VOLUME 1, ISSUE 41  •  OCTOBER 10, 2015

Table of Contents

Copyright Notice

VATICAN NEWS

Vatican responds to CDF official’s ‘coming out’

Pope tells Synod Fathers to learn from the Holy Family

The relics of St. Therese and her parents will be displayed throughout the synod

God’s dream for creation? The union of a man and woman, Pope says

Pope Francis asks for prayers ahead of synod discussion

A warning from Pope Francis: Don’t politicize the synod

Full text of Cardinal Erdo’s introductory report for the Synod on the Family

Pope Francis could visit Mexico in first half of 2016

Cardinal Erdö’s emphatic defense of Church teaching marked synod’s first day

Pope Francis backs the new synod process in an unanticipated speech

What was JPII’s secret to inspiring the youth? His mere presence, secretary says

What saves us from loneliness? Family! Pope Francis says

Archbishop Chaput: We need more accurate translations of synod docs

‘Flawed, inadequate’ – bishops skewer synod’s working doc in new report

Pope Francis leads synod in praying for peace in the Middle East

WORLD NEWS

Gay Catholics tell synod to promote chastity – for everyone

Paris archbishop says ‘there will be no spectacular revolution at the synod’

For U.K. archbishop, the plight of migrant families strikes a chord

Cardinal Ruini reflects on the Magisterium’s continuity

Ugandans are eagerly preparing for papal visit with prayer, penance

African bishops throw swift punch at ‘ideological colonization’

For Cubans, the Pope’s visit brought hope - but will it last?

U.S. NEWS

This Catholic healthcare group is being sued for refusing to provide abortions

Despite objections, Calif. governor signs assisted-suicide bill

Here’s what it was like when Pope Francis visited the homeless in D.C.

A triumph through remarkable trial: The story of one Catholic athlete

Religious leaders, scholars ask Obama to declare ISIS violence a genocide

New movement hopes to share the reality of marriage

How the Catholic Church is fighting loan sharks in Texas

Chicago shrine seeks help to rebuild after devastating fire

What is the future of marriage? First we have to look at its history, author says

FEATURES

Brian Williams, Chris Matthews, and Letting the Fly Out of the Fly Bottle

Some Reflections on Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton

‘Sicario’ explores moral dilemmas against action-packed backdrop

‘The Walk’ is worth running to the theater for

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Sunday • October 11, 2015

Monday • October 12, 2015

Tuesday • October 13, 2015

Wednesday • October 14, 2015

Thursday • October 15, 2015

Friday • October 16, 2015

Saturday • October 17, 2015

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Volume 1, Issue 41 • October 10, 2015

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VATICAN NEWS

Vatican responds to CDF official’s ‘coming out’

by CNA/EWTN News • October 3, 2015

(Catholic News Agency)

Vatican City — The director of the Holy See press office has issued a statement in response to Vatican official Msgr. Krzysztof Charamsa’s declaration in a recent interview that he is homosexual and has a boyfriend.

Msgr. Charamsa, 43, granted a video interview to Italian agency Corriere della Sera published on Oct. 3 in which he, speaking in Polish, announced that he is “a homosexual priest, with a partner.”

Following the revelation, Fr Federico Lombardi, S.J. issued the following Oct. 3 statement:

“Regarding the statements and interviews released by Msgr. Kryzstof Charamsa, it must be considered — notwithstanding the respect warranted to the events and personal situations and reflections on the issue — the choice to make such a pointed statement on the vigil of the Synod’s opening seems very serious and irresponsible, since it seeks to impose on the Synodal assembly undue media pressure.”

Certainly, he said, “Msgr. Charamsa will not be able to continue performing his previous duties at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pontifical Universities, whereas other aspects of his situation are under the competence of his diocesan ordinary.”

In the Corriere interview, Msgr. Charamsa said that he made the announcement so that the Church and community would know his true identity. He said he was proud of his orientation and suggested the Church’s stance on sexual abstinence for homosexuals is “inhumane,” asking for change.

Msgr. Charamsa has served as an official for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Since 2009 he has served on the theology faculty of Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University and Regina Apostolorum University. In 2011, he was appointed as secretary of the International Theological Commission.

The CDF is responsible for appointing theologians to the International Theological Commission.

On Friday, the day before the Corriere interview was published, a conference was held featuring testimonies by persons with same-sex attraction who are living chaste lives.

Sponsored by Courage, an apostolate which offers pastoral support for men and women with same-sex attraction, participants called for the Synod fathers to defend the Church’s teaching on chastity.

The international gathering was entitled “The Ways of True Love – Pastoral Approaches to Welcome and Accompany those Living with Homosexual Tendencies,” and was held at the Pontifical Thomas Aquinas University, also known as the Angelicum.

The Synod on the Family will be addressing pastoral care in the Church for persons with same-sex attraction. It begins tomorrow, Oct. 4, and will close Oct. 25.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope tells Synod Fathers to learn from the Holy Family

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • October 3, 2015

Prayer vigil before the 2015 Synod on the Family on October 3, 2015. (Bohumil Petrik/CNA)

Vatican City — Pope Francis on Saturday presided over a candlelight vigil for the Synod on the Family, calling on the Synod Fathers to listen to families, including the Holy Family, over the course of their deliberations.

“The family is a place of discernment, where we learn to recognize God’s plan for our lives and to embrace it with trust,” the Pope said. “It is a place of gratuitousness, of discreet fraternal presence and solidarity, a place where we learn to step out of ourselves and accept others, to forgive and to be forgiven.”

“Every family is always a light, however faint, amid the darkness of this world.”

Speaking the night before the opening of the Synod on the Family, he called on Synod participants – many of whom were present – to “acknowledge, esteem, and proclaim all that is beautiful, good and holy” in the family, and “embrace situations of vulnerability and hardship: war, illness, grief, wounded relationships and brokenness, which create distress, resentment and separation.”

“May (the Synod) remind these families, and every family, that the Gospel is always ‘good news’ which enables us to start over,” he said, addressing the crowds – many of them families with children – gathered in Saint Peter’s Square.

The pontiff also reflected on the importance of looking to the Holy Family.

The family of Nazareth, he said, was not unlike most families: “with their problems and their simple joys, a life marked by serene patience amid adversity, respect for others, a humility which is freeing and which flowers in service, a life of fraternity rooted in the sense that we are all members of one body.”

“Let us set out once more from Nazareth for a Synod which, more than speaking about the family, can learn from the family, readily acknowledging its dignity, its strength and its value, despite all its problems and difficulties.”

Pope Francis prayed that the Synod on the Family, which opens Sunday, would demonstrate marriage and family as a “rich and humanly fulfilling” experience.

“The family is a place where evangelical holiness is lived out in the most ordinary conditions,” the Pope said. ”There we are formed by the memory of past generations and we put down roots which enable us to go far.”

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

Looking out onto the darkened square filled with candlelight, the Pope reflected on the symbolism of the candle in the dark, in reference to the difficulties we face throughout our lives.

“What good is it to light a little candle in the darkness? Isn’t there a better way to dispel the darkness? Can the darkness even be overcome?”

“When life proves difficult and demanding, we can be tempted to step back, turn away and withdraw, perhaps even in the name of prudence and realism, and thus flee the responsibility of doing our part as best we can.”

The Pope reflected on the story of the prophet Elijah who, the Old Testament recounts, fled out of fear on the mountain of Horeb. The scriptures recount that God came to him as he hid in a cave on the mountain.

“He would get his answer not in the great wind which shatters the rocks, nor in the earthquake nor even in the fire,” the Pope said.

“God’s grace does not shout out; it is a whisper which reaches all those who are ready to hear its still, small voice. It urges them to go forth, to return to the world, to be witnesses to God’s love for mankind, so that the world may believe.”

Pope Francis recalled the vigil held one year prior for the 2014 Extraordinary Synod on the Family. During that gathering, those present prayed for the Holy Spirit to inspire the Synod participants to listen to each other, and to keep their “gaze fixed on Jesus, the definitive Word of the Father and the criterion by which everything is to be measured.”

“This evening, our prayer cannot be otherwise,” the Pope said.

He cited the words of Patriarch Athenagoras, who said without the Holy Spirit, the Church is simply an organization, whose “authority becomes domination, mission becomes propaganda, worship becomes mystique, Christian life the morality of slaves.”

The Pope appealed to the Synod participants to draw from the Church’s tradition in bringing “comfort and hope” to families today.

Jesus has his own experience within a family, like many others, for the first 30 years of his earthly life in an obscure town of the Roman Empire, the Pope recalled.

Pope Francis cited the example of Charles de Foucauld, Algerian founder of the Little Brothers of Jesus. An early 20th century martyr, declared Blessed in 2005, “Brother Charles” had abandoned a military career to explore a spirituality based on the Holy Family.

“Contemplating the Family of Nazareth, Brother Charles realized how empty the desire for wealth and power really is,” the Pope said.

The Blessed had wanted to be a hermit, but learned that love of God was fostered by human relationships. “For in loving others, we learn to love God, in stooping down to help our neighbor, we are lifted up to God,” he said.

“Through his fraternal closeness and his solidarity with the poor and the abandoned, he came to understand that it is they who evangelize us, they who help us to grow in humanity.”

Pope Francis said it is necessary to follow Blessed Charles’ example and enter “into the mystery of the family of Nazareth.”

Pope Francis called on the Synod to not only speak about the family but to learn from the family its dignity, strength, and value, notwithstanding its challenges.

He also reflected on the Church in terms of a family. As mother, it is “ever capable of giving and nourishing life, accompanying it with devotion, tenderness, and moral strength.”

In turn, the Church also demonstrates the “closeness and love of a father, a responsible guardian who protects without confining, who corrects without demeaning, who trains by example and patience, sometimes simply by a silence which bespeaks prayerful and trusting expectation.”

The Pope also spoke of the Church in terms of brothers and sisters, who never view one another as “a burden, a problem, an expense, a concern or a risk.”

For this reason, the Church appeals “to the longing for peace present in every man and woman, including those who – amid life’s trials – have wounded and suffering hearts.”

Pope Francis concluded: “This Church can indeed light up the darkness felt by so many men and women. She can credibly point them towards the goal and walk at their side, precisely because she herself first experienced what it is to be endlessly reborn in the merciful heart of the Father.”

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VATICAN NEWS

The relics of St. Therese and her parents will be displayed throughout the synod

by CNA/EWTN News • October 3, 2015

The body of St. Therese of Lisieux. (Enrique Lopez-Tamayo Biosca via Flickr CC BY 2.0)

Vatican City — Glass cases with the relics of Saint Therese of Lisieux and her parents, Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin, will be displayed in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome for the entirety of the Synod on the Family, Oct. 4-25.

Blessed Louis and Zelie will both be canonized Oct. 18.

The relics will be available for veneration by the faithful from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., the normal hours the basilica is open.

The relics of St. Therese will be displayed in the Borghese chapel of the basilica before the icon of the Salus Populi Romani. Through this devotion to Mary, Pope Francis has asked for her intercession for the fruits of the work of the Synod and for all the families of the world.

Fr. Antonio Sangalli, vice postulator for the cause for the canonization of the St. Therese’s parents, said, “Louis and Zélie demonstrated through their lives that conjugal love is an instrument of holiness, a way to holiness consummated by the two persons together.” He noted that this aspect today is “the most important aspect to value in the family. There is an enormous need for a simple spirituality lived out in daily life.”

The cause for beatification of one of St. Therese’s sisters, Françoise-Thérèse, was opened in France in July.

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VATICAN NEWS

God’s dream for creation? The union of a man and woman, Pope says

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • October 4, 2015

Pope Francis celebrates the opening Mass for the Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family on Oct. 4, 2015. (Daniel Ibañez/CNA)

Vatican City — Pope Francis formally opened the synod of bishops Sunday, telling participants that the union between a man and woman is the foundation of God’s plan for the family, and a solution to the many forms of loneliness in today’s world.

“This is God’s dream for his beloved creation: to see it fulfilled in the loving union between a man and a woman, rejoicing in their shared journey, fruitful in their mutual gift of self,” the Pope said in his opening Mass for the Synod of Bishops.

He explained that this plan is the same one presented in the day’s Gospel for Mark, when Jesus says “From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’”

“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh.”

Pope Francis’ comments were made during his Oct. 4 Mass marking the official opening of this year’s Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family.

Set to last from Oct. 4-25, this year’s synod follows the theme “The vocation and mission of the family in the Church and the modern world,” and follows last year’s extraordinary synod on the family, which focused on pastoral challenges regarding family life.

In his homily, Francis noted how the first reading from Genesis, which recounts the story of creation, speaks to us of Adam’s experience of solitude before the creation of Eve.

Although Adam was given dominion over the garden and the other creatures, he “felt alone, because there was not found a helper fit for him. He was lonely.”

The Pope then pointed to several forms of loneliness in modern society, and said that despite living in a globalized world filled with mansions and skyscrapers, the warmth within families today is diminishing.

While people have great ambitions and many different forms of entertainment, they have little time or freedom to enjoy them, he noted.

“There is) a deep and growing interior emptiness,” he said, adding that “the number of people who feel lonely keeps growing, as does the number of those who are caught up in selfishness, gloominess, destructive violence and slavery to pleasure and money.”

Like Adam, the world today experiences power but also vulnerability and loneliness, Francis observed, explaining that this fits the image of the modern family.

“People are less and less serious about building a solid and fruitful relationship of love. Love which is lasting, faithful, conscientious, stable and fruitful is increasingly looked down upon, viewed as a quaint relic of the past,” he said.

“It would seem that the most advanced societies are the very ones which have the lowest birth-rates and the highest percentages of abortion, divorce, suicide, and social and environmental pollution.”

Pope Francis then noted how God was pained by Adam’s loneliness when he said that “it is not good that the man should be alone,” and created a suitable partner for him.

God’s words, the Pope said, “show that God did not create us to live in sorrow or to be alone. He made men and women for happiness, to share their journey with someone who complements them … to love and to be loved, and to see their love bear fruit in children.”

Francis referred to how in the Gospel, Jesus was questioned about divorce by the crowd, who practiced and established it as an “inviolable fact,” and wanted to trap him.

Jesus responds in “a straightforward and unexpected way” by bringing everything back to the beginning of creation, he said. By doing this, Jesus teaches us “that God blesses human love, that it is he who joins the hearts of two people who love one another, he who joins them in unity and indissolubility.”

Turning to the role of the family, the Pope said that Jesus’ command to “let not man put asunder” what God himself has joined is an exhortation to believers “to overcome every form of individualism and legalism which conceals a narrow self-centeredness and a fear of accepting the true meaning of the couple and of human sexuality in God’s plan.”

Francis explained that for God, “marriage is not some adolescent utopia, but a dream without which his creatures will be doomed to solitude! Indeed, being afraid to accept this plan paralyzes the human heart.”

Paradoxically, there are many people who ridicule this plan while continuing to be attracted to true, steadfast and faithful love, he said. “We see people chase after fleeting loves while dreaming of true love; they chase after carnal pleasures but desire total self-giving.”

Quoting a text by Benedict XVI while he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Francis said that in Genesis, “forbidden pleasures lost their attraction at the very moment they stopped being forbidden.”

“Even if they are pushed to the extreme and endlessly renewed, they prove dull, for they are finite realities, whereas we thirst for the infinite, he observed.

Francis then said the Church is called to carry out her mission regarding family life in fidelity, truth and love.

In fidelity to her master, the Church is called to defend faithful love and encourage families whose married life reveals of God’s own love, he said.

The Church is also called to defend “the sacredness of life, of every life; in defending the unity and indissolubility of the conjugal bond.”

He said the Church’s mission must be carried out in truth, which doesn’t change with passing fads or popular opinions. Truth, the Pope said, “protects individuals and humanity as a whole from the temptation of self-centeredness and from turning fruitful love into sterile selfishness, faithful union into temporary bonds.”

Finally, Pope Francis said that for the Church to carry out her mission in charity doesn’t mean pointing fingers or judging others, but rather implies being conscious of her duty to seek out and care for wounded couples “with the balm of acceptance and mercy.”

Quoting a speech of St. John Paul II from 1978, the Pope stressed that “error and evil must always be condemned and opposed; but the man who falls or who errs must be understood and loved.”

The Church, he said, “must search out these persons, welcome and accompany them, for a Church with closed doors betrays herself and her mission, and, instead of being a bridge, becomes a roadblock.”

Francis closed his homily by asking the Lord to accompany and guide the Church and the synod fathers during the upcoming discussions, and entrusted the gathering to intercession of Mary and her “most chaste spouse,” St. Joseph.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis asks for prayers ahead of synod discussion

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • October 4, 2015

Pope Francis prays the Angelus with pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 4, 2015. (Martha Calderon/CNA)

Vatican City — In his Sunday Angelus address Pope Francis stressed the role of spouses in generating children, and asked for prayers ahead of the synod discussions beginning tomorrow.

The Pope opened his Oct. 4 address by noting how he had just celebrated Mass opening the Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family, which will reflect on the theme “The vocation and mission of the family in the Church and the modern world.”

Set to last from Oct. 4-25, this year’s synod follows last year’s extraordinary synod of bishops on the family, which focused on pastoral challenges regarding family life.

Francis invited those gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the tradition Marian prayer “to sustain the work of the synod with prayer, so that the Holy Spirit renders the synod fathers fully docile to his inspirations.”

In his reflections on the Gospel, the Pope focused on the first reading from Genesis, which recounted the story of creation.

He noted how the passage underlines “the complementarity and reciprocity between man and woman,” and said that, as stated in the bible, it’s because of this that a man leaves his father and mother and be joined to his wife.

The two then “become one flesh, one life, one existence,” Francis said, explaining that it’s withing this union that “spouses give life to new human beings: they become parents.”

Spouses, he said, “participate in the creative power of God himself,” but cautioned that since God is love, we only participate in his work “when we love with and like him.”

As St. Paul says, love has been poured into each of our hearts through the Holy Spirit, the Pope said, explaining that this is the same love given to spouses in the sacrament of marriage.

“It’s love that awakens the desire to create children, to wait for them, to welcome them, raise them, educate them,” he said. Francis then that this is the same love Jesus shows to the children on the day’s Gospel from Mark, when he says “let the children come to me,” and blesses them.

He asked that all parents and educators, as well as society as a whole, would become instruments of the welcome and love with which Jesus embraced the little ones.

Drawing attention to all the children who are hungry, abandoned, exploited, forced into war or rejected, the Pope said that “it’s painful to see the images of unhappy children, with a lost gaze, who flee poverty and conflicts, knocking on our doors and hearts asking for help.”

Francis prayed that the Lord help us not to be “a fortress-society, but a family-society,” that, with the proper rules in place, is still capable of welcoming.

Pope Francis said that throughout the upcoming synod discussions, participants their eyes fixed on Jesus in order to identify the best ways to respond to the needs and challenges of families today.

“On the basis of his teaching of love and mercy,” he said, they will seek “the most appropriate paths for an adequate commitment with families and for families so that the original design of the Creator for man and woman can be implemented and operated in all its beauty and strength in today’s world.”

Before leading pilgrims in the tradition Marian prayer, Francis closed his address by asking for prayers for the synod and for the intercession of Mary.

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VATICAN NEWS

A warning from Pope Francis: Don’t politicize the synod

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

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

Vatican City — Pope Francis opened the Synod on the Family with a reminder that it’s not a forum whereby leaders come to an agreement, but a journey of openness to the Holy Spirit and “apostolic courage” against worldly temptations that can lead people away from the truth.

“The synod is not a conference or a parlor, nor is it a parliament or a senate where we come to an agreement,” he said. Rather, it is the Church journeying together “to interpret reality with the eyes of faith and the heart of God.”

Addressing the synod fathers on the first day of interventions of the three-week gathering, the Pope said participants must “assume apostolic courage of evangelical humility and of confident prayer” in order to give the Holy Spirit space to carry out his actions.

Such “apostolic courage,” he said, “is not intimidated by the seductions of the world which tend to put out the light of truth from the hearts of men,” thereby leading them away from God.

Pope Francis went on to say that unless the bishops open themselves to guidance by the Holy Spirit, their decisions will become mere “decorations” which serve to “cover and hide” the Gospel, rather than glorify it.

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

Pope Francis’ Oct. 5 address to participants gathered in the Vatican’s Paul VI Synod hall continued to describe the role of the Synod as the Church interrogating her own fidelity to the deposit of faith.

In this way, he said, the Church demonstrates that she is not simply a “museum” to be looked at, but “a living source from which the Church drinks, while “satisfying the thirst” and “illuminating the deposit of life.”

The Holy Spirit speaks through the many languages represented by the Synod Fathers open to being “guided by the God who always surprises,” the Pope said.

He also appealed for the participants to have an evangelical humility whereby they empty themselves of their “own conventions and prejudices,” listen to one another, without judgments, finger pointing, or a sense of superiority.

The Pope concluded by reiterating that the function of the Synod is not to arrive at a consensus, nor is it a place of negotiations, agreements, or compromises.

