VOLUME 2, ISSUE 21  •  NOVEMBER 19, 2016

Table of Contents

Copyright Notice

VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis: The Church’s mercy is for everyone

Pope Francis appoints new bishop of Hong Kong

What’s most important? God and our neighbor, Pope says

As Year of Mercy ends, Holy Doors close around the world

These four cardinals asked Pope Francis to clarify ‘Amoris laetitia’

Homeless persons find a spiritual father in Pope Francis

Papal nuncio to U.S. bishops: Mercy will heal wounds of division

‘Beloved’ Syria’s new cardinal a sign of the Pope’s closeness

Pope Francis encourages U.S. bishops in ministry to Latinos

Pope reminds Catholics to practice what they preach

Archbishop Gómez’s immigration stance praised by Vatican official

To be corrupt is to follow the devil, Pope Francis says

There is no justification for killing innocent people, Pope says

In new interview, Pope reflects on close of Jubilee

Like money too much? It’ll ruin your life, Pope Francis warns priests

Pope tells bishops to have compassion on those with failed marriages

Pope warns new cardinals against falling into polemics, division

American cardinals reflect after Pope’s anti-division comments

A Missionary of Mercy’s advice for priests after Jubilee

At close of Jubilee, Pope Francis says it’s a reminder of what’s essential

How an ex-prostitute’s horrific suffering moved Pope Francis

WORLD NEWS

U.K. cardinal: There are more homeless people than you think

‘Remarkable’ resilience of persecuted Christians focus of new film

Kidnapped Mexican priest found alive with signs of torture

Islamist extremism is a major religious freedom threat. But not the only one

What the poor suffer from most happens in developed countries

Stealing Hosts for anti-Catholic art? Not illegal, Spanish judge says

Promoting reconciliation and forgiveness, Salesians remain in Syria

Don’t let politicians drive you crazy, Kenya’s bishops advise

New Venezuelan cardinal says country’s crisis prompted red hat

For Bangladesh’s new cardinal, papal visit will boost faith

U.S. NEWS

Help for the poor, dialogue with Trump – Archbishop Kurtz’s parting vision

Keep calm and follow Jesus, U.S. bishops say after the election

DiNardo, Gómez elected new heads of U.S. bishops

New U.S. bishops’ leader to immigrants: We have your back

How to fix our broken sexual culture, according to Archbishop Chaput

Philly archdiocese releases full text of Archbishop Chaput’s interview with CNS

On abortion policy, a tale of two White House transitions

Immigration is a family issue – An interview with Archbishop Gomez

FEATURES

A pilgrim, a bishop, and his iPhone

We’ve all got it wrong about women in the Catholic Church

New film shows how mercy can transform your life

So what is a consistory, anyway?

Double review: ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ and ‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk’

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Sunday • November 20, 2016

Monday • November 21, 2016

Tuesday • November 22, 2016

Wednesday • November 23, 2016

Thursday • November 24, 2016

Friday • November 25, 2016

Saturday • November 26, 2016

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Volume 2, Issue 21 • November 19, 2016

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis: The Church’s mercy is for everyone

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • November 12, 2016

Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square on Nov. 12, 2016. (Lucia Ballester/CNA)

Vatican City — Pope Francis spoke to pilgrims about how the mercy of God is for everyone, and how through the Church, we are all called to embrace and include everyone in the Body of Christ.

“The Gospel calls us to recognize in the history of humanity the design of a great work of inclusion, which fully respects the freedom of every person, every community, every people,” the Pope said Nov. 12.

And “calls everyone to form a family of brothers and sisters, in justice, solidarity and peace, and to be part of the Church, which is the body of Christ.”

Pope Francis spoke to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square for the final special general audience for the Jubilee Year of Mercy. The extra audiences have been held once a month in addition to the Pope’s weekly audience for the duration of the Jubilee, which officially ends Nov. 20.

At the audience, the Pope’s catechesis centered on the “universal invitation” found in the words of Jesus in St. Matthew’s Gospel: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”

“No one is excluded from this call,” he said, “because the mission of Jesus is to reveal to everyone the Father’s love.” It is “up to us to open our hearts, trust in Jesus and accept this message of love, which makes us enter into the mystery of salvation.”

Reflecting on the Body of Christ as it is depicted on the crucifix, the Pope noted how Christ’s arms are “outstretched on the cross” showing that “no one is excluded from his love and his mercy.”

“How true are the words of Jesus who invites those who are tired and weary to come to Him to find rest!” he said.

How many weary and oppressed people we meet every day, in our neighborhood, at our school, at the doctor’s office, Francis continued. It is through our eyes that the gaze of Jesus “rests on each one of those faces.”

Pointing to the colonnades which surround St. Peter’s Square, The Pope explained how even the square was a visible representation of what the Church should be, an expression of Christ’s “embrace.”

Just as God includes and welcomes us through his forgiveness, we “all need to meet brothers and sisters to help us to go to Jesus, to open ourselves to the gift he has given us on the cross.”

“We do not exclude anyone!” he emphasized. “For God, in his plan of love, he does not want to exclude anyone, but wants to include everyone.”

It is through our Baptism that God makes us all his children in Christ and members of his body the Church, the Pope noted, “and we Christians are encouraged to use the same criteria.”

“Mercy is the way you act,” he said, it is the way in which we incorporate our lives with the lives of others, avoiding closing in on ourselves and our own “selfish securities.”

This aspect of mercy is manifested in the open arms of the Church, “open wide to welcome,” not exclude, he continued. The Church does not classify others “according to social status, language, race, culture, religion.”

“In front of us there is only one person to love as God loves.”

Let us all participate in this inclusion, being witnesses of the same mercy with which God “has accepted and welcomed all of us,” he said.

“In fact, with humility and simplicity let’s be instruments of inclusive mercy of the Father.” Just as our Holy Mother Church “prolongs in the world the great embrace of Christ dead and risen.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis appoints new bishop of Hong Kong

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • November 13, 2016

Pope Francis waves at pilgrims from China at the General Audience in St. Peter’s Square on Sept. 7, 2016. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Vatican City — Pope Francis has appointed Bishop Michael Yeung Ming-cheung Coadjutor Bishop of the diocese of Hong Kong, the Vatican announced Sunday.

Bishop Yeung, 69, has been auxiliary bishop of Hong Kong since Aug. 30, 2014. At the same time, he was also named Titular Bishop of Mons in Numidia by Pope Francis. He succeeds Cardinal John Tong Hon, 77, who has passed the minimum retirement age of 75.

Born in Shanghai on Dec. 1, 1946, Bishop Yeung was ordained a priest of the diocese of Hong Kong on June 10, 1978. He held a variety of pastoral and administrative roles. From 1980-1982 he received a master’s in social communications at Syracuse University in the U.S.

Returning to China, he served as director of the office of Social Communications for the diocese of Hong Kong from 1982-1986. He later returned to the U.S. to study at Harvard University, where he received a master’s degree in philosophy of education.

He then held the position of director of the Office of Education in the diocese of Hong Kong from 1990-2013. He was appointed vicar general of the diocese in 2009 and a member of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.

Bishop Yeung’s appointment comes after the Vatican issued a statement Nov. 7 declaring that unverified reports of bishop ordinations taking place within the so-called “underground Church” in China had neither the authorization of the Holy See, nor had they been officially communicated.

“The Holy See has not authorized any ordination, nor has it been officially informed of such events. Should such episcopal ordinations have occurred, they would constitute a grave violation of canonical norms,” the communique read.

Signed by Director of the Holy See Press Office, Greg Burke, the statement referred to recent unsubstantiated reports that, without authorization from the Pope, the ordination of some bishops took place recently in the so-called “underground Church” in Continental China.

As the statement read: “In recent weeks, there has been a series of reports regarding some episcopal ordinations conferred without Papal Mandate of priests of the unofficial community of the Catholic Church in Continental China.”

“The Holy See hopes that such reports are baseless,” it continued. “If not, it will have to await reliable information and sure documentation before adequately evaluating the cases.”

“However, it is reiterated that it is not licit to proceed with any episcopal ordination without the necessary Papal Mandate, even by appealing to particular personal beliefs.”

The announcement was made amid recent reports of a possible agreement between the Holy See and China concerning the appointment of Chinese bishops.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s Secretary of State, told nuncios gathered in Rome Sept. 16-18 that the talks with China deal with the appointment of bishops, and do not deal with any possibility of establishing diplomatic ties.

The agreement, if it takes place, will likely be based on Cardinal Parolin’s model implemented in Vietnam back in 1996: the Holy See proposes a set of three bishops to the Hanoi government, and Hanoi makes its choice.

Problems with this model do exist, however, including that the Vietnam administration often delays its approval, leaving dioceses vacant for years. Then, when they make the choice, they usually prefer a pro-government candidate.

Ever since the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, the Holy See has had a reduced diplomatic presence in Beijing, with the nunciature being moved to Taiwan in 1951.

China-Vatican relations have been cool, with some apparent thaws. Benedict XVI wrote a letter to Catholics in China in 2007, after which followed a series of bishops’ appointments approved both by the Chinese government and the Holy See.

The Church in China is in a difficult situation. The government of the Chinese People’s Republic never recognized the Holy See’s authority to appoint bishops. Instead, it established the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, a sort of ecclesiastical hierarchy officially recognized by the Chinese authorities.

For this reason, Chinese bishops recognized by the Holy See entered a clandestine state, thus giving life to the so called “underground Church” that is not recognized by the government.

Cardinal Joseph Zen Zekiung, archbishop emeritus of Hong Kong, disapproved of the potential agreement between the Chinese government and the Holy See regarding bishop appointments.

In a long open letter, he lamented that nothing would change in terms of religious freedom in China. He expressed his concern that this path would be a return of the “Ostpolitik,” the Cold War policy put into action under Pope Paul VI by the Holy See.

The Vatican made reciprocal concessions with countries on the other side of Europe’s Iron Curtain in order to guarantee a peaceful life to Christians in the countries under Soviet communist domination.

Cardinal John Tong Hon, Cardinal Zen’s successor as Archbishop of Hong Kong, responded to Cardinal Zen. He specified that final choice on a bishop’s appointment was always the Pope’s. He highlighted the fact that papal nuncios themselves can seek opinions from external lay people when they are examining candidates for the episcopate.

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VATICAN NEWS

What’s most important? God and our neighbor, Pope says

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • November 13, 2016

Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica on Nov. 13, 2016. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

Vatican City — The reality that everything in this world is passing shouldn’t frighten us, Pope Francis said, but instead it should strengthen us to place our trust completely in Christ, recognizing that what is truly important endures: the Lord and our neighbor.

The readings for the day, he said, “remind us that almost everything in this world is passing away, like running water. But there are treasured realities that remain, like a precious stone in a sieve. What endures, what has value in life, what riches do not disappear?”

“Surely these two: the Lord and our neighbor. These are the greatest goods; these are to be loved. Everything else – the heavens, the earth, all that is most beautiful, even this Basilica – will pass away; but we must never exclude God or others from our lives,” he said in his homily Nov. 13.

Pope Francis celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica as the closing celebration for participants in the European Festival of Joy and Mercy held in Rome Nov. 11-13. The pilgrims all come from precarious situations such as extreme poverty and homelessness.

Organized by the French organization Fratello, the event brought in groups of pilgrims from 22 different countries, including a large number from France, Poland, and Rome itself. It was organized as a way to help the homeless participate more fully in the Church and in the Jubilee of Mercy.

Quoting the day’s first reading from the Book of Malachi, Pope Francis said these words are for those who trust in the Lord: “For you … the sun of justice shall rise, with healing in its wings.”

“For those who are materially poor but rich in God, the sun of justice will rise. These are the poor in spirit, to whom Jesus promised the kingdom of heaven and whom God, through the words of the Prophet Malachi, calls ‘my special possession,’” he said.

These are contrasted with the proud, those who think they can live a secure and self-sufficient life of earthly possessions, but with no need of God.

“This last page of the Old Testament raises challenging questions about the ultimate meaning of life,” Francis noted.

“Where do I look for security? In the Lord or in other forms of security not pleasing to God? Where is my life headed, what does my heart long for? The Lord of life or ephemeral things that cannot satisfy?”

Our hope and trust should be placed in the Lord and in our neighbor: “The human person, set by God at the pinnacle of creation, is often discarded, set aside in favor of ephemeral things. This is unacceptable, because in God’s eyes man is the most precious good,” he emphasized.

