VOLUME 2, ISSUE 9  •  AUGUST 27, 2016

Table of Contents

Copyright Notice

VATICAN NEWS

Pope prays for victims of ‘bloody’ attack at a wedding in Turkey

Pope Francis dedicates Olympic month to praying for sports

Pope Francis names American as new Vatican ambassador to Guinea Bissau

Benedict XVI’s memoir to be published in English in November

Pope Francis: Confession is encounter with God’s ‘re-creating mercy’

Pope tosses audience speech, prays rosary for victims of Italy quake

Vatican wades into sex education for young people

Pope John Paul I to be honored with museum in northern Italy

Coming soon: A meeting between Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury

Life isn’t black and white – teach priests to discern the gray, Pope says

In rare interview, Benedict XVI names his favorite saints

Nonviolent politics to be the focus of next World Day of Peace

The happiest day of Mother Teresa’s life

WORLD NEWS

India gears up for Mother Teresa canonization celebrations

As Philippines drug war escalates, bishops call for justice

A look at the crisis of the Church in Germany

Reflections on Mother Teresa from her ‘Apostle of the Rosary’

In U.K., abortion clinic inspections have consequences

Earthquake in Italy prompts outpouring of support

Head of Mother Teresa’s order: She was like ‘a mother to me’

‘We cannot keep quiet’ – Ugandan archbishop stands against domestic violence

The powerful story of a nun who survived Italy’s earthquake

U.S. NEWS

Privacy, safety at stake with proposed rule on homeless shelters

For Missouri bishops, limitless concealed carry is a bad idea

Pope Francis taps D.C. auxiliary as the new Bishop of Memphis

Don’t bring back the death penalty, New Mexico bishops plead

The danger of misunderstanding the ‘vegetative state’

Fragment of Christ’s Cross stolen from California church

Why this diocese is ditching Common Core for liberal arts

Federal judge blocks Obama’s transgender bathroom policy

As welfare reform turns 20, Catholics discuss its legacy

Could doctors be forced to perform sex reassignment surgeries?

Nun’s rosary beads stolen at knife-point in Massachusetts

Pope names Mexican-born priest as new auxiliary bishop of Denver

Why Catholics should be alarmed about the rise of the religious ‘nones’

St. Louis priest falsely accused by anti-sex abuse group

Two nuns found murdered at their home in Mississippi

Want Catholics back in church? Reflect Jesus, Denver’s new bishop says

For David Daleiden, Soros money shows Planned Parenthood in a panic

FEATURES

This three-time Olympian wishes she could dine with Mother Angelica

Elizabeth Smart on captor’s porn use: ‘It just led to him raping me more’

Spotlight on education at Matteo Ricci College

‘Hello. My name is Mother Teresa. I just wanted to give you my card.’

Double review: ‘Hell or High Water’ and ‘War Dogs’

Advice to Students New and Old

Being Catholic in Hollywood: It’s possible. Just ask Neal McDonough

What might save us from ‘trigger warnings’ and ‘safe spaces’

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Sunday • August 28, 2016

Monday • August 29, 2016

Tuesday • August 30, 2016

Wednesday • August 31, 2016

Thursday • September 1, 2016

Friday • September 2, 2016

Saturday • September 3, 2016

The Catholic Digital News

The Free Weekly Newsmagazine for the Church of the 21st Century

Volume 2, Issue 9 • August 27, 2016

Copyright © 2016 by LGC Publishing. All rights reserved.

News articles and images originating from the Catholic News Agency and other media outlets have been reproduced with the full permission of their respective copyright holders. All rights reserved.

Scripture readings for Daily Mass have been reproduced from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition. Copyright © 1989, 1993 by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission through the Gratis Use Policy of the copyright holder. All rights reserved.

Content editing, cover image design, and digital book creation by P. C. Weber

The Catholic Digital News

Website: catholicdigitalnews.com

New issues of The Catholic Digital News are published every Saturday as free e-book downloads that are released exclusively through this website. Although these files are provided gratis to the public, they remain fully protected under copyright law. Consequently, users should be aware that certain actions are expressly forbidden once an issue of The Catholic Digital News has been downloaded onto a device. These include reproduction or distribution of the file at other websites, over the Internet, or through other media; utilization of the file for commercial use or other unauthorized purposes; disassembly of the file or alteration of its internal code or content; modification of the file to create derivate works; or violation of third-party copyrights on text and images contained within the file. For full compliance, please download issues of The Catholic Digital News for personal use only and refer others to this website instead of sharing downloaded copies.

VATICAN NEWS

Pope prays for victims of ‘bloody’ attack at a wedding in Turkey

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 21, 2016

Pope Francis greets pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square during the Wednesday General Audience on May 28, 2014. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

Vatican City — After an explosion in southern Turkey lit up a wedding ceremony, killing 50 people and wounding nearly 100 more, Pope Francis offered his prayers for the victims, and asked for peace to be given to all.

“Dear brothers and sisters, I have heard of the sad news of the bloody attack yesterday which struck the beloved Turkey,” the Pope said Aug. 21, after leading pilgrims in praying the traditional Angelus prayer.

He offered his prayers for the victims, both “living and dead,” and led those gathered in a moment of silence and a Hail Mary, asking for “the gift of peace for all.”

According to news agency Aljazeera, at least 50 people have been killed and 94 wounded after what is believed to be a suicide bomber blew themselves up at a wedding ceremony in Turkey’s southeastern province of Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, Aug. 20.

The blast, which took place at roughly 11p.m. local time, happened in the Akdere neighbourhood of Sahin Bey district as those celebrating were dancing in the street, which is common for wedding ceremonies in the south of Turkey.

Gaziantep is a major city roughly 37 miles from the Syrian border, and has become a hub for Syrians fleeing the civil war that’s tearing their country apart.

Although no one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, Aljazeera reports that Ali Yerlikaya, the governor of Gaziantep, referred to it as a “terror attack,” and Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said “Daesh is the likely perpetrator,” using the Arabic name for ISIS.

In his address before the Angelus, Pope Francis reflected on the day’s Gospel passage from Luke, in which Jesus, as he was teaching in Jerusalem, was asked if only a few people would be saved.

Pope Francis noted that in his response Jesus didn’t give a direct answer to the question, but instead referred to a door, telling the crowd to “strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.”

By giving the image of the door, Jesus is telling his listeners “it’s not a question of numbers.” Knowing how many will be saved is not important he said, but knowing the path that leads to salvation is.

This path requires that we pass through a door, Francis said, explaining that this door is “Jesus himself … he says it; he leads us into communion with the Father, where we find love, understanding and protection.”

Reflecting on why the door is “narrow,” the Pope said it’s not because it’s “oppressive,” but rather because it challenges us to “restrict and contain our pride and our fear, to open ourselves with a heart that’s humble and faithful to him, recognizing that we are sinners in need of his forgiveness.”

While the door of salvation is narrow, the door of God’s mercy is “always wide open” for everyone to enter, he said, adding that God doesn’t have preferences, but welcomes all “without distinction.”

Jesus, he said, “awaits each one of us, whatever sin we have committed, to embrace us, to offer us his forgiveness. Only he can give full meaning to our existence, giving us true joy.”

By entering through the door that is Jesus, we are able to let go of “worldly attitudes, of bad habits, of selfishness and closure,” and experience an authentic change through the Holy Spirit, he said.

In off-the-cuff comments, Pope Francis urged pilgrims to pause for a moment to reflect on what impedes them from opening the door to Jesus, as well as the door of mercy he offers to us.

“The Lord offers us many occasions to save ourselves and enter through the door of salvation,” the Pope said, adding that “this door is the opportunity that must not be wasted.”

Francis stressed that giving “academic speeches” on salvation isn’t necessary to enter through the gate, but instead we must “seize the opportunities of salvation” that are given to us.

He turned to the Gospel passage, in which Jesus recounts how the master of the house “has arisen and locked the door,” telling those who knock outside asking to be let in: “I do not know where you are from.”

If God is merciful and loves us, “why does he close the door?” Francis asked, explaining that he does it “because our life is not a videogame or a soap opera; our life is serious and the goal to achieve is important: eternal salvation.”

Pope Francis closed his address by asking Mary to intercede in helping all to “seize the opportunities” the Lord offers us to enter by the wide road. This road, he said, is one “of salvation capable of welcoming all those who allow themselves to be involved with love.”

“It’s love that saves, love which already on earth is a source of beatitude for those, in meekness, patience and justice, forget about themselves and give themselves to others, especially the most vulnerable.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis dedicates Olympic month to praying for sports

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 21, 2016

Pope Francis greets pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square for the Italian Sporting Center’s celebration of sports on June 7, 2014. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Vatican City — While Pope Francis has often spoken about sports as a means of fellowship and fraternity, the message has a special resonance in his August prayer intention, which coincided with the Rio Summer Olympics.

Released Aug. 2, just a few days before Rio 2016 began, the Pope’s prayer video for the month shows athletes displaying their skills at different sports, while the Pope, sitting at his desk, offers his prayer that sports would be an opportunity for encounter and fraternity.

The images used in the brief, 1 minute, 30 second video are particularly symbolic, given Francis’ frequent insistence on tearing down walls and fostering dialogue among peoples.

As the athletes show off their talent in sports such as soccer, tennis, table tennis, volleyball and rugby, they throw or kick their balls against brick wall, breaking it apart blow by blow with large holes caused by their swing and strength.

Pope Francis, in his native Spanish, is heard saying that “sports makes it possible to build a culture of encounter among everyone, for a world of peace.”

He voices his dream that sports would be “the practice of human dignity turned into a vehicle of fraternity,” and asks if viewers would join him in putting his prayer into action: “that sports may be an opportunity for friendly encounters between peoples and may contribute to peace in the world.”

While the Aug. 5-21, 2016 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXXI Olympiad, or more commonly as Rio 2016, are coming to an end, the Pope’s video voices themes he has spoken of frequently in the past, and will likely continue to speak to in the future.

More than 11,000 athletes from 207 National Olympic Committees participated in this year’s summer games, including the first-ever teams from Kosovo and South Sudan, as well as the first Olympic Team made up entirely of refugees.

An initiative of the Jesuit-run global prayer network Apostleship of Prayer, the Pope’s prayer videos are filmed in collaboration with the Vatican Television Center and mark the first time the pontiff’s monthly prayer intentions have been featured on video.

The Apostleship of Prayer, which produces the monthly videos on the Pope’s intentions, was founded by Jesuit seminarians in France in 1884 to encourage Christians to serve God and others through prayer, particularly for the needs of the Church.

Since the late 1800s, the organization has received a monthly, “universal” intention from the Pope. In 1929, an additional missionary intention was added by the Holy Father, aimed at the faithful in particular.

While there are two intentions, the prayer videos are centered on the first, universal intention.

Though Pope Francis’ July video focused on his universal intention of sports as a means of encounter, his missionary intention is dedicated to “Living the Gospel,” specifically asking “that Christians may live the Gospel, giving witness to faith, honesty and love of neighbor.”

His intentions this year have so far focused on themes central to his pontificate, such as interreligious dialogue, care for creation, families in hardship, the elderly and marginalized, and respect for women.

The Pope’s prayer intentions for the rest of the year are listed on the organization’s website and center on other themes close to Francis’ heart, such as the human person, countries receiving migrants and refugees, and an end to child-soldiers.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis names American as new Vatican ambassador to Guinea Bissau

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • August 22, 2016

A view of the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica from the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace. (Lauren Cater/CNA)

Vatican City — On Monday Pope Francis appointed U.S. Archbishop Michael W. Banach as Apostolic Nuncio to Guinea Bissau, marking the latest in a string of American nuncio appointments so far this year.

The announcement that Archbishop Banach, previously nuncio to several other countries, will now be overseeing the Holy See’s relations with Guinea Bissau came in an Aug. 22 communique from the Vatican.

Designated Titular Archbishop of Memphis in 2013, Archbishop Banach was named nuncio to Senegal and apostolic delegate to Mauritania March 19, and as nuncio to Cape Verde July 9. He will continue to hold these positions in addition to his new appointment as nuncio to Guinea Bissau, all of which sit along the Northwest coast of Africa.

Born in Worcester, Mass. and ordained a priest for the diocese in July 1988, Archbishop Banach, 53, was originally made a Vatican ambassador in 2013 when he was named apostolic nuncio to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

His transfer to the four West African nations this year comes amid a string of other appointments by Pope Francis of U.S. Vatican diplomats to the African continent.

In February, the Pope appointed Msgr. Peter Bryan Wells, the highest ranking American in the Vatican Secretariat of State, as both archbishop and his new ambassador to South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho and Namibia. In July he was also appointed nuncio to Swaziland.

Aside from the move of Wells and Banach, in March Pope Francis appointed Msgr. Paul Russell, at the time the head of the Vatican nunciature in Taiwan, as nuncio to Turkey and Turkmenistan – an important post given recent tensions between Turkey and the Holy See over Pope Francis’ use of the term “genocide” during a 2015 Mass commemorating the Armenian martyrs, as well as his recent visit to the country.

While there aren’t too many Vatican ambassadors from the U.S., most of them seem to be making their way to the world’s peripheries.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

VATICAN NEWS

Benedict XVI’s memoir to be published in English in November

by CNA/EWTN News • August 22, 2016

Benedict XVI holds the Paschal candle during the Easter Vigil at St. Peter’s Basilica on April 7, 2012. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — Benedict XVI’s new memoir, a lengthy interview with German journalist Peter Seewald, is being translated into English and will be released this November.

Letzte Gespräche is being translated as Last Testament by Jacob Phillips, a lecturer in theology at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham. It will be published by Bloomsbury.

The work is the fruit of several interviews conducted by Seewald a few months after Benedict resigned from the papacy.

It touches on recent events such as the reform of the Roman Curia, his abdication, and Pope Francis, as well as serving as an overview of his life, from his childhood to his time as Bishop of Rome.

It includes Benedict’s childhood under the Nazi regime, the hardships of the war and the discovery of his vocation to the priesthood, his appointment as Archbishop of Munich, and his time in the Vatican prior to his election to the papacy. It also covers his first few days as successor of St. Peter as well as his decision to resign and his thoughts on Pope Francis.

In his responses to Seewald, Benedict speaks about himself, his faith, his weaknesses, his private life, and the scandals and controversial issues of his papacy.

The retired Pope also speaks about the reform of the Roman Curia, the “Vatileaks” scandal that many pinned as the reason for his stepping-down, and outlines the differences between him and Francis in light of “his own peculiarities” and those of his Argentine successor.

Last Testament is Seewald’s fourth book-interview with Benedict. In 2010 he published Light of the World, and while Ratzinger was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith they produced Salt of the Earth and God and the World.

Phillips, the books’ English translator, is an affiliate of St. Mary’s Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society. He earned his doctorate at King’s College London, writing about the Lutheran pastor and Nazi victim Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis: Confession is encounter with God’s ‘re-creating mercy’

by CNA/EWTN News • August 22, 2016

Pope Francis gives absolution in St. Peter’s Square on April 23, 2016. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — Pope Francis commended the sacrament of confession as the prime means of encountering God’s mercy in his message sent Monday to Italy’s National Liturgical Week, which is being held in Gubbio.

In Confession “there is fulfilled the encounter with the re-creating mercy of God whence come new women and men who announce the good life of the Gospel by a life which is reconciled and reconciling,” the Pope said in a message signed by the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and sent Aug. 22 to Bishop Claudio Maniago of Castellaneta, president of Italy’s Center for Liturgy.

The National Liturgical Week is focusing this year on “liturgy as a place of mercy.”

Pope Francis noted that this theme “helps one perceive that all the liturgy is a place where mercy is encountered and welcomed in order to be given; a place where the great mystery of reconciliation is made present, announced, celebrated, and communicated.”

While each sacrament and sacramental show forth God’s mercy “according to the diverse circumstances of life … The gift of Mercy is resplendent in a particular way in the sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation,” he said.

“We are reconciled so as to reconcile. The mercy of the Father cannot be confined in ‘intimistic’ and ‘self-consoling’ attitudes, because its potency is demonstrated in the renewal of persons, rendering them capable of offering to others a living experience of the same gift.”

The Pope exhorted that “based on the belief that one is pardoned in order to pardon, we must be witnesses of mercy in every environment, provoking a desire and a capacity for pardon.”

“This is a task to which we are all called,” he said, “especially in front of the rancor in which too many are entrapped, who need to rediscover the joy of interior serenity and the taste of peace.”

Pope Francis reflected that Confession “must therefore be perceived as an expression of the ‘Church in outreach’, as a ‘door’ not only by which to re-enter after having been away, but also a ‘threshold’ open to the various peripheries of humanity ever more in need of compassion.”

The message concluded with the Pope’s hope that the celebration of Italy’s Liturgical Week would promote an “ecclesial and personal life full of mercy and compassion.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

VATICAN NEWS

Pope tosses audience speech, prays rosary for victims of Italy quake

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 24, 2016

Pope Francis leads pilgrims in praying for the victims of an earthquake in Italy during his Aug. 24, 2016 General Audience. (Daniel Ibañez/CNA)

Vatican City — Instead of giving the usual catechesis during his Wednesday general audience, Pope Francis decided to postpone the speech, leading pilgrims in praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary for the victims of an earthquake that rocked central Italy earlier that morning.

“On hearing the news of the earthquake that has struck central Italy and which has devastated many areas and left many wounded, I cannot fail to express my heartfelt sorrow and spiritual closeness to all those present in the zones afflicted,” the Pope said Aug. 24.

He offered his condolences to all who have lost loved ones, and his expressed his spiritual closeness to those who are “anxious and afraid.”

At least 21 people have been killed and countless buried under rubble after an earthquake hit central Italy early Wednesday morning.

The original 6.2-magnitude quake hit the town of Norcia, about 65 miles northeast of Rome, at 3:36a.m. with several aftershocks following.

According to the BBC, the mayor of Amatrice, one of the worst-hit areas, said “the town is gone.” Officials warn that the death toll will likely continue to rise as rescue efforts move forward.

Pope Francis, hearing that the mayor of Amatrice said his town “no longer exists” and learning that many children are also among the dead, said “I am deeply saddened.”

“For this reason I want to assure all the people of Accumoli, Amatrice, the diocese of Rieti, Ascoli Piceno and all the people of Lazio, Umbria and Le Marche of the prayers and close solidarity of the entire Church,” he said.

The Pope then offered his thanks to all the volunteer and rescue workers assisting in the affected areas, asking Jesus, “who is always moved by compassion before the reality of human suffering, that he may console the broken hearted, and through the intercession of the Virgin Mary bring them peace.”

“With Jesus, let our hearts be moved with compassion,” he said, and invited the some 11,000 pilgrims present to join him in praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary.

In addition to Pope Francis’ appeal to prayer, the Italian Bishop’s Conference (CEI) has already decided to donate 1 million euros to the most urgent relief efforts, and have asked that a special collection take place to help raise more money for the affected areas.

In an Aug. 24 communique from the CEI, the bishops said the Church throughout Italy “gathers in prayer for all the victims and expresses her fraternal closeness to the people involved in this tragic event.”

The president of the bishop’s conference, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, launched a national collection for Sept. 18, set to coincide with Italy’s 26th National Eucharistic Congress, inviting all parishes, religious institutes and lay institutions in the country to participate.

The funds gathered from the collection will go toward relieving those who lost everything, and is “a fruit of the charity” that will flow from the Eucharistic congress and the participation of all “in the concrete needs of the affected populations.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

VATICAN NEWS

Vatican wades into sex education for young people

by CNA/EWTN News • August 24, 2016

(Goodluz via www.Shutterstock.com)

Vatican City — The Vatican recently rolled out a new sex education course designed to help parents and educators talk to teens about sex and counter messages on social media.

The course, published by the Vatican Council for the Family, and called “The Meeting Point: The Adventure of Love,” aims to promote a dialogue between young people and their parents and teachers regarding sexuality.

The program was developed as one step toward answering the problem of the deterioration of marriage and the family put forward at the Sept. 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia and the Oct. 2015 Vatican Synod on the Family.

“One of the most delicate tasks that parents have to face in the education of their children is their emotional formation, so they can respond to the most decisive vocation for every human being: the vocation to love,” wrote Archbishop Vincent Paglia, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family.

“This vocation to love is the fundamental task of parents in the family. In accomplishing their work, they can count on the help of different moral and educational communities: schools and men and women teachers, as well as on the cooperation of the other members of the church community: the parish priests, the catechists and other Christian faithful,” stated the March 21 letter on the program.

The project was over-viewed in a presentation by Bishop Carlos Simon Vazquez, Undersecretary to the Pontifical Council for the Family and Dr. Anthony and Celia Crespo at press conferences July 26 and 27 at World Youth Day 2016 in Krakow.

The course is available on the website www.affectiveformation.org in five different languages, including English and Spanish. Bishop Simon said they hope to expand the languages offered in the future.

Originally conceived for the classroom, the online program was expanded to be easily accessible to families or other groups. The curriculum consists of six units, with four or five sections each. The student materials include passages from Scripture, elements for discussion and written answers. Each unit section is accompanied by an educator guide and options for supplementary activities, such as film clips with discussion points reinforcing lessons.

“Not only the school program is enriched by this project, but also every home, each parish, and each association will have at its disposal a tool to help young people in the important quest for happiness and meaning in their lives,” stated Bishop Simon.

Developed in large part by the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, the materials are meant to be a response to Pope Francis’ call for a renewed and urgent attention to education within the family, as presented in his March 19 letter, Amoris Laeticia (The Joy of Love).

“In this context, the Pope clearly speaks in favor of sex education,” said Bishop Simon. He quoted Amoris Laetitia: “It is not easy to approach the issue of sex education in an age when sexuality tends to be trivialized and impoverished. It can only be seen within the broader framework of an education for love, for mutual self-giving.”

Bishop Paglia sees the new Vatican sex education program as a way to counteract the current “cultural, legislative and educational” programs challenging the Christian conception of the body, marriage and sex.

With the increased prevalence of media and social networking, teens “are exposed to a variety of information concerning affectivity in general and the exercise of sexuality in particular,” wrote Bishop Paglia. “In many cases, these same young people have no criteria for discerning the truth of good human sexuality from the emotivism introduced in many of today’s channels of information and formation.”

The project is unfinished, Bishop Simon noted, emphasizing two developments of the program: the attention that needs to be given to the young themselves and the attention that needs to be given to the teachers as well.

“Hopefully the course presented,” the bishop said, “will help young people to experience the joy of love in its full dimension, as the Pope invites those who will form the future families of the world and be the protagonists not only of the adventure of love but of the civilization of love in the coming years.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

VATICAN NEWS

Pope John Paul I to be honored with museum in northern Italy

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 24, 2016

Pope John Paul I. (Sentinelle del mattino International via Wikipedia CC 2.0)

Vatican City — On Friday a museum dedicated to Pope John Paul I will officially be inaugurated in the hometown of the “Smiling Pope,” whom Pope Francis has often quoted when speaking on the topic of mercy.

