver diseases at San Camillo.

The doctor was eventually named Chair of Clinical Medicine and Pharmacology in the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery for his alma mater, Sapienza University.

Soccorsi also formed numerous collaborations and consultations in the public sector, authoring more than one hundred publications and scientific contributions.

He is currently a consultant of Health and Hygiene of the Governorate of the Vatican City State and an expert on the Medical Committee for the Vatican’s Congregation of the Causes of Saints.

The Pope’s appointment of his new doctor comes just over a month before he leaves for Cuba Sept. 19. He’ll stay in the country until the 22nd, when he’ll travel to the United States from the 22-27. Soccorsi will accompany Francis for the entirety of the trip.

Although Francis’ former doctor, Polisca, will no longer serve as papal doctor, he will continue in his role both as Benedict XVI’s personal doctor and as president of the medical commission for the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

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VATICAN NEWS

In ecumenical move, Pope Francis establishes World Day of Prayer for Creation

by CNA/EWTN News • August 10, 2015

(Unsplash)

Vatican City — Pope Francis has instituted a new day of prayer and celebration for the Church entitled the “World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation,” to be celebrated on September 1 each year.

The day of prayer is in keeping with the theme of the Holy Father’s newest environmental encyclical “Laudato Si.” It is also seen as a sign of unity with the Orthodox Church, which established September 1 as a day to celebrate creation in 1989.

“The celebration of this Day, on the same date as the Orthodox Church, will be a valuable opportunity to bear witness to our growing communion with our Orthodox brothers and sisters,” Pope Francis said.

He expressed hope that the day could highlight the need for all Christians to work together toward common goals.

“We live at a time when all Christians are faced with the same decisive challenges, to which we must respond together, in order to be more credible and effective,” he said. “It is my hope that this Day will in some way also involve other Churches and ecclesial Communities, and be celebrated in union with similar initiatives of the World Council of Churches.”

The day will be an opportunity to reaffirm in Christians their vocation as stewards of God’s creation, to recognize their gratitude for God’s earthly gifts, and to pray for the protection of the environment and pardon from sins against it, the pontiff said.

The Pope’s environmental encyclical “Laudato Si,” meaning “Praise be to You,” was published in June and took its name from St. Francis of Assisi’s medieval Italian prayer “Canticle of the Sun.” In it, Pope Francis emphasized the need for a human ecology, which emphasizes the human person as the root motivation for care of the environment.

It is inconsistent, the Pope said in his encyclical, to be concerned about nature without also showing concern for people, especially the poorest and most vulnerable among us, including unborn children.

“Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties?” (Laudato Si, 120).

On the other hand, Pope Francis reiterated in his institution of the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation that the care of the environment needs to be a priority for Christians because of their care for the human person.

“Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience,” he said, referring to Laudato Si 216.

The Pope expressed his hope that the new day will serve as a call to the faithful to an “ecological conversion” whereby their encounter with the Risen Lord is evident in their care for the world around them.

“We need always to keep in mind that, for believers in Jesus Christ, the Word of God who became man for our sake, ‘the life of the spirit is not dissociated from the body or from nature or from worldly realities, but lived in and with them, in communion with all that surrounds us.’” (Laudato Si, 216)

The World Day of Prayer for the Care for Creation is meant to be celebrated “with the participation of the entire People of God: priests, men and women religious and the lay faithful,” Pope Francis said, and should “become a significant occasion for prayer, reflection, conversion and the adoption of appropriate lifestyles.”

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VATICAN NEWS

For Pope Francis, achieving peace means overcoming indifference

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 11, 2015

Pope Francis visits the Brazilian community of Varginha July 25, 2013. (Gustavo Kelly via JMJ Rio 2013-Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Vatican City — The Vatican announced Tuesday that the theme for 2016’s World Day of Peace will focus on a topic Pope Francis has spoken out against relentlessly since the beginning of his pontificate: indifference.

“Indifference in regard to the scourges of our time is one of the fundamental causes of the lack of peace,” an Aug. 11 statement from the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace read.

The statement coincided with the announcement of “Overcome Indifference and win Peace” as the theme for the next World Day of Peace, to be celebrated Jan. 1, 2016.

It builds off last year’s theme “No longer slaves, but brothers and sisters,” which is a commitment the council said should continue with increased consciousness and cooperation.

Today the attitude of indifference “is often linked to various forms of individualism which cause isolation, ignorance, selfishness and, therefore, lack of interest and commitment,” the statement read.

It also stressed that peace doesn’t happen overnight, but is something that must be worked for with continuous effort, as well as personal conversion and a spirit of creativity and positivity when engaging in discussion.

“Such action must urgently have recourse to build a sense of responsibility and awareness creation about the serious problems and challenges afflicting our time,” such as fundamentalism, intolerance, massacres and persecutions based on one’s faith and ethnicity.

The council also pointed to a blatant disregard for freedom and the destruction of the rights of entire peoples, the exploitation of persons who fall victim to different forms of slavery, corruption and organized crime, as well as war and the plight of refugees and forcibly displaced persons as serious problems that need to be addressed.

An increase of information doesn’t necessarily mean there is an increased attention to the problems, unless the information is coupled with a “solidarity-based openness of conscience,” the council said.

In order to achieve this, the collaboration of families, educators, teachers, people of culture, media practitioners, intellectuals and artists is essential, they said. “Indifference can be won only responding together to this challenge.”

Instituted by Bl. Pope Paul VI in 1968, the World Day of Peace is celebrated each year on the first day of January.

The Pope gives a special message for the occasion, which is sent to all foreign ministers around the world, and which also indicates the Holy See’s diplomatic tone during the coming year.

Indifference is one of the topics most frequently brought up by Francis, and is something he has condemned since his election in March 2013.

On July 8, 2013, just four months after he was named Bishop of Rome, Francis visited the Italian island of Lampedusa, a primary destination of African emigrants, as a sign of solidarity with those who come to the island seeking a better life in Europe.

In his homily at Mass, the newly-elected Pope blasted what he called “the culture of comfort,” which he said “makes us insensitive to the cries of other people, makes us live in soap bubbles which, however lovely, are insubstantial; they offer a fleeting and empty illusion which results in indifference to others.”

“In this globalized world,” he continued, “we have fallen into globalized indifference. We have become used to the suffering of others: it doesn’t affect me; it doesn’t concern me; it’s none of my business.”

Francis also chose the theme of indifference for his Lenten message earlier this year, titled after the biblical passage “Make Your Hearts Firm” from James Chapter 5 verse 8.

At the heart of the message was the Pope’s condemnation of the “globalization of indifference,” and he urged faithful to fight individualism with merciful hearts that are more attentive to the needs of others.

“(Jesus) is interested in each of us; his love does not allow him to be indifferent to what happens to us,” he said, adding that often times when we live a healthy and comfortable lifestyle, “we forget about others.”

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

In the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace’s statement, it was emphasized that peace is possible wherever human rights are both “recognized and respected, heard and known, according to freedom and justice.”

The message for 2016, they said, is a starting point for all people of good will, most specifically those who work in education, media and culture, to do what they are able in order to work together in building a more conscious, merciful, free and fair world.

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VATICAN NEWS

U.S. embassy to the Holy See begins move to new location

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 11, 2015

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

Rome, Italy — This week the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See has begun its move to a new building – which shares the same campus as both the U.S. Embassy to Italy and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

“We are looking forward to a larger, more modern facility that can provide a more functional space for our staff,” U.S. ambassador Ken Hackett said in an Aug. 11 statement announcing the move.

He said the Unites States’ relationship with the Holy See “is important and continues to grow as we work together to promote human rights, social justice and peace around the world,” adding that the new facility provides “a more robust workspace” to carry out their ongoing collaboration with the Vatican and with the Catholic humanitarian and academic communities in Rome.

“We will have greater space for the future possibility of staff increases, and we will have a significant increase in space to host visitors for meetings and events.”

Although the new building will be on the same property as the other two U.S. missions in Rome, it will have a separate space and entrance.

The embassy is set to open its new facility Aug. 17. The new chancery building will be officially inaugurated in early September, and high-ranking U.S. Department of State and Holy See officials are expected to be present.

Antoinette Hurtado, Public Affairs Officer for the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See, told CNA Aug. 11 that she is excited for the move “because our new facility is really a substantial increase in size and quality.”

“It’s more modern and functional while also retaining the artistic and historic aspects of the renovated 1920s building we are moving into,” she said.

With several large conference rooms as opposed to the small space used in the previous building, the embassy will “finally have the space to host visitors and colleagues for conferences and meetings,” she added.

The new building was recently renovated in order to be more environmentally-friendly, and is equipped with upgrades designed to conserve resources and cut operating costs.

It is also the first U.S. diplomatic building to receive a certification in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design in the Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance category.

Although the relocation of the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See is being welcomed by current staff, it hasn’t always been received with such enthusiasm.

In 2013 previous U.S. ambassadors criticized the decision, saying the move would diminish the embassy’s influence.

Former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See James Nicholson told CatholicVote.org in 2013 that the embassy’s planned move to the grounds of the U.S. Embassy to Italy is “another manifestation of the antipathy of this administration both to Catholics and to the Vatican – and to Christians in the Middle East.”

“This is a key post for intermediation in so many sovereignties but particularly in the Middle East,” Nicholson said. “This is anything but a good time to diminish the stature of this post. To diminish the stature of this post is to diminish its influence.”

The U.S. did not establish full diplomatic relations with the Vatican until 1984, in part because of anti-Catholic sentiment.

Criticism was also voiced by former U.S. ambassadors Francis Rooney, Mary Ann Glendon, Raymond Flynn and Thomas Melady.

However, State Department officials defended the decision as good for security, and Nicole Thompson of the State Department’s press relations office cited security as the primary motive for the move.

Security was reviewed after an attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, killed the U.S. ambassador to the country. Thompson also said the move will save on operating costs.

“We reject any suggestion that this decision, made for security and administrative reasons, constitutes a downgrading of our relations with the Holy See,” she said.

Despite the previous controversy, the Aug. 11 statement on the move holds that the relocation fulfills the U.S. Department of State security’s recommendations, specifically their call for U.S. government facilities to be collocated when located in the same metropolitan area.

It is also said the embassy’s long-term costs will diminish, since they won’t be paying lease charges for the current building.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis: Sundays are a gift from God – Don’t ruin it

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 12, 2015

Pope Francis celebrates Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Dec. 12, 2014. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

Vatican City — Moments of rest and celebration were the focal point of Pope Francis’ Wednesday general audience, during which he spoke out against a profit-centered mentality and encouraged families to live life at a more human pace.

“Celebration is a precious gift from God. It’s a precious gift God has made for the human family. Let’s not ruin it,” the Pope said Aug. 12.

He spoke to pilgrims gathered in the Vatican’s Paul VI audience hall for his second general audience after taking a break for the month of July.

As part of his continued series of catecheses on the family, Francis announced he would shift focus to the different rhythms of family life, such as celebration, work and prayer.

Beginning with celebration, the Pope noted that it is God’s own invention, as can be seen in the biblical account of creation when God himself rested from his work on the seventh day.

God teaches us the importance “of dedicating time to contemplating and enjoying the fruits of our labors, not only in our employment or profession, but through every action by which we as men and women cooperate in God’s creative work,” he said.

Francis emphasized that to celebrate doesn’t mean “to escape or be overcome by laziness,” but rather involves returning our gaze to the fruits of our labor with both gratitude and benevolence.

Celebration, he said, “is above all a loving and grateful look at work well done,” and means taking time to pause and be with friends and loved ones. He added that celebration is a time to watch our children grow, to look at the home we have built, and think: “how beautiful!”

The Pope observed that it is also possible to celebrate in times of difficulty, even if it means celebrating “with a lump in the throat.”

Pope Francis turned to the workplace, explaining that – without interrupting our work – celebrations can “infiltrate” the environment when we honor events such as a birthday, a marriage, a new baby, a farewell or a welcome.

Such moments of familiarity put a brief stop to “the gear of the production machine: they do us good!” he said.

True moments of celebration make us take a break from the daily grind and remind us that we have been created in the image and likeness of God, who is not a slave of work, but the Lord of work, the Pope observed.

“We must never be slaves to work but rather its master,” he stressed, and lamented how millions of men, women and children are exploited and forced to work as slaves due to an obsession with economic profit.

This over-emphasis on gain and technical efficiency “attacks human rhythms of life and denies man the time for what’s really important,” he said, explaining that God wants to set us free from these vices.

“Life has human rhythms,” the Pope added. “Let us banish this idea of a celebration centered on consumption and on debauchery and let us regain its sacred value, seeing it as a privileged time in which we can encounter God and others.”

Francis pointed to Sundays as a particularly important time for rest, because “in them we find God.”

Going to Mass brings the grace of Jesus Christ to each of our celebrations, he said, since it is in the Eucharist that we encounter his presence, love and sacrifice. The Eucharistic celebration, he said, is Jesus’ way of being with us and forming us into a community.

“Everything is transfigured by his grace: work, family, the joys and trials of each day, even our sufferings and death.”

Pope Francis cautioned that the ideologies of profit and consumption want to “eat up” the celebration, and turn it into another way to make and spend money.

“But is this why we work? The greed of consuming, which leads to waste, it’s a bad virus which, among other things, in the end makes us more tired than before,” he said.

Francis concluded by praying that the family always be recognized as a privileged place where the gifts that come from our celebrations are understood, guided and sustained, particularly Sunday Mass.

“May the Lord allows us to live the time of rest, celebrations, the Sunday feast, with the eyes of faith, as a precious gift which illuminates family life,” he said.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis baptizes children of an old friend at the Vatican

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 13, 2015

Pope Francis greets pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square before the Wednesday general audience on Oct. 29, 2014. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

Vatican City — In a whirlwind trip, Lucas Schaerer and his family – friends of Pope Francis from his time in Buenos Aires – traveled to the Vatican, where the Pope baptized their daughters, Simona and Charo.

“The ceremony was beautiful and simple … Francis celebrated Mass and then we went to a sitting room, where we spoke for a long time,” Argentinian journalist Mercedes Ninci, a close friend of the couple, recalled in comments posted to the Vatican blog Il Sismografo Aug. 12.

Ninci, who works for Radio Mitre’s “El Diario de Mariana,” is the godmother to newborn Simona, and was present in the chapel of the Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse for the baptisms.

According to the journalist, Lucas and his wife Ana have known the Pope for some time, and are both active members in “The Alameda” Foundation. Dedicated to fighting against human and drug trafficking, the organization is well-known in Latin America, and has always had Francis’ strong support.

In an interview with Ciudad.com published Aug. 10, Ninci recalled how Lucas and Ana sent the Pope a sonogram image of their baby when they found out they were pregnant. Once the Pope received it, she said, he offered to baptize the baby when she was born.

When the time came, everything happened “suddenly,” she said, and recounted that just a few days before they left “Lucas called me asking if I wanted to be the godmother of the baby, Simona, and told me (the baptism) was in the Vatican.”

Everything happened quickly and “with almost no money,” Ninci said, explaining that since they didn’t have time to find a place to stay when they got to Rome, Pope Francis arranged for them to stay in a convent that hosts pilgrims.

After arriving to the Eternal City Aug. 5, the couple returned to Buenos Aires on the 10th.

In addition to baptizing the newborn Simona, Francis also baptized Ana’s older daughter, Charo, who is 9.

Also a member of “The Alameda” foundation, Ninci said that she had met the Pope while he was still in Buenos Aires, but that they never developed a close friendship.

Now, after being present for the Mass and speaking with the Pope after, “it was amazing to meet a simple and profoundly human shepherd,” she said in the comments posted to Il Sismografo.

One thing that Ninci said immediately caught her attention was that when the Pope walked in to greet them he was alone, appearing without the usual entourage that normally comes with people in a position like his.

In her responses to Ciudad.com, the journalist said she was excited to be with someone “so simple and dedicated to the people, so detached from power.”

She recalled how the Pope spoke a lot about his own family and childhood, specifically his mother, father and four siblings.

Francis also said a lot of things that “made me think,” Ninci explained, such as “to win war you must not to start it.”

“I, the warrior that I am, live battling for things I shouldn’t,” she said. “Now that I’ve come back I haven’t fought with anyone, at least not yet.”

However, Ninci said the most important and exciting thing the Pope told her was when he said, “The fact that you are a poor journalist speaks well of you.”

On seeing the Pope so down to earth and detached from his office, “spiritually and attitudinally it did me well,” she said.

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VATICAN NEWS

Benedict XVI and Christian Europe, as seen by a Japanese scholar

by Kevin J. Jones (CNA/EWTN News) • August 14, 2015

Cover of Hajime Konno’s “Benedict XVI: the Renewal of Christian Europe.” (CNA)

Vatican City — Benedict XVI’s role in Europe is the focus of a Japanese scholar who says the Pope emeritus’ recent decades show his engagement in a dialogue that promotes both Catholic identity and what he saw as the best of Western values.

“What Pope Benedict XVI wanted to emphasize was the independence of the Catholic Church,” Hajime Konno told CNA Aug. 12. He said this principle of self-determination was central to the Pope on questions of Church reform.

At the same time, Benedict did not hesitate to dialogue with thinkers such as the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas and the Italian Social Democrat and atheist Paolo Flores d’Arcais.