“Even the strongest kingdoms, the most sacred buildings and the surest realities of this world do not last forever; sooner or later they fall.”

In the Gospel reading from Luke, Jesus says that there will be wars and insurrections, powerful earthquakes, famines and plagues, the Pope said. “Jesus does not want to frighten us, but to tell us that everything we now see will inevitably pass away.”

People have always been curious about the end of the world, Francis said, “yet Jesus does not care for such curiosity.”

“Those who follow Jesus pay no heed to prophets of doom, the nonsense of horoscopes, or frightening sermons that distract from the truly important things. Amid the din of so many voices, the Lord asks us to distinguish between what is from him and what is from the false spirit.”

“This is important,” he said, “to distinguish the word of wisdom that God speaks to us each day from the shouting of those who seek in God’s name to frighten, to nourish division and fear.”

Francis asked that today, as the Holy Doors of Mercy are closed in the cathedrals and basilicas around the world, we all “ask for the grace not to close our eyes to God who sees us and to our neighbor who asks something of us.”

“Let us look with trust to the God of mercy, with the certainty that ‘love never ends,’” he said. “And let us open our eyes to our neighbor, especially to our brothers and sisters who are forgotten and excluded. That is where the Church’s magnifying glass is pointed.”

This is something we must do, the Pope said, because there is no peace in the homes of the prosperous “as long as justice is lacking in the home of everyone.”

We must “persevere in the good” and place “all our trust in God, who does not disappoint,” he said, quoting the passage from Luke 21 that says, “Not a hair of your head will perish.”

“God does not forget his faithful ones, his precious possession. He does not forget us.”

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VATICAN NEWS

As Year of Mercy ends, Holy Doors close around the world

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • November 13, 2016

The Holy Door closes at Saint Paul Outside the Walls church in Rome on Nov. 13, 2016. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

Vatican City — As Holy Doors close in churches and basilicas around the world, including in Rome, it is estimated that over 20 million people participated in the Church’s Jubilee Year of Mercy at the Vatican – and a billion people may have participated in churches worldwide.

According to Msgr. Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, it is estimated that 20.4 million people attended Year of Mercy events at the Vatican over the course of this year.

The Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization was in charge of putting Pope Francis’ vision for the Year of Mercy into practice – both in the Vatican and abroad.

As the year comes to a close, the Holy Doors at three basilicas in Rome – St. Paul Outside the Walls, St. John Lateran and St. Mary Major – were closed during special Masses held Nov. 13. The Holy Doors at churches and basilicas around the world are also closing the same day.

The year will officially end on Nov. 20, the Solemnity of Christ the King, when Pope Francis will close the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica. It was opened on Dec. 8, 2015, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

The opening of the door is meant to symbolically illustrate the idea that the Church’s faithful are offered an “extraordinary path” toward salvation during the time of Jubilee. Pilgrims who walked through the Holy Door were able to receive a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions.

In his homily for the Mass at St. John Lateran, Cardinal Agostino Vallini spoke about how the Holy Door, just closed, was a visible sign of the Jubilee of Mercy, a year where we learned “once again” that the fate of the world is not in the hands of men, “but in the mercy of God.”

“What has it taught us, the meditation of God’s mercy in this year?” he asked. “First of all that mercy is not a sign of weakness or surrender,” but the “strong, magnanimous,” radiation of the loving omnipotence of the Father, who “heals our weaknesses, raises us from our falls and urges us to the good.”

Cardinal Vallini quoted the Pope saying, “The mercy of God is not an abstract idea, but a concrete reality.”

If we look closely, he said, we can see how the whole history of salvation until today and into the future, has been an “economy of mercy.”

“If we stop to consider the love of Jesus toward sinners, the poor, the sick, the marginalized, and especially if we contemplate the passion and death on the cross, we will not find any other explanation than the manifestation of his mercy towards us.”

“Fixing our prayerful gaze on Jesus Crucified it will be easier to follow and imitate him in our human affairs, even painful ones,” he said.

During his address for the Angelus the same day, Pope Francis said that we must “stand firm in the Lord” and work “to build a better world;” that despite difficulties and sad events, what really matters is how Christians are called “to encounter the ‘Lord’s Day.’”

“Precisely in this perspective we want to place the commitment resulting from these months in which we have lived with faith the extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy,” he said, “which concludes today in the dioceses of the whole world with the closing of the Holy Door in the cathedral churches.”

“The Holy Year has urged us, on the one hand, to keep our eyes fixed toward the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom and on the other, to build the future of this land, working to evangelize the present, so that it becomes a time of salvation for all.”

This past week the oldest wooden crucifix of St. Peter’s Basilica, dating from the 14th century, was returned to the church for the devotion of the faithful, the Pope noted.

“After a laborious restoration,” the cross “has been restored to its former splendor and will be placed in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel to commemorate the Jubilee of Mercy,” he said.

The Vatican marked the Jubilee Year with the addition of many events, including a special audience with the Pope, which happened on one Saturday each month in St. Peter’s Square.

There were also many larger events which took place, including a 24-hour long period of Eucharistic adoration and a prayer vigil. Additionally, “jubilees” were held which centered on, among others, the sick and disabled, catechists, teenagers, deacons, priests, religious, volunteers of mercy, and most recently, the poor and homeless.

Pope Francis also spent one Friday a month during the year making private visits to groups he found in special need of being shown God’s mercy. These “Mercy Fridays,” as they were called, included visits with refugees, victims of sex trafficking, those in hospitals and retirement homes, and children in difficult situations.

Ordinary jubilees occur every 25 or 50 years, and extraordinary jubilees are called for some momentous occasion. Two extraordinary jubilees were called in the 20th century – 1933, to mark the 1900th anniversary of Christ’s redemption in 33 A.D., and 1983, its 1950th anniversary.

St. John Paul II also held a “Great Jubilee” in the year 2000, marking the 2000th anniversary of Jesus’ birth and the start of the new millennium.

At the start of the Jubilee of Mercy, during a general audience Dec. 9, Pope Francis asked pilgrims, “Why a Jubilee of Mercy? What does this mean?”

The answer, he said, is because “the Church needs this extraordinary moment. I’m not (just) saying ‘it’s good,’ no! I’m saying: the Church needs it.”

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VATICAN NEWS

These four cardinals asked Pope Francis to clarify ‘Amoris laetitia’

by CNA/EWTN News • November 14, 2016

Bishops gathered with the Pope at the 2014 Synod on the Family. (Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk)

Vatican City — Citing conflicting interpretations of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on love in the family, four prominent cardinals wrote a letter to him in September requesting that he “resolve the uncertainties and bring clarity.”

The full text of the letter was published in an English translation by the National Catholic Register Nov. 14.

“We the undersigned, but also many Bishops and Priests, have received numerous requests from the faithful of various social strata on the correct interpretation to give to Chapter VIII of the Exhortation,” the cardinals wrote in their Sept. 19 letter to the Pope.

The signatories were Cardinals Walter Brandmüller, president emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences; Raymond Burke, patron of the Order of Malta and prefect emeritus of the Apostolic Signatura; Carlo Caffarra, Archbishop Emeritus of Bologna; and Joachim Meisner, Archbishop Emeritus of Cologne.

They noted the fact that “theologians and scholars have proposed interpretations” of Amoris laetitia, especially its eighth chapter on accompanying, discerning, and integrating weakness, which “are not only divergent, but also conflicting.”

The cardinals also noted that “media have emphasized this dispute, thereby provoking uncertainty, confusion, and disorientation among many of the faithful.”

“Compelled in conscience by our pastoral responsibility and desiring to implement ever more that synodality to which Your Holiness urges us, we, with profound respect … ask you, Holy Father, as Supreme Teacher of the Faith, called by the Risen One to confirm his brothers in the faith, to resolve the uncertainties and bring clarity, benevolently giving a response to the ‘Dubia’ that we attach to the present letter,” they wrote.

The cardinals submitted five “dubia”, or doubts, about the interpretation of Amoris laetitia to be clarified by its author, also drawing the dubia to the attention of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

A foreword to the text of the letter notes that it arises from “deep pastoral concern” following “disorientation and great confusion of many faithful” and contrasting interpretations of the apostolic exhortation “even within the episcopal college.”

“The great Tradition of the Church teaches us that the way out of situations like this is recourse to the Holy Father, asking the Apostolic See to resolve those doubts which are the cause of disorientation and confusion.”

On this basis, the four cardinals wrote that their submission of dubia is an act of justice because “we profess that the Petrine ministry is the ministry of unity,” and of charity because “we want to help the Pope to prevent divisions and conflicts in the Church, asking him to dispel all ambiguity.”

The foreword noted that Pope Francis “decided not to respond” to their dubia.

“We have interpreted his sovereign decision as an invitation to continue the reflection, and the discussion, calmly and with respect. And so we are informing the entire people of God about our initiative, offering all of the documentation.”

They expressed hope that their act would not be interpreted “according to a ‘progressive/conservative’ paradigm. That would be completely off the mark. We are deeply concerned about the true good of souls, the supreme law of the Church, and not about promoting any form of politics in the Church.”

“We hope that no one will judge us, unjustly, as adversaries of the Holy Father and people devoid of mercy. What we have done and are doing has its origin in the deep collegial affection that unites us to the Pope, and from an impassioned concern for the good of the faithful.”

The five dubia concern the teaching found in Amoris laetitia, and its relation to the teaching of the preceding Magisterium, especially that of St. John Paul II.

In an appended explanatory note, the cardinals wrote that the dubia “are worded in a way that requires a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, without theological argumentation. This way of addressing the Apostolic See is not an invention of our own; it is an age-old practice.”

They sought answers to the dubia noting that “doubt and uncertainty are always highly detrimental to pastoral care.”

They emphasized that the differing interpretations of Amoris laetitia are “due to divergent ways of understanding the Christian moral life” and that more than merely being a question of the admission of the divorced-and-remarried to penance and Communion, the exhortation’s interpretation “implies different, contrasting approaches to the Christian way of life.”

The first dubium asks whether following Amoris laetitia “it has now become possible to grant absolution in the sacrament of penance and thus to admit to Holy Communion a person who, while bound by a valid marital bond, lives together with a different person ‘more uxorio’ (in a marital way) without fulfilling the conditions provided for by Familiaris consortio n. 84 and subsequently reaffirmed by Reconciliatio et Paenitentia n. 34 and Sacramentum Caritatis n. 29. Can the expression “in certain cases” found in note 351 (n. 305) of the exhortation Amoris laetitia be applied to divorced persons who are in a new union and who continue to live ‘more uxorio’?”

The cardinals wrote in their explanatory note that an affirmative answer to the first dubium would mean the Church teaches either that divorce doesn’t dissolve the marriage bond, but persons who are not married “can under certain circumstances legitimately engage in acts of sexual intimacy”; that divorce dissolves the marriage bond and that the divorced-and-remarried “are legitimate spouses and their sexual acts are lawful marital acts”; or that divorce does not dissolve the marriage bond, but “admitting persons to the Eucharist does not mean for the Church to approve their public state of life; the faithful can approach the Eucharistic table even with consciousness of grave sin, and receiving absolution in the sacrament of penance does not always require the purpose of amending one’s life. The sacraments, therefore, are detached from life: Christian rites and worship are in a completely different sphere than the Christian moral life.”

The second dubium asks if one still needs to “regard as valid the teaching of St. John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis splendor n. 79 … on the existence of absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts and that are binding without exceptions?”

This raises the question of intrinsically evil acts, for which “no discernment of circumstances or intentions is necessary” to “know that one must not do it,” which was reaffirmed by St. John Paul II in his 1993 encyclical on fundamental questions of the Church’s moral teaching, Veritatis splendor.

The third dubium asks, “is it still possible to affirm that a person who habitually lives in contradiction to a commandment of God’s law, as for instance the one that prohibits adultery (cf. Mt 19:3-9), finds him or herself in an objective situation of grave habitual sin”?

They noted that Amoris laetitia could appear to contradict a 2000 declaration of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, and also acknowledged that the distinction made in Amoris laetitia between a subjective situation of mortal sin and the objective situation of grave sin “is indeed well established” in Church teaching.

Nevertheless, they sought to clarify if “it is still possible to say that persons who habitually live in contradiction to a commandment of God’s law, such as the commandment against adultery, theft, murder, or perjury, live in objective situations of grave habitual sin, even if, for whatever reasons, it is not certain that they are subjectively imputable for their habitual transgressions.”