Through apostolic courage, evangelical humility, and trustful prayer, he said, may the Holy Spirit “guide us, illuminate us, and cause us to put before our eyes with our personal opinions, faith in God, the good of the Church, and the salus animarum (salvation of souls).”

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VATICAN NEWS

Full text of Cardinal Erdo’s introductory report for the Synod on the Family

by CNA/EWTN News • October 6, 2015

The opening assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Oct. 5, 2015. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — On Oct. 5, the opening day of the 2015 Synod on the Family, Cardinal Peter Erdo of Esztergom-Budapest — who is the synod’s relator general — gave an introductory speech to the synod fathers. Drawing from the working document for the synod as well as recent magisterial documents, Cardinal Erdo surveyed the work the assembly is called to do. He examined current challenges to the family and marriage, the vocation of the family, and the family’s mission today. The full text of his prepared remarks were published in Italian on the Vatican’s website. Please find below CNA’s English translation of the entirety of his remarks:

Introduction

Holy Father,

Most eminent and excellent synod fathers,

Dear brothers and sisters,

Jesus Christ is our master, our Lord, and the Good Shepherd. When, according to the evangelist Mark, he saw a great crowd, he had compassion on them: “and he began to teach them many things” (Mark 6:34). In this regard, Pope Francis has indicated the method and the program which in certain ways we too should follow in our work: “ … to see, to have compassion, to teach. We can call them the verbs of the Shepherd … The first and second, to see and to have compassion, are always found together in the attitude of Jesus: in fact his gaze is not the gaze of a sociologist or a photojournalist, for he always gazes with “the eyes of the heart”… From this tenderness is born Jesus’ wish to nourish the crowd with the bread of his Word, that is, to teach the Word of God to the people. Jesus sees, Jesus has compassion, Jesus teaches us.” (Pope Francis, Angelus, July 19, 2015). This vision corresponds with the three great themes of the instrumentum laboris, the fruit of an intense, collegial path. Without being able to mention in this introductory relation all the important themes which have emerged in the discussion and the document of the last synod, and since then, we try then to follow in particular only the principal themes.

I. Listening to the challenges to the family

I.1 The social-cultural context

In its first part, the instrumentum laboris speaks of a listening which is nothing more than “seeing”, an acknowledgement of the challenges currently facing the family. There seem to be in the world, in external circumstances, and in the discussions or in the mentality of peoples, at least two great sorts of problems. The first is traditional, seemingly constant, but which assumes in our globalized world new dimensions and new, unexpected consequences. These are the effects of climate and environmental change, and those of social injustice, of violence, of war, which push millions of persons to leave their homeland and try to survive in other parts of the world. If we look, for example, at the thousands of immigrants and refugees arriving daily in Europe, we see immediately that the vast majority is composed of rather young men, though they arrive, sometimes, with their women and children. Already from this picture it is evident that the migratory movement is disintegrating families, or at least makes it difficult to form them. In many parts of the world, young parents leave their home and their children to seek work abroad.

In not a few parts of the world persons work for a salary so low that it permits them to survive to continue to work, but it does not make it feasible to care for a family. In this context one cannot forget that commercial enterprises, too, have a responsibility in this situation.

It also happens that to ensure the so-called mobility of the “workforce”, entire families have to transfer to other cities or regions, ever lacerating the human and social structures of family, friends, and neighbors, school and work mates. So all this great mobility seems to be one of the factors which drive persons to individualistic attitudes and tendencies.

So the industrialization which began the 19th century, has arrived today to all parts of the world. The typical form of labor becomes one of dependence. The employee, working outside of his family, is payed for what he does outside his family, while the most precious work done inside the family community, such as the education of children and care of the sick and elderly at home, are but rarely recognized and aided by society. As Pope Francis has said: “We experience the shortcomings of a society programmed for efficiency, which consequently ignores its elderly. And the elderly are a wealth not to be ignored.” (General Audience, March 4, 2015)

I. 2 Anthropological change: fleeing from institutions

In the more wealth regions of the world, there is another elementary phenomenon, not independent of the first, and present now in other parts of the world, that is the so called “anthropological change”, which runs the risk of becoming an “anthropological reductionism.” (Pope Francis, address to participants in a seminar on his proposal for a “more inclusive economy”, July 12, 2014) The person, in seeking his freedom, often tries to be independent of any link, at times even of religion, which constitutes a link with God, or of social links, especially those which relate to the institutional form of life. The life of society, in fact, especially of those called ‘developed’, risks being ‘suffocated’ by bureaucratic formalism. A phenomenon which does not follow necessarily only from the complexity of economic and social structures or the complexity of scientific conquest, but which seems also to have another source – a change of attitude. If we do not have the confidence to know objective truth and objective values which are based on reality, then we risk looking for the guidelines of our social comportment on the basis of purely formal criteria, such as majority votes, independent of content, or the formality of proceedings, at various organizations, as the only justification for a choice. This phenomenon can push legislators to multiply juridical norms, and even to control information, for fear that otherwise there will not be a voluntary observance of laws, which can only come from a moral conviction, by a common, objective knowledge of reality. From this picture comes a notable alienation, which explains the instinctive flight of many people from institutional forms. So it seems we can explain the growth in the number of couples cohabiting seemingly stably, but without contracting any kind of marriage, neither religious nor civil. In certain countries the high percentage of this kind of choice shows a correlation with a high percentage of those who do not wish to bury their parents with any ceremony. Where the law allows it, they prefer to bring home their ashes, or to spread them without any formality. It is clear, here, that the fundamental escape from institutions also affects some forms of live which have per se a communitarian and institutional aspect. Marriage and family are not only for isolated individuals; rather, they transmit values, and offer a possibility of development to the human person, which is irreplaceable.

In all the crises of instiutions and of institutional forms for human relations, and not only in the sphere of marriage and the family, though there in a special way, there is manifest the internal tension of the human person and the question of what is the human being. Already, linguistic expression and speech involve an institutional element in communication. Using words with precise content, we come more easily to abstraction and logical reasoning, which relieve the single person of having to create always new ways of communicating. Following customs and institutional forms of society are easier and more secure ways of comporting oneself in many of life’s situations. Institutions, in general, seem to be ‘checks’ which facilitate, and lighten, interpersonal relationships. Even unwritten norms of social comportment have a similar function. One can communicate the ideal of just comportment by giving an example, a story told or represented in a film, but one can also express it in a verbally conceived norm – in a law. Jesus Christ was the greatest of communicators, the living Word of God, who was able to relate the parables and then to say “go and do likewise”, but was also able to speak as the Lawgiver.

Current anthropological change touches on the deepest layers of the human being. It comes in among planning the smallest details of a wedding, providing everything – the music, the menu, the tablecloths. You see young engaged couples totally preoccupied with these details, while at the same time neglecting the true significance of marriage.

In this ‘magnetic field’ of the necessity and the apparent inaccessibility of many institutional forms, is located the issue of the law, as well as those of marriage and the family. Before this current, and truly new situation, it seems providential that this present synodal assembly is dedicated to this theme. Let us then deal with the ambit of this synod, as Pope Francis has indicated: “… to read both the signs of God and human history, in a twofold yet unique faithfulness which this reading involves” (Instrumentum laboris 3).

I. 3 Institutional instability

In addition to the flight from institutions, there is growing institutional instability which is manifest also in the high rate of divorce. That people are getting married at a later age, and youths’ fear in assuming the responsibility of definitive commitments such as marriage and family, are seen in this context. Indeed, if one’s sole objective is to feel good in the moment, then neither the past nor the future have any importance; indeed there appears a certain general fear of the future, for one might not feel good anymore then. Thus it seems too perilous to make a definitive choice regarding career and family. It so happens that many do not even feel their own responsibility, either for the present or the future.

I. 4 Individualism and subjectivism

Thus, as Pope Francis reiterated in his discourse at Strasbourg: “Today there is a tendency to claim ever broader individual rights – I am tempted to say individualistic; underlying this is a conception of the human person as detached from all social and anthropological contexts, as if the person were a ‘monad’, increasingly unconcerned with other surrounding ‘monads’. The equally essential and complementary concept of duty no longer seems to be linked to such a concept of rights. As a result, the rights of the individual are upheld, without regard for the fact that each human being is part of a social context wherein his or her rights and duties are bound up with those of others and with the common good of society itself.”

“I believe, therefore, that it is vital to develop a culture of human rights which wisely links the individual, or better, the personal aspect, to that of the common good, of the ‘all of us‘ made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society.” (Pope Francis, Address to the European Parliament, Nov. 25, 2014)

Therefore the current tendency to pass off those things which are simply desires, often selfish ones, as true and proper rights, while denying the basic objective of all law, must be avoided.

“An aspect of great importance for our responsibility is the need to rethink the orientation of world systems through an ecological culture … which includes not only an environmental dimension but also those of society and economics, which allow sustainable development and a culture of creation” (Instrumentum laboris 16). It is in the light of our relationship with the Creator that we find the fullness of our responsibility and vocation.

In addition to these individualistic and anti-institutional tendencies, one can observe the phenomenon of confounding or rendering uncertain the continues of such fundamental institutions as marriage and the family. This also contributes to the growth of individualism, which ultimately results in both cause and effect.

I. 5 Biological and cultural aspects

With the development of the natural sciences, new possibilities have appeared regarding the biological relationship between persons and cultures. Consumer society has separated sexuality and procreation. This too is one of the causes of the falling birth rate. It stems at time from poverty, and in other cases from the difficulty of having to assume responsibility.

While in developing countries the exploitation of women and the violence done to their bodies and the tiring tasks imposed on them, even during pregnancy, are oftentimes compounded by abortion and forced sterilization, not to mention the extreme negative consequences of practices connected with procreation (for example, a womb ‘for rent’ or the marketing of embryonic gametes). In advanced countries, the desire for a child at any cost “has not resulted in happier and stronger family relationships.” (Instrumentum laboris 30) All things considered the so-called bio-technological revolution has introduced new possibilities for the manipulation of the generative act “… making it independent of the sexual relationship between man and woman. In this way, human life and parenthood have become modular and separable realities, subject mainly to the wishes of individuals or couples.” (Instrumentum laboris 34)

Immaturity and affective fragility are of great relevance here. First of all it is forgotten that these are the effects of a true lack of effective and affective education among families, in that parents do not have time for their children, or are divorced and the children are not able to see the example of adults, and are confronted only with the comportment of their peers. So the affective maturity remains held back and is not given permission to develop. Of prime importance in this context is pornography and the commercialization of the body, helped by a distorted use of the internet. Do not forget, however, that this more of a consequence than a cause of the current situation. Thus the crisis of couples destabilizes the family and weakens family links between generations. (cf Instrumentum laboris 33)

“Finally, there are theories according to which personal identity and emotional intimacy ought to be radically detached from the biological difference between male and female. At the same time, however, some want to recognize the stable character of a couple’s relationship apart from sexual difference, and place it on the same level as the marital relationship, which is intrinsically connected to the roles of a father and a mother and determined on the biological basis of child-bearing. The resulting confusion relegates the special bond between biological difference, reproduction and human identity to an individualistic choice. ‘The removal of difference [ … ] creates a problem, not a solution.’” (Instrumentum laboris 8)

II. The discernment of the family vocation

II. 1 Family and the divine pedagogy

The gaze of Jesus is that of mercy, of the mercy which is based on truth. Jesus’ teaching on marriage and family are from creation (cf Mt 19:3). The life of the human being and of humanity is part of a great project: that of God the creator. As in all aspects of life, we find our wholeness and our felicity if we can insert ourselves freely and consciously into this great project full of wisdom and love. If we seek the truth about marriage and family, according to the best of our natural capacities, and if we listen to the teachings of Jesus Christ, then we grasp it in all its fullness and all its holiness. So resplendent are marriage and family in their beauty, that Saint Paul said this is a great mystery which manifests the love of Christ for the Church (cf Eph 5:32). This beauty is not simply the meaning of something that attracts without interest, it does not have merely an aesthetic value, but is found to be a true and profound, objective interest in human existence, a true way to felicity, which in turn makes of sacramental marriage a means of sanctification and a font of grace.

“The truth [as the Council teaches] is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. [ … ] Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear” (Gaudium et spes 22). So we must understand, using a Christocentric key, also the rich and varied natural characteristics of marriage (cf Instrumentum laboris 40).

II. 2 Jesus and the family: the gift and task of indissolubility

“Jesus himself, referring to the original plan of the human couple, reaffirms the indissoluble union between a man and a woman, though saying to the Pharisees that ‘for your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so’ (Mt 19: 8). The indissolubility of marriage (‘what therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder’ Mt 19:6), is to be understood not as a ‘yoke’ imposed on persons but as a ‘gift’ to a husband and wife united in marriage. Jesus was born in a family; he began to work his signs at the wedding of Cana and he announced the meaning of marriage as the fullness of revelation that restores the original divine plan (Mt 19:3). At the same time, however, he put what he taught into practice and manifested the true meaning of mercy, clearly illustrated in his meeting with the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:1-30) and with the adulteress (Jn 8:1-11). By looking at the sinner with love, Jesus leads the person to repentance and conversion (‘Go and sin no more’), which is the basis for forgiveness.” (Instrumentum laboris 41)

This project of God for marriage and the family offers the possibility of fullness for the life of the person, relevant still today, despite the difficulties encountered in maintaining commitments forever. The virtues of marital and family life are, for example: “… respect and mutual trust; mutual acceptance and gratitude; and patience and forgiveness” (Instrumentum laboris 43).

II. 3 The family, image of the Trinity

Marriage and the family express in a special way that the human being is create in the image and likeness of God. In this context, Pope Francis recalled that: “… man alone is not the image of God nor is woman alone the image of God, but man and woman as a couple are the image of God. The difference between man and woman is not meant to stand in opposition, or to subordinate, but is for the sake of communion and generation, always in the image and likeness of God.” (General Audience, April 15, 2015). The complementary nature, in fact, of the unitive and procreative character in marriage is written into the divine plan in creation. (cf Instrumentum laboris 45).

Family and marriage have been redeemed by Christ (cf Eph 5:21-32), restored to the image of the Most Holy Trinity, the mystery from which comes every true love. This implies at the same time that they are, for the baptized, a gift and a special commitment.

II. 4 The family in the Magisterium of the Church

The Second Vatican Council emphasized the importance of the promotion of the dignity of marriage and of the family (cf Gaudium et spes 47-52), reiterating the fact that marriage is a community of life and love (cf GS 48). True love in fact is not reduced to some elements of the relationship but implies a mutual gift of self (cf GS 49). Thus the sexual and affective dimensions are built up during daily life. In the Creator the human couple is already a bearer of the divine blessing. In fact, in Genesis we read that: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply … ‘“ (Gen 1:27-28). In the incarnation, then, God assumes human love, purifies it and brings it to fulfillment and gives to the spouses, with his Spirit, bestowed already in the sacrament of Baptism, the capacity to realize it fully and through his grace, to build up the Body of Christ and to be a domestic Church (cf Lumen gentium 11; Instrumentum laboris 47).

II.5 The missionary dimension of the Family

The missionary dimension of the family is rooted in the sacrament of Baptism and is realized within the Christian community. The Christian family, a domestic Church based on the sacramental marriage of two Christians, by its nature tends to diffuse its faith by sharing it with others. The Christian family, in fact, are called to witness to the Gospel either by its life according to the Gospel itself, or by a missionary proclamation. Spouses mutually reinforce their faith and transmit it to their children, but the children, moreover, together with the other family members, are also called to share their faith. In the family you can experience who the spouses in their mutual love, reinforced bu the spirit of Christ, live their call to holiness. So the family constitutes, as Saint John Paul II said in Familiaris consortio, the way of the Church (cf FC 13). It is in this framework that the teaching of Blessed Paul VI fits, which highlights the intimate relationship between conjugal love and the generation of life (cf Humanae vitae). This truth seems to be particularly important today, when there are so many technical possibilities for separating procreation from conjugal love. The love lived in marriage and the family is the principle of life in society, as recalled by Benedict XVI in his encylical Caritas in veritate (n. 44). The family, in fact, is the place where a person learns to experience the common good (cf Instrumentum laboris 50). The teaching of the Popes deepens also the spiritual dimension of family life, beginning from the rediscovery of family prayer and listening in common to the Word of God. Equally fundamental is the rediscovery of Sunday as a sign of the profound rootedness of the family in the ecclesial reality. The spirituality of the family must be nourished by strong experiences of faith, in particular by participation in the Eucharist. (cf Instrumentum laboris 51; Lumen gentium 11). Above all in the Sunday Eucharist, the Christian family announces that great and definitive family to which we are all called in eternal life.

Pope Francis in his encyclical Lumen Fidei spoke of family ties and the faith, saying: “Faith is no refuge … but something which enhances our lives. It makes us aware of a magnificent calling, the vocation of love. It assures us that this love is trustworthy and worth embracing, for it is based on God’s faithfulness which is stronger than our every weakness” (LF, 53).

The reciprocal gift constitutive of marriage, rooted for Christians in the grace of Baptism, stabilizes the fundamental alliance of each person with Christ in the Church. The engaged promise a total gift, fidelity, and openness to life, recognized as the constitutive elements of marriage and gifts given them by God, taking seriously their commitment in his name and before the Church. In sacramental marriage God consecrates the love of spouses and confirms indissolubility, offering them assistance to live their faithfulness, mutual complementarity and openness to life (cf Instrumentum laboris 54).

II. 6 The indissolubility of marriage and the joy of living together

The teaching of Christ on the indissolubility of marriage was very demanding, to the point of provoking a certain confusion among his own disciples (cf Mt 19:10). The Gospels and Saint Paul confirm equally that the repudiation of one’s wife, practiced first among the people of Israel, does not render possible a new marriage for either party. This affirmation, so unusual and so demanding, has continued through the course of centuries in the disciplinary tradition of the Church, constituting an element still to the point which draws people back to Christianity, a disciplinary question that matters nearly as much as monogamy and the indissolubility of marriage (cf Mt 19:1-10; Mark 10:1-12; Luke 16:18; 1 Cor 7:10-16).

This teaching of Christ regarding marriage is truly Good News and is a source of joy, as it is the full realization of the human person and of his vocation to gratuitous personal relationships, to giving himself, to be fully accepted (cf Instrumentum laboris 55).

II. 7 The project of the Creator and natural marriage

The Church, it should be remembered, has always recognized the existence of true, natural marriage between two unbaptized persons. Since the beginning of humanity such an alliance between a man and a woman has corresponded to the creative plan of God, and was blessed (Gen 1:27-28). So, among true marriages, even today there are in the world many natural marriages, and other marriages sacramental, contracted between the baptized, which involves a special grace (cf Instrumentum laboris 57). “The seriousness of adhering to this divine plan and the courage required to witness to it is especially to be esteemed in these times” (Instrumentum laboris 57).

II. 8 Mercy for wounded families: mission of the Church

In virtue of the sacrament of marriage the Christian family becomes a good for the Church, but its insertion into the ecclesial context is always good for the family being helped at the spiritual and communitarian levels despite difficulties, and helps to guard the marital union and to discern any respective obligations or eventual shortcoming.

The organic insertion of marriage and the family among Christians in the reality of the Church, requires also that the Church community pay realistic and merciful attention to the faithful who cohabit or who live in civil marriage only, because they do not feel prepared to celebrate the sacrament, given the difficulties that such as choice to result in today. If the community can prove to show itself welcoming to these persons, in the varied situations of life, and presents articulately the truth about marriage, it will help these faithful to arrive at a decision for sacramental marriage.

II. 9 Mercy and truth revealed

From this intimate connection between the sacrament of marriage and the reality of the Church it follows that the Church community has a vocation to help even those Catholic couples and families who find themselves in crisis. It has a duty to care for all those who cohabit or are in marital or family situations which cannot become a valid marriage, much less a sacramental one. “Conscious that the most merciful thing is to tell the truth in love, we go beyond compassion. Merciful love, as it attracts and unites, transforms and elevates. It is an invitation to conversion (cf John 8:1-11)” (Instrumentum laboris 67).

III. The mission of the family today

III. 1 The family and evangelization

Among the practical consequences and tasks regarding the mission, some require the Church’s commitment to families, others regard the family itself, and others require the concerted efforts of both.

Marriage preparation, which often engages the attention of engaged person at the exterior and emotional level, should be enriched by placing a proper accent on the spiritual and ecclesial character of marriage. In pastoral preparation for marriage we have to go deeply into the aspects underlining the essential properties of marriage at the natural and supernatural levels. It is extremely useful to have the joyous participation of the Christian community which welcomes the new family, which is to be a living member of the ecclesial family (cf instrumentum laboris 73; 103). Thus it is very useful for Catholic families to be involved in the preparation of engaged couples. The newlyweds can come to know a community of true friends, and from these encounters there can be born human relationships of enrichment, support, and help in difficult situations or in problems within the couple. Belonging to such a group, the faith of the couple can mature, especially if these communities of family meet regularly, read Sacred Scripture, pray together, and cultivate their faith in the light of the teaching of the Church, especially through the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Beside all this, and as its ‘fruit’, there is accomplished a mutual help in daily problems which are part of the life of every family. The formation of such groups of families seems to be a sign of the times. They often arise within new communities or ecclesial movements, but are also often rooted in the parish. It seems an urgent and fascinating task to form such communities, and promote them among all the dioceses.