“In his opinion, a dialogue does not automatically mean a compromise of the Catholic side, as many outsiders expected,” Konno explained. “But a dialogue without agreement is much better than violence without dialogue, for the coexistence of many cultures.”

Konno, who teaches German studies at Aichi Prefectural University in Japan, has authored a new book on the former Pope: Benedict XVI: the Renewal of Christian Europe. The Japanese-language book draws on his research in German history, culture, and politics.

In Konno’s view, Benedict’s efforts to renew Christian Europe had two main methods. The first approach: an emphasis on Christian and Catholic identity.

“He insisted that the dialogues with other confessions and religions must not be confused with one-sided compromises of the Catholic Church. He did not hesitate to criticize other confessions and

religions,” the professor said. He noted Benedict’s Regensburg speech of 2006, which critically compared the roles of faith and reason in Islamic thought with their roles in Christianity.

This approach, as well as Benedict’s dedication to liturgical principles, encouraged traditional Catholics in their faith. While this helped build bridges with such groups as the Society of St. Pius X, it sometimes drew protests and objections from the Pope’s opponents.

Benedict’s other approach emphasized “Western values” as a common base for humanity.

“He insisted that the modern ‘western values’ were originally Christian ones, that Christianity is a religion of rationality and an indispensable foundation for the European community,” Konno said.

According to Konno, Benedict’s 2004 discussion with Habermas was among his successes, and the Pope emeritus’ work has had an impact.

“Thanks to these efforts, he was accepted by most political leaders in the world as the moral leader of the time,” Konno said. He acknowledged that some of the Pope’s past rivals, like the Swiss theologian Hans Kung, were not satisfied.

Benedict saw the dignity of humankind as a valuable principle of modernity. He also saw possibilities to cooperate with political progressives in areas such as bioethics and Middle East peacekeeping.

At the same time, the Pope’s most important target of criticism was “the idea that man can always decide his fate by himself.”

“According to Pope Benedict XVI, this attitude means a lack of modesty before God, and is the main cause for many problems of the time, such as environmental problems, divorce, abortion, and social inequalities. But this idea is a basis of freedom for the progressives,” Kanno said.

He explained that Benedict is not well-known in Japan, and he wants his book to show Japanese people “the western discussion on the modernity of the Catholic Church.”

Kanno, who is agnostic, said Benedict’s arguments were not always persuasive. The professor found his view of the rationality of Christianity to be “one-sided.”

Kanno’s family, from the north of Japan, was traditionally Orthodox Christian. “Although my father was an atheist and I am not a Christian, I am interested in Christianity as a culture,” he said.

One of his areas of interest includes the conflicts between the Catholic Church and German left-wing intellectuals in the late 20th century.

“The German progressive intellectuals insisted that all persons in Germany must accept unconditionally ‘Western values’.” This insistence applied to the Catholic Church, to East Germans, Turkish immigrants, and Japanese students.

“I thought, the modern ‘Western values’ are really theoretical weapons against the people who seem to be not completely modern,” Kanno said.

He explained that he first became interested in Cardinal Ratzinger when the future Pope was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Then-Cardinal Ratzinger published the 2000 declaration Dominus Iesus, on the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church.

Kanno saw the document as a rejection of the idea that the Catholic Church must adapt without conditions to the mode of the time.

“That was a very courageous and dangerous act,” he said.

Kanno sees Pope Francis, Benedict’s successor, as a “modest and humble man,” but not a strong reformer.

“The Catholic Church needs his reign as a truce,” the professor said. Following Francis’ pontificate, he thinks the cardinals “must think again how the Catholic Church has to confront the modern world.”

Kanno’s book is available in Japanese, though he hopes to have it translated into English.

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Chilean legislators appeal to judicial branch over pro-abortion bill

by Carolina Requena (CNA/EWTN News) • August 8, 2015

The Chilean flag in the Vatican’s Court of St. Damasso during the visit of Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, June 5, 2015. (Bohumil Petrik/CNA)

Santiago, Chile — The representatives who voted on Tuesday against a bill legalizing abortion in Chile will file an appeal against the initiative with the Constitutional Court.

The bill was approved by health committee of the lower house of the Chilean legislature, the Chamber of Deputies, in an 8-5 vote.

It still has to go through several steps before it can be signed into law, however. Having passed out of committee, it could be voted down; approved with comments; or approved as written, in which case it would continue to the senate. The bill will still have to be discussed in the health, constitutional, and human rights committees of the Chilean Senate.

Legislators must present their objection or questions regarding the bill by Aug. 28, and they will vote on it Sept. 8. It is expected that it could not become law before April 2016.

One of the five representatives voting against the bill, Gustavo Hasbún, explained to local press that they will be taking the issue to the Constitutional Court because the bill in question “has no medical or legal substance,” and to promote abortion in the case of rape is to go after the weakest and demonstrates that the public is being deceived by this bill.”

“We’re going to appeal to the Constitutional Court because we believe Chile lost today. The country was deceived because it’s a bill that legalizes abortion on demand. There’s no argument for the three cases (rape, life of the mother, fetal non-viability),” Hasbún said.

Representative Jorge Rathgeb, who also voted against the bill, said that what is important in this debate is “the defense and protection of life of (the baby), who did not choose where and under what circumstances to come into being … I’m also disappointed that the government threw out a proposal that would have assisted women at risk with psychological, spiritual, and other aids so their pregnancy would not end in abortion.”

The three other representatives voting pro-life were Nicolás Monckeberg, Marisol Turres, and Javier Macaya.

In an interview with CNN Chile, Turres stated, “it’s still not clear why it’s necessary to kill that child before it’s born.” She added, “we’re shutting the door to the possibility of life for a healthy child who didn’t ask to come into this world.”

Monckeberg told Radio Bio Bio that “countries and societies are not for the better when the first solution they come up with for an unwanted pregnancy is the right to abort. I think that far before considering that, the government, particularly in Chile where we have a government that’s out of touch, ought to make its aim that there aren’t any abortions, and instead come to the aid of women in crisis pregnancies.”

In an interview with CNA, the legislative adviser on human rights, Pablo Urquízar, said that “it’s the first time in 25 years in our country that they’ve approved the notion of going to the legislature with this. Every time before, the idea had been rejected.”

“This is shameful because we’re violating human rights, the most basic one there can be, which is the right to life of the most defenseless, the unborn child. It’s really distressing because they’re not giving a concrete solution for the mothers who are suffering, that are vulnerable, whose situation may lead them to abort.”

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The Miracle of Hiroshima – Jesuits survived the atomic bomb thanks to the rosary

by CNA/EWTN News • August 9, 2015

The atomic cloud over Hiroshima, Aug. 6, 1945. (Bernard Waldman/Public domain via U.S. government)

Hiroshima, Japan — Seventy years ago, the only wartime use of nuclear weapons took place in the Aug. 6 attack on Hiroshima and the Aug. 9 attack on Nagasaki by the United States.

The Hiroshima attack killed around 80,000 people instantly and may have caused about 130,000 deaths, mostly civilians. The attack on the port city of Nagasaki killed about 40,000 instantly and destroyed a third of the city.

Four Jesuits were nearby the hypocenter of the attack on Hiroshima, but they survived the catastrophe, and the radiation that killed thousands in the months following had no effect on them.

The Jesuits priests Hugo Lassalle, Hubert Schiffer, Wilhelm Kleinsorge, and Hubert Cieslik were at the rectory of the church of Our Lady of the Assumption, one of the few buildings that resisted the bomb blast.

Father Cieslik wrote in his diary that they only sustained minor injuries from the broken windows – but nothing resulting from the atomic energy that was unleashed.

The doctors who took care of them afterwards warned them that the radiation they received would produce serious lesions, as well as illness and premature death.

The diagnosis never materialized. No disorders ever developed, and in 1976 Father Schiffer attended the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia and told his story. He confirmed that the other Jesuits were still alive and without any ailments. They were examined by dozens of doctors some 200 times over the course of the following years, without any trace of the radiation being found in their bodies.

The four religious never doubted that they had been blessed with protection by God and the Blessed Virgin Mary. “We were living the message of Fatima and we prayed the Rosary every day,” they explained.

Bishop Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi of Niigata said Aug. 6 that Japan can contribute to peace “Not with new weapons, but with the noble activities that have a long history in the growth of the world, and in a particular way in developing countries.”

Bishop Kikuchi added that “this contribution to development, which brings about full respect for human dignity and its fulfillment, would be very appreciated and respected by the international community.”

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Priest urges prayer for victims, perpetrators of latest Islamic State abduction in Syria

by CNA/EWTN News • August 10, 2015

The hands of a Syrian woman now living as a refugee in Jordan. (Kevin Jones/CNA)

Homs, Syria — A priest in Syria has called for prayer after militants of the Islamic State kidnapped dozens of both Christians and Muslims near Homs last week.

“Does ISIS intend to negotiate and let the people go free, or does it intend to kill them? We don’t know,” said Father Jihad Youssef, a member of the Syriac Catholic religious community of Mar Musa.

The priest told the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need that the number of abducted people is unclear. However, he said it is realistic to think that the Aug. 6 abductions may have taken as many as 160 people, the approximate number of Christians who remained in the town of Al Quaryatayn, which is some 60 miles southeast of Homs.

“But we do not know if all of the remaining Christians were taken as hostages by ISIS, or if some went into hiding,” he said. “At the end of the week, some 30 Christians succeeded in fleeing from the town. Some are shepherds and they know the region. They fled to Homs.”

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that more than 230 persons were seized by the Islamic State from Al Quaryatayn, and that at least 60 of them are Christians.

Many of the Christians had fled to Al Quaryatayn from Aleppo, but Islamic State fighters captured the town Aug. 6 from fighters allied with Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad.

Father Youssef’s community has lost contact with their monastery in Al Quaryatayn.

The Syrian Orthodox and Syriac Catholic bishops of Homs are trying to resolve the situation, but people are afraid.

“Especially the Christians in places near to Al Qarytayn are anxious,” Father Youssef said. “Many people are thinking of leaving their homes, or even leaving the country. The fear is growing.”

The priest said the Islamic State group typically gives Christians the choice of paying an extortionate tax, converting to their form of Islam, or leaving the area.

“The latter option was evidently not offered, or the Christians would have left,” he said.

In May, Father Jacques Mourad, a priest of Father Youssef’s community, was kidnapped along with a deacon. The community has no information on these men, whose abduction may have been a reaction to Father Mourad’s work in promoting Christian-Muslim dialogue and coexistence. The priest had helped to rebuild houses destroyed by the war in Syria.

“For many years he built bridges between the religions,” Father Youssef said. “This has now proved its value in the war.”

The kidnapped priest’s work was supported by Aid to the Church in Need.

Father Youssef asked supporters of Aid to the Church in Need to “pray for our kidnapped brothers and the hostages of Al Qaryatayn.”

“May God bring a change into the hearts of the kidnappers, so that they show mercy to the hostages,” he said.

Aid to the Church in Need has committed over $13.2 million to assist Christians in Syria and Iraq since 2011. It recently committed another $2.2 million to humanitarian relief in Syria.

Since the Syrian civil war broke out in March 2011, more than 230,000 people have been killed. Four million have become refugees, and another 8 million have been internally displaced.

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This Syriac bishop will be beatified on the 100th anniversary of his martyrdom

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 11, 2015

Bishop Flavien-Michel Malké of the Syriac Diocese of Gazireh, who was martyred Aug. 29, 1915, and will be beatified Aug. 29, 2015. (Public domain)

Diyarbakir, Turkey — On Saturday Pope Francis approved a decree recognizing the martyrdom of Flavien-Michel Malké, a Syriac Catholic bishop who was killed in 1915 amid the Ottoman Empire’s genocide against its Christian minorities.

The decision was made during an Aug. 8 meeting between Pope Francis and Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Bishop Malké will be beatified Aug. 29 – the 100th anniversary of his martyrdom – during a liturgy celebrated by Ignatius Youssef III Younan, the Syriac Patriarch of Antioch, at the convent of Our Lady of Deliverance in Lebanon. It is expected that thousands of Syrians and Iraqis displaced by the Islamic State will attend the beatification.

“In these painful times experienced by Christians, especially the Syriac communities in Iraq and Syria, the news of the beatification of one of their martyrs, will surely bring encouragement and consolation to face the today’s trials of appalling dimension,” read an Aug. 9 statement of the Syriac Patriarchate of Antioch.

“Blessed Martyr Michael, intercede for us, and protect especially the Christians in the Orient and all the world in these hard and painful days.”

Malké was born in 1858 in the village of Kalaat Mara, a village of the Ottoman Empire in what is now Turkey, to a Syriac Orthodox family. He joined a monastery of that Church and was ordained a deacon, but then converted to the Syriac Catholic Church. (Both the Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholics use the West Syrian rite.)

After his conversion, he was ordained a priest in Aleppo in 1883. He as a member of the Fraternity of St. Ephrem, and served parishes in southeastern Turkey, near his home.

Ottoman persecution of Christians began in earnest with the Hamidian massacres of 1894-1897. Malké’s church and home were sacked and burned in 1895, and many of his parishioners were murdered – including his mother. In total, the massacres killed between 80,000 and 300,000 Christians.

He was selected to become a bishop in the 1890s, serving as a chorbishop and helping in the rebuilding of Christian villages. In 1913 he was consecrated bishop, and appointed head of the Syriac Diocese of Gazireh (modern-day Cizre – 150 miles southeast of Diyarbakir).

A second round of persecution of Christians in the Ottoman Empire began in April 1915. Known as the Armenian Genocide, it targeted the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Christian minorities in the empire. The Assyrian genocide – the portion of the mass killings directed against Syriac and Chaldean Christians – is also known as the Seyfo massacre, from the Syriac word for ‘sword’.

Some 1.5 million Christians were killed, and millions more were displaced during the genocide.

During the summer when the genocide broke out, Bishop Malké was in the Idil district, near Gazireh. In June 1915, hearing the Ottoman forces were preparing to massacre Gazireh’s people he returned.

According to the Syriac Patriarchate, when his friends and acquaintances urged him to withdraw from Gazireh to a safer location, he replied, “Even my blood I will shed for my sheep.”

Together with four of his priests and the Chaldean Bishop of Gazireh, Philippe-Jacques Abraham, he was arrested and imprisoned for two months.

Bishop Malké refused to convert to Islam, and on Aug. 29, 1915 he was martyred.

He was the last Syriac Bishop of Gazireh – after his death, the diocese was suppressed, and today the Syriac Catholic Church has no presence in Turkey.

In an Aug. 8 interview with Vatican Radio, the postulator of Bishop Malké’s cause, Fr. Rami Al Kabalan, spoke of the bishop’s deep spiritual life as well as the relevance his martyrdom has today.

The bishop, he said, “played a fundamental role in encouraging people to defend their faith in the difficulties of the time, during the persecutions of the Ottoman Empire.”

Bishop Malké lived a life of poverty, even selling his liturgical vestments in order to assist the poor and help fight poverty, Fr. Al Kabalan said.

In addition to his closeness with the poor, the priest said that Bishop Malké was extremely zealous in his apostolate, and visited all of the parishes within his diocese.

One of the bishop’s most striking phrases, his postulator said, comes from when he was pressured renounce the faith and to convert to Islam. Rather than giving in, the bishop replied, “I will defend my faith to the blood.”

Exactly 100 years after his death, Bishop Malké’s serves as a prophetic witness because “we Christians of the East are undergoing the same persecutions, even if in a different way,” the priest said. “The image of this martyr gives us courage to defend our faith and to live our faith.”

“I personally think the beatification truly has a very strong ecclesial importance in the context of today … we are attacked in Iraq, in Mosul, where by now the Christian community no longer exists; and in Aleppo and now the situation of Al Qaryatain, the diocese of Homs … we are truly the most wounded Church! We are undergoing persecution everywhere.”

Voicing his hopes for the future, Fr. Al Kabalan said he prays that the Lord would illuminate world leaders and those who hold power “so that they make peace!”

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Stop chatting during the Sign of Peace, says Brazilian bishop

by CNA/EWTN News • August 11, 2015

(SCY via Pixabay CC0 1.0)

Sao Paulo, Brazil — The sign of peace during Mass is not a time for congratulations or small talk, but a prayerful time to wish peace to those closest to each person, clarified the bishop of Barretos in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Bishop Milton Kenan Junior issued an August 4 decree on the distribution of Communion under both species, the exchange of peace, and the norms for extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist at Mass.

The bishop stated that during the exchange of peace, the faithful should avoid moving around too much. He added that it is sufficient to “greet those persons closest to you.” As for the priest celebrating the Mass, he said that “he should not leave the altar” to greet the faithful.

Additionally, the prelate explained that on specific feasts or celebrations such as Easter, Christmas, a Confirmation, Marriage, Ordination, or a Funeral Mass, “the rite of peace is not a time for ‘congratulations, Merry Christmas,’ ‘Happy Easter,’ or any other type of greeting.”

Concerning extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, the bishop reminded that they do not substitute for ordained ministers, “consequently the ordained minister is not permitted to sit down during Communion time and leave the responsibility of distributing Holy Communion to the extraordinary ministers.”