Though his papal reign is among the shortest in history, summing up to just 33 days, Pope John Paul I was in office long enough to leave a mark.

Albino Luciani was born Oct. 17, 1912, in Canale d’Agordo, located in Italy’s northern Veneto region and which sits just over 400 miles from Rome.

At the age of 65, he was elected Bishop of Rome, taking the name Pope John Paul I. He was the first Pope to take a double-name, honoring his two immediate predecessors St. John XXIII and Bl. Paul VI. However, his reign was short-lived, as he died suddenly after only 33 days in office, presumably from a heart attack.

Despite the fact that John Paul I’s papacy is among the shortest in history, it will now be honored with a museum featuring important documents, personal items and objects used by the Pope.

Although there’s been a temporary photo exhibit in Canale d’Agordo since 1978, the display has been renovated and expanded for the new museum, which is located in the city’s old town hall and will be officially inaugurated by Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin Aug. 26.

Called the “Albino Luciani Museum,” the launch date was chosen to coincide with the 38th anniversary of John Paul I’s election to the papacy.

Cardinal Parolin, who grew up in the same region, will celebrate Mass in the afternoon before the official inauguration ceremony begins. Concelebrating with him will be the Bishop of Belluno-Feltre, Renato Marangoni, as well as the diocese’s Bishop Emeritus Giuseppe Andrich.

Since the papacy of “Papa Luciani” was so short, coupled with the fact that it’s sandwiched between the legacy of giants such as St. John XXII, Bl. Paul VI and St. John Paul II, not many people are familiar with who John Paul I actually was, let alone his homilies and writings.

However, he is someone that has consistently shown up in the speeches of his current successor, Pope Francis, who seems to find a certain resonance with the way in which John Paul I spoke about mercy.

In his recent book-lengthy interview with Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli “The Name of God is Mercy,” Francis quoted each of his predecessors since the Second Vatican Council. However, the one he referred to the most was by far John Paul I.

When asked about who he has in mind when speaking about merciful priests, Pope Francis immediately referenced a homily from then-Cardinal Luciani, who used St. Leopold Mandic’s example of a destitute donkey to illustrate what mercy looks like.

If a donkey is walking along the road and falls on the cobblestones, one must not “go there with a stick to beat it, poor little thing. It’s already unfortunate enough,” the cardinal had said.

Instead, he said a person should take the donkey by the halter and help it up, saying “up, let’s take to the road again … Now we will get back on the road, and we will pay more attention next time.”

In his interview, Pope Francis also quoted a 1958 homily by Luciani when was named bishop of Vittorio Veneto. In it, the future Pope said he had been chosen “because the Lord preferred that certain things not be engraved in bronze or marble but in the dust, so that if the writing had remained it would have been clear that the merit was all and only God’s.”

Francis marveled to his interviewer how Luciani, as bishop and future Pope, had referred to himself as merely “dust.”

He also referred to a general audience given by Luciani after his election as John Paul I, during which the Pope had expressed a strikingly similar opinion to Francis in that true humility comes from the constant awareness of one’s sinfulness.

In the audience, which was quoted by Pope Francis in his interview, Luciani said “the Lord loves humility so much that sometimes he permits serious sins. Why? In order that those who committed these sins may, after repenting, remain humble.”

Francis noted that a few days later, on separate occasion, John Paul I had insisted that “God hates faults because they are faults. On the other hand, however, in a certain sense he loves faults, since they give him an opportunity to show his mercy and us an opportunity to remain humble and to understand and to sympathize with our neighbors’ faults.”

So while Pope John Paul I, declared a “Servant of God” by his successor St. John Paul II in 2003, is likely somewhat unknown to most, it could be said that he was perhaps ahead of his time, and that Pope Francis is carrying his legacy forward.

In fact, John Paul I’s cause for canonization is currently being studied by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and could advance before too long.

During his homily at Mass in the Belluno cathedral July 20, 2014, Emeritus Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone announced that a document, called the “posisio,” advancing the beatification of John Paul I was ready, and would be given to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints that autumn.

The beatification process had been stalled because the “positio” had not been completed. The positio is the document that the postulator prepares, presenting the “pros” and “cons” of a person’s possible beatification.

A miracle has already been attributed to the intercession of John Paul I: the 1992 healing of Giuseppe Denora, from the Diocese of Altamura-Gravina-Acquaviva delle Fonti. Denora was suddenly healed from a malignant tumor in the stomach after seeking the late Pope’s intercession.

However, the reputed miracle still awaits the approval of both the council of doctors and the council of theologians who work for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Should John Paul I’s cause advance to the next stage, he would then be called “Venerable.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

VATICAN NEWS

Coming soon: A meeting between Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • August 25, 2016

Pope Francis (l) and Archbishop Justin Welby (r). (Daniel Ibanez and Lambeth Palace Picture Partnership)

Vatican City — Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury, the Primate of the Anglican Communion, will meet in Rome Oct. 5 to celebrate First Vespers in the Basilica of San Gregorio al Celio.

Although the meeting hasn’t been made official yet, the news was confirmed to CNA by a high ranking member of the Anglican Communion in Rome. Other sources have since confirmed that the meeting will be held Oct. 5.

While the schedule has yet to be completely defined, Pope Francis and Archbishop Welby are set to meet amid two busy days in Rome for the Anglican primate.

The two will celebrate First Vespers in San Gregorio al Celio Oct. 5. The next day they will have a private meeting that could signal a new phase in ecumenical relations.

Archbishop Welby will likely have a meeting at the Gregorian University and another at the Lay Center, an educational institution based in Rome. The Lay Center welcomes ecumenical students from other Christian churches and ecclesial communities, as well as those from non-Christian religions.

Archbishop Welby has already met with Pope Francis twice in the Vatican, the first time being June 14, 2013, and the second June 16, 2014.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s visit to Rome falls at the climax of a journey that has witnessed the first Catholic celebration in 450 years at the Royal Chapel of Hampton Court – the Chapel that King Henry VIII confiscated from Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who refused to declare annulled the king’s marriage with Catherine of Aragon.

The first report of a new meeting between the Pope and the Anglican primate came from one of the Camaldolese monks from the monastery associated with the San Gregorio al Cielo basilica.

The location of the papal meeting is highly significant given its historical context for the Anglican community.

Father Innocenzo Gargano, a former prior of the monastery, remarked on the visit during a May 19 event on Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato Si.”

The monk noted that the 1450-year-old San Gregorio al Celio had an important link to Britain. From there, Pope Gregory the Great sent the monk Augustine with 40 companions to evangelize the island.

Fr. Gargano said this is why Anglicans consider San Gregorio al Celio their “motherhouse.”

If the meeting does take place as expected, it will be the fourth between a Pope and an Archbishop of Canterbury to take place in the Basilica San Gregorio al Celio.

The first meeting took place in September 1989, when St. John Paul II and Archbishop Robert Runcie met. Later, St. John Paul II welcomed Archbishop John Carey at the basilica in June 2002.

Finally, the third and most recent meeting took place when Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Vespers at San Gregorio with Archbishop Rowan Williams in March 2012.

Archbishop Welby is also expected to be a special guest at the World Day of Prayer for Peace held in Assisi Sept. 18-20.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

VATICAN NEWS

Life isn’t black and white – teach priests to discern the gray, Pope says

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 25, 2016

Pope Francis meets with Jesuits in Krakow, Poland on July 30, 2016. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — In a conversation with members of the Jesuit order in Poland, Pope Francis said the real life situations of everyday Catholics aren’t black and white, but rather vary on a spectrum of gray.

Because of this, he stressed the need for the Church to step up formation when it comes to teaching seminarians about spiritual discernment, cautioning that many priests can’t relate to or accompany the people they counsel, since they haven’t been properly formed.

“Future priests need to be formed not with general and abstract ideas, which are (overly) clear and distinct, but this fine discernment of spirits, so that they can help people in their concrete lives,” the Pope said in a speech to Polish Jesuits, published Aug. 25.

Seminarians and future priests, he said, “need to truly understand this: in life not everything is black and white, white and black. No! In life shades of gray predominate. We must then teach how to discern within this gray.”

Pope Francis met with a group of 28 Polish Jesuits July 30 while in Krakow for World Youth Day, which also coincided with the First Vespers of the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits.

The participants came from two provinces and included two lay collaborators, and were accompanied by the two provincials, the director of Vatican Radio’s Polish site, former Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi SJ and Fr. Antonio Spadaro SJ, director of the Jesuit publication La Civilta’ Cattolica.

In the private audience, which lasted about 40 minutes and took place at the Archbishop’s residence in Krakow, the Pope greeted each attendee individually before sitting down to respond to some questions.

Since the audience was private, the text of the conversation was not made public, however, the transcript of the conversation was published in the Aug. 25 edition of La Civilta’ Cattolica.

The questions posed to the Pope centered on topics such as how to dialogue with youth, what role Jesuit Universities play in the scheme of education, why he himself chose to become a Jesuit and his advice to priests for their future.

However, in his typical style, after answering the questions and exchanging some gifts with the Jesuits Francis decided to add a thought, focusing on the need for better formation in seminaries, particularly when it comes to spiritual discernment.

“I ask you to work with the seminarians. Above all give them what we received from the (Spiritual) Exercises: the wisdom of discernment,” the Pope said.

He said the Church today “needs to grow in her capacity for spiritual discernment,” noting that in some seminaries, formation plans place too much of an emphasis on educating “in the light of ideas that are overly clear and distinct, and therefore of acting with limits and rigidly defined ‘a priori’ criteria.”

By having the rules so clearly defined, the formation turns into a formula of “you must do this, you must not do this,” and doesn’t depend on the “concrete situations” of everyday life, he said.

“Therefore seminarians, becoming priests, find difficulty in accompanying the lives of many youth and adults … and many people leave the confessional disappointed.”

Francis stressed that this isn’t because “the priest is bad,” but rather comes from the fact that the priest doesn’t have the ability “to discern situations, of accompanying in authentic discernment. He doesn’t have the necessary formation.”

The Pope said the art of spiritual direction is “not only a priestly charisma, but also lay,” however, it’s more important for priests to master, since they “need it in their ministry.”

Priests “routinely receive the confidences of the consciences of the faithful,” he said, adding that because of this, spiritual discernment needs to be taught “above all to priests, to help them in the light of the Exercises in the dynamic of pastoral discernment.” Francis said pastoral discernment “respects the law,” but can also “go beyond.”

Turning to 20th century Jesuit Fr. Hugo Rahner, brother of famous Jesuit theologian Fr. Karl Rahner, the Pope said Hugo had written that “a Jesuit should be a man of supernatural instinct.”

“That is, he should be equipped with a sense of the divine and a sense of the diabolic related to the events of human life and history,” he said. “The Jesuit must therefore be able to discern whether it’s in the field of God or in the field of the devil.”

What Hugo wrote, he said, “is bold, it’s truly bold, but this is discernment!”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

VATICAN NEWS

In rare interview, Benedict XVI names his favorite saints

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 26, 2016

Pope Benedict XVI at the Wednesday General Audience in St. Peter’s Square on Sept. 11, 2005. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — Since he resigned from the papacy over three years ago, Benedict XVI rarely gives interviews. In a recent exception, however, the former pontiff took the time to chat not only about his successor, but the saints who’ve accompanied him throughout his life.

In the interview, published Aug. 24 in Italian newspaper La Reppublica, Benedict said he has been serene and happy since his resignation, and that while there were “smaller and larger difficulties” in his pontificate, there were also “many graces” that came from the fact that he wasn’t alone.

“From the beginning I was conscious of my limits and I accepted, as I have always sought to do in my life, in a spirit of obedience,” he said.

“I realized that all I had to do I couldn’t do alone and so I was almost forced to put myself in the hands of God, to entrust myself to Jesus, to whom, as I gradually wrote my volume on him (Jesus of Nazareth), I felt bound by an old and ever deeper friendship.”

Aside from Jesus himself, Benedict said Mary also played a key role in supporting him through the difficulties he faced. Moments when he felt particularly close to her, he said, were when he was “reciting the holy rosary and in the visits to the Marian sanctuaries.”

While Jesus and his Holy Mother are certainly first on the list for any Pope to turn to, Benedict also named several individual saints and Fathers of the Church who have played a key role throughout his life and pontificate.

He said his “travel companions for life” have always been “St. Augustine and St. Bonaventure,” whom he referred to as “my masters of the Spirit.”

The retired pontiff also pointed to his namesake, St. Benedict, whose motto “Prefer nothing to Christ” became “ever more familiar” throughout his time as Bishop of Rome.

Finally, and a bit ironically, Benedict said that St. Francis, “the poor man of Assisi,” has been another close companion on his journey. St. Francis, he said, was “the first to intuit that the world is the mirror of the creative love of God, from whom we come and toward whom we are journeying.”

As a side note, while it was Pope Francis who penned the environmental encyclical Laudato Si’ in 2015, Benedict XVI had long been referred to as the “Green Pope” for the emphasis he placed on creation. It was he who had solar panels installed on the roof of the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, pushing for the small city-state to become a completely carbon-free zone.

Benedict said the consolation he received during his pontificate came not just from above, but arrived daily through the letters of “humble and simple people that wanted to inform me that they were close to me, that they prayed for me.”

This support, he said, hasn’t stopped, but “has continued even after my resignation, for which I can be only grateful to the Lord and to all those who have expressed and still are manifesting their affection.”

Speaking about Pope Francis, Benedict said that obedience to his successor “was never in discussion,” but that since Francis’ election, a feeling of “deep communion and friendship” has arisen between the two.

“At the moment of his election I experienced, as many, a spontaneous feeling of gratitude toward Providence,” he said, explaining that after having two Pope’s from Central Europe, “the Lord was turning, so to speak, his gaze to the Universal Church and invited us to a more extensive communion, more Catholic.”

Benedict said he was deeply moved by Pope Francis’ “extraordinary human availability to me” from the beginning.

He noted how immediately after Francis was elected, the new Pope attempted to call him at his residence in the Vatican’s Mater Ecclesiae monastery. Having failed to reach him, Francis called again right after greeting faithful from the balcony of St. Peter’s, this time succeeding.

Pope Francis “spoke to me with great warmth,” Benedict recalled, noting that since that day “he has given me the gift of a wonderfully paternal-fraternal relationship.”

Not only does Francis frequently send “little gifts” and personal letters to Benedict, but he also makes sure to visit his predecessor before embarking on every major trip he takes.

“The human benevolence with which he treats me, is for me a special grace of this last phase of my life for which I can only be grateful,” Benedict said.

“What he says about availability to other men, are not only words. He puts it into practice with me. May the Lord in turn make him feel his benevolence every day. This I ask the Lord for him.”

Benedict’s interview was given to Italian author Elio Guerrero, whose book “Servant of God and Humanity: The biography of Benedict XVI,” will be released Aug. 30 in Italian.

Not only does the book include a preface by Pope Francis himself, but it will also feature Guerrero’s entire interview with Benedict XVI. There is currently no date announced for an English publication of the book.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

VATICAN NEWS

Nonviolent politics to be the focus of next World Day of Peace

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 26, 2016

Pope Francis greets pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square during his Sept. 9, 2015 General Audience. (Daniel Ibañez/CNA)

Vatican City — Announced Friday, the theme Pope Francis selected for the 2017 World Day of Peace focuses on nonviolence as a political solution to what he has frequently termed a “piecemeal World War III” being waged throughout the globe.

“Violence and Peace are at the origin of two opposite ways to building society,” an Aug. 26 communique from the Vatican’s Council for Justice and Peace announcing the theme read.

“The proliferation of hotbeds of violence produces most serious negative social consequences … Peace, by contrast, promotes social positive consequences and it allows the achievement of real progress.”

Therefore, “we should act within what is possible, and negotiate ways of peace even where they seem tortuous and impractical,” the message attached to the theme said.

By doing so, non-violence can take on “a more comprehensive and new meaning” composed not only of mere desire or a moral rejection of violence, barriers and destructive impulses, but also “of a realistic political method that gives rise to hope.”

Titled “Non-Violence: A Style of Politics for Peace,” the theme for 2017’s World Day of Peace marks the 50th anniversary of the celebration, and the fourth of Pope Francis’ pontificate.

Instituted by Bl. Pope Paul VI in 1968, the World Day of Peace is celebrated each year on the first day of January. The Pope gives a special message for the occasion, which is sent to all foreign ministers around the world, and which also indicates the Holy See’s diplomatic tone during the coming year.

So far Pope Francis’ messages have focused on themes close to his heart, such as fraternity, an end to slavery, including forced labor and human trafficking, as well as overcoming indifference on both an individual and a political level.

His messages for the event have consistently included bold pastoral and political advice for both ecclesial and international leaders, including his push for the abolition of the death penalty and amnesty for prisoners convicted of political offenses.

In the communique introducing the 2017 theme, it was stressed that nonviolence as a political strategy is “based on the primacy of law.”

If the equal rights and dignity of each individual are respected without discrimination, “then non-violence, understood as a political method, can constitute a realistic way to overcome arm conflicts.”

Pope Francis’ aim in choosing this theme, the statement read, is to show “a path of hope” that’s proportionate to the context of today’s global circumstances.

“In this way, the settlement of disputes may be reached through negotiation without then degenerating into armed conflict.” With this perspective in mind, the cultural identity of different peoples will be respected, and the idea that some are “morally superior” to others will be overcome.

The statement cautioned that nonviolence isn’t the same as remaining indifferent to tragedies, but rather implies a recognition “of the primacy of diplomacy over the noise of arms.”

“Arms trade is so widespread that it is generally underestimated,” the statement read, adding that illegal arms trafficking supports “not a few world’s conflicts,” and nonviolence as a political style “can and must do much to stem this scourge.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

VATICAN NEWS

The happiest day of Mother Teresa’s life

by Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • August 26, 2016

Mother Teresa and John Paul II on May 25, 1983. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — It’s been said that saints often come in pairs.

Sts. Peter and Paul, Mary and Joseph, Francis and Clare, and Louis and Zelie Martin are just a handful of such saints, coupled together through marriage or friendship.

Perhaps the best-known modern saintly pair of friends would be Mother Teresa and John Paul II, whose lives intersected many times during her time as Mother Superior of the Missionaries of Charity, and his pontificate.

When John Paul II came to visit Mother Teresa’s home in the heart of the slums in Kolkata in 1986, Mother Teresa called it “the happiest day of my life.”

When he arrived, Mother Teresa climbed up into the white popemobile and kissed the ring of the Bishop of Rome, who then kissed the top of Mother’s head, a greeting they would exchange almost every time they met.

After their warm hello, Mother took John Paul II to her Nirmal Hriday (Sacred Heart) home, a home for the sick and the dying she had founded in the 1950s.

Footage of the visit shows Mother Teresa leading John Paul II by the hand to various parts of the home, while he stops to embrace, bless, and greet the patients. He also blessed four corpses, including that of a child.

According to reports of the visit from the BBC, the Pope was “visibly moved” by what he saw during his visit, as he helped the nuns feed and care for the sick and the dying. At some points the Pope was so disturbed by what he saw that he found himself speechless in response to Mother Teresa.

Afterwards, the Pope gave a short address outside the home, calling Nirmal Hriday “a place that bears witness to the primacy of love.”

“When Jesus Christ was teaching his disciples how they could best show their love for him, he said: ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ Through Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity, and through the many others who have served here, Jesus has been deeply loved in people whom society often considers ‘the least of our brethren,’” the Pope remarked.

“Nirmal Hriday proclaims the profound dignity of every human person. The loving care which is shown here bears witness to the truth that the worth of a human being is not measured by usefulness or talents, by health or sickness, by age or creed or race. Our human dignity comes from God our Creators in whose image we are all made. No amount of privation or suffering can ever remove this dignity, for we are always precious in the eyes of God,” he added.

After his address, the Pope greeted the gathered crowds, making a special stop to greet the smiling and singing sisters of the Missionaries of Charity.

Besides calling the visit the happiest day of her life, Mother Teresa also added: “It is a wonderful thing for the people, for his touch is the touch of Christ.”

The two remained close friends, visiting each other several times over the years. After her death in 1997, John Paul II waived the five-year waiting period usually observed before opening her cause for canonization. At her beatification in 2003, John Paul II praised Mother Teresa’s love for God, shown through her love for the poor.

“Let us praise the Lord for this diminutive woman in love with God, a humble Gospel messenger and a tireless benefactor of humanity. In her we honour one of the most important figures of our time. Let us welcome her message and follow her example.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

WORLD NEWS

India gears up for Mother Teresa canonization celebrations

by CNA/EWTN News • August 22, 2016

Mother Teresa. (Manfredo Ferrari via Wikipedia CC 4.0)

Calcutta, India — Mother Teresa will be canonized on Sept. 4, and a global film festival aims to screen 23 movies to mark the event.

The Mother Teresa International Film Festival will feature seven India-made movies, along with entries from the U.S., France, the U.K., Spain, Italy, Canada and Japan, Can-India News reports.

It will be held at the Calcutta state government-run Nandan multiplex, a film and cultural center in Calcutta. The Aug. 26-29 festival will open with the American documentary “Mother Teresa.”

The festival is organized by the Indian chapter of SIGNIS, the World Catholic Association for Communication. The festival is planned to travel around India and then to different countries, Vatican Radio says.

Other planned celebrations for the nun’s canonization include a Mass of thanksgiving to be celebrated Oct. 2 at the Netaji Indoor Stadium. Among the attendees is India’s Vice President Hamid Ansari. A civic program will follow the Mass.

The state government has organized a Nov. 4 homage to the woman who will become St. Teresa of Calcutta. Other plans include the installation of a life-size bronze statue of Mother Teresa at the Bishop of Calcutta’s residence.

The Albanian-born Mother Teresa joined the Sisters of Loretto at age 17 and was sent to Caluctta, India. While recuperating from an illness, she received what she called “an order” from God to leave her convent and live among the poor.

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

In 1950, Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity as a congregation of the Diocese of Calcutta. Mother Teresa’s work and spirituality went on to draw worldwide admiration. She died Sept. 5, 1997 at the age of 87. She was beatified just six years later by St. John Paul II Oct. 19, 2003.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

WORLD NEWS

As Philippines drug war escalates, bishops call for justice

by CNA/EWTN News • August 23, 2016

(Unsplash/CNA)

Manila, Philippines — Amid President Rodrigo Duterte’s fierce war against the underworld of drugs in the Philippines, the country’s bishops are rallying with a pastoral appeal to end unjust violence while encouraging efforts to maintain law and order.

“We are disturbed by an increasing number of reports of suspected drug-peddlers, pushers and others about whom reports of criminal activity have been received, have been shot, supposedly because they resist arrest,” stated a recent press release from the Bishops Conference of the Philippines.

“It is equally disturbing that vigilantism seems to be on the rise,” the bishops continued, noting the increasing number of murders portrayed in the media.

Since his election in May, President Duterte has handed out death sentences to drug dealers in an effort to end the illegal drug culture in the Philippines. Although over 600,000 dealers have already turned themselves in since the campaign, these efforts have also resulted in police brutality on the streets of Manila.

