VOLUME 2, ISSUE 18  •  OCTOBER 29, 2016

Table of Contents

Copyright Notice

VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis: Don’t interrupt others – it won’t end well

That time a priest was reprimanded by a saint

Castel Gandolfo, the summer home of Popes, opens to the public

Holy See and Benin sign agreement on Church’s legal status

As battle for Mosul rages, Pope appeals for an end to violence in Iraq

Be ‘men for others’, not wrapped up in clericalism, Francis tells Jesuits

A message from Rome on the power of liturgical music

Pope Francis talks nationwide crisis in meeting with Venezuela’s Maduro

Vatican: Cremated bodies may not be scattered

For Pope Francis, God’s kingdom doesn’t grow through organization charts

To welcome the stranger is to welcome Christ, Pope Francis says

Rome’s poor to be guests of honor at Vatican concert

Catholic-Lutheran hurdles still exist, but surprising progress has been made

To stop human trafficking, look at root causes, survivor says

Theology and pastoral care ‘go hand in hand,’ Pope tells JPII Institute

Pope Francis talks Sweden, Catholic-Lutheran dialogue in new interview

WORLD NEWS

‘Confess-a-thon’ returns to Colombian mall, draws 120 priests

Christian girls who barely escaped ISIS credit Mary for their safety

Critics of Congolese relief project got it wrong, CRS says

Carl Anderson: In battle for Mosul, don’t forget persecuted groups

With just one place to worship, Somalia is a dangerous place for Christians

As drug war darkens, Filipino cardinal sheds light with rehab centers

Peruvian president consecrates nation to Sacred Heart, Immaculate Heart

Syrian refugees arrive to Rome with the hope of a better life

Don’t exploit death of Italian woman to push abortion, ethicist says

‘Heinous’ desecration at site of Christ’s Transfiguration

For EU’s religious freedom envoy, Middle East is key arena

Prisoners of conscience remembered on International Religious Freedom Day

Iraqi archbishop remains hopeful: ‘There will always be Christians’ here

Christ’s burial slab uncovered for the first time in centuries

U.S. NEWS

Domestic abuse: The epidemic no one is talking about in parishes

Want to aid vocations? Help reduce debt, Laboure Society says

Proposal to close D.C. Metro on Sunday mornings draws outcry

82-year-old priest attacked, robbed outside Kansas City parish

Arizona Mass for migrants shows Catholic unity crosses borders

Just how important are presidential Supreme Court picks?

Princeton event to highlight healthy marriages as foundation of society

Is there a deeper network behind the ‘Catholic Spring’?

Why LGBT activists are standing by these Christian businesses

Here’s the full text of Donald Trump’s interview with EWTN

Iowa church drops suit after court nixes fears of ‘gender identity’ prosecution

Supreme Court to hear school’s transgender bathroom case

FEATURES

The bizarre tale of 5,000 relics finding a home in a Pittsburgh chapel

Time to end the death penalty for the innocent in the womb and the guilty in the prison system

Inferno: An uptick for Dan Brown film adaptations

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Sunday • October 30, 2016

Monday • October 31, 2016

Tuesday • November 1, 2016

Wednesday • November 2, 2016

Thursday • November 3, 2016

Friday • November 4, 2016

Saturday • November 5, 2016

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Volume 2, Issue 18 • October 29, 2016

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis: Don’t interrupt others – it won’t end well

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • October 22, 2016

Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square during the Wednesday General Audience on May 22, 2015. (Stephan Driscoll/CNA)

Vatican City — Dialogue is a key element of mercy, Pope Francis said Saturday, explaining that when we interrupt others in order to push our own opinions without truly listening, we risk ruining relationships.

Speaking to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 22, the Pope pointed to “a very important aspect of mercy, which is precisely dialogue.”

“We don’t dialogue when we don’t listen well or when we tend to interrupt the other in order to prove that we are right,” he said, noting that many times when we are listening to someone, “we stop them and say ‘it’s not like this!’”

By not letting people finish explaining what they want to say, “this impedes dialogue, this is aggression,” he said, adding that “if I don’t let others say everything they have in their heart, and if I start to scream – and today there is a lot of screaming – this relationship between us won’t have a good ending.”

Instead, “true dialogue needs moments of silence in order to welcome the extraordinary gift of the presence of God in our brother.”

Pope Francis spoke to the roughly 100,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Jubilee general audience, according to the Vatican Gendarmerie. The extra audience is held once a month in addition to the Pope’s weekly audience for the duration of the Jubilee of Mercy.

In his address, the Pope focused on the Gospel passage from John in which Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well who, after speaking with him, tells the entire region about her conversation with the Messiah.

One of the things that stands out most in the passage, Francis said, is the dialogue between the Jesus and the woman.

“Dialogue allows people to know and understand the needs of others,” he said, explaining that to dialogue is a sign of respect, because it puts people in “a position to listen” and to receive the best of others.

It’s also a sign of charity, because although dialogue doesn’t ignore differences, “it can help in searching for and sharing the common good,” he said.

“Many times we don’t encounter our brothers, despite living beside them, above all when we allow our position to dominate over that of the other,” Francis continued.

When we listen to what others are saying and then, “with meekness,” explain our own thoughts, “the family, the neighborhood and one’s place of work are better.” However, if we interrupt and start “to scream,” the relationship won’t end well.

Dialogue helps “to humanize relationships and to overcome misunderstandings,” he said, adding that there is a great need for dialogue within families.

“How much easier questions are resolved if they learn to listen to each other,” he said, noting that this goes for every relationship, including husband and wife, parents and children, teachers and students, and managers and employees.

The Church is also in dialogue with the men and women of every age, in order to understand “the needs that are in the heart of every person and to contribute to the realization of the common good,” he said.

Pope Francis also pointed to the importance of dialogue with other religions and of caring for creation, saying that “dialogue on such an important theme is an unavoidable requirement.”

He concluded by emphasizing that all forms of dialogue “are an expression of the great need for the love of God,” because dialogue “breaks down walls of division and misunderstanding.”

Truly listening to others “creates bridges of communication and doesn’t allow anyone to be isolated, locking themselves inside their own little world.”

Jesus understood well what was in the Samaritan woman’s heart, but “nevertheless, he did not deny her the ability to express herself and he entered a little bit into the mystery of her life,” the Pope said, explaining that this teaching “also goes for us.”

“Through dialogue, we can make signs of God’s mercy grow and render them an instrument of welcome and respect.”

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VATICAN NEWS

That time a priest was reprimanded by a saint

by Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • October 22, 2016

Pope St. John Paul II, circa 1992. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — When white smoke poured out of the chimney of the Sistine Chapel on October 16, 1978, Fr. Eamon Kelly, a seminarian studying in Rome at the time, couldn’t have known that he was witnessing the election of a future saint.

Nor did he know that more than a dozen years after that election, he would be reprimanded by that same future saint, John Paul II, during one of his Wednesday general audiences.

It was Holy Week of 1992, and Fr. Kelly, a priest with the Congregation of the Legion of Christ, was on his annual pilgrimage to Rome.

But this year was different.

His youth group had brought along eight Russian young people, the tension of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War just barely in the rearview mirror of history.

Fr. Kelly had done some strategizing to make sure the Russian youth got a good seat.

“We had our tickets and we went in early, and we did get positions up against the barrier of the corridor,” Fr. Kelly said. “So that was fantastic, we were going to see Pope John Paul II.”

His German students gave up all of the seats closest to the aisle, so that the Russian young people would get to shake the Pope’s hand as he walked through the Paul VI audience hall.

“I had the kids observe how he did it – he’d shake hands but by that he’d already moved on to talking to the next person, greeting them,” Fr. Kelly recalled.

“So I told them this pope knows Russian, and you need to greet him politely when he’s two or three people away; say some nice greeting in Russian.”

They did, and it worked: sure enough, the Pope’s ears perked up when he heard the Russian greetings. As soon as he got to the group, he stopped walking.

“He started talking to them in Russian, and there was a tremendous chemistry going on, and everybody was super excited. Our six rows of kids had assimilated into about two,” Fr. Kelly said.

Eventually the Pope asked, in Russian, how the group was able to make it to Rome. All the Russian students turned and pointed at Fr. Kelly.

He was a head taller than most of the students, so Fr. Kelly suddenly found himself in straight eye contact with John Paul II.

“There was so much joy and appreciation and gratitude in his eyes that these kids were there,” Fr. Kelly said.

“But then, his look turned like a storm with a critical question – ‘Why didn’t you tell me before they came?’” the Pope demanded of the priest.

“You know, like I could call up the Pope and tell him we’re coming,” Fr. Kelly recalled with a laugh.

“I tried to give an excuse, I said it was hanging by a thread that it was going to happen, I just fumbled my way through it. What are you going to do when the Pope is asking you for accountability?” Fr. Kelly said.

In hindsight, Fr. Kelly said he maybe could have called an office in the Vatican to alert them of the Russian students, but he didn’t realize that this visit would be so important for the Pope.

But Russia was dear to St. John Paul II’s heart, as he had played a critical role in the peaceful fall of communism and the Soviet Union. Just a few years prior, he had met for over an hour with President Mikhail Gorbachev, who later said the peaceful dissolution of the USSR would have been impossible without the Roman Pontiff.

Perhaps their meeting in 1989 had also softened Gorbachev’s heart prior to World Youth Day 1991, when the leader allowed some 20,000 Russian youth to attend the event in Poland for the first time ever. The conciliatory move was the whole reason the Russian students were now meeting John Paul II in Rome.

“He said to me, ‘This is the first group of Russians I’ve ever greeted in the audience hall’,” Fr. Kelly said.

It’s possible that it may have been the first youth group from Moscow to visit Rome ever, Fr. Kelly said.

“I don’t want to claim that title, because there may have been others, but it’s unlikely that anyone would have been able to come before the start of communism,” he said.

He said the Pope was visibly moved by the Russian students.

“He was happy, he was happy. He said if he would have known that they were there, he would have greeted them formally from the stage.”

And the Russian students?

“They were elated.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Castel Gandolfo, the summer home of Popes, opens to the public

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • October 22, 2016

The private chapel in the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo. (Vatican Museums)

Vatican City — Used for centuries as a private summer residence for Popes, the Apostolic Palace in Castel Gandolfo has now been opened to the public. Visitors may access rooms where Popes have died and where some 50 babies were born during the Second World War.

“Whoever crosses the threshold of the Apostolic Palace of Castel Gandolfo will encounter pure beauty,” Director of the Vatican Museums Antonio Paolucci said in an Oct. 21 statement.

“Reaching the great terrace they will see below the blue eye of the lake and the mountains covered with intact forests that surround it,” he said. “Crossing the room of the Apostolic Apartment they will hear the buzz of history and think of the emotion and wonder, but also of the gratitude that each visitor will have for this unexpected gift from the Pope.”

Tours of the Pontifical Villa are being managed by the Vatican Museums. Castel Gandolfo was opened to the public Oct. 22, with tickets available for purchase on the museums’ website.

The gardens of the papal residence, called the Barberini Gardens, were opened to the public in 2014 as a way to increase revenue for the town, which thrived on tourism brought by visitors who had come to see the Pope during his stay.

For Benedict XVI, the villa was a favorite summer getaway during his pontificate. It was conceded to the Holy See as one of their extraterritorial possessions under the Lateran Pact of 1929.

Following major restoration efforts, the villa has served as the papal summer residence since the pontificate of Urban VIII during the 17th century. It has a small farm created by Pope Pius XI, which produces eggs, milk, oil, vegetables and honey either for local employees, or for sale in the Vatican supermarket.

Popes up until Benedict XVI used the residence as a summer getaway. However, it has been empty since the election of Pope Francis, who prefers to spend his summers in Rome.

The residence was officially presented to journalists Oct. 21, in the company of Antonio Paolucci, the Director of the Pontifical Villa Osvaldo Gianoli, and the Curator of the Historical Collections of the Vatican Museums Sandro Barbagallo.

Tours of the papal residence, Set to coincide with the opening and closing hours of the Apostolic Palace itself, includes a visit to the Swiss Hall where the Pope’s personal guards, the Swiss Guard, kept watch round the clock. Other stops include the Throne Room, the Consistory Hall, the Bedroom of the Holy Father and Library, the Private Study and its attached private chapel.

It was inside the private chapel of Castel Gandolfo that Pope Francis and Benedict XVI prayed together shortly after Francis was elected following Benedict’s historic resignation in 2013. It marked the first time a Pope and his successor had ever prayed together.

Also noteworthy is the fact that at least for a few months during the Second World War, the papal residence in the town was used as a both a shelter for refugees and a neonatal unit.

After Italy was occupied by Nazi forces in January 1944, the area around Castel Gandolfo quickly became the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting during the war. Thousands of people were displaced overnight and forced to become refugees.

Pope Pius XII, who was reigning at the time, was largely confined within the Vatican walls, in large part out of fear that he would be arrested by Nazi forces should he leave.

When his secretary Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, informed him what was happening around Castel Gandolfo, the Pope immediately ordered that the palace be made available to whoever wanted to come.

The doors were opened to the public Jan. 22, 1944. It soon filled up, eventually hosting some 12,000 people with no inquiry into their political affiliation or request for a baptismal certificate. Many Jews from Rome were among those accommodated.

During the four months the Villa served as a shelter, the Pope’s own bedroom was reserved for women in labor. Some 50 babies were born inside the room, and as a result were called “the Pope’s children.”

Popes have also died in the papal bedroom at Castel Gandolfo. Pius XII himself died there in 1958, as did Pope Paul VI two decades later.

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VATICAN NEWS

Holy See and Benin sign agreement on Church’s legal status

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • October 22, 2016

A view of St. Peter’s Basilica with the Vatican City flag. (Bohumil Petrik/CNA)

Cotonou, Benin — The Holy See and the Republic of Benin have signed an agreement formally recognizing the legal status of the Catholic Church in the country, guaranteeing the Church’s ability to carry out her mission in service of the common good.

Representatives from both the Holy See and the Republic of Benin gathered at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation in Cotonou, the African country’s largest city, Friday, Oct. 21, to seal the deal.

Called the “Framework Agreement between the Holy See and the Republic of Benin relating to the Legal Status of the Catholic Church in Benin,” the accord was signed by Archbishop Brian Udaigwe, nuncio to Benin, on the part of the Holy See, and on behalf of the Republic of Benin, Mr. Aurélien Agbenonci, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.

According to an Oct. 22 Vatican communique, the agreement consists of a preamble and 19 articles, and “guarantees the Church the ability to carry out its mission in Benin.”

“In particular, the legal status of the Church and its institutions is recognized,” it said, explaining that the two parties, “while safeguarding the independence and autonomy proper to them,” are committed “to work together for the moral, spiritual and material well-being of the human person and for the promotion of the common good.”

Several representatives from each side were present for the signing of the agreement.

Attendees from the Holy See included: Bishop Eugène Houndékon of Abomey, Vice President of the Benin Bishop’s Conference; Bishop François Gnonhossou of Dassa-Zoumé; Bishop Aristide Gonsallo of Porto-Novo; Fr. Paschal Guezodje, Secretary General for the Bishop’s Conference of Benin; Fr. Axel Chékété, Assistant Secretary General and Fr. Emmanuel Michodjehoun, a local collaborator with the apostolic nunciature.

Among the representatives from Benin were: Mr. Eric Franck Saïzonou, Director of Legal Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation; Mr. William Comlan, Director of the Cabinet; Mr. Saturnin Tonoukouin, Director of State Protocol; Mr. Bienvenu Houngbédji, Adjunct-Director of Legal Affairs; Ms. Nelly Awouilihoua, Technical Advisor and Mr. Ghislain Agbozo, Special Assistant to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.

St. John Paul II visited Benin in 1982. The most recent Pope to travel to the African nation was Pope Benedict XVI in 2011, when he made an official Nov. 18-20 visit to Cotonou.

Benedict made the trip in large part to deliver his Apostolic Exhortation about the future of Christianity on the continent, “Africae Munus” (The Commitment of Africa), which was written in response to the conclusions of the 2009 Synod of African Bishops in Rome.

Another motivation for the voyage was to visit the tomb of his late friend, Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, a prominent Beninese cardinal who served as Archbishop of Cotonou for several years before coming to the Vatican as president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

The cardinal also served as head of the Congregation for Bishops and later as Dean of the College of Cardinals before his death in 2008. In addition to Benedict XVI, Cardinal Gantin was a close friend of Popes St. John XXIII, Bl. Paul VI and St. John Paul II.

Benedict’s 2011 visit to Benin also marked the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first Catholic missionaries in the country.

In his Nov. 23 general audience after the visit, Benedict said that “in Africa I saw a freshness in the ‘yes’ to life, a freshness of religious meaning and hope, a holistic vision of reality where God is not confined to that positivist perspective which, in the final analysis, extinguishes all hope.”

“This tells us that the continent is a reservoir of life and vitality for the future upon which we can rely, upon which the Church can rely.”

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VATICAN NEWS

As battle for Mosul rages, Pope appeals for an end to violence in Iraq

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

Pope Francis at The Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion at St. Peter’s Basilica on April 3, 2015. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — With the Iraqi Army currently embroiled in an effort to liberate Mosul and the Plains of Nineveh from the Islamic State, Pope Francis Sunday offered prayers for an end to violence in the country so it can move forward on the path of hope and reconciliation.

“In these dramatic hours, I am close to the people of Iraq, in particular those from the city of Mosul,” the Pope said Oct. 23.

“Our hearts are shocked by the heinous acts of violence that for too long are being committed against innocent citizens, whether they are Muslims, Christians or whether they belong to other ethnic groups and religions,” he said, and voiced his sadness that many have been killed “in cold blood,” including children.

This cruelty “makes us cry, leaving us without words,” he said, assuring of his prayers that despite it’s suffering, Iraq “may be strong and firm in the hope of moving toward a future of security, reconciliation and of peace.”

“For this I ask all of you to unite yourselves to my prayer,” he said, and led pilgrims in a moment of silent prayer.

Pope Francis spoke to some 50,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Sunday Angelus address. His appeal coincided with an ongoing operation by Iraqi and Kurdish military forces to retake the city of Mosul from the hands of the Islamic State.

On Oct. 17 Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced a ground offensive to retake Mosul, which has been months in the making. Mosul has been under the control of the Islamic State since June 2014.

In addition to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, U.S. troops, British and French Special Forces, and a number of Turkish soldiers are supporting the Iraqi army in the battle, which was initially expected to take between several weeks to several months to complete, however, the process has been going quicker than expected.

Mosul is the last major stronghold the Islamic State has in Iraq. They have been steadily retreating since the end of last year in battles against Iraqi and Peshmerga forces, as well as airstrikes from the U.S-led coalition.

The United Nations has warned ISIS is using civilians as human shields in the fight for Mosul, estimating that the militants have so far taken roughly 550 families from smaller towns close to Mosul in an effort to prevent them from leaving the area.

According to CNN, just withing the past few days 285 men and boys have already been used by ISIS as human shields, and their bodies dumped in a mass grave.

In his address, the Pope pointed to the Apostle Paul as a model for evangelizing in today’s world, reminding us that we must engage in missionary and pastoral activities with a spirit of sacrifice “as if the result depends on our efforts,” without, however, forgetting that our true success “is a gift of grace.”

“It’s the Holy Spirit who renders the mission of the Church in the world effective,” he said, stressing that “today is a time of mission and a time of courage!”

Courage, he said, “to strengthen faltering steps, to resume the flavor of spending oneself for the Gospel, to regain confidence in the strength that the mission brings with it. It’s a time of courage, even if having courage doesn’t mean having the guarantee of success.”

The Pope said we are being asked to have the courage “to fight, not necessarily to win; to announce, not necessarily to convert.”

We are being asked for the courage “to be an alternative to the world, but without ever becoming polemic or aggressive,” and to be courageous in opening ourselves to everyone, “without ever belittling the absoluteness and uniqueness of Christ, the one Savior of all.”

Francis emphasized the need to be courageous in resisting incredulity “without being arrogant,” and to mimic the attitude of the publican in the Gospel, “who in humility does not even raise his eyes to heaven, but beats his breast, saying ‘Oh God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’”

“Today is a time of courage! Today courage is needed!” he said, and closed his address by praying that Mary would intercede for all in becoming “missionary disciples who bring the message of salvation to the entire human family.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Be ‘men for others’, not wrapped up in clericalism, Francis tells Jesuits

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • October 24, 2016

Pope Francis addresses the General Congregation of the Society of Jesus in Rome on Oct. 24, 2016. (Society of Jesus)

Vatican City — Bringing all people the lasting joy of the Church should be the focus of their service, Pope Francis told representatives of the Jesuits on Monday, as he urged them to shun pursuit of worldly leadership and position.

“The service of good courage and discernment makes us men of the Church – not clerical men, but churchmen, men ‘for others,’ without our own thing that isolates but placing everything we have in communion and service,” he said Oct. 24 to the 36th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus at the order’s general curia in Rome.

“We walk neither alone nor comfortably; we walk with ‘a heart that does not rest, which does not close in on itself, but which beats to the rhythm of a journey that takes place along with all the faithful people of God,’” he said, quoting a homily he gave in January 2014.

“Let us walk, making ourselves all for all.”

After praying Morning Prayer together, the Pope – who himself joined the Jesuits in 1960 – spoke to the delegates at the general congregation about the future of the order.

Reflecting on the existence of obstacles to “fervor in the mission” by the “enemy of human nature”, Francis offered three points for combatting this, having to do “with joy, with the Cross and with the Church, our Mother.”

Afterwards, Pope Francis met privately with the new Superior General of the Jesuits, Fr. Arturo Sosa.

Fr. Sosa, 67, was elected Oct. 14, marking the first time a Latin American has led the Society; moreover, he takes the helm under the Church’s first Jesuit and Latin American Pope.

“When, in the service of God, we go climbing better and better,” the Pope told the Jesuits, they must “ask insistently for consolation” in order to bring consolation to others, because the Gospel cannot be proclaimed in sadness.

“This ‘service of joy and spiritual consolation’ is rooted in prayer,” he said. It consists in encouraging everyone to “seek earnestly the consolation of God.”

“Practice and teach this prayer, for to ask and beg for consolation is the main service of joy,” Francis noted. “Joy is constitutive of the gospel message … good news cannot be given with a sad face.”

Secondly, he said they need to allow themselves to be “moved by the Lord on the cross.”

“The Jubilee of Mercy is a propitious time to reflect on the mercy of the services,” he said. “I say this in the plural because mercy is not an abstract word, but a way of life, which puts the word in concrete gestures which touch the flesh of others and are institutionalized in works of mercy.”