It will often be good to animate these groups with the presence of a priest or a pastoral worker who is well prepared (cf Instrumentum laboris 75).

At both the level of small communities and of parish ministry and the mass media there is needed a “… conversion of language that it might prove to be effectively meaningful” (Instrumentum laboris 77-78). This constitutes a challenge for bishops, priests, and other ministers of the Word and requires, or may require, new forms of catechesis and testimony, in full fidelity to the truth revealed by Christ. If we speak from the depths of our heart, if we never tire of being accountable to ourselves and our faith, then we can turn to others with conviction and courage. If we speak frankly to others about what we believe, we don’t need to be afraid of being misunderstood, because we, too, are children of our time. While not everyone will accept what we announce, they will at least understand the proposal. This is confirmed especially by the experience of missionaries in large cities.

Beyond the joyous announcement of the Gospel, and within the context of announcing the good news of the family, it is necessary also to help those living in problematic and difficult situations to discern their living conditions in the light of the gospel. This discernment must not be content with subjective criteria, as a test for justification, but must bring together mercy with justice. The project of God in marriage and family is the way to happiness for the human being. In this work of announcing, the pastors of the Church, particularly where other worldviews or religions are present, should know such ways to conceive of and implement marriage and family to illuminate them with the light of the Gospel.

III. 2 Family, formation, and public institutions

In the preparation of both clergy and pastoral workers, and in their continuing formation, we must bear in mind that fact that their affective and psychological maturation is indispensable for the pastoral accompaniment of families. Diocesan offices and other structures for the family should collaborate in this regard.

“Given that the family is “the first and vital cell of society” (Apostolicam actuositatem, 11), the family ought to rediscover its vocation of involvement in all aspects of living in society. Essentially, families, in gathering together, need to find ways to interact with public, economic and cultural institutions so they can build a more just society” (Instrumentum laboris 91). Collaboration with public institutions is desired for the interest of the family. Yet in many countries and many institutions the official concept of the family is “… not in keeping with the Christian view or the sense of the family based on nature” (Instrumentum laboris 91). This mode of thinking influences the mentality of not a few Christians. Family associations and Catholic movements ought to work together to assert the real instances of the family in society (cf instrumentum laboris 91).

“Christians ought to engage directly in the socio-political life by actively participating in the decision-process and introducing the Church’s social doctrine into discussions with institutions. This commitment would foster the development of appropriate programs to assist young people and needy families at risk of social isolation and exclusion” (Instrumentum laboris 92).

Christians ought to try to create economic structures to support those families who are particularly affected by poverty, unemployment, job insecurity, lack of social and health care, or who are victims of usury. All of the Church community should try to assist those families who are victims of war and persecution.

III. 3 Family, accompaniment, and ecclesial integration

The mission of the Church is delicate and demanding regarding those who live in problematic marital or family situations. First are those who could be married in the Church but who are content with a civil marriage or simple cohabitation. If their attitude comes from a lack of faith or religious interest, it is truly a missionary situation. When, however, they have some relationship with the Church community, frequenting perhaps parish groups or ecclesial movements, a way is opened for their approach of sacramental marriage. The dynamics of pastoral relationships on a personal level can provide a solid basis for a sound teaching method which might foster the gradual opening of minds and hearts to the fullness of God’s plan (cf Instrumentum laboris 103).

Regarding the separated and the divorced who have not remarried, the community of the Church can help those who live these situations in a path of pardon and possibly of reconciliation, and can help the children who are victims of these situations and may encourage those left alone after such a failure, to persevere in faith and in the Christian life and also “to find in the Eucharist the nourishment they need to sustain them in their present state of life” (Instrumentum laboris 118).

It is important to have, at least at the diocesan level, listening centers which can in part help in moments of crisis, but also afterwards (cf Instrumentum laboris 117). Another kind of counseling, equally important, is offered to the divorced to help to clarify the possible invalidity of their failed marriage, as is previewed in the motu proprio Mitis Iudex.

Regarding the divorced-and-civilly-remarried, a merciful, pastoral accompaniment is only right – an accompaniment, however, which leaves no doubt about the truth of the indissolubility of marriage taught by Jesus Christ himself. The mercy of God offers to sinners pardon, but demands conversion. The sin in this case does not lie first and foremost in whatever comportment which may have led to the breakup of the first marriage. With regard to that failure it is possible that both parties were equally culpable, although very often both are to some extent responsible. It is therefore not the failure of the first marriage, but cohabiting in the second relationship that impedes access to the Eucharist. “Many parties request that the attention to and the accompaniment of persons who are divorced and civilly remarried take into account the diversity of situations and be geared towards a greater integration of them into the life of the Christian community” (Instrumentum laboris 121). What impedes some aspects of full integration does not consist in an arbitrary prohibition; it is rather an intrinsic demand of varied situations and relationships, in the context of ecclesial witness. All this requires, however, a profound reflection.

With respect to a way of penance, this expression is used in diverse ways (cf Instrumentum laboris 122-123). These ways need to be deepened and specified. It can be understood in the sense of St. John Paul II’s Familiaris consortio (cf n. 84) and referred to those who are divorced-and-remarried, who because of the needs of their children cannot interrupt their common life, but who can practice continence by the strength of grace, living their relationship of mutual help and friendship. These faithful will also have access to the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, avoiding the provocation of scandal (cf Instrumentum laboris 119). This possibility is far from being physicalist and does not reduce marriage to the exercise of sexuality, but recognizing its nature and purpose, is applied coherently in the life of the human person.

“In order to deepen in the objective situation of sin and moral culpability, the Letter to Bishops of the Catholic Church on the reception of Eucharistic Communion on the part of divorced and remarried faithful by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Sept. 14, 1994) (should) be taken into consideration as well as the Declaration on the admissibility to Holy Communion of the divorced and remarried by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts (June 24, 2000),” (IL 123), as also said in the Post-synodal Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis by Benedict XVI.

The integration of the divorced and remarried in the ecclesial community can be realized in various ways, apart from admission to the Eucharist, as already suggested in Familiaris consortio 84.

In the traditional practice of the Latin Church the penitential path could have signified for those who were not ready to change their living conditions, but who tried to communicate the desire for conversion, that confessors could hear their confession, giving them good advice and proposing penitential exercises, in order to direct them to conversion, but without giving them the absolution which was possible only for those who actually intended to change their lives (cf RI 5 in VI; F. A. Febeus, S. I., De regulisiuris canonici Liber unicus, Venetiis 1735, pp. 91-92).

True marriages among Christians of different confessions and those celebrated with the dispensation of the impediment from the disparity of worship, between a Catholic and a non-baptized individual, they are valid marriages, but present some pastoral challenges. “Consequently, dealing constructively with differences regarding the faith would necessitate paying particular attention to people who are actually living in these marriages and not simply to couples during the period of preparation before the wedding” (Instrumentum Laboris 127).

For what regards the reference to the pastoral practices of the Orthodox Churches, this cannot be properly evaluated using only the conceptual apparatus developed in the West in the second Millennium. It should be kept in mind (that there are) great institutional differences regarding the tribunals of the Church, as well as the special respect for the legislation of the States, which at times can become critical, if the laws of the State are detached from the truth of marriage according to the design of the Creator.

On the search for pastoral solutions for the difficulty of certain divorced and civilly remarried, it must be kept in mind that fidelity to the indissolubility of marriage cannot be linked to the practical recognition of the goodness of concrete situations that are opposite and therefore irreconcilable. Between true and false, between good and evil, in fact, there is no graduality, even if some forms of cohabitation bring in themselves certain positive aspects, this does not imply that they can be presented as good. However, that the objective truth of the moral good and the subjective responsibility of single persons stand out. There may be a difference between the disorder, ie. the objective sin, and the concrete sin realized in particular conduct that also implies, but not only, the subjective element. “The imputability and responsibility of an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, duress, violence, fear, habits, inordinate attachments and by other psychological or even social factors” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1735). This means that in objective truth good and evil are not given gradually (gradualness of the law), while at the subjective level the law of graduality can take place, and therefore the education of conscience and in the same sense of responsibility. The human act, in fact, is good when it is in every aspect (ex integra causa).

Both in the last synodal assembly and during the preparation of the present general assembly the question of pastoral attention to persons with homosexual tendencies was treated. Even if the problem doesn’t directly affect the reality of the family, situations arise when such behavior influences the life of the family. In every case the Church teaches that “‘There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.’ Nevertheless, men and women with a homosexual tendency ought to be received with respect and sensitivity.’ Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided’” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, 4, Instrumentum Laboris 130).

It reiterates that every person must be respected in their dignity independently of their sexual orientation. It would be desirable that dioceses devote special attention in their pastoral programs to the accompaniment of families where a member has a homosexual tendency and of homosexual persons themselves (Instrumentum Laboris 131). Instead, “Exerting pressure in this regard on the Pastors of the Church is totally unacceptable: it is equally unacceptable for international organizations to link their financial assistance to poorer countries with the introduction of laws that establish ‘marriage’ between persons of the same sex” (Instrumentum Laboris 132).

III. 4 Family, generativity, education

Openness to life is an intrinsic requirement of conjugal love. The generation of life, therefore, cannot be reduced to a variable of the plan of the couple or individual. The individualistic vision of procreation can contribute to the sharp fall in the birth rate, weakening the social fabric, undermining the relationship between generations and rendering the future more uncertain (cf Instrumentum Laboris 133).

We should therefore continue to make known the documents of the Magisterium of the Church which promote the culture of life in front of the increasingly widespread culture of death. Pastoral activity on behalf of the family should involve more Catholic bio-medical specialists in preparing couples for marriage and in accompanying married people (cf Instrumentum Laboris 134).

“Every effort should be made to establish a dialogue with international bodies and policy makers in order to promote respect for human life, from conception to natural death. In this regard, special care needs to be given to families with disabled children” (Instrumentum Laboris 135).

III. 5 Generative responsibility

For what regards generative responsibility: “… needs to start with listening to people and acknowledging the beauty and truth of an unconditional openness to life, which is needed, if human love is to be lived fully. This serves as the basis for an appropriate teaching regarding the natural methods for responsible procreation, which allow a couple to live, in a harmonious and conscious manner, the loving communication between husband and wife in all its aspects along with their responsibility at procreating life. In this regard, we should return to the message of the encyclical Humanae vitae of Blessed Pope Paul VI, which highlights the need to respect the dignity of the person in morally assessing methods in regulating births. The adoption of children, orphans and the abandoned and accepting them as one’s own is a specific form of the family apostolate (cf. AA 11), and has oftentimes been called for and encouraged by the Magisterium (cf. FC 41; Evangelium Vitae, 93)” (Instrumentum Laboris 136). It’s necessary to offer guiding paths which nurture conjugal life and the importance of the laity, which provide an accompaniment made with living witness (cf Instrumentum Laboris 139).

III. 6 Human Life, an Intangible Mystery

“Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “throw away” culture which is now spreading” (Evangelii gaudium 53). “In this regard, the task of the family, supported by everyone in society, is to welcome an unborn human life and take care of human life in its final stage” (Instrumentum Laboris 140).

Regarding the drama of abortion the Church reaffirms the inviolable character of human life. She offers advice to pregnant women, sustains teen mothers, assists abandoned children and is a companion for those who have suffered abortion and become conscious of their mistake. Equally the Church reaffirms the right to natural death, at the same time avoiding both aggressive treatment and euthanasia (cf Instrumentum Laboris 141). Death, in reality, is not a private and individual fact. The human person is not and should not feel isolated in the moment of suffering and death. In the world today, when families have become small and at times isolated and broken or headed by a single parent, their ability to care for their for their members has diminished, including the elderly, disabled and dying. Besides the great public social systems, often of the state, they (families) have great difficulties working, also due to the aging of society and the advancement of an exclusive market logic that considers social expenditures as factors which diminish competitiveness. In this context the Church is confronting a double challenge. On one part through her institutions and voluntary services seeking to make up for the deficiencies of the state welfare system and on the other hand the inability of families seeking to strengthen the human side of that service, offering more material aid, as well as human and spiritual support. Values which cannot be quantified with money.

III. 7 The challenge of education and the role of the family in evangelization

A special challenge the family must confront is that of education and evangelization. Parents are and remain the first ones responsible for the human and religious education of their children. All the crisis which threaten or weaken the family, however, impede the development of this task. However, many places “are witnessing a progressive weakening in the role of parents in upbringing, because of an invasive presence of the media in the family as well as the tendency to delegate this task to other entities. This requires that the Church encourage and support families in their vigilant and responsible supervision in a school’s academic and formative programs which affect their children” (Instrumentum Laboris 144).

In all this educative activity families can receive essential help from other families, especially from the community of Christian families, who seem to assume ever more certain important tasks of the Church, constituting a form of fundamental apostolate of the laity. In the context institutional crisis, they (laity) represent the community element in a providential way for single families and for the Church.

Conclusion

Listening to the Word of God, our response must give sincere and fraternal attention to the needs of our contemporaries, in order to transmit to them the liberating truth and being witnesses of the greatest mercy.

To face the challenge of the family today the Church must therefore convert and become more alive, more personal, more communitarian even at the parochial and small community levels. A certain reawakening seems to already be taking place in many places. So that this is more general and increasingly deeper, we ask for the light of the Holy Spirit, who indicates to us the concrete steps to make.

In this way the vocation and mission of the family in the Church and in the contemporary world, which is the theme of the current synod, appears in a serene and concrete light which makes us grow in hope and courage in the mercy of God. That mercy for which Pope Francis wanted to dedicate an extraordinary Jubilee. Let us thank the Holy Father for this choice of hope and entrust our work to the Holy Family of Nazareth.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis could visit Mexico in first half of 2016

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

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

Vatican City — Pope Francis is seriously considering a trip to Mexico in 2016, the vice director of the Holy See Press Office told CNA today.

Italian priest Fr. Ciro Benedettini said that the trip could take place in the first half of next year, and that if it does, we can expect the agenda to be released in November.

Mexico would be Pope Francis’ fourth trip to the Americas, the first being to Brazil for World Youth Day in August 2013. His second visit took place this summer when he traveled to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay July 5-13, while the third was his recent Sept. 19-27 visit to the United States and Cuba.

Pope Francis has spoken of his desire to go to Mexico before, indicating that he would like to spend a full week there.

In a lengthy interview he gave to Mexican multimedia group Televisa in March, Pope Francis spoke of his visit to the U.S., where he symbolically wanted to enter from the country’s border with Mexico.

When asked by journalist Valentina Alazraki why he ultimately chose not to go to Mexico as part of his trip to the U.S. in September, Francis said, “I thought about doing it, because I wanted to enter the United States from the Mexican border. But … how can one go from there and not come to see the Señora, the Mother!” – a reference to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Francis said that if he went to Mexico he would have to visit the image, and explained that he cannot visit Mexico “just for a bit. Mexico requires a week.”

“So I promise a trip to Mexico as it deserves, and not to hurry and pass through. It’s because of this I decided not to go to Mexico.”

Our Lady of Guadalupe is a title given to Mary after she appeared to St. Juan Diego in 1531 on the Hill of Tepeyac, later to become a part of the Villa de Guadalupe in Mexico City, telling him to have the city’s bishop build a church in the place of her appearance.

When the bishop asked for a sign, Mary told Juan Diego to pick roses that were found growing on the hillside, even though it was the middle of winter.

She arranged the roses in his tilma – a poncho-like cape made of cactus fiber – and when Juan Diego dropped them in front of the bishop, an image of Mary exactly as Juan had described appeared on the tilma. The image is still housed in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

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Cardinal Erdö’s emphatic defense of Church teaching marked synod’s first day

by Edward Pentin (National Catholic Register) • October 6, 2015

Cardinal Peter Erdo of Esztergom-Budapest, relator general of the Synod of Bishops, at a press briefing, Oct. 5, 2015. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA.)

Vatican City — Monday, the first full day of the Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family, was dominated by the introductory address of the synod’s general relator, Cardinal Peter Erdö of Esztergom-Budapest.

The entire text of Cardinal Erdö’s Oct. 5 speech was released only in Italian, but has been translated into English by the staff of Catholic News Agency. In his speech, Cardinal Erdö reasserted much of the Church’s teaching, and cast doubt on the prospect of a controversial proposal to readmit civilly remarried divorcees to Communion.

The proposal, first raised by Cardinal Walter Kasper, a German and the president emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, at a consistory in February 2014 and which is based on the practice of Eastern Orthodox Churches, was one of the most controversial issues at last year’s extraordinary synod on the family.

The current gathering, which runs until Oct. 25 and is being attended by 279 bishops and priests from around the world, is to discuss the theme “The Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and the Contemporary World.”

In his 2014 proposal, Cardinal Kasper said divorced-and-remarried Catholics could be readmitted to the sacraments after a period of penitence for their first marriage. Critics said it undermined the indissolubility of marriage, amounted to an attack on the sacrament of the Eucharist, and would precipitate many other abuses of Church teaching.

Cardinal Erdö, 63, whose position as general relator makes him responsible for underlining the goals of the synod at the beginning of the three-week meeting, stressed that civilly remarried Catholics “must be given merciful pastoral guidance,” but this “does not call into question the indissolubility of marriage as taught by Jesus Christ himself.”

He added that “God’s mercy offers forgiveness to sinners but requires conversion,” and, in this case, “a couple’s sin does not lie first and foremost in whatever behavior may have led to the breakup of the first marriage.” The reason they cannot receive the Eucharist “is not because of the failure of their first marriage, but because of the cohabitation in their second relationship,” he said.

Familiaris Consortio

He said not admitting divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to Communion is not an “arbitrary ban” and requires “careful reflection,” but stressed St. John Paul II’s approach, specifically article 84 of his 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, which underlined the indissolubility of marriage. It also allowed for some divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion, provided that they live as brother and sister, in “continence,” and can access the sacraments “whilst avoiding scandal.” Cardinal Erdö also said the Orthodox Church’s model cannot be feasibly applied to the West, where there is “great institutional difference.”

The cardinal’s comments were given added weight by the fact that his assertion was reflective of wishes and concerns received by the synod secretariat in the time between the two synods.

“I was trying to bring together all the elements of the Church’s voice,” Cardinal Erdö told reporters afterward, adding that “most of the responses reflected a wish” for the magisterium’s existing documents on this issue to be “taken into consideration.” He also noted that the Gospel reading on Sunday, at the opening Mass of the synod, was providentially from Mark Chapter 10, in which Jesus says, “What God has united man must not divide.”

Pope Francis also referenced the Gospel reading for the day in his homily at the Mass that opened the synod, calling the marital union of a man and a woman the foundation for God’s plan for the family.

“This is God’s dream for his beloved creation,” the Holy Father said, “to see it fulfilled in the loving union between a man and a woman, rejoicing in their shared journey, fruitful in their mutual gift of self.”

Setting the Course

Although the words from the cardinal and the Pope do not completely put an end to Cardinal Kasper’s proposal (the Hungarian cardinal said the penitential path needs “further reflection”), one synod father told the Register on condition of anonymity that his speech “probably changes the direction of the synod.” Cardinal Kasper, he observed, was “stony-faced and didn’t applaud when it was read out.”

According to sources, a lively discussion reportedly followed in the synod hall in the afternoon.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, president of the German bishops’ conference, told reporters Monday in Rome that he uttered his displeasure about Cardinal Erdö’s address during the afternoon session.

Asked if the Church is essentially back to the discussion before the consistory, in February 2014, when Cardinal Kasper first raised his proposal, Cardinal Marx replied, “Yes,” but that in terms of synodality, he felt the Church had moved forward. He said expectations have never been so high before a synod and that Pope Francis had contributed to that; but he stressed one should go with openness into the meeting and with preparedness to learn.

Cardinal Erdö’s speech contrasts with the one he gave last year, when Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, pressured him into changing up to 40% of its content.

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, told the Register he wasn’t sure Cardinal Erdö’s address changed the synod’s course, but he thought it was “a good summary and gave a good, substantial direction.” Other synod fathers, speaking anonymously, said they thought the speech was very well executed.

Cardinal Erdö began his presentation, which he said “systemizes” the instrumentum laboris (working document) for the synod, by quoting Pope Francis’ Angelus from July 19. The Pope said the compassionate attitude of Jesus is “not the look of a sociologist or a photojournalist, because he always looks with ‘the eyes of the heart,’” Cardinal Erdö reiterated.

Observers said his words could be taken as a warning not to reduce theology to sociology, a common trait of many Western bishops and theologians, particularly in Germany, leading up to the synod.

He devoted the whole of the second part of his speech to spotlighting healthy families and upholding the ideal of the family before turning to irregular situations. He then discussed the challenge of listening to the family, warned of individualism and subjectivism and discussed the various challenges of the family vocation.