The fourth dubium asks if one still needs “to regard as valid the teaching of St. John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis splendor n. 81 … according to which ‘circumstances or intentions can never transform an act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object into an act ‘subjectively’ good or defensible as a choice’”?

This question was raised to discover whether Amoris laetitia agrees that an intrinsically evil act can never “become excusable or even good … on account of circumstances that mitigate personal responsibility,” given its stress on such mitigating circumstances.

The fifth dubium asks if the teaching of Veritatis splendor which “excludes a creative interpretation of the role of conscience and that emphasizes that conscience can never be authorized to legitimate exceptions to absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts by virtue of their object” still need be regarded as valid.

With this, the cardinals sought to determine if Amoris laetitia holds that conscience “can be in tension or even in opposition” with the precepts of God’s law, “autonomously deciding about good and evil.”

The letter of the four cardinals follows a varied reception and interpretation of the apostolic exhortation within the Church.

Some have maintained it is incompatible with Church teaching, and others that it has not changed the Church’s discipline. Still others read Amoris laetitia as opening the way to a new pastoral practice, or even as a progression in continuity with St. John Paul II.

The cardinals’ letter also comes in the wake of a letter sent in June to all the Church’s cardinals and patriarchs asking that they “take collective action to respond to the dangers to Catholic faith and morals posed” by Amoris laetitia, noting that the exhortation “contains a number of statements that can be understood in a sense that is contrary to Catholic faith and morals.”

That letter, signed by 45 theologians, had identified 19 propositions in Amoris laetitia “whose vagueness or ambiguity permit interpretations that are contrary to faith or morals, or that suggest a claim that is contrary to faith and morals without actually stating it.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Homeless persons find a spiritual father in Pope Francis

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • November 14, 2016

The Jubilee Mass for the Poor in St. Peter’s Basilica on Nov. 13, 2016. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Vatican City — Always close to his heart, around 3,600 homeless men and women were given the chance to be also physically near the Pope this weekend – and near the heart of the Church – as they participated in the Jubilee of Mercy.

From 22 countries around Europe, the men and women came at the invitation of Pope Francis, who has called the poor the “treasures of the Church,” to participate in the European Festival of Joy and Mercy held in Rome Nov. 11-13.

From the UK, Josephine Kandeba said meeting Pope Francis was like “a daughter talking with her father.”

“He is very humble,” she told CNA. “He listened to me. When I stopped him, I said, ‘Holy Father, if you don’t mind, I want to say something’. He stopped, while I was holding his hand and while he was holding mine, and I said what I wanted to say to him.”

Having been on the streets for years, Josephine now lives at a shelter in London. She said she never thought that one day she “could see the Pope.”

Other pilgrims attending the event said they were struck by Francis’ great love for the poor, and the attention he showed to all of them.

“Do you know why we’re here?” asked Terence, another pilgrim from the UK. We’ve come “from all over the world at the Holy Father’s invitation; that’s why we’re here.”

Terence also pointed out that Pope Francis said “he’s the Pope of the poor, and that has really stuck in my mind. Never before has a Pope said he’s the pope of the poor. He’s an exceptional man.”

Organized by the French organization Fratello, the event brought in groups of pilgrims from around Europe and the UK, including a large number from France and Poland, and Rome itself. It was organized as a way to help the homeless participate more fully in the Church and in the Jubilee of Mercy.

Organizations from five cities in the UK – Father Hudson’s Care, Cornerstone, the Church of Scotland and The Passage – together brought a group of around 50 pilgrims. The Passage, located in London, does street outreach in addition to having two hostels and a resource center for homeless.

The weekend’s schedule for pilgrims included an audience and catechesis with Pope Francis on Friday, a vigil of Mercy at the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls on Saturday evening, and concluded with Mass celebrated by Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday.

In between these, the schedule included Morning Prayer, faith sharing, and of course, some free time to tour Rome and to walk through the Holy Doors for the Jubilee.

Charlie Egan, another pilgrim, told CNA that he found it very moving when an older homeless man from France spoke to the Pope on Friday, with “tears in his eyes.”

“And the Pope, he showed so much love,” even giving the Frenchman a hug, Charlie said. “And then the Pope didn’t go away, he had a chat as if they were in a restaurant.”

“The Pope talked about every person, homeless or not, looking for that dream and that goal, talking about peace and love and charity.”

Charlie said that before going on the pilgrimage, he had four days to “look back” at his life. He said that he had “messed up” his life by drinking and had practiced no religion for years, only coming back to the faith a few years ago.

But at the vigil at St. Paul Outside the Walls, Charlie said he had the chance to speak with a priest “about everything,” and he came out afterward “with a bit of emotion.”

One of the messages he said he received that weekend was that even if you’ve lived a “bad life,” there is still the sacrament of confession.

“Everything that Pope Francis said was brilliant,” said Jacob Mensah, a young man, also from London. What struck him was what Pope Francis said about dreams being for everyone, and that they all “have dignity.”

Fr. Padraig Regan, a chaplain at The Passage, said the weekend was a huge “sign of respect” for everyone who participated. It was incredibly important for each of them to be “taken seriously” by the Church.

One of the organizers of the group from the UK, Bénédicte Miolane, is a member of Fratello who now lives in London. She said that Fratello is already talking about how they can include even more people from around the world in the future.

The goal, she said, would be to make it like a World Youth Day, but a version specifically for the poor and homeless.

Terence said that another major thing that struck him “and changed his view” was the love he witnessed between “rough sleepers” (what they call those who sleep on the street) and the “ordinary” people also participating in the event.

“It was the love between them that I noticed,” he said. “They have something about them, they show each other affection.”

Speaking to pilgrims at the event’s concluding Mass Nov. 13, Pope Francis said: “Let us look with trust to the God of mercy, with the certainty that ‘love never ends.’”

“And let us open our eyes to our neighbor, especially to our brothers and sisters who are forgotten and excluded. That is where the Church’s magnifying glass is pointed.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Papal nuncio to U.S. bishops: Mercy will heal wounds of division

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • November 14, 2016

Pope Francis meets with Archbishop Christophe Pierre, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, on April 21, 2016. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Baltimore, MD — The Church needs to “be on the move” to bring Christ to young people in an ever-changing world, Pope Francis’ representative to the U.S. told bishops on Monday.

“Mercy is what this country needs to heal the wounds of division after a polarizing campaign,” Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the new Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S., stated in his first official address to the U.S. bishops.

The Nuncio spoke at the bishops’ fall general assembly in Baltimore Nov. 14. He was formerly the Pope’s representative in Mexico before Pope Francis transferred him to the U.S. in April.

From the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis has focused on mercy, Archbishop Pierre explained, pointing to the current Jubilee Year of Mercy which officially ends with the closing of the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome on the Feast of Christ the King Nov. 27, preceded by the closing of Holy Doors in dioceses around the world Nov. 20.

“We need to understand more properly this mercy of God,” the nuncio said, focusing on how the Church can better show mercy to young people who show enthusiasm and a desire for generosity.

The upcoming synod on youth and vocations can help young people “discover God’s plan for them” and help them see “that they matter” and “that they belong,” he said.

Yet many young people today are missing from the Church, he added, noting Pope Francis, when he was Cardinal Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, noted a “lack of personal encounter with God” and lack of “authentic religious experience” among the youth.

“If they are not in our churches, why are they not there?” Archbishop Pierre asked.

Living in an era of rapid change and development, “many young people are affected by the sense of being in constant flux and are unable to make a permanent choice,” the archbishop noted, and this can be seen in seminaries, he added for the bishops in the audience.

Furthermore, many young people are torn between their drive to be independent adults and their desire to “belong” and be part of a “community,” the archbishop said. Many even get tattoos and body piercings which “give them a mark of identity,” he said, “because they want to belong.”

There is also a phenomenon of “prolonged adolescence” where through exposure to “modern media,” young people “lose contact with reality” and develop a “dependency upon virtual realities.”

And although youth have enthusiasm and a desire to be generous, their interior lives may “focus only on feelings and emotions” and they “often lack true spiritual formation,” the archbishop said.

What can the Church do to reach these youth?

Catholics “must decide to go to and walk with our young people: to each and everyone, from an awareness of carrying out a prophetic task,” the archbishop said. “In a changing environment, it is we who must be on the move.”

He compared the Church’s mission to Pope Francis’ vision of the Church as a field hospital. In this way, Archbishop Pierre said, it can be a “mobile unit” offering first aid and urgent care to those in need, going out to the young to bring about this encounter with God’s mercy.”

“The most important thing that a young person needs to feel saved by Christ is to experience His love and mercy directly. This is different from simply saying, ‘You are saved’,” he continued.

If Catholics “propose Jesus Christ” to young people and if they encounter Christ, they receive hope, he added.

“Living in this hope in Jesus Christ, young people discover their dreams, but we must remind them that God too has a plan and dreams for them,” he said.

“When a young person experiences the joy of the encounter with Jesus and has the grace to be taken with, or even fascinated by, these questions, in his heart he can no longer close himself to the horizon of a vocation – whether as a priest, religious, married or single person,” he said.

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VATICAN NEWS

‘Beloved’ Syria’s new cardinal a sign of the Pope’s closeness

by Elise Harris and Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • November 15, 2016

Archbishop Mario Zenari, who will be elevated to the cardinalate at the Nov. 19 consistory, speaks at a Sept. 2015 conference. (Bohumil Petrik/CNA)

Vatican City — Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin has said that Francis’ decision to give a red hat to the longtime papal envoy to Syria is a sign of the Pope’s closeness to the Church and people on the ground amid the country’s dire situation.

“With this decision, the Pope wanted to express a great sign of closeness to Syria,” Cardinal Parolin told CNA Nov. 13. The gesture goes beyond mere “diplomatic formulas,” and is a sign of human and ecclesial closeness.

Pope Francis has already demonstrated his closeness, concern, and interest in Syria “in many, many ways,” he said, adding that Archbishop Mario Zenari’s elevation “is another manifestation of that interest.”

On Oct. 9 Pope Francis announced that Archbishop Zenari and 16 other priests and bishops would be named cardinals Nov. 19, the eve of the close of the Jubilee of Mercy. He has served as the Pope’s ambassador to Syria since 2008, and has seen the country continue to deteriorate as their 6-year long civil war continues to rage.

The fact that after accompanying the Church in Syria for so long in increasingly precarious conditions underlines “how the Holy See, through the apostolic nuncio, was there, on the spot, without ever abandoning the people or the Church,” Cardinal Parolin said.

The Secretary of State spoke during the Nov. 11-13 conference “Damascus: prism of hope,” organized by the Pontifical Oriental Institute in honor of the centenary of its foundation.

The conference sought to discuss an answer to Syria’s crisis by getting into the depth of the issues, rather than staying at the surface level.

Both the conference and Archbishop Zenari’s nomination as cardinal fall at a time when fighting in Syria, particularly Aleppo, has reached new and bloody heights.

With a humanitarian crisis already looming large in the city, airstrikes and bunker bombs continue to kill hundreds of civilians, including many children, almost daily. Attempts at numerous ceasefires have fallen through as rebel and government forces continue to fight for control of the city.

The Syrian civil war, which began in March 2011, has claimed the lives of an estimated 300,000 people, and forced 4.8 million to become refugees, about half of them children. Another 8 million Syrians are believed to have been internally displaced by the violence.

In his comments to CNA, Cardinal Parolin said there are certain tendencies today which seek to promote “a world order without God.” The temptation to do this, he said, has always been around but so far “has not brought any acceptable result.”

He said the belief of the great monotheistic religions born in the region “can become a source of inspiration and concrete commitment for building a more just society with more solidarity.”

In terms of what new initiatives might be on the table given the increasing destruction in Syria, Cardinal Parolin said he hopes the conference leads to some “very useful ideas and indications for the future regarding the initiatives to take and positions to assume, to give an impulse so that the war ends through the search for a negotiated solution.”

He noted how three years ago, in September 2013, Pope Francis held a special day of prayer for peace in Syria. The cardinal said that while the situation has become more precarious, no such initiatives are currently on the slate, “but they could be thought of.”