Stories such as the one of Renato and Jaypee Bertes are not uncommon tales.

The New York Times reported on the Filipino father-son duo who smoked shabu, a common type of methamphetamine, and occasionally sold the drug on the streets of Manila. When police barged into their home and arrested the two men, they were beaten, tortured and eventually shot to death while in police custody.

According to the New York Times, over 1,800 people have been similarly killed at the hands of police or vigilantes over the past three months. Alarmed by the number of killings, Filipino bishops have spoken out against the violence and have called for true justice from members of law enforcement.

“To kill a suspect outright, no matter how much surveillance work may have antecedently been done on the suspect, is not morally justified,” the bishops stated.

Although President Duterte has stated that addicts are “no longer viable as human beings on this planet,” the bishops underscored the dignity of every person, saying “God never gave up on us. We have no right giving up on ourselves or on our brothers and sisters.”

In light of the killings, the bishops offered guidelines for members of law enforcement to follow. First, they said that killing in self-defense is a legitimate and morally permissible action. However, they denounced killing on the grounds of suspicion, saying that “suspicion is never the moral equivalent of certainty,” and it could not be morally justified.

“Let no one ever raise his hand against his brother or sister, from the blood that is shed – even if it be the blood of one we suspect of crime – cries to heaven for justice!” the bishops said.

The bishops conference also noted that receiving monetary gain for killing, in the case of some vigilantes, is always wrong and should immediately stop. They asked citizens to report unlawful killing and any vigilante activity.

“It is the moral duty of every Catholic, every Christian, in fact, to report all forms of vigilantism of which they have personal knowledge,” the bishops stated.

Although the bishops decried the acts of violence committed against drug dealers in the Philippines, they highlighted their hopes that criminal activity would end and voiced their support of true justice at the hands of law enforcement.

“We understand the difficulties that law-enforcers face, the daily risk to life and limb, but not only civil society but also the Church counts on them for the flourishing of society,” the bishops said.

“Members of the community – Christians especially - should not be too quick to point accusing fingers at law enforcers, prosecutors and judges,” they continued.

The bishops were hopeful that harmony between citizens and government could be restored, and urged those in power to use their influential positions for good.

“We beg our prosecutors and judges to remain firm in their consecration to justice, for there can be no greater insult to the Creator than to use the gifts of intelligence, discernment and one’s success at legal studies for ends contrary to building the Body of Christ.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

WORLD NEWS

A look at the crisis of the Church in Germany

by Anian Christoph Wimmer (CNA/EWTN News) • August 23, 2016

Cologne Cathedral. (Namportwawak via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Berlin, Germany — The plummeting number of priestly vocations in the Catholic Church in Germany is raising questions about the roots of the problem, and whether the situation has been manufactured to promote non-priestly ministry.

According to figures published by the German bishops’ conference, never before have so few priests been ordained in the Church in Germany: a total of 58 men became priests in the country in 2015.

Within the last decade, the number of ordinations has dropped by half: In 2005, a total of 122 diocesan priests were ordained. And five decades ago, in 1965, the number was 500.

Whilst there were almost 20,000 Catholic priests in Germany in 1990, today their number has dropped to 14,000. And this drastic decline is set to continue, judging by the figures: last year also marked the first time in history that the number of new seminarians dropped to double digits. Only 96 new students were registered in 2015. At the same time, 309 priests passed away, and 19 left the priesthood.

One Catholic commentator, Alexander Kissler of Cicero magazine, claimed that “crocodile tears are being shed in the dioceses. There is talk about changed conditions, crises of public perception, cycles of religiosity, the loss of obligation. Some contritely beat their chests and pull out dated scandals.”

A deliberate lack of priests?

However, this is just a smoke-screen, Kissler implies in an article published Aug. 18: “Indeed, the lack of priests is deliberate. Priests are in the way of the new Church of Participation”. The author points to the fact that the German bishops have mostly responded to the crisis twofold: By inviting foreign priests to work for them, and by abandoning the traditional parish structure in favor of larger “pastoral areas”, which take different names in different dioceses.

This “pastoral reform”, Kissler claims – in a trenchant polemic drawing on the idiosyncratic rhetoric of diocesan documents and workshops – is ultimately aimed at creating a quasi-democratic, participatory type of Church. He points to the visits of German diocesan staff to the Pastoral Institute Bukal ng Tipan, and taking back their own particular interpretation of the Filipino institute’s official motto of “journeying with people towards a participatory church in the world”.

Irrespective of whether one agrees with Kissler’s assertion that priests and their role are deliberately being de-emphasized, behind the alarming numbers a bigger story is at play, whose fault lines run all the way back to the Second Vatican Council and the ideas and interpretations of the generation of priests and theologians of that era.

It is the story of a Church undergoing radical change, and whether this change is simply a response to the new realities of a declining Catholicism, or in fact implemented systematically over the last few decades in order to change the reality of Catholicism.

As one foreign priest currently serving in a South German “pastoral unit” who wished to remain anonymous told CNA, contact with the parishioners is diminished and fragmented. He rotates between several parish churches in the unit to say Mass, whilst other “pastoral workers” teach, engage in youth activities, or perform other apostolates.

Furthermore, making contact is not always easy in the first place, he said. “People want to be private”, he told CNA, and seem reluctant to interact with the priest outside of his “sacramental function”. Unlike in his homeland, where parishioners ask him to mediate in family conflicts, seek his advice on personal matters, and invite him over for dinner, he notes that German people prefer not to have him take an interest in their private lives.

Looking at the bigger picture

For the foreign priest – and many other observers – the answer in dealing with the vocation catastrophe is in looking at the bigger picture of how the faith is faring in Germany, and in Western Europe in general.

Indeed, whilst Church tax income and overall number of employees of the Church in Germany is at a historically high level, it is not only the priesthood that is in dire straits.

Figures released July 15 by the German bishops’ conference show a dramatic overall decline of all aspects of the faith except material wealth.

With more than 23.7 million members in Germany, Catholicism today is still the largest single religious group in the country, comprising 29 percent of the population. Yet people are leaving the Church in droves: in 2015, a total of 181,925 people departed. By comparison, 2,685 people became Catholic, and 6,474 reverted to Catholicism. What is more, average church attendance is down from 18.6 percent in 1995 to 10.4 percent in 2015.

For journalist Matthias Drobinski, who writes for the Munich liberal broadsheet Süddeutsche Zeitung, one key problem is celibacy – as well as the fact that only men can be priests.

“Prominent theologians” are “now demanding to allow women, mature married men [viri probati] to be ordained as priests, or to permit lay people to preside over the celebration of the eucharist,” he wrote in an article for the Suddeutsche Aug. 17.

Drobinski also quotes the well-known Viennese professor of pastoral theology, Fr. Paul Michael Zulehner: “It would be possible to have people with community experience elected, educated and ordained”, to ensure that the Church can provide the Eucharist to its people.

At 76 years of age, Fr. Zulehner is not a young revolutionary. His – and similar – reflections and demands have heavily influenced people and policies in German dioceses, right down to the parish level – to the extent that already, in both urban and rural areas across Germany today, one rarely encounters the once-typical scenario of a parish priest looking after his parish.

A future of “pastoral teams and units”

Instead, one increasingly finds “pastoral teams” looking after “pastoral units”. The nomenclature differs from diocese to diocese: whilst there are “pastoral units” in the Archdiocese of Freiburg im Brieisgau, they are called “parish associations” in Munich and Freising, and “cooperative units” are considered to be the future in the Diocese of Essen.

In all cases, the pastoral teams assigned to these “units” are not just priests, but consist of a mix of paid women and men, most of them theologically educated, who take on different roles. Several dioceses educate, train, and pay “community specialists” and/or “pastoral assistants”, for instance, in addition to deacons and priests.

In several German dioceses today, it is not uncommon to have a female pastoral specialist, dressed in a white alb, conducting a Catholic funeral, and even giving the homily during Mass in diocesan Churches, even if that may be frowned upon officially.

Given this reality on the ground in German dioceses, demands for women to be ordained as deacons are not just common-place, but considered reasonable among Catholics in the Church’s employ; not to mention for theologians – with tacit or open support of many a German bishop – to demand further “reforms” along the lines that both Drobinski and Kissler describe, albeit from different points of view. Indeed, while Drobinski implicitly argues for the changes to continue, the latter polemically asks whether this is all an attempt “to re-catholicize Luther, or the lutherization of the Church?”

All eyes on Rome

Rhetorical point-scoring aside, the debate over how to tackle the manifold crisis of Catholicism in Germany will not just take place in Germany proper: the “ordinary faithful”, as much as theologians and bishops, are looking to Rome.

As Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising commented the July figures: “We need a ‘sophisticated pastoral practice’ that does justice to the diverse life-worlds of people and convincingly passes on the hope of the faith. The conclusion of last year’s synod of bishops and the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia by Pope Francis are important signposts.”

“Pope Francis gives us courage,” the president of the German bishops’ conference continued, “when he tells us that the way of the future Church is the way of a ‘synodal church.’ That means: All faithful are called upon, laypeople and priests! Together we will continue to give convincingly witness to our Faith and the Gospel.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

WORLD NEWS

Reflections on Mother Teresa from her ‘Apostle of the Rosary’

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 23, 2016

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

Rome, Italy — Women’s rights activist Reggie Littlejohn is known for her fierce work fighting forced abortion and gendercide in China, often through grilling speeches given before the U.S. Congress and the United Nations.

However, what is less-known about Littlejohn is that before becoming a successful lawyer and founder of the Women’s Rights Without Frontiers organization, she spent six weeks working alongside a tiny, hunched-over woman in India who would become one of the greatest figures of our time.

While on a yearlong break from Yale Law School, Littlejohn traveled the world alongside her husband, stopping to work with the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, now referred to as Kolkata, for just over a month.

It was during this time that Mother Teresa not only asked Littlejohn to be her ‘Apostle of the Rosary’ during their daily holy hour, handing rosaries to everyone that entered, but invited her to join the order.

Although she couldn’t join since she was already married, Littlejohn said she probably would have been willing to, thanks to Mother Teresa’s humility, personal closeness to each individual, and selfless service to others.

Mother Teresa “was a humble person, she did not consider herself to be any better than anyone else,” Littlejohn told CNA.

When people told Mother Teresa that she was a saint, she would reply “‘no, I’m just holy in my state in life, just the way that you’re holy in your state of life,’ assuming that we’re all holy in our state in life,” Littlejohn said, adding that “I think most of us are not. But she had no sense of self-importance of all.”

Littlejohn, who grew up Catholic, said she wanted to me “a missionary nun” when she was a child, and consistently pestered her parents with the idea. However, she was eventually dissuaded by them and their parish priest, who told her the lifestyle was probably not for her.

“I guess if I had been more determined or a true saint like Mother Teresa I would have gone on,” she said, but instead gave up because “I figured that if the priest said no, this is not the will of God.”

However, when she heard about Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity several years later and discovered that volunteers could meet and join them in their work, she was “of course enthralled by the possibility.”

She said her desire to work with Mother Teresa in slums stemmed from “a powerful spiritual experience,” since one can work with the poor and impoverished anywhere.

“Why go to India, why work with a monastic community? It’s because I felt that there was something spiritually powerful about them that I wanted to experience, and I think that I did experience it.”

This experience is something Littlejohn felt from the moment she and her husband showed up at the Missionaries of Charity doorstep, where they were not only “welcomed right in,” but met Mother Teresa face-to-face the same day.

Littlejohn said she and her husband were sitting in the hall waiting to get a list of suggested places to stay and work, when they heard “this little rustling and shuffling down the hall.”

“We looked down the hall and there was Mother Teresa herself, and she immediately came to both of us and she took our hands in her two hands,” she said, recalling how the soon-to-be-saint’s hands were “big, and soft and warm.”

The first words out of Mother Teresa’s mouth were “welcome, welcome. Good. I’m so glad you’re here,’” Littlejohn recalled, noting that “we had just walked in off the street and here she is.”

“One of the characteristics of Mother Teresa is that she regarded every human being as Jesus Christ right in front of her … (even) a baby that she found in a trash can … when she was with you she was with you.”

Although Mother Teresa was typically traveling to the various Missionaries of Charity houses all over the world, Littlejohn noted that the nun was in Calcutta for the entire six weeks she and her husband stayed, which was an “unusual” but welcome blessing.

Speaking of Mother Teresa’s generosity and attention to others, Littlejohn recounted how her parents came to visit while she was working there, and at one point asked to have a photo with the nun.

“Being the immature person I was, I had the audacity to knock on the door – it was really more of a doorframe with a curtain in it – during their time of rest” and ask for the photo, she said.

Instead of telling them to come back, Mother Teresa came out “very good natured” and embraced her parents, consenting immediately to the photo.

“She was very cheerful, she stood there giving up her naptime to take a picture with some American whose parents were visiting Calcutta,” Littlejohn said, adding that “She was so un-protective of her time, and this was her humility.”

Littlejohn also recounted how she received the role as ‘Apostle of the Rosary’ during her time with the Missionaries. During their stay, volunteers had the option of going to Mass with the sisters at 5:50 a.m., and joining them for Holy Hour and the rosary at 6:30 p.m. after the day’s work.

The first time she attended a holy hour, Littlejohn said she was late, and “snuck in the back door” so as not to disturb the others, or Mother Teresa, who was praying on the other side of the room.

“I went far away from her and was trying to creep in unnoticed,” she said, but as she was kneeling and praying, “all of the sudden I felt this presence above me, and I looked up and there was Mother Teresa.”

Instead of chastising Littlejohn for being late, Mother Teresa “bent down and showed me which bead they were on, which is again her humility … (she) interrupted her own prayer to show me which bead we were on.”

Littlejohn said she decided to come to holy hour again the next day, and arrived on time. When she got there, Mother Teresa pulled her aside and said, “I would like you to help me. Would you be my Apostle of the Rosary?”

“What do you say to that? I was floored that she even noticed me at all,” Littlejohn said, explaining that she consented and was tasked with handing a rosary to each person as they walked into holy hour for the rest of her time there.

In addition to her spiritual support, Mother Teresa was also a source of comfort and strength after Littlejohn had been assaulted by a man while waiting for the subway.

“There is a long walkway in a tunnel to get to the subway and I was the only person in the tunnel with this guy, and he just turned around and grabbed me,” Littlejohn said, explaining that she tried to punch the man and chase him down, but wasn’t able to because she was wearing sandals.

Upset about the incident and finding it hard to carry on with her work, she approached Mother Teresa later that evening. Littlejohn said she was fearful that Mother Teresa would chastise her and say she should have “turned the other cheek,” however, what she heard was the opposite.

Mother Teresa, she said, told her it was a “grace from God” that she tried to chase the man down, and applauded her effort to catch him. However, she also cautioned her that it’s “unwise to ever go out as a woman alone,” which is why the Missionaries always go out two-by-two.

After the conversation, Littlejohn said Mother Teresa took time to pray with her, and in the end she left feeling “so elated, much more so than if it had never happened.”

“This is the time she takes for one person, I mean who was I? I was nobody, I was a volunteer among many dozens of other volunteers who were there at that time, I was among thousands of volunteers who had been there over the decades and she took the time to listen to my story.”

Littlejohn then recalled how at one point during her stay, Mother Teresa actually invited her to join the Missionaries of Charity.

The sisters had periodic spiritual retreats, and that there was always a certain time or talk that the volunteers could attend. One of the retreats, Littlejohn noted, was dedicated to the topic that “everyone on earth has a heavenly name” that they will discover only when they get to heaven.

As she was leaving the retreat alongside the stream of other volunteers, Littlejohn said Mother Teresa happened to be right outside the room, and walked straight up to her.

Mother Teresa, she said, “came up to me and took my hand in her two hands and she said, ‘Heart full of Love, you must take the sari,’” referring to a typical Indian garment worn by women.

The habit for The Missionaries of Charity is a white sari with blue lines running along the edges, representing both purity and the Virgin Mary.

“I felt like she was calling me by my heavenly name,” Littlejohn said, explaining that Mother Teresa’s words “you must take the sari” were a direct invitation to come live with the community for two weeks, to discern whether or not it might be her vocation.

Littlejohn said she had wanted to say yes, but couldn’t, since she was already married – a fact that shocked Mother Teresa, who “in her purity” never realized the man coming and going everywhere with Littlejohn was her husband, despite the fact they both wore their wedding rings.

Mother Teresa then invited the couple to become Lay Missionaries of Charity, taking them to the small room the size of a restaurant booth that served as the administrative headquarters of the order.

While Littlejohn was accustomed to spacious legal “war rooms” stacked to the ceiling with documents, “there was none of that with Mother Teresa.”

“She had one little rickety file cabinet” from which she pulled the typewritten copy of the rules for the Lay Missionaries of Charity. It was the only copy.

“I just looked at this document and I thought to myself, ‘if I were an irresponsible person and just walked off with this without returning it to her, she would not have the rules of the Lay Missionaries of Charity, it would be gone,’” Littlejohn said, but noted that this is how Mother Teresa lived.

“She lived such a life of faith that she just depended completely on God,” for both the small things and the big.

After going through the rules and discussing them together, Littlejohn and her husband came to the conclusion that being lay missionaries with the order, while beautiful, wasn’t for them.

However, even though they said no, “I feel that my experience with Mother Teresa has had enormous influence on my life,” Littlejohn said, adding that the order’s ministry of picking up dying babies off the street “is the spiritual inspiration” of the Save a Girl Campaign her organization is promoting in China.

The difference between the two is that while Mother Teresa and her sisters would shelter and care for dying or rejected babies, Littlejohn’s organization encourages mothers to keep their daughters, giving them a monthly stipend to help with expenses.

While her organization works to fight gender discrimination in China, Littlejohn said that it was in India that she first encountered female gendercide.

While on a trip to India before working with the Missionaries of Charity, Littlejohn said she had been visiting Varanasi, and that as she was stepping from the shore of the Ganges River into a small motor boat for a ride, “I look down and right beneath me was a fully formed, dead baby girl floating in the water.”

“I was aghast,” she said, explaining that the baby “looked absolutely perfect. It did not look like a child that had died from some kind of illness, this was a perfectly beautiful baby girl, and I’ll never forget it.”

Working with Mother Teresa and her order prompted Littlejohn to both take another look at the faith of her childhood, and to look more closely to the needs of others.

“One of the things that I learned with Mother Teresa (is) what your limits are; you learn what the limits to your holiness are, you learn to expand your limits,” she said, explaining that at first she was afraid to touch people with diseases, for fear of contamination.

However, “as you continue working your compassion for the person grows, so you stop thinking so much about yourself and you start thinking more about them and what they’re going through and wanting to somehow relieve their suffering,” she said.

She referred to the phrase “I Thirst,” which was inspired by Mother Teresa and is written on the wall beside a crucifix in every Missionaries of Charity house.

“Loving Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor, as she would call it, was satisfying his thirst for souls,” she said, explaining that the phrase serves as an inspiration to her and her work.

While her organization has a “justice-oriented mission,” exposing forced abortion and sex-selective abortion in China, Littlejohn said “there’s this whole mercy aspect of it, which is helping these women and baby girls, these women who do not want to abort,” and offering a new, countercultural message that girls are just as good as boys.

“I think that’s very in line with what Mother Teresa was doing, and she’s a profound inspiration to me in the entire direction of my life.”

In a letter she wrote to friends and family while in Calcutta, which was later published in the Yale Law Report, Littlejohn described Mother Teresa as “a short woman in her mid-seventies, bent at mid-back as if in a permanent posture of prayer.”

“Her face is lined with love, and her deeply crinkled eyes pour out compassion. She is in such a state of grace that when she takes your hand, smiles and says, ‘God bless you,’ she opens the inner chambers of your soul and leaves you ecstatic for hours.”

As someone born into an upper-class Albanian family, Mother Teresa is proof that “even those of us with privileged pasts can aspire to goodness,” Littlejohn said, explaining that the nun “seems blissfully unconcerned about her stature in the world.”

“I don’t think she even thinks about how others view her. She just loves people, especially the poor, and caresses the hand of the leper with the same joy and respect with which she kisses the hand of the Pope or shakes the hand of a president.”

Littlejohn described Mother Teresa’s presence in the convent as “gentle,” and said she kept “a low profile.”

“She does not encourage hero worship, nor does she receive it. The nuns love her but are not preoccupied with her the way we Westerners are,” she said, explaining that their attention was always on their prayer and on their work, “as it should be.”

“This will leave the order strong once she is gone. For me, she is a brilliant example of someone who had the guts to give up an easy upper-class life to do God’s work.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

WORLD NEWS

In U.K., abortion clinic inspections have consequences

by CNA/EWTN News • August 24, 2016

(Unsplash/CNA)

London, England — British inspectors have barred some abortions at Marie Stopes International due to concerns about safety and informed consent for abortion.

Clara Watson, a spokeswoman for the Life charity that helps women in crisis pregnancies, said the move calls into question about the safety of the abortion providers’ clinics around the world.

“It is absolutely scandalous that Marie Stopes International, which likes to talk about women dying from unsafe abortions, is itself being rapped for exposing patients to potential harm,” Watson said, according to the Catholic Herald. “This is not the first time that Marie Stopes clinics have been in the news.”

In 2015, a doctor and two nurses were charged with manslaughter when a 32-year-old woman from Dublin died hours after undergoing an abortion at a west London Marie Stopes clinic in January 2012.

The England Care Quality Commission (CQC) said that its routine inspections of clinics prompted the concerns. It made unannounced inspections of Marie Stopes International’s corporate headquarters in England and then its call center, the U.K. newspaper The Guardian reports.

The commission said it raised concerns about the provider’s corporate and clinical governance arrangements and patient safety protocols.

It said that there were not adequate protocols to ensure girls under 18 and other vulnerable women could give informed consent, so Marie Stopes must stop performing abortions on these women. It has also suspended any abortions carried out under general anesthetic or sedation after 12 weeks into pregnancy.

The care commission’s action drew further response from pro-life advocates.

“Abortion is always destructive of the lives of unborn children, but when prosecuted as it has been by some abortionists, it can leave women scarred as well,” said Peter D. Williams, executive officer at Right to Life U.K.

He said he hopes the commission action can open a debate about under-regulation of abortion in the U.K., the Catholic Herald reports.

Prof. Edward Baker, the deputy chief inspector of hospitals at the Care Quality Commission, explained the commission action.

“We believe that the action taken is appropriate to address our concerns. We will continue to monitor these services very closely and we will not hesitate to take further action, if needed,” he said Aug. 19.

Baker added that the commission’s priority is “to ensure that patients get safe, high-quality and compassionate care.”

Marie Stopes International chief executive Simon Cooke said its U.K. branch agreed to suspend some abortions voluntarily. He said the suspension would allow the branch “to resolve areas of concern in its training and governance procedures.”

About 250 women per week who would normally seek an abortion through Marie Stopes are now going elsewhere, including to the U.K.’s largest abortion provider, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.