Humanae vitae

The cardinal underlined the importance of “openness to life,” called for the message of Blessed Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae vitae – which reaffirmed Church teaching with regard to responsible parenthood, married love and the rejection of artificial contraception – to be “rediscovered” and spoke about reasons for low birth rates and the threat of euthanasia, among other threats to the family.

Also mentioned was the missionary dimension of the family and the need to couple mercy with truth, such as in the case of cohabitation, a controversial topic of the last synod. He quoted in this context article 67 of the instrumentum laboris, which states: “Conscious that the most merciful thing is to tell the truth in love, we go beyond compassion. Merciful love, as it attracts and unites, transforms and elevates. It is an invitation to conversion.”

On the subject of same-sex relationships, Cardinal Erdö pointed out that they have nothing to do with marriage, but that such people need to be treated “with respect and sensitivity.”

In his homily at the Mass that opened the synod, Pope Francis exhorted participants to “assume apostolic courage of evangelical humility and of confident prayer” in order to give the Holy Spirit space to carry out his actions.

Pope Francis went on to say that unless the bishops open themselves to guidance by the Holy Spirit, their decisions will become mere “decorations” that serve to “cover and hide” the Gospel, rather than glorify it.

Synod Methodology

In his opening speech to the synod, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, explained a new methodology of the synod, unveiled last Friday. He said the small-group dicsussions would help “foster more intense debate.”

But some synod fathers still have expressed concerns about some of the new rules. Archbishop Kurtz said “there are a lot of questions” on the new methodology, specifically regarding the 13 small language groups that will present reports at the end of each of the three weeks. Archbishop Kurtz wondered how they will “lead up to votes.”

“I still don’t have a lot of those answers. I don’t think any of the synod fathers have those,” he said, “but I think we’re going to have those at the end of the first week.” He also said details about whether a post-synodal apostolic exhortation would be published were also not ascertained.

“It didn’t come up today, and I’m eager to find that out,” said Archbishop Kurtz.

It’s still early in the process, but the archbishop is confident that the synod fathers will avoid the ideological agenda that threatened the 2014 synodal process and focus on strengthening Church teaching on marriage and the family.

“I’m entering the synod with a very spiritual mindset,” Archbishop Kurtz said. “The Holy Father is basically saying to all of us: ‘Speak frankly, but seek what God might be inspiring us to say for the sake of the Church and the family. Listen to one another, and be open to the Holy Spirit.’”

Edward Pentin is the National Catholic Register’s Rome correspondent.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis backs the new synod process in an unanticipated speech

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • October 6, 2015

Pope Francis attends the Synod on the Family, Oct. 5, 2015. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Vatican City — In an unexpected speech at the synod on Tuesday, Pope Francis has stated that this gathering is in continuity with 2014 synod, which he said never called into question the Church’s teaching on marriage.

He also emphasized that the official documents of the 2014 synod are his two speeches, and its final report.

The full text of the Holy Father’s intervention has not made public, but Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See press office, reported about it in his Oct. 6 press briefing.

Pope Francis’ speech came after Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, had taken the floor to give a long explanation about the synod’s new methodology, as there had been on Monday several synod fathers asking for explanations about the new process, which had alarmed not a few of them.

According to Fr. Lombardi, Cardinal Baldisseri explained the synod’s new method, presented the 10 member commission the Pope appointed in order to assist in drafting the synod’s final report, and underscored that the procedure was approved by the Pope Sept. 7, during one of the sessions of the Council of the Synod.

After Cardinal Baldisseri’s intervention, the Pope wanted to take the floor, Fr. Lombardi recounted.

According to Fr. Lombardi, the Pope wanted “essentially to clarify two issues.”

The first is that “this synod must be lived in continuity with last year’s extraordinary synod.” The Pope then stressed – ‘with these very words,’ Fr. Lombardi said – that “from the extraordinary session of the synod, three are the official documents: the Pope’s inaugural speech, the Pope’s final speech, and the final report.”

The final report was controversial because it also included the midterm report paragraphs that had not gained the supermajority of two thirds – that is, they did not reach a consensus. Customarily, the propositions that do not reach a consensus have been removed from the final documents of synods.

However, the Pope underscored – Fr. Lombardi recounted – that “the Council of the Synod looked into the 2014 synod’s final report in the time between the extraordinary and the ordinary synod, and that the report has been integrated with other contributions,” and that the Synod’s working document is a result of this effort taken between the 2014 and 2015 synods.

“The Pope said the working document has been approved by the Synod’s Council in meetings in which the Pope himself took part,” Fr. Lombardi stressed.

Then Pope Francis wanted to clarify a second issue: that “Catholic teaching on marriage has not been put into question by the previous synod, and that synod fathers should not be conditioned to circumscribe the Synod to only the issue of access to Communion for the divorced-and-remarried,” said Fr. Lombardi.

While it is not unusual for the Pope to take the floor during a synod – Benedict XVI having done so in those held in 2008 and 2012 – it is however the first time the Pope’s speeches at the synod are considered the official documents of the synod itself.

These contents will then be the guidelines of the upcoming discussions at this year’s synod. The synod fathers are now divided into small groups by language, to discuss particular issues, having been so divided the afternoon of Oct. 6.

In these first two days, 72 synod fathers took the floor. Fr. Lombardi said there were 10 interventions from Latin America, 7 from North America, 26 from Europe, 12 from Africa, 8 from Asia and Oceania, and 6 from the Middle East. Italian and English have been the most used languages.

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What was JPII’s secret to inspiring the youth? His mere presence, secretary says

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

Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square, circa 1978. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Washington, D.C. — Ahead of next year’s World Youth Day in Krakow, the long-time secretary for Pope John Paul II explained how the saint inspired a generation even though many never saw him in person.

“The thing that was attractive, that attracted young people to John Paul II, was not even what he was saying to them, but who he really was,” Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, told CNA through a translator.

For the youth, “it was enough for him to look at them, and they could feel his love toward them, and that’s why they were so close to him.”

“The Pope loved the youth, and he understood young people” who were searching for truth and beauty, the cardinal added, “and he was able to respond to their questions.” That bond still exists to this day, as seen at World Youth Day 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, when Pope Francis announced that the next one would be held in Krakow, “the city of John Paul II.”

“There was this great enthusiasm and joy of the young people who haven’t even met John Paul II,” Cardinal Dziwisz said. “They still see great authority in him.”

The cardinal spoke with CNA at the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 2, after consecrating the altar for the shrine’s new Redeemer of Man Church.

At the end of the dedication of the altar, he extended an invitation “to all young people from the United States and Canada” to attend World Youth Day 2016 in Krakow.

“I take this opportunity for my visit on American soil to invite the young people from the United States and Canada to the 2016 World Youth Day to Poland and to Krakow, the city of John Paul II, the spiritual capital of divine mercy,” he said.

Poland will open its doors to pilgrims, he said, asking them in return to share “the enthusiasm of your faith.”

“We are very much looking forward to this mutual exchange of gifts,” he said.

Also present at the dedication Mass were concelebrant Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, supreme chaplain of the Knights of Columbus, and Carl Anderson, CEO of the Knights of Columbus.

The church’s altar, crafted by Italian sculptor Edoardo Ferrari, features the 12 apostles carved on its four sides. Seven relics of saints connected to Pope St. John Paul II and the evangelization of North America were deposited into the altar during the Mass.

In his homily for the dedication Mass, celebrant Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. explained how the altar is the “symbol of Christ” in every church and also the place where the “Risen Lord” becomes “present to us” in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.

The altar’s carvings of the 12 apostles represent the Church built upon the apostles, he explained. The apostles are facing outward, symbolizing their going out from the Body of Christ into the world.

In addition, the replica of St. Thomas the Apostle shows him touching the altar, the “tangible, visible, real, authentic sign of the Risen Christ,” just as St. Thomas touched the wounds of the Risen Christ in order to believe in the Resurrection.

“Our proclamation of faith when we approach this altar and we approach the celebration of the Eucharist on this altar,” Cardinal Wuerl said, must echo the words of St. Thomas in Scripture, “My Lord and my God.”

The entire church is full of “catechesis for pilgrims,” the shrine’s executive director Patrick Kelly explained to CNA, from the altar to the mosaics around the walls.

“What stands out in the mosaics is a vision of salvation history,” he explained, with one side showing the “history of sin” in the Old Testament and the other the “history of salvation.” This “culminates in Christ the High Priest” above the altar.

Evangelization of families is also a particular focus of the shrine, he added, since “the family was so close to John Paul II.”

In his remarks at the end of the Mass, Cardinal Dziwisz expounded upon the legacy of the Pope.

For St. John Paul II, “faith was the center of his life.” His was an “ordinary holiness, lived and attained day after day in daily prayer and service,” he explained.

“John Paul II was a mystic,” he added, noting that the Pope “would stand every day before God to contemplate the grace of God.”

During his pontificate, St. John Paul II preached “the logic of merciful love” and “called for building the civilization of love,” which was an answer to the materialism of the day,” the Cardinal said. His teaching on marriage and the family was expressed in his work Love and Responsibility as well as his apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, “On the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World.”

His 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, “The Gospel of Life,” was “a great Magna Carta of the Church’s teaching on the dignity and sanctity of human life,” Cardinal Dziwisz said.

“John Paul II defended life, defended the right to live for the unborn, those that are the most vulnerable, and who do not have a voice,” he said.

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VATICAN NEWS

What saves us from loneliness? Family! Pope Francis says

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

Pope Francis embraces a baby during the general audience in St. Peter’s Square on Aug. 26, 2015. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — Family rescues us from indifference and loneliness and teaches us the essentials of life, Pope Francis said – adding that as the family of God, the Church has the same role and must evaluate how to live this out.

“Like Saint Peter, the Church is called to be a fisher of men, and so too needs a new type of net. Families are this net,” the Pope told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Oct. 7 general audience.

Families, he said, “free us from the sea of loneliness and indifference, so that we can all experience the freedom of being children of God.”

Pope Francis made his comments in his first general audience after the Oct. 4 launch of the Synod of Bishops, which is meeting for three weeks to discuss the theme “The vocation and mission of the family in the Church and in the contemporary world.”

After recently concluding a series of catechesis on the family as a lead-in to this year’s synod gathering, Pope Francis explained that he would start a new catechesis on the “indissoluble” relationship between the Church and the family, with the good of all humanity in mind.

He began by drawing attention to the synod’s theme, and said that the family today “requires our full attention and care, and the Synod must respond to this demand.”

“When families journey along the way of the Lord, they offer a fundamental witness to God’s love, and they deserve the full commitment and support of the Church,” he said.

Francis stressed that it’s inside the family that we learn and develop the bonds of fidelity, sincerity, trust, cooperation and respect which unite us, even when there are difficulties.

It is families who teach children how to honor one’s word, to respect others and to understand one’s limits, he said, adding that they also give “an irreplaceable attention to members who are smallest, most vulnerable, wounded and devastated in life.”

But the Pope also noted that despite the values families offer, they are frequently not supported by the political and economic sectors of life, which seem “to have lost the ability to incorporate the virtues of family life into the common life of society.”

It is here, he said, that the Church is called to live out her mission by first evaluating to what extent she is living as the family of God.

For the Church, the family “is like her Magna Carta: the Church is and must be the family of God,” he said.

The Pope explained that this can be seen in scripture when St. Paul says that those who were once far off are no longer strangers or guests, but rather “fellow citizens of the saints and the family of God.”

Through the Church, “Jesus again passes among us to persuade us that God has not forgotten us,” he said, adding that it is through the family that “the Church again goes out fishing in order to prevent men from drowning in the sea of loneliness and indifference.”

Referring to how, after a night of catching nothing, Peter cast his net out into the deep waters at Jesus’ command, Francis prayed that the Church herself would “go out into the deep” with confidence that she will have a good catch.

Pope Francis closed his audience by praying that the Synod Fathers, “inspired by the Holy Spirit, encourage the Church to cast out her net with confidence and faith in the Word of God.”

He then greeted pilgrims present from various countries around the world, and asked that those present continue to pray for the ongoing Synod on the Family. He prayed that they would always be witnesses to God’s love and mercy in the world.

Afterward, Francis offered a special greeting to a group of Iraqi refugees who were present in the audience, and entrusted both pilgrims and the work of the synod to the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary.

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Archbishop Chaput: We need more accurate translations of synod docs

by CNA/EWTN News • October 7, 2015

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia greets Pope Francis at Independence Hall, Sept. 26, 2015. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — The Synod of Bishops’ English-language translations are not always accurate and some synod fathers are worried about whether they will understand the synod’s final document before they vote on it, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia said Wednesday.

“Among English speakers, we don’t have typically the skills in as many languages as the French and the Spanish,” the archbishop said at an Oct. 7 press briefing at the Vatican.

“So one of the issues we’re dealing with is the official documents are in Italian, and the translations are more or less, accurate. Not always.”

Archbishop Chaput is a spokesman, also known as a relator, for one of the four English-language discussion circles at the synod. He said the English-speaking bishops have “the additional problem of trying to deal with very serious issues, in languages we don’t clearly understand.”

“As we move on to the process, there is a bit of worry in our group that when the final document is pronounced in Italian, and we’re asked to vote, we may not be very clear on what we’re voting for,” he said.

The archbishop faulted himself rather than Vatican personnel.

“That’s my problem, not the Holy See’s problem, because I don’t know languages as I wish I did, and perhaps I should.”

At the same time, the English-speaking bishops have asked for translations of the synod’s official documents, he said.

He noted that “we also have an English translation of Cardinal Erdo’s talk; but it’s not considered official, it’s just background information.”

An English translation of Cardinal Erdo’s Oct. 5 introductory speech to the synod fathers has been provided by the Catholic News Agency. The Vatican had released the text only in Italian.

Archbishop Chaput also noted the importance of the wording used in the original, definitive versions of synod documents – not only their translations.

“The language is a big issue, it’s not just sensitivity to the world but also sensitivity to the Gospel and the truth of the Gospel and we have to be careful in the language we use to protect both,” he said. “We must affirm the ninety-nine when we go looking for the one.”

During the press briefing, Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Holy See press officer, noted that while the statements, or interventions, of bishops at the synod will not be distributed by the press office, bishops are free to publicize the text of their own interventions at their will.

Archbishop Chaput in his Oct. 6 intervention suggested that the synod’s instrumentum laboris, or working document, appears to present “two conflicting views: pastoral despair or a decision to hope.”

“When Jesus experienced the pastoral despair of his apostles, he reminded them that for man a thing may seem impossible, but for God all things are possible,” the archbishop said.

He particularly reflected on paragraphs 7-10 of the working document, which discussed anthropological changes, cultural and social contradictions, and the weaknesses and strengths of the family.

While the archbishop praised these sections’ description of the condition of contemporary families, he worried that “overall, the text engenders a subtle hopelessness.”

“This leads to a spirit of compromise with certain sinful patterns of life and the reduction of Christian truths about marriage and sexuality to a set of beautiful ideals – which then leads to surrendering the redemptive mission of the Church,” he said. “The work of this synod needs to show much more confidence in the Word of God, the transformative power of grace, and the ability of people to actually live what the Church believes. And it should honor the heroism of abandoned spouses who remain faithful to their vows and the teaching of the Church.”

Archbishop Chaput cited the French writer George Bernanos’ definition of hope: “despair, overcome.”

“We have no reason to despair. We have every reason to hope. Pope Francis saw this himself in Philadelphia. Nearly 900,000 people crowded the streets for the papal Mass that closed the World Meeting of Families,” he added.

People attended the World Meeting of Families both because they love the Pope and because they believe in marriage and the family, he said. They were “hungry to be fed by real food from the Vicar of Jesus Christ.”

Archbishop Chaput made several recommendations to the synod.

“We need to call people to perseverance in grace and to trust in the greatness God intended for them – not confirm them in their errors. Marriage embodies Christian hope – hope made flesh and sealed permanently in the love of a man and a woman,” he said.

“This synod needs to preach that truth more clearly with the radical passion of the Cross and Resurrection.”

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VATICAN NEWS

‘Flawed, inadequate’ – bishops skewer synod’s working doc in new report

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

Extraordinary assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the Family, Oct. 2014. (Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk)

Vatican City — A controversial working document for the Vatican’s synod on the family took a hard hit from numerous bishops who’ve called the text overly negative, unclear, and possibly inaccurate in its translations.

“While various elements of the (document) are admirable, we found much of the text to be flawed or inadequate,” says a new report from group “D” of the four English-speaking synod circles.

The document – officially called an Instrumentum Laboris – also fell short “especially in its theology, clarity, trust in the power of grace, its use of scripture and its tendency to see the world through overwhelmingly Western eyes,” the bishops said Friday.

The group added that they felt “limited” in their ability to respond to challenges of the family today because the audience of the instrumentum wasn’t clear – asking whether they were writing for the Pope, families or the world.

Pope Francis officially opened the 14th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops Sunday, Oct. 4, with the event closing on Oct. 25.

Small groups are playing a larger role in this year’s gathering. While the groups’ individual reports were only published once last year, they are now being published after each of the three synod phases.

Divided into three parts, with each week dedicated to one of the three sections of the instrumentum. So far the bishops have spent the first week of the meeting discussing the document’s first section, titled “Listening to the challenges of the family.”

Afterward, discussion will shift to the second part, titled “Discernment of the family vocation,” before culminating with the third, “The mission of the family today.”

Divided by language into 13 groups with around 20 members each, one small group is in German, four in English, three in Spanish, two in Italian and three in French. Groups were determined by both the language of participants and the requests of the synod fathers.

In their report, the English-speaking “D” group said that rather than beginning with the failures and challenges of the family, the document ought to begin “with hope,” since many families are already successfully living the Gospel’s message about marriage.

They expressed concern that readers would ignore the document “if it begins with a litany of negatives and social problems” rather than a biblical vision of joy and confidence in the Word of God.

“The huge cloud of challenges pervading the first section of the text unintentionally creates a sense of pastoral despair,” they said, noting how many in their group suggested that the first and second sections of the instrumentum be switched.

“If marriage is a vocation, which we believe it is, we can’t promote vocations by talking first about its problems.”

Also noted by the group was the lack of serious reflection on gender ideology, the role of men and fathers as well as women, the destructive nature of pornography, the misuse of technology and pastoral care for the differently-abled.

With the instrumentum’s presentation appearing “chaotic, without inherent logic,” both Pope Francis “and the people of the Church deserve a better text, one in which ideas are not lost in the confusion,” they said.

Language was another topic the group found problematic, and in their report expressed concern that “the English translation may not be faithful to the official Italian text.”

Others, they said, “complained that many of the document’s statements were too general and not specific enough. Still others felt the text had many inaccurate generalizations, was verbose and repetitive.”

Members of group “D,” supported by various other English speaking groups, found the scope of the instrumentum to be “narrow” and “excessively inspired by West European and North American concerns, rather than a true presentation of the global situation.”

Terms such as “developing nations” and “advanced countries” were considered to be “condescending and inappropriate for a Church document.”

Others members said that the language was “too careful and politically correct,” and therefore made the content “unclear and sometimes incoherent.”

Group “A” echoed the concern, fearing that the document gave “an overly Euro-centric or Western mindset,” and suggested using a more cultural and global tone that is “open to the richness and real experiences of families today, in various nations and continents.”

Similarly, all of the other English-speaking groups referred to the document as too negative, and suggested that a greater emphasis be placed on hope and families who already strive to be faithful to the Gospel and their vocation.

The “C” group said that terms used in the instrumentum such as “the Gospel of the family” and “the domestic Church” that at first were seen as illuminating, have instead become “cliché” and unclear in their meaning.

“We felt that it may be a good thing if they were given a rest and if we chose instead to use a language which was more accessible to those unfamiliar with our particular speak,” the group said.

They stressed the need to beware of “a kind of Church speak of which we are barely conscious,” saying that the instrumentum “more than its share of it, and it would be good if the final document moved in a different and fresher direction.”

Group “B” also voiced the need for a more simple language, which is more accessible to families, and shows “that the synod fathers had listened to and heard their contribution and comments to the synodal process.”

Released in June, the synod’s Instrumentum Laboris builds on the final report of last October’s extraordinary synod, and incorporates suggestions from Church entities like bishops’ conferences and even individuals who freely sent their opinions.

The document will serve as a basis for this year’s synod report, which will be written at the end of this week and developed throughout the next synod phases. At the end of the process, a 10-member global commission nominated by Pope Francis will draft the final synod report.

However, many of the groups suggested a single editor review the final document for clarification, rather than a committee, in order to maintain clarity.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis leads synod in praying for peace in the Middle East

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

Pope Francis bowed in prayer in St. Peter’s Basilica on September 2, 2015. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — This morning, Pope Francis offered one of the synod’s daily moments of prayer for peace in the Middle East, and appealed the international community to put immediate interests aside, and find solutions.