“I imagine above all a prayer initiative, because prayer has a great power to change things,” he said.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis encourages U.S. bishops in ministry to Latinos

by CNA/EWTN News • November 15, 2016

Pope Francis venerates a relic of St. Junipero Serra presented by Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles on May 2, 2015. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — In a video message sent to the US bishops’ plenary meeting on Tuesday, Pope Francis urged them to continue reaching out to immigrants, especially commending the upcoming fifth national “Encuentro” on Hispanic/Latino ministry.

He said in the Nov. 15 message that while visiting the nation last year, “I was impressed by the vitality and diversity of the Catholic community … In this context, I would commend the coming Fifth National Hispanic Pastoral Encuentro.”

The Church in the US has “welcomed and integrated new waves of immigrants” throughout its history, he noted, adding that “in the rich variety of their languages and cultural traditions, they have shaped the changing face of the American Church.”

The Encuentro is a multi-year process meant to improve the quality of ministry among Hispanic Catholics, and is a priority for the US bishops’ strategic plan. It involves missionary activity, consultation, leadership development, and pastoral discernment.

The process will culminate with a national event held in Dallas in September 2018.

The Pope stated that “in continuity with its predecessors, the Encuentro seeks to acknowledge and value the specific gifts that Hispanic Catholics have offered, and continue to offer, to the Church in your country.”

“But it is more than that. It is part of a greater process of renewal and missionary outreach, one to which all of your local Churches are called,” he added.

Hispanics now constitute 40 percent of Catholics in the United States, and more than 50 percent of the nation’s Catholics under age 35.

The Pope reflected that the Church’s “great challenge” is “to create a culture of encounter, which encourages individuals and groups to share the richness of their traditions and experiences, to break down walls and to build bridges.”

Pope Francis said the Church “is called to ‘go out’ from its comfort zone and to be a leaven of communion … among ourselves, with our fellow Christians, and with all who seek a future of hope.”

“We need to become ever more fully a community of missionary disciples, filled with love of the Lord Jesus and enthusiasm for the spread of the Gospel,” he stated. “The Christian community is meant to be a sign and prophecy of God’s plan for the entire human family. We are called to be bearers of good news for a society gripped by disconcerting social, cultural and spiritual shifts, and increasing polarization.”

Francis hopes that the Church in the US “will accompany the Encuentro with its own reflection and pastoral discernment.”

“In a particular way, I ask you to consider how your local Churches can best respond to the growing presence, gifts and potential of the Hispanic community. Mindful of the contribution that the Hispanic community makes to the life of the nation, I pray that the Encuentro will bear fruit for the renewal of American society and for the Church’s apostolate in the United States.”

The US bishops’ first Encuentro took place in 1972, while the fourth was celebrated in 2000; a youth version was held in 2006.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope reminds Catholics to practice what they preach

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • November 16, 2016

Pope Francis greets pilgrims during his Nov. 16, 2016 General Audience. (Lucia Ballester/CNA)

Vatican City — The spiritual works of mercy – especially teaching the faith and putting up with the annoyances of others – are very important, Pope Francis said Wednesday, but first we must examine our own conscience to see if we are practicing the things we preach.

“The need to advise, admonish and teach should not make us feel superior to others, but first of all obliges us to return to ourselves to see if we are consistent with what we ask of others,” he said Nov. 16.

“Do not forget the words of Jesus” from Luke chapter six, he said: “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?”

The Pope’s catechesis for the general audience in St. Peter’s Square focused on several of the spiritual works of mercy, specifically counseling the doubtful, admonishing the sinner, instructing the ignorant, and bearing the wrongs of others patiently.

“To accompany the search for the essential is beautiful and important,” he said, because it helps us to share the joy found in knowing the true meaning of life.

Often we come across people who focus on the superficial because they have not met anyone who helped them to see the truly important things in life, Francis said.

To teach someone “to look to the essentials” is important, he said, especially in a time like now, where the world seems to have “lost its bearings,” and is always chasing “short-sighted satisfaction.”

To help people “find out what the Lord wants from us and how we can respond to it means putting (people) on the path to grow in their vocation, the path of true joy.”

Pope Francis praised catechists, who he said go to a “great effort” to help people grow in their faith, particularly mothers and religious, who “give their time to teach children.”

“How much effort” they go through, he acknowledged. “Especially when the boys prefer to play rather than listen to the catechism!”

But this mission, he emphasized, can only be carried out when we assume responsibility for our own actions, as well. Particularly when we are tempted to be annoyed by the people around us, or when we complain about the shortcomings of others, such as gossiping.

In these situations, he said, the first step must be to examine our own consciences “to see if we, at times, can be annoying to others.”

“It’s easy to point fingers at the flaws and failings” of others, he said, “but we should learn to put ourselves in others’ shoes.”

Jesus is an excellent example of bearing wrongs patiently, the Pope noted. “How much patience he had to have in the three years of his public life!”

God is also merciful in bearing with our complaints. In the Book of Exodus, for example, the Israelites “are really unbearable,” Francis stated. First they cry because they are slaves in Egypt, then God delivers them and they complain that there is no food in the desert.

Even after God sends quail and manna to them, they continued to complain, but he was patient with them and therefore teaches Moses, the Israelites, and all of us that an “essential dimension of faith” is to bear wrongs patiently.

“We are all very good at identifying a presence that is annoying,” Pope Francis said. Frequently, it is the people closest to us such as our relatives and coworkers. “What should we do?” he asked.

We should pray and examine our conscience, and “the Holy Spirit will help us to be patient in enduring and humble and simple in advising.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Archbishop Gómez’s immigration stance praised by Vatican official

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • November 16, 2016

Archbishop José H. Gomez at the second annual Immigration Summit at Christ Cathedral on Feb. 27, 2016. (Archdiocese of Los Angeles)

Vatican City — Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said the election of Archbishop Jose Gómez as vice president of the U.S. bishop’s conference will serve as a great resource on immigration, especially in wake of the presidential election of Donald Trump – known for his “fiery” comments on the issue.

Head of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Archbishop Gómez “has written and spoken very clearly on the rights of migrants and the need to respect their family structure, the family unit,” Archbishop Tomasi told EWTN News Nightly Nov. 16.

When it comes to immigration, the archbishop said he believes Gómez will be “a good resource” not only for the Latino community, but for the entire Church due to “his own personal experience and also because of his flock, because the huge diocese of Los Angeles is made up of a lot of immigrants, millions of them.”

Archbishop Tomasi was present at a news briefing for the international conference “Business leaders, agents of social and economic inclusion,” organized by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Former Holy See Permanent Observer to the United Nations in Geneva, Tomasi currently serves as secretary-delegate of the Council for Justice and Peace, which is set to merge with several other Vatican dicasteries in January.

His comments come after Tuesday’s election of Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston as president of the USCCB and Archbishop Gomez as its vice-president.

With more than 4 million Catholics, Los Angeles is the largest U.S. diocese. Gómez himself is the highest-ranking Latino bishop in the United States.

Born in Monterrey, Mexico in 1951, Gómez was appointed auxiliary bishop of Denver, and made Archbishop of San Antonio in 2004. In 2010 he was appointed coadjutor archbishop of Los Angeles, succeeding as its ordinary the next year.

In all of his roles Gómez has worked extensively in Hispanic ministry and played a key role in creating the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders. He has also been outspoken on pro-life issues, immigration, and the death penalty.

In 2008, he was appointed as a consultant to the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. He has served in various roles for the U.S. bishops’ conference, including in cultural diversity, doctrine, and Hispanics and liturgy.

Significantly, the election of Gómez and the rest of the U.S. bishops’ new leadership team took place just one week after Donald Trump was elected the next president of the United States following a campaign that was at times especially hostile to immigrants.

In his comments to EWTN, Archbishop Tomasi noted that the rhetoric of Trump’s campaign was “is a bit fiery because of the nature of the campaign itself, to shake up the voters and force them to take a stand.”

“The language used by Trump has been very incendiary regarding the question of immigration,” he said, but observed that in his most recent statements after claiming victory the president-elect has been “much more balanced and moderate.”

“We hope that this line will prevail both in his own personal attitude and in the selection of persons responsible to administer the different sectors of the life of the United States,” whether it be for the migration issue, the economy or relations with other countries.

Archbishop Tomasi noted that the Church in the United States has always kept an open channel of communication with the government, which is essential because she “is arguing from the evidence and the experience on the ground.”

The advantage of the faith communities, both Catholics and those from other Christian denominations, is that “they represent the grassroots, they are in touch with the families and their everyday problems.”

“They can argue for the good of the country, both the good as the image, the humanitarian tradition, of the United States, and the good of the economy,” he said, noting how many undocumented immigrants are now “in the structure of the economy” and contribute by paying taxes, working and consuming goods produced in the U.S.

In this sense, the various Christian Churches “can be really a good service to both the country and the immigrants.”

When it comes to relations with the Trump administration, Tomasi, who spoke at the U.S. Bishops’ plenary assembly Monday, said that since it was largely white Catholics who elected Trump, “now they can ask in return (for) a sense of balance in addressing the issues that are important for them.”

Mary Shovlain contributed to this report.

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VATICAN NEWS

To be corrupt is to follow the devil, Pope Francis says

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • November 17, 2016

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

Vatican City — On Thursday Pope Francis warned Catholic business leaders against the danger of worshipping money, saying corruption is to follow the lies of the devil, whereas practices aimed for the common good are always built around principals of honesty and fraternity.

“Corruption is the worst social plague. It’s the lie of seeking personal gain of that of the group itself under the guise of a service to society,” the Pope said Nov. 17.

The attitude of corruption “is the crassest selfishness, hidden behind an apparent generosity,” he said, noting that corruption stems from the worship of money and comes back warp the worshipper, making them “a prisoner of that same worship.”

Corruption, he said, “is a fraud to democracy” and opens the doors to “terrible evils” such as drugs, prostitution, human trafficking, slavery, the sale of organs and arms trafficking. Above all, “corruption is to become a follower of the devil, the father of lies.”

Pope Francis spoke to hundreds of business leaders inside the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace during a Nov. 17-18 International Conference of Associations of Catholic Businesses. Organized by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the gathering’s theme was: “Business leaders: agents of social and economic inclusion.”

In his lengthy speech delivered in Spanish, the Pope noted that business activity is constantly plagued by “a multitude of risks,” the first of which, according to Francis, is “the risk of using money.”

Francis has often spoken about the danger of putting money at the center of one’s life and activities, calling it “the dung of the devil.”

He told the business leaders that, as stated by the Fathers of the Church, money and riches “are good when they are put at the service of the other,” but otherwise “they are wicked.”

“Because of this, money must serve rather than govern,” he said. “Money is only a technical instrument of intermediation, of comparison of values and rights, of the fulfillment of obligations and savings.”

As with everything technical, money has no neutral value, but “acquires value according to the purpose and circumstances in which it is used,” the Pope said, explaining that when the neutrality of money is promoted, “it is falling into power.”

Businesses, he said, “must not exist to earn money, even if money serves to measure its function. Business exist to serve.”

Pope Francis stressed the need to recover the full social meaning of financial and banking activities, which must always be accompanied by the “intelligence and inventiveness” of entrepreneurs.

To do this implies taking the risk of “complicating life” and having to renounce certain economic gains, he said, insisting that credit must be accessible for housing, for small and medium-sized businesses, for farmers, educational activities, for health and for the “improvement and integration” of the poorest urban centers of society.

He cautioned that “a crematory logic of the market” makes credit cheaper and more accessible for those who are wealthier, yet more expensive and difficult for those who have less resources “to the point of leaving the poorest sections of the population in the hands of unscrupulous users.”

At an international level, the risk is that financing poorer countries can easily become “a usurious activity,” Francis said, adding that even if one accepts the creation of business procedures accessible to all and which benefit everyone, “a generous and abundant gratitude will always be needed.”

Intervention from the State will also be needed in order to “protect certain collective goods and ensure the satisfaction of fundamental human necessities,” Pope Francis said, noting how his predecessor St. John Paul II insisted that ignoring this aspect would lead to “an idolatry of the market.”

Francis also pointed to the need for honesty, because there is always a danger of corruption, which is “the destruction of the social fabric under the guise of law enforcement. It’s the law of the jungle disguised as apparent social rationality. It’s the deception and exploitation of the weakest or less informed.”

Corruption isn’t a vice limited to politics, but also pervades in many businesses, in communication and in social organizations, he said.

One of the conditions necessary for social progress “is the absence of corruption,” he said, noting how some businesses might feel pressured to fall into blackmail and extortion, justifying themselves by thinking they are saving their business and their workers, or that the business will grow to the point they will be able to free themselves from the threat.