The Marie Stopes abortions can only begin again once it assures inspectors that it has made the required changes. The restrictions also apply to the Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast.

However, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children charged that the abortions are already illegal under laws it says permits abortion only when there is a health risk.

“Pregnant women are suffering intolerably,” charged Paul Tully, the society’s general secretary. “The CQC is defending illegal government abortion policy which kills children and sometimes women too. Women are not being offered proper support when facing difficulties in pregnancy - simply being channeled into the abortion industry funded by the Department of Health.”

“Abortion is an inherently risky interference in the natural pregnancy process,” he said.

Previous oversight of U.K. abortion clinics found that clinics were side-stepping a requirement that two doctors approve each individual abortion. Some clinics had doctors pre-sign the required paperwork so that in effect only one doctor gave approval for an individual abortion case.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

WORLD NEWS

Earthquake in Italy prompts outpouring of support

by CNA/EWTN News • August 24, 2016

Rescue workers from the Sovereign Military Order of Malta assist in an earthquake-affected area on Aug. 24, 2016. (Sovereign Military Order of Malta)

Spoleto, Italy — While the number of victims of the earthquake that hit central Italy in the early hours of Wednesday climbs, the gestures of generosity and aid for those affected have multiplied.

At approximately 3:30 am Aug. 24, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck roughly six miles southeast of Norcia in central Italy. Over the next several hours, nearly 200 aftershocks shook the regions of Umbria, Lazio, and Marche, leaving towns throughout the area devastated.

So far, at least 159 people have been killed, according to Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi. More than 360 are injured; most of the victims are from the towns of Amatrice, Accumoli, Arquata del Tronto, and Pescara del Tronto – all of which have been reduced to rubble.

Among those affected by the disaster are the Benedictine monks of Norcia. They are all safe, but their buildings are damaged, and the community has announced that they will transfer to Rome for a time as a precautionary measure.

“We strive to maintain the order of the Rule even during the most difficult of circumstances, and this transfer, while disruptive, will ensure the safety of our monks and grant us all the peace to continue to practice our monastic life,” they stated.

However, aid has arrived quickly. Medical teams, nurses, and rescue workers from the Italian Aid Corps of the Sovereign Order of Malta have already reached the affected areas.

In Arquata del Tronto, a canine unit has been called in to aid rescue operations. An emergency evaluation team – including a doctor and a nurse – is now located in Amatrice, where it is joined by staff of the Department of Civil Protection engaged in disaster intervention and medical care.

The Order of Malta has activated a mobile unit that will provide assistance to the affected populations in Amatrice and Accumoli. Within hours of the earthquake, the Grand Master of the Sovereign Order of Malta, Fra. Matthew Festing, extended to Italian president Sergio Mattarella a message of condolence.

“I want to convey feelings of sincere condolences for the many victims. I also want to express solidarity and sympathy, and assure prayers of comfort and consolation to their family, to the survivors, and to the displaced persons,” Festing said.

As in other similar situations, Vatican City has sent help, making six fire brigades available to the Italian Civil Protection. In addition, the Catholic aid group for ill Lourdes pilgrims, Unitalsi, along with Bishop Domenico Pompili of Rieti are coming back from their pilgrimage to Lourdes in order to help the victims in Amatrice.

“We have already sent the National Department of Civil Protection a note informing them of the immediate availability of our personnel and motor vehicles for the transport of disabled persons,” said Unitalsi national president, Antonio Diella.

Bishop Javier Echevarría Rodriguez, the prelate of Opus Dei, asked Catholics, “especially the faithful of the Prelature and our friends present in the area. to collaborate as much as possible and to help those responsible for organizing and bringing relieve to those affected.”

On social media throughout Italy, there are many posts from people offering support and shelter for survivors of the earthquake, and many teams of volunteers from around Italy have arrived in the provinces of Rieti and Ascoli Piceno.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

WORLD NEWS

Head of Mother Teresa’s order: She was like ‘a mother to me’

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • August 25, 2016

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

Rome, Italy — For Sr. Mary Prema Pierick, Mother Teresa’s impact did not come from her outward appearance, but from a personal encounter with the woman’s unconditional and mother-like love and acceptance.

According to the Missionary of Charity, Mother Teresa’s greatness defied her short stature, residing “inside” her. Upon meeting Mother Teresa for the first time, Sr. Prema told CNA/EWTN, “It was not appearance, but it was the way she related to me,” that was most striking. “That was an experience of a person who loves, and who accepts me, and who wants me, and is a mother to me.”

When “I saw her the first time she was already 70 years old, so she was already a little bent, but her eyes were full of life,” Sr. Prema said.

Sr. Prema was in her late 20s when she first met Mother Teresa in Berlin, Germany in 1980. She said she was inspired to meet the foundress of the Missionaries of Charity after reading the biography of her life, Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge. “I was impressed by the simplicity of life the sisters were having in Calcutta and I could not forget about it,” Sr. Prema said.

After this encounter with Mother Teresa, Sr. Prema continued to feel called to join the Missionaries of Charity. “Then slowly, as I became richer in my prayer life, I knew that I wanted to give all, all for Jesus,” she said. “And I didn’t look for a congregation where I could compromise, having things for myself or conveniences, but I wanted to follow Jesus in this radical way of life.”

Elected to the position of Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity on March 24, 2009, Sr. Prema is the second to take over the order after Mother Teresa’s death in 1997.

For Mother Teresa, Sr. Prema shared, there was not only much physical suffering in the world, but also an invisible and deep spiritual suffering, found “in sin, in addiction to sinful behavior.”

Spiritual suffering is a “real deep, deep suffering,” Sr. Prema said. “For those who are in the blindness of sin, but also for those who are suffering the consequences of those sins.”

The solution, to Mother Teresa, was simply to love Jesus and to practice mercy. “Mercy was like a second nature to Mother because of the love she had for Jesus. And she invited everybody to put their hands, and especially their heart, to love.”

To those thinking they may be called to a vocation to the religious or priesthood, Sr. Prema shared, “Do not be afraid to love and to give yourself.”

And for everyone, Sr. Prema reminded, “Let us not be in a hurry and in a rush to complete things and projects and plans and become deprived of what is really making us human, which is to love and to be loved.”

Mary Shovlain contributed to this report.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

WORLD NEWS

‘We cannot keep quiet’ – Ugandan archbishop stands against domestic violence

by CNA/EWTN News • August 26, 2016

(Victor Tongdee via Shutterstock.com)

Tororo, Uganda — An archdiocese in southeastern Uganda aims to eliminate domestic violence.

“It’s a concern for the family, it’s a concern for the society, above all, it’s a concern for the Church, and we cannot keep quiet,” Archbishop Emmanuel Obbo of Tororo told the Catholic News Agency of Africa Aug. 17.

He said domestic violence is a major challenge present “in almost every family” in his diocese.

The archbishop lamented violence between spouses as well as child beating and the defilement of children.

“Young girls are not free to live in this society,” Archbishop Obbo said.

Now the Archdiocese of Tororo is taking action. With clergy, vowed religious and catechists, the archbishop said, “we are trying to do what we can, from the grassroots to my office, to see that domestic violence is reduced to zero.”

The archbishop has established a chaplaincy for domestic violence in each deanery of his archdiocese to oversee the campaign, and there are also domestic violence committees at each parish.

Archbishop Obbo said the committees draw people who have suffered or committed abuse to help parishioners consider what causes domestic violence and learn how to seek non-violent solutions to challenges.

“We get families who have passed through (domestic violence), who have been trained and cured or healed themselves, reconciled themselves, and they spread their witness to the others, teaching them from place to place,” he said.

The archdiocese uses radio programs to discuss violence and to involve law enforcement officers to deal with perpetrators of domestic violence.

Archbishop Obbo objected to those who blame domestic violence on poverty. Rather, he said, domestic violence has become a “way of life” for people who cannot accept their personal situations.

“People are not satisfied with the way they live, the time is running, people are competing, they want to see better things but they cannot see better things in themselves, and that frustrates,” he said.

Church leaders across the world are becoming more aware of the problem of domestic violence. The apostolate Pax in Familia, chaired by Dr. Christauria Welland, spoke with bishops at the recent synods on the family about the problem, and with the Pontifical Councils for the Family and the Laity.

Another Ugandan prelate, Archbishop John Baptist Odama of Gulu, told CNA last October that he had spoken up at the Synod on the Family about the issue of domestic violence, saying he saw “children suffering, but more the mothers who had given life to these children being put in a situation of stress and of pain.”

“I lived with it and I wouldn’t wish it to happen again, not only in our area but it shouldn’t happen again in any part of the world, in a society of humanity as a whole,” Archbishop Odama said.

Welland related that she had visited the Ugandan capital of Kampala to talk about the issue, and that she had been received with interest “because it is so common and it does show up in your parish office, it shows up in the confessional, it shows up in your school, in your catechism class.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

WORLD NEWS

The powerful story of a nun who survived Italy’s earthquake

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • August 26, 2016

Sister Marjana Lleshi in Ascoli Piceno, Italy on August 25, 2016. (Gregorio Borgia/AP)

Rome, Italy — Sister Marjana Lleshi awoke in the early house of Wednesday morning to the violent shaking of the 6.2 magnitude earthquake that killed 250 people, devastating several towns in central Italy.

Wounded and trapped under her bed as her convent in Amatrice crumbled to the ground around her, Sr. Lleshi thought for sure that death was imminent, and began sending messages to loved ones telling them goodbye.

However, just when her hope had run out and she was ready to let go, she heard the voice of Louis, a young Columbian caregiver assisting at their home for the elderly, calling out for anyone who might still be alive – a voice she refers to as her “angel” from God.

“I looked around and saw everything was crumbling,” Sr. Lleshi said in an Aug. 25 interview with SIR, the official news agency of the Italian bishops.

She said she had woken up about 30 minutes after the initial shock from the earthquake around 3:30 a.m., and saw rubble falling around her as she came to her senses.

“I had a cut on my head and I asked for help. I looked toward the street, where people were lost and confused,” she said, but “no one responded to me.”

As the building continued to crumble, Sr. Lleshi said she had just enough time to grab a sweater and her veil before taking refuge under her bed, where she decided to stay until help arrived.

“It was at that point that I resigned myself,” she said. “I asked for help in vain. So I began to send messages to loved ones warning that there was an earthquake, that there was no longer hope, that I would die and that it was farewell.”

Though she tried to hold on to her will to live, the nun said she lost hope when no one came, and began to think about those dear to her and the choices she had made in life.

“I retraced my life and saw that the choice to offer it for others was the only one I wanted to make,” she said, noting that “it was precisely in that moment that I heard the voice of the young man calling me, and in that voice I heard the voice of God, who was calling me to life.”

Sr. Lleshi, 35 and originally from Albania, is a religious sister of the Handmaids of the Lord. She had been living in the community’s house in Amatrice, one of the towns hardest hit by the 6.2-magnitude earthquake that tore through central Italy early Wednesday morning, killing 250 people.

The epicenter of the quake hit the town of Norcia, about 65 miles northeast of Rome, at 3:36 a.m. with several aftershocks following. According to the BBC, after the tremors stopped the mayor of Amatrice said “half the town is gone.” Rescue efforts are still underway to free anyone who might still be alive, and to search for the bodies of those who were buried under the rubble.

Sr. Lleshi quickly became the face of the quake’s destruction when a photo taken by Italian news agency Ansa began to circulate on social media, depicting the nun sitting on the side of the road with a bloodied face and veil.

There were 15 people in total staying at the convent at the time of the quake, including the elderly the sisters attended. Of them, four elderly and three sisters have died – their bodies remain buried in the rubble.

The convent and home for the elderly was located at the entrance of Amatrice and, like the rest of the historic center, was completely destroyed by the earthquake.

Sr. Lleshi told SIR that when Louis finally came to look for survivors, he picked her up and began leading her to safety when they heard the cries of two other sisters.

“Among the rubble I heard one of our sisters asking for help. While we tried to understand where the voice was coming from, we heard another sister complaining because she couldn’t breathe and her legs were blocked,” she said.

In the end the Sr. Lleshi and Louis couldn’t move the rubble in order to rescue the other sisters, so they waited beside them until the rescue workers arrived.

The two sisters were sent to the hospital in neighboring Rieti, where they are currently recovering. Sr. Lleshi, however, is currently staying in Ascoli Piceno, where she was treated and kept under medical supervision.

Referring to Louis, Sr. Lleshi said he was “the angel that God sent when I thought I would die and when everything around me was crumbling. It was leveled to the ground and I was like the tip of an inverted cone in the midst of the rubble of crumbs.”

The nun said she doesn’t know why God spared her, only that “I saw a God who, in the midst of death, gave life.”

“Thinking of the sisters who are still under the rubble, I have to say that I am no holier than them. So I ask myself, why was I saved and not them?” she said, tearing up.

She noted that “many families are destroyed” and that many people, including Louis, have risked their lives trying save people who could still be alive.

When asked if hope can be found in “angels” like Louis and the rescue workers, Sr. Lleshi said religion doesn’t have anything to do with it, because “we men were made to love and to help others.”

Tragedies such as the earthquake, she said, ”reveal what man is regardless of his religion, of his culture, of the goodness of the person itself. Take me. I am no better than the people who didn’t make it. I was saved. Why?”

“Asking me now is useless,” she said, “because I will never have an answer. But sooner or later I will understand, God willing, what he wants of me.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

Privacy, safety at stake with proposed rule on homeless shelters

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • August 21, 2016

Women’s homeless shelter. (Monkey Business Images via Shutterstock.com)

Washington D.C. — According to proposed federal rules, homeless shelters partnering with the government might soon have to compromise the privacy and safety of their clients – and Catholics have voiced their concerns.

“No person should be denied a safe place to live,” counsels for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops stated in comments on the proposed rule made in January, in conjunction with other religious groups like the National Catholic Bioethics Center.

Yet, they added, “while the regulations purport to protect health and safety, they fail to advance, and in fact positively undermine, these and other legitimate interests, including expectations of privacy.”

In September, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is expected to rule that homeless shelters receiving federal funds must accept clients as the gender they currently self-identify with, and allow them “equal access” to facilities like beds and bathrooms. The proposed rule is titled “Equal Access in Accordance With an Individual’s Gender Identity in Community Planning and Development Programs.”

Thus, clients who are biologically male but who identify as female would be housed with women; those who are biologically female but identify as male would be housed with men.

One exception to the rule would be if a person identifying as transgender, and meeting certain conditions, requested that they be housed separately. No exception would exist for other clients who lodged complaints, like women who are concerned about their privacy and safety when a biological male is placed in their housing.

Both Catholic Charities USA and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops commented on the proposed rule in January. They expressed serious concerns both for the privacy and safety of homeless persons, as well as the religious freedom of faith-based groups that provide emergency shelter and transitional housing.

For the shelters that rely on shared sleeping quarters and bathrooms in single-sex housing, the proposed rules state that all persons should have equal access here, according to the gender with which they identify.

“The proposed rule, then, is that a man who asserts that he is a woman may not be refused access to shared women’s sleeping quarters and bathing areas,” the comments stated. “Similarly, a woman who asserts that she is a man may not be refused access to shared men’s sleeping quarters and bathing areas.”

HUD has explained the need for such a policy by pointing to surveys showing that the number of self-identified LGBTQ homeless is abnormally high.

As much as 40 percent of the youth homeless population identifies as LGBTQ, according to a 2011 report by the National Transgender Discrimination Survey cited by HUD.

Also, a survey of homeless youth by Washington, D.C. recently found that 43 percent of them identified as LGBTQ. Some studies have found that many of the homeless youth reported either running away from home or being kicked out of the house by their family because of their orientation.

Once they reach shelters, they can still encounter problems. “Transgender individuals in particular are impacted by violence and discrimination in ways that both contribute to their homelessness and keep them from accessing necessary shelter and services,” a HUD report on “Equal Access for Transgender People” stated.

In addition, “nearly 30% of homeless transgender individuals report being turned away from a shelter due to their transgender status and 22% report experiencing sexual assault perpetrated by staff or other shelter residents,” HUD reported, citing the 2011 survey again.

However, the bishops’ conference and other groups stated, “it is not clear how the proposed regulations would remedy the high reported incidence of assault on persons claiming to be transgender and, in fact, the regulations may exacerbate the problem.”

They added that “this is a client population with serious vulnerabilities,” citing statistics showing a high rate of mental health and substance abuse disorders among homeless populations.

Catholic Charities USA brought this concern up in its comments as well, noting that shelter staff must be able to handle requests for shared housing together on a “case-by-case” basis given the vulnerabilities of the inhabitants, like women who have been abused.

“Will staff be placed in an untenable position of pressure to accede to a request or demand, which is contrary to both their situational awareness and the reasonable concerns of other (often traumatized) shelter clients?” they asked.

Privacy of men and women at shelters is not an unreasonable concern, counsels for the bishops’ conference added.

“Just as a patient may insist that a health care provider be of the same sex when this protects the patient’s bodily privacy, a client’s biological sex is relevant to decisions about single-sex housing and shared sleeping and bathing areas,” they stated.

“Even prison inmates retain legitimate interests in such privacy.”

The proposed rule could also infringe on the religious freedom of both homeless persons and the faith-based groups that shelter them, they explained.

For instance, a person seeking shelter might conscientiously oppose having “to share sleeping and bathing areas with adults to whom they are neither married nor related and who are biologically of the opposite sex.”

Also, forcing faith-based housing providers to treat biological men as women, or biological women as men, “could substantially burden their religiously-motivated mission to provide housing to those who need it,” the comments continued.

Catholic Charities USA helps provide shelter for tens of thousands across the country. In 2014, the group reported, “member agencies provided transitional housing and shelter services to over 147,000 vulnerable individuals, including over 13,000 children. These member agencies operated 238 shelters with over 10,000 available beds.”

Some shelters have already had to adjust to local laws on this issue. For instance, Washington, D.C. enacted a law in 2014 requiring housing exclusively for transgendered persons.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

For Missouri bishops, limitless concealed carry is a bad idea

by CNA/EWTN News • August 21, 2016

(Kirill Demchenko via Shutterstock.com)

Jefferson City, MO — The Missouri legislature should let stand the governor’s veto of a bill that would allow concealed carry of firearms without a permit, the state’s Catholic bishops have said.

“Catholic Church teaching recognizes the right to self-defense as a way of preserving one’s life and in defense of others in the face of an imminent threat,” the Missouri Catholic Conference said. “We encourage Missouri citizens of good will, however, not to fall prey to the notion that we are somehow safer as individuals and as a society if everyone is always and everywhere armed.”

The conference statement was signed by all the state’s bishops.

The bishops said the current concealed carry permit process is “reasonable and prudent,” noting such steps as a background check and eight hours of formal training for permit applicants. The training includes instruction in loading, cleaning, storing, and discharging of firearms and lessons about the lawful and appropriate use of force.

Senate Bill 656 would decriminalize carrying concealed weapons without a permit. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed the bill June 27, which passed the State House by a vote of 114 to 36 and the State Senate by a 24-8 vote. Lawmakers can consider in September whether to sustain or override the veto, though the initial majorities are large enough to override it.

The governor said SB 656 would “render meaningless the existing authority of sheriffs to deny concealed carry permits.”

Nixon’s veto was supported by Missouri Police Chiefs Association and the state’s Faternal Order of Police.

The bill’s other provisions include a reduced penalty for carrying a firearm into buildings where it is not allowed. It would remove the legal duty for citizens who believe their life is in danger to retreat before using lethal force, and would also allow invited guests in a home to use lethal force on intruders, the Kansas City Star reports.

Missouri already allows open carry of firearms anywhere it is not expressly forbidden.

The bishops objected that the bill would allow citizens to carry concealed firearms without any training or other steps for a permit.

“Amending our current statutes to allow concealed carry without a permit is a move in the wrong direction, and we believe it would be detrimental to public safety and the common good,” the bishops said.

“We are not persuaded that this change will make us safer, or that it is in any way necessary,” the bishops added.

“On the contrary, we think that doing away with the training requirement would undermine public safety and potentially put law enforcement at risk.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

Pope Francis taps D.C. auxiliary as the new Bishop of Memphis

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • August 23, 2016

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

Vatican City — On Tuesday the Vatican announced that Pope Francis has named Martin D. Holley, currently Auxiliary Bishop of Washington D.C. and an advocate of minority issues, as the new Bishop of Memphis, Tenn.

After serving 12 years as Auxiliary Bishop and Vicar General for the Archdiocese of Washington, Bishop Holley has been appointed the fifth Bishop of Memphis, a city sometimes called “The Good Samaritan on the banks of the Mississippi.”

“Bishop Holley has demonstrated both pastoral sensitivity and administrative ability that should serve him well as he now undertakes his new ministry in western Tennessee,” Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington D.C., said in an Aug. 23 press release announcing the bishop’s appointment.

“We rejoice that the Church of Memphis is receiving such a talented and caring pastor of souls.”

Bishop Holley, 61, was born Dec. 31, 1954, in Pensacola, Fl. and ordained a priest for the diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee in 1987. He was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Washington D.C. by Pope St. John Paul II May 18, 2004.

His appointment at Bishop of Memphis was announced in an Aug. 23 communique from the Vatican. He will be taking over for Bishop Terry Steib S.V.D., who has retired after reaching the age limit.

The bishop was a member of several diverse organizations over the years, such as the International Catholic Foundation for the Service of Deaf People, reflecting his concern for those on the outskirts of society.

Bishop Holley’s commitment to protecting the dignity of every human person, including those in minorities, is demonstrated by his service on a number of committees for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, including the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth; Pro-Life Activities; and the Subcommittee for Hispanic Affairs.

While in Washington, he also served on multiple committees for Cultural Diversity, as well as subcommittees for Africa; African-American Catholics; Laity, Women, Children and Youth; and Migration.

As the former Moderator of the Ethnic Ministries, Bishop Holley was able to address the pastoral needs of the various ethnic and language communities within the Archdiocese of Washington.

Actively involved with youth in the Archdiocese of Washington, he joined pilgrims at World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany in 2005; in Madrid, Spain in 2011 and most recently in Krakow, Poland.

He also served on the boards for the D.C. and Maryland Catholic Conferences, and was a member of the archdiocesan College of Consultors, the Presbyteral Council, the Seminarian Review Board, the Administrative Board, and was Chairman for the College of Deans.

“While we will miss his presence here in Washington, we wish him every blessing,” Cardinal Wuerl said.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

Don’t bring back the death penalty, New Mexico bishops plead

by CNA/EWTN News • August 23, 2016

Florida Department of Corrections execution chamber. (Florida State Correctional Facility)

Albuquerque, N.M. — The Catholic bishops of New Mexico are speaking up against a proposal to reintroduce capital punishment in the state, saying that respect for human life must be consistent.

“We, the Catholic Bishops of New Mexico, in one voice, once again echo the teaching of the Church that life is sacred,” the bishops of Santa Fe, Las Cruces and Gallup said in a joint statement Aug. 18.