“Dear Synod Fathers, dear brothers and sisters, in resuming this morning the work of the General Congregation, I invite you to dedicate the prayer of the Third Hour to the intention of reconciliation and peace in the Middle East,” the Pope said Oct. 9.

Francis’ prayer came as meetings with small groups closed and general congregations began again in the synod, which has reached its 5th day of discussion.

Every day, the synod fathers pray together the Liturgy of the Hours, which is a set of daily prayers that priests and religious are obliged to pray.

Many lay Catholics also pray this liturgy, which incorporates psalms, hymns and readings from Scripture and the Church Fathers. The day’s prayers are set according to the Church calendar.

Opening the prayer, Pope Francis said that “we are painfully struck and we follow with great concern what is happening in Syria, in Iraq, in Jerusalem and the West Bank,” where violence has escalated, claiming innocent lives and fueling “a humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions.”

War, the Pope said, only brings destruction and multiplies suffering, while hope and progress can only come from peace.

“Let us unite, therefore, in an intense and confident prayer to the Lord, a prayer that intends to be an expression of solidarity at once with (our) brother Patriarchs and Bishops from those regions, who are present here, as well as with their priests and faithful, and to everyone who lives there.”

Francis also made a heartfelt appeal to the international community, asking nations to find a way to effectively help the concerned parties “broaden their horizons beyond the immediate interests” and to use international law and diplomacy to resolve current conflicts.

He also offered prayers for areas of the African continent that are currently experiencing “analogous situations of conflict,” and asked Mary, Queen of Peace to intercede for them.

Chaldean Patriarch Luis Raphael Sako I of Iraq gave the homily during the prayer, focusing on the importance of faith in the passage from the day’s prayer, taken from Rom 1:16-17.

The passage reads: “I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live’.”

Patriarch Sako said the text provides a true synthesis of both the Gospel and what it means to be a pastor, explaining that St. Paul’s desire to be with and accompany the Christian community of Rome is a special mission that involves his entire life, heart and thought, “but it’s not a career.”

St. Paul, he said, is someone “who feels invited by God. Through him the Gospel is an act of worship; to pray, to be in communion with God, to love, obey and live and give witness to the joy announced by the Gospel every day.”

The patriarch said that faith is “a fundamental condition” in being made children of God, since it is faith that gives life meaning.

“Faith is not a static fact, or a speculation, but it’s an interior vision, a deep mystical relationship, lived in the details of the difficulty of daily life,” he said, adding that faith, like love, “is a commitment and must grow day after day in the long path of life: from faith to faith.”

If love does not exceed justice, “the Gospel is empty,” the patriarch continued. He closed by saying that in order to understand, one must feel what the Christians of Iraq have experienced, who in one night last summer “left everything to remain faithful to their faith.”

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WORLD NEWS

Gay Catholics tell synod to promote chastity – for everyone

by Ann Schneible (CNA/EWTN News) • October 3, 2015

Opening Session of the Extraordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican on Oct. 6, 2014. (Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Rome, Italy — Same-sex attracted Catholics who have turned away from a homosexual lifestyle are urging participants at the upcoming Synod on the Family to defend the Church’s teaching on chastity for everyone – including for divorced and remarried.

“I fear that chastity does not have enough of a voice at the Synod,” said Rilene Simpson, a member and spokesperson of Courage, an apostolate which offers pastoral support for men and women with same-sex attraction. She told CNA: “We need to have the Church’s support.”

“We’re talking about chastity for everybody. We’re talking about chastity for people with same-sex attraction. We’re talking about chastity within the confines of marriage. We’re talking about chastity for people who are divorced, and remarried.”

“It is a beautiful, beautiful virtue, it’s a grace from God, it’s a way to become closer to him, and we need to hear more about chastity,” she said.

Rilene, whose story is featured in the 2014 Courage-produced documentary Desire for the Everlasting Hills, was one of the main speakers at a conference held Friday in Rome aimed at presenting the Church’s pastoral resources for persons with same-sex attraction.

The international gathering, entitled “The Ways of True Love – Pastoral Approaches to Welcome and Accompany those Living with Homosexual Tendencies,” was held Friday at the Pontifical Thomas Aquinas University, also known as the Angelicum.

Organized by Courage, Ignatius Press, and the Napa Institute, the gathering was intentionally scheduled to take place as close to the Synod on the Family as possible.

“What I am hoping from the Synod fathers … (is) that they can see the truth and not buy into the lies,” said David Prosen, a Catholic therapist at a Franciscan University in Steubenville, who also shared his testimony at the Oct. 2 gathering.

Having himself lived a homosexual lifestyle before embracing the Church’s teaching on chastity, David – whose story is featured on the 2014 documentary The Third Way – told CNA he had once been told by a priest it was “okay to be in an intimate relationship with a man as long as you love him.”

“This is so harming,” he said. “So, what I hope is that the Synod fathers will really look at the truth that we, all of us, all men and women have gifts that God has given us because we are created in his image and likeness and because we are his sons and daughters – not because of who I’m attracted to.”

David’s presentation at Friday’s gathering was entitled “I am not gay … I am David,” and touched on his own struggles with identity during his youth.

“I know for myself, when I was in the culture, that whole sense of identity to me meant belonging,” he told CNA.

“I didn’t really fit in in high school. Finally I felt like I belonged somewhere but it wasn’t giving me what I really needed. I found out years later that the reason is because that’s not who I am. I was embracing something that wasn’t true.”

David explained how in high school he had admired traits in other people that he felt he lacked in himself.

“I was looking at my peers and going ‘gosh if only I looked like him, if I was athletic like him, or popular then maybe I would fit in,’ and there was this shame,” he said. “In puberty, that piece became exaggerated and that’s when I believed something that really wasn’t true.”

“I wasn’t really affirmed in my gender and that’s what I was looking for all along.”

David explained he has since learned to establish fulfilling and chaste friendships with other men, largely through the help of the Courage apostolate.

“There is a profound joy and peace in living a chaste life,” he said.

Friday’s conference comes partly in response to the 2014 Extraordinary Synod on the Family, in which persons with same-sex attraction did not have an adequate voice, according to organizers.

At least two of the Synod fathers will take part in the event: French Guinea’s Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Pontifical Council for Divine Worship, and Australia’s Cardinal George Pell, prefect for the Secretariat for the Economy.

In brief remarks given to journalists at the conference, Cardinal Pell stressed that the Church has long offered support to persons with same-sex attraction. “It’s happening already … in many places,” he said.

“No non-government institution offers more avenues of care of, say, HIV people, in parishes, communities, groups like Courage, Christian families,” etc. “We’re obliged to. Because we’re Christians.”

The conference also featured a presentation by Monsignor Livio Melina, president of Rome’s John Paul II Institute on Marriage and the Family, who spoke on the Christian anthropological understanding of homosexuality.

Other experts included Dr. Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins; Dr. Timothy Lock, a clinical psychologist; and Dr. Jennifer Morse of the Ruth Institute.

Friday’s conference comes one day ahead of another gathering in Rome entitled Ways of Love, whose organizers support a form of pastoral care which does not necessarily preclude sexually intimate relationships between same-sex couples.

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

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WORLD NEWS

Paris archbishop says ‘there will be no spectacular revolution at the synod’

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

Archbishop Bruno Forte, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, Cardinal Peter Erdo, and Fr. Federico Lombardi at the press briefing on the Synod on the Family, Oct. 5, 2015. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Vatican City — There are no “spectacular revolutions” in the offing at the Synod of Bishops, and those expecting one will be disappointed, one of the three president delegates of Synod of Bishops said Monday in a press briefing.

Cardinal André Vingt-Trois of Paris underscored that the “discussion at the synod was coloured, even filtered, by inaccurate media reports” but that “the Pope and the synod do not want to listen to what is floating in the air, and fashionable, today.”

The Pope and the synod want rather to listen to “the signs of times, that is, the discernment we have learned from the Second Vatican Council.”

The cardinal rejected the notion of a Church divided into two parties, as did Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto, who is serving as special secretary of the Synod of Bishops.

“The media depicted a Church divided into two poles … but this is not the perception we have from inside the synod hall,” Archbishop Forte said.

In the morning, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa made the same remarks.

Cardinal Rodriguez said the synod fathers have been “sometimes saddened by the way the world has ignited this synod, thinking that we have come has two opposite gangs in order to defend irreducible positions.”

Cardinal Rodriguez stressed that instead, “each of us is looking for a unanimity that comes from dialogue, not from ideas to be defended with a vengeance.” And he underscored that the Church “is not a Church endangered,” and nor “is the family, though it is under threat.”

Cardinal Vingt-Trois had also given an initial address to the synod assembly.

Speaking shortly before Pope Francis, Cardinal Vingt-Trois identified in the reform for the procedures of declaration of nullity and in the Jubilee of Mercy two guidelines for the spirit of the synod.

The motu proprio that reformed the procedures for the declaration of nullity is – according to Cardinal Vingt-Trois – “a precious indication of the spirit in which we should approach” the synod’s work.

“Without questioning the sacramental tradition of our Church or her doctrine on the indissolubility of marriage, you invite us to share our pastoral experiences and to better implement the paths of mercy by which the Lord invites those who so wish and who are able to enter a process of conversion with a view to receiving pardon,” he said.

The year of mercy is – in Cardinal Vingt-Trois’ words – a “sign of hope for those who are overcome in the path (of life) and hope to know a real liberation.”

Cardinal Vingt-Trois also hoped that “these three weeks of intense work will be an important experience of the Church.”

“Despite the differences among ourselves, we do not want to live these times as a showdown between a few people, whose judges are microphones and cameras. We want to live this as a time of common conversion, with the strength of Communion under you, Holy Father, Guardian and Servant,” concluded Cardinal Vingt-Trois.

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WORLD NEWS

For U.K. archbishop, the plight of migrant families strikes a chord

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

(ZouZou via shutterstock.com)

Vatican City — Despite a media focus on divorce and homosexuality, the synod discussions regarding family issues cannot ignore the weighty impact of the current migration crisis, said U.K. Cardinal Vincent Nichols.

“We should have the integrity of the family foremost in our minds,” the cardinal told CNA, speaking about the many families who have become separated by the migrant crisis.

He cited as an example the trials of Middle Eastern migrants who have family members in England.

“They should be given the opportunity to reconnect with their families,” he said. “These family identities are important, and I don’t think that’s being given the attention that it could in the response of European governments to this flow of people across Europe.”

Cardinal Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster and representative of the Bishops of England and Wales at the 2015 Synod on the Family, has been outspoken in his call for Britain to be more welcoming of migrants.

The European commission has stated that more than 500,000 mostly African and Middle Eastern migrants have entered the European Union in 2015, in an attempt to escape conflict and poverty in their homelands. Scores of other migrants have died at sea en route to countries like Greece and Italy.

Last month, the EU agreed on a quota plan to disseminate 120,000 migrants across the continent.

“For European countries at the moment, the migration of people from the Middle East and from parts of Africa is a very considerable challenge,” Cardinal Nichols said. “Some of that is indeed to do with poverty, refugee status, and real desperation.”

However, the cardinal noted there are additional difficulties faced by families who become separated due to British immigration laws.

“The British government has some very strict rules, even for British citizens, as to whether they can bring their non-British spouses into the country,” he said.

“There are aspects of British government policy which mitigate against the integrity of the family. That is something that we would want really to press, and have been doing so for a while.”

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

In his interview with CNA, Cardinal Nichols touched on several other concerns expected to be discussed at the Synod on the Family, such as the pastoral care of divorced-and-remarried persons, and of men and women with same-sex attraction.

CNA: Last year’s synod gave a lot of attention to the issue of divorce and remarriage — at least in the media. What do you expect the Synod to focus on this time around?

Cardinal Nichols: No doubt the media will continue to focus on that issue. In some ways, it is a very important issue, because it affects a lot of people’s lives, and because it is a real challenge for the Church to make it clear that there is a place in the Church for everyone who wishes to follow Christ, who wants to be a disciple of Christ, no matter the difficulties of those circumstances or of their personal experiences. So, it’s a challenge to the pastoral care that the Church offers. How do we best express that care, how do we get better at expressing the acceptance and the mercy of God are some of the basic themes of this Synod.

CNA: There are some concerns with regard to how the Church’s teaching might be affected by this Synod with regards to divorce and remarriage. What’s your response to these concerns?

Cardinal Nichols: I was very taken by the answer that Pope Francis gave on the airplane coming back from America the other day when he was asked if speeding up a process whereby a marriage can be examined for its validity was a way of introducing Catholic divorce. He said no, because this is not an administrative procedure. He went on to say it is perfectly clear that people who marry in the Church with Christ in their hearts, with freedom and understanding, that it is a valid sacramental marriage and then that is forever. That is indissoluble. That’s that. There is no change. That is not going to change.

CNA: Since last year’s Synod on the Family the situation of migration has exploded, in a way. How would you like to see this issue explored in the Synod? How can the issue of migration for families be addressed in a way that demonstrates a pastoral and Christian solidarity, while maintaining a certain degree of prudence from a security standpoint?

Cardinal Nichols: Clearly, for European countries at the moment, the migration of people from the Middle East and from parts of Africa is a very considerable challenge. Some of that is indeed to do with poverty, refugee status, and real desperation. We should have the integrity of the family foremost in our minds, frankly. For example, we would want to argue that, if there are family members already — for example — in England, of people who are at present caught in refugee camps in Northern Iraq or in Jordan, or in parts of Syria, then they should be given the opportunity to reconnect with their families.

These family identities are important, and I don’t think that’s being given the attention that it could in the response of European governments to this flow of people across Europe.

That’s a particularly dramatic thing at the moment. But, we see it in many issues. People, for example, who arrive in England, maybe are present legally, work very hard, but are still separated from their families. The British government has some very strict rules, even for British citizens, as to whether they can bring their non-British spouses into the country. So, there are aspects of British government policy which mitigate against the integrity of the family. That is something that we would want really to press, and have been doing so for a while.

CNA: Another theme that is expected to receive attention at the Synod is the pastoral care of persons with same-sex attraction. There have been two conferences on this theme this weekend: One looking at a pastoral care from the viewpoint of encouraging chastity, and the other from a viewpoint of supporting same-sex relationships. Are the Synod fathers listening to what is coming out of these sorts of conversations?

Cardinal Nichols: I think the Synod fathers — and the vast majority are pastoral bishops who are close to their people — listen to their priests. We in England have had consultations with the priests precisely on this question of pastoral care. I think we are very aware of the situation of people and the different opinions there are, but nevertheless in this there are some fundamental values and principles in the way the disciples of Jesus want to live and are asked to live which don’t change and they are to do with marriage being between a man and a woman and the place for sexual intimacy being within marriage. Everybody is on a journey when it comes to their sexual activity, their sexuality and their sexual maturity, and I think what is clear is that the ideals are there, the call of the Gospel is there whether for marriage or for people who experience their friendships and their deepest love with somebody of the same sex. The pathway is clear and it is the task of the pastor to try and help someone to walk on that pathway, towards the invitation of Christ, given out of love which will be to entrust themselves to him in their friendships and to deepen those friendships so they really do become a powerful presence of God’s presence in their lives.

CNA: What will your contribution be to this Synod?

Cardinal Nichols: My hope would be, just as after the Synod on evangelization the Holy Father published a document called “The Joy of the Gospel,” that at the end of this process he might publish an exaltation called “The Joy of the family.” I think we have to have a very positive view. (As) Pope Francis said in Philadelphia, ‘If we take the stance that sees the family as a problem, then we’re going to set off on the wrong foot.’

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Cardinal Ruini reflects on the Magisterium’s continuity

by CNA/EWTN News • October 8, 2015

Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict embrace each other at the Vatican’s Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, June 30, 2015. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Rome, Italy — Cardinal Camillo Ruini, who was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Rome when Venerable Pius XII was Pope, emphasized in a recent interview that he has experienced the continuity of Popes, from Pacelli to Bergoglio.

“I have no difficulty in recognizing that there are differences, some of them significant, between Pope Francis and his closest predecessors. I collaborated for twenty years with John Paul II, and then briefly with Benedict: it’s natural for me to share their sensibilities. But I would like to add something. The elements of continuity are much more important that the differences.”

“Ever since I was a high school student I learned to see in the Pope first of all the mission of the Successor of Peter, and only secondarily the specific person; and to completely join my heart, in addition to my words and actions, to the Pope. When John XXIII succeeded Pius XII, the changes were no less great; yet even then I had the same attitude,” Cardinal Ruini said to Italian daily Corriere della Sera Oct. 4.

“It’s true that the differences aren’t just a matter of style. But they don’t touch upon the principle mission and the visible foundation of the unity of the faith and of the communion of the whole Church … Pope Francis himself has commented a number of times that what he is doing is simply being faithful to the Gospel, not holding an ideological position.”

Cardinal Ruini is the vicar general emeritus of the Diocese of Rome – he served in the position from 1991 to 2008. He spoke to Corriere shortly after a Polish priest working in the Roman Curia came out as gay and was dismissed after calling for a change in Church teaching on homosexual acts.

The priest, Msgr. Charamsa, had claimed that the Church’s call for homosexuals to live a life of abstinence is “inhumane.”

Cardinal Ruini responded that “as a priest I too have the obligation of abstinence, and in more than 60 years [of priesthood] I have never felt myself dehumanized, or deprived of a life of love, which is something much greater that the exercise of sexuality.”

He reflected that while “one hears a lot of talk” about a supposed “gay lobby” at the Vatican, “personally I have no way to talk about this gay lobby, and I would not wish to calumniate innocent persons,” adding that “if it is true, it is a sad thing, which needs to be cleaned up.”

The cardinal then reflected on Pope Francis’ July 28, 2013 flight from Rio de Janeiro to Rome, in which he distinguished between persons with homosexual tendencies and those who lobby for recognition of homosexual acts and relationships, and said that “If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him?”

“These are perhaps the most misunderstood words of Pope Francis,” Cardinal Ruini commented. “It is a gospel precept – do not judge unless you wish to be judged – which we must apply to all, obviously including homosexuals, and which requires us to have respect and love for all. But Pope Francis has clearly expressed himself on a number of occasions in opposition to marriage between persons of the same sex.”

Thence the cardinal affirmed that Pope Francis is frequently exploited in the media for ideological gain. “That certain positions of the Pope are emphasized and other passed over virtually unnoticed, is more than a risk; it is a fact.”

Cardinal Ruini voiced his opposition to the legalization of same-sex unions, saying they “ignore the difference and complimentarity between man and woman, which is fundamental from the not only the physical, but also the psychological and anthropological points of view. Humanity through the millenia has known of polygamy and polyandry, but this case of marriage between persons of the same sex is an absolute novelty: a true break which is in contrast to experience and to reality. Homosexuality has always been around; but no one ever thought of making marriage out of it.”

The interview then turned to the discussion around pastoral care of the divorced-and-remarried, with Corriere‘s Aldo Cazzullo asking if it is possible to admit them to Communion.

“No. The divorced-and-remarried cannot be readmitted to Communion; not because of their particularly grave personal guilt, but because of the state in which they objectively are,” the cardinal replied. “The previous marriage in fact continues to exist, because sacramental marriage is indissoluble, as Pope Francis said on his return flight from the United States. Therefore to have sexual relations with another person would objectively be adultery.”

Asked about the new norms regarding the process of investigating the possible nully of a marriage, introduced by Pope Francis in August, Cardinal Ruini said that the only way they would weaken the bond or introduce a sort of “Catholic divorce” is “if the new provisions are not applied in a responsible manner. What is necessary first of all is to improve the preparation of judges.”

“To surreptitiously introduce a kind of Catholic divorce would really be hypocritical, very damaging to the Church and to her credibility. But Pope Francis’ decision, for which many of us – myself included – hoped, has nothing to do with that kind of hypocrisy.”

Regarding the question of the relationship between the faith of those who marry and the sacrament of marriage, Cardinal Ruini commented that “Pope Benedict, while being convinced that faith is necessary for sacramental marriage, as for any sacrament, was very prudent in drawing from this principle practical consequences. Even Pope Francis limited himself to indicating that a lack of faith is one of the circumstances which could allow the more brief procress before the bishop, when this lack of faith generates a simulation of consent, or an error which determines the will.”

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Ugandans are eagerly preparing for papal visit with prayer, penance

by CNA/EWTN News • October 8, 2015

Pope Francis greets pilgrims before the General Audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, Aug. 19, 2015. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Gulu, Uganda — In anticipation of Pope Francis’ first visit to their country, the head of the Ugandan bishops conference has called on Catholics to make themselves ready to welcome the Pope though prayer and charitable works.

“The Pope’s visit and presence during the celebrations requires us to prepare in a special way. The nature of this visit is primarily pastoral and spiritual,” Archbishop John Baptist Odama of Gulu said in his Oct. 7 pastoral letter on behalf of his fellow bishops.

Although Pope Francis will be the third Roman Pontiff to visit Uganda – the only African nation that can lay claim to such a privilege – the real excitement comes from his visit coinciding with the 50th anniversary celebration of the canonization of the Ugandan Martyrs.