“The Lord, who looks at us with mercy and chooses us, sends us” to bring the same mercy “to the poor, the sinners, the rejected and the crucified of the world today who suffer injustice and violence.”

“Only if we experience this healing power to the heart of our own wounds, as individuals and as a community, will we lose the fear to leave.” Then we will be able to “walk patiently with our people,” he said, “learning from them the best way to help and serve.”

The Pope also emphasized the rule of “thinking with the Curch”, which he said is the grace to discern, not just to think “or arrange for the good.”

“You have to perform it with the good Spirit,” he said. “This is what roots us in the Church, in which the Spirit acts and distributes the diversity of its charisms for the common good.”

Focusing on being “ecclesial” rather than “clerical,” means that the Society “has and will always have the face, the accent, and the way of being of all peoples, of every culture, fitting in all, specifically the heart of every people, to make the Church there with every one of them, inculturating the Gospel and evangelizing every culture.”

Francis encouraged the members in their work, reminding them that the works of mercy were the “daily bread” of St. Ignatius and his first companions.

“The Jesuit priest is a servant of the joy of the Gospel,” he said, “both when he works ‘by hand’ in conversation and giving retreats to one person,” and when working “in a structured way by organizing works of training, of mercy, of reflection.”

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VATICAN NEWS

A message from Rome on the power of liturgical music

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • October 24, 2016

(Igor Bulgarin via Shutterstock)

Vatican City — Liturgical music has the ability to communicate the love of God – and it’s this message that gives it the power to help bring others to Christ, said the choir director of the Diocese of Rome.

“I believe music is a powerful tool to evangelize because evangelization is to impart in the heart of man the joy of Christ, the love of Christ,” Msgr. Marco Frisina told CNA Oct. 21.

Music is like planting “this seed of joy in the heart, it is a great power.”

Msgr. Frisina, also a renowned composer, in 1984 founded the Choir of the Diocese of Rome for singing at the most important diocesan liturgies, many of which are presided over by the pope. It now comprises over 250 members.

One of the speakers at a Jubilee of Choirs which took place at the Vatican Oct. 21-23, among those who participated were laity, priests, directors of liturgical offices, choir conductors, musicians, organists and diocesan and parish choirs.

Held in liturgical memory of Saint John Paul II, the goal of the event, according to the Jubilee of Choirs website, was “to focus on music as a tool of extraordinary communication and how to live the Liturgy as the highest moment of the expression of our faith and Christian culture.”

On Saturday, all of the participating choirs joined with the Choir of the Diocese of Rome to perform a concert in the Paul VI Hall dedicated to St. John Paul II and Divine Mercy.

Friday the schedule included a training on the topic “Sing Mercy.” Speakers included Msgr. Frisina, Msgr. Vincenzo De Gregorio, president of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music and Msgr. Massimo Palombella, Director of the Choir of the Sistine Chapel.

Msgr. Palombella agreed that music can be a tool for evangelization, particularly by providing an element of unity between the different Christian religions.

“Researching about the common source of the music we can find a lot of things that allow unity between Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran,” he told CNA.

“So every year on the Solemnity of Peter and Paul there is a project which started with Pope Benedict, every year we sing together, Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and the music is the element of unity.”

Msgr. Palombella said that the Choir of the Sistine Chapel, considered to be the oldest choir in the world, doesn’t go on tour in Europe and throughout the world to only “sing good music.” Instead, it is approached as a means of evangelization.

This is possible because liturgical music, one of the sources of Western music, is able to attract and interest many people who love and care about music, not just those with a religious interest, offering a “cultural” approach to evangelization as well, he said.

The three day Jubilee of Choirs concluded on Sunday with a pilgrimage to the Holy Door, Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica and the Angelus with Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square.

Msgr. Frisina emphasized that what makes music so attractive to people is the love of God contained in it.

“The power of music, for liturgical music, is the power of love,” he said. To sing about the love of God is “to pray with our whole self.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis talks nationwide crisis in meeting with Venezuela’s Maduro

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

The flag of Venezuela. (Anyul Rivas via Flickr CC BY 2.0)

Vatican City — On Monday Pope Francis met with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, head of the country’s socialist regime, at the Vatican to discuss the dire political, social and economic situation of Venezuela and its citizens.

“The meeting took place within the framework of the worrisome political, social and economic situation that the country is going through – a situation that is having serious repercussions in the daily lives of the entire population,” an Oct. 24 communique from the Vatican read.

Francis, who didn’t have any public commitments earlier in the day, met with Maduro privately Oct. 24 in the evening.

According to the Vatican communique, the Pope, “who has at heart the welfare of all Venezuelans,” wanted to affirm his continued contribution to Venezuela’s “institutionality and everything that will help to resolve the outstanding issues and build trust between the various parties.”

Nicolas Maduro took over for former Venezuelan socialist president Hugo Chavez when the latter died from cancer in 2013.

In the stormy aftermath of the takeover, Venezuela has been marred by violence and social and economic upheaval. Poor economic policies, including strict price controls, coupled with high inflation rates, have resulted in a severe lack of basic necessities such as toilet paper, milk, flour, diapers and medicines.

Venezuela’s socialist government is widely blamed for the crisis. Since 2003, price controls on some 160 products, including cooking oil, soap and flour, have meant that while they are affordable, they fly off store shelves only to be resold on the black market at much higher rates.

The Venezuelan government is known to be among the most corrupt in Latin America, and violent crime in the country has spiked since Maduro took office.

Demonstrations broke out in the country in January 2014 after Monica Spear, a former Miss Venezuela, was murdered along with her ex-husband on a highway near Caracas when their car broke down.

Protests intensified after the attempted rape of a student shortly after Spear’s death, and since then Maduro’s government has jailed many peaceful protestors and political opponents. The regime is known to have committed gross abuses, including violence, against those who don’t share their political ideologies.

Maduro was scheduled to meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican last year, but canceled his June 7, 2015, visit at the last minute due to a doctor’s note from the president saying he was forbidden to board a plane due to a cold and severe ear infection.

The situation in Venezuela has been steadily deteriorated, even since last year.

The Pope’s meeting with Maduro took place in the backdrop of a Sept. 1 demonstration, called the “Taking of Caracas,” in the Venezuelan capital, bringing together as many as 1 million citizens who support a referendum to recall President Nicolás Maduro.

Both opponents and sympathizers of Maduro’s government took to the streets. However, the government’s critics vastly outnumbered government supporters, according to organizers.

Archbishop Diego Padrón Sánchez of Cumaná, president of the Venezuelan bishops’ conference, said in a statement that the country’s government is suffering from a “chronic” hearing disorder in face of the suffering of the people.

“What the people have done, both the opposition and government supporters, was a free, democratic, constitutional and peaceful expression of the awareness of their civil rights,” he said, charging that the government “carried out violence with the various persecutions conducted against different opposition leaders.”

“The government’s hearing disorder has become chronic in the face of the people’s suffering, shortages, food shortages, the high cost of living and lack of public safety,” he complained.

According to the communique on the Pope’s meeting with Maduro, Francis invited the president “to undertake with courage the path of sincere and constructive dialogue.”

He also invited the Venezuelan dictator to make it a priority “to alleviate the suffering of the people – first of all, those who are poor – and to promote a climate of renewed social cohesion which would offer a vision forward with hope for the future of the nation.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Vatican: Cremated bodies may not be scattered

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

(Sherry V Smith via Shutterstock)

Vatican City — The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released an instruction Tuesday regarding burial and cremation, reiterating the Church’s teaching that cremation, while strongly discouraged, can be permissible under certain restrictions – and that scattering the ashes is forbidden.

Ad resurgendum cum Christo, or “To rise with Christ”, published Oct. 25, states that while cremation “is not prohibited” the Church “continues to prefer the practice of burying the bodies of the deceased, because this shows a greater esteem towards the deceased.”

The document explains that after “legitimate motives” for cremation have been ascertained, the “ashes of the faithful must be laid to rest in a sacred place,” such as in a cemetery or church. It goes on to state that is not permitted to keep the ashes in a home or to scatter them “in the air, on land, at sea or in some other way, nor may they be preserved in mementos, pieces of jewelry or other objects.”

“The burial, the last liturgy for us, is an expression of our hope for the resurrection,” Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the congregation wrote, “and therefore the Church continues to teach that the normal burial of the body is the normal form.”

As the document explains, “by burying the bodies of the faithful, the Church confirms her faith in the resurrection of the body, and intends to show the great dignity of the human body as an integral part of the human person whose body forms part of their identity.”

“She cannot, therefore, condone attitudes or permit rites that involve erroneous ideas about death, such as considering death as the definitive annihilation of the person, or the moment of fusion with Mother Nature or the universe.”

Rather, burial in a cemetery or another sacred place “adequately corresponds to the piety and respect owed to the bodies of the faithful departed who through Baptism have become temples of the Holy Spirit and in which ‘as instruments and vessels the Spirit has carried out so many good works.’”

The Vatican originally answered the question of whether or not cremation was allowed in 1963, but with the increase in both its popularity and in practices such as scattering the ashes or keeping them in the home, it found it necessary to provide a new set of norms as guidance for bishops.

The instruction emphasized that “following the most ancient Christian tradition, the Church insistently recommends that the bodies of the deceased be buried.”

A proper respect for the dignity of the body, according to Fr. Thomas Bonino, an official at the CDF, promotes the hylomorphic understanding of the human person as being composed of both body and soul.

“One must perhaps start from the idea of ecology,” Fr. Bonino told CNA, “meaning respect for nature. But the body is part of our nature, so a true ecology is also an ecology which takes into account the corporality of man.”

Fr. Bonino explained that because “the body forms part of our identity” together with the soul, this teaching “must be reaffirmed” in preaching and in catechesis.

Practices such as scattering the ashes in nature can be a form of “pantheistic confessions, as if nature were a god,” Fr. Bonino said. Or it can express the false ideology “that after death nothing of the person remains, that the body just returns to the earth and there is nothing more.”

The new norms address these issues, he said, while also reacting against the idea that death is only about the individual or the immediate family. “Death also deals with the community to which the deceased belonged,” he pointed out.

The Vatican document highlighted several other reasons for the importance of the burial of the dead, including that the Church considers burying the dead to be one of the corporal works of mercy.

“From the earliest times, Christians have desired that the faithful departed become the objects of the Christian community’s prayers and remembrance. Their tombs have become places of prayer, remembrance and reflection,” it stated.

By reserving the ashes of the deceased in a sacred place, we can be assured that they are not excluded from the prayers of their family and the Christian community, it continued, as well as provide a more permanent marker for posterity, especially after the immediately subsequent generation has passed away.

“We are Catholics … and we must try to understand all elements of our life in the sense of the Christian faith,” Cardinal Müller said.

“We believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord and also we have the hope for our resurrection of our body … And therefore the big tradition as Christians has always been burial.”

Mary Shovlain contributed to this piece.

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VATICAN NEWS

For Pope Francis, God’s kingdom doesn’t grow through organization charts

by CNA/EWTN News • October 25, 2016

Francis says Mass at the chapel of Santa Marta house in the Vatican on June 9, 2016. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — The kingdom of heaven is able to grow when its members are docile to the Holy Spirit – rather than when they focus on structures and organization charts, the Pope said during his homily at Mass on Tuesday.

“What is the Kingdom of God? Well, perhaps the Kingdom of God is a very well-made structure, everything tidy, organization charts all done, everything and the person who does not enter (into this structure) is not in the Kingdom of God,” Francis rhetorically suggest while saying Mass Oct. 25 at the chapel of the Santa Marta house in the Vatican.

“No, the same thing can happen to the Kingdom of God as happens to the Law: unchanging, rigidity … the Law is about moving forward, the Kingdom of God is moving forward, it is not standing still. What’s more: the Kingdom of God is re-creating itself every day.”

Divine law, the Pope said, is meant to help us as we are “journeying towards fullness” and “towards hope.”

He recalled the parable of the yeast, which is mixed in with flour and makes bread, but dies in the process.

“What is the attitude that the Lord asks from us in order that the Kingdom of God can grow and be bread for everyone, and is a house too for everyone? Docility: the Kingdom of God grows through docility to the strength of the Holy Spirit.”

He said that flour “ceases to be flour and becomes bread because it is docile to the strength of the yeast, and the yeast allows itself to be mixed in with the flour … I don’t know, flour has no feelings but allowing itself to be mixed in one could think that there is some suffering here, right? But the Kingdom too, the Kingdom grows in this way and then in the end it is bread for everyone.”

Docility to the Holy Spirit keeps one from becoming a “rigid person” who “has only masters and no father,” he said.

“The Kingdom of God is like a mother that grows and is fertile, gives of herself so that her children have food and lodging, according to the example of the Lord. Today is a day to ask for the grace of docility to the Holy Spirit. Many times we are not docile to our moods, our judgments. ‘But I do what I want … .’ The Kingdom does not grow in this way and neither do we grow.”

“It is docility to the Holy Spirit that makes us grow and be transformed like the yeast and the seed,” he concluded. “May the Lord give us all the grace of this docility.”

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VATICAN NEWS

To welcome the stranger is to welcome Christ, Pope Francis says

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • October 26, 2016

Francis washes the feet of migrants and refugees during Holy Thursday Mass on March 24, 2016. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — When we perform the corporal works of mercy – specifically welcoming the stranger in the form migrants and refugees – we are welcoming Christ in them, and helping to restore their full dignity as humans, Pope Francis said Wednesday.

“These works, in fact, make evident that Christians are not tired and lazy in waiting for the final encounter with the Lord, but every day go out, recognizing his face in the many people asking for help.”

Continuing his reflection on the corporal works of mercy, the Pope’s catechesis during his Oct. 26 general audience centered on Matthew 25:35-36: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me.”

The works of mercy related to strangers are “timelier than ever,” he said, adding that “the economic crisis, armed conflict and climate change drive many people to emigrate.”

“However, migration is not a new phenomenon,” but one that belongs to the “history of humanity,” he noted, adding that to think that migration is only a contemporary problem shows a “lack of historical memory.”

“The history of mankind is the history of migrations in all latitudes, there is no people that has not known the phenomenon of migration.” The solution, then, is solidarity in performing the works of mercy, the Pope said.

“Today, the context of economic crisis unfortunately favors the emergence of attitudes of closure and not welcome. In some parts of the world walls and barriers arise,” he said.

“Closure is not a solution, in fact, it ultimately benefits criminal trafficking. The only solution is that of solidarity.”

Pope Francis explained that clothing the naked – while it certainly means giving clothes to those who have none – can also include helping victims of trafficking and anyone who has fallen victim to the use of the human body as a “commodity.”

Also, those who “do not have a job, a house, a just wage,” or those who are discriminated against because of their race or faith, “are all forms of ‘nudity’ before which we as Christians are called to be attentive, vigilant and ready to act.”

The Pope referenced St. Frances Cabrini as an example of someone who dedicated her life to migrants in the U.S., pointing out that the Christian commitment in the area of migration is as urgent today as it was in the past.

“Even today we need such testimony because mercy can reach many in need,” he said.

“It is a commitment that involves everyone, without exception. Dioceses, parishes, institutes of consecrated life, associations and movements, as individual Christians, we are called to welcome the brothers and sisters fleeing war, famine, violence and inhumane living conditions.”

Francis also talked about the many examples of refugees and migrants in the Bible, including Abraham, called to leave his country by God; the people of Israel, who were in the desert for 40 years after being freed from slavery in Egypt; and the Holy Family, who had to flee Herod.

“Dear brothers and sisters,” he urged, “do not fall into the trap of closing in on ourselves, indifferent to the needs of brothers and worried only about our own interests.”

All together, we can be a “great strength of support for those who have lost home, family, work and dignity,” he said.

“And to clothe the naked, what is it but to restore dignity to those who have lost it? It is precisely to the extent that we open ourselves to others that life becomes fruitful, society regains peace and people recover their full dignity.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Rome’s poor to be guests of honor at Vatican concert

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • October 26, 2016

The 2015 Concert for the Poor at the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall on May 14, 2015. (Bohumil Petrik/CNA)

Vatican City — The Vatican will host a concert for the poor and homeless of Rome next month, not only using the concert to raise money for Pope Francis’ charities, but also inviting the poor to attend as the guests of honor.

Called “With the Poor and for the Poor,” free-will donations taken at the end of the concert will benefit Pope Francis’ charitable projects: this year, the building of a new cathedral in Moroto, Uganda, and an agrarian school in Burkina Faso. The concert will take place Nov. 12 in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.

Following the concert, volunteers of the Jubilee of Mercy and members of the choir of the Diocese of Rome will distribute a meal and a small gift to the invited guests as a reminder of the evening.

Performances at the concert will be by the Roman Symphonic Orchestra and the National Choir of Saint Cecilia, directed by Academy Award-winner Ennio Morricone. They will be performing excerpts from some of Morricone’s most famous works.

Alongside them, Msgr. Marco Frisina will direct the choir of the Diocese of Rome in performing several sacred songs and will lead those present in reflections on the theme of charity in honor of the end of the Jubilee of Mercy.

The event, organized by the Opera Nova Onlus and the choir of the Diocese of Rome, is sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization and by the St. Matthew Foundation in memory of Cardinal Van Thuan, a Vietnamese cleric who was imprisoned by his nation’s communist government for 13 years.

Guests of an earlier edition of the concert which took place at the Vatican May 14, 2015 included detainees from Rome’s Rebbibia prison, in addition to elderly, the sick, families and young persons from Roman parishes, particularly in poorer areas.

In his speech for the announcement of the 2015 concert, Msgr. Diego Giovanni Ravelli drew attention to the emphasis on poverty, and quoted Pope Francis, saying it is something which “calls us to plant hope!”

In reference to the event’s title, he explained that the concert will be “with” the poor because the protagonists will be those most in need.

All donations made by the sponsors of the concert as well as those who wish to make an offering will be given to Pope Francis’ charitable projects, which in 2014 boasted over one and a half million in charitable giving. Distribution of the funds is a responsibility of the papal almoner, Archbishop Konrad Krajewski.

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VATICAN NEWS

Catholic-Lutheran hurdles still exist, but surprising progress has been made

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • October 27, 2016

Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, speaks at a Vatican press conference in December 2015. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Vatican City — Ahead of Pope Francis’ coming trip to Sweden to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Catholic and Lutheran leaders have said that while there is still a long way to go toward unity, seemingly impossible steps have already been made.

Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told journalists Oct. 26 that the coming joint commemoration of the Reformation marks “the first time in the history between Catholic and Lutherans that they do this type of common commemoration.”

“In the past we’ve had confessional centenaries with a tone that was a bit triumphalist and polemic on both sides,” he said, explaining that the goal now is to not only to join together for the anniversary, but also to recognize 50 years of Catholic-Lutheran dialogue.

The dialogue between Lutherans and Catholics “was the first bilateral dialogue that the Catholic Church launched right after the Council in 1967, and this is also a sign of gratitude that we could discover all there is in common between Lutherans and Catholics,” the cardinal said.

He said the joint commemoration of the Reformation is “a beautiful sign of this path to unity, from conflict to unity. In the past we had conflicts. We want to arrive at communion, and today we are on the path to unity.”

Echoing his sentiments was Martin Junge, Secretary General of the Lutheran World Foundation (LWF), who noted that despite the turbulent past of Lutherans and Catholics, “we have been able to remove some of the obstacles of doctrinal differences among us.”

The joint commemoration is a sign of the progress made, he said, adding that “this is for what we will be praying: for God to be with us, this is where we want to encourage our communities to live out that communion.”

According to the LWF website, the federation is a worldwide communion of 145 churches from the Lutheran tradition which represents more than 74 million Christians in 98 countries. The largest Lutheran communion, in the United States it does include the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but neither the Missouri nor the Wisconsin Synods.

Cardinal Koch and Junge spoke to journalists at a news briefing ahead of Pope Francis’ Oct. 31-Nov. 1 visit to Sweden.

It will be the first time a Pope has traveled to Scandinavia since St. John Paul II’s 1989 visit. Though only two days, the trip will include an ecumenical moment of prayer at Lund’s Lutheran cathedral, which will be followed by the larger, primary ecumenical event at the Malmö Arena in Malmö.

The two ecumenical events will be followed by an outdoor papal Mass the next day at the Swedbank Stadium in Malmö marking All Saints Day.

A lengthy document titled “From Conflict to Communion” was drawn up by the Lutheran-Catholic Commission for Unity and was published to coincide with the commemoration, serving as the ecumenical basis for the meeting.

The unprecedented event takes place fewer than 20 years after the LWF’s and the Catholic Church’s 1999 signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, which was historically one of the main points of division between Catholics and Lutherans.

Justification is God’s cleansing human beings of sin and communicating to them his own righteousness through faith in Christ and through baptism. It is also the sanctification and renewal of the inner man through the voluntary reception of the grace and gifts by which man becomes just.

The understanding of justification – what it is and how it is granted and maintained – was a source of conflict during the Reformation.

In their 1999 joint declaration on justification, the Catholic Church and the LWF said that that a more shared understanding of justification signals “a consensus in the basic truths” and that “the differing explications in particular statements are compatible with it.”

Point three of the declaration stresses that in “faith we together hold the conviction that justification is the work of the triune God … the foundation and presupposition of justification is the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ.”

“Justification thus means that Christ himself is our righteousness, in which we share through the Holy Spirit in accord with the will of the Father,” they said, confessing together that “by grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.”

The declaration also expressed the shared conviction that “as sinners our new life is solely due to the forgiving and renewing mercy that God imparts as a gift and we receive in faith, and never can merit in any way.”

“Therefore the doctrine of justification, which takes up this message and explicates it, is more than just one part of Christian doctrine,” but stands “in an essential relation to all truths of faith. It is an indispensable criterion which constantly serves to orient all the teaching and practice of our churches to Christ.”

“When Lutherans emphasize the unique significance of this criterion, they do not deny the interrelation and significance of all truths of faith. When Catholics see themselves as bound by several criteria, they do not deny the special function of the message of justification,” the document continued.

Lutherans and Catholics, then, “share the goal of confessing Christ in all things, who alone is to be trusted above all things as the one Mediator through whom God in the Holy Spirit gives himself and pours out his renewing gifts.”

Critics of the upcoming joint commemoration have voiced concern that the event will gloss-over significant points of Catholic-Lutheran difference, and that it will be used to as an opportunity to push for intercommunion between the Catholic Church and the ecclesial community.