Businesses can also fall into the temptation “of thinking that this is something everyone does, and that small acts of corruption aimed at obtaining small advantages have not great importance,” Francis said, cautioning that “any intent of corruption, active or passive, is to begin to adore the god of money.”

The Pope then turned to the importance of fraternity, saying business activities must always include “the element of gratitude.”

“Relations of justice between leaders and workers must always be respected and demanded by all parties,” but it’s also true that a business is a work community in which “all merit respect and fraternal appreciation” by their superiors, colleagues and subordinates.

This respect shouldn’t be limited to just within the workplace, but must also extend to the local community where the company is physically located, Pope Francis said, adding that all legal and economic relations of the company “must be moderate, surrounded in an environment of respect and fraternity.”

Pope Francis then turned to the topic of migrants and refugees, saying this attitude of fraternity must also extend to the multitudes seeking protection and a better life.

Both the Holy See and the local churches “are making extraordinary efforts to deal effectively with the causes of this situation” by seeking to pacify the regions and countries at war while also promoting a spirit of welcome, he said.

However, the Pope acknowledged that “you do not always get everything you want,” and asked participants to help in encouraging governments to “give up any kind of war activity,” and to collaborate in creating opportunities for decent, stable work in countries of origin and of arrival, both for the local population and the immigrants.

Immigration, he said, “must continue to be an important factor of development.”

Francis concluded his speech by pointing to the Gospel passage in which Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector of Jericho, climbed a tree in order to be able to see Jesus. When he met the Lord’s gaze, this led “to a deep conversion.”

“I hope that this conference is like a sycamore of Jericho, a tree which can be climbed by all,” he said, so that, “through scientific discussion of the aspects of business activity, all may meet the gaze of Jesus and that from there result effective guidelines in order to make the activity of all their companies always and effectively promote the common good.”

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VATICAN NEWS

There is no justification for killing innocent people, Pope says

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • November 17, 2016

Pope Francis at the General Audience in St. Peter’s Square on April 13, 2016. (Daniel Ibañez/CNA)

Vatican City — In a meeting with the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East Thursday, Pope Francis criticized ongoing violence in Iraq and Syria, saying no motive can justify or allow the killing of innocent people, especially children.

Asking the Lord for the “gift of peace,” the Pope said he was “dismayed by what continues to happen in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria.”

“There, upon hundreds of thousands of innocent children, women and men is poured the terrible violence of bloody conflicts, which no motive can justify or allow,” he said.

In Iraq and Syria, he said, “our Christian brothers and sisters, as well as various religious and ethnic minorities, are unfortunately accustomed to suffer great trials every day.”

“In the midst of so much pain, of which I implore the end, every day we see Christians who walk the way of the cross meekly following the footsteps of Jesus.”

Pope Francis met with Mar Gewargis III, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East Nov. 17, praising God for the “fraternal bonds” which exist between them and the “significant steps” which have already been made in strengthening dialogue.

His comments came as a three-week halt in airstrikes, declared by the government’s ally Russia, ended Nov. 15. With government airstrikes over Aleppo raining down again, at least 32 people, including several children, have been killed over the last two days, the BBC reports.

A children’s hospital, blood bank, and ambulance in rebel-held eastern Aleppo have been reported hit, with at least 21 people, five children and one emergency worker killed. The Independent Doctors Association reported that the hospital was severely damaged with some people trapped in the basement.

The Syrian civil war, which began in March 2011, has claimed the lives of more than 300,000 people, and forced 4.8 million to become refugees, about half of them children. Another 8 million Syrians are believed to have been internally displaced by the violence.

“These brothers and sisters,” the Pope said in his speech, “are models that encourage us in all circumstances to remain with the Lord, to embrace his cross, to trust in his love.”

“We show that the center of our faith is always the presence of Jesus, who invites us, even in adversity, never to tire of living his message of love, reconciliation and forgiveness.”

We learn this, Francis continued, from the martyrs of before and also of today, who “remain faithful to the Lord” even at the cost of their life, and with God “overcome evil with good.”

In his message to the Pope, Patriarch Mar Gewargis III said their meeting would be “a source of spiritual joy and encouragement” to the Christians of Iraq and Syria “in the midst of their suffering and pain, which unites them to the suffering and pain of Christ.”

Their suffering, caused by the “difficult and dire circumstances in which they live,” has caused many of them to leave the land of their ancestors, he said.

“In these countries are the roots of human civilization and the first Christian Churches, whose light shined on these peoples in the second half of the first century, through the missionary activity of the blessed apostles of our Lord.”

“In the midst of so much suffering, our ancient Christian communities of the East in general, and our Assyrian Christian community in particular, continued to bear witness to the Gospel of Christ, even paying with their blood.”

“We are grateful to these brothers,” the Pope said in his speech, “that impel us to follow the way of Jesus to defeat enmity.”

Just as the blood of Christ was “shed for love, reconciled and united, making fruitful the Church,” he said, “thus the blood of martyrs is the seed of unity of Christians. It calls us to devote ourselves with fraternal charity for communion.”

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VATICAN NEWS

In new interview, Pope reflects on close of Jubilee

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • November 18, 2016

Francis greets pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square before his General Audience on April 16, 2014. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Vatican City — In a lengthy new interview, Pope Francis opened up about his thoughts on the Jubilee of Mercy as well as progress made in the field of ecumenism, both of which he said have roots in the Second Vatican Council.

Asked what the Year of Mercy has meant to him, the Pope said that he hopes “many people have discovered themselves to be very loved by Jesus and have allowed themselves to be embraced by him.”

“His mercy always leads him to forgive, to forget our sins,” he said. “I like to think that the Omnipotent has a bad memory. Once he forgives you, he forgets. Because he is happy to forgive. For me this is enough. All of Christianity is here.”

The Pope’s interview with Italian paper Avvenire, the official publication of the Italian Bishops Conference, was published Nov. 18 and took place just days before the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy is set come to a close. Pope Francis will close the Holy Doors of St. Peter’s Basilica this Sunday, Nov. 20, on the feast of Christ the King.

In the interview, Pope Francis said that he “didn’t make a plan” for the Jubilee, but simply let himself be “led by the Holy Spirit.”

The fact that the Jubilee took place now “was a process that matured in time,” he said. Pointing to various documents the Church has published throughout the last century, Francis explained that the Church’s emphasis on mercy is not something new, but has unfolded gradually.

In the lead up to the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII’s “Gaudet mater Ecclesia,” indicating the “path to follow” to the opening of the Council, then there were the teachings of Paul VI, John Paul II’s encyclical “Dives in Misericordia” and the institution of Divine Mercy Sunday, he said.

In the lead up to the Second Vatican Council St. John XXIII published his 1962 document “Gaudet mater Ecclesia,” which Pope Francis said indicated the “path to follow” to the opening of the Council. After, there were the teachings of Bl. Pope Paul VI, which in turn were followed by St. John Paul II’s 1980 encyclical “Dives in Misericordia” and the institution of Divine Mercy Sunday.

When it came to Benedict XVI, he is the one who said “the name of God is mercy,” Francis observed, affirming that his predecessors and their own teachings on mercy “are all pillars.”

“In this way the Holy Spirit carried forward processes in the Church until their completion,” he said.

The fact that the Jubilee happened when it did is part of this natural progression, Francis said. In fact, just last year Benedict XVI himself spoke of mercy as a “sign of the times.”

In a lengthy interview given to German priest Fr. Jacques Servais, SJ in October 2015, the retired pontiff said that there continues to exist “the perception that we are in need of grace and forgiveness.”

“For me,” he said, “it is a ‘sign of the times’ the fact that the idea of the mercy of God should become more and more central and dominant.”

Asked if the Jubilee was, in a sense, the “Jubilee of the Council ‘hic et nunc’ (here and now),” Pope Francis said “the Church exists as an instrument to communicate to men the design of the mercy of God.”

“To make the experience of forgiveness which embraces the entire human family lived is the grace that the apostolic ministry announces,” he said.

During the Council “the Church felt the responsibility of being in the world as a living sign of the Father’s love.” This, Francis said, is what moves “the axis of Christian conscience” from legalism, which can be “ideological,” to the Person of God who “became mercy” in the incarnation.

Responding to criticisms he’s received regarding certain passages of his post-synodal exhortation “Amoria Laetitia,” the Pope said that some “still do not understand” the point, and want to make everything “black or white,” when in life “you have to discern.”

The Council “told us this,” he said, pointing to the fact that it hasn’t been that long since the Council was held: “historians say that a Council, in order to be absorbed well into the body of the Church, needs a century … We are in the middle.”

Conversation then shifted to the topic of ecumenism, specifically the many ecumenical visits which took place between Pope Francis and various Christian and religious leaders during the Jubilee.

When asked whether these meetings could be seen as a special result of the Jubilee, the Pope stressed that they are not “the fruit of the Year of Mercy,” but rather began a long time ago.

“It’s not something new,” he said, explaining that he is merely following the path begun by the conciliar decree, “Unitatis redintegratio,” promulgated more than 50 years ago and which initiated the journey toward unity among Christians.

Since then, he said, the path toward full Christian unity has gone forward with both “small and large steps.” Francis emphasized that this path is not moving as a result of his own work, but is “the path of the Council which moves forward, intensifies.”

Despite having participated in a number of significant ecumenical visits during his pontificate, and especially during the Year of Mercy, Francis denied that any sense of “acceleration” in the process was due to him.

The first of these visits during the Jubilee took place in February when Pope Francis met with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, the first-ever meeting between a Pope and a Patriarch of Moscow.

Just a few months later, the Pope traveled to Lesbos in April where he met with Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople and Orthodox Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens and All Greece.The Pope and Patriarch Bartholomew have met on several other occasions this year, including during an international interreligious gathering held in Assisi Sept. 20 for the World Day of Prayer for Peace.

During his visit to Georgia and Azerbaijan at the end of September, the Pope met with Ilia II, Catholicos and Patriarch of All Georgia, as part of a special ecumenical event.

In addition to these meetings, the Pope added another first to his ecumenical list when in October he traveled to Lund, Sweden to participate in a joint-commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation, meeting with Lutheran leaders and signing a joint declaration with the Lutheran World Federation.

“I have met the primates and those responsible, it’s true,” he said in the interview, “but my predecessors have also had their encounters. In the measure in which we go forward the path seems to go faster …”

Asked to respond to criticisms that the Bishop of Rome should focus more on the Catholic Church than on making so many ecumenical efforts, the Pope pointed to the Gospel, noting that even Jesus himself prayed to the Father that “they may all be one … that the world may believe.”

“The Bishop of Rome has always been called to cherish, seek and serve this unity,” he said. “We also know that the wounds of our divisions, which lacerate the body of Christ, we can’t heal them ourselves. So we can’t impose projects or systems to return to unity.”

Responding to the arguments of some that he wants to “sell out” the Church’s doctrine or “protestantize” the Church with his ecumenical initiatives, Francis simply said “I don’t lose sleep” over it.

“I continue on the path of those who have preceded me, I follow the Council,” he said. “As for opinions, one needs to distinguish the spirit with which they are said. When there is no bad spirit, they even help the journey.”

“Other times you see right away that the criticisms are done here and there to justify a position already taken,” he said, noting that in these cases “they are not honest, they are done with a bad spirit to stir up division.”

“You see right away that certain rigors stem from a lack, from wanting hide inside the armor of their own sad dissatisfaction.”

In working toward unity, though, the Pope said that at this point in history there are three roads to be taken: journeying together with the works of charity, praying together and recognizing the common confession “as expressed in the common martyrdom received in the name of Christ.”

Speaking of what he has coined “the ecumenism of blood,” Pope Francis said that “here you see that the enemy himself recognizes our unity, the unity of the baptized. The enemy, in this, makes no mistakes.”

In following this journey, he reflected, we do not put aside theological and sacramental questions, which are necessary, but instead focus on serving the poor because they represent Christ. Serving the poor together, he said, is a means of being united in touching his “wounds.”

The Pope stressed that it is not our own “projects or systems” that bring about unity, but that it is the Holy Spirit who “brings things to fulfillment, with the times that he establishes.”