“There is one seamless teaching on God’s gift of life that must be protected from birth to natural death,” they said. “It is always tragic and sad when a member of the community is murdered. These senseless acts must be prevented by calling for systemic change in society beginning with our youngest children. Crime can be prevented, and this is done by an investment in social capital.”

The bishops responded to New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez saying that she will push during next year’s legislative session to bring back the death penalty in the state.

Martinez had earlier backed such legislation, but ceased actively supporting it after it failed in the legislature several years ago.

She is now renewing her push to reinstate the death penalty, telling the Albuquerque Journal, “A society that fails to adequately protect and defend those who protect all of us is a society that will be undone and unsafe.”

Her announcement comes after two high-profile murders in New Mexico: the recent killing of a police officer during a traffic stop, as well as the murder of an 11-year-old Navajo girl in May.

A spokesperson for Martinez said the legislation – which has not yet been introduced – would apply at least to those who murder police officers and children.

Capital punishment was previously legal in New Mexico, but only one execution occurred since 1960. Use of the death penalty in the state was repealed by 2009 legislation and replaced with a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.

The New Mexico bishops noted that they had “applauded the State Legislature for the progress that was made when we ended the morally untenable practice of the death penalty on March 18, 2009.”

“This repeal of the death penalty was a milestone, moving New Mexico from a culture of violence to a culture of peace, justice, and love,” they said.

The bishops cited the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says, “If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.”

They also pointed to the words of Pope John Paul II, who wrote in Evangelium vitea that “Today, in fact, given the means at the State’s disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender today … are very rare, if not practically non-existent.

Pope Francis has called for an end to the death penalty, the New Mexico bishops pointed out, as did Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul II.

Furthermore, they noted that more and more states are ending the death penalty. Five states have ended the use of capital punishment in the last five years, citing its expense, failure to allow for rehabilitation, and the potential for error.

“The State created life in prison without the possibility of parole. This renders a perpetrator harmless to society,” the bishops of New Mexico stressed. “We oppose Governor Susana Martinez’ plan to reinstate the death penalty and call on the Legislature to reject the legislation.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

The danger of misunderstanding the ‘vegetative state’

by Mary Rezac (Aid to the Church in Need) • August 23, 2016

(Drpnncpptak via Shutterstock.com)

Philadelphia, PA — Martin Pistorius was a healthy 12-year-old boy living in South Africa with his family in the late 1980s when he was overcome with a mysterious illness.

The doctors weren’t sure what had come over Martin, but their best guess was cryptococcal meningitis. Over time, Martin lost his ability to move by himself, his ability to make eye contact, and eventually his ability to speak.

The hospital told Martin’s parents, Rodney and Joan Pistorius, that their son was in a vegetative state, and to take him home and make him comfortable.

But approximately two years into this vegetative state, Martin woke up. He was aware of everything going on around him “like a normal person,” he told NPR – he just couldn’t communicate. He spent 12 years in this state, most people thinking him a vegetable, until he was able to prove that he was conscious.

Martin now owns his own business and has written a book about his experience. He lives in the United Kingdom with his wife.

Maggie Worthen found herself in a similarly bleak situation in 2006. A senior a week away from graduating from Smith College, Smith suffered a massive stroke, leaving her unconscious and unable to speak or move.

Doctors, assuming Maggie would not recover or regain consciousness, pressured Maggie’s mother Nancy to remove the ventilator or withhold food and water to let her daughter die. They asked if they could harvest Maggie’s organs.

But Nancy refused, believing that Maggie was more conscious and capable of recovery than the doctors thought. Maggie soon was able to breath on her own, and was able to communicate through eye movements her last few years of life before succumbing to pneumonia in August 2015 at the age of 31.

The stories of Martin, Maggie and many others like them show a troubling misunderstanding of, or a tendency to misdiagnose, what is called the “permanent vegetative state,” or PVS, in the medical community.

Edward Furton is an ethicist and director of publications with The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The center offers a 24 hour hotline that Catholics can call with questions related to medical ethics, and Furton said they often receive calls from family members whose loved ones have been diagnosed as being in a vegetative state.

“(They) are being told that their loved ones can’t feel anything, they’re completely unaware, that we can take away food and water it won’t bother them, they won’t even notice,” Furton told CNA.

“These things I think are very dangerous views, because we should always presume that the patient has some level of consciousness.”

Typically, medical doctors will assume that a patient is unconscious if there are no outward signs of consciousness, Furton said. But in some cases, such as in the cases of Martin or Maggie, that may not necessarily be true.

Deacon Alan Rastrelli is a licensed physician with expertise in anesthesiology and palliative medicine with the Denver-based Divine Mercy Supportive Care center, where he also serves as a spiritual advisor to the staff. He said another common problem when diagnosis a patient who has suffered brain trauma is a confusion of terms and a tendency to jump to the worst assumption.

“What I’ve been concerned about for some time, as I’ve been dealing with palliative care and bioethics and hospice care as a physician, is that sometimes the jump in the ICU is to go right to, ‘Oh this is a vegetative state, they’ll never come out of it.’ Or to say they’re brain dead or are in a comatose state when they haven’t done the right studies,” he said.

“The terminology has been so confused over the last 10-15 years, that sometimes families are not sure what kind of decisions to make when they’re faced with a neurological insult,” Dr. Rastrelli added.

The term brain-dead, for example, only came into common use when organ donation became possible. A patient has minimal brain stem function if any, and their heartbeat and breathing are able to be sustained only through machines. Over the years, it has become a clearer diagnosis, allowing for safer organ donation, Dr. Rastrelli said, although sometimes there are still misdiagnoses.

New technologies, including brain scans that can detect brain activity in persons who may be outwardly unresponsive, may help doctors better understand and diagnose the level of consciousness of their patients.

“It is making people pause a little bit more to say, well we think there’s nothing there, but wow, some areas of the brain light up when we talk about mom or dad or children, or something that they might remember,” he said.

“With these new studies, maybe we won’t have to guess whether they feel or not, or hear or not, or suffer or not, we might be able to see if there’s still some activity there, and to show the opposite too, if there really isn’t.”

Another issue with over-diagnosis of the permanent vegetative state is a tendency to underestimate a patient’s ability to recover and become aware, which can occur years after the initial incident causing unconsciousness.

Research suggests that 68 percent of severely brain-injured patients who receive rehabilitation eventually regain consciousness, and that 21 percent of those are able to eventually live on their own. Yet unconscious patients are often too quickly dismissed as vegetative, disqualifying them from insurance on further rehabilitation efforts.

“Patients like Maggie are routinely misdiagnosed and placed in what we euphemistically call ‘custodial care’ where they have no access to any treatments that might help them recover or give them a chance of engaging with others,” Dr. Joseph Fins, chief of the division of medical ethics at Weill, told Newsweek.

There are times when additional measures, such as a ventilator or a feeding tube, would be considered extraordinary means of prolonging life and would not be ethically required by the Catholic Church, but each case is complex and unique, Dr. Rastrelli said.

Typically, families are not required to keep their loved ones on ventilators if the person will never again breathe on their own. In the case of a feeding tube, a dying person’s body may reject the nutrients, putting the person at risk for infection or aspiration, but feeding tubes should typically not be withheld or removed unless there are proven adverse effects, Dr. Rastrelli added.

“That person is still a person and we need to see if we can comfortably provide them with at least nutrition and hydration, not to the extreme of breathing machines and dialysis machines, if it’s not going to help, but as a comfort measure almost to allow them to have the nutrition that their body would normally be asking for,” he said.

Dr. Rastrelli said he is also concerned about the over-diagnosis of the vegetative state in an age of increased pushes for legalized assisted suicide in that it could lead to cases of euthanasia, which differs from assisted suicide in that other people make end-of-life decisions for the dying person, including withholding food and water.

“If you would talk to people in Compassion and Choices (the company behind the publicized case of Brittany Maynard), they would say that we don’t need any more disabled, society-dependent people to use up our resources if we’re not going to get them into a more functional, independent state,” he said.

“They would say well they’re just going to be suffering and you’re just wanting to keep them alive, just because of your religious beliefs. So why not just let them die or why not just help them die? They’re going to die anyway so why not just do it now and end their suffering. It sounds very good in sound bites, but it’s very dangerous because other people are making those decisions and presumptions.”

Catholics also have a different understanding of the human person, Furton said, in that they believe people are a union of body and soul, which is different than the prevailing beliefs in the current medical community, and could contribute to the tendency to over-diagnose patients as vegetative.

“One of the main issues here is that the scientific community, which strongly influences the medical community, tends toward materialism,” Furton added. “So they see the human person as an assemblage of matter, and the matter has somehow come together to produce life and then the matter has also produced consciousness. So if there are no material indications of consciousness, they say the person can’t be conscious.”

“We have to recognize that each of us has a soul, and that soul has its own inherent awareness, and it may indeed be completely functioning despite the fact that there are no outward signs of it,” he said.

Pope John Paul II didn’t like the term “vegetative” because of its dehumanizing effect, Dr. Rastrelli noted.

The late pontiff, and now saint, was himself an example of understanding when to let the dying process take its natural course, he added. When Parkinson’s ravaged his body, and he was overwhelmed with complications from pneumonia and various ailments, Pope John Paul II chose to forgo the emergency room and intensive care. Instead, he spent the last of his days in his room, where Mass was said, and he could receive the Eucharist and the anointing of the sick.

“And there’s a chance that he could have been able to fight through that particular episode, but his body would have been another major notch lower in health, then he’d be facing the same thing not much longer from then,” Dr. Rastrelli said. Instead, “he passed away peacefully.”

Receiving the sacraments is an important part of end of life care at Divine Mercy Supportive Care center, which follows the medical ethics of the Catholic Church.

“So the Catholic perspective I think throws the most appropriate light on (end of life issues), in that on the one hand, we dignify life and we take care of people like we’re asked to do, human to human. But we also recognize that the whole reason we’re here in this world is that so we can be with God in eternity,” Dr. Rastrelli said.

“We’re not going to fight tooth and nail to try and eek out every ounce of life, because we have the trust and the faith and the hope of our eternal life. So our church brings us prayer and sacraments and care … so that we can be born into the arms of Christ and have that hope and that comfort and peace.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

Fragment of Christ’s Cross stolen from California church

by Adelaide Mena (CNA/EWTN News) • August 23, 2016

Relic of the True Cross. (St. Dominic’s Parish)

San Francisco, CA — A fragment from what is believed to be the True Cross of Christ, stolen from its home beneath a picture. It’s a story one would associate with medieval legends or a Dan Brown novel.

However, the theft is unfortunately a very immediate - and very difficult - reality for one California parish.

“The first thing we want people to know is that if anyone has it or knows anything about it – just to bring it back,” Fr. Michael Hurley, OP, pastor of St. Dominic’s Church in San Francisco told CNA. “We just want it back.”

The relic stolen is a fragment of what is believed to be the True Cross of Christ, an important relic and item of devotion dating back over two millennia to the Crucifixion. Catholic tradition holds that St. Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, found the Cross during her visits to the Holy Land in the 4th Century. The fragment housed at St. Dominic’s has been verified by the Vatican as being a splinter from that Cross that St. Helena found.

Fr. Hurley told CNA the relic was located underneath a painting of the Pieta, which depicts Mary weeping over the body of a lifeless Christ. “For the people of St. Dominic’s, it’s a place of comfort and of devotional prayer,” Fr. Hurley said. The relic itself was a gift from a parishioner during a time of trouble, and holds special spiritual and emotional meaning for everyone in the community.

The relic was stolen from its home on August 18th. The church has no security recordings, and there were no witnesses to the theft.

The parish only learned that the relic was missing when someone who had come to pray at the church saw that the relic and reliquary were missing and asked if it was taken out for cleaning. “When we went to check it out, it was clear that the lock was broken and the relic was gone.”

Fr. Hurley explained that for Catholics, the physical nature of relics has a very special and immediate meaning. “For us as Catholics, we believe that God is not just some distant force up in the heavens but is a real, living presence in our lives.”

This intimate and physical reality of Christ gives special meaning to holy – physical – objects, he noted. “The Cross itself is not just a piece of wood but that symbol of Christ’s love for us, and, if you will, a sacramental that puts us in contact – as all the sacramentals do – with the efficacy of Christ and His redemption.”

As such, he continued, the sacramental nature of the Church can be “a comfort and point of connection … for us as human beings.”

“Our spiritual life certainly takes its origin and roots in human experience,” the pastor noted.

Fr. Hurley hoped the thief would realize exactly what this relic means to the parish and its people – and that whoever took it would bring it back. By returning what was taken, he encouraged, the person “would be contributing to the devotional life of the Church.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

Why this diocese is ditching Common Core for liberal arts

by CNA/EWTN News • August 24, 2016

(Unsplash/CNA)

Marquette, MI — The Diocese of Marquette in Michigan says it is already experiencing success in their process of adopting a Catholic liberal arts curriculum for all its schools, rather than using Common Core State Standards.

The schools in the diocese previously had no set curriculum. The adoption of a classical curriculum comes at a time when two bills that would repeal and replace the Common Core State Standards are being considered in Michigan’s state legislature.

In June, Marquette Bishop John Doerfler said in a statement that after serious consideration, the diocesan schools would not be adopting Common Core State Standards “which were developed for the public school system.”

“That said, we acknowledge that there is a base of adequate secular material in the Common Core State Standards that faith-based schools could reference as part of their educational programming,” he said.

“While we respectfully understand that other private and Catholic schools may discern to adapt or adopt the standards for these and other reasons, we do not believe that such actions would benefit the mission, Catholic identity or academic excellence of our schools.”

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are a set of federal education standards in mathematics and English language arts and literacy, with learning goals that outline what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each grade. In 2011, 46 states and Washington DC adopted the standards, though since then, three states have officially repealed the standards, while 25 states have dropped the program that provides Common Core-aligned exams.

The debate about whether or not to implement of Common Core standards in Catholic schools, which represent the largest segment of private education in the United States, has been fraught with controversy.

In 2013, more than 130 leading Catholic scholars signed a letter to the U.S. bishops criticizing the CCSS for school curricula, warning that the core philosophy will “undermine Catholic education.” The signers argued that Common Core standards would undermine Catholic education, the goal of which is to “form men and women capable of discerning and pursuing their path in life and who stand ready to defend truth, their church, their families, and their country.”

By contrast, they said, Common Core is “a recipe for standardized workforce preparation” that “shortchanges” the goals of Catholic education.

In April 2014, the U.S. bishops published a guide to frequently asked questions about Common Core standards and Catholic education.

“CCSS should be neither adopted nor rejected without review, study, consultation, discussion and caution. Catholic schools must take into consideration the horizon of the local, state and national education landscape and the influence and application of the CCSS … The CCSS was developed for a public school audience. But the CCSS is of its nature incomplete as it pertains to the Catholic school. Our schools have resisted the need to adopt educational trends while addressing the ever changing needs of children in education. We have tried to integrate the best in education while leaving behind what is not appropriate to the Church’s educational mission,” the U.S. bishops wrote.

The National Catholic Educational Association appears to have removed their 2013 statement on Common Core from their website. However, the association does provide resources to educators on how to implement the standards in Catholic schools.

The Cardinal Newman Society, an organization whose mission is “promoting and defending faithful Catholic education” reported in a 2015 article that the CCSS “by themselves are insufficient and even potentially harmful for Catholic schools, which must keep Christ and the Catholic faith as the true core of education.”

Dan Guernsey, the Cardinal Newman Society’s director of K – 12 programs, told The Heartland Institute that Common Core fails to provide a well-rounded education.

“Catholic schools can use parts of the Common Core, but the Common Core in and of itself is insufficient to guide education in Catholic schools,” Guernsey said. “The Common Core does college/career prep. We adopt this broader approach and vision toward education, and parents will run to that. Parents will pay, if they can afford it, to get an uncommon education and have their children’s depth of thought, compassion, humanity, and vision of man articulated. In the Common Core, we’ve lost this vision of humanity.”

The diocese began the implementation of a classical curriculum last school year, and in April 2016, Marquette Superintendent of Schools Mark Salisbury told the Cardinal Newman Society that the diocese was “enthusiastic about our early successes.”

Zach Good, the head of Sacred Heart Academy, a classical Catholic school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has been working with Marquette Diocese education personnel on the transition to a new curriculum. Good told The Heartland Institute that since his school’s implementation of a classical curriculum, enrollment more than tripled, from 60 to 300 students. He said he largely credits the success of the program to the way it values parents as the primary educators of children, something that Common Core fails to do.

Andrew Seeley, executive director of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education (ICLE) told The Heartland Institute that the success of a classical Catholic education program is no surprise.

“The Catholic classical schools are deliberately immersing themselves in the Catholic tradition of education,” he said.

“The Catholic Church has much more experience in educating successfully than any contemporary education proposal out there.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

Federal judge blocks Obama’s transgender bathroom policy

by CNA/EWTN News • August 24, 2016

(SmartSign via Flickr CC BY 2.0)

Washington D.C. — A federal judge in Texas has temporarily blocked the Obama administration guidance that would require schools to comply with transgender bathroom policies or lose federal funding.

“Schools have a duty to protect the privacy, safety, and dignity of all students, and this order certainly helps them in fulfilling that duty,” said Matt Sharp, legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom.

“The Obama administration cannot unilaterally disregard and redefine federal law to accomplish its political agenda of forcing girls to share locker rooms and showers with boys.”

The religious freedom legal group Alliance Defending Freedom is litigating several cases involving the federal order in Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio.

Judge Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on Aug. 21 issued a preliminary injunction on the Obama administration’s interpretation of Title IX, a federal law which bars discrimination on the basis of sex in schools, colleges and universities that receive federal money, CNN reports.

The judge said the law is “not ambiguous” and specifically allows schools to provide separate toilets, locker rooms, and showers on the basis of sex, as long as the facilities are comparable.

He said the response to the federal guidance “presents the difficult issue of balancing the protection of students’ rights and that of personal privacy when using school bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, and other intimate facilities, while ensuring that no student is unnecessarily marginalized while attending school.”

The federal guidance from the Department of Justice and Department of Education was announced in a May 13 letter sent to all school districts. The guidance tells every public school in the country to allow students who identify as transgender to use the facilities – including restrooms and locker rooms – that match their “gender identity.” It says that a student’s gender identity must be treated as his or her biological sex for the purposes of law.

The guidance included a 25-page document of emerging practices, which may also affect sex-segregated athletics.

Although the federal guidance does not have the force of law, it implicitly threatens schools that do not comply with lawsuits or a loss of federal aid, according to the New York Times.

A Department of Justice spokesperson expressed disappointment in the decision and said the department was reviewing its options.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the ruling countered “the Obama administration’s latest illegal federal overreach.” He said opponents of the guidance took action “to protect states and school districts, who are charged under state law to establish a safe and disciplined environment conducive to student learning.”

LGBT advocacy groups like Lambda Legal, the ACLU and the National Center for Lesbian Rights said a ruling by a single judge “cannot and does not undo the years of clear legal precedent nationwide establishing that transgender students have the right to go to school without being singled out for discrimination.”

For Sharp, however, the ruling made clear that the administration “ignored the federally required public notice and comment process as well as the crystal clear meaning of Title IX in its attempt to force its will on the American people.”

In May the U.S. Catholic bishops said the guidance failed to address many important concerns and “contradicts a basic understanding of human formation so well expressed by Pope Francis: that ‘the young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created.’”

They also noted the need to show respect to students.

“Children, youth, and parents in these difficult situations deserve compassion, sensitivity, and respect,” the bishops said. “All of these can be expressed without infringing on legitimate concerns about privacy and security on the part of the other young students and parents.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

As welfare reform turns 20, Catholics discuss its legacy

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • August 24, 2016

The United States Capitol building. (Phil Roeder via Flickr CC BY 2.0)

Washington, D.C. — Welfare reform was one of the biggest United States legislative events of the 1990s, but after 20 years what is its legacy from the standpoint of Catholic social teaching?

Catholic policy experts gave differing responses to the program.

“It’s complicated,” said John Carr, director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University.

Meanwhile, John D. Mueller, director of the Economics and Ethics program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., thought it a “success, in general.”

August 22 marked the 20th anniversary of the passage of welfare reform, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.

The new program – Temporary Assistance to Needy Families – was a major overhaul of the previous one, Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Democratic President Bill Clinton signed into law the bill passed by both houses of a Republican Congress.

Among the biggest changes of the 1996 law were the federal government delegating block grants to the states and letting them administer assistance, and the addition of work requirements for families receiving government assistance.

The supposed reason behind the reform was to move Americans from welfare to work, and ensure that people wouldn’t take advantage of the system by staying on it long-term, unnecessarily.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops initially opposed the 1996 law, in large part because it blocked legal immigrants from receiving welfare assistance. After the program was re-authorized in Congress in 2010, the conference released a statement on welfare reform expressing their support of and criticisms of certain aspects of the policy.

One of its successes in the last 20 years was that “in reality and in the public mind, it connected assistance to work, which is a good thing,” John Carr said. “Work is an expression of our dignity.”

However, he added, welfare reform and its work requirements “works a lot better in a booming economy than in a recession,” when good jobs are more scarce and harder to find.

John Médaille, an adjunct professor of theology at the University of Dallas who has authored books on business and economics, argued that welfare reform has not been a success in promoting flourishing two-parent families.

In many cases today, he said, both parents are working during the day thus inflicting a “split” on the family life.

“It doesn’t seem to encourage, economically, the formation of strong families, and [it] forces mothers into the workplace,” he said.

A key question, he asked, is “are families at the bottom end of the scale stronger or weaker than they were before welfare reform?”

“I certainly see no evidence that they’re stronger and a lot of evidence that they’re weaker,” he said.

Carr agreed that welfare reform “works less well for those at the very bottom, who have the most problems, obstacles, in their path to the workforce, and for children in those situations.”

A good economy must be built around work, a decent safety net, and opportunity, he insisted, adding that moving forward the conversation must especially focus on work, like job training and the creation of jobs that can sustain families.

“Those who can work, should work, and they ought to be able to make a living that supports a family,” he said, “and those who can’t work for a variety of reasons ought to be able to live in dignity, and that’s where a safety net comes in.”

From the standpoint of Catholic teaching on subsidiarity, welfare reform was indeed a success, John D. Mueller, director of the Economics and Ethics program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., told CNA.

Mueller defined subsidiarity as “the notion that each function of society should be undertaken by the social unit which is best suited to answer” a particular problem. Welfare reform, he said, “did encourage the sorts of hierarchy of ways of meeting needs” rather than a simple top-down federal approach.

“It got people off welfare into jobs, which had been doubted,” he added, because the Earned Income Tax Credit also came along at the same time. This tax credit was contingent upon people working and so was a way of “helping people help themselves” rather than something that would “make them less employable.”

Carr agreed that the reform “has been carried out in more flexible ways at the state level,” which is a “good thing.”

Both Médaille and Mueller agreed that welfare alone is not the best long-term solution for poverty. It makes “disadvantaged” persons “less employable,” Mueller said, while according to Médaille, “welfare creates dependency.”