In his comments to journalists, Cardinal Koch, who will be part of Pope Francis’ delegation, recognized that the issue of mixed marriages are a “very big pastoral concern for Catholics and Lutherans” alike, but said we have yet to see what the Pope will say about it.

However, when asked about the issue directly, Vatican spokesman Greg Burke referred to Pope Francis’ Nov. 15, 2015, visit to Rome’s Lutheran community.

During the encounter Francis was asked by Anke de Bernardinis, a Lutheran woman married to a Roman Catholic man, how she and her husband can be united in communion.

In his response, the Pope said that the answer is “not easy,” but that that going to each other’s services is a way to participate in the Lord’s Supper together.

He said he would “never dare to give permission” on anything regarding Communion because “it’s not my competence,” but pointed to the common baptism shared between Catholic and Lutherans, explaining that praying together helps keep this common baptism alive.

Burke said that when it comes to Sweden, the Pope likely won’t get much more explicit on the issue than that, but added, “you never know in the moment.”

Other concerns about the joint commemoration surround points of division not only between Lutherans and Catholics, but also within the global Lutheran community on various social and ethical issues such as homosexuality and abortion.

However, despite the unresolved issues at stake, Junge stressed that in the history of Catholic-Lutheran dialogue “we have seen many things that we thought would be impossible.”

“I believe in the ‘80s nobody thought we would find agreement on the doctrine of justification and we did,” he said, adding that “only a few years ago if you would have said there would be a joint-commemoration of the Reformation and that would be done together, many would have said ‘impossible’.”

Junge pointed to the context of the modern world, saying that while he doesn’t mean to sound negative or “apocalyptic,” we live in times “of fragmentation, in times of a world that is wounded by conflict.”

“For Catholics and Lutherans to come together around the world … is a powerful witness to faith and to Christ who we see walking among us together,” he said, voicing his belief that the event is “going to become a great contribution, not only to address the sufferings of the world, but also to draw closer together in mutual understanding and trust.”

He said the presence of Pope Francis at the commemorative event is significant and brings “high value” to what is taking place. However, he also noted that by attending, Francis “is giving continuity to an ecumenical path of his predecessors.”

“In 1999, when we signed the join-declaration on justification, the Pope was John Paul II. In 2003 when we signed the document on the conflict of communion, the Pope was Benedict XVI, and now Pope Francis the one who is doing this fruit of this ecumenical path, but undoubtedly giving it a new profile and potential that we hope to work toward in the future.”

Despite the significant steps already taken in Catholic-Lutheran dialogue, Cardinal Koch and Junge expressed that there are still many more to go.

After finally reaching an agreement on the doctrine of justification, the next issues to tackle are about “ministry, the Church and the Eucharist,” Junge said.

Similarly, Cardinal Koch noted how the 1999 common declaration on justification itself said that “the ecclesial consequences of this common declaration are not resolved,” so we have a duty to move forward.

”I agree with Rev. Jungle, there are three items: Church, Eucharist and ministry,” he said, voicing his hope that Catholics and Lutherans can continue paving the way to a new joint declaration on those three issues.

“I think we are really on a good path to resolve all these problems,” the cardinal said, explaining that he is “very hopeful, grateful and happy that some original dialogues” are taking place on these points.

Speaking of the Pope’s Mass Nov. 1, which was not initially part of the Pope’s itinerary but was added later upon the request of Catholics in Sweden, Junge said the LWF is fully aware of the need for the Pope and the Catholic community to be together.

However, “while we have that understanding, of course it is also going to reveal that we are not yet united, it is going to reveal a wound that remains there, and in that way it is going to be a strong encouragement to continue working toward communion,” he said, explaining that a delegation from the LWF will be present at the Mass.

Junge voiced his hope that joint commemoration would provide “a strong encouragement to be faster, to be bolder, to be even more creative in order to address these three items and with a very strong focus on where people feel the lack of unity the heaviest, around the table.”

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VATICAN NEWS

To stop human trafficking, look at root causes, survivor says

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • October 27, 2016

(Gabriela Camerotti via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Vatican City — Helping the victims of human trafficking is not enough – we must go to the root to solve the problem, said one survivor at an event with Pope Francis on Thursday.

“When we are spending money only for the victims, more are coming (through trafficking), hearing the news that if you come, you have a place to stay, you have food to eat, you have clothes to wear, and you can go to school,” Princess Inyang told CNA Oct. 27.

Inyang herself became a victim of human trafficking in 1999, when she was promised that she would receive a good job in Europe as a cook, the job she had in her home country of Nigeria.

But instead, she was trafficked. Her captors brought her through London and France and eventually to Italy, where she was forced into prostitution and to pay back her “debt” of 45,000,000 euros. She was eventually able, with help, to escape her traffickers, and has since founded the organization PIAM Onlus to help victims of prostitution.

“I am a living testimony of the dangers and atrocities to which many Nigerian women are subjected,” she wrote in a testimony. “My heart bleeds for joy whenever I can help one.”

Inyang said there are several important root causes of trafficking in Nigeria which must be addressed. First, it is essential to break up the networks of traffickers leading from Nigeria through Niger and into Libya, and from there to Europe.

In addition, the lack of jobs must be taken into consideration. One of the reasons many youth, especially from rural areas, are tricked into joining traffickers is due to a lack of jobs, she said.

Young people often drop out of high school and are then unable to pursue additional education, she said, recalling that when she talks to victims, many say, “I dropped out from secondary school because my parents did not have money.”

One solution, according to Inyang, would be for the local government to establish farms and factories to employ young people.

“Because most of the people in Nigeria, after they finish school – they don’t even have a job. So they are confused. Why should I continue going to school, when after I don’t have any job? So our government should at least create some job opportunities for the youth.”

Another major issue Inyang identified is the lack of leadership and provision by fathers.

Often, when a man has two or three wives, he has many children and ends up neglecting his family, she said. Because of this, it is frequently only the women who are working to support the family and there is not enough money.

“And then it is that most of the men don’t work for the family, but they want the youth to work for them.”

“The Bible says that we should train up our child in the way of the Lord, so that when he will grow, he will not depart from it,” she said.

This must be taught “in the churches, in the schools, that your children are not the ones who suffer for you, that you are the parent.”

Inyang, along with two other victims of trafficking, Al Bangura and Crystal, shared their testimonies with Pope Francis during an audience between the Pope and members of the Santa Marta Group Oct. 27.

The Santa Marta Group is an alliance of international police chiefs and bishops from across the world who work together with civil society to eradicate human trafficking and provide pastoral care to victims.

The group was launched by Pope Francis in April 2014 with the goal of developing strategies in prevention, pastoral care and re-integration through the international network.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, and president of the group was also present at the meeting, which took place as part of an Oct. 26-27 conference sponsored by the group.

In the audience, Pope Francis said that what is needed in the fight against trafficking is a “concerted effort, effective and consistent, both to eliminate the causes of this complex phenomenon, and to meet, assist and accompany people who fall into the snares of trafficking.”

These victims, he said, “are the most vulnerable, who are stolen dignity, physical and mental integrity, even their lives.”

“The Lord will reward what is done to these little ones in today’s society,” the Pope continued. “Jesus said: ‘I was hungry … I was thirsty … and you helped me’; today he could also say: ‘I was abused, exploited, enslaved … and you’ve helped me’.”

In his homily at Mass the morning of Oct. 27, the Pope said that God the Father became man in order to “weep” for the victims of trafficking and for those who “sell people’s lives.”

“It is good for us to think that our God the Father became man in order to weep and it is good for us to think that our God the Father weeps today: weeps for this humanity that does not understand the peace that he offers us, the peace of love,” he said.

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VATICAN NEWS

Theology and pastoral care ‘go hand in hand,’ Pope tells JPII Institute

by CNA/EWTN News • October 27, 2016

Pope Francis greets officials of the John Paul II Institute at the Clementine Hall in the Vatican on Oct. 27, 2016. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — Doctrine and theological reflection are to be formed by its evangelizing purpose and by pastoral concerns, Pope Francis told the faculty and students of the John Paul II Institute on Thursday.

“Theology and pastoral care go hand in hand,” the Pope said Oct. 27 at the Vatican’s Clementine Hall. “Theological doctrine that doesn’t let itself be directed and formed by its evangelizing purpose and by the Church’s pastoral concerns is no less unthinkable than pastoral activity that doesn’t know how to use revelation and tradition to better understand the Faith and preach it as Jesus commands.”

Francis’ address marked the opening of the new academic year for the institute, which will be celebrating its 35th anniversary. The address to open the academic year had been scheduled to be delivered by Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, but he was replaced by the Pope earlier this month.

Pope Francis began, saying that the “fruitfulness and value of the far-sighted intuition” of St. John Paul II “can be recognized and appreciated ever more clearly today. His wise discernment of the ‘signs of the times’ has enabled us to refocus, in the Church, and in society as a whole, our attention on the depth and sensitivity of the relationship that springs from the marriage covenant between a man and a woman.”

He lamented the forces that strain the marriage bond and families ties, citing “a culture that glorifies narcissistic individualism, the idea that freedom can be unhinged from our responsibility for one another, growing indifference to the common good, the imposition of ideologies that directly attack the traditional family, together with poverty that threatens the future of so many families.”

Mentioning the complexity of “newly developed technologies that make possible courses of action that are in conflict with authentic human dignity,” the Pope advised “a much closer relationship between the Saint John Paul II Institute and the Pontifical Academy for Life.”

The proximity of that relationship is facilitated by Pope Francis’ recent appointment of Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia as grand chancellor of the St. John Paul II Institute and as president of the Pontifical Academy for Life. The institute’s previous grand chancellor had been, ex officio, the Vicar General of the Diocese of Rome, currently Cardinal Agostino Vallini.

The Pope said that culture’s individualism, “leading ‘me’ to prevail over ‘us’ and the individual over society … goes against God’s plan, the plan that has entrusted the world and history to the covenant between man and woman. By its very nature, this covenant calls for cooperation and respect, generous commitment and shared responsibility, and the ability to recognize difference as being richness and promise, not a justification for subjugation and abuse.”

To understand the dignity of both man and woman “requires a proper appreciation of the relationship between the two. How can we know fully our own concrete humanity other than through an appreciation of the complementary difference between ourselves, man or woman, and the other sex?”

This knowledge is reached, he said, “as man and woman speak to each other, question each other and act together, with mutual respect and good will. It is impossible to deny the contribution that modern culture has made to the rediscovery of the difference between the sexes.”

“For this reason, it is very troubling that this same culture appears unable to get beyond a tendency to eliminate difference rather than addressing the problems that threaten it,” he added.

Francis reflected that it is “only in the cradle of the family” that the covenant of marriage between man and woman can first be nourished, and that “when all is well between man and woman, all is also well in the world and in history. If not, the world becomes unwelcoming and history grinds to a halt.”

The Pope said that the “witness of the thoroughgoing humanity and pure beauty of the Christian ideal of the family should inspire us to our very core … The love that is in the Church commits itself to the development, in doctrine and in pastoral practice, of its own ability to make understandable, to people of our own time, the truth and beauty of God’s creative plan.”

To make this plan effective today “requires a special and loving understanding, as well as a complete commitment to evangelization that is animated by great compassion and mercy toward the vulnerability and weakness of human love.”

“The dynamism of the relationship among God, man and woman is a golden key that unlocks the meaning of the world and of history and of all that is in them, as well as, after all, something of the depth of the love that is God Himself. Can we embrace the greatness of such a revelation?” he asked. “Do we know how to keep the new generations from giving up and bring them back to the boldness of this plan?”

In the face of this, Pope Francis recalled the reality of sin, saying that “we have to learn not to resign ourselves to human failure but rather to support the fulfillment of God’s plan by every means possible.”

He quoted from his apostolic exhortation on love in the family, Amoris laetitia, saying it is right to admit that at times “we have presented a theological ideal of matrimony that is too abstract, almost artificial, far from the concrete situation of families and from what they are capable of in their day-to-day lives. This excessive idealization, particularly when we haven’t reawakened any trust in grace, hasn’t made matrimony more desirable and attractive, it has made it less so.”

The justice of God “shines forth in His faithfulness to his promise, and the splendor of that faithfulness … is the mercy He bestows,” Francis commented.

He stated that the 2014 and 2015 Synods on the Family “were in agreement about the need to broaden the Church’s understanding of and love for the mystery of human love that reveals God’s love for everyone,” and that Amoris laetitia “emphasizes this wider understanding of love and calls on the whole People of God to make the family dimension of the Church more visible and more effective.”

Christian families should become proud of putting grace “at the service of all those who, poor and abandoned, despair of ever finding it, or getting it back. Pastoral discourse today isn’t just about how far many Christians are from the ideal and the practice of the Christian truth about matrimony and the family,” he said.

“Much more important is the idea of the Church’s ‘closeness’ – closeness to new generations of married couples in making the Church’s blessing of the matrimonial and family ever more central to their lives, and in helping them confront human weakness so that grace can deliver, give new life and heal.”

The Pope called the “unbreakable bond between the Church and its sons and daughters” the “clearest witness we have of God’s faithful and merciful love.”

The John Paul II Institute is tasked with supporting “the necessary openness of intelligence formed by faith in the service of the pastoral mission of Peter’s Successor,” he told them, recalling the importance of pastors – and theologians – of “smelling like the sheep”.

“Theology and pastoral care go hand in hand,” he said. “Theological doctrine that doesn’t let itself be directed and formed by its evangelizing purpose and by the Church’s pastoral concerns is no less unthinkable than pastoral activity that doesn’t know how to use revelation and tradition to better understand the Faith and preach it as Jesus commands.”

Pope Francis concluded his address, saying the Church’s mission “must be rooted in the happiness that faith brings and in the humility that marks joyful service to the Church. The Church that is, not imaginary churches that we think should be.”

“The living Church in which we live, the beautiful Church to which we belong, the Church of the one Lord and one Spirit to which we commit ourselves as servants who are ‘worthless’ but who offer their best to the Lord, the Church that we love so that all can love it, the Church in which we feel ourselves loved more than we deserve, and for which we are ready to sacrifice with perfect happiness!”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis talks Sweden, Catholic-Lutheran dialogue in new interview

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • October 28, 2016

Francis waves to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square during his April 20, 2016 General Audience. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

Vatican City — Ahead of his upcoming trip to Sweden for the joint commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Pope Francis granted a lengthy, wide-ranging interview to a Jesuit magazine in which he talks about his expectations, and Catholic-Lutheran unity.

When asked about his hopes for his upcoming trip to Sweden, Pope Francis said “I can think of only one word to say: to come close.”

“My hope and expectation is that of coming closer to my brothers and sisters,” he said, explaining that being close “does all of us good. Distance, on the other hand, makes us bitter.”

When we are distant from one another, “we close within ourselves and we become individual entities, incapable of encountering each other. We are held back by fears.”

He stressed that we need to learn “to transcend ourselves to encounter others,” noting that if this doesn’t happen, even Christians “become sick because of our divisions.”

“My expectation is that of being able to take a step of closeness, of being closer to my brothers and sisters in Sweden.”

The interview was conducted by Fr. Ulf Jonsson S.J., director of the Swedish Jesuit magazine “Signum,” at the Vatican’s Saint Martha Guesthouse Sept. 24, in the late afternoon, and lasted about an hour and a half.

Published Oct. 28, it came out just three days before Pope Francis’ Oct. 31-Nov. 1 visit to Sweden.

It will be the first time a Pope has traveled to Scandinavia since St. John Paul II’s 1989 visit. Though only two days, the trip will include an ecumenical moment of prayer at Lund’s Lutheran cathedral, which will be followed by the larger, primary ecumenical event at the Malmö Arena in Malmö.

The two ecumenical events will be followed by an outdoor papal Mass the next day at the Swedbank Stadium in Malmö marking All Saints Day, which was not originally in the schedule, but was added later upon the request of Sweden’s small Catholic community.

Francis, who has faced criticism for his initial decision to not hold Mass, explained in the interview that he originally decided not to because he wanted to promote unity, and avoid sectarian divisions.

“You cannot be Catholic and sectarian. We must strive to be together with others,” he said, explaining that “‘Catholic’ and ‘sectarian’ are two words in contradiction,” which is why he wasn’t planning to have Mass during the trip.

“I wanted to insist on an ecumenical witness. Then I reflected well on my role as pastor of a flock of Catholics who will also come from other countries, like Norway and Denmark. So, responding to the fervent request of the Catholic community, I decided to celebrate a Mass, lengthening the trip by a day.”

The Pope said he intentionally scheduled the Mass so it didn’t take place on the same day as the ecumenical encounter in order to “avoid confusing plans.”

“The ecumenical encounter is preserved in its profound significance according to a spirit of unity, that is my desire.”

Pope Francis also spoke at length about his relationship with Lutherans while still in Buenos Aires, which were overwhelmingly positive. When asked what Catholics can learn from Lutherans, he responded with two words: “reform and Scripture.”

Referring to the first word, Francis noted how at the beginning of the Reformation Martin Luther’s intention was to reform in a “in a difficult time for the Church.”

“Luther wanted to remedy a complex situation,” he said, explaining that the gesture “also because of the political situations … became a ‘state’ of separation, and not a process of reform of the whole Church, which is fundamental, because the Church is semper reformanda (always reforming).”

When it comes to Scripture, the Pope said Luther did an important thing by putting the Word of God into peoples’ hands, adding that “reform and Scripture are two things that we can deepen by looking at the Lutheran tradition.”

Although the fervor for unity that arose during John Paul II’s visit to Sweden in 1989 has somewhat died down, Pope Francis said that in his opinion, the best way to promote unity now is, in addition to continuing theological discussions, a shared enthusiasm for “common prayer and the works of mercy.”

“It is important to work together and not in a sectarian way,” he said, stressing that “to proselytize in the ecclesial field is a sin.”

“Proselytism is a sinful attitude,” he continued. “It would be like transforming the Church into an organization. Speaking, praying, working together: this is the path that we must take.”

He also spoke of the ecumenism of blood and the recent prayer encounter in Assisi, insisting that you can never use God to justify violence.

“You cannot make war in the name of religion, in the name of God. It is blasphemy, it is satanic,” and referring to the truck attack that took place earlier this year in Nice, France, said the “madman” who committed the massacre did so believe he was justified by God.

“Poor man, he was deranged,” Francis said, explaining that “charitably we can say that he was a deranged man who sought to use a justification in the name of God.”

He was also asked about critics who point to religious conflicts and say the world would be better off without religions.

In response, Francis sand that “idolatries that are at the base of a religion, not the religion itself!”

“There are idolatries connected to religion: the idolatry of money, of enmities, of space greater than time, the greed of the territoriality of space. There is an idolatry of the conquest of space, of dominion, that attacks religions like a malignant virus.”

Idolatry, he said, is “a false religion” and “wrong religiosity.”

On the other hand, true religions “are the development of the capacity that humanity has to transcend itself towards the absolute,” he said, adding that the religious phenomenon is transcendent and it has to do with truth, beauty, goodness and unity.”

When asked for a final word on his upcoming trip, Pope Francis said that what came to him spontaneously to say “is simply: go, walk together! Don’t remain closed in rigid perspectives, because in these there is no possibility of reform.”

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WORLD NEWS

‘Confess-a-thon’ returns to Colombian mall, draws 120 priests

by CNA/EWTN News • October 22, 2016

Colombian Confess-a-thon at a Bogota shopping mall. (Colombian Bishops’ Conference)

Bogotá, Colombia — For two days this week, a shopping mall in Bogota, Colombia was transformed into a “Confess-a-thon,” as 120 priests administered the Sacrament of Reconciliation to shoppers and those passing by.

Priests from all over the country flocked to the Gran Estación Mall on Oct. 18-19 for the Confession event. This is the second time that the initiative has taken place. Last October, the first Confess-a-thon was held at the mall, with great success. Some 70 percent of the country is Catholic.

The Colombian Conference of Catholic Bishops said that the event is a sign of the Jubilee of Mercy that “is inspired by what the pontiff has asked for, to be a Church that reaches out, as a sign of the presence of God.”

The event took place during the Faith Cup, a soccer tournament among priests to help build fraternity and outreach.

The bishops’ conference stated that the first day of this year’s Confess-a-thon began around 5:00 p.m. Some people looked at the priests with surprise and curiosity. Others lined up to take part in the sacrament.

Gladys Lopez was among those who went to Confessions. She said that it was an opportunity to unburden herself.

“You come totally convinced that God is giving you the chance to have a clear conscience and to be able remove those things that are weighing us down in our lives, and it’s an opportunity that everyone should take advantage of,” she said.

Luz Estella Rey said that it had been a long time since she had experienced this sacrament and said that she felt “very grateful, with no fear of doing something scary.” She also emphasized that the appearance of the priest she confessed to “conveyed a lot of peace and made me feel at peace.”

Miguel Marquina Acevedo was surprised to see this initiative. In Bogota just for a visit, he and his children went to Confession. “It’s not just an occasion to get closer to God, but also to be reconciled, because we often don’t have time to get to the church,” he said.

Besides the Confessions at the mall, another group of priests visited different prisons in Bogota on Oct. 19 and 20 to administer the sacrament.

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WORLD NEWS

Christian girls who barely escaped ISIS credit Mary for their safety

by CNA/EWTN News • October 23, 2016

(David McTavish via Shutterstock)

Kirkuk, Iraq — Seven young women in Kirkuk credit the Virgin Mary for their safety after spending a harrowing eight hours hidden underneath beds while Islamic State group fighters used their room as a hideout during an assault on the city.

“The Virgin Mary was with them,” Fr. Roni Momika told CNA Oct. 23.

The priest, who ministers in refugee camps of Ankawa, Erbil in northern Iraq, was in cell phone contact with two of the girls while they hid under the beds. They gave him a play-by-play account of what was happening.

Seven women, university students in Kirkuk, found themselves threatened by the Islamic State group’s assault on the city Friday, Oct. 21.

“ISIS entered the house of our students, the girls,” the priest reported.

When they heard the militants coming, the women quickly darted under four beds in one of the rooms, where they remained undiscovered for eight hours as ISIS fighters used the room as a refuge to eat, pray and hide from Iraqi Army forces.

“I was speaking with them all the time,” Fr. Momika said, noting how there was “a strong girl” who told him “Father, I will continue speaking with you and tell you all our news and what ISIS is saying.”

For the duration of their time there, the militants not only ate and prayed, but used the beds to care for two of their fighters who were wounded.

“On one bed there is a lot of blood,” the priest said.

He shared with CNA some photos taken of the room after the soldiers left. He explained that “when ISIS was attacked by our army (the Iraqi Army) there were two people from ISIS injured, and ISIS put them here on these beds … and under the beds were the girls.”