“For this we cannot be impatient, discouraged or anxious,” he said. “The journey requires patience in preserving and improving what already exists, with is much more than what divides. And to bear witness to his love for all men, so the world may believe.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Like money too much? It’ll ruin your life, Pope Francis warns priests

by CNA/EWTN News • November 18, 2016

(John Harvey via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Vatican City — Pope Francis on Friday had a question for priests: “Are you attached to money?”

“The house of our Lord God is a house of prayer. Our encounter with the Lord (is) with the God of love,” he said in his Nov. 18 homily. “The Lord of Money is constantly seeking to enter inside.”

Pope Francis spoke at his Friday morning Mass at Casa Santa Martha’s chapel, largely attended by priests.

His reflection focused on the day’s gospel reading about Christ driving money lenders from the Jewish temple.

The moneychangers were renting their spaces from the priests, said the Pope in a strong warning about the “Lord of Money.”

“This is the lord that can ruin our life and can lead us to end our life in a bad way, without happiness, without the joy of serving the true Lord, who is the only one capable of giving us that true joy.”

The Pope particularly focused on the dangers of the love of money in the priesthood. He said the people of God forgive “so many sins” by priests, except for attachment to money and mistreating people.

“Following the Lord of Money leads a priest to be the head of a firm or be a prince or we can go even higher,” he warned the priests gathered for Mass. “It’s sad to see a priest who’s at the end of his life, he’s in agony, he’s in a coma and his relatives are there like vultures, looking to see what they can take away.”

He recounted the story of Jacob’s wife Rachel who kept hidden her idols, called teraphim. For Pope Francis, this is an image of attachment to material goods.

“Let us grant this pleasure to the Lord, a true examination of our conscience: ‘Lord, are you my Lord or is it, like Rachel, these teraphim hidden in my heart, this idol of money?’”

Pope Francis had some recommendations: “be courageous,” he repeated, “be courageous.”

“Make a choice: sufficient money like that of an honest worker, sufficient savings like those of an honest worker,” he said. “But all these financial interests are not permissible; this is idolatry.”

He closed praying that God “grant us all the grace of Christian poverty.”

“May the Lord give us the grace of the poverty of working people, those who work and earn a fair wage and who do not seek any more.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope tells bishops to have compassion on those with failed marriages

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • November 18, 2016

Pope Francis meets with the Roman Rota at the Vatican on Jan. 22, 2016. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — On Friday Pope Francis stopped by a formation course for bishops on the new marriage nullity process, telling attendees that as bishops, and now as local judges in annulment cases, they must pursue the truth, but never exclude those whose marriages have failed.

The Church, “who is embodied in the sad stories and sufferings of the people,” bends down to the poor “and to those who are far away from the ecclesial community or consider themselves outside of it due to their marital failure,” the Pope said Nov. 18.

Despite whatever distance couples who find themselves in this situation might feel, “they are and remain incorporated in Christ in virtue of their baptism,” Francis said.

He stressed that the Church has always had the attitude of a mother “who welcomes and loves, following the example of Jesus the Good Samaritan.” Because of this, it is the responsibility of bishops to never “consider them strangers to the Body of Christ, which is the Church.”

Pope Francis spoke to bishops currently in Rome to participate in a Nov. 17-19 formation course on the new, streamlined annulment process rolled out last year.

He reformed the process for the causes of marriage nullity in December 2015, giving the possibility of a stronger role to local bishops, among other things.

According to the new norms, the bishop may act as a judge in cases of nullity, and can use a swifter process than is typical when nullity is “sustained by particularly evident arguments.”

The reformed process was officially put into place by two documents, Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus (The Lord Jesus, a meek judge) and Mitis et misericors Iesus (Jesus, meek and merciful), which reformed the Code of Canon Law and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, respectively.

In addition to the increased role open to the local bishop, the reform also dropped the requirement of an automatic appeal when one tribunal found a marriage to be null, and ensured that the process would be free of charge. It also established that each diocese must have its own tribunal.

Pope Francis’ reforms were intended to simplify and streamline the process, while also safeguarding the indissolubility of marriage.

His visit to the Rota for the course fell nearly one year after the new process went into effect Dec. 8, 2015, coinciding with the feast of the Immaculate Conception and the launch of the Jubilee of Mercy.

The Roman Rota is one of three tribunals in the Roman Curia, and is the court of higher instance, usually at the appellate stage, with the purpose of safeguarding rights within the Church.

In his speech to course participants, Pope Francis said that bishops, while having been made “teachers of the faith” through their consecration, must also “continually learn.”

To learn in this sense, he said, “is to understand the needs and questions of humanity today and to look for answers in the Word of God and in the truth of the faith.”

He pointed to Bl. Paul VI’s 1975 apostolic exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi, in which the late Roman Pontiff encouraged evangelization efforts to take place “not in a superficial way,” but by “descending into the concrete situations of people.”

“Attention to people is the underlying theological and ecclesial motive for this formation course,” the Pope said, adding that spiritual health and “the salus animarum (salvation of souls)” of the persons entrusted to them “is the end of every pastoral action.”

The mission of a bishop, he said, is ultimately expressed in the First Letter of Saint Peter, in which the apostle encourages pastors at the time to tend to their flock not because they are forced to, “but willingly, as would God,” and to do so with “a generous heart” while providing an example for the flock.

“In this perspective, it is necessary to decisively eliminate every impediment of a worldly nature which makes it difficult for a large number of faithful to access ecclesiastical tribunals,” he said, stressing that economic or organizational problems “cannot be an obstacle to the canonical verification of the validity of marriage.”

Francis then spoke of the “healthy relationship” between justice and charity, explaining that Church law can’t ignore “the fundamental principle of salus animarum.”

Because of this, ecclesiastical tribunals “are called to be a tangible expression of a diaconal service of the laws in regard to this primary end,” he said, noting that the salvation of souls indicates “the horizon of mercy.”

Pope Francis noted that the questions the bishops bring from their own dioceses and experience of marriage pastoral ministry “require answers and actions that are not always easy.”

However, he voiced his confidence that the course would help them to find “the most appropriate approach to the various problems,” and thanked the Dean of the Rota, Msgr. Pio Vito Pinto, as well as the other speakers, who included Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna, for their “competent legal, theological, and pastoral contribution.”

Pope Francis closed his speech by encouraging the bishops to return to their dioceses “enriched with notions and useful tips in order to perform your ministry more effectively, especially regarding the new marriage process.”

This process, he said, is “an important help” in terms of to growing their flocks in imitation of Christ the Good Shepherd, “from whom we must daily learn the wise search of the unum necessarium (one thing necessary): the salvation of souls.”

He prayed that the Holy Spirit, who “invisibly but truly guides the Church,” would help both them “and also the Successor of Peter to respond with availability and humility to the cry of help of so many of our brothers and sisters who need to discover the truth of their marriage and their ways of life.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope warns new cardinals against falling into polemics, division

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • November 19, 2016

Pope Francis elevates 17 new cardinals during the Nov. 19, 2016 consistory. (Daniel Ibañez/CNA)

Vatican City — On Saturday Pope Francis handed a red hat to 17 new cardinals, warning them against the danger of falling into polemics and animosity and encouraging them to be close to their people, imitating God’s mercy.

“Ours is an age of grave global problems and issues. We live at a time in which polarization and exclusion are burgeoning and considered the only way to resolve conflicts,” the Pope said Nov. 19.

Using the current global migration crisis as an example, he noted how easy it is to view those considered to be “strangers” to be seen as a threat, and to “take on the status of an enemy.”

Whether it’s because they have different customs, different colored skin, a different language, a lower social class or even because they have a different faith, these people are often marginalized and “without our realizing it, this way of thinking becomes part of the way we live and act.”

“Everything and everyone then begins to savor of animosity. Little by little, our differences turn into symptoms of hostility, threats and violence,” Pope Francis said, noting that this has an especially hard impact on the defenseless “because their voice is weak and silenced by this pathology of indifference!”

“How many situations of uncertainty and suffering are sown by this growing animosity between peoples, between us,” he said, stressing that this attitude also infiltrates the Church in her communities, meetings and even priests.

“The virus of polarization and animosity permeates our way of thinking, feeling and acting,” the Pope said, stressing to the cardinals that “we are not immune from this and we need to take care lest such attitudes find a place in our hearts.”

Should this happen, it would be a direct contradiction of “the richness and universality of the Church,” which can be tangibly felt within in the College of Cardinals.

“We come from distant lands; we have different traditions, skin color, languages and social backgrounds; we think differently and we celebrate our faith in a variety of rites,” Francis said, adding that “none of this makes us enemies; instead, it is one of our greatest riches.”

Pope Francis spoke to 16 of the 17 bishops and priests he tapped to get a red hat last month, the only absentee being Bishop Sebastian Koto Khoarai, O.M.I, Emeritus of Mohale’s Hoek, Lesotho, for health reasons.

Coming from 11 nations and 5 continents, the new cardinals represent the Pope’s vision of having a broader, more universal representation of the Church.

In addition to having three Americans – Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago, Archbishop Joseph Tobin of Indianapolis and Bishop Kevin Farrell, prefect of the new Congregation for Laity, Family and Life – the appointees include many from small countries or islands that have never before had a cardinal, as well as from countries which present particular challenges in terms of pastoral outreach, such as those stricken with violence or persecution.

In his homily, Francis pointed to the day’s Gospel from Luke, in which Jesus tells his disciples to “set out” and go to the plains to meet the people, rather than staying on top of the mountain.

“The Lord thus shows the Apostles, and ourselves, that the true heights are reached on the plain, while the plain reminds us that the heights are found in a gaze and above all in a call: Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful,” he said.

He then pointed to four “exhortations” which he said mold the vocation of the apostles “through real, everyday situation,” which he named as to “love, do good, bless and pray.”

These “are four things we can easily do for our friends and for those more or less close to us” or that we like, he said, but noted they are much more difficult to do for our enemies.

When we think of our enemies or those whom we don’t like, our first reaction is often “to dismiss, discredit or curse them,” he said, noting how we frequently “try to demonize them, so as to have a sacred justification for dismissing them.”

“But Jesus tells us to do exactly the opposite with our enemies, those who hate us, those who curse us or slander us. We are to love them, to do good to them, to bless them and to pray for them.”

Pope Francis then turned to what he said are “the hallmarks” of Jesus’ message, where his “power and secret” are hidden.

The first aspect of this “secret” is that “my enemy is someone I must love,” he said, explaining that “in God’s heart there are no enemies. God only has sons and daughters.”

“We are the ones who raise walls, build barriers and label people. God has sons and daughters, precisely so that no one will be turned away … No matter how sullied our hands may be, God cannot be stopped from placing in those hands the Life he wishes to bestow on us.”

The Pope concluded his homily by pointing to Jesus continues to invite us “to spend our lives sustaining our people in hope, so that they can be signs of reconciliation.”

“As the Church, we are constantly being asked to open our eyes to see the wounds of so many of our brothers and sisters deprived of their dignity,” he said and urged the cardinals to “cherish in your own heart” the summons to be “merciful like the Father.”

After the consistory, Pope Francis and the new cardinals took two buses and stopped by the Vatican’s Mater Ecclesiae Monestary to pay a visit to retired Pope Benedict XVI, who was not present at the ceremony.

In addition to the three American cardinals elevated during the consistory, others of voting age include: Archbishop Mario Zenari, who is and will remain apostolic nuncio to the “beloved and martyred” Syria; Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga of Bangui; Archbishop Carlos Osoro Sierra of Madrid; Archbishop Sergio da Rocha of Brazil; Archbishop Patrick D’Rozario of Dakha, Bangladesh; Archbishop Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo of Merida, Venezuela; Archbishop Joseph de Kesel of Malines Brussels; Bishop Maurice Piat of Port-Louis, Mauritius Island; Archbishop Carlos Aguiar Retes of Tlalnepantla, Mexico and Archbishop John Ribat of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

In addition to the 13 new electoral cardinals, Francis has nominated four others who are of non-voting age due to their notable service to the Church: Anthony Soter Fernandez, Archbishop Emeritus of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Renato Corti, Archbishop Emeritus of Novara and Sebastian Koto Khoarai, O.M.I, Bishop Emeritus of Mohale’s Hoek, Lesotho.

Additionally, he nominated Fr Ernest Simoni, an Albanian priest from the diocese of Shkodra, whose testimony of the persecution of the Albanian Church under the communist regime the Pope cried at during his 2014 daytrip to the country.