Regarding Communion under the species of bread and wine, the bishop declared that “the communicant is not permitted to dip the host in the chalice, nor can he receive on the hand a host that has been dipped in the chalice.”

The Barretos bishop’s statement was in response to abuses occurring at Masses in the diocese. It was prepared using as a source the June 8, 2014 instruction from the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments on the meaning of the gift of peace at Mass.

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What a pro-life march looks like in Ghana

by CNA/EWTN News • August 12, 2015

Pro-Life March in Accra, Ghana. (CANAA)

Accra, Ghana — More than 1,000 people took part in a pro-life march in Ghana’s capital of Accra, seeking to protect all life and rejecting efforts to promote abortion in the country and throughout the continent.

“Every life is created in the image of God, protect it!” said one marcher’s sign. “Abortion is evil, stop it!” said another. Another marcher’s sign stressed the eternal values of life and faith.

Some carried signs that objected to international organizations that promote abortion in Ghana. Other signs accused African governments of promoting a “culture of death.” Still others stressed the importance of reserving sex to married couples, the Catholic News Agency of Africa reports.

The Aug. 8 march was organized by the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference. It was one of the events of the bishop conference’s Aug. 7-8 pro-life conference intended to promote reflection on the Gospel of Life. The conference focused on protecting life and family values.

The bishops’ conference vice-president Bishop Anthony Adanuty of Keta Akatsi said that Ghanaians and other Africans “must resist being like other nations by drawing lessons from the consequences of the moral state of the west.”

“We in Ghana and Africa have a mission to promote life in the world and we cannot renege on this mission or reject God’s word,” the bishop said.

The pro-life meeting topics included how to build up pro-life activism, natural family planning, responsible sexual behavior, and the imposition of the sexual revolution on Africa.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace at the Vatican, praised the discussions about protecting life and promoting family values. He also praised the Ghanaian bishop conference for holding the events.

The Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference in an Aug. 8 statement stressed the role of the family in welcoming, nurturing and protecting life.

The bishops said they would continue to resist “the persistent and pernicious attempts to impose population control on Africa by wealthy philanthropists, donor nations and international organizations who are pursuing this agenda subtly under the platform of sexual and reproductive and health rights.”

In addition, they reaffirmed that sacramental marriage was instituted by God as a permanent, indissoluble union of one man and one woman. The bishops rejected adulterous unions and same-sex unions as “inimical to the mind of the Creator” and as damaging to “the integrity of the human being and the family.”

The bishops said they would work with the government, other faith-based organizations, civil society groups and the media to focus on the importance of faith and family in human development, education and social order.

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Take a hike – and you just might find God, these trekkers say

by Giselle Vargas (CNA/EWTN News) • August 12, 2015

Mountains. (UnSplash)

Santiago, Chile — Some people hike to compete, others to challenge themselves. But as the sport increases as a global trend, others have taken it up as a way of drawing closer to God.

Take the new “To the Top” initiative from Chile’s Mas Alla del Deporte (Beyond Sports) organization.

These young people, their families, as well as professional and amateur athletes alike are climbing the mountains of Santiago to bring together sports, nature and spirituality.

Walking sticks, water bottles, backpacks outfitted to carry small children – combined with a little joy and fraternity – are among the essentials of these day trips. The purpose? To see Christ in the beauty of nature and to experience outdoor sports as a means of growing in holiness, said Maria Jose Correa, a member of the organizing team.

“What’s important is to fix your eyes on the goal, to let other people help and encourage you, to encourage the others and see them as a brother or sister, and to discover for yourself the meaning of those moments when the ascent gets harder,” she said.

During the hikes, the group makes three stops to meditate on both the virtues of athleticism and the Christian life. When they reach the top, they celebrate Mass together with the priest that accompanied them on the climb.

“That God who created all this natural beauty is the same one who made each one of us and has placed within us a desire for the infinite,” said Father Sebastian Correa, chaplain for the University of Gabriela Mistral.

“This is what leads us always to seek something beyond. You can see this searching very clearly in sports, because we always want to give more, accomplish something greater, bigger, stronger,” he added.

“That interior desire speaks to us of our need for that one who is infinite and He’s the only one in whom we can be satisfied.”

In the most recent climb at the beginning of August, the young people placed a cross at the top of Manquehue Hill in Santiago. They offered the effort of the climb for their prayer intentions which they wrote down and left on the hilltop.

On that occasion they were accompanied by the decorated Chilean tennis player, Jaime Fillol, who holds the record for the longest set in Davis Cup history and is now part of the organizing team.

“When I was playing at Wimbleton, I went to a church to ask God to help me win the match. In the end I lost,” Fillol said. “There I understood that God teaches us to be humble, to understand that victories aren’t necessarily what helps us the most in life and make us better people.”

“Sports help you grow in humility and to understand that however important a championship may be, there’s always going to be more transcendent things in life.”

Also accompanying the group on that hike was Chilean hockey team member, Paula Valdivia, who said that “the art of working together as a team also means blindly trusting your teammate which is ultimately what you do when you trust in God.”

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The divorced and remarried cannot receive Communion, Colombian bishops affirm

by CNA/EWTN News • August 12, 2015

(scribbletaylor via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Bogotá, Colombia — Two Colombian bishops indicated on Thursday that while the divorced and remarried are not excommunicated, that still doesn’t mean they are able to receive Communion – in an attempt to clarify recent confusion.

At an Aug. 6 press conference, Cardinal Rubén Salazar Gómez of Bogota explained that while the divorced and remarried remain part of the Church and are not excommunicated, they are impeded from receiving Eucharistic Communion.

The archbishop indicated this after various media reports misinterpreted the statements made by Pope Francis at his Aug. 5 General Audience, in which he discussed the divorced and remarried.

Pope Francis had said that the divorced and remarried “are by no means excommunicated, and they should absolutely not be treated as such: They are always part of the Church,” while adding that “such a situation contradicts the Christian Sacrament” of marriage.

Some media outlets focused exclusively on the Pope’s words assuring that the divorced and remarried are not excommunicated, and ignored his statement that the situation contradicts marriage.

In light of the media’s confusion, Cardinal Salazar explained, “it cannot be said that Pope Francis said the divorced and remarried can receive Communion.”

This statement, he added, is nothing new in the Church.

A divorced and remarried person, the Colombian cardinal said, “is not excommunicated from the Church, rather, they continue to be part of the Church. The Church considers them as a member of her community; but the doctrine is constant and there is no innovation here.”

Bishop José Falla Robles, auxiliary of the Cali archdiocese, added that “the Catholic Church has never considered persons who are divorced and remarried to be excommunicated.”

Excommunication is, in fact, a medicinal penalty, and an excommunicated person cannot have a ministerial participation in worship; celebrate or receive the sacraments; or exercise ecclesiastical offices, ministries, or functions.

Bishop Falla said Pope Francis’ comments during the General Audience clarified that the divorced are not excommunicated and that they have a place in the Church: “they are the sons of God and of the Church – therefore they should be provided with spiritual care and allowed to participate in the Church’s life.”

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A street party for Don Bosco – 15,000 turn up to celebrate saint in Lima

by Abel Camasca (CNA/EWTN News) • August 13, 2015

The parade for St. John Bosco in Lima, Peru on August 9, 2015. (CNA)

Lima, Peru — More than 15,000 members of the Salesian Family turned out August 9 on the streets of Lima, Peru, as part of the celebration of Bicentennial of the Birth of Don Bosco.

Speaking to CNA, Father Santo Dal Ben, the provincial for the Salesians in Peru, said that this event “can be read as a sign of the sensibility there is today towards the family, especially in a society that sometimes ‘shakes up’ the family. There’s a lot of different ways of thinking, but not the attention due the family, and it’s obvious that this brings with it consequences that are not positive.”

“The idea behind this march wasn’t to come out against anything or anybody, instead it was to reaffirm a value that we consider very important … We feel we are in profound communion with the thinking of the pope in this regard,” he added.

Don Bosco is an Italian saint born in the 1800s who spent his life educating and helping improve the lives of disadvantaged children in the city of Turin. The Salesian superior recalled how Don Bosco responded to the anxieties of these young people who had lost their family ties when they were abandoned or because they had to leave home in search of work.

“Back then to provide an education they had to recreate the family environment and that’s what Don Bosco did. So there in the oratory at Turin, Italy, Don Bosco developed this family experience; in some way recreating the family bonds of relationship and fatherhood that are experienced in every family,” the Salesian priest pointed out.

The event, entitled “A Walk with Don Bosco as a Family,” attracted various members of the Salesian Family – young people, parents, children, grandparents and religious, singing and cheering, carrying signs about Don Bosco and the value of the family.

They all walked down several blocks on Brasil Avenue, from the Magdalena district to the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians, in the Breña district, where Fr. Santo Dal Ben reminded the participants of the three words that Pope Francis always recommends to families: please, thank you, and I’m sorry.

Finally, the Salesian provincial in Peru encouraged everyone to participate in the various activities that will take place in every Salesian home in the world for the bicentennial of Don Bosco’s birth. He also invited the faithful to get to know better the saint.

“There are people who go through this world leaving their mark and they leave their mark in society where it can be felt the most and that’s education. Don Bosco was one of them … I think knowing Don Bosco is enriching because he’s not the private property of the Salesian Congregation or the Salesian Family, he’s a gift from God to the Church and a gift from God to humanity.”

“When we experience these gifts and learn to love them, they are enriching for everyone, both for those who have experienced the Salesian charism from childhood as well as those who are experiencing it now … I invite you to draw close to the person of Don Bosco and you will be always be enriched by it,” Fr. Santo Dal Ben concluded.

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In Burundi’s crisis, the Church stands with the people

by Marta Petrosillo (Aid to the Church in Need) • August 13, 2015

Flag of Burundi. (CNA)

Bujumbura, Burundi — A Burundian priest has spoken out about the worrying crisis in his country, particularly following the Aug. 2 murder of General Adolph Nshimirimana, a close ally of president Pierre Nkurunziza, who is seeking a third term in office.

“We have no idea how this grave crime will affect the already difficult situation in our country. But undoubtedly this killing will have serious consequences,” said Father Lambert Niciteretse, the secretary general of the bishops’ conference of Burundi, in an interview with international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need.

General Nshimirimana, the former head of the secret services, was in charge of security for the president as well as chief of the presidential guard. His assassination will no doubt add to the country’s instability.

Unrest began last spring, when Nkurunziza announced that he would run for a third presidential term, in violation of the two five-year presidential terms limit imposed by the country’s constitution and the 2000 Arusha Peace Accords that brought peace between Burundi’s rival Hutus and Tutsis

The country’s Catholic Church immediately condemned the illegal nature of the president’s candidacy and in May, ahead of the legislative elections, it withdrew its representatives from the Independent National Electoral Commission. “The Catholic Church cannot allow herself to be part of an electoral process that is visibly not consensual and contains legal defects,” Burundi’s bishops wrote at the time in a formal statement.

The bishops have maintained their position, despite the threat of possible retaliation on the part of the government.

“The Church continues to pursue her mission,” Father Niciteretse said, by “expounding the principles of her social doctrine even when this does not meet with the favor of the politicians. The truth must be proclaimed and irregularities must be denounced.”

Meanwhile, the exodus of Burundian civilians continues unabated. People are fleeing on account of the instability and the government’s use of violence in repressing protests.

Tens of thousands have fled to Tanzania, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and though a few families have returned in order to enable their children to take state exams, sources close to the local Church have reported that the number of refugees could reach as many as 200,000 by Christmas.

“In addition to the great pain we are feeling because of the political crisis, we are grieving for our brothers and sisters who have been forced to flee,” Father Niciteretse said.

The priest explained that citizens are living in fear and uncertainty, not least on account of the grave lack of information; the transmitters of most of the private radio and television stations have been destroyed.

“Apart from the radio and TV stations linked to the ruling party, the only stations still working are those transmitting from abroad. It is also a serious limitation for the Church herself, since she can convey its important message of peace only through Radio Maria Burundi,” Father Niciteretse said.

“But despite the difficulties, we will continue to support the people, to denounce violence and invite all parties to peace and the respect of human rights.”

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

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WORLD NEWS

What the Church is doing to help flood victims in Myanmar

by Antonio Anup Gonsalves (CNA/EWTN News) • August 13, 2015

A Church submerged in flood waters in Myanmar, Burma in August 2015. (Fr. Bosco Saw)

Yangon, Myanmar — More than 100 people have been killed and thousands more displaced by monsoon flooding in Myanmar, one of the poorest nations in Asia. With government relief efforts faltering, the Catholic Church is stepping in to offer help.

“The situation is distressing … particularly in the most affected lower belt of Haka and Kalay dioceses in the Chin territory,” said Fr. Leo Mang, head of social communications of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar.

Fr. Mang told CNA that the Catholic Church is working through local emergency units as well as “Caritas,” the bishops’ social arm, to reach out to victims and offer aid.

In the last month, torrential rains have created landslides and floods in Myanmar, also known as Burma. The current situation in the country varies by region. In the Diocese of Hakha, landslides resulting from heavy rain have washed away many houses and other buildings. Some chapels remain submerged.

Residents of more elevated regions are seeing some relief, as water levels begin to subside. However, much of the water has now reached delta areas such as the lower Myanmar Irrawaddy division, and there are fears that dams and reservoirs might burst.

“People have been evacuated to safer zones, and many are accommodated in parish camps,” said Fr. Bosco Saw, head of the Biblical Commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar. “People are in a fearful situation in the Irrawaddy division, and we need international help.”

Fr. Saw warned that government response has been slow. The local government was not prepared for a disaster of this scale, he explained, and the hilly terrain has hindered relief efforts. Myanmar has declared a national state of emergency and has appealed for international assistance to help with flood relief.

The slow government response, coupled with the country’s poverty, has particularly affected efforts to the poor and those in less-developed tribal areas.

According to local reports, more than 100 people have died. In addition, at least 375 houses have been destroyed over 1 million people have been affected by the flooding, making it the worst natural disaster since a major cyclone hit in 2008, the priest said.

He added that communication is poor in the current conditions, and there could be many more unreported deaths.

The Catholic Church has stepped up to help with relief efforts.

A volunteer task force has been formed for emergency response in the Chin belt, one of the poor territories in the country that is home to a large concentration of tribal ethnic groups.

Fr. Mang said that the Catholic centers in Kalay are receiving many people who have been affected by the rising waters. The Catholic community is “gathering donations in the parishes for clothes, food, and medicine to be sent to the flood victims.”

In addition to food and clothing, there are numerous medical challenges facing displaced persons, stressed Fr. Saw. Poor sanitary conditions have led to concern over the spread of fever, diarrhea and other diseases associated with contaminated water, as well as mosquito-borne illnesses such as malaria and dengue fever.

“The situation is beyond our strength, and we put our trust and everything in the hands of God,” said Fr. Saw. “Our Catholic population in the country is only around 1.2 percent of population but our faith is strong.”

Sister Elizabeth Joseph, a member of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, is helping coordinate relief efforts with volunteers. Using small boats, rescuers are trying to reach people in the isolated interior of the country to provide relief and medical aid.

“We need the mercy of God,” she told CNA.

“We need people holding hands to reach out to the victims. Everyone young and old, rich and poor. Compassionate hearts are wanted, helping hands, prayers … May the Lord have mercy on us.”

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WORLD NEWS

Could the release of 22 Christians signal another Islamic State attack?

by Elise Harris and Angela Ambrogetti (CNA/EWTN News) • August 14, 2015

A Christian church in Al-Hasakah, Syria in 2009. (Bertramz via Wikimedia CC BY 3.0)

Al-Hasakah, Syria — After Islamic State militants on Tuesday freed 22 Christians they have held captive since February, a Syrian archbishop cautioned that while the news is good, it could be a distraction ahead of another major assault.

“Perhaps we can do an analysis on why (the Islamic State) returned them, because one month ago they attacked Hassake to take it, (and) they couldn’t,” Jacques Hindo, Syriac Archbishop of Hassake-Nisibi, told CNA Aug. 12.

“Maybe, maybe, they are giving a signal that we are expecting another attack. It’s a little like a drug for us, to reassure us so that we aren’t vigilant, and then they’ll make a new, large attack.”

Archbishop Hindo’s diocese is centered in Syria’s northeastern-most province, Al-Hasakah, which borders Turkey and Iraq. The archbishop collaborates closely with the city’s bishop from the Assyrian Church of the East (historically associated with Nestorianism), whose people were those abducted in February.

The two bishops have been working side by side to negotiate the release of the 230 Assyrian Christians abducted by the Islamic State when they attacked villages across Al-Hasakah province.

In the initial assault the militants took control of several farming communities on the southern bank of the Khabur river, as well as the Christian quarters in the south of Hassake.

Archbishop Hindo noted that during the siege, Islamic State militants were stationed on the other side of a bridge that sat barely 500 meters (1,600 feet) from where he and others were taking refuge.

However, the Islamic State failed to take control of the province, and unleashed another attack on Hassake June 25, leading thousands of inhabitants to flee the city, including the remaining Christian population.

With no more Christians in the city, the archbishop also left, and returned just two weeks ago when the faithful themselves began to come back.

Since February the archbishop has been in sporadic contact with the Islamic State about the possibility of freeing those taken in the initial attack. A month ago the militants asked for $1-2 million in exchange for the release of the hostages.