Fr. Momika said he was in constant contact with the girls, telling them not to forget their faith, and to “pray to the Virgin Mary, she will come to help you.”

In what both the priest and the girls view as a miracle, “ISIS didn’t see them,” Fr. Momika said. One of the girls told him later that “when ISIS entered our room, they didn’t see us (and) we feel that the Virgin Mary closed their eyes from seeing us.”

The attack on Kirkuk took place amid a wider offensive on the part of the Iraqi and Kurdish armies to retake the city of Mosul, which was taken by Islamic State group forces in 2014 and declared a caliphate.

On Oct. 17 Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the ground offensive to retake Mosul from the clutches of Islamic State, which has been months in the making.

In addition to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, U.S. troops, British and French Special Forces, and a number of Turkish soldiers are supporting the Iraqi army in the battle, which was initially expected to take between several weeks to several months to complete. However, the process has been going quicker than expected.

Mosul is the last major stronghold the Islamic State has in Iraq. They have been steadily retreating since the end of last year in battles against Iraqi and Peshmerga forces, as well as airstrikes from the U.S-led coalition.

The attack on Kirkuk left some 80 people, mostly security forces, dead. It was largely seen as an attempt to distract Iraqi and Kurdish forces from the Mosul offensive.

According to the U.K. newspaper The Guardian, at least 30 members of ISIS were still holed up in different parts of Kirkuk. However, the assault was officially declared over as of Saturday morning.

Fr. Momika explained that the seven girls were among more than 100 refugees taking university classes in Kirkuk after being driven out of their hometowns by the Islamic State group in 2014.

Many of the girls come from Mosul and other cities nearby such as Bartella, Alqosh and Telskuf, he said. All of them had studied at the University of Mosul before the invasion.

Although their families are living inside the refugee camps in Erbil, the girls, in addition to a number of boys, wanted to continue their studies, but were unable to attend university classes in Erbil.

They then enrolled at the University of Kirkuk. Since traveling back and forth everyday was dangerous, they stayed in houses the Church had been renting in the city, returning to Erbil on the weekends.

Fr. Momika said he is happy that all of the students escaped unharmed. Two of his fellow priests, Fr. George Jahola and another named Fr. Petros, who was ordained with him Aug. 5, traveled to Kirkuk Saturday to pick the girls up and bring them back to Erbil.

He also spoke about the liberation of his hometown, Qaraqosh. The town was formerly regarded as the Christian capital of Iraq before the invasion in 2014 forced 120,000 people to evacuate in one night. Most of its residents are now living in refugee camps in Erbil.

On Saturday Iraqi and Kurdish forces entered Qaraqosh, which sits about 20 miles from Mosul. Although the town is said to be largely empty, Islamic State group militants have destroyed much of the city. They left landmines strewn along the road to Mosul.

Fr. Momika said that Iraqi soldiers have raised the Iraqi flag in Qaraqosh, replacing that of the Islamic State.

“Qaraqosh is liberated,” he said. He cautioned that there are still dangers, like Islamic State group fighters who are hiding throughout the city still.

He passed on a report that Islamic State fighters “made a big, deep hole” in the ground, climbed into it and “bombed themselves” as the Iraqi and Kurdish armies advanced.

The priest, who was still a seminarian when he himself forced to flee the city, said he finds it hard to talk about what happened to Qaraqosh, “because we saw some photos, and they made us feel sad.”

“There are a lot of places destroyed, and ISIS burned our church and ISIS broke all our crosses that were above the churches,” he said. A very important church in the region had been destroyed.

“It’s difficult for us because it’s our history. It’s a big church in the Middle East, in Qaraqosh,” he said, explaining that the sight is similar for the neighboring town of Bartella. That Christian village was recently liberated by the Iraqi Army.

“Yesterday the priests, they entered the church in Bartella and they saw everything was dark, because ISIS burned everything,” he said.

He voiced hope that there would be no sight of Islamic State militants in Qaraqosh as the city is secured over the next few days. He had a request: “Pray for us.”

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WORLD NEWS

Critics of Congolese relief project got it wrong, CRS says

by CNA/EWTN News • October 24, 2016

An African mother and her child. (Sura Nualpradid via Shutterstock)

Baltimore, MD — Catholic Relief Services says claims that it took part in contraceptive distribution as part of a Congolese aid project were based on a lack of clarity in the project reports.

“Those who are concerned by these allegations can take further reassurance from the 12 bishops on our board, the USCCB and Congolese Bishop’s Conference who all continue to stand by us,” Catholic Relief Services told CNA Oct. 24.

On Oct. 17, the Lepanto Institute website charged that public reports about the Catholic relief agency’s participation in the Project AXxes mother and child health project showed that it received and distributed contraceptives. The project took place in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 2006 to 2010, with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“CRS currently uses an elaborate ongoing review process for our programming, involving bishops on our board and top moral theologians, to ensure that we uphold Catholic teaching in all we do. If we ever do find a problem, we correct it immediately,” the relief agency said in an Oct. 19 response.

CRS said it promoted natural family planning and distributed cycle beads for this purpose. It said the Lepanto Institute did not contact the agency about the Congolese project report. Such a query “would have provided clarification.”

Catholic Relief Services said that the Project AXxes reports “do indeed seem to show CRS as receiving contraceptives,” but said the report used “unclear wording” and was prepared by “another organization that did not understand how important absolute clarity on this point is to CRS.”

The agency said another implementing organization of the project, IMA World Health, was responsible for “an alternative mechanism for the training, storage and distribution of contraceptive products,” according to an Oct. 5 letter from Richard Santos, president of IMA World Health and the lead partner in Project AXxes.

Santos said it is “plausible that reports are unclear to an outside person,” but the project reports attributing responsible zones to CRS do not mean it provided all services in the area.

“In reality, CRS was very clear with all parties that it would not engage in any activities that were contrary to Catholic teaching and that it would not promote such activities to its local Catholic partners,” Santos said.

The Lepanto Institute, citing publically available inventory reports, had charged that Catholic Relief Services stored and dispensed 2.25 million units of abortifacient contraceptives and condoms in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of Project AXxes. The project’s final report said a “key objective” was “the provision of high quality, integrated and accessible family planning services,” including provision of “a full complement of family planning methods.”

The Lepanto Institute claimed the natural family planning component was a “stepping stone” to other family planning methods, noting the final report’s comment that a post-partum woman is introduced to natural family planning and then at her six month visit is “given options for other methods of family planning – a normal step from natural to modern methods.”

The Lepanto Institute is headed by Michael Hichborn, formerly of the American Life League. It lists no other staff on its website.

Fr. Shenan J. Boquet, president of Human Life International, said he found Catholic Relief Services’ explanations of its partners’ errors “insulting” and said its response didn’t address most of the concerns “before turning to attack the motives of CRS critics.”

“Not one single person who knows how these projects work would deny that they entail birth/population control as a matter of course,” Fr. Boquet said. “This one was no different – requiring detailed quarterly reports of the receipt and storage of contraception (including abortifacient methods), as well as measurement of the program’s effectiveness in getting more women to use various methods of artificial birth control.”

He cited previous criticisms of the agency.

“Challenged on these reports, CRS routinely misleads the bishops and its supporters, issuing denials that assume great ignorance on the part of the reader as to how these complicated projects occur,” he charged.

The Conference of Congolese Bishops in a Sept. 29 letter said it “stands behind the work” of CRS. The relief agency also cited the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Administrative Committee’s 2013 statement that Catholic Relief Services’ public critics “do not speak for the Catholic Church” and that the faithful should “exercise caution and consult the CRS website for clarification before endorsing or giving credence to the groups’ critiques.”

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WORLD NEWS

Carl Anderson: In battle for Mosul, don’t forget persecuted groups

by CNA/EWTN News • October 24, 2016

Syrian children at a refugee camp. (Procyk Radek via Shutterstock)

New Haven, CT — The battle to free Mosul from the hands of ISIS must be accompanied by concrete efforts to support the groups that have been targeted by the extremist group, said Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus.

“While welcoming the ongoing liberation of the Nineveh plain and Mosul, we must not forget that the genocide begun by ISIS will continue through attrition and neglect unless the United States and international community prioritizes those groups that were targeted for extermination and risk disappearing altogether,” Anderson said in an Oct. 21 statement.

On Oct. 17, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced a ground offensive to retake Mosul, which has been under the control of the Islamic State since June 2014.

In addition to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, U.S. troops, British and French Special Forces, and a number of Turkish soldiers are supporting the Iraqi army in the battle, which was initially expected to take between several weeks to several months to complete.

Mosul is the last major stronghold the Islamic State has in Iraq. They have been steadily retreating since the end of last year in battles against Iraqi and Peshmerga forces, as well as airstrikes from the U.S-led coalition.

The United Nations has warned that ISIS is using civilians as human shields in the fight for Mosul, estimating that the militants have so far taken roughly 550 families from smaller towns close to Mosul in an effort to prevent them from leaving the area.

According to CNN, some 285 men and boys have already been used by ISIS as human shields in recent days, and their bodies dumped in a mass grave.

The Knights of Columbus have been heavily involved in supporting persecuted Christians in the Middle East. The Catholic fraternal group successfully advocated for the State Department to recognize the genocide of religious minorities at the hands of ISIS.

In 2014, the Knights established the Christian Refugee Relief Fund, which has raised $10.5 million to provide food, clothing, shelter, education, and medical care to persecuted Christians in the Middle East. They have also encouraged prayer for those facing persecution.

In his statement, Anderson stressed that liberating Mosul and the Nineveh plain are not enough. In addition, aid must be offered to ensure the survival of groups that ISIS had been trying to exterminate.

“This must include direct financial support from our government that actually reaches endangered groups like Christians and Yazidis,” he said. “Those Iraqi citizens who belong to these groups also need to be given equal rights based on the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights.”

“We must also insist that the two-tiered system of rights – resulting in the second class citizenship of Christians and other non-majority religious groups – end if we really want to ensure that such genocide never again occurs in this region,” he continued.

“Celebrations over the ongoing liberation of the historically Christian towns of the Nineveh, should not obscure the fact those minority groups who lived there for generations are now displaced and in danger of disappearing.”

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WORLD NEWS

With just one place to worship, Somalia is a dangerous place for Christians

by Mónica Zorita de la Morena (Aid to the Church in Need) • October 25, 2016

St. Anthony of Padua parish in Hargeisa, Somalia’s sole Catholic church. (Aid to the Church in Need)

Djibouti, Djibouti —”Even if work has to be done silently, it is better to be here than not be here.” These are the words of Bishop Giorgio Bertin, apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Mogadishu.

The prelate, who has been in the region for almost 40 years and is also Bishop of Djibouti, was hinting at the grave risks Christians face in the Horn of Africa.

There is only a single church in Somalia: St. Anthony of Padua in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, a semi-autonomous region. Saying Mass has been and continues to be “very dangerous,” the bishop told international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need.

Just last January, after the church had been boarded up for some 20 years, the bishop was able to re-consecrate the church, which now also serves as a base for humanitarian activities sponsored by Caritas.

“Not many people come to Mass – 10 at most – but nonetheless, it is important,” the bishop said. The church is a silent witness in a country where “there are more and more mosques”, thanks to financial aid from Saudi Arabia, he added.

For Catholics, however, “there is no possible way of having a presence in Mogadishu, since it is very dangerous. There are a few Catholics, but if they engage in any activities, for example with Caritas, they will be risking their lives. We can only be present there through the intermediary of other Somali associations.”

It was 27 years ago, after the assassination of Bishop Salvatore Colombo, that the Holy See asked Bishop Bertin to become apostolic administrator of Mogadishu, after rebels had destroyed almost the whole of the Somali capital and the Church’s entire infrastructure.

“They deliberately targeted us, though not only us; in fact they destroyed everything, including embassies, and all public institutions,” the bishop recalled.

To this day, Somalia has remained a completely dysfunctional state, with a host of unrecognized self-proclaimed independent regions – such as Somaliland – and the constant threat of the jihadist militia of Al-Shabaab.

Fortunately, in neighboring Djibouti, the former French colony where Bishop Bertin resides, the Church has freedom. “We are left in peace there; there is no danger and the Church is respected,” he said. The local Church is comprised of 5,000 Catholics, the majority of them expatriate, with only very few native faithful.

Providing education and humanitarian work are the primary tasks of the Church, which, the bishop stresses, is not out to make converts. The Catholic schools almost exclusively serve Muslim students, however.

Still, the prelate said, “we are sowing the seed of the Gospel among the people.” There are 30 missionaries in the country, serving two churches and four mission stations.

The bishop stressed that “a priest or a religious sister is not there for the Catholics only; they are there as a presence in society, in contact with the people and open to them. We cannot remain closed up within our structures.”

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WORLD NEWS

As drug war darkens, Filipino cardinal sheds light with rehab centers

by CNA/EWTN News • October 25, 2016

Cardinal Luis Tagle, archbishop of Manila. (Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk)

Manila, Philippines — As the Philippines’ controversial drug war rages on, Catholic parishes are working with local government to provide drug rehab and prevention centers to meet the needs of a growing number of recovering addicts.

“Sanlakbay program is the response of the Catholic Church to the rising concern in handling the influx of thousands of drug surrenderees resulting from the present administration’s war on illegal drugs,” read an Oct. 23 announcement from the Archdiocese of Manila.

“The program strengthens the preventive phase of Restorative Justice Ministry of Caritas Manila aimed at helping in the healing, rehabilitation and restoration of the drugs surrenderers and their families through spiritual formation, counseling, livelihood projects and skills formation training as well as arts and cultural program and sports activities for holistic development.”

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, archbishop of Manila, officially launched the “Sanlakbay para sa Pagbabagong buhay” program on Oct. 23 at the Manila Cathedral, where he encouraged parishioners to volunteer at the parochial rehab centers in an effort “to stop the spread of illegal drugs, as well as corruption and criminality.”

The rehab centers come as a response to President Rodrigo Duterte, who recently implemented the use of scare tactics, death sentences and violence to decrease illicit drug crimes and clean up the Filipino drug underworld.

However, the country’s bishops have decried the use of violence against drug dealers and users, saying that “God never gave up on us. We have no right giving up on ourselves or on our brothers and sisters.”

Other prominent Filipino leaders are wary of the president’s violent campaign, such as Senator Leila de Lima, who is asking for an international probe into President Duterte’s drug war. According to TIME, Senator de Lima has said that the thousands of lives claimed by the president’s drug war should be considered crimes against humanity.

As of Oct. 6, the Philippine National Police estimated 734,231 drug dealers and users have turned themselves in, creating a massive influx of people in need of rehabilitation.

Cardinal Tagle is hoping that the rehab centers will be a place of healing and mercy, where recovering addicts can find the assistance and care that they need. He also pointed to Pope Francis’ Jubilee Year of Mercy indulgence letter, in which the pontiff says that the Jubilee Year will provide “an opportunity for great amnesty” to those “deserving punishment.”

In order to care for as many surrenderees as possible, the Church has set up the centers at various different parishes around the archdiocese. The centers are also uniting parochial resources “with the Local Government Units particularly with the Barangays to facilitate effectively and efficiently all legal requirements in the implementation of the rehabilitation process.”

According to the archdiocese, the rehab centers will include “paralegal assistance, religious studies (bible study, catechesis), livelihood training, education, advocacy, services for social action, and medical assistance.”

These centers will also collaborate with pre-existing ministries, such as the Caritas Manila’s Restorative Justice Ministry, Center for Family Ministries, University of Santo Tomas (UST) Graduate School Psycho-Trauma, Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).

The first few waves of rehab volunteer orientation have taken place, but the centers are still looking for additional volunteers. More information can be found at rcam.org.

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Peruvian president consecrates nation to Sacred Heart, Immaculate Heart

by CNA/EWTN News • October 25, 2016

Sacred Heart of Jesus by Pompeo Batoni (l) and Immaculate Heart of Mary by Leopold Kupelwieser (r). (Public domain/Wikipedia and Diana Ringo/Wikipedia CC 4.0)

Lima, Peru — At the National Prayer Breakfast in Lima, Peru on Friday, the nation’s president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, consecrated the country, his family and himself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Taking part in the National Day of Prayer at the Swissôtel in Lima, Kuczynski in his capacity as president offered the prayer of consecration, written by the Mission for the Love of God in the Whole World.

“By the authority vested in me, I make an act of consecration of myself, my family and the Republic of Peru, to the love and protection of Almighty God through the intercession of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary,” the president said.

Participating in the event were important business and political leaders in the country, including the President of Congress, Luz Salgado, who also offered a prayer asking God for his help and protection.

Of the 21 prayer breakfasts that have been held in Peru, this is the first time a president has attended. The theme chosen for this year was “the Mercy of the Love of God” in accordance with the Year of Mercy called for by Pope Francis.

Event organizer Aldo Bertello Costa said that the intent of the breakfast is to pray for the leaders as well as to “bring to all Peruvians a message of optimism and reconciliation. Everyone united together for our beloved country.”

During the ceremony, President Kuczynski entrusted to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary “my government with all its workers and citizens who are under my responsibility. I offer to Almighty God my thoughts and decisions as president so that he may use them for the good of our country and always bearing in mind the Ten Commandments in governing it.”

He asked God’s forgiveness “for all the transgressions I may have committed in the past, all those committed by the Republic in the past, and for all those decisions that may have been made contrary to his commandments and I ask for his help in changing everything that separates us from Him.”

The consecration received a mixed reaction on social media. Some celebrated the gesture, while others noted that some members of Kuczynski’s party have recently promoted initiatives to decriminalize abortion, homosexual unions and gender ideology in the schools.

Days earlier, Congressman Alberto de Belaúnde, a member of Kuczynski’s party, told RPPTV that “it is absolutely irrelevant” where the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations stand on a bill that he is co-sponsoring to decriminalize abortion in cases of rape.

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Syrian refugees arrive to Rome with the hope of a better life

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

Corridori Umanitari event at the Fiumicinio airport in Rome, Italy, where refugees were welcomed on Oct. 24, 2016. (Lucia Ballester/CNA)

Rome, Italy — This week 130 Syrian refugees landed in Rome as part of a pilot program aimed at providing safe passage for migrants seeking to enter Europe, all of whom voiced their gratitude and desire to leave war behind.

“I want to live normal, as a human, just that.”

This is what a young woman, who preferred not to give her name, told CNA just hours after arriving to Rome from Lebanon.

A university student studying geology, she is originally from the southern city of As-Suwayda, but left her friends and relatives behind and came to Italy by herself in the hopes of continuing her studies and living a normal life, far away from war.

The situation in Syria “is destroying everything. Every person, every dream, you can’t dream. There is killing everywhere. This is Syria now, not before,” she said through tears.

Wiping her face dry, the young woman didn’t want to talk about her family, but said she came to Italy “to continue my studies. This is the basic thing.” Italy, she said, is “a nice place, I expect the best.”

The young student was among the latest round of refugees to arrive to Rome through the Humanitarian Corridors project.

Humanitarian Corridors is a pilot program and joint-ecumenical initiative of the Sant’Egidio Community, the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy, the Italian government and the Waldensian and Methodist churches, the project provides aid and safe passage to those fleeing war and violence.

The refugees have come from situations of desperation in countries such as Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Among them are sick children, disabled persons, elderly and widows of war with children.

So far roughly 400 people have already arrived in Italy through project, without having to risk their lives in the Mediterranean. The first arrivals came in February, and 12 more followed soon after on board the papal plane with Pope Francis when he returned to Rome after his April 16 day trip to Lesbos.

On March 6 Pope Francis gave a shout-out to the program, saying he admires the project, “which combines solidarity and security, allows one to help people fleeing war and violence.”

The most recent arrivals came on two separate flights from Lebanon Oct. 24 and 25, nearly all of whom are Syrians who fled their country and had been living in refugee camps in Lebanon.

The group consisted of 72 Syrian refugees, both individuals and 18 families, and included 45 children and 14 mothers. They are both Christians and Muslims, nearly all originally from war-torn Syria.

A single mother who arrived with her two children told CNA she came “first of all for the children,” adding that “this was a dream. I didn’t think this dream could be realized.”

The woman, whose children are about six and eight years old, has been living in refugee camps since her children were born. They first lived in a camp in Syria when the children were infants, and later transferred to a camp in Lebanon, where they have been living for the past four years.

With no husband, the woman left all of her relatives behind in Lebanon and came to Italy to meet her brother, who had already migrated and was at the airport to welcome her.

“I am very happy because life in the camp was very hard and very difficult. I wanted to get out and to see Italy, to see what was outside, which certainly isn’t like life in the camp,” she said.

She said the first step for her family now will be for the children to learn Italian so they can go to school. They “must learn the language to continue their life journey, because now they are saved,” she said, explaining that the rest of her family hopes to join them one day.

Rami, a Muslim refugee from Deir ez-Zor, Syria, was among those who arrived to Rome with Pope Francis in April.

After making the perilous journey from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos, Rami found himself stuck in a refugee camp on the island, but was selected by lottery to come back to Rome with the Pope since he had his paperwork in order.

He was present at Rome’s Fiumicino airport for the Oct. 24 arrival of his sister and her children, whom he had not seen for six years.

When he and the other refugees arrived to Rome with Pope Francis, “our life took a 180 degree turn from hell to paradise,” he told CNA. “I come from a country at war, and we arrived to a country where there is peace, security and tranquility.”

In Syria “there was war, destruction, calumny,” he said, explaining that his sister’s husband is missing, and that after traveling from Syria to Lebanon and finally Lebanon to Rome, “we’re all happy.”

Speaking of his experience living in Italy, Rami, who worked in general renovation in Syria, said that “it’s fabulous, I am happy, there is a lot of stability. My children go to school now, they have already learned Italian better than me. We hope to continue going forward, that the situation gets better.”

He voiced his gratitude to Pope Francis for his welcome and attention to migrants, explaining that “we are guests of the Pope.”

“I am very proud and I will tell it to everyone with great pleasure … We are under his care. We are very happy in his care,” he said.

For her part, Sara said she is happy to be in “a calm, secure country,” and that she decided to come above all for her children.

“I am thinking of school. I am more interested in the future of my children,” she said, explaining that she will “always give thanks to the Italian people, for their welcome.”

Dirkan Qariqosh, a refugee from Aleppo who came to Italy with his wife and son, told CNA that he had been an artist in Syria, and hopes to better his skills in such an artistic culture.

“We have come here to a country of peace. I am an artist, I worked with copper, with gypsum,” he said, explaining that in Syria, “I did paintings and taught children.”