These 22 holy men and women, “whose blood has been the seed of Christianity in this country” Archbishop Odama said, were executed by the king in the 1880s for refusing to denounce their faith. Blessed Paul VI canonized them Oct. 18, 1964.

In order to prepare for these events, Archbishop Odama asked that Catholics unite in prayer by praying a set of one “Our Father”, one “Hail Mary”, and one “Glory be” before the final blessing at each Mass from now until the papal visit, “for the intentions of the Pope and the success of his visit.”

Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Africa from Nov. 25-30, with his first stop in Kenya from Nov. 25-27, followed by Uganda Nov. 27-29, and finally the Central African Republic Nov. 29-30.

Archbishop Odama asked Catholics to serve the poor and practice penance “so that we can receive the Papal blessing in a worthy manner.” Above all, however, he said Catholics should “make every effort to reconcile and love one another as Christ has loved us.”

“Most importantly, in a country like ours where unity and national consensus has eluded us for decades, the Pope comes as a bridge builder,” the archbishop said. “His visit provides yet another golden opportunity for us Ugandans to be instruments of unity, peace and reconciliation in the family, and among the various religious, cultural and political groups.”

Such an opportunity “demands of us to imitate Christ who came to serve rather than to be served, it invites us to be servants to one another,” he said.

That some 15 million Ugandans are Catholic today is a testament to the sacrifice of the holy martyrs, he said.

“Uganda presents one of the most remarkable stories in the history of Christian faith and martyrdom,” Archbishop Odama said, remarking that, “(a)t the start of the 20th Century, there were barely ten thousand Catholics within our borders.”

The Catholic Church has contributed to the social transformation of Uganda, the archbishop said, especially in the areas of education and healthcare to both the wealthy and the poor.

“As we reflect on the above achievements, we need to ask ourselves what our individual contributions have been,” he said.

However, he added that the Church in Uganda is “best by challenges to which we … need to pay particular attention,” noting the “alarming gap and contradictions between the faith we profess and the life we live, between the gospel and some traditional African practices such as polygamy, cohabitation, trial marriage, witchcraft and human sacrifice. While many Catholics recognize the sacredness of marriage, many are non-compliant to the demands of Christian marriage.”

Ugandan families also face a host of problems, he said, listing domestic violence, alcoholism, infidelity, poor communication, underage marriage, excessive dowry, child abuse, poverty, denial of mutual love, and the spread of HIV/AIDS.

“Before the Holy Father comes, we are challenged to recommit ourselves to promoting the values and sanctity of marriage and the family, and to rebuilding the moral fibre of our country,” Archbishop Odama said.

The Uganda Martyrs provide “an ideal example of what it required to live the faith within the family and the Church,” he said noting that some of them were married “traditionally” but embraced monogamy in accordance with Church teaching.

Catholic Ugandans should also delve more deeply into the Church’s social teaching, especially care for the poor, as well as protection of the environment discussed in Laudato si, Archbishop Odama concluded.

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WORLD NEWS

African bishops throw swift punch at ‘ideological colonization’

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

Opening Mass for the Synod of Bishops on the Family, Oct. 8, 2015. (Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk)

Vatican City — Heavy criticism of the West imposing secular values on Africa in exchange for aid emerged as a theme from the continent’s bishops, as the Vatican’s synod on the family kicks off its first week.

From press conferences to individual interviews, multiple prelates voiced concern over what Pope Francis has termed “ideological colonization,” in which Western nations have made the acceptance of legislature favoring gay rights and “marriage” contingent on receiving financial aid.

“It’s one thing that the African bishops are very, very conscious of,” Cardinal Wilfred Napier of South Africa told journalists Oct. 7.

“What we are talking about is when countries are told unless you pass certain legislation, you’re not going to get aid from the governments or aid agencies,” he said, pointing to the danger of “political colonization” being replaced “by a different kind of colonization.”

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

Cardinal Napier held up the example of the Obama administration, specifically the President’s visit to Kenya in July. During his two-day trip to the country Obama spoke out about the importance of gay rights, despite requests from Kenya’s leaders to not address the issue. Homosexual acts are illegal in Kenya, as well as several other African countries. Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State “repeated much the same message” to Africa as well, he added.

In an Oct. 8 interview with CNA, Archbishop John Baptist Odama of Gulu and president of the Ugandan Episcopal Conference called the act “criminal,” and said ideologies must never be attached to receiving aid, which is meant to save lives.

“The issue of homosexuality should not be linked with saying ‘if you don’t accept this we won’t help you,’ that is criminal, I call it criminal,” he said.

“Aid should not be linked with ideological acceptance or rejection. Aid is to save human life. If you link it to ideology it becomes contradictory … it is self-defeating.”

Human beings must be helped without any conditions attached, Archbishop Odama said, adding that the survival of human life “is paramount,” and that the family exists precisely to promote human life.

“Any other society, any other groups elsewhere should exist to promote life and protect life, so if it intends to limit the life to be protected or to be accepted to a certain way of thinking then we run short,” he said.

“So any issue against human life is an issue against humanity in general.”

In an Oct. 8 press briefing with journalists, Archbishop Charles Palmer-Buckle of Accra, Ghana lamented how some European countries pressured Africa to accept legislation favoring gay “marriage” after Pope Francis made his 2013 “Who am I to judge?” comment on the way back from Rio de Janeiro in reference gay individuals authentically seeking Christ.

The comment, he said, “had huge repercussions in our country (Ghana),” and prompted one European country – which he identified as Britain – “to tell us that if we do not accept this gay marriages and the rest, they were not going to give us financial help.”

“We found it rather very sad that some government could take the sovereignty of another country and say ‘if you don’t do this we won’t do that,’” he said, calling the move a “gross violation of what we call the sovereignty of countries.”

Similarly, Cardinal Berhaneyesus Demerew Souraphiel, C.M, archbishop of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, told CNA Oct. 8 that Africa’s traditional values must be respected.

He recalled how when Benedict XVI visited Africa in 2011, the pontiff said that the African continent has “their own values you are in fact the spiritual lung of the world and you can become the spiritual lungs of the world because you have traditional values.”

Protecting those values, such as life and the love and protection of it, is of utmost importance to the African bishops, the cardinal said, explaining that they have already spoken about these issues and “we will speak about them more I feel.”

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WORLD NEWS

For Cubans, the Pope’s visit brought hope - but will it last?

by Kevin Jones (CNA/EWTN News) • October 9, 2015

Pope Francis is greeted by children with flowers in Santiago de Cuba on Sept. 22, 2015. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Havana, Cuba — After Pope Francis’ visit as a “missionary of mercy,” Cuba is now in a prime moment to move forward in its relationship with the Church and work for the common good, said a representative of an aid group that works in the country.

“What he brought them above all was his message of the ‘logic of love’ of Jesus – a love of selfless service to our fellow men, a love that is capable of transforming hearts with a glance of mercy, a love that is active, goes out and builds bridges, a love that is revealed in a special way in family life,” said Ulrich Kny, head of the Latin American section for Aid to the Church In Need.

Kny is responsible for the Germany-based international Catholic charity’s projects in Cuba. He was in Cuba for the Sept. 19-22 papal visit.

Kny recounted that the Pope had exhorted Cubans to “live the revolution of tenderness like Mary, the Mother of Mercy.” The pontiff also encouraged Cubans to establish friendships that seek the common good despite their differences.

The Pope’s success in mediating closer diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba had already generated enthusiasm among Cubans, Kny told CNA Oct. 6.

“For most Cubans he had given new hope of an imminent end to the U.S. economic embargo. Consequently, as soon as he arrived in Havana, he was jubilantly welcomed by tens of thousands of flag-waving Cubans.”

Despite the small percentage of active Catholics in Cuba, the papal visit dominated media coverage. Cuban state media televised live broadcasts of papal events and documentaries about the Pope.

Kny believes the Pope’s “gestures of openness, warm-heartedness and humanity” touched the hearts of all Cubans. He cited the Pope’s manner of approaching people and giving total attention to those who met him personally.

Despite the difficulties facing the Church in Cuba, the Church’s efforts to promote the well-being of the Cuban people is being recognized by the government, Kny said. “More and more of her activities are at least being tolerated.”

“The Church in Cuba has learned over decades to survive in an atheist environment. She has now emerged from the catacombs and – despite all the opposition and difficulties – has become an active force in society and has earned for herself great respect in all levels of Cuban society. The Church in Cuba can today offer the universal Church her own experience in dialogue with a society that for the most part has no knowledge of God.”

Kny has been particularly impressed by the creativity of the bishops, priests, religious and laity who are able to “slowly but steadily expand the limited room for maneuver allowed them in their work of evangelization.”

The visit of Benedict XVI in 2012 brought the re-establishment of Good Friday as a public holiday, but did not yield much substance improvement in the government’s stance toward the Church. Kny hopes that Pope Francis’ visit will mean the Church “will really be granted more room to develop.”

The Cuban government officially professes to respect religious freedom, but in practice the Catholic Church is still “very far from a normal pastoral situation,” according to Kny. The Church must seek official permission for all events or celebrations outside church walls, a difficult process that is “fraught with chicanery.”

Ahead of the papal visit, organizers had to wait until the last minute for official permission for the preparatory program for the Pope’s meeting with young people in Havana. Many dioceses had to fight for enough places on planes and trains for pilgrims who wanted to travel to the three papal Masses.

Other major problems include insufficient access to communications media and the lack of permission to import vehicles for pastoral work. Church construction also faces large obstacles.

With few exceptions, “the Catholic Church is again and again not granted permission to build new churches, whereas Protestant groups and sects such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses have been allowed to build more and more temples in recent years.”

“Yet despite all the difficulties, it is noticeable that the Catholic Church is becoming an ever more important player within Cuban society,” Kny affirmed.

He encouraged prayers for Cuba and efforts to strengthen support for the Church so that she can overcome financial obstacles and reach her full potential for evangelization. This will help the Church give Cubans the opportunity for “a personal encounter with Jesus Christ.”

He said the time after Pope Francis’ visit is a “very favorable moment” for this support.

At the same time, he cautioned, the Church in Cuba lacks the human, material and logistical resources to strengthen and deepen the faith of the Cuban people, decades after the communist revolution.

“The hunger for God is enormous, yet many Cubans have only a very sketchy knowledge of their faith. The task of deepening this knowledge, by means of an extensive catechetical program and through the experience of a personal encounter with the living Christ, represents an enormous challenge for the Church in Cuba and one for which she simply has too few pastoral workers available,” Kny told CNA.

Young Catholic laity have few prospects and tend to emigrate, meaning it is very hard to guarantee continuity in lay formation, he said. The failures of Cuba’s transportation system and high fuel costs also limit Catholic gatherings. Church vehicles are antiquated and in constant need of repair, which hinders the capacity for pastoral visits.

While the Church is reacquiring properties confiscated after the communist revolution, these require costly restoration work when building materials and money are in short supply, he continued. Securing official permissions for repair work is again a drawn-out process.

For Kny, the greater problems for Cuba include “moral deformation.” Not only is abortion widely practiced, but there is a general absence of Christian values from education, which is run by a state monopoly.

The country is continuing to struggle economically since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s main economic partner. Cubans also face drastic food rationing. People are often dependent on financial support from relatives abroad, they buy stolen goods on the black market, or even feel forced to steal state property.

They describe this practice using the Spanish word “resolver,” which roughly means “to find a solution.”

“This kind of basic attitude, which is of course contrary to Christian moral values, is one that no one can blame the Cubans for, given the current situation,” Kny said. “Yet for the future it harbors great dangers, for it is another thing that contributes ultimately to a thoroughly corrupt society.”

Recent changes in U.S.-Cuban relations have helped Cubans strengthen their connections with relatives in the U.S. Kny reported that many people gather at newly established internet hotspots to surf on the internet or to chat and e-mail their U.S. relatives.

“Most of these gadgets and their expensive access codes are paid for by their relatives abroad,” he said.

The Cuban government has long been controversial because of its actions against its own people, especially political dissidents. Catholic human rights advocates and others are frequently detained.

However, Kny hoped for a way forward.

“For all the justified criticism of the human rights abuses and the restriction of the freedoms of the Cuban people, we should avoid any kind of polemics and confrontation,” he recommended. “The Cuban leadership has realized, thank God, that the Church is not interested in political opposition but in the welfare of the Cuban people.”

He said the Church does not restrict herself to denouncing injustice. Rather, she seeks dialogue with the government and with society while “doing everything possible to introduce Christian values and convey to the Cuban people a hope that unites and that offers life and future.”

“I believe that the Church in Cuba is on the right path here.”

The Aid to the Church in Need website is churchinneed.org.

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U.S. NEWS

This Catholic healthcare group is being sued for refusing to provide abortions

by Maggie Maslak (CNA/EWTN News) • October 4, 2015

(Africa Studio via shutterstock.com)

Detroit, MI — Trinity Health Corporations, one of the largest Catholic health care operations in America, is seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union over its refusal to provide women with abortion services at their medical facilities.

“This case has no merit. A federal court already dismissed a similar ACLU claim, and we will seek dismissal of this suit for the same reason,” stated Eve Pidgeon, the manager of public relations at Trinity Health Corporations.

Trinity Health Corporations is a multi-facility operation headquartered in Livonia, a Detroit suburb, with more than 80 other hospital locations across America.

The health group adheres to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ ethical and religious protocol for medical practice, which includes the refusal to perform abortions and tubal ligations within their hospitals.

These directives for Catholic health services from the USCCB have been consistently followed by Trinity Health Corporation hospitals, which also cover various other medical issues from palliative care to birth control.

The ACLU and the ACLU of Michigan are suing Trinity Health over allegations that pregnant women are being denied “emergency health care” - specifically abortions - when they seek care at their hospitals. The ACLU is also underscoring Trinity Health’s refusal to perform operations such as tubal ligations on pregnant women because of the medical directives they follow.

The ACLU maintains that Trinity Health Corporations is in violation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). According to the ACLU, failing to offer pregnant women abortion services because of religious directives breaches this federal law.

However, when a similar case was brought against the USCCB in 2013 Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, president of the bishops’ conference, called the lawsuit “baseless,” saying their medical directives “urge respectful and compassionate care for both mothers and their children, both during and after pregnancy.”

That lawsuit was dismissed in June by a federal district court. The ACLU filed an appeal the following month.

Trinity Health also refuted the current allegations from the ACLU, upholding their ethical and medical procedures as coherent with best practices for women’s health.

“The Ethical and Religious Directives are entirely consistent with high-quality health care, and our clinicians continue to provide superb care throughout the communities we serve,” Pidgeon asserted, defending the USCCB regulations the hospital group follows.

“We are proud that more than 25,000 licensed physicians work directly with our health system and share our commitment to people-centered care,” Pidgeon continued, maintaining Trinity Health’s standard of practice.

The lawsuit against Trinity Health Corporations was announced Oct. 1 at a U.S. district court in Detroit, and Trinity Health Corporations is seeking dismissal of the case.

The ACLU has long opposed Catholic hospitals operating according to Catholic teaching. The ACLU and the group the MergerWatch Project co-authored a 2013 report that claimed the growth of Catholic hospitals was a “miscarriage of medicine.”

The report says the ACLU’s work in this area is supported by the “generous support” of two anonymous donors as well as the Arcus Foundation, the Herb Block Foundation, the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, the George Gund Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Scherman Foundation.

Kevin J. Jones contributed to this report.

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U.S. NEWS

Despite objections, Calif. governor signs assisted-suicide bill

by CNA/EWTN News • October 5, 2015

(ashley rose via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Los Angeles, CA — After months of debate and strong opposition, California governor Jerry Brown on Monday signed into a law a bill enabling doctors to prescribe drugs that will end the lives of terminally ill patients.

“This is a dark day for California and for the Brown legacy,” said Californians against Assisted Suicide. The group warned in an Oct. 5 statement that people and families in the state could be harmed “by giving doctors the power to prescribe lethal overdoses to patients.”

With the passage of the law, California will become the fifth state allowing ill patients to end their lives. Montana, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington also allow assisted suicide, while similar bills have been defeated in several states, including Colorado and Massachusetts.

The California law, based on similar legislation in Oregon, allows doctors to give lethal drugs to adults with a terminal illness if they are deemed medically competent and expected to die within six months. It will not take effect until 90 days after the end of the legislature’s special healthcare session, which will likely be next year.

The controversial bill had drawn criticism for months. It was temporarily withdrawn from the State Senate in July, but resurfaced and was passed Sept. 11 by a vote of 23-14.

Local Catholic leaders had decried the measure as a violation of human dignity.

“Death will always be a mystery and death will never be easy – for those who are dying or for those who love them. But we can make death less painful, less frightening and we can even make it a time of beauty, mercy and reconciliation,” Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez had written in a letter to state lawmakers.

“Once we start down this path – once we establish in law that some lives are not as valuable as others, not worth ‘paying for’ – there will be no turning back,” he warned. “The logic of doctor-assisted suicide does not stop with the terminally ill.”

Health care and civil rights groups also opposed the bill, along with disabilities rights groups, who say that the legislation discriminates against the disabled and could lead to pressure on them to end their own lives.

Opponents argued that assisted suicide sends a dangerous societal message that suicide is an acceptable way to handle pain and difficulty. They pointed to abuses in other states where the practice has been legalized and lethal prescriptions have changed hands – either knowingly or unknowingly – with deadly results.

In addition, those fighting the bill noted that terminal diagnoses are not always correct, and assisted suicide may end the life of patients who may have gone on to live longer than anticipated or lived to see medical advances that could have cured or eased their condition.

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U.S. NEWS

Here’s what it was like when Pope Francis visited the homeless in D.C.

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • October 6, 2015

Pope Francis speaks at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City during Vespers on Sept. 24, 2015. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Washington, D.C. — Pope Francis’ visit to homeless men and women in Washington, D.C., was “life-changing,” said the head of Catholic Charities in the nation’s capital.

He added that many of those who met the Pope described the event as validating their dignity and showing them the presence of God.

Along with every major speech to a political body during his U.S. visit, Pope Francis also paid a visit to the poor or vulnerable, noted Monsignor John Enzler, CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., who hosted Pope Francis.

This was “a juxtaposition of, if you will, power and richness and big voice and money and prestige versus no voice, no money, no prestige, powerless,” he told CNA.

Yet the Pope treated both audiences “exactly the same,” and he even “seemed to be more engaged with those who did not have than with those who did.”

The homeless loved his personal outreach to them, Msgr. Enzler remarked. They said they could “feel the Spirit of God there,” he recalled, and one homeless person in attendance said, “I feel like I’m legitimate now,” and “I feel like I have dignity.”

During his visit to Washington, D.C. on Sept. 24, the Pope addressed the U.S. Congress inside the Capitol building, then traveled straight over to St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in downtown Washington, D.C. to meet with clients of Catholic Charities, including immigrants, the homeless, and persons with disabilities and mental illness.

Entering the church, the Holy Father slowly proceeded up the main aisle, greeting many of those in attendance before spending a few moments in prayer at a side altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Pope Francis then talked to those in attendance about homelessness, noting, “The Son of God came into this world as a homeless person, and praising St. Joseph as “a support and an inspiration.”

“To me it was a huge reminder for our whole country and all of us that there’s a whole culture of people out there who are sometimes forgotten, and we dare not forget them as part of our mission,” Msgr. Enzler said.

The Pope then walked next door to Catholic Charities, blessed the chapel, and was presented with a 400-page book listing all the pledges made to “Walk With Francis.” This popular campaign was led by Catholic Charities and the Archdiocese of Washington, asking people to pledge an act of prayer, service, or advocacy in solidarity with the papal visit.

The initiative hit 100,000 pledges on Sept. 23, the first full day of Francis’ visit to the U.S. The pontiff viewed the pledges briefly with Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., and reportedly wanted the book with him on the plane ride to New York City later that day to look through it further.

Pope Francis then walked out the front door to meet with homeless clients of Catholic Charities at their weekly lunch program. He offered no lengthy prayer but simply blessed the food and said “Buon appetito!”

The homeless people present received the Pope with such enthusiasm, it was like a “mosh pit,” Msgr. Enzler said, adding that the Secret Service couldn’t do a thing about it. “Well we just lost him,” one agent was overheard saying.

Pope Francis had desired to be closer to the crowds on his D.C. trip, but hadn’t gotten many opportunities to do so, the monsignor noted. However, he got that chance on the Catholic Charities visit.

“I probably heard from 50 people who shook his hand, whom he said to ‘please pray for me,’ whom he talked to briefly. He really did engage people,” Msgr. Enzler said.

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U.S. NEWS

A triumph through remarkable trial: The story of one Catholic athlete

by Alisa Flickinger (CNA/EWTN News) • October 6, 2015

Valeria Tkacik. (Sports Up Today)

Naples, FL — Remembering the words spoken by then-five year-old Valeria Tkacik still gives her mother, Anne, goose bumps.