However, after sending an immediate response saying that they couldn’t pay, Archbishop Hindo said he has yet to receive a reply from the Islamic State.

The appearance of the 22 Christians – most of whom are elderly – pulling up on a bus in front of an Assyrian church in Hassake was a surprising but welcome site. Despite the fact they haven’t said much yet, they seemed physically and mentally healthy, Archbishop Hindo noted.

He said the release of the 22 gives hope that the other 208 hostages, who are mostly women and children – including two infants no more than 5-6 months old – will also be set free, though he remained cautious.

In addition to their woes with the Islamic State, the Christians are also beginning to face difficulties with Kurdish soldiers, who, after driving out the militants, have entered into the Christian quarter of Hassake and taken over portions of the schools, churches, and houses.

Archbishop Hindo explained that their presence is making the Christians nervous, and many have begun to leave again.

“What we haven’t understood is why they are doing it. They said they are doing it to survey Daesh (the Islamic State)” and look for small pockets of militants who may have infiltrated the city, he said. “They say they are here to protect, but (the Christians) don’t believe them.”

He asked that the soldiers depart and leave the Christians “in peace,” and made a personal appeal to the government “in the name of all Christians” to no longer put soldiers in the Christian quarter.

The ongoing battles and bombings have also taken their toll on the city. Archbishop Hindo said he is responsible for cleaning it, along with 120 others who assist him. The building where the supplies are kept, he said, has become known as the “Christian Commune.”

Although they have little support outside of the meager funds they receive from Caritas, the archbishop said they have been able to set up 300 beds and to offer food, medical, and sanitation supplies for those in need.

Even though they’ve been doing the same work since Syria’s civil war broke out five years ago, this month there has been a stark increase in what they are handing out, because the need is enormous.

Help coming from the outside has been “very little,” he said, explaining that there is no way for them to receive assistance from neighboring countries.

“We have the borders closed around us. In the north we have Turkey who has closed the border. In the east Daesh in Iraq, in the west Daesh in Syria, and in the south Daesh,” he said.

“If someone is sick or needs surgery, no one can enter or leave, and we can’t go in the car. Everything is closed around us. All around us we have only enemies.”

However, despite their difficulties the Christian community is enduring. They find their strength, Archbishop Hindo said, not from what they see around them, but from “what comes from the heart” – their own prayers, and the prayers of others.

“Right now we are a project of martyrdom … the wars are not finished. (But) we cannot be pessimists because the Lord is not a pessimist.”

Although they are afraid, they aren’t paralyzed, the archbishop said, adding that there is still work they can do.

“If we need to praise we must praise Christ,” he said, and, quoting a Syriac saint, added: “if you sing, sing praise. This is what you have been created for.”

The archbishop then made an appeal for spiritual support, because right now “we don’t need pity. We need prayer, we need help.”

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WORLD NEWS

In U.K., assisted suicide vote looms as a key moment for disabled

by CNA/EWTN News • August 14, 2015

(Marea Howse CC0 1.0)

London, England — Amid strong Christian opposition to the legalization of assisted suicide in the U.K., former Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey has broken away. He took part in a video for a group backing assisted suicide and claims that it is “profoundly Christian” to help people end their lives.

“There’s nothing noble about excruciating pain and I think we need as a nation to give people the right to decide their own fate,” the former head clergyman of the Church of England said in a video for the pro-assisted suicide campaign group Dignity in Dying.

“In my view it is a profoundly Christian and moral thing to devise a law that enables people if they so choose to end their lives with dignity,” he said, according to the U.K.-based Premier Christian Radio.

Under current law in the United Kingdom, it is illegal to encourage or to help someone attempt to take their own life. On Sept. 11 the House of Commons will debate and vote on a private member’s bill to legalize assisted suicide.

Like the Catholic Church, the Church of England opposes changes to current U.K. law. On July 16 it urged churchgoers to contact their MPs to oppose the bill. James Newcome, the Anglican Bishop of Carlisle and the group’s lead bishop on health care, said legalization would create a “very uncertain and dangerous” future for the most vulnerable, such as the elderly and the disabled.

“This is a key moment for all of us as we decide what sort of society we want to live in and what future we want for our children and grandchildren, one in which all are valued and cared for, or one in which some lives are viewed as not worth living,” he said.

The Church of England’s general synod unanimously passed a motion to oppose the bill. The current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has called assisted suicide “mistaken and dangerous.”

The Catholic Church in England and Wales urged opposition to the bill in a July 1 Question and Answer, which stressed that every person’s life is equally worthy of respect and compassion.

Those say they wish to die, the statement said, “deserve care, support and sometimes medical treatment for depression, not assistance with suicide.” It emphasized the duty to provide good pain control and hospice care for those in need.

“The Church teaches that life is a gift from God and supports high quality care for the dying and protection for the weak and vulnerable.”

Lord Carey said he thought Parliament could craft laws that are resistant to abuse and unintended consequences.

However, the Catholic Church statement said it is “wishful thinking” to think there would be adequate safeguards once the ethical and legal principles against assisted suicide are violated. It pointed to abuses in Holland and several U.S. states where assisted suicide is legal or not prosecuted. The statement said doctors in these places often fail to diagnose clinical depression in those who would be eligible for legal suicide.

“Each year the numbers dying by assisted suicide increase and the ‘safeguards’ are taken less and less seriously,” the statement charged.

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U.S. NEWS

Not a taxing matter? IRS downplays gay marriage religious freedom threats

by CNA/EWTN News • August 8, 2015

(Andy via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Washington D.C. — Following the Supreme Court decision declaring same-sex civil marriage to be a fundamental right, the Internal Revenue Service said it has no intention of revoking religious non-profits’ tax status.

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who made the inquiry to the IRS, said its statement was “a victory for religious freedom in America and for the non-profit charities, churches, and religiously affiliated universities who feared they would be denied tax-exempt status by the IRS because their sincerely held religious beliefs prohibit them from participating in same-sex marriage.”

He said his office will “trust but verify” the IRS and continue to monitor its actions to “ensure Americans aren’t targeted unfairly for exercising their religious beliefs.”

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told the attorney general that it does not view the June 2015 Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges as “having changed the law applicable to section 501(c)(3) determinations or examinations.”

“The IRS does not intend to change the standards that apply to section 501(c)(3) organizations by reason of the Obergefell decision,” Koskinen said.

Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general, said the IRS letter “provides needed assurance” of protections for First Amendment rights.

The 5-4 Supreme Court decision, authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, declared a “fundamental right to marry” for same-sex couples. It claimed as precedent previous court rulings against bans on interracial marriage.

In the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about “gay marriage,” Justice Samuel Alito asked U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verilli whether a religious school that held marriage was only a union of one man and one woman could face threats to its tax exemption. Verilli said that this was “certainly going to be an issue.”

The Solicitor General’s comments were noted by Chief Justice John Roberts, who said in his dissent “There is little doubt that these and similar questions will soon be before this court.”

Beginning in 1970, the IRS started to revoke the tax exempt status of universities that practiced racial discrimination, which was illegal under federal law. In 1976, it officially revoked the tax exempt status of Bob Jones University, an evangelical Christian school in South Carolina which banned interracial dating on religious grounds. The revocation applied retroactively to 1970.

The university challenged the IRS in a lawsuit that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court sided against the school in the 1983 decision Bob Jones University v. United States.

There is currently no federal law barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. However, some federal rules have been interpreted by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in a way that may allow lawsuits from employees who contract a same-sex civil marriage.

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U.S. NEWS

Archbishop Chaput: Other moral issues not equivalent to abortion

by CNA/EWTN News • August 10, 2015

Archbishop Charles Chaput speaks with CNA in Rome on Sept. 15, 2014. (Joaquín Peiró Pérez/CNA)

Philadelphia, PA — Of the many struggles plaguing modern society, none can be equated with the blatant taking of innocent human lives, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia said regarding the latest investigative videos of Planned Parenthood.

“Here’s a simple exercise in basic reasoning. On a spectrum of bad things to do, theft is bad, assault is worse and murder is worst. There’s a similar texture of ill will connecting all three crimes, but only a very confused conscience would equate thieving and homicide,” he said in his August 10 column for Catholic Philly.

“Both are serious matters. But there is no equivalence. The deliberate killing of innocent life is a uniquely wicked act. No amount of contextualizing or deflecting our attention to other issues can obscure that.”

In a series of five videos released thus far by the Center for Medical Progress, Planned Parenthood officials casually discuss prices for various aborted baby body parts and how abortion procedures may be altered to ensure intact organs and even “intact cadavers.” One video shows a medical assistant looking through body parts from an aborted baby before proclaiming, “Another boy!”

The videos have raised questions of whether the organization is harvesting and selling organs from aborted babies.

Planned Parenthood has maintained that its actions are legal. However, the videos have prompted widespread outrage, nationwide rallies, congressional investigations and calls to defund the organization, which receives more than half a billion dollars in taxpayer money annually.

While today’s world is filled with many social ills – which are connected and must all be acknowledged and addressed – there is a natural hierarchy to these problems, because some are foundational to human life itself, Archbishop Chaput said.

One common argument against the pro-life movement – of which Catholics make up a large contingent – is that they are merely pro-birth; they do not care about the needs of the child or the mother once the child has been born. That understanding is mistaken, the archbishop commented.

“It makes no sense to champion the cause of unborn children if we ignore their basic needs once they’re born,” he said. “Thus it’s no surprise that – year in and year out – nearly all Catholic dioceses in the United States, including Philadelphia, devote far more time, personnel and material resources to providing social services to the poor and education to young people than to opposing abortion.”

The Catholic Church is one of the largest charitable organizations in the world. Although it is difficult to quantify exactly what percentage of social services are rendered by the Church in the United States every year, 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, and soup kitchens or other charities run by religious orders or local parishes.

However, it is correct to prioritize the right to life as the foundation for all other rights, Archbishop Chaput noted.

“But of course, children need to survive the womb before they can have needs like food, shelter, immigration counseling and good health care. Humanity’s priority right – the one that undergirds all other rights – is the right to life,” he said.

And while being opposed to abortion and euthanasia does not excuse anyone from caring about other social injustices, such a poverty and violence, there is a right ordering of moral priorities, Archbishop Chaput said, which is the reason the United States’ bishops released their 1998 pastoral letter, “Living the Gospel of Life.”

“Any politics of human dignity must seriously address issues of racism, poverty, hunger, employment, education, housing, and health care … But being ‘right’ in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life.

Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the ‘rightness’ of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community” (Living the Gospel of Life pp. 22).

Another common argument against the mainstream pro-life movement is that politics can never provide a solution to the problem of abortion, and therefore political involvement is a waste of time.

“In practice, politics is the application of moral conviction to public discourse and the process of lawmaking. Law not only constrains and defends; it also teaches and forms. Law not only reflects culture; it shapes and reshapes it. That’s why Christians can’t avoid political engagement,” Archbishop Chaput said.

While political action is never the main focus or goal of faith, Christians have a duty to defend life that “inescapably involves politics.”

“Thus the recent Senate vote to defund Planned Parenthood was not only right and timely, but necessary. And the failure of that measure involves a public failure of character by every Catholic senator who voted against it,” he said.

At the end of his statement, Archbishop Chaput urged everyone to read “veteran ‘pro-choice’ voice” Ruben Navarette, Jr.’s August 10 column in the Daily Beast, in which he honestly questions his pro-abortion stance after his revulsion at what is shown in the videos.

The column’s strongest lines, Archbishop Chaput said, are when Navarette quotes his pro-life wife.

“Those are babies that are being killed. Millions of them. And you need to use your voice to protect them. That’s what a man does. He protects children – his own children, and other children. That’s what it means to be a man.”

Archbishop Chaput’s response: “Amen.”

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U.S. NEWS

What do Pope Francis and Abraham Lincoln have in common?

by CNA/EWTN News • August 10, 2015

Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, where Pope Francis will speak from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg lectern to the World Meeting of Families, Sept. 26, 2015. (Jim D via Flickr CC BY 2.0)

Philadelphia, PA — Although Pope Francis will be new to the United States, visiting the country this autumn for the first time during his papacy, he will be well-seasoned in American history.

Officially announced this week, the Holy Father will speak at the same lectern as did President Abraham Lincoln when he delivered the Gettysburg Address in 1863. The Holy Father will give his own historic speech at Independence Hall during the World Meeting of Families in September, using Lincoln’s lectern courtesy of the Abraham Lincoln Foundation of the Union League of Philadelphia.

“We are both honored and grateful for the generosity of the Abraham Lincoln Foundation in offering the Holy Father the opportunity to speak from The Gettysburg Lecturn at Independence Hall,” announced Robert Ciaruffoli, president of the 2015 World Meeting of Families.

“It’s simple beauty and humble role in one of American history’s most important moments reflect, in many ways, Pope Francis’ own worldview,” Ciaruffoli continued.

The Gettysburg Address was given by Lincoln from the simple wooden lectern on Nov. 19, 1863, four months after the Battle of Gettysburg. Lincoln dedicated part of the grounds of Gettysburg as a cemetary during his speech, solemnly remembering one of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War.

Pope Francis, 152 years later, will mark another historic occasion by addressing the World Meeting of Families from the same wooden stand at Independence Hall.

“The Gettysburg Lectern is one of the most historic artifacts in American history and we are privileged to have Pope Francis use it to deliver his address in Philadelphia,” stated John Meko, the executive director of the Union League.

“With Independence Hall, the most historic building in America, selected as an official site for the Papal visit in June, it seemed only appropriate to provide the Holy Father with the opportunity to deliver his message to the world from the lectern at which President Lincoln gave the most famous speech in American history,” Meko continued.

The Abraham Lincoln Foundation was founded in 1996 to preserve historical documents and artifacts obtained by the Union League of Philadelphia.

The Heritage Center of the Union League of Philadelphia is now home to the Gettysburg Lectern, where it is on a long-term loan from a private collector.

At the end of August, the historic wooden stand will be removed from public display so that conservators can prepare it for Pope Francis’ address at the World Meeting of Families.

The World Meeting of Families takes place every three years and is co-sponsored this year by the Holy See’s Pontifical Council and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. It will be held for the first time in the United States this fall, with the official theme “Love is Our Mission: The Family Fully Alive.”

Pope Francis will use the Gettysburg Lecturn to speak about religious liberty and immigration on Sept. 26, 2015, during his two-day apostolic journey in Philadelphia.

“To have this man of faith who speaks for peace, love and religious freedom around the world, use President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Lecturn to address all those who will come to see him in Philadelphia, will be a deeply moving moment for all,” Ciaruffoli stated.

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U.S. NEWS

For Bishop Stika, Planned Parenthood videos show need to cherish humanity first

by CNA/EWTN News • August 11, 2015

(Kalle Gustafsson via Flickr CC BY 2.0)

Knoxville, TN — The videos of Planned Parenthood officials’ involvement in the harvesting of organs from recently aborted babies shows an unadorned evil, but it’s also a call to love those involved in abortion, a bishop in Tennessee has said.

“Evil without its makeup — that is the reality exposed in the unfolding series of videos revealing how the unborn life of a baby, deemed worthless by Planned Parenthood while in the womb, has value only in the sale of its dissected human parts,” Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville said in an Aug. 9 column for the Knoxville News Sentinel.

He connected the revelations to Pope Francis’ strong criticisms of the “throwaway” mentality that harms both the natural environment and human ecology.

“A true human ecology is one that recognizes the inestimable value of life from conception to natural death, be it the life of the unborn in the womb, the poor, the sick and elderly, and even those on death row who themselves may have brutally taken another life,” the bishop continued.

“This human ecology calls us to especially reach out with love, mercy and healing toward those who may be contemplating, or have chosen to have, an abortion.”

Undercover investigators with the California-based Center for Medical Progress have released several videos showing Planned Parenthood officials casually discussing prices for various body parts, and how abortion procedures may be altered to ensure intact organs from aborted babies. The videos, which the bishop challenged everyone to watch, have prompted strong scrutiny of the politically powerful organization, which is the largest abortion provider in the U.S.

Bishop Stika said the investigation “shined a light into the areas of darkness.” He said the videos exposed a “troubling indifference” and the “suppression of truth” about the most vulnerable, saying the current indifference is similar to the situation “decades ago” when “people on another continent shocked the world, saying, ‘we did not know,’ regarding the atrocities they chose to ignore.”

He suggested that Americans with environmental concerns make sure they include a concern for humanity.

“Care for the environment and of all God’s good creation is important, but have we forgotten a far greater ecology that calls for our attention?” he asked.

He cited Pope Francis’ question in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’. There, the Pope asked how one can teach the importance of caring for other beings “if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties.”

He encouraged anyone involved in a past abortion to contact Project Rachel, and anyone who needs help with pregnancy in East Tennessee to contact the local Catholic Charities affiliate.

He suggested the approximately $500 million of federal taxpayer funding that goes to Planned Parenthood could be directed to pregnancy centers that offer “loving and compassionate options” that affirm “the sanctity and the dignity of both mother and child.”