Since he and his family are now living in Italy, “perhaps I can study to further advance (my skills),” he said, adding that “we have suffered a lot and we want to say ‘enough!’ We hope for peace in Syria and we want to say ‘enough!’ to war.”

Andrea Riccardi, Founder of the Sant’Egidio Community, told CNA that the success of the Humanitarian Corridors project “means that Italy is opening itself to the Syrian crisis with the Humanitarian Corridors.”

“It’s the answer to the war, the inhumanity of war, but also to the merchants of death.”

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Don’t exploit death of Italian woman to push abortion, ethicist says

by Adelaide Mena (CNA/EWTN News) • October 26, 2016

Pro-life witnesses participate in Rome’s March for Life on May 10, 2015. The sign reads “life begins at conception.” (Martha Calderon/CNA)

Catania, Italy — The tragic death of a mother in Italy after late-term pregnancy complications and miscarriage is being pinned on the doctor’s refusal to perform a late-term abortion, despite appearances that the mother died of complications of the miscarriage.

The case is complex, John F. Brehany, PhD, an ethicist for the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told CNA in a statement. “At a minimum, there seems to be a profound disagreement about what was said between the physician and the hospital, and the patient and her family.

“Hopefully, this tragedy will not be exploited to promote abortion on demand or to undermine respect for the rights of conscience of physicians and other healthcare providers.”

The family of Valentina Milluzzo, who died at Cannizzaro hospital in the Sicilian city of Catania, allege that she passed away because her doctor was a ”conscientious objector” to abortion and thus did not perform an abortion after she suffered pregnancy complications.

The hospital denies that this is the case, and the head of the hospital, Angelo Pellicano, told Ansa news agency that the doctor did not have a conscientious objection to abortion, but that there was a spontaneous miscarriage that was forced by serious circumstances.

Milluzzo went into labor early, at 19 weeks, pregnant with twins. After two weeks of monitoring in the hospital, the condition of Miluzzo and of the babies worsened, and her blood pressure dropped.

According to the family’s legal representation, doctors refused to abort the struggling babies or otherwise intervene in order to save the mother. Within hours, both fetuses had died.

As the night progressed, the mother contracted an infection, her health continued to decline, and she was taken into intensive care. She died Oct. 16.

Pellicano told Ansa he disputes the family’s account and that, because the children’s death was a natural miscarriage, conscientious objection does not apply. “There was no conscientious objection on behalf of the doctor that intervened in this case because there was no voluntary termination of the pregnancy,” he said.

The prosecutor in Catania has stalled Milluzzo’s burial until an autopsy can be performed and further investigation can be conducted.

Brehany said that while the facts underlying the case are still unclear, the ethical principles surround the case are knowable.

“These two things are clear,” he stated. “It would’ve been unethical for the physicians to undertake an abortion – to directly kill one or both of the twins – to save the life of the mother.” Furthermore, “it is right and good that the physician involved made a conscientious judgment in this regard, and that judgment of conscience should be honored.”

“What is not clear, ethically speaking, is when the physician knew, or could have known, when the pre-born children had died. This is ethically relevant because, once fetal demise was established, there would be no ethical bar to inducing labor or undertaking other actions to evacuate the uterus and save the mother from infection,” he continued.

There is concern that the incident could be used to push for expanded abortion access in the country.

In Italy, abortion is permitted after 12 weeks of pregnancy only in order to save the life of the mother.

In the Republic of Ireland, legal access to abortion was expanded in 2013 after controversy over the death of Savita Halappanavar, who was admitted to a Galway hospital while miscarrying.

She reportedly asked for an abortion, which doctors refused because the baby still had a heartbeat. Halappanavar later died of a severe antibiotic-resistant infection following her miscarriage.

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WORLD NEWS

‘Heinous’ desecration at site of Christ’s Transfiguration

by CNA/EWTN News • October 26, 2016

The tabernacle at the Church of the Transfiguration in Israel, destroyed by burglars Oct. 24, 2016. (Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem)

Jerusalem, Israel — Suspected burglars’ desecration of the Church of the Transfiguration has prompted outcry from leading Christians in the Holy Land.

“The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, together with all Churches and the Custody of the Holy Land, condemn this desecration as a heinous crime and an act that violates the sanctity of the Holy Sites,” the patriarchate said Oct. 25.

“We also ask the police to conduct an investigation, to seriously look into the matter and apprehend the perpetrators who are culpable of these disgraceful actions.”

The Church of the Transfiguration is on Mount Tabor, near the Sea of Galilee in Israel. In the care of the Franciscans, it is held to be the site of Christ’s Transfiguration.

Unknown burglars robbed the church Oct. 24. They destroyed the tabernacle, desecrated the Hosts, and stole the ciborium after throwing the Hosts on the floor.

Icons were damaged, chalices were stolen, and the donation box was robbed.

Although Jewish extremists have targeted some Christian churches and holy sites for vandalism, church officials told Agence France Presse they believe robbery was the motive in this instance. There was no graffiti painted on the church.

The church is a major pilgrimage site for Christians. At the Transfiguration, Christ went up the mountain to pray and his appearance was physically changed. He conversed with the prophets Elijah and Moses, according to the gospels. The Transfiguration revealed Christ’s divinity to his disciples Peter, James, and John.

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For EU’s religious freedom envoy, Middle East is key arena

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • October 27, 2016

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

Brussels, Belgium — The genocide of Yazidis and Christians in the Middle East and the refugee crisis should be a priority for Europe, the EU special envoy for religious freedom has said.

Jan Figel told CNA that even though “there many other places where religious freedom is liquidated, discriminated and oppressed,” the Middle East is an unavoidable focus.

“It is evident that what it is going on the Middle East affects the rest of the world,” he said at a media symposium organized by Alliance Defending Freedom International in Brussels.

Figel, a Slovak who served as EU Commissioner for Education from 2004 to 2009, was chosen to be the union’s special envoy for the promotion of freedom of religion or belief outside the European Union. The position is an observer role and has a one-year term.

“I deem that the religious persecutions against Yazidis and Christians can be labeled as genocide, and this is the reason why the Middle East is a priority: there is a crime committed in the geopolitical center of the world, where three continents meet and the most important religions live together,” he explained.

Figel stressed the need to aid countries at the frontlines of conflicts that involve religious persecution and mass refugee displacement.

“Europe should provide more cooperation and assistance, as there are countries, like Jordan, that cannot sustain the flow of refugees that is coming to their lands,” Figel said. “Jordan did not close its borders, it is open to refugees from Syria and Iraq, and needs and deserves more EU support and comprehensive cooperation.”

Figel has focused on the plight of Christians in the Middle East in his own work. For his first official overseas trip, he visited Jordan Oct. 18-19, meeting with representatives of government and religious and civil society leaders.

The EU envoy praised Jordanian Muslim leaders’ work against extremism.

Authorities in Jordan “are very much committed in dialogue and action against radicalization, violence and extremism,” Figel said.

This is despite “an increasing climate of tensions” following the assassination of Nahed Attam, a Christian writer killed Sept. 25 because he shared a cartoon on Islam deemed offensive.

Figel praised the Jordanian commitment to fighting the Islamic State, known locally as Daesh.

“Jordan is a member of anti-Daesh coalition,” he said.

The country’s work is also cultural. It puts into action “significant initiatives to show that Islam is a moderate religion beyond any extremist interpretations.”

The EU envoy praised Jordanian initiatives for dialogue like the Amman Message, which King Abdullah II of Jordan issued in 2004 as a call for tolerance and unity in the Muslim world.

The message recognized eight legal schools across various branches of Islam, rebuked sectarian attitudes like declaring other Muslims apostate, and set conditions to counter illegitimate edicts issued in the name of Islam; it drew support from 200 Islamic scholars from more than 50 countries.

Jordan also backed the 2009 letter “A Common Word Between Us and You,” a response to the controversy following Benedict XVI’s 2005 Regensburg speech that discussed Islam, religion and reason.

With Benedict XVI’s initiative, the letter grew into a forum that meets every three years. The endeavor aims to find common ground of dialogue between Catholicism and Islam. The initiative’s facilitator is Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan, the king’s first cousin.

King Abdullah and Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad also launched the World Interfaith Harmony Week, marked in the first week of February.

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Prisoners of conscience remembered on International Religious Freedom Day

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • October 27, 2016

(Thomas Hawk via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Washington D.C. — Leading religious freedom advocates called for the release of all “prisoners of conscience” worldwide on International Religious Freedom Day.

“For the sake of these and other prisoners of conscience we dare not be silent,” wrote Fr. Thomas Reese and Daniel Mark, chairman and vice chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, in an op-ed for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

“We call for their immediate release, and we ask free people everywhere to urge Pakistan, Iran, and Eritrea to release every religious prisoner of conscience they hold,” they stated.

Oct. 27 is International Religious Freedom Day. The day marks the 18th anniversary of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, a bill that helped solidify the role of religious freedom in U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy.

The law created an office within the State Department for international religious freedom. Additionally, it created the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as “an independent, bipartisan federal body to monitor religious freedom abuses abroad and provide policy recommendations to the president, secretary of state, and Congress.”

“The rights to exercise one’s freedom of thought, conscience, and religion are fundamental human rights and bedrock American principles,” John Kirby, Assistant Secretary of State, said on Thursday. “We believe everyone deserves these freedoms.”

However, “nearly two decades later, standing for religious freedom worldwide is as important as ever,” Fr. Reese and Mark insisted, noting that billions of people worldwide “live under governments that perpetrate or tolerate serious abuses against freedom of religion or belief.”

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) defines a “prisoner of conscience” as someone “whom governments hold for reasons including those related to religion.”

Common instances of this type of imprisonment include governments jailing dissident clerics and members of non-state sanctioned faiths, and convictions on “blasphemy laws,” which in some cases don’t carry a punishment for false accusations, and which are often used to persecute religious minorities.

USCIRF’s 2016 annual report noted that “the incarceration of prisoners of conscience” still “remains astonishingly widespread, occurring in country after country” like China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan.

For instance, 80 year-old Abdul Shakoor, an Ahmadi Muslim living in Pakistan, was “falsely accused of selling to an undercover police officer an Ahmadiyya commentary on the Qur’an and other publications,” which is against the law in the country, Fr. Reese and Mark noted, adding that Shakoor received “concurrent sentences of five years and three years in prison” in January.

There is also the case of the “Baha’i Seven,” members of the Baha’i minority religious sect in Iran. Two of them were arrested in 2008 and “given 20-year sentences on false charges of espionage, propaganda against the ‘Islamic Republic,’ and establishment of an illegal administration.”

“The plight of these prisoners highlights the abysmal status of religious freedom in the countries that persecute them,” the op-ed insisted.

The U.S. can also do more for these prisoners, Fr. Reese and Mark insisted.

For instance, the State Department could “compile a comprehensive list of religious prisoners which would better enable State to advocate” for their liberation.

They added that the State Department should “follow USCIRF’s long-standing recommendation to designate Pakistan a country of particular concern (CPC), marking it as one of the world’s worst abusers of religious freedom.”

The CPC list identifies countries where the worst persecutions of religious freedom take place, either at the hands of the state or by non-state actors in states that do not stop the abuses.

The list is used to pressure these countries to improve their human rights records. Currently, the State Department lists Burma, China, Eritrea, North Korea, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia as CPCs.

USCIRF has recommended more countries be added to the list: Central African Republic, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

“As we mark International Religious Freedom Day, let us stand for the freedom of all people to practice their religion alone and in groups, in public and in private, and let the United States and the international community hold governments accountable for the protection of this inalienable human right,” Fr. Reese and Mark concluded.

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WORLD NEWS

Iraqi archbishop remains hopeful: ‘There will always be Christians’ here

by Aid to the Church in Need • October 28, 2016

Archbishop Bashar Warda of the Chaldean Archeparchy of Erbil. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Erbil, Iraq — Iraqi Christians stranded in Kurdistan have some reason for hope, now that the battle for Mosul and the Nineveh Plane has begun. However, the Chaldean archbishop who, for two years now, has played a pivotal role in taking care of the humanitarian and spiritual needs of the exiled community, urges caution in painting too rosy a picture for Iraq’s embattled minorities.

“Iran, Turkey and the Kurds all have a stake in Mosul” and the surrounding area, Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, the Iraqi Kurdish capital, told international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need; even after Mosul is retaken from Islamic State – and odds are that will happen before the end of the year – a bitter power struggle would likely put Christians seeking to return to their abandoned homes in harm’s way.

For now, the prelate stressed, no concrete plan is in place to protect the Christians and other minorities upon their return to Mosul and the Nineveh Plane. He predicted it would at least take close to a year before a significant degree of homecoming would be possible.

Meanwhile, the archbishop, who was in New York as the guest of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, continues to care for the flock in Erbil and surroundings, which means drumming up considerable funding to ensure that families of internally displaced persons can pay their rent, that homes can be heated, that there will be food on the table, and that schools are functioning.

For the past two years, the Chaldean Archeparchy of Erbil has received more than $31 million in funding from Aid to the Church in Need, in addition to support from 16 other Catholic organizations from around the world.

Contrary to some reports, the archbishop insists that 80 percent of the people under his care wish to remain in Iraq. But he adds that “even if the number drops to 10,000 families”, or some 60,000 people, – down from the current estimated total of 250,000 Christians, including those living in Baghdad – “there will always be Christians in Iraq.”

Archbishop Warda stressed that the Christians bound to stay are not just those who cannot afford to leave – on the contrary, he cites a good number of affluent families who are determined to remain in Iraq, be it in Kurdistan or Iraq proper. Several of them have already started successful businesses in Erbil.

A clear sign of confidence in this future for the local Church, the archbishop has established the Catholic University of Erbil and fundraising for the institution brought him to the United States.

Leaving aside the intractable enmity between Shiites and Sunnis – and the growing tensions between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia – Archbishop Warda said the biggest obstacle in the way of long-term security for Christians and other minorities is Islamic radicalism.

“Islam needs reform and, unlike Christian violence that was committed [through] misinterpretation of Scripture, there is a call to violence in the Koran – and that needs addressing,” he said.

It will be a task for courageous Muslim leaders, he continued, and “maybe, just maybe, Christians can lend them a hand.”

Surely, the study of the Quran and Islamic tradition will figure prominently at the new Catholic University of Erbil.

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Christ’s burial slab uncovered for the first time in centuries

by CNA/EWTN News • October 28, 2016

A mosaic of the entombment of Christ at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. (AntanO via Wikimedia CC 4.0)

Jerusalem, Israel — Have you ever wondered what the tomb of Jesus Christ looks like? National Geographic recently detailed the “moment of revelation” at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which exposed the rock slab on which Christ’s body is held to have been placed after his death.

The slab had been covered for centuries by a marble structure to protect it.

“The marble covering of the tomb has been pulled back,” said Fredrik Hiebert, archaeologist-in-residence at the National Geographic Society, according to an Oct. 26 exclusive from National Geographic.

“It will be a long scientific analysis, but we will finally be able to see the original rock surface on which, according to tradition, the body of Christ was laid,” Hiebert continued.

The opening of the burial place of Christ marks a historic exposure for the first time in centuries, which drew an excited frenzy among archeologists, pilgrims, and various religious groups.

“Here we have Franciscans, Armenians, Greeks, Muslim guards, and Jewish police officers. We hope and we pray that this will be a real message that the impossible can become the possible. We all need peace and mutual respect,” Theophilos III, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, told National Geographic.

According to the Gospels, the body of Christ was laid in a new tomb hewn out of rock, in which no one had ever been buried. The Gospel of Mark details that the women who went to the tomb to anoint Christ’s body instead found that he had risen.

Veneration of Christ’s burial place dates back to St. Helena in the fourth century, who discovered and identified the tomb. St. Helena’s son, Emperor Constantine, built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 326 and enshrined the tomb.

The shelf on which Christ’s body was laid is the central point of veneration, which has been encapsulated by a 3-by-5 foot marble structure, known as the Edicule, since at least 1555. Over the years, the Edicule has been reconstructed and is currently undergoing a multi-million dollar preservation process by the National Technical University of Athens.

“We are at the critical moment for rehabilitating the Edicule,” Professor Antonia Moropoulou, Chief Scientific Supervisor from the National Technical University of Athens, told National Geographic.

“The techniques we’re using to document this unique monument will enable the world to study our findings as if they themselves were in the tomb of Christ.”

Although the burial site is not controlled by one particular group, it does share ownership between the Greek Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Armenian Orthodox Church, with a smaller influence from the Coptic, Ethiopian Orthodox, and Syriac Churches. Any major decisions regarding the church are made in an agreement among the Churches.

National Geographic will detail the restoration process of Christ’s tomb in the Explorer series, airing in November on the National Geographic Channel.

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U.S. NEWS

Domestic abuse: The epidemic no one is talking about in parishes

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

(Tawee wongdee via Shutterstock)

Washington D.C. — Domestic violence is a hidden epidemic that many clergy and laypersons are not properly trained to fight, says one priest who runs the country’s largest parish-based ministry to counter the problem.

“When you start talking about it, that’s when people will start coming forward,” Fr. Chuck Dahm, O.P., who directs domestic violence outreach for the Archdiocese of Chicago, told CNA about the problem of domestic abuse.

The Church’s hierarchy “has not been good in getting this into the training of clergy, deacons or priests,” he said, even though a “beautiful” pastoral letter on the topic by the U.S. bishops, “When I Call for Help,” exists.

“Most priests and bishops are unaware of it,” he said. “And it should be taught and discussed in the seminaries, and it’s not.”

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. According to the CDC, “intimate partner violence” can be physical, sexual, or even emotional, as with instances of stalking or “psychological aggression.”

27 percent of women in the U.S. have suffered intimate partner violence at some point, along with 12 percent of men, the CDC has reported.

There are many physical and psychological effects of domestic violence on victims – physical injuries and disabilities and bodily effects of stress, but also anxiety, depression, and trust issues. Children witnessing violence in the home may grow up with emotional problems like anger, or may even become abusers themselves when they are adults.

In his apostolic exhortation on the family, Amoris laetitia, Pope Francis wrote of the problem of domestic abuse:

“Unacceptable customs still need to be eliminated. I think particularly of the shameful ill-treatment to which women are sometimes subjected, domestic violence and various forms of enslavement which, rather than a show of masculine power, are craven acts of cowardice. The verbal, physical, and sexual violence that women endure in some marriages contradicts the very nature of the conjugal union.”

He also insisted upon the need for parishes and priests to be ready to deal properly with these problems: “Good pastoral training is important ‘especially in light of particular emergency situations arising from cases of domestic violence and sexual abuse’,” he added, citing the final document from the 2015 Synod on the Family.

Catholics are responding to this dire need, organizing a prayer campaign for domestic abuse victims while trying to spread awareness of the problem and educate clergy on how to properly deal with instances of abuse.

A symposium on domestic abuse took place in July at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., hosted by the university’s School of Social Service.

A “toolkit” for fighting domestic abuse has been provided by the Catholics for Family Peace, Education, and Research Initiative, which includes prayers and directions for helping a victim of domestic abuse.

The group is asking everyone to pray at 3 p.m. daily for domestic abuse victims, and have called for a day of prayer on Oct. 28, the feast of St. Jude the Apostle, the patron saint of hopeless cases.

Fr. Chuck Dahm has created a parish-based ministry to combat domestic violence. A key part of his work is simply preaching about it, he says, because it is a widespread problem that hides in plain sight.

There is an “overwhelming lack of recognition that the problem is more frequent, more common than people think,” he told CNA. Many priests are completely unaware of cases of it, Fr. Chuck noted, although “there are people in their parishes who are suffering.”

“I have gone to 90 parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago,” he said. “And after I preach about it, people walk out of the church and they tell me ‘thank you for talking about this. This is long overdue. And my sister, my daughter is in it, or I grew up in it.’ And this is so much more common than anybody realizes.”

Priests must listen when victims tell them of their abuse they’ve suffered, he insisted.

“You always have to believe the victim,” he said. “Victims do not exaggerate. If anything, they minimalize. So they have to be believed and supported.”

In one case, he said, “a victim survivor” told him of how she went to her parish priest, who “was not receptive and said he couldn’t do anything to help her.”

“Well that’s tragic,” he said. “She went and told him about the abuse she was suffering. He didn’t know how to handle it.”

Another problem is when some priests tell an abuse victim to go to marriage counseling with her husband – which “is not appropriate,” Fr. Chuck noted. “She needs domestic violence counseling and he needs perpetrator counseling,” he said. “A lot of priests don’t know that.”

Fr. Chuck participated in the symposium on domestic abuse at Catholic University this past summer.

Since then he’s seen the fruits of the conference, spreading awareness of the problem.

“A significant number went home with the plans of doing something in their diocese or their respective organizations,” he said of conference participants.

The Archdiocese of Washington just held a workshop for priests to learn how to deal with incidents of domestic abuse and 31 priests attended, he said. Two representatives of Catholic Charities in Vermont are starting a workshop for priests there, and the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City held a workshop attended by several priests and a meeting for priests with Fr. Chuck.

“It’s hard to get the priests to come to any kind of event like this,” Fr. Chuck acknowledged.

Unfortunately, it’s been negative incidents that have driven the conversation about domestic abuse, he said. For instance, when surveillance videos surfaced of former NFL running back Ray Rice punching his fiancée, and then dragging her off an elevator while she was unconscious, the “subsequent outrage” after that and other incidents like it “helps create more awareness about the problem.”

Then “people feel a little bit more comfortable and required to speak out about this and do something about it,” Fr. Chuck explained. “The publicity about negative events or harmful events is quite helpful in raising awareness.”

“We’re really behind on this,” he said of the Church’s efforts to combat the problem, while noting at the same time that “we’re making progress.” There will be a Domestic Violence Awareness and Outreach Mass on Saturday Oct. 29 at Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral, celebrated by Cardinal-designate Blase Cupich.

“Many times violence in the streets begins at home,” Cardinal-designate Cupich stated on the issue. “Adults and children are traumatized and alienated from the love and support they need by the violence they witness. We must respond to this tragedy.”

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Want to aid vocations? Help reduce debt, Laboure Society says

by Kevin J. Jones (CNA/EWTN News) • October 24, 2016

Ordinandi lay prostrate during the Litany of Saints during an Ordination Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Sept. 29, 2016. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

St. Paul, MN — Personal and student debt can slow down or prevent prospective seminarians and aspirants to religious orders from pursuing their vocations, but one organization with national scope aims to change that.