In that sense of avoiding large-scale dependency on the government, Médaille said, “the motives were good” for enacting welfare reform.

Its flaw, however, was that it did not address the big questions of whether there are “enough jobs for all” and whether existing jobs “allow for the formation of families,” he said, which would involve true solutions to the problem of increasing welfare rolls.

“On both of those counts, the system we have fails,” he said. Jobs in areas of real need – infrastructure, social, cultural – are not being created “to bring the unemployment rate down to its frictional levels,” he said, and it is here that government could intervene and be the “employer of last resort” by creating jobs to build infrastructure, for example.

Instead, businesses are content to create low-wage jobs where workers receive government assistance on the side, he continued. Thus, the available jobs in the economy do not pay the income and benefits necessary to sustain a family, and welfare becomes a “subsidy to the rich,” he said.

“Those are the kind of issues I think reform ought to be dealing with,” Médaille insisted. “Instead of being the consumer of last resort, let [government] be the employer of last resort.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

Could doctors be forced to perform sex reassignment surgeries?

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • August 24, 2016

(Syda Productions via Shutterstock.com)

Washington, D.C. — Following the federal government stating that doctors cannot decline performing sex reassignment surgeries, a group of states, doctors, and hospitals are suing in the name of medical ethics.

“The effect is that there are doctors all across the country that are going to be asked to perform gender transition procedures, even when they believe it is going to be physically and emotionally harmful to the patient and against their best medical judgment,” Luke Goodrich, deputy general counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, told CNA.

“And this rule says if you follow your medical judgment, you can face massive liability.”

Current health care law bans discrimination against patients on basis of sex. New regulations from the Department of Health and Human Services interpret such discrimination to include cases where requests for procedures involving gender reassignment are denied.

The HHS would evaluate whether a denial of services meant discrimination on a “case-by-case basis,” Goodrich explained, basically if they thought a doctor didn’t “have a good reason” for saying no.

The rule could affect doctors and hospitals everywhere: as many as 900,000 doctors, the Becket Fund claimed. The religious freedom law group is representing various religious health providers like the Franciscan Alliance hospital network and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations. Five states – Texas, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, and Wisconsin – have joined the lawsuit.

The government does not mandate coverage for sex-reassignment surgery under Medicare and Medicaid, because the evidence is not conclusive that it is safe, the group said, pointing to a June memo by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services.

That memo stated that “there is not enough evidence to determine whether gender reassignment surgery improves health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries with gender dysphoria.”

Another study – by a group cited by the HHS – stated that “in most children, gender dysphoria will disappear before, or early in, puberty.” That was from a 2012 report by the World Professional Association for Transgender Help, which also pointed to studies showing as many as 94 percent of children with gender dysphoria eventually moving on from it.

Another report by the science and technology journal The New Atlantis agrees, noting that children may have mental health problems even after reassignment surgery.

“Only a minority of children who experience cross-gender identification will continue to do so into adolescence or adulthood,” the report’s executive summary stated.

Furthermore, it added, “compared to the general population, adults who have undergone sex-reassignment surgery continue to have a higher risk of experiencing poor mental health outcomes. One study found that, compared to controls, sex-reassigned individuals were about 5 times more likely to attempt suicide and about 19 times more likely to die by suicide.”

With such evidence casting doubt on the merits of gender transition, doctors must be free to do what they believe is the medically appropriate course of action, Goodrich maintained.

Johns Hopkins University, once a pioneer in sex reassignment surgery, has since ended the practice, finding that it was actually damaging to those who undergo it.

“A lot of these doctors have purely medical reasons for not wanting to perform procedures that could harm children,” Goodrich said. “The idea that HHS is requiring doctors to perform these procedures on children when the vast majority of them will grow out of these feelings naturally is really troubling.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

Nun’s rosary beads stolen at knife-point in Massachusetts

by CNA/EWTN News • August 24, 2016

(Michael Swan via Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0)

Boston, MA — A religious sister was robbed while on a walk in civilian clothing on Sunday afternoon in Quincy, Massachusetts, authorities said.

According to a report from a local CBS affiliate, police said that a sister with the Daughters of Mary of Nazareth convent was walking shortly after 2 p.m. when she was approached by Vanessa Young, 26, who was armed with a small knife.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Young told the victim, according to police reports.

The nun noticed Young’s knife and another woman acting as a lookout, so she opened her satchel to reveal a rosary, a key and a small memento. The vows of the Daughters of Mary of Nazareth include a vow of poverty.

Vanessa Young told the victim, “I’ll guess I’ll take the rosary beads,” police said.

The sister then returned safely to her convent and reported the incident to the police.

Soon after, police found the two women matching the sister’s descriptions. Police reported that the pair were found with other stolen items – a checkbook and several cellphones – that had been reported missing during a house break in that occurred in the same neighborhood around the same time as the robbery.

Vanessa Young was arrested and charged with armed robbery, assault with a dangerous weapon and breaking and entering daytime to commit a felony.

The woman acting as a lookout during the robbery incident was identified as 26 year-old Crystal Young, the legal spouse of Vanessa Young. Crystal was arrested and charged with armed robbery and accessory after the fact.

The pair pleaded not guilty in court on Monday.

“I was immediately concerned to make sure that they would get the help and that they will get the resources that they need because my heart goes after them,” said Mother Olga of the Sacred Heart, the Mother Superior and founder of the Daughters of Mary of Nazareth.

The stolen rosary beads have not yet been recovered.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

Pope names Mexican-born priest as new auxiliary bishop of Denver

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • August 25, 2016

Fr. Jorge Rodriguez, Auxiliary Bishop-elect for the Archdiocese of Denver. (Archdiocese of Denver)

Vatican City — On Thursday Pope Francis appointed Mexico native Fr. Jorge Rodriguez, former professor and Vice-Rector of St. John Vianney seminary, as a new auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Denver.

“Father Rodriguez is a passionate pastor and teacher of the faith, and he will serve this archdiocese well in the role of auxiliary bishop,” Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila said in an Aug. 25 press release announcing the priest’s appointment.

Fr. Rodriguez, 61, has been pastor at Holy Cross Parish in Thornton, Colo. since 2014, as well as an adjunct professor at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. The announcement of his appointment as auxiliary bishop came in an Aug. 25 communique from the Vatican.

Asked about his first-hand experience with the growing Hispanic Catholic community in Denver, Fr. Rodriguez told “Denver Catholic,” the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Denver, that it is not about numbers so much as it is about their “vitality and live expressions of their Catholic faith.”

The challenge, Fr. Rodriguez said, is in helping the Hispanic community integrate into the U.S. Church without losing the values of their cultural and Catholic religious identity.

“My experience with this community is that the faithful have a great love for the Eucharist; a tender devotion to the Mother of our Lord, Our Lady of Guadalupe; show sincere support for the Holy Father and the priests; they are very generous in whatever the church needs, and their faith is sincere and uncomplicated,” he said.

The bishop-elect was born March 22, 1955, in Mérida, Mexico, in the state of Yucatán, where his family still resides. He joined the Legionaries of Christ after high school and was ordained a priest Dec. 24, 1987.

Fr. Rodriguez was awarded a doctorate in Sacred Theology by the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1994. He also received a licentiate in philosophy from the same university and a diploma in Mariology from the Marianum in Rome.

From 1994-1997, he was dean of the Theology Department of the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome and taught theology at several different pontifical universities and institutes in the city.

The priest first came to Denver in 1999 at the invitation of Archbishop Charles Chaput to teach at the new St. John Vianney Theological Seminary, and to serve as associate pastor of St. Therese Parish in Aurora.

He returned to Rome from 2002-2006 to serve as an associate pastor of the Roman parish Stella Maris. Fr. Rodriguez then returned to Denver again to teach at St. John Vianney and from 2007-2014 served as Vice-Rector of the seminary. He was officially placed as a priest of the Archdiocese of Denver in 2008.

Fr. Rodriguez will be ordained a bishop Nov. 4, likely in Denver’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

“I would like the Catholic community of the Archdiocese of Denver to know that my only wish is to serve the cause of Our Lord Jesus Christ and to serve them according to this new mission and grace I am about to receive, Fr. Rodriguez said in his interview with Denver Catholic.

“It is the Lord’s work and not ours, even less mine. So the best support – and this is what I beg from them – is to keep me in their prayers.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

Why Catholics should be alarmed about the rise of the religious ‘nones’

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • August 25, 2016

(Bobkeenan Photography via Shutterstock.com)

Washington D.C. — With so many saying they have abandoned their childhood faith because of science, the Church in the United States has an urgent mission to engage the culture, said one expert.

“The new evangelization is as needed as ever,” Dr. Matthew Bunson, EWTN Senior Contributor, concluded from a Pew Research study on “Choosing a New Church.”

“As Catholics we need to be very much aware of the immense dangers that are emerging, culturally, when we lose a sense of God,” he added, saying that “dialogue with culture is absolutely essential now.”

The Pew study, released Tuesday, shows that among the “nones” – those currently not a member of any religion – around eight-in-ten were once raised in a particular religion. About half of those explained their departure from their childhood faith by saying they simply didn’t believe anymore, and some mentioned “science” as a reason for their unbelief.

“I’m a scientist now, and I don’t believe in miracles,” one respondent was reported as saying. Others cited “common sense,” “logic,” or “lack of evidence” as reasons for their unbelief.

The “nones” have been growing in number quickly, from an estimated 36.6 million in 2007 to an estimated 55.8 million in 2014, Pew reported in 2015. “35% of Millennials (those born 1981-1996) are ‘nones,’” Pew said. Some identify as atheists or agnostics, others say their religion is “nothing in particular.”

Tuesday’s numbers showed the “mainline Protestant” ecclesial communions in a “state of total collapse,” Bunson noted, especially among “young people in particular” who said they stopped believing in their religion because of reasons such as they “discovered evolution in college.”

“All of us need to be much more aware of how susceptible young people are to what is now a relentless cultural message of scepticism, of cynicism, and outright hostility,” he insisted. “And it cuts across all areas of life today, from morality and sexual identity to science, to the basic perception of how the world functions.”

“And we need to have a much stronger Catholic ethos that prepares young people for that level of hostility,” he said, “especially in college.”

Overall, the numbers of people dropping out of institutional religion show that many believe there to be “an apparent, irreconcilable conflict between faith and reason, between science and the Church,” Bunson said.

“So it’s incumbent on us then, in the area of apologetics but also in evangelization, to help people in what is the age of not just skepticism, but the age of cynicism, to understand the faith, to explain the faith, and to live the faith.”

Among other findings of the Pew report were that, among Catholics who were searching for a new “congregation” to attend, 36 percent admitted to considering another denomination or religion.

That number, while high, was actually the lowest among the different religious identities, Bunson noted.

“There is a certain fidelity to remaining Catholic while looking,” he said, but the overall numbers of people considering a change in religion “ties into the wider phenomenon of the spiritual quest that we see across the board” that “people are much more open to changing denominationally, which I think from a Catholic standpoint is very disturbing.”

Among Catholics who were looking at changing to a new parish, the important factors listed were “location” (76 percent), “feeling welcomed by leaders” (71 percent), “quality of sermons” (67 percent), and “style of worship” (63 percent).

Among those who listed “quality of sermons” as an important factor in their decision, Catholics were actually much lower than Evangelical Protestants (94 percent), Mainline Protestants (87 percent) and Historically Black Protestants (92 percent), Bunson said.

This may be because “Catholics seem to have either lower expectations regarding sermons, or because as Catholics we are much more sacramentally-oriented, that they are willing to put up with a sermon that’s less than stellar,” Bunson said, especially since the Protestant communities traditionally “place a greater priority on that.”

However, Pope Francis has specifically exhorted priests to make sure their homilies “are not boring.”

“Homiletics,” Bunson said, “is something that has been stressed for a while now.”

“Pope Francis is absolutely right, and I think Pope Francis has his finger on this very neatly, that when we’re creating an environment that brings Catholics together, where they feel welcome but they feel also that they’re receiving a nourishing form of preaching,” he added.

More than seven-in-ten Catholics listed location as an “important” factor in looking for a new parish. The numbers showed “the relative ease that Catholics have in finding a new location to worship,” Bunson continued, that “even in the face of parish closings and clusterings, Catholics still feel a ready access to a faith community, to worship, and obviously, then, to the sacraments.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

St. Louis priest falsely accused by anti-sex abuse group

by CNA/EWTN News • August 25, 2016

(Alphaspirit via Shutterstock.com)

St. Louis, MO — A group for clergy sex abuse victims made false statements “negligently and with reckless disregard for the truth” against a St. Louis priest to try to convict him on abuse charges, a federal judge has ruled.

U.S. District Judge Carol E. Jackson said that the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests failed to comply with a court order that the group supply details about those who accused Father Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang of sexual abuse. This made it impossible for him to litigate the claims against him.

Jackson said the court will establish that SNAP’s statements “were false and that they did not conduct any inquiry into the truth or falsity of these public statements.”

The court will also establish that defendants conspired to secure Fr. Jiang’s conviction on sex abuse charges due to “discriminatory animus against plaintiff based on his religion, religious vocation, race, and national origin,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

SNAP must cover Fr. Jiang’s “reasonable expenses, including attorneys’ fees,” the court said.

The priest was criminally charged in 2014 of sexually abusing a boy in a Catholic school bathroom in 2011 and 2012. St. Louis prosecutors dropped the charges last year.

Soon after the criminal charges were dropped, Fr. Jiang filed a lawsuit alleging conspiracy and defamation against the boy’s parents and SNAP leaders David Clohessy and Barbara Dorris. The lawsuit also charged that police wrongly pursued him based on his religious and racial background.

The judge’s sanctions reportedly apply specifically to SNAP, not other defendants.

On June 27 the judge had ordered that the group provide detailed information about those making complaints against Fr. Jiang, including emails, text messages and contact information. The group argued that its information was protected by a “rape crisis center privilege.”

The judge said such a privilege doesn’t exist. She said SNAP made “repeated assertions of a nonexistent privilege” when it could have proposed alternatives like targeted redaction of names of third-party victims or made disclosures for attorneys-eyes only.

SNAP said it turned over “hundreds of pages” of redacted documents to the priest’s lawyers.

The group also refused Judge Jackson’s order to turn over all records of donations it received from the law firm Chackes, Carlson & Gorovosky, a firm that has handled sex abuse cases. Clohessey said the firm donated to SNAP from the years 2005-12. He said he does not know why the priest’s lawyers want the information.

Clohessey said SNAP was concerned about “the ability of victims and alleged victims to report predators and be protected.” He told the Post-Dispatch that the lawsuit sought “to make sure that yet another alleged victim, witness or whistleblower stays silent.”

Fr. Jiang had been previously accused of improper contact with a teenage girl who attended the Basilica of St. Louis, where he was associate pastor. Charges of child endangerment and witness tampering were dropped in 2013.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

Two nuns found murdered at their home in Mississippi

by CNA/EWTN News • August 25, 2016

(Steve Pepple via Shutterstock.com)

Jackson, MS — Two religious sisters were found murdered in their Mississippi home today, according to police.

The sisters, both nurse practitioners, were scheduled to work at Lexington Medical Clinic but never came to work this morning, prompting their co-workers to call the police.

According to a statement from the Diocese of Jackson, the bodies have not been positively identified by authorities, but are believed to be those of Sister Paula Merrill, of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Kentucky, and Sister Margaret Held, of the Sisters of St. Francis in Milwaukee.

Authorities said that it appears the sisters were shot at their home in Durant, Miss. While no motive is known at the time, police said it appears they are victims of homicide.

“These sisters have spent years of dedicated service here in Mississippi. They absolutely loved the people in their community,” said Bishop Joseph Kopacz of Jackson.

“We mourn with the people of Lexington and Durant and we pray for the Sisters of Charity, the School Sisters of St. Francis and the families left behind,” he added.

“These were the two sweetest sisters you could imagine. It’s so senseless,” Father Greg Plata, OFM, told a reporter on the scene.

Durant police and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation are investigating the incident.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

Want Catholics back in church? Reflect Jesus, Denver’s new bishop says

by Kevin Jones (CNA/EWTN News) • August 25, 2016

Bishop-designate Jorge Rodriguez. (Andrew Wright/Denver Catholic)

Denver, CO — Father Jorge Rodriguez, the next auxiliary bishop of Denver, believes there is a way to help lapsed Catholics return to church.

“Sometimes we go far away, but Jesus is always the one who attracts to our pews,” Bishop-designate Rodriguez said Aug. 25. “Inasmuch as we present the true Jesus, then people will come back. They really need him.”

If Catholics will “reactivate” their own communities, he said, people will return.

On Thursday, Pope Francis appointed Mexico native Fr. Rodriguez, 61, as the next auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Denver. The former professor and past vice-rector of Denver’s St. John Vianney Seminary presently serves as pastor at Holy Cross Church in Thornton, Colo.

“I’ve met this wonderful Catholic community that we have here,” he said at a Thursday press conference. “There are lots of wonderful people in Colorado. I feel very honored to be able to live in this beautiful state and to serve the Church here, for our brothers and sisters in the archdiocese.”

The bishop-elect was born March 22, 1955, in Mérida, Mexico, in the state of Yucatán, where his family still resides.

“My Hispanic origin and background connects me particularly with the growing Hispanic community here in Denver. I’ve been able to celebrate the joys and to share in their needs,” he said.

He also had a request for Denver’s Catholics.

“I beg for your prayers. That’s what I really need now,” he added. “In everything may Jesus Christ be praised.”

Bishop-designate Rodriguez said Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver has been promoting the formation of Catholics as disciples using the Amazing Parish program “in order to revitalize parishes and bring back Catholics to our pews.”

He said his parish, Holy Cross, has been doing this, and there is “a lot of life.”

As for Archbishop Aquila, he welcomed the appointment.

“Pope Francis has given to us a great gift in Bishop-elect Rodriguez,” the archbishop told CNA.

“It means that we will have a Hispanic bishop from our own archdiocese who has served here for over 10 years and knows the archdiocese well. He will be able to reach out to the Hispanic community and be a very real presence for them. One who understands, certainly, Mexican culture and will be able to enhance the handing on of the faith and that encounter with Christ that is so important.”

He said the Hispanic community, especially monolingual Spanish speakers, face challenges finding parishes where they can feel at home.

“Some of the challenges that they have are certainly in the area of catechesis and the area of learning English,” Archbishop Aquila explained.

Sixty of the archdiocese’s 115 parishes have Mass in Spanish. Over 50 percent of the archdiocese is Hispanic, according to the archbishop.

Bishop-designate Rodriguez joined the Legionaries of Christ after high school and was ordained a priest Dec. 24, 1987. He has served as a theology professor and was dean of the Theology Department of the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome.

Father Rodriguez will be ordained a bishop Nov. 4.

Previous auxiliary bishops of Denver include Jose Gomez, who went on to head the San Antonio and then the Los Angeles archdiocese, and Bishop James Conley, who now heads Nebraska’s Diocese of Lincoln.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

U.S. NEWS

For David Daleiden, Soros money shows Planned Parenthood in a panic

by Kevin Jones (CNA/EWTN News) • August 26, 2016

(Catholic News Agency)

Washington, D.C. — A leaked grant report from the Open Societies Foundation seems to show Planned Parenthood and its allies in a panicked effort to raise millions of dollars to counter a series of investigative videos alleging the abortion provider broke the law.

For undercover journalist David Daleiden, it’s a sign of hope.

“It shows that the issue of selling baby body parts for profit is an issue that could shut Planned Parenthood down. And that is why they are taking it so seriously,” Daleiden, founder of the Center for Medical Progress, told CNA Aug. 24

In an undercover project released last year, Daleiden and a colleague had posed as prospective buyers of fetal tissue. They recorded conversations with multiple Planned Parenthood officials around the country, and recorded several grisly sessions of aborted babies’ bodies being disassembled for possible tissue harvesting and sale.

Daleiden said a document attributed to billionaire George Soros’ Open Societies Foundation group “shows that Planned Parenthood and their allies realize that the baby body parts issue is the biggest crisis, the biggest scandal and the worst revelations that they have every faced in their 100-year existence.”

“I think it shows that even an organization as large, as well-funded and politically connected as Planned Parenthood is not invincible,” he added. “The tone of panic is really evident in this funding request.”

The document, titled “Urgent Response in Defense of Women’s Health – Planned Parenthood Action Fund,” was published by the website DCLeaks.com. If accurate, it indicates that the Open Societies Foundations’ U.S. general reserves fund made a $1.5 million grant to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund for lobbying efforts to respond to the video investigation and its aftermath.

According to the document, Planned Parenthood’s Fight Back Campaign was projected to cost $7 to $8 million. Cecile Richards, the Planned Parenthood CEO and a trustee of the deeply influential Ford Foundation, had already secured a $2 million commitment for 501c3 funds.

“While Planned Parenthood has had to defend against a variety of attacks by abortion opponents in recent years, the release of these videos and the related attacks were severe and without warning,” the document says. “Countering this offensive requires an enormous amount of resources and staff time, which is the intent of the opposition.”

In July 2015, the Center for Medical Progress began to release a series of undercover videos that appeared to show Planned Parenthood’s role in the sale of fetal tissue of aborted babies to tissue harvesters for profit – a practice barred by federal law.

The investigation provoked an outcry over possible lawbreaking by the largest abortion provider in the U.S. and strengthened the movement to end taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, which receives $500 million in federal funds annually for other services.

The reputed Soros foundations document appears to have been written about three weeks after the first video broke.

According to the document, the $1.5 million grant provided an “infusion” of 501c4 funding to Planned Parenthood’s political arm “as they were waging a critical defense against attacks to the reputation and credibility of Planned Parenthood and potential loss of federal funding.” The grant reportedly enabled the action fund’s Fight Back Campaign to mobilize supporters and lobby state and federal legislators to counter efforts to defund the abortion provider.

The grant report said funding for lobbying activities through 501c4 organizations is “much harder to come by” so the Open Society Policy Center is “uniquely situated” to provide “critical resources Planned Parenthood will have a hard time finding anywhere else.”

The grant was planned to fund lobbying of legislators as well as paid and earned media, and other activities. Planned Parenthood Action Fund was running targeted television ads in key districts to rally voters.

“Working with top crisis communications consultants, Planned Parenthood is conducting national and state media outreach to both expose the true agenda of its opponents and transform the narrative surrounding these attacks, including forensic analysis of doctored tapes,” the document says.

Daleiden has rejected charges the Center for Medical Progress committed fraud in its investigations and reports.

“All of those claims from Planned Parenthood have been completely discredited at this point,” he told CNA. “There’s no deceptive editing in the videos. In fact the full footage of the videos has been available for over a year now for anyone who wants to watch to see it.”

Daleiden pointed to the work of the Select Investigative Panel of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee.

“They’re confirming that Planned Parenthood absolutely profited off of the sale of fetal body parts, which was a state and federal crime,” he said, suggesting the panel has found even deeper problems.

The journalist also thought the abortion provider’s reaction campaign had reached the limit of its effectiveness.