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U.S. NEWS

A ‘Buzzfeed’ you can believe in – ChurchPOP marks one remarkable year

by Maggie Maslak (CNA/EWTN News) • August 11, 2015

(ChurchPOP)

Denver, CO — Marking the first birthday of ChurchPOP, a site for shareable Christian fun and inspiration, founder and editor Brantly Millegan said he hopes to build on the first year of success as he moves forward.

“Last summer, I got the idea. And the idea was just to do a website in a ‘Buzzfeed’ style, but for Christian culture,” Millegan told CNA, saying that he wanted to create the kind of web content that people would want to share.

It didn’t take long for Millegan’s idea to become real. Within a few weeks of brainstorming and obtaining a web domain in July, ChurchPOP was officially launched on August 11, 2014.

The website offers articles, quizzes, videos, memes, and lists for people who are looking to share fun facts, beautiful pictures, and collectively “make holy all the things!” – as the site’s tagline indicates. The goal is to share Buzzfeed-style content while learning more about the Christian faith.

Although Millegan started ChurchPOP from ground zero, he experienced a warm welcome during the website’s first few days from fun-loving web surfers looking for sharable content with a Christian twist.

“Praise the Lord - it was very encouraging that in my first month, I did far better than what I was expecting, and that was a big encouragement,” he noted.

But starting ChurchPOP wasn’t all fun and games. Millegan said that launching his own website was a lot like a rollercoaster ride.

“The last year there have been a lot of ups and downs, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing the whole time,” he remembered.

Looking back after the first year, Millegan reflected with gratitude on all of the highs and lows, hoping that ChurchPOP will continue to be a success.

With headlines like “LOL! 18 Christian Memes Guaranteed to Lighten Your Day” and quizzes such as “Can You Name These Liturgical Vestments?” Millegan keeps ChurchPOP’s content fresh and funny by staying in tune with what millennials like.

“They are just the types of things that people want to share, which is exactly what I am going for,” he said.

“It’s kind of surprising what does well and what doesn’t. I had an article that was just a diagram of how all the apostles died and where their bones are supposedly located - and that was huge,” Millegan stated, noting that another article on “27 Delightfully Terrible Christian Puns to Annoy the Heck Out of Your Friends With” was also a big hit.

Although Millegan has been running the show on his own, he does collaborate with others who submit their work on the site, and he also asks for permission to reprint other writers. In addition, Millegan himself generates a lot of the content and is inspired by everything from Facebook to Flickr.

“I want the types of things where people can easily digest it, enjoy it, and share it on Facebook,” he explained, saying that the purpose of ChurchPOP is to promote “Christian culture in general, which I think has the evangelizing effect.”

After his first year in the Buzzfeed-for-Christians business, Millegan has a few projects in store for the future that could make a global splash.

“Well, we would like to create a Spanish edition, I think that could be huge. I think just putting it in another language, starting with Spanish, could have a huge reach,” he explained, saying “just onwards and upwards - that’s the plan, at least.”

“Things can be very up and down - the highs are highs, and the lows are lows. But I feel very blessed that I have made it this far, and I’m very happy,” he continued.

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U.S. NEWS

Former technician: Planned Parenthood took baby organs without consent

by Adelaide Mena and Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • August 12, 2015

Sleeping baby. (Vera Kratochvil CC0 1.0)

Washington, D.C. — The latest in a series of videos on Planned Parenthood features testimony from a former technician who says she worked with the clinics to procure tissue from aborted babies without the mother’s consent.

“Basically you just went in there and took her blood, and now you’re going to take her fetus without her knowing,” Holly O’Donnell, a former “blood and tissue procurement technician” for the California-based biotech company StemExpress, which partnered with California Planned Parenthood clinics to obtain fetal tissue specimens.

“Imagine if you were an abortion patient and someone was just going in and stealing your baby’s parts,” she reflected in the video. “It’s just terrible.”

Describing the process used to procure fetal tissue, O’Donnell said that “if there was a higher gestation, and the technicians needed it, there were times when they would just take what they wanted. And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”

O’Donnell also questioned abortion procedures’ emotional impact on women, and the practices of her former co-workers to utilize this emotional stress to obtain fetal body parts.

“There’s a reason why they keep journals in the recovery room. If abortion was a good thing, there wouldn’t be so much emotional damage from it,” she commented, explaining that she was often reprimanded for not pressuring women into consenting to medical research.

Furthermore, the technicians would collaborate with the Planned Parenthood clinics days in advance to determine the number of patients seeking abortions and how far into their pregnancy they were, O’Donnell said.

By federal law, any procurement of fetal tissue for research must be done with the consent of the mother. O’Donnell’s testimony calls into question Planned Parenthood’s practices in relation to the law.

The video is the latest in a series of reports on “Human Capital” by the citizen journalist group Center for Medical Progress. It is the result of a three-year investigative study of Planned Parenthood and its transfer of body parts of aborted babies for money.

The videos have sparked a national conversation about the use of fetal body parts from aborted babies for medical research, as well as a call for an end to funding for Planned Parenthood.

Earlier videos in the undercover series showed top Planned Parenthood officials casually discussing the price of body parts of aborted babies with actors who presented themselves as representatives of tissue procurement companies.

Previous videos showed discussion of the “donation” of body parts of aborted babies for “reasonable” compensation, detailed explanation of how the abortion process could be changed to ensure intact body parts, and footage of abortion technicians discussing the available organs of recently aborted patients.

The most recent video also featured the director of research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Melissa Farrell, discussing the possibility of altering the abortion procedure to have a higher chance of obtaining “intact” baby organs. The National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993 explicitly prohibits changing an abortion procedure solely to obtain fetal tissue.

Planned Parenthood maintains that their actions are legal. However, the strong reaction to the videos has prompted congressional investigations, and several states have moved to stop funding the organization.

Wednesday’s video is the second part of O’Donnell testimony. After the first portion was released, StemExpress filed a formal complaint with a federal district court, citing invasion of privacy and breach of contract among other complaints.

The company asked for and received an injunction on any more videos being released by the Center for Medical Progress, lasting several weeks.

The group responded by releasing their next two videos featuring Planned Parenthood officials in states other than California.

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Latin Americans find post-abortion healing in Rachel’s Vineyard Hispanic outreach

by CNA/EWTN News • August 12, 2015

(Leia Barker via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Palm Beach, FL — Abortion strikes someone on such a personal level that it’s only natural that those seeking healing would want to express their grief and pain in their first language. That’s what Donna Gardner realized when her Rachel’s Vineyard team began encountering men and women whose first language is Spanish.

Gardner coordinates the apostolate’s rereats for Catholic Charities of Palm Beach, and she explained that “The English speaking team kept encountering Hispanic men and women hurt by abortion. As I was preparing them for the retreats, they would start to tell their stories in English. However, as their anxiety and trauma remembrances heightened, they started to speak in their native tongue. It didn’t take very long for us to realize we needed a Hispanic ministry here,” she said.

What started as outreach to native Spanish speakers in Florida has now turned into an international endeavor with post-abortive healing retreats being held across Central and South America, including in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Panama, and Colombia.

When they realized they needed to create a Spanish-language ministry, Gardner and her team of 60 began praying that God would send the right person to lead it.

Eight years later, a woman named Emily, who was born in Chicago but raised in Puerto Rico, proved to be the answer to their prayers.

With Gardner’s support, Emily has created a thriving retreat outreach initiative for Hispanics that now hosts two retreats a year along with counseling and clergy support.

“It is hard for these women and men to open up, to trust,” Emily said. “They long for God’s forgiveness, but they struggle to forgive themselves.”

Her background in a ministry formation program for laity helped her not only with planning and running retreats, but also with making contacts with priests from Central and South America.

These international retreats require Emily and her team to raise funds for their own airfare and retreat materials. Additionally, her team must commit to running the first few retreats while mentoring the local team.

In 2011, the first Rachel’s Vineyard Hispanic retreat was held in Panama – where prostitution is still legal. Since then many men and women have received healing and reconciliation and have had the chance to grieve and honor their aborted children.

Fr. Rafael Payon, a priest from Nicaragua who came to the May 2015 Rachel’s Vineyard retreat in Palm Beach, said, “I’m totally in love with this ministry and believe each parish should have its own Rachel’s Vineyard.” A retreat is now planned in his home country in 2016.

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Colorado court gives no relief to baker who declined to serve gay wedding

by CNA/EWTN News • August 13, 2015

(Alex Grichenko CC0 1.0)

Denver, CO — A Colorado baker has lamented the Colorado Court of Appeals’ ruling handed down Thursday that he illegally discriminated when he declined to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop said that in his view the ruling means that the court created an exception to the First Amendment that wrongly affects his family-run bakery.

“You’re entitled to believe, but not entitled to act on those beliefs,” he said in an Aug. 13 statement.

“You’re not free if your beliefs are confined to your mind,” Phillips objected. “What makes America unique is our freedom to peacefully live out these beliefs.”

He had appealed the decision of Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission that he violated the state’s anti-discrimination law when he declined to create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

The unanimous Aug. 13 ruling from the Colorado Court of Appeals said, “discrimination on the basis of one’s opposition to same-sex marriage is discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”

The ruling rejected the cake shop’s other defenses, including its stated willingness to serve gay and lesbian customers who requested birthday cakes, cookies, and other “non-wedding cake products.”

Phillips’ bakery in Lakewood, Colorado no longer bakes wedding cakes, after the civil rights commission ruled against his shop. In 2012, he had declined a request from two men who wanted him to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding reception. Phillips said making the cake would violate his religious beliefs. In response, the two men filed a legal complaint against him.

The civil rights commission ordered Phillips and his staff to undergo anti-discrimination training and to submit quarterly reports on how he is changing company policies.

Phillips has decided not to make any wedding cakes, his only legal option to continue his business without violating his beliefs.

At the time of the controversy, Colorado law did not recognize same-sex marriage. The Colorado appeals court cited the June 2015 decision mandating nationwide recognition of such unions, noting that the Supreme Court equated laws that preclude same-sex marriage to “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”

Another Colorado man reacted to the ruling against the bakery by filing complaints against three other bakeries that refused to make his requested cakes, which included religious imagery and loosely paraphrased Biblical phrases about sin and homosexuality. His claims that these bakeries discriminated against him were rejected by the Civil Rights Division of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies.

That case was mentioned in the ruling against Masterpiece Cakes. The court said that the bakers “did not refuse the patron’s request because of his creed, but rather because of the offensive nature of the requested message.”

The court claimed that because the state anti-discrimination law forbids all businesses from discrimination, it is “unlikely that the public would view Masterpiece’s creation of a cake for a same-sex wedding celebration as an endorsement of that conduct” and a reasonable observer would consider that the behavior is not a reflection of its own beliefs.

Philips objected that the court’s logic mean different treatment for citizens who hold “government approved views on same-sex marriage” and those who do not.

According to the latest ruling, the law would bar the bakery from notifying customers that it refuses to provide services for a same-sex marriage, though the decision said the bakery could post a disclaimer saying that providing its services for such an event does not constitute an endorsement.

A strict application of state and local anti-discrimination laws and policies have begun to constrict the freedom of businesses and organizations with moral objections to homosexual acts and relationships.

Catholic-run adoption agencies in some states have been forced to close, because the law would require them to place children with same-sex couples against their religious beliefs.

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A voice missing from the synod: faithful Catholics with same-sex attraction

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • August 13, 2015

(Luca Cerini via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Detroit, MI — When presenters addressed last year’s Synod of Bishops to discuss challenges facing the family, there was one group who voice was absent – those with same-sex attraction living chastely.

So says Fr. Paul Check, executive director of Courage, a Catholic outreach ministry to persons experiencing homosexual desires.

At the organization’s international conference, he emphasized the importance of hearing testimonies from those for whom same-sex attraction is “a lived reality” but who believe that the Church’s teaching on chastity “leads to peace.”

“Our best ambassadors are our members,” Fr. Check said. The personal stories of these faithful Catholics must be heard, he continued, since a “personal narrative” reaches the modern audience more broadly than an argument on chastity from natural moral law, vital as it is.

The Courage conference, “Welcoming and Accompanying Our Brothers and Sisters with Same-Sex Attraction,” was held August 10-12 in Detroit, Michigan. Almost 400 people attended from six countries, including some 125 clergy and four bishops. The rest were primarily lay persons who hold ministry positions at parishes, and family members of persons with same-sex attraction.

It was the organization’s first conference devoted to Church leaders in pastoral ministry on the issue. Speakers included persons who have experienced same-sex attraction but who have been guided to live chastity by friendships and the Church, as well as experts in areas of psychology, natural law, and chastity.

The Courage conference was developed from the questions posed ahead of the 2015 Synod on the Family. The lineamenta, or part of the preparatory document for the synod, features questions sent to bishops’ conferences all over the world for consideration.

“The pastoral care of persons with homosexual tendencies poses new challenges today, due to the manner in which their rights are proposed in society,” the lineamenta states.

“How can the Christian community give pastoral attention to families with persons with homosexual tendencies? What are the responses that, in light of cultural sensitivities, are considered to be most appropriate?”

Although the natural moral law is “indispensable” to understanding the Church’s teaching on sexuality, it is “not mutually accepted as a starting point for many conversations,” Fr. Check said, because many people cannot agree on exactly what human nature is or what natural law is.

However, he said, personal testimonies of those with same-sex attractions who strive to be chaste can help correct common “misconceptions” about chastity in modern society, namely that it is “onerous” and “unnatural.”

Courage has already attempted to tell these stories in the format of a film, “Desire of the Everlasting Hills,” which focuses on the personal stories of three people who lived an openly homosexual lifestyle but returned to the Church and are now trying to live chastely.

However, the Church must be careful not to treat young people experiencing same-sex attractions as if they are defined by these attractions, Fr. Check warned.

Many young people are “over-sexualized,” he said, because they are taught early in life that all of their feelings of attraction are natural and should be acted on, even though the years before maturity can be a time of confusion and change, and feelings experienced as a teenager are not the “final word.”

More importantly, he added, to define a young person by their sexual feelings towards anyone, regardless of gender, is an injustice because their sexuality is only “one part” of their human nature.

Catholics should be “avoiding sexualizing young people so that they aren’t entering into a sphere or realm of the human condition for which they are not yet prepared psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, morally,” he told CNA in an interview at the conference.

“And that’s not just young people who may feel the same-sex inclination. That’s for all (young people).”

A challenge, Fr. Check acknowledged in his conference address, is for Catholics to reach out to those experiencing these inclinations in a spirit of “encounter” like that proposed by Pope Francis, and invite them to “trust us” and “walk with them.”

This involves upholding the truth of sexuality expressed in the Church’s teaching while proposing it in a charitable and inviting manner, he explained.

Jesus did not begin his ministry with Calvary, Fr. Check noted, but first offered something that “drew people to Him,” while at the same time never abandoning truth or causing scandal.

“Friendships and relationships are things that are an essential part of a fulfilled human life,” he stated, and through chaste relationships with others working to live chastely, Catholics can offer what everyone seeks – happiness and deep relationships.

Through friendships, they can help others sort through their own attractions and desires and discern the good from the bad. Ultimately, friendships can help others discover the truth about themselves.

And if man knows the truth about himself, his actions will reflect that. Fr. Check said, stressing that man is “created in the image and likeness of God, redeemed by Christ’s blood, and the beneficiary of grace.”

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What’s destroying some Catholic marriages? The answer may surprise you

by Kate Veik (CNA/EWTN News) • August 14, 2015

(conrado via shutterstock.com)

Washington, D.C. — Of the countless Catholic couples who have come through Father T.G. Morrow’s office in Washington D.C. for marriage counseling, two remain imprinted in the priest’s mind even today.

In many ways, these two Catholic couples were the ideal; they were open to life, they formed their children in the faith and they frequented the sacraments.

But both of these marriages fell apart. The culprit? Anger.

“Anger is a poison,” Fr. Morrow, a moral theologian and author of “Overcoming Sinful Anger” (Sophia Press, 2014) told CNA. “If a husband and a wife are angry with each other a lot, it destroys the relationship. It makes it so painful that people want to get out of that relationship.”

Everyone experiences the feeling of anger. It’s a natural, uncontrollable response to the behavior of others, he said. And anger can sometimes be righteous – St. Thomas Aquinas once said anger that’s aligned with reason is praiseworthy. But most often that natural response of anger morphs into sinful anger, which is motivated by a desire for revenge, the priest noted.

And this sinful anger has a devastating effect on relationships.

“It’s extremely important that people realize that (anger) can be a very serious thing, especially if they have major outbursts that really hurt other people,” Fr. Morrow said.

Anger is so destructive that many marriage experts recommend couples have five positive interactions for every negative interaction.

“This anger, when it’s expressed badly, is a poison to every relationship,” he said. “Married people need especially to be careful about this … to work on this and to overcome this.”

Since the feeling of anger is natural and unavoidable, Fr. Morrow said it is important to know how to express anger or displeasure in an effective and positive way. The first step: decide if it is worth getting angry.

“People get angry about little, trifling things,” he said. “You have to say “Is this worth getting angry about?” If not, then you have to let it go. Just forget it.”

If your anger is justified and a confrontation would promote the good of the other, use humor or diplomacy to express your anger. If a confrontation would not promote the good of the other, then Fr. Morrow suggested offering that anger to God as a sacrifice for your sins and the sins of the world.

“(Anger) won’t go away automatically in one try,” he explained. “We have to keep giving it to God as a sacrifice.”