The consistory will be the third of Pope Francis’ pontificate, the most recent of which took place last year on Valentine’s Day. With the 17 new cardinal-elects included, the number of voting cardinals comes to 121, and the number of non-voters to 107, for a grand total of 228.

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VATICAN NEWS

American cardinals reflect after Pope’s anti-division comments

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • November 19, 2016

Cardinal Joseph Tobin greets guests at the Pontifical North American College on Nov. 19, 2016. (Edward Pentin/CNA)

Vatican City — When Pope Francis spoke out sharply against the “virus of polarization,” three new American cardinals saw a chance for a serious examination of conscience.

“I thought it was very timely, what the Holy Father said,” Cardinal Joseph Tobin told journalists Nov. 19.

He said that for him, the first thing to do in response is “to examine ourselves in the Church, to see whether we have unconsciously appropriated this virus” or somehow justified it “when it actually serves to divide.”

To do this, he said, could likely be considered “a resistance to the acts of the Holy Spirit.”

Cardinal Tobin was among 17 priests and bishops who came to St. Peter’s Basilica from around the world to receive a red hat from Pope Francis Saturday during a special consistory set to coincide with the end of the Jubilee of Mercy.

The cardinal is currently Archbishop of Indianapolis but will head the Archdiocese of Newark to take over for retiring Archbishop John Myers.

Pope Francis gave a homily during the consistory earlier in the morning, saying that we live in an age “of grave global problems and issues,” and in which “polarization and exclusion are burgeoning and considered the only way to resolve conflicts.”

“How many situations of uncertainty and suffering are sown by this growing animosity between peoples, between us,” he said, stressing that this attitude also infiltrates the Church in her communities, meetings and even priests.

“The virus of polarization and animosity permeates our way of thinking, feeling and acting,” the Pope said, stressing to the cardinals that “we are not immune from this and we need to take care lest such attitudes find a place in our hearts.”

Another U.S. bishop elevated alongside Tobin was Irish-born Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who was previously the Bishop of Dallas until the Pope in August tapped him as the head of the Vatican’s new Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.

In response to the Pope’s homily, Cardinal Farrell told journalists he thinks the message Francis wants to convey is that “we all need to be a little more concerned and merciful and compassionate to each of our brothers and sisters” as the Year of Mercy comes to an end.

“We all need to learn how to respect each other. We can disagree on many points, but we need to enter into dialogue and conversation with each other. That’s what I believe the Holy Father wanted and that’s what I believe the Year of Mercy is all about,” he said.

He said mercy must continue “and we must live it”

People can talk “all they want to about every theological problem we have in the world,” but if it isn’t done in a spirit of charity, it’s empty, he said.

Similarly, newly-elevated Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago told journalists after getting his red biretta that the Pope’s use of the word “virus” was spot-on, “because animosity can be contagious and it can be enflamed with circumstances that would allow it to be so.”

The cardinal said he believes this does happen and that this virus “does feed on itself,” but he also noted Francis’ insistence that “each one of us have a responsibility to break that cycle of animosity.”

When it comes to his own personal ministry in the Chicago archdiocese, Cardinal Cupich said he is inspired by Pope Francis “to see the world like he does, to have that more global outlook,” giving more attention to poverty and persecution.

He noted that in a brief conversation with Pope Francis before the consistory, he assured the Pope of his obedience to the Church and to the Petrine ministry.

In addition to Cardinals Tobin, Farrell and Cupich, 14 other priests and bishops were elevated to the cardinalate.

Many of them come from the world’s peripheries.

As in previous years, Francis has stuck close to his vision of having a broader, more universal representation of the Church in the College of Cardinals. He has elevated many bishops from small countries or islands that have never before had a cardinal, as well as from countries which present particular challenges in terms of pastoral outreach, such as those suffering violence or persecution.

Out of the Pope’s new nominations, seven come from countries that have previously never had a cardinal, including: the Central African Republic, Bangladesh, Mauritius Island, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Lesotho and Albania.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who attended the consistory, told CAN that while the Pope frequently speaks about the need to go out to the world’s peripheries, “these one have done it.”

He noted that there are “many people in the Church that don’t know about the existence of these places,” so now to now have a cardinal there is “an indication of the vision of the Holy Father for the universality, the catholicity, of the Church.”

The cardinal also spoke about the new cardinals’ brief encounter with Benedict XVI after the consistory, explaining that “all of them are very happy.” He said to see Benedict now is “a joy.”

Cardinal O’Malley said the Year of Mercy has been the most successful Holy Year he has ever experienced.

“It touched the batteries of the entire world,” he said, adding “thousands of people returned to the sacraments, they understood how to practice mercy, how to forgive one another. It was really a spiritual success.”

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VATICAN NEWS

A Missionary of Mercy’s advice for priests after Jubilee

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • November 19, 2016

Father John Paul Zeller preaches at the Southeast Alaska Catholic Conference in Juneau for the Jubilee of Mercy. (Father John Paul Zeller)

Rome, Italy — Having spent the Holy Year fulfilling his mandate as one of Pope Francis’ Missionaries of Mercy, Fr. John Paul Zeller has some advice for his fellow priests when it comes to forgiveness and the sacrament of Confession.

“We need courageous priests that preach and teach clearly about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of His Church,” Fr. John Paul told CNA Nov. 17.

“If we do not preach and teach about the joy of forgiveness that the Lord extends to us in the sacraments, then people will not come,” he said, but also stressed the need for priests to be patient in waiting for people to come to Confession.

“The Lord is very patient with us, so we as priests need to be patient with God’s people. If we sit and wait they will eventually come.”

Fr. John Paul said that several times throughout the Jubilee he has also “publicly begged pardon” on behalf of priests who had been “heavy-handed or cruel to people in the confessional.”

”I begged people’s forgiveness and encouraged them to return” in the cases when they had left the Church due to bad experiences in Confession, he said, noting that when he did this, “I saw many people wiping tears away from their eyes in the congregation and they found their way to the confessional.”

He shared one example of a woman who accepted his apology on behalf of her husband, who left the Catholic Church 25 years ago after being “screamed at” in the confessional.

After asking for the phone number of the woman’s husband, Fr. John Paul said, “I called him personally and begged his forgiveness.”

“As priests, we need to be very patient and compassionate with people in the confessional,” Fr. John Paul said, adding that early in his formation a mentor told him that “priests are to be like lions from the pulpit and like gentle lambs in the confessional.”

A Friar with the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word, founded by Mother Angelica, Fr. John Paul is currently stationed in Birmingham, Ala., and was one of more than 1,000 priests who were sent out around the world as ambassadors of mercy.

Selected as missionaries from every continent, the Missionaries of Mercy placed a special emphasis on their role as preachers and confessors. They were given two special faculties that are usually unavailable to the average priest, the first being that they were not limited in geographic location in terms of hearing confessions.

Usually a priest has to ask permission from the local bishop before hearing confessions in a diocese other than their own, however for the Missionaries of Mercy that was not the case.

A second aspect of the Missionaries’ mission was that they were able to absolve sins otherwise reserved to the Holy See.

Bishops were encouraged to contact Missionaries of Mercy in nearby diocese and invite them to come to their dioceses.

In his interview with CNA, Fr. John Paul spoke about his experience as a Missionary of Mercy throughout the Holy Year, reflecting on the places he went and moments that stood out for him as a pastor.

Please see below for CNA’s full interview with Fr. John Paul:

CNA: You were commissioned as a Missionary of Mercy on Ash Wednesday for the Jubilee. Now that the Jubilee is almost over, what has your overall experience been like?

Fr. John Paul: My overarching experience has been one of gratitude to the Lord for His abundant Mercy. As Pope Francis has said often, “God never tried of forgiving us.” When Pope Francis spoke to the Missionaries of Mercy, on the evening before our commissioning, he spoke to us about the “closeness of God.” He wanted us to convey to people that the Lord is near and that He us not distant. It is we who distance ourselves from the Lord. The Lord is Merciful and He is always beckoning us back and opening up His Sacred Heart through the Sacraments of the Church, most especially the Sacraments of Penance and the Most Holy Eucharist.

CNA: What all did you do this year in your role as a Missionary of Mercy? Did you travel? If so, where did you go? What kind of events did you speak at?

Fr. John Paul: It seems like I have been in a whirlwind the entire year! I have traveled throughout the year. First of all, I traveled to Rome in February to be commissioned by Pope Francis on Ash Wednesday. 726 of the 1071 Missionaries throughout the world were personally able to make it to Rome to receive the mandate from the Pope. As soon as I returned, I spoke in Miami, Florida, at a Medical Conference for Doctors, Nurses and Volunteers for the annual North American Lourdes Volunteers Medical Staff Conference. I spoke about the spiritual aspects of taking those with special needs on pilgrimage. We sponsored a Divine Mercy retreat in Hanceville, Alabama at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in June, a few months after Mother Angelica passed into Eternal Life. I gave 4 talks and heard confessions all weekend along with the members of my Community, the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word. I was back in Florida again in August for the Benedicta Leadership retreat and Women of Grace Conference at Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida as a speaker and providing the Sacraments. I gave 2 Awakening Retreats in Alabama for college age students, as well as 2 Leadership retreats for college students. I also gave a retreat to high school students in Alabama. Perhaps one of the best trips of the year was to the Southeast Alaska Catholic Conference in Juneau, Alaska. Yes, I said Alaska! His Excellency, Bishop Edward Burns wanted to have a Missionary of Mercy present during the weekend to respond to the Holy Father’s invitation to invite those Missionaries into their diocese to preach and to hear Confessions. Wrapping up the Year of Mercy, I traveled to Kentucky to the Fathers of Mercy annual Vocation day weekend. There were a few other small retreats or talks that I did throughout the Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama.

CNA: Did you have any extra or specific responsibilities in your community, or at the EWTN headquarters?

Fr. John Paul: My assignment changed a few months after I got back from Rome and I moved to the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville a week after Mother Angelica died. My brother MFVA priests made it possible for me to travel a good bit throughout the year and for that I am grateful to them. At EWTN, we have a gigantic congregation by way of modern means of social communication. Our chapel in Irondale, Alabama may seat 70, but we have the capacity to preach to over 264 million households through cable systems in over 145 countries as well as the capacity to reach millions through radio – Sirius/XM and IHeart satellite almost 500 domestic and international AM and FM radio affiliates, and EWTN still owns the largest privately owned short wave radio station in the world. Mother Angelica would often tell us friars that we don’t have to go very far to be missionaries – through the media we reach the entire world. It was a great opportunity to preach and teach on themes such as Divine Mercy, Forgiveness, the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy and the importance of going to frequent confession. Both at the Shrine and at EWTN, I heard sometimes hours of Confessions, every day.

CNA: Is there a specific moment or encounter that stands out to you most, or that left a particular impact?

Fr. John Paul: Too many to mention! Encountering so many people throughout the year that are suffering in mind and/or body. There was a mother who brought her 4 1/2 year-old daughter to the Shrine to pray and beg the Lord for healing and strength. This little girl, Elizabeth has a tumor in her brain. I spent a lot of time with them. I remember walking alongside Elizabeth and holding her hand and just sensing like I was holding the hand of Jesus. It was powerful and I’ll never forget it.

CNA: What would you say has been the biggest fruit of this year for you, both personally and as a priest?

Fr. John Paul: Well, I cannot imagine my personal life and my priesthood as separate things, but I will say that the Lord has surprised me many times throughout the year. The biggest “fruit” I would say is the many times I tangibly experienced God’s Mercy on a penitent in the Confessional. As a priest, to be an instrument in the person of Jesus Christ, to be able to wipe away perhaps the crusted filth of decades through sacramental absolution is one of the greatest things I do every day.

CNA: You mentioned previously that this experience has changed your priesthood. How?

Fr. John Paul: I experienced many times throughout the Year of Mercy, just how close the Lord is. I believe the commission I received from the Pope helped me in my understanding of the Sacrament of Penance. It is important for people to know that frequent confession leads to a more fruitful participation at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. As a priest, I go to Confession about every 2 weeks or more. I have learned that I cannot be a good confessor if I first am not a good penitent. Throughout the year, the way in which the faithful approached the Sacrament of Penance and expressed their heartfelt contrition helped me to ask the question to myself, “am I that sorry for my sins?” I experienced many times in the Confessional how God can move a person to repentance. Only God can bring about repentance. Repentance is a miracle of Grace. I consider every time a person kneels down for Confession to be a miracle of God’s Grace.