“There’s not really much else that Planned Parenthood or their allies or their many business partners in this area can do to erase history or rewrite history at this point. We live in a digital age. You can’t just shred documents or delete e-mails … they still end up popping up one way or another.”

He pointed to another leaked document apparently prepared for the Oct. 1-2, 2015 board meeting for the Open Society U.S. Program. It referred to the videos as one of the attacks “that have upended Planned Parenthood.” The Center for Medical Progress investigations will have long-term consequences involving “the substantial eroding of Planned Parenthood’s credibility and reputation,” the board meeting book said.

Daleiden said the $1.5 million grant report shows that Planned Parenthood particularly feared congressional investigation, which echoed what multiple Planned Parenthood leaders told him when he was undercover.

The grant proposal noted Planned Parenthood’s response campaign would increase security at its clinics and support its legal defense through the prominent law firm O’Melveny & Myers. Its concern for federal and state investigations particularly noted the state of Texas.

Daleiden suggested the document’s focus on Texas may be due to the presence of one of the abortion providers’ biggest and wealthiest affiliates, the Houston-based Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. He said the affiliate was particularly implicated in his reports and had been selling baby parts for 10 years.

In January, a Houston grand jury cleared Planned Parenthood of accusations, while indicting Daleiden for a misdemeanor charge of attempting to purchase fetal tissue from the abortion clinic in Houston and a felony charge for using false identification to access the Houston clinic. The charges against Daleiden were dropped in June and July.

Daleiden suspected collusion between Planned Parenthood and legal authorities.

“Planned Parenthood really pulled out all the stops in the state of Texas and I think we know why now because of this leak,” he said. “This leaked memo shows that that was one of the states that they were absolutely concerned about.”

For Daleiden, journalistic investigations done correctly can overcome even well-funded campaigns.

“The biggest key is good data and good information. No amount of millions of dollars can ultimately cover up a crime or erase the fact that a crime was committed,” he said.

The reputed Open Societies Foundation grant report lists two external partners in the campaign to defend the abortion provider: the Hewlett Foundation and the Democracy Alliance. The Hewlett Foundation, a major Planned Parenthood donor, had $9 billion in assets as of December 2015 and made an estimated $400 million in grants to various groups last year. It was founded by William R. Hewlett, the co-founder of the Hewlett Packard Company. The foundation website says it is “wholly independent” of the company.

The Democracy Alliance is a major network of wealthy donors generally aligned with the Democratic Party. It gives as much as $60 million a year in strategic funding, the group’s website says. The group describes itself as “dedicated to building the progressive movement in the United States.”

The grant report describes the Planned Parenthood Action Fund as a long-time grantee of the Open Society Foundations’ U.S. Programs section.

The Open Society Foundations did not respond to a request for comment.

Another document in the leak, an apparent version the Open Society Foundations’ proposed 2016-2019 strategy for its Women’s Rights Program, notes the foundations’ support for groups backing the repeal of pro-life laws in Ireland. The document says Ireland could be used as a model to change pro-life laws in other Catholic countries.

Some security experts say DCLeaks.com has the hallmarks of Russian intelligence, Bloomberg News reports. The Open Society Foundations reported a security breach to the FBI in June. A security firm investigation reportedly found the intrusion was limited to an intranet system used by the foundations’ board members, staff and foundation partners.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

FEATURES

This three-time Olympian wishes she could dine with Mother Angelica

by CNA/EWTN News • August 20, 2016

Mother Angelica (l) and Dominique Dawes (r). (EWTN and George Mason University via Flickr CC BY 2.0)

New York City, N.Y. — When the New York Times interviewed retired Olympian Dominique Dawes, she was asked a peculiar question: if you could have dinner with one person who is no longer living, and whose obituary was published in the New York Times, who would it be?

The three-time Olympian responded by saying, “I would choose to dine with Mother Angelica.”

“I’d invite Mother Angelica to my home and have her sit at the head of our table, alongside my husband and two baby girls,” Dawes told the New York Times in an Aug. 17 interview.

“I’d ask her to say the blessing, then proceed to ask her a few things about her life and about fortitude.”

Dawes, who made Olympic history by becoming the first African-American female gymnast to win an individual medal in 1996, grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland and started taking gymnastic lessons at age six.

Also known as “Awesome Dawesome,” she was part of the ‘“Magnificent Seven” at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, where the U.S. women’s gymnastic team won gold for the first time in history.

After retiring from gymnastics in 2000, Dawes converted to Catholicism on Easter Vigil in 2013, and soon after married Jeff Thomson, a Catholic high school teacher.

Dawes was originally drawn to EWTN foundress Mother Angelica because of her faith, resilience and perseverance.

“She knew resilience most of all, raised by a single mother from an early age after her father had abandoned them,” Dawes said, asking “I often wondered how she overcame this abandonment, learned to forgive her father and ultimately trust in God?”

Noting Mother Angelica’s humble beginnings, Dawes said that she would cook Mother Angelica some “soul food” for dinner - a meal that would include chitlins, collard greens, cheese grits and candied yams.

“Mother Angelica would understand this meal: She was raised around blacks and poor Italians in a tough Canton, Ohio, neighborhood. She knew people, she understood their plights, she was one of them!” Dawes said.

Impressed by Mother Angelica’s ability to start the largest religious television network with only $200, Dawes mentioned many questions she would ask the beloved nun.

“She was a cloistered nun, in a convent, yet she was seen by hundreds of millions of people worldwide as the host of a series on EWTN. How was she able to embrace both of these so very opposite vocations?” Dawes asked.

The retired Olympian particularly related to the contradictory aspect of Mother Angelica’s vocation and admired how she balanced a quiet life with a public one. Dawes said that because of her own introverted nature, performing at the Olympics always gave her anxiety.

Dawes was also struck by Mother Angelica’s ability to take her own painful, personal experiences and turn them into fuel for the greater good. The gymnast said she would ask Mother Angelica how she could help others in her own life, “whether they suffer from anxiety, depression, addiction, physical ailments or the pain of abandonment or divorce.”

Dawes also noted her desire to learn from Mother Angelica’s lasting example.

“Mother Angelica … how can we here on earth emulate what you did, even in a smaller way, offering help to others in a world that so desperately needs it?”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

FEATURES

Elizabeth Smart on captor’s porn use: ‘It just led to him raping me more’

by CNA/EWTN News • August 22, 2016

Elizabeth Smart. (Fight the New Drug/YouTube)

Salt Lake City, Utah — Editor’s note: This article contains content that readers may find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.

Elizabeth Smart, who drew the nation’s attention when she was abducted from her home at age 14, said that her captor’s pornography use made her captivity much worse.

“Looking at pornography wasn’t enough for him. Having sex with his wife, after looking at pornography, it wasn’t enough for him,” Smart said in a new interview. “And then it led him to finally going out and kidnapping me. He just always wanted more.”

In 2002, Smart was abducted at knifepoint from her bedroom when a man broke into a window in her family’s home in Salt Lake City.

She was taken to a makeshift campsite just a few miles away, where her captor, Brian David Mitchell, and his wife held her for nine months, until she was discovered and rescued.

During that time, Smart says that Mitchell declared her to be his new “wife” and raped her multiple times each day.

Mitchell was later found guilty of kidnapping and sexual assault. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Now, in an exclusive interview with Fight the New Drug, a group that works to educate people on pornography’s effects on the brain and society, Smart discusses the role that pornography played in her captivity.

In the new interview, Smart describes what she calls “the longest nine months of my life.”

“Every time when I thought I had hit rock bottom, my captor would find something new, to make it worse,” she said.

“And one of those times, I had been forced to drink alcohol. I had thrown up and then I had passed out, face down. I woke up the next morning and my face and my hair were still all crusted to the ground, covered in vomit, and I remember at that point just feeling like, how can you get any lower than this?”

But just a few days later, she continued, “my captor was just really excited and really kind of amped up about something.”

It turned out his excitement was over hard-core pornography, which he forced her to look at.

“I remember he would just sit and look at it and stare at it,” Smart said. “And he would just talk about these women. And then when he was done, he would turn and he would look at me, and he would be like, ‘Now we’re going to do this’.”

“It just led to him raping me more. More than he already did, which was a lot.”

Smart said she doesn’t know whether Mitchell would have kidnapped her had pornography not been involved.

“All I know is that pornography made my living hell worse.”

Smart’s interview comes as an increasing number of hotels, restaurants and states are recognizing the damage caused by pornography, as well as the link between pornography and human trafficking.

Studies have found that porn is addictive and elicits a response from the brain similar to the use of drugs. In addition, research shows that regular porn users can develop a tolerance over time, needing more extreme pornography to become aroused.

A 2012 survey of 1,500 men found that 56 percent said their tastes in pornography had become “increasingly extreme or deviant.” Porn users were also found to be more likely to express attitudes supporting violence against women.

In her new interview, Smart – who has gone on to get married, become a contributor to ABC News, and be an activist against human trafficking and pornography – also shared the life-changing advice that her mother gave her the morning after she was rescued.

“What these people have done to you is so terrible, you may never feel like restitution is made, but the best punishment that you could ever give them is to be happy,” Smart’s mother told her.

“And that advice has helped make me who I am today,” she said.

Note: Resources on recovery from pornography addiction can be found at fightthenewdrug.org.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

FEATURES

Spotlight on education at Matteo Ricci College

by Sr. Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J. • August 24, 2016

Matteo Ricci College (MRC) is one of eight schools and colleges that form part of Seattle University, a Catholic institution conducted by the Society of Jesus.

With the Humanities as its core, MRC offers three degrees: a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities (BAH), a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities for Leadership (BAHL), and a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities for Teaching (BAHT).

Mission of MRC

MRC educates teachers and leaders for a just and humane world. The study of Western culture is the surest place to begin. Pseudo-educators claim it’s a waste of time. Yet, the facts don’t lie. We are the beneficiaries of Greco-Roman culture preserved, reinterpreted, and handed down through the Catholic Church’s medieval monastic tradition and continued through the Italian Renaissance. To be human is to be in a story, and to forget one’s story leaves a person without a present identity, without a past and without a future. At MRC, cultural history is taught so that students can draw moral lessons from it. Those who don’t learn from these lessons are condemned to repeat and relive them.

With the small class size at MRC, professors can take a personal interest in each student. In this environment conducive to learning, a close collaboration between student and professor is pursued. This encourages greater participation in class. Shouldn’t MRC be the envy of most serious students? You would think so.

What’s in a Name?

MRC is named after the 16th - century Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) who spent his adult life as an educator and missionary in China. At that time, the doors of the Chinese empire were closed to foreigners from the West. It was Ricci who brought Western civilization to China, and Chinese literati reciprocated by sharing with him their ancient and venerable culture. For him, inculturation was a reality centuries before the term was invented. He founded the modern Chinese Catholic Church.

Ricci astonished the Chinese because he loved them. An authority on so many subjects and disciplines — mathematics, astronomy, apologetics, literature, popular catechesis, poetry, art and music — he brought this treasury of gifts to his mission. His intellectual gifts were prodigious: a photographic memory, linguistic ability to speak flawless Chinese, ingenuity to write maps, assemble clocks, read the stars. As if this weren’t enough, Ricci had a keen ear for music and reportedly sang with great sweetness. This “wise man from the west” is recognized as “the most cultivated man of his time and one of the most remarkable and brilliant men of history.”

Known throughout the realm as Li-Ma-T’ou, this missionary scholar remains the most respected and beloved foreign figure in Chinese culture. Some in the Chinese government view him as the “Second Founder of Modern China.”

This is the man after whom MRC is named. He is its model of a complete liberal arts education cast in the Jesuit mold.

Student Protest against the Curriculum of MRC

In May, some two hundred enrolled students at (MRC) staged a week-long sit-in objecting to the core curriculum: The focus on Western culture and values was declared irrelevant. Studies in Western Civilization had failed to serve the academic interests of these students.

The students demanded of the administration that the classic core curriculum in the Humanities be discarded in favor of a new program of studies to reflect special interest groups of race, class, gender, and disability. Additionally, they demanded that only qualified faculty be hired to teach courses that reflected their interest in identity group studies of race, class, gender, and disability. The Dean of the MRC was to be fired.

Student demands focused on “dissatisfaction, traumatization, and boredom,” that is, “the Humanities program as it exists today” which “ignores and erases the humanity of its students and of peoples around the globe.” …”We are diverse, with many different life experiences, also shaped by colonization, U.S., and Western imperialist, neo-politics, and oppression under racist, sexist, classist, heteronormative and homophobic, transphobic, queerphobic, ableist, nationalistic, xenophobic systems which perpetuate conquest, genocide of indigenous peoples, and pervasive systemic inequities.”

Students spoke of oppression perpetrated by the Administration: “The first manifest demand is a complete change in the curriculum from a Whiteness-dominated curriculum to a non-Eurocentric interdisciplinary curriculum. If the (MRC) is unable to tackle these requirements, we demand that it be converted into a department so as to be accountable to another college.”

What Students at MRC Seek

If MRC students are seeking social justice and equality for all, if they are to make sense of this complex world, they ought to study the Humanities. If they are curious about how other cultures have learned to develop feelings of compassion, tolerance, respect, empathy, they ought to study the Humanities. If they are curious about how creative other people can be, if students are determined to live in a democracy of free citizens, the Humanities should be studied. Without the Humanities, democracy would not exist.

The Crisis of Higher Education

In this country, we are experiencing an intellectual crisis that has already affected our work force, our politics, and our culture. Western civilization, the human culmination of centuries of learning is under attack by an identity-driven student population exemplified by the protesters at MRC. Whereas many academic leaders fail to uphold the purpose of teaching Western civilization, the faculty at MRC values it. Whereas academic leaders don’t believe that the Humanities have any fundamental influence on their students, the faculty at MRC is invested in it. Shared values — this is what brings the world together.

MRC is not alone in promoting a Humanities core curriculum. Many non-sectarian and private colleges proudly offer a core curriculum around which other subjects are framed. At least twenty-five colleges and universities in the United States offer the Great Books tradition to their undergraduates. These books are part of the great conversation about the universal ideas of cultures and civilizations, always related to ethical and religious values.

Many educators believe that nearly half of college graduates show no measurable improvement in knowledge or critical thinking. They speak and write incorrectly; they do not read. Their constant companions? Electronic devices with accompanying head sets. Weaker academic requirements, greater specialization in the departments, a rigid orthodoxy and doctrinaire views on liberalism are now part of the university’s politics and cultural life.

Clash of Goals

If the demands of these special interest groups — race, class, gender, and disability, were met, MRC would cease to exist. A program of identity studies clashes with the raison d’être of a college named after Matteo Ricci, a name synonymous with the richest of classic studies.

The student protesters are demanding to be extricated from the program that distinguishes itself in the pantheon of Catholic higher education.

Who would be so foolish as to look down on, much less protest, such a rich curriculum that prompts the most influential employers to hire MRC’s crême de la crème?

Let the disgruntled students go elsewhere with their partisan interests and narrow viewpoint. They lose.

Ricci Speaks to College Students

Matteo Ricci has left us several proverbs that can inspire college students. But not just college students:

“Man is a stranger in this world.”

“The virtuous person speaks little.”

“Time past must be thought of as gone forever. Don’t waste time.”

“True longevity is reckoned not by number of years but according to progress in virtue. If the Lord of Heaven grants me one day more of life, He does so that I may correct yesterday’s faults; failures to do this would be a sign of great ingratitude.”

The canonization of Father Matteo Ricci, S.J. ranks high on the ‘to-do list’ of Pope Francis whose high regard and love for him are well known. This is the Servant of God, Matteo Ricci, S.J.

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.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

FEATURES

‘Hello. My name is Mother Teresa. I just wanted to give you my card.’

by Kate Veik (CNA/EWTN News) • August 25, 2016

Mother Teresa, circa 1980. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Denver, CO — It happened on the most ordinary day, in the most ordinary of places.

A woman stood by herself in the back of an airport lounge, flipping distractedly through a magazine while she waited for her flight. Suddenly, she was approached by a 5’0” woman in a blue and white sari.

“Hello. My name is Mother Teresa. I just wanted to give you my card.”

The religious sister passed her a business card and gave her hand a gentle squeeze before turning and boarding a flight. The woman stared at the card. And then, a smile.

This is one of hundreds of testimonies about the life and holiness of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta included in the new book “A Call to Mercy” (Image, 2016). The 384-page book published just weeks ahead of the Calcutta sister’s Sept. 4 canonization.

The book gives an exclusive peek into the first and secondhand oral and written testimonies that built Mother Teresa’s cause for sainthood. In total, the sainthood cause for the Missionary of Charity foundress included 17 volumes – or nearly 7,000 pages – of testimonies.

Father Brian Koldiejchuk, postulator of Mother Teresa’s cause and editor of “A Call to Mercy,” told CNA that such testimonies are typically unavailable to the public for decades following a canonization.

“This is the first time we’re using testimonies like that in such an organized manner and such a large number,” said Fr. Koldiejchuk. “All that material will be available maybe in another 50 years. But in the meantime, if you read the examples you’ll see just what Mother did.”

“Some of them are extraordinary, but for the most part Mother is doing ordinary things. Like she herself used to emphasize; Ordinary things with extraordinary love.”

Since Mother Teresa’s canonization coincides with Pope Francis’ Jubilee of Mercy, “A Call to Mercy” also has a special focus on the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. The book is divided into 14 chapters covering the 14 works of mercy. Each chapter includes a selection of Mother Teresa’s writings and testimonies related to a specific work of mercy.

“People will see – or have a good idea – firsthand or at least secondhand about how Mother herself lived the works of mercy,” Fr. Koldiejchuk said.

A chapter on bearing wrongs patiently includes the testimony of a Missionary of Charity sister who was tasked with bringing Mother Teresa to the airport. The sister had just managed to usher Mother Teresa to the car when another sister ran to Mother Teresa and informed her that one of the children in their care was dying. The Missionary of Charity recalled being flooded with impatience.

“I’m not saying anything, but my body language, my tutting and sighing, says it all,” the sister recalls. “Mother … didn’t tell me off at all or point out my dreadful behavior. She just lovingly put her hand on my arm and said, ‘I will come, but I need to see this child’.”

Mother Teresa went to the child, a young baby, and prayed before tucking a Miraculous Medal into the child’s shirt. She then proceeded to the car to go to the airport.

“She didn’t point out how rude I was being; she embraced me and held me in my rudeness,” the sister reflected. “With all my faults, in that moment, she took care of me too.”

For many, the simplicity of this testimony and many others may come as a surprise. But not to Fr. Koldiejchuk.

“Most of the examples … are just very ordinary,” Fr. Kolodiejchuk told CNA. “Almost all of them – we can do those kinds of things. The little thoughtfulness to your neighbor, paying attention to those in need, beginning in your own family.”

For Fr. Koldiejchuk, the testimonies also paint a fuller picture of the simple affectivity of the future saint, whom he knew personally and worked alongside for nearly two decades.

“Someone would meet Mother just once and it would change their life,” he told CNA. “Or they saw her walking by and it was a moment of conversion. She had this graced capacity to really affect people.”

“She radiated holiness and she had the witness of her life behind it.”

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

FEATURES

Double review: ‘Hell or High Water’ and ‘War Dogs’

by Carl Kozlowski • August 26, 2016

We’re reaching the tail-end of summer, when studios tend to dump out movies that have no-name casts or have turned out poorly in the hopes that no one will notice how bad the films are amid season-ending cookouts and last-minute vacations. So I won’t waste yours or my time reviewing any of the new films hitting theatres this weekend, instead spotlighting two excellent films (albeit strictly for adults) that hit theatres last week.

The Western is a movie genre that has fallen largely by the wayside in the past few decades, as modern moviegoers lost interest in chases and shootouts between cowboys, and Indians now have to be called Native Americans. But occasionally a movie comes along that is labeled a “modern Western,” in which the good guys and bad guys travel by vehicles but they still are fighting elemental battles of good and evil and struggling for survival in the bleak rural terrains and deserts of states like Texas and New Mexico.

The Best Picture-winning “No Country for Old Men” set a high bar for these kinds of films in 2007. Those who loved that movie should also enjoy the new movie “Hell or High Water,” which stars Jeff Bridges as a retiring U.S. Marshal named Marcus Hamilton, who decides to take on his last case – finding and arresting a pair of brothers on a bank-robbery spree - with a hangdog intensity.

Shot in New Mexico but set in the hopeless desert towns of Texas, “Hell” features rising star Ben Foster as Tanner Howard, a bad-boy small-town resident who teams with his struggling brother Toby (Chris Pine, who plays Captain Kirk in the most recent “Star Trek” film trilogy) to rob a string of banks across the state in an attempt to pay off Toby’s enormous child support backlog and save his dying ranch for his family.

As Tanner gets more reckless and Toby becomes more concerned about their luck running out, Marcus and his deputy Alberto (Gil Birmingham) employ old-school psychology and a whole lot of patience in the hopes of outwitting them. There’s not much more to the plot in the script by Taylor Sheridan, who wrote last fall’s superb drug-war thriller “Sicario,” but the magic in this film is in the well-drawn characters, the spot-on dialogue and especially the atmosphere of quiet desperation and growing tension.

The premise is a timely one, amid a weak economic recovery that still puts the squeeze on average landowners who are buried under oversized mortgages and risking repossessions. Director David Mackenzie is British, yet brings viewers fully into this hard-scrabble world as if he had spent a lifetime as an oil rig worker – and viewers lucky enough to see this movie will be left with a thoughtful and frankly unforgettable experience.

While there is foul language throughout “Hell or High Water,” it fits the atmosphere enough to blend in without being overly offensive for most adults. There are a couple of intense violent moments, but they are few and far between in this movie that’s more concerned with psychological battles than gore and pyrotechnics. The one other R-rated element is a brief scene where one brother is engaged in blurred and clothed sex with a hooker in the far end of a hotel room while his brother ignores them.

Meanwhile, “War Dogs” is a wholly different look at two guys skirting the law in the name of what they deem to be a noble cause. Based on a Rolling Stone article about two former high school buddies who team up a decade after graduation to become arms suppliers for the U.S. military during the peak of the Iraq war, the movie is a full-throttle adrenaline blast of action, comedy and thrills that is likely to join “Hell or High Water” on my ten favorite films list at the end of the year.

The movie stars the dynamite duo of Miles Teller and Jonah Hill as David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli, two guys desperate to make fast money amid a slowing economy in 2005. David is the more grounded and responsible one, living with his girlfriend Iz (Ana de Armas) and earning decent bucks doing the detestable job of being a masseur for rich gay men.

When he runs into his childhood best friend Efraim at a funeral after a decade apart, he’s quickly impressed by Efraim’s high-living ways and wonders how he’s managing to score big money. His friend invites him to join his one-man operation as a low-level arms supplier for the military, even though David and his girlfriend march in anti-war protests.