“The Laboure Society’s work is critical because thousands of discerning men and women are seeking to answer the Lord’s call to serve his Church, but they are blocked from entering formation because of outstanding student loan debt,” said Bill LeMire, director of advancement for the Laboure Society. “These are vocations [in] the Catholic Church that we will lose if they are not helped.”

According to LeMire, there are about 4,000 men and women seriously discerning the priesthood or religious life, but they have outstanding student loans.

“Through the Laboure program, five figure debt has been erased in six months, and six figure debt has been eliminated in 12-18 months,” LeMire told CNA. “These timelines would be impossible if the aspirants were trying to raise money on their own.”

Aspirants accepted to the society’s program have an average of about $60,000 in loans. The Laboure Society says it has helped more than 240 men and women enter formation for the priesthood or religious life, raising over $5 million since 2003.

The society works with each aspirant to assure that he or she has used all means to mitigate debt before they are accepted to its program.

They are mentored and trained in ethical fundraising, with the society’s staff providing accountability. They raise funds for every aspirant in their class, not individuals. Once an aspirant is in formation, he or she will receive monthly payments towards his or her financial loans and receive a final payment after three years of service.

If they leave formation, they must resume their own debt payments.

The society aims to help aspirants share their vocation stories to help build “a culture of vocations and evangelization.”

Among the aspirants is Mallory Deschamp, a 22-year-old from Minnesota. She said her twin sister’s discernment of a religious vocation opened her own eyes.

“Jesus gently asked me to devote myself to Him more exclusively to better discern this question, as well as to grow deeper in my love for Him. Throughout this period of discernment, I found myself experiencing profound peace during a time that is often filled with immense stress and anxiety,” she said in Laboure Society materials.

Before she had begun to discern, a seminarian had asked her to learn more about Mother Teresa, now St. Teresa of Calcutta, and the Missionaries of Charity. During her discernment, she visited their communities in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Argentina.

“I hope to help satiate Christ’s thirst through serving Him in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor; however, I am humbly asking for assistance to make this possible,” said Deschamp, who graduated from the University of St. Thomas with a degree in the biology of global health.

Nicholas Martell, 29, is discerning a vocation to the priesthood for the Diocese of San Bernardino.

He said the coverage of procession of the cardinals for the 2013 papal conclave that would elect Pope Francis particularly affected his vocation.

“At that moment, I could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, and that God was telling me that he expected more out of me. He wanted me to give myself entirely to Him, to the service of His Church, and to others,” he said.

Martell, an attorney, still has debt from law school.

Patricia Clark, a 58-year-old research assistant from Michigan, grew up in an Anglo-Catholic Episcopal Church, where she first had thoughts of religious life. She was received into the Catholic Church at the 2010 Easter Vigil, and felt a special call from God during Eucharistic Adoration that autumn.

“I had been attracted to the Carmelite Saints since the beginning of my Catholic journey. It seemed that God had been showing me the way all along and He sent a complete stranger to invite me further down the path He had planned for me.”

When she left a church after time in prayer specifically asking God about his will, a woman followed her and asked if she had ever considered becoming a Carmelite.

A Carmelite prioress later responded to her concerns about her age by reminding her of St. Elizabeth, who conceived St. John the Baptist at an old age.

The Laboure Society was founded by Minnesota businessman Cy Laurent in 2003, and it is based in Eagan, Minn. Its website is labouresociety.org.

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Proposal to close D.C. Metro on Sunday mornings draws outcry

by CNA/EWTN News • October 25, 2016

Cathedral of Saint Matthew in Washington, D.C. (Ron Cogswell via Flickr CC BY 2.0)

Washington D.C. — A proposal to close the Washington, D.C. metro until noon on Sundays has prompted strong criticism from churches whose members rely on public transportation to attend worship services.

“Opening 2 hours later on Saturday and 5 hours later on Sunday would drastically impact access to numerous events held by local congregations,” warned Terrance Lynch, executive director of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations, a group of some 50 religious congregations throughout the Washington, D.C. area.

In order to allow more time for safety and maintenance of the metro system, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has issued four proposals for new shortened service schedules.

Each proposal would cut back on the current schedule by eight hours per week, allowing time for work to be done on the cars and tracks.

Elements of the proposed changes include closing the metro earlier – either all week long or just on weekends – and opening later on weekends. The fourth proposal would focus all cuts to weekend hours and would include changing the Sunday start time from 7:00 a.m. to noon.

Local churches are warning that this option would severely impede the ability of people with in the D.C. area to attend worship services on Sunday mornings.

Seeking user feedback, the metro system is holding an open house and public hearing on the proposals, and is asking for public comments through 5:00 p.m. October 25 via an online survey and written comments.

In a testimony on the proposed changes, Lynch said that Proposal 4 “would be a step in the wrong direction for those that seek to attend worship services those days – as well as for others seeking to get to work or return home from work, as well as the many other users who utilize it to go about their lives on those days.”

While appreciating the need for safety and on-going Metro maintenance, he stressed that many people in the area rely on the metro to attend worship services on Sunday mornings, particularly the many people in D.C. who do not own cars.

“Indeed, the metro’s opening at 7 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays provides support to congregations that despite increased congestion and numerous road closures have chosen to remain within the city,” Lynch said.

“Over the last two decades, many congregations have relocated to the suburbs, often stating in part that the reason is the difficulty to find parking for their members that drive to services,” he continued. “Hence, the current metro operating hours have become a part of the fabric of the lives of local congregations - the expectation being that hours of operation would expand if anything - not shrink.”

The Catholic cathedral for the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. also voiced concern about the proposal.

“So many parishioners take metro to St. Matthew’s that our community could not come together without it,” The Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle said in a website announcement, asking parishioners to contact WMATA via Facebook, email, written comments, or survey, and ask that another proposal be considered instead.

WMATA has assured its users that it will work to provide alternate options for transportation during the hours that the metro is closed, regardless of which proposal is adopted. Details of what those options would look like have not been determined.

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82-year-old priest attacked, robbed outside Kansas City parish

by CNA/EWTN News • October 25, 2016

(Neville Elder via Shutterstock)

Kansas City, KS — 82-year-old Fr. Tom Kearns is in the hospital recovering from an attack outside of Blessed Sacrament Church in Kansas City, Kans. on Friday.

The priest was unloading a pumpkin out of his car, which was still running, when he was struck in the face and knocked unconscious by two attackers, thought to be two teenage boys.

The attackers then stole Fr. Kearns’ wallet and drove off in his car, according to reports.

Fr. Kearns was unconscious for an estimated 30 minutes, and was left with a shattered eye socket that will require surgery, which he was scheduled to undergo on Monday. He is a retired priest in residence at Blessed Sacrament parish.

Fr. Mark Mertes, the pastor of Blessed Sacrament, said that the incident was devastating for the parish community, were Fr. Kearns is well-known and beloved.

But despite the circumstances, Fr. Kearns, who had just recovered from a fall earlier this year, is in good spirits.

“Father Tom is doing reasonably well, considering what he has been through,” Mertes said in a written statement Monday.

“He has a positive outlook and wants to tell his friends in KCK, ‘I’ll be back,’ “ Fr. Mertes said.

Fr. Mertes also told a local Fox News affiliate that the parish community was praying both for the recovery of Fr. Kearns and for his attackers.

“We are praying for them too because that’s important, because I believe that they don’t want to go through life hitting 82-year-old men and stealing their car. That’s not a way we want to live,” Fr. Mertes said.

“I’m still holding out for the car to come back, and the wallet to come back, and his car keys to come back, and apologies can be made, and we can have restitution. That is the Holy Spirit’s plan,” Fr. Mertes said.

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Arizona Mass for migrants shows Catholic unity crosses borders

by CNA/EWTN News • October 26, 2016

U.S.-Mexico border crossing at San Ysidro. (Josh Denmark/U.S. Customs and Border Protection CC BY-SA 2.0)

Tucson, AZ — Catholic unity transversed the border on Sunday when Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the new apostolic nuncio to the U.S., celebrated Mass at Arizona’s border with Mexico.

“His decision to join us is a reminder that this is an issue very important to our Holy Father,” said Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, the Associated Press reports.

The Mass was celebrated Sunday afternoon near the Port of Entry in downtown Noagles, Ariz. About 250 people attended the Mass from the U.S. side, while it was unclear how many attended on the Mexico side. Previous Masses have included the distribution of Holy Communion through the border fence, but border patrol officers did not allow this on Sunday.

Bishop Kicanas said the Oct. 23 Mass aimed to bring attention to immigrants and refugees.

“The economic migrant is not a criminal. The economic migrant is someone seeking a decent way of life for themselves, for their family,” he said.

The Mass also aimed to highlight the close relationship between the neighboring dioceses.

Prayers were said at the Mass for border patrol agents and those who work around the border.

It was the last of three Masses organized by the group Dioceses Sin Fronteras, also known as Dioceses without Borders. The organization aims to broaden awareness of the need to treat people on both sides of the border with dignity and respect, “in the spirit of faith,” the Diocese of Tucson said.

The previous two Masses on the border were concelebrated by Bishop Kicanas and Bishop Jose Leopold Gonzalez of Noagles in Mexico’s Sonora state. They had invited the apostolic nuncio to celebrate the Mass.

Archbishop Pierre had served as apostolic nuncio to Mexico from 2007 through 2016. Pope Francis named him to his new post in the U.S. this April.

During the Pope’s trip to Mexico in February 2016, the pontiff visited the U.S. border at Ciudad Juarez and looked out over the Rio Grande River from a memorial built to commemorate those who have died along the Mexican border.

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Just how important are presidential Supreme Court picks?

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • October 27, 2016

The U.S. Supreme Court building. (CNA)

Washington D.C. — Both major presidential candidates say that the future of the Supreme Court depends on this election – but how important is the Court to Catholics, and will the next president really shape it?

“It is certainly one of the most important things that a president does,” said Professor Michael McConnell, a law professor at Stanford University and director of the school’s Constitutional Law Center. “And because the Supreme Court has been so closely divided with so many 5-4 decisions, even one justice can make a very big difference.”

After the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in February, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland, chief judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, to take his place. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to confirm the nominee, saying the Senate would wait until next year to consider confirming nominees.

Thus, the Supreme Court – normally composed of nine justices – is operating with an empty seat, leading to outcomes like a 4-4 split in United States v. Texas, the case involving President Obama’s executive action on immigration. The even split allowed the lower court’s decision to stand.

Advocates of both major presidential candidates say the next president’s nomination of a justice will be one of the most important reasons to vote in the coming presidential election. And, given the age of some of the justices on the bench, several more could retire in the next few years, giving the next president the opportunity to nominate several of their hand-picked justices to the Court.

Has a president been able to shape the Court in the past? Yes, McConnell said, there are historical examples of this.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt at first saw his “New Deal” policies declared unconstitutional by an unfriendly Court; however, “by the end [of his presidency] he had named all nine” justices and “the Court was completely in congenial hands,” McConnell told CNA.

“President Nixon had the opportunity to name four justices, which marked the end of the liberal activist Warren court and ushered in an entirely new jurisprudence,” he added.

The next justice could very well determine future jurisprudence on the constitutionality of state abortion bans, abortion regulations, and religious freedom cases where, for example, businesses are sued for conscientiously declining to serve a same-sex wedding or conscientiously declining to have birth control covered in employee health plans.

Pro-life and pro-choice advocates have both touted the importance of the Court in this election.

For instance, after the Supreme Court struck down Texas’ regulations of abortions clinics in a 5-3 decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the president of the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List Marjorie Dannenfelser said “the stakes for the 2016 election could not be higher.”

“The next president will be tasked with selecting Justice Antonin Scalia’s replacement and up to three others,” Dannenfelser said. “We must elect a pro-life president and safeguard today’s pro-life majorities in the House and Senate.”

Meanwhile, the political arm of Planned Parenthood praised the Court’s decision. “Our next president – and the new Supreme Court justices they’ll appoint – will determine whether women continue to have a constitutional right to safe and legal abortion,” Planned Parenthood Action stated.

At the final presidential debate, when asked what kind of Supreme Court justices they would appoint, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump gave different answers.

Clinton insisted that “we need a Supreme Court that will stand up on behalf of women’s rights, on behalf of the rights of the LGBT community,” adding that “it is important that we not reverse marriage equality, that we not reverse Roe v. Wade.”

Trump, meanwhile answered that “I am pro-life and I will be appointing pro-life justices,” along with justices that “will be protecting the Second Amendment.” He stopped short of saying that he wanted Roe v. Wade overturned.

With the Court closely divided on important cases, the impact of even one Supreme Court justice cannot be overlooked, McConnell emphasized.

For instance, in a 2014 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the craft chain Hobby Lobby and other “closely-held for-profit” businesses were protected from the federal government’s birth control mandate by a religious freedom law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

That was a 5-4 decision with Justice Scalia in the majority, which meant that if just one justice in his place ruled differently, the Green family who owns Hobby Lobby – and other business owners claiming to run their business based on their religious beliefs – would have lost a key religious freedom case.

“The Court is very divided on questions of vital importance to believing and practicing Catholics,” said Professor David Upham, attorney-at-law and professor of politics at the University of Dallas.

On one side, four justices have been appointed by Democratic presidents and have ruled consistently together. “They vote in virtual lockstep over 90 percent of the time” and “very rarely file separate opinions,” McConnell noted.

They have voted to uphold legal abortion and same-sex marriage and have opposed the religious freedom of Catholics who don’t want to cooperate with “the evils of the sexual revolution” like “contraception, abortifacients, and the public celebration of homosexuality,” Upham told CNA.

On the other hand, three justices have voted the opposite way on these issues.

They “have repeatedly voted to affirm, and not invalidate state and federal laws designed to secure the right of the child to his life and his parents,” Upham said, and “they have voted consistently to affirm and preserve the immunity of Catholics and others against compulsory participation in the practices and celebrations of the sexual revolution.”

And the remaining justice – Justice Anthony Kennedy – “has been less than consistent on these questions,” Upham added.

And how closely do the justices on the bench resemble the politics of the president who nominated them to the Court?

Historically, the justices are pretty consistent with the party politics of the president who appointed them, McConnell said. “Presidents don’t make mistakes all that often.”

“It’s certainly true that justices sometimes vote contrary to what you might think are the political leanings of the party who appointed him or her, and that’s a good thing,” he explained, but added that “it doesn’t happen very often.”

One example he gave of a justice defying the trend was Justice David Souter – nominated by Republican President George H. W. Bush – who “turned out to be a fairly reliable member of the liberal wing of the court. It’s unlikely that that’s what President Bush was looking for.”

Justices are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Upham agreed that justices nominated and confirmed by a president and senators all of the same party are more consistent with a President’s views.

“In the past 30 years, every justice nominated by a Democratic President and confirmed primarily by Democratic Senators has been hostile to the rights of life, marriage, and religious freedom affirmed by the Church,” Upham said.

“In that same time, every justice nominated by a Republican President and confirmed primarily by Republican Senators has been friendly – or at least not hostile – to those same principles,” he added. “The only exceptions – Justices Souter and Kennedy – were appointed by a Republican President but confirmed primarily by Democratic Senators.”

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Princeton event to highlight healthy marriages as foundation of society

by CNA/EWTN News • October 27, 2016

Campus of Princeton University. (Harshil Shah via Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0)

Princeton, N.J. — As the contentious 2016 campaign season draws to a close, hundreds of university students are coming together to focus on strong marriages and sexual integrity as the bedrock of a health society.

In the coming days, nearly 300 college-age students and alumni from 54 universities around the country will gather on the Princeton University campus for a conference that hopes to “re-energize a grassroots movement to change campus culture.”

The goal of the gathering is to equip attendees with the knowledge and resources they need to effectively witness to an authentic understanding of love in their college communities, explained Caitlin La Ruffa, executive director of the Love and Fidelity Network, which is hosting the conference.

“It’s not news to say that our culture has lost sight of the true meaning and purpose of sexuality and marriage,” La Ruffa said, “but the upcoming presidential election presents that fact in stark relief.”

The ninth annual Sexuality, Integrity, and the University conference will take place Oct. 28-29 at Princeton University.

It will include talks on balancing marriage and career, equality between the sexes and sexual complementarity, campus hookup culture, the sexual assault crisis, and the realities of gender reassignment therapy.

Speakers will include Dr. Anthony Esolen of Providence College, author Erika Bachiochi, Dr. Donna Freitas, and Walt Heyer and Dr. Ana Samuel of the Witherspoon Institute.

Also speaking will be Dr. Robert P. George of Princeton University, Dr. Joseph Price of Brigham Young University, Dr. David Upham of the University of Dallas, and the Ecce! Films team, creators of the Humanum film series.

“The students who will join us see first-hand the destruction wrought by the sexual revolution on their campuses and in society at large,” La Ruffa said. “Their grassroots effort to change the hearts and minds of their peers is exactly what our ailing culture needs. The upcoming conference is designed to empower them in those efforts.”

Those who cannot attend in person can watch a livestream of events online.

The Love and Fidelity Network was established in 2007 in Princeton, New Jersey, in response to what founders saw as an insufficient treatment of marriage, family and sexuality in higher education.

The network’s goal is to offer college students the knowledge, resources and support they need to defend the dignity of marriage, the family, and human sexuality on their college campuses and in the public square. Participants receive leadership coaching and funding for campus initiatives.

“The conference always inspires these courageous young men and women to take action, reinvigorating them to bring the message of love and fidelity back to their campuses in a very real way,” La Ruffa said. “We can’t wait to see what they’ll do after they get back to campus.”

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Is there a deeper network behind the ‘Catholic Spring’?

by Kevin J. Jones (CNA/EWTN News) • October 27, 2016

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

Washington D.C. — A reputed “Catholic Spring” is in the news after hacked emails from John Podesta, now Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, indicated plans for an effort to sow revolution within the Church.

But grants to the think tank Podesta founded also suggest links to other efforts targeting religion. The Center for American Progress appears to be part of an influence network that advocates restrictions on religious freedom while promoting dissent within Christianity on sexual morality, especially LGBT issues.

Podesta co-founded the Center for American Progress in 2003 after serving as White House Chief of Staff in President Bill Clinton’s final term. He served as the center’s CEO until 2011. He became a special adviser to President Barack Obama in 2013, and joined the Hillary Clinton campaign in early 2015.

Two six-figure grants to the think tank from the Arcus Foundation seem to place it within a multi-million dollar campaign targeting religious freedom protections that conflict with LGBT political issues and the provision of abortion and contraception.

The Arcus Foundation in 2013 gave $400,000 to the Center for American Progress’ Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative in order to “articulate and disseminate a socially progressive framework of religious liberty.” A $250,000 Arcus grant in 2016 backed the center’s Reclaiming Religious Liberty as a Progressive Value Project “to promote religious liberty as a core progressive American value that includes LGBT equality and women’s reproductive health and rights,” grant listings on the foundation website say.

On the Center for American Progress website, the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative described religious liberty as “a core American value.” But it added caveats.

“Unfortunately, many opponents of marriage equality and women’s reproductive health claim that religious liberty allows them to opt out of laws to which they object,” it said. “We work to raise the voices of faith-based leaders and advocates to promote an inclusive vision of religious liberty – one that supports human and civil rights and does not use religious liberty to discriminate or coerce others to abide by beliefs not their own.”

The initiative opposes “policies with overly broad religious exemptions that cause harm to others” and supports policies it said “promote religious liberty for all, rather than a favored few.”

The Arcus Foundation describes its strategy for “fair and non-discriminatory religious exemption policies” on its website in a section labeled social justice. It is among several wealthy funders backing various groups to oppose religious freedom exemptions. These groups include the ACLU, a project at Columbia Law School, Planned Parenthood, the Movement Advancement Project, and Podesta’s Center for American Progress.

The Arcus Foundation also pursues a strategy of cultivating allies among religious groups. It provided financial support for Center for American Progress senior fellow V. Gene Robinson, whose controversial election as the Episcopalian Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003 helped split the Episcopal Church and the global Anglican Communion.

In 2011 and again in 2012, the Arcus Foundation provided $30,000 to Podesta’s think tank in order to “amplify on a national level the voice and impact of the progressive social justice advocacy of Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop,” the foundation’s tax forms show.

Robinson is currently listed as an expert in the Center for American Progress’ Religion and Values section.

Podesta is now listed as a member of the board of directors of the Center for American Progress, alongside names like Secretary of State Madeline Albright, former U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle, and billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer.

A February 2012 email exchange involving Podesta concerned the religious freedom controversy over a new federal rule that required employers to cover sterilizations and contraceptives, including abortifacient drugs, even if doing so would violate their religious beliefs.

Podesta’s interlocutor, progressive leader Sandy Newman, noted Catholic bishops’ outspokenness and discussed the possibilities of a “Catholic Spring,” similar to Arab protests, to lead Catholics to demand “the end of a middle ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic church.” Newman wondered how one would plant “the seeds of revolution.”

Podesta responded that he and his allies had created Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good for a moment like the one Newman saw. At the same time, Podesta suggested the groups lacked the leadership to do so. He suggested consulting with former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

The Center for American Progress and the Catholics United Education Fund are among the many partners the Arcus Foundation lists on its website. Among its other grantees are Catholics for Choice and Dignity USA, a group that rejects Catholic teaching on homosexuality.

The Arcus Foundation helped fund Dignity USA and its aligned Equally Blessed Coalition “to influence and counter the narrative of the Catholic Church and its ultra-conservative affiliates” ahead of the Synod on the Family.

The foundation also funded a project through the European Forum of LGBT Christian Groups to counter the influence of African bishops at the synod by documenting and circulating the stories of people from their countries who identify as LGBT. That project was funded in collaboration with the Swiss bishops’ development charity Fastenopfer, known as the Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund.

The Arcus Foundation was founded by billionaire heir Jon Stryker, a major Clinton donor. Its executive director is Kevin Jennings, a former Obama administration Department of Education official. The foundation is a prominent partner of the U.S. State Department’s Global Equality Fund, which promotes LGBT advocacy worldwide.

CNA contacted the Arcus Foundation and the Center for American Progress for comment but did not receive a response by deadline.

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Why LGBT activists are standing by these Christian businesses

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • October 28, 2016

(Guillaume Paumier via Flickr CC BY 2.0)

Washington D.C. — When Kentucky T-shirt designer Blaine Adamson declined to print promotional shirts for a gay pride festival, he found himself facing a discrimination ruling from the county’s human rights commission.

But he also found an abundance of support, including some from an unlikely source – the lesbian owners of a screen print shop heard about his story and came to his defense.