Fr. Morrow said this approach to anger does not mean every person should suddenly become a doormat who is too cowardly to express dissatisfaction with the actions of another.

He used the example of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine of Hippo. Many of the men in Tagaste at the time had violent tempers, and St. Monica’s husband was no exception. When he would come home and yell at St. Monica, she would stay quiet. Some time after her husband’s explosion of anger, St. Monica would approach her husband and calmly address his treatment of her and his complaints.

“She was the furthest thing from a doormat,” Fr. Morrow explained. “She had a specific goal that she wanted to become holy and she wanted to covert her son. She pursued her goals ardently and as a result she converted her violent husband and eventually converted Augustine.”

For more information, check out Fr. Morrow’s book “Overcoming Sinful Anger” (Sophia Press, 2014). The 102-page book reads like a manual and draws from Fr. Morrow’s experience as a marriage counselor and spiritual director and his doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pope John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family.

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How the pill might be ruining your life

by Adelaide Mena and Michelle Bauman (CNA/EWTN News) • August 14, 2015

(Sarah C via Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0)

Washington, D.C. — Depleted nutrient absorption. Long-term alterations in brain activity and ability to interact with the world. Changes in choice of mate. If a commonly prescribed drug has these side effects, should it really be commonly prescribed?

That was the question raised at an Aug. 8 symposium at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Researchers and medical professionals from across the United States and overseas gathered together to discuss the little-known risks of the birth control pill.

Entitled “Contraceptive Conundrum,” the symposium explored the consequences of hormonal birth control, many of which are unknown by women and doctors alike.

Dr. S. Craig Roberts, a researcher who specializes in mate preferences, stressed that the pill can alter the chemistry of attraction.

Under normal circumstances, he said, “women express preferences for genetically-dissimilar, masculine-faced men. But the pill seems to alter these preferences.”

“Women on the pill tend to choose male partners who appear more feminine (and who are) more genetically similar to them.”

Children born from unions of genetically similar parents may have greater health risks. Furthermore, when women come off the pill – often when they decide to have kids – they may revert to their natural attraction patterns, which their partner whom they met on the pill no longer fits.

Dr. Roberts noted that “women who met their partner when on the pill are more likely to initiate divorce.”

Women’s choice of partner while using hormonal contraception is part of a larger concern – the impact of hormones in the pill on the human brain.

According to Dr. Nicole Peterson, a researcher at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, the full extent of this impact is not yet clear, and research is still being done. But there is already ample evidence that the pill creates changes that may make permanent alterations to brain pathways.

“In women on the pill the amygdala – memory making part of brain – responds less to emotional stimuli,” she explained.

This can have some desirable results, such as lower rates of post-traumatic stress disorder among rape victims. However, it also drastically changes how women on the pill make choices and interact with the world around them.

Even more alarming, the pill’s effects on brain wiring can still be seen at least four months after a woman has stopped using the pill.

“If a woman is on oral contraceptives for long enough, she has a different kind of brain … there’s no guarantee that your brain remembers what the baseline is,” stressed Dr. Melissa Farmer, a post-doctoral fellow at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

She said that she finds the long-term nature of these brain changes particularly troubling.

Endocrine changes due to the pill can also have long-lasting effects, with consequences that last after a woman is no longer on hormonal contraception.

For example, if a woman stops taking the pill in order to become pregnant, the hormonal changes left over from the pill can affect her child.

“Very small changes in hormones in critical periods of fetal development can have lifelong consequences,” explained Dr. Frederick vom Saal, a researcher in developmental biology at the University of Missouri.

Another potentially long-term effect of the pill: nutrient depletion, which is associated with a whole host of other health problems.

“Oral contraceptives deplete nutrients more than any other kind of commonly prescribed drug,” said cancer researcher and nutritionist Ross Pelton. This includes depletions in all B vitamins, vitamin C, folic acid, zinc and several others.

While the onset tends to be gradual, these depletions can last even after the cessation of pill use, he noted. The result can be a negative impact on sexual health and increase risk for other problems, including heart issues.

With such serious potential side effects, some symposium participants questioned the widespread, almost automatic use of hormonal birth control.

“Why don’t doctors know about this?” asked Pelton. “It’s been in the literature for a long time.”

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FEATURES

Omosessualità

by Alice von Hildebrand • August 10, 2015

Hell is the place where love is banished. Understandably, the Evil one not only loathes the very word, but moreover, animated by his deadly hatred, is always on the alert as soon as he suspects that love might be blossoming between two human beings. He immediately starts scheming how to inject poison that will destroy this budding friendship. One cannot go wrong in suspecting that the loving bond uniting David and Jonathan, as related in the Old Testament, caused him grave concern. How was he to poison and pervert noble friendships between persons of the same sex?

Alas, the Evil one never sleeps and found no peace until he managed to persuade some “male friends” that in their own way, they were entitled to duplicate the sacred union existing between husband and wife in marriage.

Why should the sexual union – this ultimate degree of intimacy – be denied to two men or two women deeply attached to each other? They too should claim that they have an equal right – a magic word in our society – to become one flesh. The union of husband and wife culminates in ecstasy; this experience should be duplicated in male friendships, in order to grant the two friends an equal degree of “fulfillment”. This solution delighted Lucifer: male friends should be encouraged to copy – in their own way – the marital union.

Homosexuality is a perversion, a diabolical caricature of the nobility of the union of the spouses in marriage. Not only does it tacitly glorify sterility but it also wages war on nature – the beautiful design that God had when, as we are told in Genesis, God created man, male and female: two beings of equal dignity, admirably complementary and therefore meant to enrich each other. To willfully caricature this union by homosexuality is, in fact, a physical expression of the words of Lucifer: non serviam – defying the intentions of the Creator.

In the 4th century before Christ, Plato diagnosed sexual perversion as motivated by “unbridled lust”. (Laws, Book VIII). It is obvious that two male bodies – identical in their biological structure – cannot possibly have the complementarity that characterizes the noble union of husband and wife. Italian peasants’ savvy wisdom would put it plainly: “ if a lock and a key are identical, they could never open a door”. The door to a new life can only be the fruit of a chaste love.

Dietrich von Hildebrand has shed beautiful light on the essence of love that he characterizes as an “intentio benevolentiae” and an “intentio unionis”. Any lover worthy of this name intends, wants, pursues the true good of the loved one, from modest concerns such as food, to hoping to contribute to the development of all his talents, but most and foremost, to be modestly instrumental in bringing him closer to his Creator. He who truly loves another person wishes with every fiber of his heart that the loved one will be united to God in eternity. This has been clearly perceived by St. Augustine when he wrote that the friends bring each other closer to God by warming each other at the flame of their love for their Creator.

One of the many tragic consequences of original sin has been that, as a punishment for our first parents’ disobedience, Adam and Eve were not only cut off from their Creator, and condemned to die, but moreover, that it inevitably disrupted the harmony that previously existed between them. The war of the sexes began the very day that they sinned together, for sin inevitably separates the sinners. This is how the ill treatment and abuse of the weaker and ”guilty” sex by selfish and brutal men began its long and very ugly history.

A happy marriage is one in which husband and wife help each other to come closer to God. The very idea that their “so-called” love separates them from God should, in the eyes of any true lover, be a nightmare. “May our union glorify you, O Lord”, should be their daily prayer. This is something beautifully illustrated in the lives of married saints. St. Elizabeth of Hungary’s tender love for her husband, manifested itself when, in the middle of the night, she knelt at the foot of their nuptial bed to pray, while holding the hand of her beloved husband.

Alas, original sin has devastated not only the relationship between man and woman, but also has disrupted the harmony that previously existed between body and soul. That man is made of a union of a physical, material body and a spiritual, immortal soul, makes him a human person. Angels have no body; animals have no soul: man is a union of both. Dualism, that is the denial that it is the case, is to be mercilessly thrown out of court. But this should not blind us to the fact that the soul’s existence is not affected by the death of the body. This creates a special type of “dualism” that should also be kept in mind. It is only at the end of time that the spiritualized body will be re united to the soul. But while body and soul are closely united on this earth, there is a battle going on between them, that sheds light on the fact that not a single saint failed to practice asceticism – a holy practice mostly forgotten today, or highly unpopular or at any rate – hardly ever mentioned in contemporary Catholic education. Asceticism is indispensable to keep the body in “chains” that is to prevent it to gain control over the soul.

A material entity is by its very nature metaphysically inferior to a spiritual soul. It was therefore justified that it should obey the command of the latter. Since original sin, duplicating the revolt of the human soul against God, the body now infected by concupiscence which never sleeps, started claiming its independence, asserting its right to sensual pleasures. I do not know a more powerful presentation of this drama than in one sketched in one of the greatest books ever written: Augustine’s Confessions. In Book VIII of this great work, he describes in poignant terms, the drama that took place in his soul, in the garden in Milan: the duel between concupiscence – for by repeated sins, Augustine had lost his moral freedom – and the call coming from his soul touched by grace, and inviting him, with God’s help, to become “free”. He writes that he was hesitant to live unto life and to die unto death. (Confessions, viii, 8) Grace triumphed, and Augustine tells us eloquently the joy experienced by one whose chains had been broken, that is who has experienced the matchless joy of being “defeated by grace”.

We should have no illusion; these chains are terribly strong; we need humility to acknowledge that we are “slaves” and humbly beg God for help. “Come o Lord; without your grace I perish”. How is it that our body can enslave our souls? The answer is easy to find: through physical pleasure, a pleasure guaranteed by eating certain foods or drinking certain liquids, or by performing certain acts that “keep their promise” of granting immediate satisfaction. There are therefore very different from the “vague” promise that by leading a virtuous life, we shall receive a rich reward in eternity. Physical pleasure, on the contrary, guarantees immediate satisfaction, linked to yielding to powerful instincts. Fast food, fast pleasure. We want pleasure now; it is a craving we share with animals. They too want pleasure, and dread pain. But man is a person, that is someone whose relation to pleasure should be put to the test: for there are legitimate pleasures, there are illegitimate pleasures; there are perverse pleasures. There are also vicious and diabolical pleasures. To abuse, torture and then kill a child cries to heaven. Rape is an abomination partly motivated by a brutal satisfaction perversely increased by the screams of the victim – which add a spicy condiment to this moral horror. Whether in Auschwitz or in Gulags, where human persons have been intentionally and “scientifically” tortured, Satan was clearly the “conductor” of the orchestra of viciousness.

One of the trials in the formation of priests is the necessity of making them acquainted of the sad litany of sins that men are capable of committing. Grace, linked to the Sacrament they received, protects them. For knowledge of evil deeds can trigger temptations. My grandfather formulated this well, when he said to my father: “ There are things I do not know, and do not want to know”. One of the great dangers today is the difficulty of protecting young children from vicious information. When I was a child there was no television, and no “miracle” telephones which today a child can have access to by simply clicking on a button. Curiosity and sensationalism are two pitfalls that constantly threaten innocent little ones. ”Woe to those who scandalize one of these little ones”… These words should be mentioned and re-mentioned in our decadent society where many of us no longer distinguish between truth and error, moral good and moral evil. Woe of them, Isaiah wrote. (5:20)

We know that God – the all merciful – will forgive every single abomination that has been committed since original sin, but contrition is required to open the sluices of God’s infinite mercy. But we should never lose sight of the fact that pleasure is one of the most powerful tools that Lucifer uses to separate us from God.

To avoid misunderstanding, I shall use the vocabulary used in Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Ethics. “Good” is one of the most ambiguous words of the human vocabulary and this explains why certain books entitled “ethics” are, in fact teachers of immorality, and therefore deeply harmful to their readers. Aristippus of Cyrene was bound to attract many disciples by his glorification of pleasure which he identifies with ”good”, while cleverly teaching us the “art” of selecting them: we should choose the most intense, the longer lasting, the one costing the least effort, and the one that has no unpleasant consequences! He is “wise” who masters this art. This teaching has never lost and will never lose its popularity.

Good in this sense clearly refers to what is “merely subjectively satisfying”, that is something the importance of which depends exclusively on whether it is enjoyed. It should be clear that it is a domain where subjectivism is king: for what pleases one person does not necessarily please another. There are different tastes; to discuss them is a waste of time, because if a person happens to dislike one particular food, no argument can possibly make him change his mind. The individual subject is the ultimate judge. But a crucial distinction should here be made between pleasures which, although satisfying, are harmful to the person enjoying them This clearly applies to food and drink. Any doctor will tell you that many of their patients are responsible for their ailments by overeating, or by eating unhealthy food which pleases their palate, or by abusing alcoholic drinks.

There are also natural pleasures (good food) and artificial pleasures such as smoking, for no one is born with a craving to smoke artificially-created and made attractive by the clever advertisements of tobacco companies convincing their viewers that it is “smart”, ”elegant”, up to date”, “relaxing”.

There are also pleasures that are against nature; we shall call them “perversions”. The latter should be mercilessly condemned because implicitly they are a revolt against the order and harmony established by God Himself, the Maker of nature. A perversion is a distorted use of organs and faculties. Any such distortion would never be either attempted or practiced if it failed to keep its promise to give immediate “satisfaction”.

Pleasure is always pleasant, but this undeniable fact does not entitle us to claim that they are legitimate. God has linked pleasures to certain activities but if these are abused or used in a fashion that defies God’s intention in giving them to us, they should be condemned first and foremost because they are sins, but also, as an inevitable consequence, because they harm not only our soul, but also harms others often involved in these sins.

Whereas animals are bound to obey their particular nature, man can alas, willfully choose to violate its laws and he is tempted to do so because he expects satisfaction from his disobedience. Pleasure is a very ambiguous term. Even though all pleasures are subjectively satisfying, – some of them not only offend God, but also wage war against a greater good of the person: the good of his soul. That certain actions and activities are linked to pleasure is something that God has placed in them. But this does not entitle us to draw the conclusion that any satisfaction is legitimate. Pleasure becomes illegitimate, nay immoral, when it is either abused – over eating – the sin of gluttony – or perverted. It is legitimate to enjoy going to a good restaurant, but it is immoral to steal money in order to afford this passing satisfaction and does become a grave sin when stolen from a poor man – (I happen to know such a case) – to satisfy this craving. There are detestable pleasures; there are hateful and revolting pleasures; there are diabolical pleasures, such as enjoyed by men abusing children for “fun”.

The Christian attitude toward pleasures is beautiful expressed in the Benedictine prayer before meals: Benedic Domine nos et haec tua dona quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi, per Christum Dominum Nostrum. … Any legitimate pleasure should trigger in us gratitude, and this gratitude “baptizes” it and by this holy chemistry, makes it pleasing to God for it transforms something “merely subjectively satisfying” into an objective good for the person. For a saint, therefore the merely subjectively satisfying is totally eliminating from the screen of his consciousness and replaced by a song of gratitude. The dying St. Francis gratefully accepted a delicacy that a lady friend had brought him for she knew that he liked it. Yet the same saint, shortly before his death, apologized to his Brother Ass “for having treated him so badly”. But Christian saints never lose sight of the fact that – because of original sin – pleasure can potentially always be morally dangerous. How deeply meaningful that St. Thomas More – a married man – as a matter of fact when his first wife died, having four young children, he remarried shortly afterwards – wore a hair shirt. He wanted both to “tame” and to “baptize” pleasure, for any person striving for holiness never forgets for a moment that we are fragile creatures, wounded by sin.

Obviously any abuse of a gift, and a fortiori, any perverse pleasure can neither be baptized, nor contribute to the true good of the person. It is its enemy. How wise was Plato when he wrote that man is his own worst enemy.

Now we are in a position to see why the ecstasy linked to the noble union of husband and wife should never be the primary motivation of the spouses. Their noble and legitimate desire to become “one flesh” would be poisoned as soon as the ecstasy superabundantly linked to it, that is organically flowing over from it, would have primacy. If someone viewed adoring God as a sheer means for attaining beatitude, – by the same token this person proves that he has no inkling what “adoration” truly means. We ought to adore HIM for the plain reason that He is who He is: love itself: ”… quoniam tu solus sanctus, tu solus Dominum …” It is crucial to repeat this in a society where the “business attitude” – that is pragmatism – is prevalent: man is not a machine that should produce good deeds. This flat-footed pragmatism is so prevalent that “education” is viewed as a means of “making a good money” (as I heard from a professor of a university). The word “truth” had no room in her vocabulary. The happy marriage of wit and wisdom so typical of Pascal, offers a superb refutation of this tragically distorted view; he tells us that he was not a pragmatist … because he went much further without it …”seek you first the Kingdom of heaven, and the rest will be added unto you”.

Aristotle was right indeed in mentioning that there are things done for the sake of something else, i.e., they are “means”, and a means is used only as long as it is “useful” i.e., performs well. If this is no longer the case, it is discarded and replaced by a more efficient one. This approach is fully justified when applied to the mechanical and technical sphere: whatever is not needed is eliminated. But it is disastrous if extended to the lives of persons. For their dignity is such that they should never be used as a sheer means to an end. One of the abominable features of totalitarianism is precisely to view human beings as mere cogs in the huge impersonal monster called the State.