“I turned around to look at her, and she was looking at me and smiling, and I’ll never forget that day. She said, ‘Mommy, I was born to make people happy.’ I said to her, ‘I know you will.’ I truly believe she was getting a message from the angels right then. And from all her achievements, I know this to be true.”

These days, Tkacik is a standout lacrosse player for Ave Maria University in Florida. By all accounts, she is a leader on and off the field.

Tkacik was named to the National Women’s Lacrosse League South Regional Team and is considered a talented athlete who loves playing lacrosse, basketball, golf, track, soccer and flag football.

A good student in the classroom, Tkacik was also accepted as a Mother Teresa Scholar at Ave Maria. She has contributed service time for charity work, including a mission trip to Harlem, N.Y., where she served the poor and homeless. Tkacik recently donated 12 inches of her hair to Art of Wigs (Texas) to help cancer patients. As a freshman, she served as a representative on Ave Maria’s Student Government. For her sophomore year, she will serve on the Student Activities Board and was selected for Ave Maria’s Media Internship Program.

And if those achievements aren’t enough, Tkacik is also a motivational speaker, helping patients who are struggling with the loss of limbs and providing them encouragement. The reason? Tkacik can relate to their story.

You see, what makes Tkacik’s life especially inspiring is that she achieves so much with only one arm.

Tkacik was adopted from Russia at 18 months old. Her parents say they were meant to be a family right from the start. In fact, Tkacik came home nine months from when they first saw her picture.

“We look at Valeria as we are blessed,” says her mother, clearly proud. “It was the right direction to go in our lives. We always look back and think, she wasn’t born to us but it was perfect harmony between the three of us. You’re either meant for adoption or you’re not. It’s given to you by God.”

Tkacik was born with a condition called congenital shoulder disarticulation, meaning she has no left arm. Workers at the children’s home where she was born said the condition was due to complications from the kidney medication her birth mother was taking during her pregnancy.

But being born with only one arm hasn’t stopped Tkacik from living a life more active than most.

Tkacik’s parents decided early on that words like “handicapped” and “disability” would not be part of their home vocabulary. “We knew with her situation that we wanted to make sure Valeria had the confidence needed to do the things she wants to do,” says her father, John. “Valeria knew she had to work harder than others and she did, that’s the kind of girl she is. Valeria has a lot of self-confidence and we can’t hold her back.”

Tkacik thrived on that support.

“My parents always believed that they would never set any limitations on me,” she says. “They always encouraged me to do my best. My parents have given me everything.”

From the time Tkacik was very young, she loved playing with toy horses, and one day, she asked to try horseback riding.

John says, “She was four when she started ‘pony camp’ and I remember she was in a riding show her first year. That smile on her face just stole the judge’s hearts. You can never look to Valeria to see which team is losing or winning because she’s always smiling. Valeria enjoys everything she does, she enjoys life.”

Tkacik went on to take five years of dance classes including hip hop and tap dancing, played the trumpet in elementary school and was in the school’s Drama Club. She also got involved in sports, which she says helped build her confidence.

“Growing up as a little girl, I never saw my life as any different and I don’t think my friends did either,” she says.

In fact, her parents called Tkacik the “Pied Piper” of their neighborhood as a child because of her ability to attract new friends. It’s those friends and her community which have lent her support throughout the years.

Still, Tkacik says people are often curious about how she’s able to handle life with one arm.

“People always asked me growing up how I am able to tie my shoes, how do I put my hair up in a pony tail or how I am able to play lacrosse,” she said. “I just say that I just do it. Even though I only have one arm, God has given me so many other beautiful gifts. It’s been a real honor and blessing to please the Lord with all the events and activities I’ve been doing and I think He is pleased with how I handled my situation growing up.”

It didn’t take long for Tkacik’s athletic talents to progress from her first game in 4th grade basketball to some lofty achievements on her 8th grade team. That was the year she was named to two all-tournament teams and won a 3-point contest. She led her team in scoring, assists and blocked shots – so strong defensively that she was the team’s center.

As a junior in high school, Tkacik played an important role during her basketball team’s championship season. She also played the position of defender as a lacrosse player for her high school team; a sport that she had not played until her sophomore year. “I loved guarding the cage,” she said. “At Ave Maria, I also got to play mid-field and absolutely loved it.” Tkacik’s quickness and speed allow her to be a diverse player on the field.

Tkacik said she always knew that God had a plan for her and the entire Tkacik family points to her strong faith as the reason for her success.

“She learned her Catholic faith attending Catholic schools but also living in the faith at home. We would say rosaries at home together. She would remind us it was almost time to pray. The feeling you get from that as a parent wants to make you do it that much more,” her mother reflected.

Those teachings have served her well as a young adult now living away at college. She frequently attends Mass at her university and spends time in the Adoration Chapel.

“(People) always ask me how I am able to do what I do. They say it is something that they could never do,” she said. “It’s a crutch that God gives certain people that He thinks can overcome it and I think I am the right person to handle this.”

“God led my parents to Russia to come pick me up,” she says. “I always had joy in my heart and I always want to give back to God because without Him, I don’t know where I would be.”

Tkacik, a political science major, said she would love to get into politics in the future as she also completed an internship with U.S. Senator Rob Portman in Washington, DC.

“I just think it’s fascinating,” she said. She also an interest in attending law school following her undergraduate studies and is also considering pursuing a career in the media.

Ultimately, Tkacik said she just wants to live the life she’s been called to live.

“Actions speak louder than words and I just love my life,” she said. “My goal is to continue to live a Christ-like life.”

Diane Xavier contributed to this story.

Reprinted with permission from Sports Up Today.

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U.S. NEWS

Religious leaders, scholars ask Obama to declare ISIS violence a genocide

by CNA/EWTN News • October 7, 2015

A young refugee rests after having fled from ISIS and arrived in Ankawa in the northern part of Erbil, Iraq. (ankawa.com)

Washington, D.C. — More than 100 religious leaders, scholars, and human rights advocates signed a letter Monday asking President Obama to formally declare the killing and displacement of Middle Eastern religious minorities a “genocide.”

“We humbly request that your office publicly acknowledge and denounce the Islamic State’s actions as genocide and act with all due haste to ensure that this ongoing, abominable crime is halted, prevented and punished and that the religious freedom and human dignity of all people currently suffering under the Islamic State are allowed to flourish,” the Oct. 5 letter stated.

The Islamic State – known also as ISIS and ISIL – has waged a campaign of violence against the religious minorities of the region, including the “Christian, Yezidi and Shia Muslim communities,” the letter said. The list of grievances includes “displacement, forced conversion, kidnapping, rape and death.”

The atrocities meet the United Nations’ definition of “genocide,” the letter claims.

ISIS has captured large parts of Syria and Iraq in the last two years and has established a strict caliphate, forcing the local religious minorities under pain of death to leave their homes, convert to Islam, or remain and pay a special tax.

They have consequently displaced myriads of Christians, Yazidi and Shia Muslims, inflicting countless atrocities upon those populations. In the Nineveh Plain alone in Northern Iraq, over 100,000 Christians have been displaced from their homes.

ISIS has also desecrated, looted, and destroyed monasteries, shrines, and other ancient relics and artifacts of the region.

The letter to President Obama was signed by numerous religious and civic leaders, including Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus; Professor Robert Destro of the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law; and Dr. Thomas Farr, director of the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.

There are certain conditions that must be met for genocide, according to the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

There must be an “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” The actions in question can range from murder to torture, kidnappings, prevention of births, and withholding of critical resources like food and water from a group of people.

A declaration of genocide also has international legal consequences. The offending parties must be tried before an international court or by a tribunal of the state where the alleged crimes were committed. Parties declaring genocide must also act to prevent further violence from taking place.

A resolution calling the atrocities genocide has already been introduced in the House by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.), weeks earlier. It currently has 96 cosponsors.

Pope Francis, in his address before the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 25, pleaded for the international community to protect endangered Middle Eastern religious minorities.

“I must renew my repeated appeals regarding to the painful situation of the entire Middle East, North Africa and other African countries, where Christians, together with other cultural or ethnic groups, and even members of the majority religion who have no desire to be caught up in hatred and folly, have been forced to witness the destruction of their places of worship, their cultural and religious heritage, their houses and property, and have faced the alternative either of fleeing or of paying for their adhesion to good and to peace by their own lives, or by enslavement,” he said.

In a later interview with CNA, Professor Robert Destro remarked that the Holy Father, with those words, used what is “the legal definition of genocide” to describe the atrocities without saying the actual word “genocide.”

Ultimately, the religious and ethnic minorities “face an existential crisis,” and their communities are threatened with “eventual non-existence without swift moral leadership on behalf of the administration and the international community,” the letter concluded.

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New movement hopes to share the reality of marriage

by Kevin Jones (CNA/EWTN News) • October 7, 2015

A wedding. (Jay Zhang via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

San Francisco, CA — A new group called the Marriage Reality Movement aims to help Catholics and others renew the vision of marriage in society.

“It is about formation for the evangelization of culture starting around the family dinner table,” Bill May, president of the California-based group Catholics for the Common Good Institute, told CNA Oct. 6. “We start by helping people reintroduce marriage to the culture in non-religious language that precisely reflects the teachings of the Church.”

The Marriage Reality Movement launched on Sept. 30 in Philadelphia during the World Meeting of Families. The organization, which is sponsored by the Catholics for the Common Good Institute, aims to build a coalition and promote effective educational materials about marriage.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, the chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, gave the keynote speech at the movement’s launch.

The archbishop said people should look for why marriage exists in nature: “to bring new children into the world and unite the man and woman to each other and to those children they bring into the world.”

May said that the concept of marriage reality is intended to make a distinction from the understanding of marriage as “merely a committed relationship between committed adults.” The concept of “traditional marriage,” for its part, wrongly implies that marriage is simply a matter of human tradition.

Marriage is “an integral part of God’s creation,” May said.

He said the Marriage Reality Movement aims to promote the human right of children “to be born into a family and to be raised in a family with their mom and dad united in marriage.” It aims to help young people to discover the truth of love, marriage, sexuality and family. The movement also aims to “evaluate every law, institution and curriculum by how well it promotes men and women marrying before having children.”

“The reality of marriage is no longer connected to the word in law and culture,” May said.

The movement aims to develop materials to help people explain marriage in non-religious language to their children and their friends “in ways that they can understand and confirm its truth themselves.”

May advised that people focus on the question of whether society needs “a civil institution that connects kids with their moms and their dads.”

“That phrase expresses the fullness of marriage without using the word,” he said.

May said this approach has been successful with young adults.

“It sets their hearts on fire, because they relate to it. God has stamped in our nature the desire to know. They never thought of marriage this way,” he said. “They’re overwhelmed by the truth.”

“I ask them: ‘are you glad your mom and dad married?’ Or they’ll say ‘I wish my mom and dad had married’,” May recounted.

The movement is still in its initial stages. It is providing marriage educational pamphlets for distribution in parishes or other organization. The movement’s website also provides other material for study. It encourages people to organize study groups or incorporate the material into Bible studies or other events.

The Marriage Reality Movement website is takebackmarriage.org.

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How the Catholic Church is fighting loan sharks in Texas

by Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • October 8, 2015

(Andy via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Dallas, Texas — Lenders charging exorbitant rates on payday loans in Arlington, Texas have a new force to contend with in their fight against regulation: the bishops of the Catholic Church.

Last week, the Texas Catholic Conference – which serves as the public policy voice for the Catholic bishops of the state – announced it would join several payday lending opponents in an effort to regulate payday and title loan lending.

“It seems that every week another member of my parish tells me a horror story about one of these loans. They debilitate our families. People take out loans without fully understanding the terms and this begins the vicious cycle of debt that ruins the lives of too many families. This must end,” Father Daniel Kelly, pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Parish in Arlington and chancellor of the Fort Worth Diocese, told The Dallas Morning News.

This isn’t the first time the bishops have been involved in grassroots efforts to reform payday lending, both locally and at the state level.

Jennifer Allmon, associate director of the Texas Catholic Conference, said the Church became involved about six years ago when Catholic Charities agencies realized many of their clients asking for financial assistance had the same problem – outstanding payday loan debt.

The Catholic Church has frequently condemned the practice of usury, or the loaning of money while charging unreasonable rates of interest.

Currently, many payday lenders in Texas are charging interest rates and fees that amount to 500 percent of the original loan or more, according to findings from the Texas Catholic Conference roadshows.

After some research, Catholic Charities found that 18 percent of their clients that were receiving direct financial assistance for payments such as utilities and rent were paying hundreds of dollars in fees every month to payday lenders.

“We began to engage in payday reforms around that time, the impetus being, ‘The Lord hears the cry of the poor,’” Allmon said. “Our bishops engaged and said we can’t witness this happening and not speak out.”

On the state level, the fight has been difficult – Texas does not put limits on payday lending the way many other states do, and any effort to push through legislation is up against a wealthy and powerful lobby on the other side.

“Basically the advocates for consumers and for reform are outspent at the capitol by a very well-funded lobby on the payday lending side of things,” Allmon said. “They spend millions of dollars per session on lobbyists. We try our best to bring clients who are poor and vulnerable, but they have to take a day off work to come up and testify, so it’s been very difficult.”

The Church and other proponents of loan reform have had more success at the city level, where they can get ordinances passed that limit the number of times lenders are allowed to charge fees.

“For example, a local ordinance says you can only charge the fee four times, and then you’re not allowed to continue charging fees at that point, because if the client has a $300 loan and they’ve paid $900 in fees, there’s no risk to the lender at that point, they’ve fully paid the loan back and more,” Allmon explained.

So far, 26 cities in Texas have passed local ordinances that limit the fees lenders can charge, and in most of those cases, she said, the local bishop was directly involved in pushing for those reforms.

In their payday loan reform research, the Texas Catholic Conference also conducted roadshows, during which they travelled to meet with borrowers and lenders alike, to see what the situation was like across the state.

Oftentimes they found that payday lenders put up storefronts right across the street from dentists, because “you can ignore a headache, but can’t really ignore the need for a root canal,” Allmon said.

Similar co-locations were common – lenders would set up shop near places where they knew people would be paying utilities or other necessary bills, and they were very prominent in poor areas of town.

Allmon said they also found that lenders often tried to take advantage of people with disabilities, or people who don’t speak English.

“The loan contracts and loan materials are all in English, but along the border in the valley, all the advertising and verbal discussion in the shop is done in Spanish, so oftentimes the borrower has no idea what they’re signing,” she said. “They’re just trusting the person who told them in Spanish was accurate, but that is the person who benefits by the borrower failing.”

It was not uncommon to find borrowers who had no idea exactly how much interest they were being charged, and for lenders to illegally withhold information from borrowers, she said.

“We’d ask borrowers what they thought their interest rate is, and they’d say about 40 percent, but we’d show them the math and say actually, it’s 800 percent. And they had absolutely no concept that that’s how the loan worked.”

The goal of the current campaign, Allmon said, is to pass reforms at either the state or local levels that protect the lender from failure while being fair to the borrower, according to the seven principles for fair lending listed on their website.

As to whether or not the Church should be involved in public policy issues such as loan reform, Allmon said Pope Francis himself spoke against the abuse of usury to the United Nations during his visit to the United States in September.

The concept of fighting usury is also very biblically-based, she added.

“Jesus turned over the money tables in the temple in a great deal of anger, uncharacteristic anger for the types of statements Jesus usually made, in anger at the lenders charging fees in the temple,” she said.

“So there’s certainly a biblical basis for involvement on the issue, and in the Old Testament as well there are warnings against usury.”

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Chicago shrine seeks help to rebuild after devastating fire

by CNA/EWTN News • October 8, 2015

The Shrine of Christ the King Sovereign Priest in flames, Oct. 7, 2015. (Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest)

Chicago, IL — This morning the Shrine of Christ the King Sovereign Priest in Chicago launched an online restoration fund following Wednesday’s fire at the church, which collapsed much of its roof.

Firefighters responded to the conflagration shortly before 6 a.m. Sept. 7.

The following day the shrine, a certified charity, launched a GoFundMe campaign aimed at raising $500,000 for its restoration. In the last nine hours, it has already raised more than $11,000.

“We have been tested by fire, but this outpouring of support especially from our neighbors helps sustain and renew our faith in our work at the Shrine, in the local community and beyond,” Canon Matthew Talarico, the substitute for the U.S. provincial of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (the community to whom the shrine is entrusted), said in an Oct. 8 statement.

The community writes that “This church has an aura of hope. The Canons and staff at the Shrine are fully committed to carry on the work of restoration, in spite of the devastating fire.”

While the choir loft and part of the roof collapsed, and the windows and much of the interior furnishings were destroyed, the building’s walls and bell tower were secure following the fire. Adjoining the shrine are a rectory and a women’s shelter (formerly a school), both of which were unharmed.

No one was injured, and among the valuables rescued from the blaze were the tabernacle and an 18th century statue of the Infant of Prague.

“Unfortunately, most of the roof collapsed into the structure,” said Deputy Fire Commissioner John McNicholas, according to the local CBS affiliate. “So as beautiful as the structure is, it sustained an awful lot of damage.”

The church is a historic landmark – it was built in 1923 as St. Gelasius parish, and the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest was already in the midst of renovating the building.

The shrine is located in the Woodlawn neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. It forms the United States headquarters of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, a society of apostolic life whose aim is to spread the reign of Christ in all spheres of life, and which celebrates the extraordinary form of the Roman rite.

The shrine had offered concerts and social events to edify the neighborhood since having been entrusted to the Institute in 2004.

Mike Medina, president of the Woodlawn Residents Association, said that “From organizing block clean-up days and hosting meetings with city and civic leaders, to promoting local businesses and teaching hockey to neighborhood youth, the Shrine of Christ the King has been a tireless advocate for Woodlawn and serves our neighborhood with a giving and gracious heart. We stand together with the Shrine!”

Canon Talarico stated: “Hundreds of prayer requests come in weekly from the local area and across the country and it has been a great source of joy in watching this devotion grow.”

Fire officials have said the fire may have been started from rags which were improperly stored after varnishing a portion of the shrine’s floor.

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What is the future of marriage? First we have to look at its history, author says

by Maggie Maslak (CNA/EWTN News) • October 9, 2015

(MNStudio via shutterstock.com)

Washington, D.C. — June’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which mandated recognition of same-sex marriages across the United States, was largely recognized by both supporters and opponents as a groundbreaking ruling.

What are the factors that led to this wide-reaching Supreme Court decision? And what will happen next in the marriage landscape?

Ryan T. Anderson, an author and Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, seeks to answer those questions. He traces what he sees an erosion of marriage over the past half-century – as well as examine the future of marriage in the U.S. – in his latest book, Truth Overruled: the Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom.

Anderson begins by saying that the overall restructuring of marriage began long before legalizing homosexual marriage was even a discussion.

“It’s not gays and lesbians who were the first to come up with the idea that ‘love makes a family,’” Anderson told CNA, saying the slogan came out of the ‘60s and the birth of the sexual revolution, which backed the notion that marriage lasts only as long as the feeling of love does.

“In general, the values that come out of the sexual revolution are saying that consenting adults can do whatever consenting adults want to - the only value that matters is consent,” he continued, saying this sentiment is an all-too-familiar quality that has carried itself into the modern-day discussion of marriage.

Post-sexual revolution, America saw the steady rise of the hookup culture, non-marital childbearing, divorce, and cohabitation, he said. This escalation ignored the traditional, comprehensive understanding of marriage as a life-long, permanent bond between a man and a woman - making it more and more feasible to redefine its meaning.

“It’s only after a generation or two of heterosexuals making a mess of marriage that it is even plausible to have justices legally redefine what marriage is,” Anderson asserted.

Allowing same-sex marriage across the country is not the only problem with the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, according to Anderson, who says this decision also tackles an additional political hurdle.

“The U.S. Constitution does not define marriage one way or the other - they leave that up to the states,” he said, and it is “unclear” why five Supreme Court justices were given the ability to make the decision for all 50 states when the Constitution remains silent on the matter.

Ever since the ruling in June, Anderson said, religious freedom and democratic justice have been threatened by the very fact that the tradition of democracy was usurped during the proceedings of the 5-4 ruling.

“The Supreme Court’s ruling is not just going to impact marriage, but also civil society, religious freedom, education, our children and grandchildren,” he wrote.

First, “redefining marriage teaches that men and women are interchangeable, that moms and dads are replaceable,” stated Anderson.

“It makes it further difficult for us to say that fathers are essential, whereas redefining marriage makes them optional,” he continued, saying that every family with a mother and father have been undermined by this decision, cheapening the very fabric of familial culture.

Secondly, Anderson says that the ruling paves the way for polygamy, which is currently illegal in all 50 states.

“Once you get rid of the male-female part of marriage, there is no reason for marriage to be monogamous, exclusive, or permanent,” he said.

The author also pointed to other effects of same-sex marriage on Americans, such as the Colorado cake baker who is facing a lawsuit for declining to bake a cake for a same-sex ceremony. Anderson said, this is just one example of how individuals and religious freedom are being manipulated in the name of tolerance.