“Because if you lose,” Adamson explained the owners’ reasoning to CNA, “then they also lose the right to reject messages from churches or other groups that they may not want to print for.”

“So it’s not just a Christian issue when it comes to freedom of speech. It’s everyone’s issue.”

Adamson was part of a panel of Christian business owners who are facing or may face legal consequences for operating their businesses according to their religious beliefs.

The panel spoke Tuesday in Washington D.C., at an Alliance Defending Freedom event, “Conscience and Creative Professionals,” exploring religious freedom cases that are expected to make their way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Panel members included Adamson, Washington state florist Barronelle Stutzman, and Breanna Koski and Joanna Duka, owners of a Phoenix-based custom art studio who are challenging a city ordinance they say would force them to cater to same-sex weddings against their consciences. Kelvin Cochran, the former fire chief of Atlanta who was fired over a book he personally wrote defending Christian views on sex, also spoke.

The panelists are among an increasing number of small business owners who found themselves facing legal threats and discrimination complaints when they decided they could not cater to same-sex weddings. However, they have argued that they are happy to serve gay and lesbian clients – and many have strong relationships with LGBT clients – but it is specifically same-sex wedding ceremonies or related events that they morally object to participating in.

Barronelle Stutzman was sued by Washington state and the American Civil Liberties Union for declining to make flower arrangements for the same-sex wedding of a long-time customer. After losing at the trial court level, she has appealed her case to the Washington Supreme Court.

At the panel event, Stutzman said she has received “overwhelming” support in the form of letters, cards, and phone calls – even from unexpected sources.

She said one man called her saying he was gay, but offering her $5,000 he had in savings, because he objected to the state’s complaint against her. “‘I know I’ll be ostracized by the gay community,’ he said, ‘but I don’t care,’” Stutzman recalled.

In another instance, she said two lesbian customers of hers pledged to continue shopping with her.

“They said ‘you’ve never, ever treated us poorly. You’ve always respected us and waited on us, and we really appreciate it. We will continue to shop here,’” Stutzman related. “So there is encouragement in that.”

Adamson says he has received local and national support for his stand for religious freedom. The supporters include former employees of his who have come out as gay but praise his business, including one lady who told him that “I would disrespect you more if you would have printed those shirts.”

“Because she had seen over the years that I had rejected messages from all walks of life that I felt like went against my conscience,” Adamson explained.

Eugene Volokh, who teaches religious freedom and free speech law at UCLA School of Law, even wrote in the Washington Post that he agreed with the Kentucky trial court judge, who had ruled that Adamson was protected under both the First Amendment and the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Adamson says he has rejected many shirt designs that he found he could not in good conscience print – like offers from strip clubs and a porn rally, designs with violent content, and a fraternity that wanted shirts with Jesus riding a motorcycle.

“It just looked disrespectful,” he said of the last example. “I mean, [Jesus] is the King of Kings. And is my Savior. And it was just something that convicted me that I couldn’t print.”

The panel members also shared their personal stories, including how their faith has been tested as they face litigation and the possible loss of their livelihood.

Cochran said his faith is a “living faith” and he has no choice but to live it in public.

“It is a faith that, when you live it out through faith and obedience, there should be evidence that it is real,” he said.

“My faith does not teach me to discriminate against anyone,” he added. Rather, he said it teaches him to “love everyone without condition” and “recognize the inherent worth and dignity of all peoples.”

Stutzman says she had a good relationship with Rob, her gay customer on behalf of whom the ACLU and the state of Washington filed their complaint.

“Rob has been a favorite customer of mine for over 10 years,” she said. “I love working with Rob.”

After she heard Rob would have a wedding soon with his partner and would want her to serve it, she discussed the matter with her husband. “The thing that our faith teaches us is that marriage is between a man and a woman and it symbolizes Christ and His relationship with the Church,” Stutzman explained.

“So when Rob came in to talk to me about his wedding, I just gently put my hands on Rob’s, and I said ‘I’m sorry Rob. I can’t do your wedding because of my relationship with Jesus Christ.’ And he said he understood.”

They talked for a little while and Stutzman said she recommended three other florists to Rob “who I knew would do him a good job.” Then they hugged and Rob departed.

Shortly after, Rob’s partner posted about the matter on Facebook, saying Stutzman had the right to believe as she did but had hurt their feelings. The post went viral.

For two weeks, the business received death threats, bombing threats, and picketing threats. Stutzman said she reached out to the police and had a security system installed. After that, the state and the ACLU “filed a lawsuit against us personally and corporately,” she noted.

Because of the nature of the suit, “we stand to lose everything we worked for and own,” Stutzman said, as ACLU attorney fees are “over a million dollars now and will probably be over two by the time this is finished.”

Stutzman says she has seen Rob twice since she declined to serve his wedding, but the last time was in court.

When asked what she would say to Rob in person, she responded, “I’d be so excited to see Rob. I would hug him. I would catch up on his life. And I would serve him another 10 years. I miss him.”

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U.S. NEWS

Here’s the full text of Donald Trump’s interview with EWTN

by CNA/EWTN News • October 28, 2016

Raymond Arroyo interviewing Donald Trump. (EWTN)

Washington D.C. — In an exclusive interview on the Eternal Word Television Network, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appealed to Catholic voters and other voters of faith, saying that his rival Hillary Clinton will be hostile to them.

The interview, conducted by Raymond Arroyo, host of EWTN’s The World Over, aired Oct. 27, in the final days of a contentious election cycle.

During the discussion, Trump said that Clinton is ultimately responsible for recently leaked emails from one of her leading staff members calling for a “revolution” in the Catholic Church. He pledged his commitment to religious freedom and said that Clinton’s remarks towards people of faith have been “terrible,” to the point that if he were Catholic, he would stop talking to other Catholics who voted for her.

Trump also mentioned an experience in his life that he says led to a major pro-life conversion, and touched on his prayer life and favorite saints.

He addressed accusations of sexual assault against him, saying that they are not true, and reiterating his stance that his controversial recorded comments regarding women were “locker-room talk.”

The interview also talked about health care, refugees, and cleared up uncertainty on whether Trump uses the expression “bigly” or “big league.”

The full text of the interview with Raymond Arroyo is below:

EWTN: Great! Mr. Trump, thanks for the time.

Thank you.

EWTN: I want to start with your mother, Mary Trump, who we hear very little about; but, you said she had a flair for the dramatic. What do you see in yourself that you saw in her?

Maybe that … she was a … she was a terrific woman — beautiful woman. She was born in Scotland, came here at 19 years of age; met my father; they got married. They were married for 63 years or something, and they had a great marriage. It was very beautiful, but she was a very, very smart woman. And she was a very religious woman, actually.

EWTN: Tell me — we’re talking about women. There’s been a lot of confusion, controversy out on the trail. When I travel the country, people say, “I’d like to vote for Donald Trump, but I don’t think I can look my wife and my daughter in the eye if I did so.” They’re reacting to those Billy Bush comments and the reaction to some of these people who are accusing you across the country. What do you say to them?

Well, that never happened — those were artificial. They were made up, just like at the rallies, where they made up, you know, they brought the protesters in. They paid them. They were thugs, and they, you know, they paid them, I guess, $1,500 or something and an iPhone. That was artificial, and, actually, criminal, what they did. And nobody understood it at the time, and it was put in there by the Clinton campaign. This stuff was all made up. And so, I protested it. And, actually, witnesses have come forward, and much of it’s already been debunked, but it was all made up.

EWTN: What do you say to those who still have lingering concerns? Have you changed since those comments were made … a decade ago?

Well, it was locker-room talk; it was locker-room talk. The microphones, I mean, to be honest, should, you know, should never have been on, but that was locker-room talk. And it’s just one of those things. I have it. I’ve said it. I’ve made my apologies, but again, just one of those things.

EWTN: I want to read something Newt Gingrich recently said about you. He said, “He is a transformational figure, but one that reacts very intensely, almost uncontrollably, to anything that attacks his own sense of integrity.” Do you regret some of the reactions you’ve made over this election season and perhaps the way you phrase those reactions?

Well, you know, I started with 17 people, and it was a very, very nasty primary, and they were nasty to me. You know, people think I was nasty, but they were nasty to me, and I ended up winning, you know; one in 17 — and it was actually 18, if you want to be exact. And then, I have the final now with Hillary Clinton, and I hear we’re doing very well in the polls, and we’re doing very well in Florida, which is up now. The reaction has been amazing. So we’ll have to see what happens. But, no, look — you can’t go back. You have to look forward. This was a nasty campaign, and, you know, people don’t mention, but they were nasty to me. I think, in many cases, they were nastier to me than I was to them.

EWTN: And, as a president, you wouldn’t react that way?

No, I don’t think so. It depends; you react a different way for different people. These were 17 people coming at me from every angle, and, you know, I hit them hard. Most of them are now endorsing me. Some of them dishonored the pledge: They signed a pledge, and they dishonored the pledge, and they’ll have to live with that. But most of them have endorsed me.

EWTN: I want to get into some issues.

Okay.

EWTN: You weren’t always pro-life, but you now are determinedly and decidedly pro-life.

Yes, I am pro-life.

EWTN: You said you are going to appoint judges who are pro-life.

Right.

EWTN: You’re very concerned about the late-term abortions. What was the moment that changed your thinking, your heart, on this?

Well, there are a number of moments, but one was a couple that I know very, very well — and you had a strong pro-life [person] and you had a strong pro-choice [person], and they argued over [the pregnancy]. … The mother was pregnant. They argued over the child. One, I won’t get into specifics.

EWTN: Sure.

But one wanted to abort. And the other said, “We can’t do that. We’re not going to do that.” Anyway, they had the baby. It was a long time ago. And the baby is such a magnificent person, who I know, a magnificent person. And the person that was actually pro-choice is now pro-life because of it, and it had a big effect on me. But I’ve seen other examples similar to that; but I’ve seen other examples, so …

EWTN: So, it was a personal change for you?

It is a personal change. And, you know, Ronald Reagan made that personal change, too. Many people have made the personal change. I mean, some make the personal change the other way, also.

EWTN: Right … right.

But I made the personal change, and I’m very happy with it.

EWTN: Tell me about religious liberty. I know this is becoming a growing concern for you, particularly for so many faith-based voters and people who are in nonprofits …

Right.

EWTN: Religious-service people.

Right.

EWTN: Whether it’s the Little Sisters of the Poor or, you know, these private businesses who are religiously motivated, they feel this Obamacare mandate, which demands contraceptive and abortifacient services, as part of insurance …

Right.

EWTN: … is intrusive.

Right.

EWTN: What would you do as president?

Well, let me tell you: Religious Liberty itself, taken in the biggest picture, is in tremendous trouble. Okay? I mean, religious liberty in this country is in tremendous trouble.

EWTN: You mean expression of religion?

I’m talking expression, and I’m talking anything else you want to talk about. People that are faith-based are not having, you know, they’re just not having, they’re not being accepted. It’s almost like they’re not being accepted in our country anymore. Obama has been a disaster, in terms of religious liberty. And, one of the things I’m very proud of: I was with pastors, ministers, priests, rabbis, on numerous occasions, large numbers; and at the first meeting, I could see I had tremendous support like, beyond. … And I said, “When are you going to endorse me?” And they said, “We can’t do that.” And I said, “Why can’t you do that?” They said, “We’re not allowed to do that. If we did that, we’d lose our tax-exempt status.”

EWTN: Right.

And I said, “Why is that?” And they told me about the Johnson Amendment, 1954. And I thought about it for a month. And we had a meeting again — 56 different pastors, ministers, etc., and I said, “We’re going to get rid of the Johnson Amendment because our pastors and ministers should have the right to go out and speak their minds.” These are the people we respect, and they’re actually precluded from speaking their mind. If they speak their mind, their whole tax-exempt status can be taken away.

EWTN: Pulled out from under them, yeah.

So we’re getting rid … and I think it’s one of the most important things that I’ll be doing for the evangelicals and for religion. So, I think it’s very, very important. So, we’re going to get rid of the Johnson Amendment.

EWTN: And what about Obamacare? The administration admitted these premiums are going to go up 25% on average, could be 50% in some markets.

Right. Right.

EWTN: Given that and this religious objection to the Obamacare mandate, what are you going to do as president?

Obamacare is killing our country. It’s killing our jobs. It’s a disaster. I’ve been saying it for a long time. I’ve been talking about it for a long time, before it was even approved.

EWTN: What do you replace it with?

Whether it’s health care savings accounts — by the way, there are many things, but health care savings accounts are phenomenal. You have to break up the lines between the states so that we have competition. Once you create competition, those numbers will go so low, but you have to repeal and replace Obamacare. It’s a disaster. And the number of 25%: Washington came out?

EWTN: Yeah.

Say, I’m sorry to say your numbers [have] gone up 25%. It’s wrong. It’s going up 50%, 60%, 70%, and next year it’s going to go up again. It’s going to get worse. And Hillary Clinton wants to keep Obamacare going. And people are going to be paying hundreds; I mean, when you really look at it, they’ll be paying 150%. It doesn’t work. It’s no good on its face. It doesn’t work. Never would have worked, should have never been approved. It was approved by a lie. I mean, let’s face it.

EWTN: You mentioned Hillary Clinton. She is saying [about] your unwillingness to accept the election results, which happened at the last debate — she says, “This poses a direct threat to our democracy.” Does it?

Well, you know, who had said the same thing, and I won the last debate; according to everybody, I won it easily. But, you know, who really said it pretty well was Obama: When he was running in his first election, they asked him the same question. And he talked about rigged elections and rigged everything else. Our system is rigged.

EWTN: What do you mean when you say that, specifically?

Whether it’s through the media …

EWTN: Not the electoral process?

Well, you know, Obama said it was. I mean, he said the electoral process is rigged. I mean, all you have to do is go back and look what he ran, when he first ran.

EWTN: But are you worried about the counting of votes?

Well, if you look at research, certainly there’s some of that going on. We can be babies and say it doesn’t happen; but certainly, if you look at Philadelphia, if you look at Chicago, if you look at St. Louis, if you look at Obama’s statements from eight years ago: Take a look at his statements, what he said about it. I saw it last night. It was, like, incredible; he was far more outgoing, as far as that’s concerned, than I am; but, overall, what I’m really concerned about is the system is rigged — whether it’s the media rigging the system, there are so many things wrong. Look: Hillary Clinton shouldn’t be allowed to run. She lied. What she did with her emails, where she deleted 33,000 emails, she shouldn’t even be allowed to run for the presidency. She gets a subpoena from the United States Congress, and she deletes her emails. Now, James Cartwright, Gen. James Cartwright, may go to jail for five years because he lied to the FBI. She lied to the FBI probably hundreds of times, and she’s allowed to do it, but a four-star general is going to go to jail? She shouldn’t even be allowed to run for the office of president.

EWTN: You mentioned emails. These WikiLeak revelations have offended a lot of evangelicals and Catholics.

Right.

EWTN: Now, these were members of Hillary Clinton’s staff, John Podesta, her communications director, and they said things like this. They suggested that they needed to plant seeds of rebellion in the Catholic Church to somehow change the teaching to accommodate their political agenda.

Terrible. Sure.

EWTN: They said it was a backward, Middle Aged dictatorship. Now, that’s her staff.

It’s her.

EWTN: Is she guilty of that? Should she apologize?

It’s her. It’s her. She should apologize. I think she has to do more than apologize. You know, that’s her thinking. That’s her staff. Frankly, if any Catholic votes for Hillary Clinton, you know, I would say, if I were a Catholic, I wouldn’t be talking to them anymore. She’s been terrible in what she said and her thoughts towards Catholics and to evangelicals. She was mocking evangelicals, also. So, you’d say, why would an evangelical or a Catholic — and almost, you could say, anybody of faith, but in particular, because they were mentioned, evangelicals and Catholics — why would they vote for Hillary Clinton? And how could they vote for Hillary Clinton? But that’s her speaking, believe me.

EWTN: Well, if it’s her staff. Do you think it reveals a mindset in the administration?

Well, it’s her staff, but I think it’s her.

EWTN: Is that what you’re suggesting … or in her campaign, rather?

Yeah, sure; I mean, this is the top person in her campaign. I think it reveals her, yes.

EWTN: I want to talk personally about you. When you pray, what do you pray for?

I, I don’t want to talk to you about that. I mean, I pray. It’s very personal to me. I’m a person of belief, but I certainly, you know, I pray for my family. I pray for our country, but I don’t want to talk to you about that. I think that’s very personal.

EWTN: Okay, between you and God.

It is between me and God, yes.

EWTN: You are Presbyterian, so I don’t want to drag you into other realms. Do you have a favorite saint?

Well, I think that if you look, Mother Teresa, who’s probably our newest, is great, and John Paul … Pope John Paul, I thought, was terrific.

EWTN: Why?

Because he had something special. He had a special something. There was a warmth. There was a toughness, but there was a warmth that was incredible. So, I certainly think, Pope John Paul.

EWTN: No candidate since the advent of polling has come back this late in a race from a five-point national deficit. How do you turn it around in these last days?

Well, No. 1, I don’t believe there’s a five-point deficit.

EWTN: You don’t?

It was done by CNN. And it was, you know, heavily skewed toward Democrats. I don’t believe there’s a five-point deficit; and if you look at the polling booths in Florida right now, if you look at where they’re voting, the voting booths, I think you’re going to see record crowds. That’s what you’re seeing. It’s only two days, but that’s what you’re seeing. And, I think, we’re going to do really well.

EWTN: Hmm. You have said this is a movement. You’re the leader of a movement, whether you win or lose. What are the issues that this party, the GOP, will have to contend with as part of that movement?

There are many issues. The biggest issue right now is the judges, Supreme Court judges, but Obamacare is a massive issue. The Republicans have to get rid of it. They’ve been unsuccessful in doing it. I will get rid of it. And I’ll replace it with something much better and much less expensive for the people. Jobs have to stop leaving our country. Our military has to be rebuilt, and we need, you know, it’s been very depleted. The military has to be rebuilt. We have to take care of our vets. We have to protect our Second Amendment, which is under siege. And we have to have strong borders. Right now, people are pouring into our country. Drugs are pouring into our country. We have to stop the people and the drugs.

EWTN: Now, Hillary Clinton says we need [to let] more of these Syrian refugees in: “These people are suffering abroad. They need to come home. And we have … we need … they need to come here. And we as a country should be open to them.” You would say what?

I would say: She’s crazy. I would say that it’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. We have no idea. We’re not vetting them properly. We have no idea — are they ISIS? Are they not ISIS? Where are they coming from? Who they are? We’re taking them in by the tens of thousands right now, and Hillary Clinton wants to upgrade that by 550%. I would say to you it’s crazy to be doing this, and I will stop it immediately. We will not have radical Islamic terrorists coming into our country, and some of them will be radical Islamic terrorists.

EWTN: Okay, my final question: It is perhaps the most portentous. We’ve been seeing on social media, we’ve been seeing it in The New York Times, in USA Today — are you saying “bigly” or “big league”? And my guess is within. So there’s money riding on this.

Well …

EWTN: “Bigly” or “big league?”

Now, let me ask you: Are you talking about for me?

EWTN: When you’re speaking on the podium, and you say, “This is … ?”

I, I use, “big league.”

EWTN: I was right!

Good. Okay, good.

EWTN: “Big league,” you’ve settled it.

Okay. Thank you.

EWTN: Thank you.

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U.S. NEWS

Iowa church drops suit after court nixes fears of ‘gender identity’ prosecution

by CNA/EWTN News • October 28, 2016

(Unsplash/Catholic News Agency)

Des Moines, IA — A Des Moines church has dropped its lawsuit against the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, after a federal court reassured the church it would not face penalties for preaching and following its views on homosexuality and transgender issues, including single-sex bathrooms.

“The Iowa commission’s guidance was vague and empowered government bureaucrats far beyond what the constitution allows,” said Steve O’Ban, Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel. “The court cut off this unconstitutional power grab by clarifying that the law does not apply to churches and reassured Iowa churches that they are free from improper state interference.”

O’Ban represented Fort Des Moines Church of Christ in U.S. district court. The church filed suit based on fears that the state’s anti-discrimination policy on gender identity and sexual orientation would make it legally liable for preaching and following its views on homosexuality and transgender issues – including maintaining single-sex bathrooms.

The Iowa Civil Rights Commission, however, said it has never enforced the law against churches and had been clear that churches are generally exempt.

“We have the same comments that we had in July, there had been no change to the law, no change in the application of the law and we were never trying to impose any kind of requirements against the preachers and the pulpit,” Kristin H. Johnson, the commission’s executive director, told the Des Moines Register.

In mid-October, the federal court ruled that the legal challenge was based on reasonable concerns of fear of prosecution, but at the same time said that churches are not public accommodations subject to government control.

The court also declined church attorneys’ request for a preliminary injunction against state enforcement.

Christian Holcomb, legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, said the lawsuit was necessary to ensure there would be no state enforcement of the law against churches. She added “we’re pleased that Iowa churches now have the reassurance and clarity that they need.”

Earlier this year, the state civil rights commission had produced a guide to Iowa law for public accommodations providers concerning sexual orientation and gender identity.

The brochure-sized guide said the 2007 Iowa Civil Rights Act applies to churches “sometimes.” It suggested that churches could be subject to the law if they operated a child care facility or held “a church service open to the public.”

The guide barred harassment including “intentional use of names and pronouns inconsistent with a person’s presented gender.”

According to the commission, the law requires locker rooms, restrooms, and living facilities in places of public accommodation to be open to persons based on their self-identified gender identity.

The civil rights commission receives complaints from those who believe they have been discriminated against. Its pamphlet said it was designed for educational purposes only and not intended to be legal advice.

The pamphlet was revised after the lawsuit was filed.

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U.S. NEWS

Supreme Court to hear school’s transgender bathroom case

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • October 28, 2016

The U.S. Supreme Court building. (Addie Mena/CNA)

Washington D.C. — The Supreme Court has announced that it will hear a case on whether students identifying as transgender may be required to use restrooms according to their biological birth sex.

“Schools have a duty to protect the privacy and safety of all students. That’s a compelling reason for the Supreme Court to review the 4th Circuit’s decision in this case, especially when other courts – including the 4th Circuit itself previously – have upheld that principle,” said Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Gary McCaleb, in response to the Court’s taking up the case G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board.

“In light of the right to bodily privacy, federal law should not be twisted to require that a male be given access to the girls’ facilities, or a female to the boys’ facilities,” he continued. “The Supreme Court should reverse the 4th Circuit’s ruling, which is out of step with the law and previous federal court precedent.”