This leads me back to the relationship between husband and wife in marriage. If a husband embraces his wife for the sake of satisfying a powerful craving – not caring whether or not she is “receptive” to his gift and therefore is not fully capable of full reciprocity (it can be due to physical discomfort, or extreme fatigue), and consequently by gentle hints that she is not at her best, and if then his response it to feel deprived of his “right” as a husband, we are entitled to suspect that his main motivation was pleasure for its own sake. This fact can be duplicated in the wife-husband relationship. If she realizes that because he is recovering from a grave operation, or is exhausted because of a terribly stressful career, and uses her charm to attract him – in a very subtle way, she is sinning against love that always claims that priority of the loved one. Out of love, she should then refrain from making advances, which far from being selfless, are in fact self-seeking. One of the beautiful sides of marriage – rarely mentioned – is that it offers plenty of opportunities for sacrifices. This is an important fact that should be mentioned in marriage preparation courses. Marriage does not give one a license to follow inclinations which outside of marriage are severely prohibited.

I cannot insist enough upon the notion of “superabundance” – which is far from any form of puritanism, condemning pleasure as being evil, puts “ecstasy” in its proper place. Omnis homo mendax. How easily do we lie to ourselves in assuming that we are doing a good action in order to glorify God, and to respond to the call of a moral value, while in fact we calculate that in the long run, it will pay “dividends” and is therefore “a good placement”. We should not fear acknowledging that this temptation is in us. One again this fact it open to misinterpretations: it would be wrong indeed from abstaining from doing a charitable deed because one is conscious of the fact that our intentions are “mixed”. We are entitled to receive absolution in the sacrament of confession even though the confessor is conscious of the fact that the contrition of the penitent is imperfect. But he should be encouraged to keep begging God for the grace to conquer the proper motivation.

For any acknowledgement of our weakness and meanness is in fact a call to turn to God for help: “this is what I am without your help. Hasten to heal me, O my Savior”. Indeed, he tells us plainly: ”he knew what was in man”. None of our weaknesses are unknown to Him or surprise Him.

Great spiritual directors often warn their spiritual children that they should not pray to taste the sweetness that it often granted them, particularly at the beginning of our spiritual life, but as a value response to HIM who deserves our adoration and our praise. Saints have all gone through periods of total aridity, dark moments when singing God’s greatness becomes a “duty”. St. John of the Cross has spoken eloquently about the dark night of the soul, when the “wings” of the praying person are cut; he is crawling, and yet, should persevere in faith, trusting that these moments are in fact graces bringing closer to God teaching us to “love selflessly” – for love is never a “business deal.”

The noble intentio benevolentiae is threaten to degenerate as soon as it does not respect the hierarchy of values, for example when it places worldly success of the loved one above his spiritual growth. The intentio unionis – as we just saw – can also be poisoned as soon as “enjoyment” is given priority. These are frequent cases when we lie to ourselves, claiming that we long for union with the beloved, while in fact, we crave for the satisfaction that organically flows from it. Marital unfaithfulness is, alas, often triggered by the fact that a husband is not satisfied with his wife’s ”performance” (what a horrible word) and then looks for another partner who lives up to the mark. Marriage if properly understood and lived, offer rich occasions of “dying to oneself” and learning the “art of loving”. Once again, the lives of saints is eloquent: they gratefully followed Christ to Golgotha, whereas many of us try to escape from the via dolorosa, while most willing to enjoy the glory of Easter Sunday.

This leads me back to my theme: homosexuality and the inspiring story of a true love between two men having strong homosexual tendencies and who lived together for several years.

If the two male friend who truly loved each other (a possibility which I do not deny), realized that they are harming each other morally, and gravely offend God, they would immediately give up their sexual exchanges: for true love loathes the very thought of harming the loved one. This is a fact that I am aware of having been blessed with a friendship with a man who for several years lived in sin with his friend who was a fallen away Catholic.

One day through God’s grace, the latter found his way back to the Church and not only perceived with luminous clarity the perversion of homosexual practices, but also – and this is crucial, that in such relationships he was harming both his friend and himself: for the intentio unionis was given priority over the intentio benevolentiae: that is, his craving for a sexual satisfaction was militated against the objective good of the friend in staining his soul. His true good was sacrificed for the sake of pleasure. Any satisfaction which in fact militates against the objective good of another person, should be condemned by anybody who claims to be a friend.

As soon as he perceived this clearly he placed his friend in front of the following alternative. He told him, “I truly love you and am deeply attached to you. But through God’s grace, my eyes opened, and I realized that by living with you I was not only gravely off, but I also perceived clearly that I was hurting your soul and mine. Now the situation is clear: either we part ways or we continue to live together chastely bond by sweetness of a friendship copying the one that linked Augustine to both Alypius and Nebridius.” Clearly this noble friendship brought them closer to God. His friend’s response was unequivocal: “I also love you and am so deeply attached to you that I accept to live with you chastely”. This is what they did for many years. Then one of the friends became deadly ill and was taken care of by his true and faithful friend and the revert had the joy of seeing his dear friend also find his way to the Catholic Church. Since then he has become an ardent Roman Catholic. This is a glorious story of how love triumphed over lust.

That the sensual ecstasy should not be the primary motivation of the husband and wife, calls for clarification. There are actions that are performed for the sake of a particular end: they are means for this end. The relationship between them is prominent in Aristotle’s philosophy. While fully valid and justified, we should carefully avoid to overextend it, and assume that any human act is a sheer means to achieve an end. The dignity and greatness of personhood teaches us that there are very many actions that should be performed for their own sake, because they are valuable in and by themselves. He who feeds the hungry should do so because they are his brothers, and deserve our love and not because the benefactor will be rewarded for this in heaven. If one fed a starving person exclusively as a means of acquiring merits, it would be a caricature of true charity. It should be done because a brother deserves our loving concern. That a virtuous act is also “beneficial’ to the doer is true indeed, but if it is performed exclusively for this reason, an essential element of a loving deed is lacking. Alas, they are people who perform “virtuous deeds” because they see them as a good “investment” while their heart remains cold.

A new word was needed to distinguish clearly between actions performed as a sheer means to an end, and those whose inner value prohibits us from seeing them as mere instruments. D. von Hildebrand has coined the word’” superabundance”, a felicitous term to show the abyss separating the business means- end relationship from the warm richness of a loving act. Man is not a “machine to produce virtuous deeds”; he is a person called upon to love his neighbor as himself and for himself. That an act of charity benefits its doer is superabundant but should not be the primary motivation. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice; the rest will BE ADDED UNTO YOU”. This is a perfect biblical formulation for superabundance that most probably inspired Dietrich von Hildebrand.

There is a world of difference between a “business” friendship when two men are bonded by common interests, and a friendship where the friends love each other “for their own sake”, and not for the advantages that the friendship will give them.

When the craving for ecstasy is the key motivation of so-called lovers, it will inevitably be linked to the endless search for new partners whose “performance” is more gratifying. This is the essence of promiscuity and, alas, it is not only limited to homosexuality. It also sheds light on marital unfaithfulness. Then a noble experience will inevitably degenerate into something merely subjectively satisfying, betraying the very nature of love.

The very word “pleasure” should always alert those who wish to serve God, that to go through its door, can be deadly. For there are pleasures that are the arch enemies of the person addicted to them. They should be ostracized from the lives of those who hear the call: haec est voluntas Dei: sanctificatio vestra. Those who have achieved this glorious victory will tell you that the previous “ecstasy” they taste was poisoned by the consciousness that they were acting against the dignity of the human person made to God’s image and likeness. It is high time that we sing the beauty of great noble male friendships, at a tragic time like ours, when perverse practices have become not only acceptable but given the same dignity as the one granted to marriage between man and women, from Genesis. This is what is offered to those who feel an attraction for persons of the same sex. It can be baptized. God’s placet is necessary in order for any form of human love to deserve to be called love. Indeed, as the New Testament tells us; all things are possible with God.

Alice von Hildebrand is a lecturer and an author, whose works include The Privilege of Being a Woman (2002) and The Soul of a Lion: The Life of Dietrich von Hildebrand (2000), a biography of her late husband. She was made a Dame Grand Cross of the Equestrian Order of St. Gregory by Pope Francis in 2013.

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Mother Nature is One Unreliable Lady

by Bishop-elect Robert Barron • August 11, 2015

Conservation International has sponsored a series of videos that have become YouTube sensations, garnering millions of views. They feature famous actors - Harrison Ford, Kevin Spacey, Robert Redford, and others - voicing different aspects of the natural world, from the ocean, to the rain forest, to redwood trees. The most striking is the one that presents Mother Nature herself, given voice by Julia Roberts.

They all have more or less the same message, namely, that nature finally doesn’t give a fig for human beings, that it is far greater than we, and will outlast us. Here are some highlights from the Mother’s speech: “I’ve been here for over four and a half billion years, 22,500 times longer than you; I don’t really need people, but people need me.” And “I have fed species greater than you; and I have starved species greater than you.” And “my oceans, my soil, my flowing streams, my forests-they all can take you or leave you.”

I must confess that when I first came across these videos I thought, “just more tree-hugging extremism,” but the more I watched and considered them, the more I became convinced that they are fundamentally right and actually serve to make a point of not inconsiderable theological significance. That nature in all of its beauty and splendor doesn’t finally care about human beings came home to me dramatically many years ago. I was standing in the surf, just off the coast of North Carolina, gazing out to sea and remarking how beautiful the vista was. For just a moment, I turned around to face the shore, and a large wave came up suddenly and knocked me off my feet and, for a few alarming seconds, actually pinned me to the ocean floor. In a moment, it was over and I got back on my feet, but I was shaken. The sea, which just seconds before had beguiled me with its serenity and beauty, had turned on a dime and almost killed me.

The ancients knew this truth, and they expressed it in their mythology. The gods and goddesses of Greece, Rome, and Babylon were basically personifications of the natural necessities: water, the sky, the mountain, the fertile earth, etc. Like the natural elements that they symbolized, these divine figures were fickle in the extreme. One minute, Poseidon smiles on you, and the next minute he sinks your ship; now Zeus is pleased with you, now he sends a thunderbolt to destroy you; Demeter can be a gentle mother, and Demeter can be an avenging enemy. And indeed, so it goes with the ocean, with the weather, and with the soil. But this is precisely why the worship of these natural necessities is always such a dicey business, for the best one can hope for is to mollify these finally indifferent divinities to some degree through worship and sacrifice.

Biblical religion represents something altogether new, a fact signaled in the opening verses of the book of Genesis, where it is emphatically stated that God creates earth, sky, the stars and planets, the animals that move upon the earth and the fishes that inhabit the ocean depths. All of these natural elements were, at one time or another, worshipped as divine. So even as he celebrates them, the author of Genesis is effectively dethroning them, desacralizing them. Nature is wonderful indeed, he is telling us; but it is not God. And the consistent Biblical message is that this Creator God is not like the arbitrary and capricious gods of the ancient world; rather, he is reliable, rock-like in his steadfast love, more dedicated to human beings than a mother is to her child. The entire Scriptural revelation comes to a climax with the claim, in the fourth chapter of John’s first letter, that God simply is love. St. Augustine celebrated this Biblical departure from the ancient worship of nature in a lyrical and visionary passage in his Confessions. He imagines the natural elements coming before him, one by one. Each says to him, “Look higher,” and then, in a great chorus, they gesture toward God and then shout together, “He made us!”

As classical Christianity came to be questioned by some of the intellectual elite in the early modern period, the ancient worship of nature made an unhappy comeback. One thinks of Baruch Spinoza’s blithe equation Deus sive natura (God or nature) and then of the many forms of pantheism that it spawned, from Schleiermacher’s “infinite” to Emerson’s “Oversoul” to George Lucas’s “The Force.” In fact, the return to the classical sense of divinity is on particularly clear display in the “dark” and “light” sides of the Force that play such a vital role in the Star Wars narrative. Though it can be used for good or ill, the Force is finally as indifferent to human beings as is Mother Nature.

And this is why the Julia Roberts video functions as an effective antidote against all forms of nature worship. It vividly reminds us that when we make Mother Nature our ultimate concern, we are turning to an exceptionally cruel and unreliable lady. Though I don’t think this was her intention, Ms. Roberts is urging us to “look higher.”

Bishop-elect Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop-elect of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries (wordonfire.org). He is the creator of two award-winning documentary series, Catholicism and Catholicism: The New Evangelization.

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Lessons from the Mozart Playbook

by Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J. • August 12, 2015

From the end of July and for four weeks thereafter, the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center dominates other musical offerings in New York City. This essay will take us for a quick tour behind the scenes of Mozart’s life. Can you size up the man behind his music and gather up a few lessons for your own life?

A Quick Overview of Mozart’s Early Life

What do you make of a child who at four begins to compose at the keyboard and notate music before he can read and write? What of a child who at twelve has mastered the violin, viola, and organ in addition to the clavichord? And composing an opera? He had a photographic mind, a gift that time and again was tested in public. This is the Wunderkind, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the world’s greatest musical prodigy.

When Mozart’s father Leopold realized the extent of his son’s talent, publicizing his son’s name became his sole purpose in life. Then Wolfgang would be offered a fine court appointment commensurate with his musical gifts. A court appointment gave the recipient room and board plus a stipend that depended on his talents.

The boy received a systematic classical education from his erudite father who had been educated by the Augustinians and Jesuits. Leopold played the role not only as a consummate pedagogue but also as his son’s publicity agent. The boy concertized throughout Europe and England and became the darling of court nobility. No court appointment was forthcoming however. Only applause, pieces of fruit, trinkets, and hugs from the women.

His father protected him from all outside influences that could interfere with his concentration on music.

Mozart at 20

As a person, Mozart never matured to adulthood but remained stuck in adolescence all his life. Letters to a cousin written in his early twenties are punctuated with vulgarisms and silly word play. But at twenty, Mozart had matured as the most highly skilled and versatile European composer, at home in every genre of composition. His gifts exceeded those of seasoned and far older composers except Joseph Haydn who respected Mozart’s talents. Still, at twenty, it was time for him to secure a steady position.

The Patronage System and the Downward Spiral

Like Bach, like Haydn, like all composers before him, Mozart worked under the patronage system which considered the composer merely as a court servant. Mozart, who knew his worth, bristled at this indignity.

He worked for a time under Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo, the Ordinary of Salzburg. He complained that the music Mozart composed for Masses was too long and delayed the liturgical action; he ordered him to shorten the music. Out of spite, Mozart would compose a very, very short Mass, known as the Missa Brevis. The archbishop was furious and had him kicked out though Mozart protested that he had resigned. He wrote to his father: “I hate the archbishop to madness.” Leopold too was furious at his hot-headed son.

Mozart worked at the imperial court of Joseph II where Antonio Salieri was also employed. Mozart once sarcastically remarked: “The two valets sit at the head of the table; I at least have the honor of sitting above the cooks.”

Because of his inflexible temperament, Mozart could not hold down a job. In the patronage system, musicians and composers were easily replaced. Working under Emperor Joseph II, Mozart remarks with bitterness about his stipend: “Too much for what I do, too little for what I could do.”

His operatic music lampooned characters in the opera and linked their foibles with men and women in real life — and all at the court. His patrons were horrified to see themselves ridiculed in the characters through Mozart’s vivid music, especially in “The Marriage of Figaro,” an opera that had the lower class emerge victors against the aristocracy. Understandably, France had banned the play as subversive. This meant fewer concerts, fewer subscriptions, less money, less work. Mozart wanted the freedom to compose as he liked but paid a high price for it. He was kicked out in to music history as its first freelance composer.

Indigence

Despite Mozart’s fame as a child prodigy, despite the promising and lucrative future that might have been but never was, Mozart died a pauper in 1791. Leopold died a bitterly disappointed father a few years before his son. The writing on the wall was all too clear for the man who had staked his entire lifeblood on the success of his son.

Mozart was buried like other indigents, unceremoniously in an unmarked common grave. The cause of death was given as overwork brought on by tension. He was not yet 36 years old. He left a wife and two sons. At the time of his death, he had composed 626 works, symphonies, concertos, full-scale operas, sonatas, and chamber music.

Lessons Out of the Mozart Playbook

Mozart was mediocre in all things except his music. In all things except his music, he was clumsy, inept, careless, and even indolent. Nothing or no one came before his music. He was never not composing. Here he is in his own words:

“When I am composing, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer, traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on these occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me, I retain in memory, and am accustomed to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this or that morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it, that is to say, agreeably to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of the various instruments, etc.”

“All this fires my soul, and provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodized and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it, like a fine picture or a beautiful statue, at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once, what a delight this is I cannot tell! All this inventing, this producing, takes place in a pleasing lively dream. Still the actual hearing of the tout ensemble is after all the best. What has been thus produced I do not easily forget, and this is perhaps the best gift I have my Divine Maker to thank for.”

Recording his ideas was a purely mechanical task, one which he postponed to the last minute. His calligraphy was neat and beautiful. There was no struggle in composing, and his music is a continuous, logical and mysterious flow of effortless perfection. He never tried to imitate other composers. He is always the aristocrat.

In his play “Amadeus,” Peter Shaffer poses a metaphysical question: ‘How can a just God bestow the gift of genius to a foulmouthed buffoon like Mozart while giving a devout man like Antonio Salieri only enough talent to recognize his mediocrity? Salieri is the patron saint of mediocrity. He speaks for all mediocrity in the world, and he is their champion.’