In addition, he said, the Supreme Court ruling “has shut down debate just as we were starting to hear new voices - gay people who agree that children need their mother and father, and children of same-sex couples who wish they knew both their mom and dad.”

As an example, he pointed to Heather Barwick, a daughter of same-sex parents, who has said that being raised in this way is harmful for children because it deprives them of their right to both a mother and a father.

Despite these consequences, Anderson does not see the legalization of same-sex marriage as inevitably being the final word.

“The Supreme Court got marriage wrong, and got the Constitution wrong,” he asserted, but every American should be working to protect their liberties and freedoms – by going out into the public square and bear witness to traditional marriage.

“We can do this in our own lives, by living out the truth about marriage in our families,” Anderson concluded, saying that “we also have to be prepared to make the argument about marriage, what it is, and why it matters.”

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Brian Williams, Chris Matthews, and Letting the Fly Out of the Fly Bottle

by Bishop Robert Barron • October 6, 2015

During the Pope’s visit to America, I had the privilege of commenting for NBC News and for MSNBC. Twice I was on for extended periods with Brian Williams, the former anchor for NBC Nightly News, and twice with Chris Matthews, the host of Hardball. I must say that both men are very good at what they do, namely, keeping a conversation going among several different people with varying points of view and assuring that things stay sufficiently lively and interesting. Like most gifted people, they make their particular work seem effortless, but it is a delicate and dangerous high-wire act that they are performing - and all on live television. Williams is a cool customer with a sly sense of humor, and I might add a surprisingly detailed knowledge of motor vehicles and aircraft, whereas Matthews is more passionate, brash, and unpredictable. I enjoyed spending time with both of them.

A theme to which Chris Matthews returned again and again was the role of women in the Church. Like most liberally minded Catholics, he thinks that women get the short end of the stick most of the time and that simple justice demands that they be given equal opportunity. Once he baldly introduced the subject to me this way: “Bishop, isn’t it true that, in the Catholic Church, the management is all male while the women do most of the grunt work? Why can’t women be priests?” Another time, he wondered, “how come all the bishops are Republicans while all the nuns are Democrats?” I certainly know how complex these questions are and how they stir up such strong feelings on all sides, but in responding to these questions, I tried a technique that the philosopher Wittgenstein referred to as “letting the fly out of the fly bottle.” This means to move the discussion into an entirely different register so as to prevent all the disputants from spending a lot of energy only to end up in frustration.

I told Matthews that I thought it was very important to revisit the largely unrealized aspiration of the Vatican II fathers to empower the laity to sanctify the world. Priests, I explained, have as their sole purpose the sanctification of the laity through word and sacrament precisely so as to enable great Catholic lawyers, business leaders, writers, journalists, investors, parents, teachers, etc. to make the world a holy place. The book of Revelation holds out to us the image of the heavenly Jerusalem, with its streets of gold and gates of pearl, but with no temple in it. The point is that the city itself has become a temple, which is to say, a place of right praise. So what is the role of women in the Church? How can women find more power? By becoming world-transforming saints! Thérèse of Lisieux, Bernadette of Lourdes, Mother Katharine Drexel, Mother Cabrini, Mother Teresa, and Edith Stein all wielded more real power than 99% of the priests and bishops of their time. If we move our attention away from the priesthood and toward sainthood, we let the fly out of the fly bottle.

During our coverage of the Pope’s final Mass in Philadelphia, Brian Williams posed a question to all of the commentators: “Isn’t it odd,” he asked, “that those without families are setting the moral agenda for families?” A number of the contributors chimed in, more or less agreeing with this anomalous thought, and I felt obliged to intervene. “As the only celibate on the panel,” I said, “May I offer an opposing point of view?” Borrowing a phrase from the scholastic philosophers, I said, “Brian, in regard to your question, nego majorem (I deny the major premise). Priests, I explained, have families. I then indicated the ring that I received upon being ordained a bishop and I said, “That’s a wedding ring, and we are explicitly told never to take it off, for it symbolizes our marriage to the people we serve.” Then I quoted my mentor, the late Cardinal Francis George: “Priests are not bachelors; they are married men, and they have spiritual children.” Celibacy should never be understood in a purely negative way, as though it amounts simply to the denial of something. The no to marriage and children in the ordinary sense is in service of a far greater yes, the yes to a wider, more inclusive, and more abiding form of marriage and procreation. In point of fact, the very familial implication of the celibate commitment is precisely what makes priests uniquely positioned to help and advise families. Once again, the teaching of Vatican II is apposite. Celibacy and marriage are ordered to one another, since both are ultimately in service of the sanctification of the world. When they are set up as rivals or as mutually antagonistic, we get a fly stuck in the fly bottle.

When Karol Wojtyla was Archbishop of Krakow, he led his people in a careful and prayerful reading of the documents of Vatican II. I am convinced that many of the disputes that we have in the Church in this country are a function of not having done what Wojtyla compelled his people to do. When the properly theological and spiritual framework falls away, all we are left with is the political or psychological or sociological framework - and this leads to lots of bumping against the side of the bottle.

Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop 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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Some Reflections on Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton

by Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J. • October 7, 2015

In his address to Congress last month, Pope Francis mentioned four exemplars of the great American enterprise: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton. The first two men, protagonists for the liberty and full equality of African-Americans, were assassinated for this cause.

Prior to their conversions to the Catholic faith, Day and Merton led meaningless lives. After their conversions, they embraced a new vision with new direction and new energy. Because of them, the world has been made a better place.

Dorothy Day (1897-1980)

Dorothy Day was an American journalist and social activist-turned-pacifist. Up until 1920, Dorothy had lived a bohemian life that included failed love affairs and an abortion. Shortly after the birth of her daughter, Tamar Teresa, Dorothy met Sr. Aloysia, a Sister of Charity who not only encouraged Dorothy to have her daughter baptized. She was also Dorothy’s mentor in the faith and stood as her godparent when she herself was baptized.

Conversion

In 1932, Dorothy met Peter Maurin and through him was introduced to the Church’s social teaching. Maurin, a French peasant-philosopher and teacher, had read the writings of the Church Fathers and the papal social encyclicals of Leo XIII and his successors. They gave Dorothy a keen understanding of the plight of the poor. From then on, her life was completely dedicated to them.

In 1933, with Maurin, Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker Movement, a community of laypeople from all walks of life that stressed the value and dignity of every person. She embraced voluntary poverty and established a house of hospitality and founded a series of farming communes in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

One of the earliest farming communes, The Peter Maurin Farm, was located in Tottenville, Staten Island, NY, a place that attracted high school students in their free time to explore a rural way of life. After their manual work, they prayed the equivalent of the Liturgy of the Hours and sang Gregorian Chant from the Liber Usualis not only at Mass but outside of Mass as well. The hope was that some of these teenagers would eventually join the movement.

Attempting to make a newspaper available to every individual who desired it, Dorothy founded The Catholic Worker to announce a Catholic presence and concern for the poor and the oppressed. To this day, the paper sells for one penny. The Catholic Worker became the principal competitor of the Communist Daily Worker, which advocated class warfare and violent revolution. Instead she favored the ideal of Christian communism. She was largely misunderstood and was opposed by Cardinal Francis Spellman, then the archbishop of New York. Still she attracted writers such as the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, the Jesuit priest-poet Daniel Berrigan, S.J. From her publishing enterprise, she was able to establish a house of hospitality on the Lower East Side, a shelter that provided food and clothing to the poor.

Conclusion

In 1955, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement committed themselves to pacifism and to non-violence. They were part of the American Catholic peace movement that supported a number of peace organizations and causes. She was among other Catholic leaders opposed to the Vietnam War.

The Catholic Church has opened up the cause for Dorothy Day’s possible canonization. Currently, the Church refers to her as Servant of God.

On February 13th, 2013, toward the end of his papacy, Pope Benedict XVI quoted from Dorothy Day’s writings and said: “The journey towards faith in such a secularized environment was particularly difficult, but Grace acts nonetheless.”

Thomas Merton (1915-68)

By the time Thomas Merton was twenty-seven year old in 1942, he had lived a life both aesthetically-rich and hedonistic. Born into the Episcopalian faith, Merton had observed Catholicism from a distance. His father, a painter, was not shy in criticizing it as they traveled from one European city to the next before and after World War I.

In 1931, Merton’s father died of a brain tumor. At boarding schools, the youth began sowing his wild oats. He studied little and drank much. Virtually all biographies mention that his year at Cambridge was a moral wasteland that included fathering a child with a young woman he had met there. According to Paul Elie who, in 2003, wrote about four modern American Catholic writers, the child’s name has never been disclosed. The legal action was discreetly settled by Merton’s guardian who promptly ordered him home.

Merton next enrolled at Columbia University where he studied English literature and was introduced to Communism there. He briefly joined the Young Communist League and also became a member of Alpha Delta Phi as well as the Philolexian Society, a literary and debate group.

In 1937, Merton began to take notice of Catholic churches and started to read Catholic literature. He had bought a book by Étienne Gilson, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, which he thought would help him in a medieval French literature course. Apparently, the title did not betray its Catholic orthodoxy. Little did he know what an influence it would exert on him! The poetry of Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins also made a deep impression. Shortly after, Merton asked to be baptized at Corpus Christi Church located near Columbia University.

Following his baptism, life took on a new meaning. He was drawn to the priesthood. But where? Could he cope with “the pitch of active intensity and military routine” of the Society of Jesus? Perhaps the Franciscan Order? He took a teaching position at the Franciscan-run St. Bonaventure University in Olean, NY.

In 1941, Merton made a weekend retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Bardstown, KY. At long last, he had found his home. In 1942, he was accepted as a novice-monk. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, published in 1948, not only became an instant best-seller but also attracted many young men to the Trappist Order.

In religion, he was known as Father Louis, O.C.S.O, but to the world, he was always Thomas Merton, writer, poet, contemplative and activist, and Trappist monk.

During the next twenty years, Merton expanded his writings from strictly religious topics such as contemplative prayer, asceticism, and aesthetics to controversial issues such as violence and war, matters of social justice and ecumenical dialogue.

Thomas Merton’s Influence

Merton also gave conferences to the younger monks, and many of the conferences were preserved in his own voice and remastered for CDs. They are from the archives of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University in Louisville, KY.

One might expect Merton to speak in ethereal, sentimental platitudes. Nothing is farther from the truth. Merton’s voice is sharp but resonant and decisive with a no-nonsense style of delivery. His lexicon ranges from the sublime to the colloquial, yes even to slang —”that’s baloney.” It is emblematic of an erutdite man who once lived a deeply flawed worldly life while enjoying a broad classical education. He is a savvy spiritual master who gets down to gutsy realities.

Thomas Merton’s Legacy

In December, 1968, Merton was in Bangkok attending an ecumenical conference of monks. As he stepped out of his bath on one of those sweltering South Asian days, he died from heart failure due in part to an electric shock.

In his speech to congress last month, Pope Francis said that “Merton was above all a man of prayer, a thinker who challenged the certitudes of his time and opened new horizons for souls and for the Church. He was also a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between people and religions.”

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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‘Sicario’ explores moral dilemmas against action-packed backdrop

by Carl Kozlowski • October 8, 2015

When faced with pure evil, how far can one go in the pursuit of justice and revenge? That is the fascinating question at the heart of the drug-war thriller “Sicario,” which puts audiences smack in the middle of the action as well as the moral dilemmas of a young female FBI agent surrounded by supervisors who might be corrupt themselves.

Set amid the dusty, almost lunar landscapes of Arizona border towns and the notoriously crime-ridden Mexican city of Juarez, “Sicario” gives audiences a harrowingly close-up look at the US war against drug cartels. The movie’s point of view comes from Kate (Emily Blunt), an idealistic young FBI agent who is shaken to the core by a raid gone wrong in which a massive explosion kills and injures fellow agents and leaves her momentarily deaf and disoriented.

Even worse, she finds that the house they were raiding has secret spaces inside its walls – enough so that she and her team find over 30 rotting corpses, wrapped in plastic and entombed where no one was ever supposed to find them. Kate wants to know who was responsible for this so she can get righteous revenge by bringing the murderous drug gang to justice, and is pulled from her unit to meet with a team of CIA officials who want her to join a daring and covert CIA mission to take down the drug lord responsible.

Her two main bosses on the CIA side are the cocky and swaggering Matt (Josh Brolin), and the mysterious Mexican smooth talker Alejandro (Benicio del Toro), who it slowly emerges is a man willing to cross the ethical lines of torture to get answers. Kate’s desire to play by the books conflicts with Matt’s idea to nab criminals at all costs, and she finds herself in the grip of a plot that is ever darker and more ethically and morally questionable at every turn.

“Sicario” is a Mexican slang word for hitman, and that is the approach that Kate’s new supervisors adopt towards their work and expect her to follow. But since she has ideals and a clear-cut moral view of the world and her work in it, Kate doesn’t see herself as just a killer. She’s torn about whether to seek the drug lord’s murder at all costs, or to play by the rules of engagement that she has been trained with.

In her role as Kate, Blunt expertly conveys her confusion and rattled emotional state, giving her a conscience that almost no other character in the movie has. Her performance is a bit off-beat, as Blunt doesn’t play hers with the righteous swagger that Brolin brings to his character, and instead draws viewers in by making them relate to her moral confusion.

Brolin brings a more conventional macho-man approach to his role as a veteran agent who can only laugh in the face of the horrors he’s experienced, and who has become nearly desensitized to concerns about the ethical boundaries he’s supposed to contend with. But It’s Del Toro who nearly steals the show, with a character who bears strong similarities to the heroic Mexican cop he played to Oscar-winning effect in the 2000 movie “Traffic.”

As Kate and the audience learn the full extent of Alejandro’s pain, “Sicario” asks viewers to really take themselves to the ethical edge and ask: what would they do if they knew the person responsible for costing them everything they held dear? Can you forgive them truly? Does justice mean killing them and wiping out all chance of them ever committing wrong again, or letting them simply face a trial that could let them off easy? And is it ok that innocent people are caught in the literal and metaphorical crossfire along the way?

All of these are tough and valid questions to ask, especially in a political season in which building a wall on the Mexican border has been widely debated, and “Sicario” never feels exploitative in dealing with them. Director Denis Villeneuve shows us the horrors involved in fighting against cartels, but it all feels justifiable in the context of its R rating and subject matter.

Viewers should be forewarned that there is frequent foul language throughout, as well as a disturbing quick scene from mid-distance of four dead naked bodies who were killed by drug cartels and are left hanging upside down off a bridge in the middle of Juarez. As ugly as that is, it is also a sad reality the movie is justified in making viewers aware.

Yet make no mistake, this is a hard movie to watch, even as it’s rivetingly difficult to look away from. If you’re squeamish, stay away, but most adults should find plenty to consider and discuss in this brilliant movie.

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.com 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 re-launching it in January 2014 after a five-month sabbatical. He lives in Los Angeles.

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FEATURES

‘The Walk’ is worth running to the theater for

by Carl Kozlowski • October 9, 2015

When we’re children, we all have a crazy dream inside of us, a secret wish that we could do something so truly amazing that the whole world would notice. For many, it’s a desire to be able to fly, soaring like Superman through the skies.

Most of us get over those dreams as we become more aware of the world and our limitations. But for one Frenchman named Phillippe Petit, the dream of doing something daring in the sky and having the whole world notice never went away.

He even found a way to come closer to the experience of flying than almost any person in history, by walking a tightrope between the rooftops of those iconic buildings an amazing eight times one morning in 1974. And thanks to an utterly astonishing ability to use the most cutting-edge film technology available today, director Robert Zemeckis has managed to make audiences feel they’re right there with Petit in the amazing – and family-friendly – new movie, “The Walk.”

Starring Joseph-Gordon Levitt as Petit, “The Walk” immediately makes use of its star’s innate charm by having him talk to the audience in character, setting up Petit’s highly unusual story in unusual fashion. Petit is standing in the narrow walkway surrounding the flame held aloft by the Statue of Liberty, and speaks enthusiastically to the audience in a way that wins them over with the same charisma the real-life daredevil used to build a team of accomplices who helped him pull off his near-impossible feat.

The narration guides us further through Petit’s childhood, showing how he accomplished daring feats from a young age, and developed a passion for learning all manner of circus tricks from juggling to tightrope walking. Kicked out of his home by his parents during his teen years, Petit managed to get taken under the wing of Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley), the patriarch of a family of daredevils traveling as acrobats in a circus.

Moving up from street performing to walking a rope between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral, Petit had one dream above all: to move to New York City, where he could find the ultimate skyscrapers to walk between. And so he arrived in New York in 1974 with his supportive girlfriend in tow and a team of friends with different types of expertise who could help him plot and execute his walk at what were about to be two of the tallest and most secure buildings in the world.

That elaborate setup, involving Petit and friends using a number of disguises to gain access to the World Trade Center’s inner workings in preparation for an early-morning sneak-in that was more finely conceived than the best bank heists, is what moves “The Walk” into entertaining overdrive. Director Robert Zemeckis, who has helmed classics ranging from “Back to the Future” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” to “Forrest Gump” and “Flight,” then takes every trick he’s ever learned as a master of special effects to suck the audience in right alongside Petit as he steps out onto the wire and makes jaw-dropping history.

Now, I can’t vouch for how the movie comes across in regular 2D viewing, and I understand that 3D and “The Walk” is like no other movie you have ever seen, and I am telling you that if you can afford it, see it in 3D and if possible at an IMAX theater, because you WILL feel like you’re up there with Petit, and the stunning sense of making entire audiences feel the thrill just as much as Petit did is a truly rare entertainment experience that will likely be appreciated fondly for a lifetime.

Kudos go out to Zemeckis and everyone involved for managing to make the movie spine-tinglingly tense while somehow making it OK for kids to handle the tension, in addition to keeping it clean with little or no foul language. The only thing that might make parents get annoyed is that Petit decides the best way to feel if a narrow piece of rope reached his rooftop from the other Trade Center rooftop is to strip naked and feel around for it in the dark with every available inch of skin.

But the moment is so off the wall and silly, offering comic relief from all the tension while devoid of any sexual pretext, that seeing a bare-bottomed Petit dancing around in the dark for five to ten seconds should not spark any sinful thoughts in any viewer and should also not spark any parental concerns.

Filled with wondrous special effects that seem all too real, a witty and tension-packed screenplay that ultimately inspires viewers to make their own dreams come true, and a highly charismatic performance from Gordon-Levitt, “The Walk” is worth running to the theater for.

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.com 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 re-launching it in January 2014 after a five-month sabbatical. He lives in Los Angeles.

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SUNDAY • OCTOBER 11, 2015

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Wis 7:7-11; NRSVCE)

I prayed, and understanding was given me;

I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.

I preferred her to scepters and thrones,

and I accounted wealth as nothing in comparison with her.

Neither did I liken to her any priceless gem,

because all gold is but a little sand in her sight,

and silver will be accounted as clay before her.

I loved her more than health and beauty,

and I chose to have her rather than light,

because her radiance never ceases.

All good things came to me along with her,

and in her hands uncounted wealth.

Second Reading (Heb 4:12-13; NRSVCE)

Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

Gospel Reading (Mk 10:17-30; NRSVCE)

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

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

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

MONDAY • OCTOBER 12, 2015

Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Rom 1:1-7; NRSVCE)

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,

To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Gospel Reading (Lk 11:29-32; NRSVCE)

When the crowds were increasing, Jesus began to say, “This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation. The queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!”

TUESDAY • OCTOBER 13, 2015

Tuesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Rom 1:16-25; NRSVCE)

I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Gospel Reading (Lk 11:37-41; NRSVCE)

While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him; so he went in and took his place at the table. The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not first wash before dinner. Then the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you.”

WEDNESDAY • OCTOBER 14, 2015

Wednesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

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

Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, “We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.” Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.

Gospel Reading (Lk 11:42-46; NRSVCE)

Jesus said, “Woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honor in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces. Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without realizing it.”

One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too.” And he said, “Woe also to you lawyers! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them.”

THURSDAY • OCTOBER 15, 2015

Memorial of Saint Teresa of Jesus

First Reading (Rom 3:21-30; NRSVCE)

But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.

Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.

Gospel Reading (Lk 11:47-54; NRSVCE)

Jesus said, “Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”

When he went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile toward him and to cross-examine him about many things, lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.

FRIDAY • OCTOBER 16, 2015

Friday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Rom 4:1-8; NRSVCE)

What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. So also David speaks of the blessedness of those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:

“Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven,

and whose sins are covered;

blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.”

Gospel Reading (Lk 12:1-7; NRSVCE)

Meanwhile, when the crowd gathered by the thousands, so that they trampled on one another, Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops.

“I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

SATURDAY • OCTOBER 17, 2015

Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Antioch

First Reading (Rom 4:13, 16-18; NRSVCE)

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith.

For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) — in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.”

Gospel Reading (Lk 12:8-12; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God; but whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God. And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. When they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers, and the authorities, do not worry about how you are to defend yourselves or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say.”