Earlier, a U.S. Fourth Circuit Court judge had ruled that, in the case of student Gavin Grimm, who identified as transgender in the Gloucester County (Va.) School District, the school board must allow Grimm access to the bathroom of choice.

The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, which put a temporary stay on the ruling in August. Then on Friday, Court agreed to hear the case. It may serve as a landmark case for how other similar situations around the country are resolved in the courts.

According to court documents, Grimm was born a girl but received hormone therapy and a legal name change. Grimm’s mother told school officials that Grimm was “a transgender boy.”

Grimm was initially allowed access to the boys’ bathroom at school but then “the Board began receiving complaints from parents and students who regarded G.G.’s presence in the boys’ room as an invasion of student privacy,” the petition to the Court seeking review of the case stated.

“Parents also expressed general concerns that allowing students into restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite biological sex could enable voyeurism or sexual assault,” the statement continued.

The board, “to provide a safe learning environment for all students and to protect the privacy of all students,” then restricted access to bathrooms based on a student’s sex at birth. Students identifying as a different gender would use a separate unisex bathroom.

According to lawyers, Grimm refused to use a private bathroom because doing so would “make him feel even more stigmatized … .Being required to use separate restrooms sets him apart from his peers, and serves as a daily reminder that the school views him as ‘different.’”

The case went to court, and in April, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court ruled that Grimm should be allowed access to the boys’ bathroom. It cited the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights statement that “a school generally must treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity.”

The petition to the Court noted that Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination on basis of sex, allows for “separate toilet, locker rooms, and shower facilities on the basis of sex” so long as the facilities are “comparable.”

However, it added, “a Department of Education official opined in an unpublished letter that Title IX’s prohibition of ‘sex’ discrimination ‘include[s] gender identity,’ and that a funding recipient providing sex-separated facilities under the regulation ‘must generally treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity.’”

Thus, the case will hinge on whether the Court allows for this interpretation of Title IX – one that includes “gender identity” under protections against “sex discrimination” – to be correct and carry the “force of law.”

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FEATURES

The bizarre tale of 5,000 relics finding a home in a Pittsburgh chapel

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

Relics inside St. Anthony’s Chapel. (CNA)

Pittsburgh, PA — Nestled in a sleepy neighborhood in the hills rising over Pittsburgh lies a small chapel. Inside St. Anthony’s Chapel lies a piece from the Crown of Thorns, a tooth of St. Anthony of Padua, and more than 5,000 other verified relics, or remains, of saints from around the world.

Indeed for the fragments from the bodies and scraps of the belongings of countless saints, these relics continued to have earthly adventures long after the saints’ deaths. Many of the relics traveled across the world to escape war, confiscation, and desecration to make it into the safe hands of a Belgian-born physician and priest, Fr. Suitbert Mollinger, who founded the chapel.

The chapel now holds the largest collection of relics outside of Rome.

“Fr. Stewart Mollinger, well, he had an unusual hobby in which he liked to acquire relics of the saints,” Carole Brueckner, chairperson of the committee for St. Anthony’s Chapel, explained to CNA.

But in the midst of the political and social turmoil which Europe experienced at the end of the 19th century, this curious hobby was crucial to saving relics from across the continent.

Since the second century, Catholics have honored the relics of saints- either pieces of body parts or cherished belongings of holy men and women. While theologians and Church documents clarify that relics are not to be worshiped, nor do they hold magical powers, the teaching adds that relics must be treated with respect, as they belong to persons now in heaven. While relics do not have power in and of themselves, God can continue to work miracles in the presence of the saint’s body even after death, the Church teaches. Relics are present in, or below, many Catholic altars.

Because of their important place in Catholic devotion as well as their presence at Mass, relics became a target of anti-Catholic persecution in Europe.

“It was a very chaotic time, in a sense, for Catholics, because people were fighting for territories and countries,” Brueckner said. During the mid- to late- 19th century the political boundaries – and also religious identities – of regions across Europe shifted as the modern nation-states of Germany, Italy, France, and Belgium formed, the power of the nobility and the Church ebbed, and secular governments arose.

Many nobles and religious “were afraid that their governments or the monarchies under which they lived would commit and confiscate the relics from them,” she explained. In some regions, Brueckner continued, authorities even “desecrated the relics and on occasion they would put someone in prison for having a relic in their possession.”

“Due to what was happening in Europe, this was an opportune time for Father to enrich upon his own personal collection of relics of the saints,” she elaborated. While it is forbidden for Catholics to sell or purchase relics, Fr. Mollinger was loaned or granted relics from friends in his home country of Belgium, as well as from his travels in the Netherlands, Italy, and elsewhere.

“Many times, his friends, who are also religious, would write and ask him if he could take some of their relics and keep them in safekeeping, until their countries or monarchies became stable, and Father always responded ‘yes,’”’ she explained. “Father also had agents that he had throughout Europe that were looking for the relics, because in essence, he would try to rescue them from being destroyed by governments and monarchies that existed in Europe at this time.”

Initially, Fr. Mollinger kept the growing relic collection in his rectory. Medical patients as well as faithful Catholics would visit the doctor-priest for both spiritual and physical treatment, and “they had the opportunity to venerate them those relics when they were there.”

Many pilgrims, Brueckner said, “were cured of their anomaly or disability” after receiving physical or spiritual aid in the presence of the relics. As a result, “Father was gaining the reputation as a priest-physician-healer,” she elaborated. Records of local Pittsburgh newspapers of the time documented Fr. Mollinger’s treatments, as well as the thousands of people who traveled to venerate the relics.

Fr. Mollinger, however, “thought they belonged in a beautiful church so that everybody could visit and venerate the relics,” and thus built with his own funds a chapel to house them.

The first section of the chapel was completed on the feast of St. Anthony in 1883, and houses the thousands of relics collected by Fr. Mollinger at the time. The second section was also completed on the feast of St. Anthony, nine years later in 1892, and contains the Stations of the Cross and relics collected after the chapel’s completion. Fr. Mollinger died two days after the last section of the chapel was completed.

Among the relics the chapel currently claims are splinters from the True Cross and the Column of Flagellation; stone from the Garden of Gethsemane; a nail that held Christ to the Cross; material from Jesus, Mary and Joseph’s clothing; a “piece of bone from all of the apostles”; and relics from St Therese of Liseux, St. Rose of Lima, St. Faustina, St. Kateri Tekawitha.

“If I had to name all the saints, we’d be here forever,” Brueckner exclaimed.

Nearly all these relics have been verified, as well.

“When a relic is placed within that reliquary, it is sealed and it can never be opened again,” Brueckner said, explaining that the Church’s strict rules guard against tampering and forgery of relics. “For a relic to be venerated, you do need to have a document, and the document comes from the hierarchy in the Church. That document will tell you who the saint is, what the relic is, and it is saying that the Catholic Church has done their research and we can say what the relic is.”

“We do have the certificates of authenticity for almost all of our relics here within the chapel.”

While belief in the authenticity of the relics relies on a trust that “the Catholic Church has done their research, and I’m going to believe what the Catholic Church is saying,” Brueckner said, visitors still experience the same presence documented by the first pilgrims to the collection of saintly relics. “Many times when people come into the chapel they will say that they actually feel a presence.”

“I say that it’s like stepping into a little piece of heaven, because you are surrounded by so many people that our Church tells us are in heaven,” she remarked.

This story originally ran Aug. 20, 2015.

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FEATURES

Time to end the death penalty for the innocent in the womb and the guilty in the prison system

by Deacon Keith Fournier • October 24, 2016

On October 10, 2016, the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops released a letter entitled “Capital Punishment: The death penalty does not fulfill justice.” In this summary of Catholic teaching concerning the death penalty, the Bishops of Texas have provided a service for Catholics and other Christians.

After explaining Catholic social teaching, they summarized the current state of that teaching as it pertains to the death penalty. “Catholic teaching unequivocally states that ‘if non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means’ …” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2267).

The Bishops opined, “This simply means if alternatives to the death penalty exist that serve to protect society from violent criminals, society ‘must limit itself’ to these other means. There can be no doubt such means exist today in the United States, including in the State of Texas.”

I oppose the death penalty. I used to say my opposition was a part of my effort to follow a consistent ethic of life. Unfortunately, that expression is now a loaded one. It has been co-opted by some who want to blur the distinction between absolute opposition to procured abortion and discouraging the use of the death penalty.

There is no moral equivalence between these two positions.

From my ministry and activism across Christian confessional lines, I know many Christians who do not share my opposition to the death penalty. Among them are some fellow Catholics. I have always been uncomfortable with being labeled politically. I am first, last and all in between, a Catholic Christian. I embrace what my Church teaches because I believe that it is true.

I returned to the Catholic Church as a young man and stand in fidelity with her teaching office. In fact, I am grateful for that office. I think it is extremely important to clarify that current Catholic teaching opposing the death penalty is predicated upon a very different moral ground than the longstanding absolute opposition to procured abortion.

Procured Abortion

Procured abortion is intrinsically evil, meaning it is always and everywhere wrong. In his encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae, Pope St. John Paul II explained why: “The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when we consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated is a human being at the very beginning of life.”

“No one more absolutely innocent could be imagined. In no way could this human being ever be considered an aggressor, much less an unjust aggressor! He or she is weak, defenseless, even to the point of lacking that minimal form of defense consisting in the poignant power of a newborn baby’s cries and tears.”

“The unborn child is totally entrusted to the protection and care of the woman carrying him or her in the womb. And yet sometimes it is precisely the mother herself who makes the decision and asks for the child to be eliminated, and who then goes about having it done.” (#58)

This emphasis of the innocence of the child in the womb followed upon the Pope’s explanation of the authoritative basis of this teaching,

“Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, and in communion with the Bishops of the Catholic Church, I confirm that the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral. This doctrine, based upon that unwritten law which man, in the light of reason, finds in his own heart (cf. Rom 2:14-15), is reaffirmed by Sacred Scripture, transmitted by the Tradition of the Church and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.”

His impassioned defense of the right to life continued, “No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church.” (#62)

The Death Penalty

Current Catholic teaching opposes the death penalty because it can no longer be justified. We are also not dealing, at least presumably, with the death of the innocent. This opposition is a relatively new development. In other times in history, and in other circumstances, the Catholic Church did not oppose the death penalty. It was supported as within the purview of the state in the exercise of its obligation to protect the public and preserve the common good.

I am often asked my opinion as to whether the possibility exists wherein its use may once again be considered justified. I used to say it was highly unlikely. However, given the evil some of our Christian brethren are now suffering at the hands of the Islamic State in the Middle East and the North of Africa, the issue is more than a hypothetical question.

The contemporary opposition to the death penalty by the Catholic Church is affirmed in the Catholic Catechism:

“If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and 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 with the dignity of the human person.” (#2267)

The Catechism was amended. The language surprised some in the Catholic Church and the broader Christian community. In Evangelium Vitae Pope St John Paul addressed government authorities charged with administering justice:

“The nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today, however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare if not practically non-existent.” (#56)

Other Concerns

There is more at issue in the implementation of lethal punishment by the civil government. As a former prosecuting attorney, my experience informs my belief that there are many reasons to justify its elimination from both the federal and state criminal justice systems. The advance of the science of DNA continues to prove that we have made mistakes and convicted innocent people. Sadly, our history as a nation demonstrates a disparate application.

Then there are the growing number of news reports demonstrating the errors which have been made in past prosecutions when the science of DNA testing was unavailable. The accounts from the Innocence Project should be enough to give us pause.

I have also been cautious on the use of the death penalty, as a Christian. Remember the examples of significant leaders in both the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament who could have been put to death for their offenses? Moses killed an Egyptian (Exodus 2). Saul of Tarsus stood by in what was arguably complicity at the death of Stephen, the first deacon/martyr of the nascent Christian Church. (Acts 8) In other words, people can and do change. Punishment can and does rehabilitate and offer opportunities for such change.

Conclusion

There is growing discomfort with the death penalty in America which crosses confessional and political lines. It is an issue where the political party labels have lost what little value they might have ever had. However, some Democrats and Republicans seem to be “out-toughing” one another on this issue.

It is more than ironic that some political liberals or progressives who oppose the death penalty fail to see the extraordinary duplicity in their approach to inflicting it upon children in the womb.

For example, some in the left wing of the civil rights community, like the Reverend Jesse Jackson, really know the complete hypocrisy of such an approach. He was formerly an ardent opponent of making procured abortion legal, until his political ambitions blinded him to the cry of the ones whom Mother Teresa called the “poorest of the poor”, children in the womb.

There are political conservatives who suffer from compassion confusion. They oppose the execution of innocent children in the womb but support the execution of convicted felons outside of it, without any reservation. On their right flank are libertarians who support both kinds of execution, though not all libertarians do.

I am addressing my fellow Catholics who oppose both abortion and capital punishment, but fail to make the vital distinction necessary in explaining this opposition. This difference matters. The different moral grounds I have discussed for the Church’s opposition to the death penalty and her opposition to abortion are much more than semantics.

The child in the womb is our innocent neighbor in the first home of the whole human race. Medical science confirms what our consciences long ago attested to: there is no justification for taking innocent life. Defending the fundamental human right to life of children in the womb is not simply a religious position. It is a fundamental human rights position.

The natural moral law, written on every human heart and knowable through the exercise of reason, affirms this undeniable truth. Some still pretend to hide behind the Orwellian new-speak of the rhetoric of choice – but even they know that taking innocent human life is never a right choice. We surgically operate on our neighbors in the womb. We send their beautiful photos around on social media. We write scholarly articles about the value of playing music to them and speaking words of warmth over their first home while we await their arrival.

Finally, there is no comparison between how procured abortions and capital executions are committed. The heinous and evil way in which our youngest neighbors are executed far exceeds the barbarism displayed by capital punishment.

There was a joint editorial from America magazine, the National Catholic Register, the National Catholic Reporter, and Our Sunday Visitor on March 15, 2015. They stood together in opposition to the death penalty. I suggest it is time for another editorial from the four, and opened up to more signers, rejecting procured abortion as always and everywhere wrong and calling for an immediate end to the legal execution of children in the womb.

It is time for a national discussion of the death penalty for many reasons. However, it is long past time to end legalized procured abortion. It is time to end the death penalty for the innocent in the womb and the guilty in the prison system.

Deacon Keith A. Fournier is Founder and Chairman of Common Good Foundation and Alliance. A member of the clergy, a Roman Catholic Deacon, he is also a constitutional/human rights lawyer and public policy advocate who served as the first and founding Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice in the nineteen nineties. He has long been active at the intersection of faith, values, and culture and currently serves as Special Counsel to Liberty Counsel. Deacon Fournier is also a Senior Contributing Writer for THE STREAM.

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FEATURES

Inferno: An uptick for Dan Brown film adaptations

by Carl Kozlowski • October 28, 2016

There are few films in the past decade or two that stirred up as much controversy among Catholics as “The Da Vinci Code.” That 2006 film, based on a best-selling book by Dan Brown, starred Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon, a professor of religious iconography and symbology from Harvard University, who was engaged in a race to find the legendary Holy Grail.

The “DaVinci Code” turned controversial because it posited that Mary Magdalene was the bride of Christ and bore him children who carried on a line of descendants into the present day, an idea that is, of course, blasphemous to Christian belief. Meanwhile, its follow-up film, 2009’s “Angels & Demons,” had Langdon racing against time to solve a murder and prevent a terrorist act against the Vatican.

That film was a fun lark as the professor solved one improbable clue after another to save the day, and even the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano gave it its seal of approval as entertainment, after having condemned “The DaVinci Code.”

Now, the third film in the series is out this weekend, called “Inferno,” and it’s both the best and and least contentious one yet for Catholics. This time, there’s no controversial elements about our faith, and when the film does focus on Dante’s “Inferno” and a painting by Botticelli that it inspired of Hell, it takes the subject in a horrifyingly serious way and doesn’t mock it or contradict Hell in any way.

This time the stakes are raised to involve a threat far beyond solving a religious mystery or a terror threat against a religious institution to encompass an existential threat to the planet. The film opens with the sudden suicide of Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster), a billionaire scientist who rails against the threat of overpopulation and secretly has planned to release a deadly virus called “Inferno” that could wipe out half the planet’s human populace within days.

Cut to Langdon awakening in a hospital room in Florence, Italy, utterly disoriented and unable to process even the slightest sound without having an agonizing headache. He’s lost all memory of the previous 48 hours, and his mind is filled with horrific visions of a river of blood, people writhing in agony, and demons everywhere. Just as he starts talking to his doctor, Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), and tries to figure out what’s going on, a female dressed as a police officer comes barreling down the hallway like a Terminator, with guns blazing and the doctor forces Langdon to go on the run.

Langdon discovers a device called a “Faraday pointer,” which is a miniature image projector, in his pockets and finds that it projects an altered version of Sandro Botticelli’s painting “Map of Hell,” which is based on Dante’s “Inferno.” They soon realize this is the first clue in a trail left by Zobrist to locate where the virus is stored, and that they are being chased by both legitimate and rogue World Health Organization agents, as well as Italian police, with all the competing forces attempting to get their hands on the virus, either to destroy it or release it.

The result is an almost non-stop race across Florence and the rest of Italy, combining breakneck action with historic locations and impromptu lessons in art history to create a popcorn thriller that makes audiences feel smart as well as entertained. Hanks is in fine form and having a blast dishing out arcane information about religious codes and symbols at the same time he’s running for his life or engaged in dangerous escapes from a slew of people who want him to give up his information and then wish him dead.

Jones, a British actress who had her American breakthrough with an Oscar-nominated turn as Stephen Hawking’s wife in 2014’s “The Theory of Everything,” proves to be a fun sidekick to Langdon and brings welcome depth at a key moment in the film.

The film has very limited foul language, and most of the action is standard-level violence with no blood shown from shootings or one character’s deadly, steep fall. However, there are several very intense hallucination sequences in which Langdon sees demons, people writhing in pain and a giant river of blood – and comes to realize they are rooted in depictions of Hell, as seen in a Botticelli painting inspired by Dante’s “Inferno.” There are also a couple of quick flashes of grim medieval battle footage.

The fact that these depictions of Hell are neither contradicted nor mocked is impressive, as this is a rare Hollywood movie to show it in a truly horrific light. The movie is also a refreshing change of pace from its predecessors, as it does not mock Christianity or Catholicism at all.

There is also a brief scene implying sex, but the characters are seen fully clothed through the camera angle chosen.

Director Ron Howard returns after helming the first two films in the series, not only acing both the action and the smart stuff, but employing a diverse cast of distinctive-looking actors whose faces alone make viewers wonder who’s a hero or villain – a touch that adds to the fun throughout.

Tie it all together and this is mindless fun that still makes viewers feel kind of smart since it takes them through some of the world’s greatest arts institutions and teaches them about art in a way that will entertain and excite them, rather than bore them to tears in the vein of a college lecture. “Inferno” should prove popular enough to heat up the box office for a few weeks to come.

Carl Kozlowski has been a professional film critic and essayist for the past five years at Pasadena Weekly, in addition to the Christian movie site Movieguide.org, the conservative pop culture site Breitbart.com Big Hollywood, the Christian pop culture magazine Relevant, and New City newspaper in Chicago. He also writes in-depth celebrity interviews for Esquire.com and The Progressive. He is owner of the podcasting site radiotitans.com, which was named one of the Frontier Fifty in 2013 as one of the 50 best talk-radio outlets in the nation by talkers.com and will be re-launching it in January 2014 after a five-month sabbatical. He lives in Los Angeles.

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SUNDAY • OCTOBER 30, 2016

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Wis 11:22-12:2; NRSVCE)

The whole world before you is like a speck that tips the scales,

and like a drop of morning dew that falls on the ground.

But you are merciful to all, for you can do all things,

and you overlook people’s sins, so that they may repent.

For you love all things that exist,

and detest none of the things that you have made,

for you would not have made anything if you had hated it.

How would anything have endured if you had not willed it?

Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved?

You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living.

For your immortal spirit is in all things.

Therefore you correct little by little those who trespass,

and you remind and warn them of the things through which they sin,

so that they may be freed from wickedness and put their trust in you, O Lord.

Second Reading (2 Thes 1:11-2:2; NRSVCE)

We always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.

Gospel Reading (Lk 19:1-10; NRSVCE)

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

MONDAY • OCTOBER 31, 2016

Monday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Phil 2:1-4; NRSVCE)

If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

Gospel Reading (Lk 14:12-14; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to the one who had invited him into his home, “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.”

TUESDAY • NOVEMBER 1, 2016

Solemnity of All Saints

First Reading (Rv 7:2-4, 9-14; NRSVCE)

I, John, saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to damage earth and sea, saying, “Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants of our God with a seal on their foreheads.”

And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the people of Israel.

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing,

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom

and thanksgiving and honor

and power and might

be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

Second Reading (1 Jn 3:1-3; NRSVCE)

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

Gospel Reading (Mt 5:1-12a; NRSVCE)

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.”

WEDNESDAY • NOVEMBER 2, 2016

The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls)

First Reading (Wis 3:1-9; NRSVCE)

The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,

and no torment will ever touch them.

In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,

and their departure was thought to be a disaster,

and their going from us to be their destruction;

but they are at peace.

For though in the sight of others they were punished,

their hope is full of immortality.

Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good,

because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;

like gold in the furnace he tried them,

and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them.

In the time of their visitation they will shine forth,

and will run like sparks through the stubble.

They will govern nations and rule over peoples,

and the Lord will reign over them forever.

Those who trust in him will understand truth,

and the faithful will abide with him in love,

because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones,

and he watches over his elect.

Second Reading (Rom 5:5-11; NRSVCE)

Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Gospel Reading (Jn 6:37-40; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to the crowd, “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.”

THURSDAY • NOVEMBER 3, 2016

Thursday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Phil 3:3-8a; NRSVCE)

It is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh — even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Gospel Reading (Lk 15:1-10; NRSVCE)

All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

So Jesus told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

FRIDAY • NOVEMBER 4, 2016

Memorial of Saint Charles Borromeo

First Reading (Phil 3:17 — 4:1; NRSVCE)

Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

Gospel Reading (Lk 16:1-8; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”

SATURDAY • NOVEMBER 5, 2016

Saturday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Phil 4:10-19; NRSVCE)

I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned for me, but had no opportunity to show it. Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. In any case, it was kind of you to share my distress.

You Philippians indeed know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you alone. For even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs more than once. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that accumulates to your account. I have been paid in full and have more than enough; I am fully satisfied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Gospel Reading (Lk 16:9-15; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. So he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.”