Salieri and Mozart worked at the imperial court at the same time. Though Salieri could never match Mozart’s gift, he tried his best even though his best efforts may have resulted in mediocre music. The lesson? Mediocrity in effort? Never. Mediocrity in effect? It can and does happen.

Conclusion

Mozart’s growth as a creator is like that of a precious and rare plant whose inner secret remains a mystery, observes the musicologist, Alfred Einstein.

If Bach’s music is a proof of God’s existence, as William J. Buckley, Jr. once remarked, then according to George Bernard Shaw, Mozart’s music is “the only music yet written that would not sound out of place in the mouth of God.”

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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Bishop Faces Three Years in Jail for Defending Marriage

by Deacon Keith Fournier • August 13, 2015

In the politically charged language of the present, Bishop Vitus Huonder is a “conservative” if not an “extremist.” In fact, he is simply a faithful Catholic Christian. And for that he’s being threatened with three years in jail. It’s happening in Switzerland, but the conflict epitomizes a wider phenomenon of anti-Christian secularists on both sides of the Atlantic using the courts to target Christians for simply standing up for biblical truth.

In 2011, Huonder, the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Chur in Switzerland, supported parents being able to opt out of having children as young as four subjected to mandatory “sex education” which rejected the truth about the dignity of human sexuality, the gift of sexual differentiation, and marriage. In 2013, he issued a pastoral letter to the faithful under his care exposing unbiblical gender identity theories and defending the Christian vision of the human person, the family and a truly just and human social order. He called upon the faithful of the Catholic Church to “use their social rights” to protect “the dignity of man founded on the order of Creation and of Redemption.” Last February, he called for a Swiss priest who had purportedly “blessed” the union of a lesbian couple to step down from his ministry.

Here is the challenge he faces. In Switzerland, there is a wholesale rebellion against the Christian vision of the human person, and of the family and society founded upon it. Leaders of the rebellion abhor the clear and unchangeable teaching of the Bible and the Catholic Church. Included in the ranks of these dissidents are some Catholic clerics. To say their leaders do not like this Catholic Bishop is an understatement.

Now, this bishop is the subject of a criminal complaint filed against him by a homosexual group called “The Pink Cross” for violating Article 259 of the Swiss Penal Code entitled “Public incitement to commit a felony or act of violence.” The bishop faces up to three years in jail if convicted.

The bishop had crossed a “red line,” said the head of Pink Cross, in a statement reported by Newsweek. “We believe in freedom of expression, and taking quotes from the bible is fine. But then he said the words should be applied to real life, which is the equivalent of calling for the death penalty for gay people. We were worried about that. He is the leader of a big church, and he was calling for people to follow his words, and we thought this could be dangerous.”

Here is what really happened

On Friday, July 31, 2015, the bishop spoke at a symposium in Fulda, Germany, entitled “Marriage: Gift, Sacrament and Commission.” In the context of explaining the background of the Christian moral teaching, he referenced two passages from Leviticus (Lev. 18:22, 20:13). He used them as examples of Scripture’s rejection of same-sex relationships and proof that same-sex marriages were an attack on creation.

“There is no plurality of models for marriage and family,” he told the conference. “To even speak of such is already an attack on the Creator, as well as on the Savior and Sanctifier, that is, on the trinitarian God.”

In the presentation the bishop had also explained that “pastoral care must orient itself according to the divine order. Its mission, undertaken in awareness of the salvation of souls, that is, in pastoral love … is to free mankind from the condition of a fallen nature and raise it to life as children of light.”

Showing pastoral care for those who struggle with same-sex attraction, he said, “The Faith is to everyone, even to those with homophile tendencies, a source of comfort and can lead to a redirection of such an orientation, to a governing of sexual urges, and to an ordering of one’s own life according to the divine command.”

Because the second half of the second passage instructed Israel to put to death people who have sexual relations with someone of their own sex, Pink Cross claimed that Bishop Huonder was sowing hatred and inciting violence against homosexual people. He violated both German and Swiss law, they declared, as well as the European Convention on Human Rights.

It should have been obvious to anyone why he quoted those two passages and that he did not endorse the execution of homosexual people. That didn’t matter to Pink Cross, who saw a chance to attack a major Christian figure for his defense of marriage.

The bishop responded to the protests with a statement stressing that he was not endorsing violence against homosexual people. “During the lecture I quoted several uncomfortable passages from the Old Testament to do with marriage, sexuality and family,” he said. “I want to clarify that I would in no way wish to diminish homosexual people.”

The head of Pink Cross rejected the response: “There is no question in this case of what he was talking about — there was no misunderstanding. We don’t need charity or mercy from the Church at all; we don’t accept his apology.”

Merely Catholic

The Bishop simply expressed the teaching of the Catholic Church he serves. He cited the pertinent sections of the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2357–2359). The actions of the homosexual activists who filed this spurious criminal complaint is one more sign of growing efforts to use the police power to prevent the Church from proclaiming the message of true liberation in Jesus Christ.

The homosexual extremist group bringing this charge misused a passing reference to Leviticus in a scurrilous effort to argue that Bishop Huonder called for the death penalty against self-professing homosexuals. That claim was not only false, it is slanderous and defamatory. Because it has been leveled publicly, it should be exposed, opposed and confronted publicly.

The statute used as the basis of this criminal complaint deals with hate crimes. Pink Cross is essentially charging that the faithful proclamation of the Gospel message about sexuality and marriage is a hate crime. American Christians should watch this case closely. And pray for the brave Bishop Hounder.

Deacon Keith Fournier is Founder and Chairman of Common Good Foundation and Common Good Alliance. A married Roman Catholic Deacon of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, he and his wife Laurine have five grown children and six grandchildren, He serves as the Director of Adult Faith Formation at St. Stephen, Martyr Parish in Chesapeake, VA. He is also a human rights lawyer and public policy advocate. Deacon Fournier is a graduate of the Franciscan University of Steubenville (Theology and Philosophy, B.A.), the John Paul II Institute of the Lateran University (Theology of Marriage and Family, M.T.S.), and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law (J.D.). He has completed requirements for the Ph.D. in Moral Theology at the Catholic University of America and is writing the Ph.D. dissertation on the teaching of St. John Paul II. He has spent his life and ministry in efforts to bring Christians together and heal the wounds of division in the Body of Christ.

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FEATURES

Three movies to look out for this weekend

by Carl Kozlowski • August 14, 2015

You never know when you’re going to strike gold at the movie theater. Last week featured choices so dire, including “Ricki and the Flash” starring Meryl Streep in a seemingly ridiculous role as a former rock star in her 60s who takes a second chance at fame, and an absolutely Dead On Arrival reboot of “The Fantastic Four.”

This week offers three distinct choices, all of which have their own distinct audiences. I’ll do briefs on two of them – “Straight Outta Compton” and “The Man from UNCLE” – and dig in more on what I think is the sleeper movie of the year so far, aka a movie that comes out of nowhere to stun you with how good it is: “Mistress America.”

”Compton” is a true-story biopic of the infamous rap group N.W.A., whose acronym I can’t even explain on this site. They were the first gangster-rap group to explode in popularity and are today more famous for spawning members Ice Cube and Dr. Dre (a mega music producer who co-invented the wildly popular Beats headphones) than their own music.

Cube and Dre teamed up to tell their story, and what’s most impressive is that they don’t appear to gloss over any of their own bad behavior. The movie follows the rap group’s rise from the hard streets and police racism of mid-1980s Los Angeles to national stardom and controversy, then back down into the perils that come with stardom that arrives too fast and too soon.

”Compton” is not likely to appeal to most of the readers of CNA, or any other traditional Catholic or Christian site. It’s loaded with profanity, has a wild orgy scene (nothing too graphic motion-wise, but lots of female nudity), and has several shocking moments of violence as the group faces down police threats as well as danger from thugs in the streets they rose from. And as one might expect, there’s more than its fair share of marijuana smoking at several points.

But on an artistic level, “Compton” is a stunning achievement, making a highly controversial group of people understandable and relatable even to those who, like me, had nothing but contempt for them before. It’s extremely well-made on every level, with moments that fully cross the spectrum of emotions, and its young dynamic cast makes you feel like you’re truly a witness to history.

If you’re intrigued by the subject matter and want to learn insights into what drives the rage some in some the black community have towards police to this day, this is an eye-opening film that will teach you a lot.

Speaking of history, “The Man From UNCLE” arrives this week, bringing to new life the Cold War era hit spy TV series and doing it stylishly if not too excitedly. Henry Cavill, the latest big-screen Superman, and Armie Hammer (the guy who bombed as the Lone Ranger two years ago) play an American and a Russian superspy, respectively, who are forced to team up to stop a rogue cabal of criminals from getting their hands on new bomb technology.

“UNCLE” relies more on spiffy style and clever dialogue than amazing action to succeed, but what action there is is good throwback fun. I’d still recommend the new “Mission Impossible” or even “Ant-Man” over it, if you haven’t seen those, however.

But the movie I most want to recommend is a little flick called “Mistress America.” It’s the latest in a string of small but winning films (particularly 2013’s “Frances Ha”) from the boyfriend-girlfriend co-writing team of Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig. Baumbach is an ace rising director who’s likely to wind up as Woody Allen’s main successor, given his already having had a couple Oscar nominations for Best Screenplay, while Gerwig is a luminous young actress who has both the magic of the big screen’s best screwball-comedy queens, and real acting chops.

The movie follows Tracy (Lola Kirke, in a fantastic debut lead performance), a college freshman overwhelmed by life in New York City when she enters college there. Having a hard time making friends, and drawn to a boy who turns out to have a girlfriend already, Tracy is ready to give up when she remembers that her mother asked her to call Brooke (Greta Gerwig), the daughter of her mom’s new fiancé.

Brooke instantly invites Tracy out on the town, completely involving her in her adventurous artistic life surrounded by musicians and other artists. She enables Tracy to get drunk underage, but Tracy winds up throwing up off-screen. Filled with a desire to be accepted by her college’s top literary society and magazine, Tracy starts immediately writing notes about Brooke that form the basis of an ultimately unflattering story based on her life.

As she hides her notes and story writing, Tracy gets ever more immersed into Brooke’s world, while also dealing with the frustration of a boy she likes having another, comically jealous, girlfriend. When Brooke is dumped by her boyfriend for kissing another man and he backs out of investing with her, she is in danger of losing her dream restaurant.

Brooke’s solution is to go to Greenwich, Connecticut to find an old boyfriend and his wife, who ripped Brooke off of a T-shirt design years ago which went on to be a hugely-selling shirt. With Tracy, Tracy’s male friend and the guy’s girlfriend in tow, the hilarious showdown over the money Brooke feels the couple owes her for stealing her shirt design begins.

Building on the strongly appealing “While We’re Young” (starring Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts, it’s out on DVD now and highly recommended) from this spring, Baumbach has now had two winning movies this year that depict adult characters with intelligence, wit and a minimum of indecent behavior.

The movie explores the relationships we build and the trust people put in strangers in a very deep and realistic way, even as it remains hilarious throughout. Its insights into the lengths writers should go ethically in writing about real people is also fascinating, and has emotional consequences before a satisfying conclusion that upholds forgiveness.

The new movie is mainly rated R for language issues, but because most of its F words are used in quick bursts, there are several segments of the movie with almost no foul language at all. Aside from the swear words, there are three quick but fairly graphic sexual jokes. Brooke also uses a psychic twice in the movie, although the tone of the scenes is comical and appears to make the idea of using a psychic absurd.

The movie also makes one character extremely PC, forcing Tracy to answer a questionnaire about how much she supports abortion rights, but that too is shown as extreme and ludicrous behavior. One other slight annoyance is that Brooke and Tracy discuss her unseen dad’s extreme devotion to Catholicism in two quick moments with a bit of eye-rolling, but it’s not an attack on the church or faith but rather on an overbearing personality.

Mixing strong performances to unique characters and brilliantly witty, fast-paced dialogue in the best traditions of screwball comedy, “Mistress America” is highly satisfying viewing for most adults. It’s only starting in a couple New York and Los Angeles theaters this weekend, but will be expanding nationwide over the next month.

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 • AUGUST 16, 2015

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Prv 9:1-6; NRSVCE)

Wisdom has built her house,

she has hewn her seven pillars.

She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine,

she has also set her table.

She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls

from the highest places in the town,

“You that are simple, turn in here!”

To those without sense she says,

“Come, eat of my bread

and drink of the wine I have mixed.

Lay aside immaturity, and live,

and walk in the way of insight.”

Second Reading (Eph 5:15-20; NRSVCE)

Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Gospel Reading (Jn 6:51-58; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to the crowds, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

MONDAY • AUGUST 17, 2015

Monday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Jgs 2:11-19; NRSVCE)

Then the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and worshiped the Baals; and they abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; they followed other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were all around them, and bowed down to them; and they provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord, and worshiped Baal and the Astartes. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them, and he sold them into the power of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them to bring misfortune, as the Lord had warned them and sworn to them; and they were in great distress.

Then the Lord raised up judges, who delivered them out of the power of those who plundered them. Yet they did not listen even to their judges; for they lusted after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their ancestors had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord; they did not follow their example. Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he delivered them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord would be moved to pity by their groaning because of those who persecuted and oppressed them. But whenever the judge died, they would relapse and behave worse than their ancestors, following other gods, worshiping them and bowing down to them. They would not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.

Gospel Reading (Mt 19:16-22; NRSVCE)

A young man came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “I have kept all these; what do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

TUESDAY • AUGUST 18, 2015

Tuesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Jgs 6:11-24a; NRSVCE)

Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior.” Gideon answered him, “But sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has cast us off, and given us into the hand of Midian.” Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you.” He responded, “But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” The Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike down the Midianites, every one of them.” Then he said to him, “If now I have found favor with you, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. Do not depart from here until I come to you, and bring out my present, and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay until you return.”

So Gideon went into his house and prepared a kid, and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour; the meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the oak and presented them. The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. Then Gideon perceived that it was the angel of the Lord; and Gideon said, “Help me, Lord God! For I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you; do not fear, you shall not die.” Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it, The Lord is peace.

Gospel Reading (Mt 19:23-30; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, “Then who can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”

Then Peter said in reply, “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

WEDNESDAY • AUGUST 19, 2015

Wednesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Jgs 9:6-15; NRSVCE)

Then all the lords of Shechem and all Beth-millo came together, and they went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar at Shechem.

When it was told to Jotham, he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim, and cried aloud and said to them, “Listen to me, you lords of Shechem, so that God may listen to you.

The trees once went out

to anoint a king over themselves.

So they said to the olive tree,

‘Reign over us.’

The olive tree answered them,

‘Shall I stop producing my rich oil

by which gods and mortals are honored,

and go to sway over the trees?’

Then the trees said to the fig tree,

‘You come and reign over us.’

But the fig tree answered them,

‘Shall I stop producing my sweetness

and my delicious fruit,

and go to sway over the trees?’

Then the trees said to the vine,

‘You come and reign over us.’

But the vine said to them,

‘Shall I stop producing my wine

that cheers gods and mortals,

and go to sway over the trees?’

So all the trees said to the bramble,

‘You come and reign over us.’

And the bramble said to the trees,

‘If in good faith you are anointing me king over you,

then come and take refuge in my shade;

but if not, let fire come out of the bramble

and devour the cedars of Lebanon.’”

Gospel Reading (Mt 20:1-16; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

THURSDAY • AUGUST 20, 2015

Memorial of Saint Bernard

First Reading (Jgs 11:29-39a; NRSVCE)

Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh. He passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.” So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and the Lord gave them into his hand. He inflicted a massive defeat on them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty towns, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel.

Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.” She said to him, “My father, if you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the Lord has given you vengeance against your enemies, the Ammonites.” And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: Grant me two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, my companions and I.” “Go,” he said and sent her away for two months. So she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains. At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to the vow he had made.

Gospel Reading (Mt 22:1-14; NRSVCE)

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

FRIDAY • AUGUST 21, 2015

Memorial of Saint Pius X

First Reading (Ru 1:1, 3-6, 14b-16, 22; NRSVCE)

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had considered his people and given them food. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

So she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” But Ruth said,

“Do not press me to leave you

or to turn back from following you!

Where you go, I will go;

where you lodge, I will lodge;

your people shall be my people,

and your God my God.”

So Naomi returned together with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Gospel Reading (Mt 22:34-40; NRSVCE)

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

SATURDAY • AUGUST 22, 2015

Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary

First Reading (Ru 2:1-3, 8-11; 4:13-17; NRSVCE)

Now Naomi had a kinsman on her husband’s side, a prominent rich man, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain, behind someone in whose sight I may find favor.” She said to her, “Go, my daughter.” So she went. She came and gleaned in the field behind the reapers. As it happened, she came to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.

Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Now listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. Keep your eyes on the field that is being reaped, and follow behind them. I have ordered the young men not to bother you. If you get thirsty, go to the vessels and drink from what the young men have drawn.” Then she fell prostrate, with her face to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your sight, that you should take notice of me, when I am a foreigner?” But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before.”

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together, the Lord made her conceive, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.” Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse. The women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Gospel Reading (Mt 23:1-12; NRSVCE)

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father — the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”