But when Iz announces she’s pregnant, David’s principles go out the window and he winds up joining Efraim in a dangerous mission to Jordan and then Iraq, as they personally have to show up and save a huge order of ammo from being seized due to a massive shipping error. As they experience the thrill of dodging both authorities and shady fellow dealers including Henry Girard (Bradley Cooper in an ace supporting turn filled with humorous malice), David has to decide how far he’s willing to go at the same time he’s realizing that Efraim may not be as friendly as he seems.

Granted, I’m a sucker for edgy political satire and cleverly executed action movies, but “War Dogs” puts those two elements together in perfect fashion to match “Central Intelligence” as my favorite movie of the summer. Co-writer/director Todd Phillips was clearly dying to prove he could do something special after becoming trapped helming all three of the rapidly worsening “Hangover” movies, and he pulls it off big-time here.

“War Dogs” is the wilder of the two movies in its tone, with Jonah Hill’s Efraim prone to whooping profanities and additional foul language in multiple tension-filled scenes. Most of its violence consists of people being punched or shot at without any real blood. The two dealers are shown smoking joints, including before a humorous meeting with Pentagon officials, and Efraim is shown snorting cocaine behind David’s back.

SPOILER ALERT: Ultimately, the drug use is portrayed negatively as it becomes clear that the movie shows Efraim in a negative moral light. END SPOILER.

Overall, for those who can handle an adult-oriented action comedy, “War Dogs” is a treat. Those who are easily offended should consider other fare.

Both movies ultimately show that a life of crime is a life filled with regrets, and that is another feather in their caps.

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.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

FEATURES

Advice to Students New and Old

by Bishop Robert Barron • August 26, 2016

Last week I offered some remarks at the matriculation ceremony for Thomas Aquinas College in California. Since I would give the same advice to any Catholic students reentering the school year, I thought I would share my thoughts here.

A few months before I was named bishop, I gave another lecture at Thomas Aquinas College. I was asked to deliver a talk that I thought was going to be a little too heavy. It was late at night, I had flown in from Chicago and driven up the California highway, and I thought, “Oh, this talk is going to bomb.” Yet when I finished it, there was an hour of questions from the engaged students! The experience gave me a direct taste of the intellectual vitality of Thomas Aquinas College, which has always been a joy. One of the pleasures of being assigned to Santa Barbara is that this college is in the region.

Today, I would like to share a few simple thoughts, directed especially to incoming freshman. It’s a privilege to welcome these new students to the school, which is one of the premiere liberal arts colleges in the country. You have come to a great place — and to a pivotal moment in your lives. For the next four years, you will have the opportunity to immerse yourselves in the best minds that the Western world has produced: Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Dante, Newton, Lincoln, and Einstein — among many others.

In doing so, you will be standing very much athwart the contemporary culture, which holds that truth, both theoretical and moral, is relative and that personal freedom trumps objective value. Your instructors here don’t drift with the cultural mainstream; they believe, with G.K. Chesterton, that an open mind is not an end in itself but rather is like an open mouth, designed to bite down on something solid and nourishing. And they maintain, with Pope John Paul II, that authentic freedom always subsists in tight correlation with the truth. In light of this, please know that you are going to be formed, whether you like it or not, as warriors. For the vision of life that you will take in here will not be widely shared by your contemporaries. Expect opposition; expect a struggle; but enter into the lists with what the French call the joie de combat.

Young friends, know that you will engage in a study of the great minds of the West precisely because this college is dedicated to Jesus Christ and his Gospel. St. John tells us explicitly that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” It is crucially important to grasp — especially in our relativistic time — that Jesus is not one teacher among many, one more in a long line of prophets and sages, but the very truth that every teacher, prophet, and sage has sought. But if he is the Logos in person, then every particular expression of the Logos — whether it is found in mathematics, poetry, chemistry, physics, or metaphysics — speaks, in some way, of him. This is the ground of Christian humanism and the explanation as to why the best representatives of the Catholic tradition never drove a wedge between faith and reason. It is also why the patron of this school, when asked by the Lord himself what he desired as a reward for his service, famously responded, “Non nisi te, Domine“ (“Nothing but you, Lord”). Thomas Aquinas understood that in receiving Christ, he would also receive everything else of value.

A final consideration, which might seem a tad trivial after all of this high-flying talk. The study of the greatest minds is, quite simply, a delight. Machiavelli is a thinker with whom I rarely agree, but he said something that I have always treasured. He observed that when he entered his study to read the most sublime philosophers, he took off his mud-spattered workaday clothes and put on a regal gown, for he knew that he was entering into communion with masters.

Over the coming years, you will set aside mere practicality, clothe yourselves in regal gowns and become participants, however humble, in the most stimulating conversation of all. God bless you on this great adventure!

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.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

FEATURES

Being Catholic in Hollywood: It’s possible. Just ask Neal McDonough

by Carl Kozlowski • August 26, 2016

There are few actors in Hollywood brave enough to wear their Catholic faith on their sleeve and base their career decisions about the films and TV shows they will and won’t do on the morals they’ve been instilled with. Jim Caviezel, who played Christ in “The Passion of the Christ” before becoming the star of the hit CBS series “Person of Interest,” and Mel Gibson are two of the standouts.

But Neal McDonough is another staunchly Catholic actor who is making a splash in Tinseltown, with nonstop work in television including a regular role on the CW network’s hit superhero show “Arrow” as villain Damien Dahrk. What’s even more remarkable about him, however, is that the married father of five’s strong standard of not performing sex scenes has inspired him to walk away from a $1 million payday for the ABC “Scoundrels” in 2010, drawing attention and admiration for his principles from those in show business as well as far beyond.

Now he’s the one of the stars of the new faith-driven movie “Greater,” in which he plays the real-life character of Marty Burlsworth, who instilled a passionate faith and unquenchable spirit in his younger brother Brandon. Brandon went on to become the greatest walk-on player in the history of college football, becoming a beloved player for the Arkansas Razorbacks despite being considered too short and too fat to play, and who set an inspiring example for all when he made it all the way to the NFL – only to be killed in a car crash 11 days after being drafted.

The movie powerfully addresses his remarkable life and the way that his death also inspired others to greater faith and trust in God, and McDonough took the time to discuss the movie with me for CNA. The movie is playing in select theatres nationwide, and you can find the them by visiting the movie’s site at greaterthemovie.com.

Q: You play Marty Burlsworth in GREATER. Tell us a little about the character.

Well, Marty is a real guy – and a really great guy. He’s the older brother of the movie’s central character, Brandon Burlsworth, a phenomenal offensive lineman for the Arkansas Razorbacks in the late 90s. Brandon is right on the cusp of making it the NFL, he gets drafted by the Colts, and he dies. That really puts Marty through the ringer – and the movie follows how he tries to get his faith and his joy back after the tragedy.

Q: Sounds like a meaty and emotional role.

It really is. Marty is a typical big brother – - loves Brandon, wants the best for him, razzes him a little bit throughout his life. But as much as Brandon looks up to Marty, Marty looks up to him, too – because he has such high character and commitment to all he does. Particularly when it comes to his religious faith, Brandon’s is deep and consistent – and Marty admires that. Especially when he struggles with his own faith after Brandon dies.

Q: Speaking of faith, you’re well-known as a Christian in Hollywood for your strong Catholic faith. Did that influence your decision to star in a faith-based film like GREATER?

My Catholic faith is central to who I am as a human being – not just as an actor – so it informs every decision I make, whether it’s deciding on a project or deciding on how to treat the guy who cuts me off in traffic. And, for the record, I don’t get it right in either case every time!

I’m always on the lookout for projects with a strong moral and inspirational core – and GREATER certainly qualifies there. It’s an entertaining, thought-provoking take on what it looks like to follow the path God lays out before you even when it has bumps and twists and turns.

Q: As long as we’re on the subject of your faith, it’s been reported that you actually lost a role because you wouldn’t do the graphic love scenes that were demanded of you. That your Catholic convictions and your respect for your wife made you uncomfortable about the part.

(Laughs) Yes, it’s true that I don’t like to do – I won’t do – those kinds of scenes because of my desire to honor Ruve. One of the reasons I take my fair share of villain roles is because very rarely are villains required to do love scenes. I’m just more comfortable as a man and a husband when that’s not part of the job.

Q: Speaking of villains, you were the chief bad guy on last season’s ARROW, the CW series based on the Green Arrow comic books. You played Damien Darhk, who was very dark indeed. How much fun was that show to do?

Well, it’s still fun to do – I’m filming the upcoming season now and it’s a delight. He is really a rich, hammy villain – very much in the brilliantly crazy mold of other comic-book bad guys like Lex Luthor and even the Joker – without the clown makeup. I mean, who doesn’t want to be in a superhero series or film? I’ve been in two now, and it’s a dream come true for every actor who was a kid who loved comic books.

Q: Can you give us any details on the new season of ARROW?

You know a good villain never gives away his plot. You’re going to have to tune in like everybody else.

Q: Let’s go back to GREATER. The young man who plays Brandon, Chris Severio, is a first-time actor. What was it like working with him?

Chris is a top-notch young man and a very fine, intuitive actor. He’s the moral center of this movie – and that’s a tricky thing to play without coming off as too pious or self-righteous or boringly goody two-shoes. Chris does a very good job of avoiding those stereotypes and giving a very honest, real performance. You root for Brandon, you see why Marty and everybody else admires him so much, because of the sincerity and grit Chris brings to the part.

Q: Were you aware of Brandon’s story before the film?

I knew about the tragedy of his death, of course. And about what a remarkable story he was as a player – to make it as a non-scholarship walk-on at a major school like Arkansas and end up being drafted fairly high into the NFL. That takes a remarkable amount of determination.

But I didn’t know his backstory, the struggles his Mom went through as a single parent and the obstacles they had to overcome. Nor did I know about Brandon’s strong faith – God was the center of his life and his character. In fact, Chris Severio says he was so moved by Brandon’s faith and how it helped him be the best he could be that he, Chris, was actually inspired to grow closer to God in his own faith just by playing him in the movie.

Q: What do you hope audiences walk away with from the film?

First and foremost, I hope they’re truly entertained. This is a movie of very big ideas and themes but also great fun and humor. There is some excellent, exciting football action in this movie, along with lots of solid family drama. And there’s plenty of humor, too, in Marty’s relationship with Brandon but also as we see Brandon expanding his social skills as he gets more and more accomplished at football.

But I also hope audiences leave encouraged – reminded that when hard times do come, and they will, that God has a purpose in them. And we can actually be blessed through the pain if we follow Him through it.

Q: What’s next for Neal McDonough?

Let’s hope it’s celebrating the opening weekend success of GREATER.

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.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

FEATURES

What might save us from ‘trigger warnings’ and ‘safe spaces’

by Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • August 26, 2016

(Areipa.lt via Shutterstock.com)

Denver, CO —”I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

This quote from British author Evelyn Beatrice Hall (often misattributed to Voltaire) might sound rather foreign on many college campuses throughout the country today, who in many ways seem to prefer to be defended from the First Amendment rather than to defend it.

Earlier this year, students at Emory University in Atlanta protested that their safety was threatened by chalk messages showing support for Donald Trump for president. The president of the University agreed.

In early March, two student government representatives at Bowdoin College faced impeachment proceedings for attending a fiesta-themed party with mini sombreros, since the event was deemed an example of “ethnic stereotyping.”

In April, North Carolina’s Lt. Gov. Dan Forest proposed a policy for the state’s public university system that would punish “those who interrupt the free expression of others,” such as hecklers during a speech.

The rise of a culture designed to protect students from words and ideas that seem threatening has some experts questioning the effect that this hyper-sensitivity could be having on higher education and society at large.

Defining the terms

In a long-form piece in The Atlantic in Sept. 2015, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt explored this phenomenon that they dubbed “The Coddling of the American Mind.” Words like ‘microaggressions’, which are small, seemingly harmless words or actions that can be perceived as threatening, and ‘trigger warnings’, which are alerts that professors are expected to issue for potentially offensive or provocative material, haved moved from obscure terms to everyday language on campus, they said.

“This new climate is slowly being institutionalized, and is affecting what can be said in the classroom, even as a basis for discussion,” they wrote.

Another recent piece in the Atlantic by Conor Friedersdorf explored a new scholarly paper by sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, who say that this new cultural phenomenon is different from previous cultures that have come before it, such as cultures that valued dignity or honor when faced with an aggrievance.

Now, the new cultural norm is “victimhood culture,” which values immediately and publicly airing one’s grievances, in hopes to “provoke sympathy and antagonism” toward the initial offender by “advertising (one’s) status as an aggrieved party,” Friedersdorf wrote.

A Catholic college perspective

While many public universities are in the throes of grappling with the consequences of victimhood culture, some Catholic liberal arts schools say they have not seen the same cultural shift on their campuses.

Anne Forsyth is the Director of College Relations and Assistant to the President at Thomas Aquinas College (TAC), a Catholic liberal arts school in Santa Paula, California. She said she found it concerning when, for the first time a few years ago, she started hearing about “free speech zones” on college campuses.

“I remember thinking ‘What is this? The whole country is a free-speech zone, what are they talking about? This is America, we all have the freedom to speak.”

But while she was aware of the culture of victimhood picking up speed on other college campuses, Forsyth said the student body of Thomas Aquinas seems to be untouched by the phenomenon.

“What we see here is endless conversation on all subjects, on which people can really disagree,” she said.

The reasons for the differences are complex, she added. One of the reason is the Christian faith of most of the students, she said, and that “where charity and love prevail, hopefully things will go a little bit better, so hopefully feelings won’t be so hurt, people won’t seem so doctrinaire, and those things are somewhat muted.”

Other reasons are likely the differences in pedagogy and curriculum, she said. Every class at TAC is in the form of a conversation-based seminar where the students are able to engage with their subjects on a level that wouldn’t be as possible in a large lecture class of hundreds of students, she said.

This engagement allows students to be able to grapple with differing opinions and ideas in ways that other students may not be being equipped to do, she said.

“I think it’s the advancing of an idea different or contrary to your own is what is triggering this (victimhood cultures), precisely because they just don’t have the tools to deal with it,” she said.

The school also takes steps to reduce “emotional reasoning” in the classroom by requiring students to address each other during discussions as “Mr.” or “Miss”, she added.

“We’re trying to minimize the personal part of it,” she said. “Not that everybody doesn’t have a personal stake in these arguments or discussions, because we do, but we don’t want to be personal about it in the point of feelings.”

Thomas Aquinas College also provides students with a classical education, with required courses in areas of philosophy, theology and literature that used to be the bread and butter of higher education.

What’s God got to do with it?

Dr. William Fahey is the president of Thomas More College, a small, Catholic liberal arts school in New Hampshire. He said that the recent articles about “victimhood culture” are identifying something that’s been happening for several decades in higher education and the culture at large.

“If you have what Benedict XVI called ‘the emancipation of man from God’ in the public square, then it means certain things are going to be absent, certain things are going to become more prominent,” he said. “So if you’re not allowed to talk about God at the center, then you can’t have traditional ethics, you simply can’t. You can’t have virtue, you can’t have justice, you can’t have transcendent things because they actually require some sense of the transcendent.”

“So it’s no surprise if you have a college or university or a country where there is either no discussion allowed or a very perverse discussion of God allowed, you can’t have ethics, you can’t have real solidarity, because there’s nothing that unites everyone,” he added.

If there is no God, Fahey said, then the only thing that matters is gaining power, and many students have realized the power that comes with claiming victimhood status in today’s world.

But like Thomas Aquinas College, the student body at Thomas More has also not experienced the cultural shift seen at larger public universities for various reasons.

“We have a very traditional Catholic culture here that unifies everyone and we have a sense of justice, so if someone actually feels aggrieved, the categories for understanding that are virtue ethics, you could only understand your irritation as something significant because you perceive there’s a violation of justice here, not merely annoyance,” he said.

Thomas More College is also a unique model in that is has less than one hundred students, allowing the student body to become a very tight-knit Catholic community.

“It would be comical at Thomas More College to talk about being marginalized, because one small single Catholic community, we’re united in our faith, so we’re not going to be prey to the same kind of feeling of alienation that most people in modern society and certainly most college students feel,” he said.

Also similarly to Thomas Aquinas College, Thomas More requires students to take many courses in the humanities and literature, which allow them to see the world through many different perspectives, he said.

“Someone who might be feeling marginalized is going to have a tough time seeing that as significant when they’re reading tragedy and hardship, vice and virtue, they’re reading kind of the broad sweep of human experiences across many different time zones, many different cultures, many different races,” he said. “And you realize, ‘Huh, there is something called humanity, and it’s foolish to say I’m going to define myself and my actions by (a more narrow category).’”

A Catholic psychologist weighs in

Dr. Gregory Bottaro is a clinical psychologist practicing with Catholic Psych Institute in Connecticut. He said that while it’s necessary and important to recognize that some people have experienced real trauma in their lives, the solution is not to shut themselves off to any experience that might be uncomfortable for them.

“The reality is that real trauma happens,” he said. “If you have somebody who’s been raped and they’re hearing a story about (rape) … a trigger warning essentially can be a positive thing to give people a heads up that we’re approaching an area that may trigger something for you, but the fact of the matter is that we are going to approach it,” he said.

“So that’s the intent, to just give people the awareness that if there’s something here you may have struggled with, get ready, get yourself ready for what we’re about to do.”

But when awareness takes the form of censorship of differing opinions, then it’s gone too far, he said. For example, trigger warnings, which can be used as an appropriate way to alert someone that certain material may trigger something for them, are often used as an excuse to not engage with material at all.

“The problem is that people take them as permission to avoid or stay away from the material that’s being warned about,” he said.

One of the fundamental definitions of overall health, Dr. Bottaro added, is flexibility, and that applies whether one is referring to biological, physical, spiritual or emotional health.

“Flexibility is an intrinsic quality of overall health, and that means that you can have the ability to talk to different kinds of people, have different opinions, dialogue with different people with different perspectives or different cultural views, different world views, and that’s ultimately what’s healthy,” he said.

Therefore, the inability to handle differing opinions could be a sign of psychological sickness or disorder.

The solution?

A Catholic worldview can be extremely helpful for people encountering differing ideas and opinions, because they are grounded in something fundamental, Dr. Bottaro said.

“A Catholic worldview gives us a stable foundation that goes to the very root of what it is to be human,” Dr. Bottaro said. “So if our foundation is at the deepest root, then we don’t have t be afraid to dialogue with other people from different perspectives, we don’t have to be afraid of what other people might say to us, because we’re grounded on the deepest foundation possible.”

“And that’s ultimately what’s missing in our culture, that’s why they need these safe spaces, because they don’t have any kind of deeply rooted foundation, they’re not grounded, and so they need to stop people from saying scary things because it’s going to knock them off balance,” he added.

Some secular universities and institutions are recognizing the “culture of victimhood” as a threat to the First Amendment right to the freedom of speech, and are taking action. A new group at Princeton University, called the “Princeton Open Campus Coalition”, who wrote in an open letter to the University’s president that they “are concerned mainly with the importance of preserving an intellectual culture in which all members of the Princeton community feel free to engage in civil discussion and to express their convictions without fear of being subjected to intimidation or abuse.”

Arizona lawmakers also decided to take action against victimhood culture by passing a bill to prevent colleges and universities from restricting free speech in a public forum. The bill was signed into law in May.

However, Dr. Fahey said, until secular universities and society as a whole once again recognize God and some sense of the transcendent as the center, then there’s no way to escape the rising culture of victimhood as an institutionalized part of society.

“The culture of victimhood can’t really come out of a religious society,” Dr. Fahey said.

“I would go so far as to say that if you have an authentically religious culture of any of the traditional religions, you’re not going to have this sense of victimhood.”

“In the United States, the religious tradition is Christianity. If you don’t recognize that and have some sympathy for the other great religions, then you’re never going to escape this problem, instead you’re going to build an office to deal with victimhood, and in that action, as long as you have that office, you’ve now made it part of your culture, you’ve now made it systemic.”

This article was originally published April 29, 2016.

Share this article

Link to original article with sharing options:  catholicnewsagency.com

SUNDAY • AUGUST 28, 2016

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Sir 3:17-18, 20, 28-29; NRSVCE)

My child, perform your tasks with humility;

then you will be loved by those whom God accepts.

The greater you are, the more you must humble yourself;

so you will find favor in the sight of the Lord.

Neither seek what is too difficult for you,

nor investigate what is beyond your power.

The mind of the intelligent appreciates proverbs,

and an attentive ear is the desire of the wise.

As water extinguishes a blazing fire,

so almsgiving atones for sin.

Second Reading (Heb 12:18-19, 22-24a; NRSVCE)

You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Gospel Reading (Lk 14:1, 7-14; NRSVCE)

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

MONDAY • AUGUST 29, 2016

Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist

First Reading (1 Cor 2:1-5; NRSVCE)

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

Gospel Reading (Mk 6:17-29; NRSVCE)

Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

TUESDAY • AUGUST 30, 2016

Tuesday of the Twenty-Second Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (1 Cor 2:10b-16; NRSVCE)

The Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.

Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny.

“For who has known the mind of the Lord

so as to instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.

Gospel Reading (Lk 4:31-37; NRSVCE)

Jesus went down to Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and was teaching them on the sabbath. They were astounded at his teaching, because he spoke with authority. In the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, “Let us alone! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” When the demon had thrown him down before them, he came out of him without having done him any harm. They were all amazed and kept saying to one another, “What kind of utterance is this? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and out they come!” And a report about him began to reach every place in the region.

WEDNESDAY • AUGUST 31, 2016

Wednesday of the Twenty-Second Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (1 Cor 3:1-9; NRSVCE)

And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human?

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.

Gospel Reading (Lk 4:38-44; NRSVCE)

After leaving the synagogue Jesus entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked him about her. Then he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she got up and began to serve them.

As the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various kinds of diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them. Demons also came out of many, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Messiah.

At daybreak he departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowds were looking for him; and when they reached him, they wanted to prevent him from leaving them. But he said to them, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.” So he continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.

THURSDAY • SEPTEMBER 1, 2016

Thursday of the Twenty-Second Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (1 Cor 3:18-23; NRSVCE)

Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written,

“He catches the wise in their craftiness,”

and again,

“The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise,

that they are futile.”

So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

Gospel Reading (Lk 5:1-11; NRSVCE)

Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

FRIDAY • SEPTEMBER 2, 2016

Friday of the Twenty-Second Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (1 Cor 4:1-5; NRSVCE)

Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.

Gospel Reading (Lk 5:33-39; NRSVCE)

The scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “John’s disciples, like the disciples of the Pharisees, frequently fast and pray, but your disciples eat and drink.” Jesus said to them, “You cannot make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”

SATURDAY • SEPTEMBER 3, 2016

Memorial of Saint Gregory the Great

First Reading (1 Cor 4:6b-15; NRSVCE)

Learn through Apollos and myself the meaning of the saying, “Nothing beyond what is written,” so that none of you will be puffed up in favor of one against another. For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?

Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings! Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you! For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.

I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.

Gospel Reading (Lk 6:1-5; NRSVCE)

One sabbath while Jesus was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and gave some to his companions?” Then he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.”