CNA: Now that the Jubilee is over, what would you like to take from this experience moving forward?

Fr. John Paul: Whenever a Jubilee is called for or a particular year is deemed as a “Year of Faith” or a “Year of St. Paul,” it is as if a magnifying glass is put on a particular aspect of the deposit of faith. It’s not as if because the Jubilee Year of Mercy is over that we as Christians stop being merciful and discontinue practicing the corporal and spiritual works of mercy! The Mercy of the Lord endures forever! As Christians and especially as a priest, I pray that I never grow tired of being a Missionary of Mercy. A lady at the Shrine told me a few days ago, “Father, you will always be a Missionary of Mercy.”

CNA: Based off your experience during the Jubilee, do you have any advice for priests and confessors?

Fr. John Paul: I am only still 3 1/2 years as a priest and still a “baby-priest” as they say. I am convinced that when priests themselves love Confession and practice it themselves, it shows in their life, how they offer Mass and how they preach the Gospel. As St. Paul says, “Faith comes through hearing.” We need courageous priests that preach and teach clearly about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of His Church. I would hope that priests invite the faithful often to frequent reception of the Sacrament of Penance. If we do not preach and teach about the joy of forgiveness that the Lord extends to us in the Sacraments, then people will not come. Also, priests need to be okay with sitting in the Confessional for extended periods of time and even sitting alone waiting for people. The Lord is very patient with us, so we as priests need to be patient with God’s people. If we sit and wait they will eventually come. St. John Mary Vianney bears testimony to this. When he first came to Ars, France as a parish priest, there were practicing Catholics. He would go into the Confessional and wait. Eventually, people were coming in droves from all over Europe to have this saintly priest hear their confession. Finally, a few times throughout this Jubilee Year of Mercy, I have publicly begged pardon on the behalf of priests that may have been “heavy-handed” or cruel to people in the Confessional. I begged people’s forgiveness and encouraged them to return … When I did so, I saw many people wiping tears away from their eyes in the congregation and they found their way to the Confessional. One lady came up to me and said, “Father, I accept your apology on behalf of my husband. A priest screamed at him in the Confessional and he has not been back to the Catholic Church for over 25 years.” I asked her for her husband’s phone number and I called him personally and begged his forgiveness. As priests, we need to be very patient and compassionate with people in the Confessional. A priest-mentor once told us early in my formation, priests are to be like lions from the pulpit and like gentle lambs in the Confessional.

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VATICAN NEWS

At close of Jubilee, Pope Francis says it’s a reminder of what’s essential

by CNA/EWTN News • November 20, 2016

Pope Francis closes the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica on Nov. 20, 2016. (Daniel Ibañez/CNA)

Vatican City — On Sunday Pope Francis closed the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica, officially marking the end of the Jubilee of Mercy, which he said is a reminder that love is at the core of God’s attitude, rather than power and prestige.

“This Year of Mercy invites us to rediscover the core, to return to what is essential,” the Pope said Nov. 20, the Feast of Christ the King.

The “time of mercy” lived during the Jubilee serves as a call to look to “the true face of our King,” and to rediscover “the youthful, beautiful face of the Church, the face that is radiant when it is welcoming, free, faithful, poor in means but rich in love, on mission.”

Mercy, he said, takes us “to the heart of the Gospel, urges us to give up habits and practices which may be obstacles to serving the Kingdom of God” and urges us to align ourselves “only in the perennial and humble kingship of Jesus, not in submission to the precarious regalities and changing powers of every age.”

Pope Francis spoke to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for Mass marking the end of the Jubilee of Mercy. He first announced the Jubilee during a March 13, 2015, penitential liturgy inside the basilica.

In an unprecedented move, the Pope jump-started the Holy Year by opening the Holy Door in Bangui Nov. 29, 2015, – 10 days before the Holy Year officially began Dec. 8, 2015. Not only did it mark the first time a Pope had opened a Holy Door outside of Rome, but the act was also seen as a strong sign of solidarity with the war-torn country.

After closing the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica – the last one open in the world – the Pope processed to the square outside, where he celebrated Mass with the 70,000 pilgrims present, according to Vatican security.

In his homily, the Pope pointed to the day’s Gospel from Luke, in which Christ, “the Chosen One, the King” appears “without power or glory: he is on the cross, where he seems more to be conquered than conqueror.”

Jesus’ kingship, he said, “is paradoxical:” his crown is made of thorns, he has no scepter, no “luxurious clothing” or “shiny rings” on his fingers, but is instead pierced with nails and sold for 30 pieces of silver.

Francis noted that glory of God’s kingdom “is not power as defined by this world, but the love of God, a love capable of encountering and healing all things.”

Christ “lowered himself to us out of this love, he lived our human misery, he suffered the lowest point of our human condition” of betrayal and abandonment. However, “he did not condemn us, nor did he conquer us, and he never disregarded our freedom,” but instead “paved the way with a humble love that forgives all things.”

In celebrating the Feast of Christ the King, we proclaim his victory over death “with the sole power of love,” Pope Francis said, but cautioned that it would mean “very little” if we believed Jesus was King of the universe, but didn’t “make him Lord of our lives.”

He pointed to three different figures in the Gospel representing the different attitudes we can have: naming them as the people who are looking on, those near the cross, and the criminal crucified next to Jesus.

Those who stood by and merely watched as Jesus was crucified without saying a word were the same ones who pressed “in on Jesus when they needed something, and who now keep their distance.”

Francis said that we too can keep our distance, preferring “to remain at the window, to stand apart, rather than draw near and be with him.” However, a people who are holy and “have Jesus as their King, are called to follow his way of tangible love.”

Pointing to the second group, which included leaders, soldiers and a criminal, the Pope noted how they “all mock Jesus. They provoke him in the same way: ‘Save yourself!’”

This temptation, he said, “is worse than that of the people. They tempt Jesus, just as the devil did at the beginning of the Gospel to give up reigning as God wills, and instead to reign according to the world’s ways,” preferring to save himself over others.

“It is the most terrible temptation, the first and the last of the Gospel,” he said, but noted that when faced with this attack, “Jesus does not speak, he does not react. He does not defend himself.”

Rather, the Lord “continues rather to love; he forgives, he lives this moment of trial according to the Father’s will, certain that love will bear fruit.”

The Pope stressed that we are called to “struggle against this temptation” and fix our eyes on the Crucified Jesus, becoming “ever more faithful to him.”

“The lure of power and success seem an easy, quick way to spread the Gospel; we soon forget how the Kingdom of God works,” he said, but said the Jubilee of Mercy directs our focus to what’s essential.

Turning to the third figure, the thief who begs Jesus to remember him, Pope Francis said this person in “simply looking at Jesus, believed in his kingdom.”

Instead of being “closed in on himself,” the man, despite his sins and errors, “turned to Jesus. He asked to be remembered, and he experienced God’s mercy.”

“As soon as we give God the chance, he remembers us. He is ready to completely and forever cancel our sin,” Francis said, explaining that unlike our own, God’s memory “does not record evil that has been done or keep score of injustices experienced.”

“God has no memory of sin, but only of us, of each of us, we who are his beloved children. And he believes that it is always possible to start anew, to raise ourselves up.”

Pope Francis encouraged pilgrims to pray for the grace to never close the doors “of reconciliation and pardon,” explaining that just God believes in us beyond any of our own merits, “so too we are called to instill hope and provide opportunities to others.”

“Even if the Holy Door closes, the true door of mercy which is the heart of Christ always remains open wide for us,” he said noting that it is from “the lacerated side of the Risen One” that mercy, consolation and hope flow until the end of time.

He offered thanks for the many pilgrims who during the Jubilee crossed the Holy Door away from “the clamor” of daily news and tasted the “great goodness” of the Lord, and asked Mary to intercede for us as the Holy Year comes to an end.

“May our Blessed Lady accompany us … She is Mother of Mercy, to whom we entrust ourselves: every situation we are in, every prayer we make, when lifted up to his merciful eyes, will find an answer.”

After celebrating Mass, Pope Francis led pilgrims in praying the Angelus, telling them to give thanks to God “for the gift that the Holy Year of Mercy has been for the Church and for many people of goodwill.”

He also offered a special greeting to the sick, and to the delegation of the Italian government who were also present at Mass, including Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella.

At the end of the celebration Pope Francis also signed his new apostolic letter “Misericordia et misera,” set to be published Nov. 21 and which is addressed to the entire Church “to live continue to live mercy with the same intensity experienced during the entire Extraordinary Jubilee,” according to a communique from the Vatican Press Office.

In a gesture meant to represent the entire People of God, he handed a copy to people from several different states and stages in life, including Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila, one of the larges dioceses in the world; Archbishop Leo William Cushley of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh; two priests from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Brazil who served as Missionaries of Mercy during the Jubilee; a permanent deacon from the diocese of Rome together with his family; two religious sisters from Mexico and South Korea; a family – children, parents and grandparents included – from the United States; a young engaged couple, two mothers who teach catechesis in Rome and one person who was disabled and one who was ill.

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VATICAN NEWS

How an ex-prostitute’s horrific suffering moved Pope Francis

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • November 20, 2016

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

Vatican City — Pope Francis still remembers his meeting with a former prostitute who had suffered much.

In a new interview, the Pope recalled the time he met with a young pregnant woman from Africa who was “beautiful, young (and) exploited.”

In telling her story, the woman said she was forced to work until she was nine months pregnant. She ended up giving birth “in the winter on the street. Alone. By myself,” Francis recalled her saying.

Her newborn daughter, exposed to the cold, died.

This added to the woman’s suffering.

“They made her work until that day, because if she didn’t bring the exploiters much, she was beaten, even tortured,” the Pope said. He recalled that another woman he met in the community had her ear cut off because she didn’t bring enough money back for her traffickers.

Pope Francis said that when he heard these stories, he didn’t just think of the exploiters, but also the clients. “Do they not know that with that money, to take off for sexual satisfaction, they helped the exploiters?” he asked.

His meeting with the ex-prostitutes happened in an Aug. 12 visit to women rescued from forced prostitution and under the care of the Pope John XXIII Community in Rome.

The Pope recounted the meeting in an interview with TV2000 published Sunday, Nov. 20 to coincide with the end of the Catholic Church’s Year of Mercy.

During the Year of Mercy, the pontiff had made a habit of “Mercy Friday” encounters with others. He told interviewers his meeting with rescued ex-prostitutes had a particular impact on him.

For the Pope, another particularly striking encounter was the day he went to visit people at the beginning and at the end of life, when he traveled to a residence for the terminally ill, as well as to a neonatal unit of Rome’s San Giovanni hospital.

When he arrived at the maternity ward of the hospital, the Pope recalled seeing a mother “who cried and cried and cried in front of her two twins.” She originally had three babies, but one of them had died.

“She cried for her dead son, while caressing the other two,” the Pope said, explaining that his mind immediately turned to the attitude of some who “send away” their children before birth.

This is a “horrible crime,” he said, recounting false justifications for abortion: “they send them away because ‘it’s better like this,’ because you are more comfortable, it’s ‘a big responsibility’.” He again stressed that this is “a serious sin.”

Despite still having her other two children, the woman “cried for the one who died, unable to be consoled,” he said.

He added that these visits stayed on his mind.

Pope Francis’ 40-minute video interview with journalists Paolo Ruffini and Lucio Brunelli of TV2000 touched on a variety of topics, including the fruits of the Jubilee of Mercy, papal temptations, the importance of having a good sense of humor and how he deals with stress.

He said the Year of Mercy’s celebration in every diocese of the world universalized it.

“It was the entire Church who lived this Jubilee, it was like a Jubilee atmosphere,” he said, noting how he heard news from dioceses around the world telling stories of people drawing closer to the Church and strengthening their personal encounter with Jesus.

The Jubilee, he said, was “a blessing from the Lord” and “a great step forward.” He credited his predecessors Bl. Paul VI, who began the Jubilee Year tradition, and St. John Paul II, “who put a very strong accent on mercy.”

“It planted a lot of seeds,” he said, crediting spiritual growth to God.

“I think that the Lord will grow good things, simple, daily, in the lives of people,” rather than through spectacles, he said.

When asked about a comment he had made saying “the human attitude closest to divine grace is humor,” Francis said having a good sense of humor is a grace that he asks for every day.

He said he prays the same prayer of St. Thomas More: “Give me, Lord, a sense of humor,” so that he “knows how to laugh ahead of a fight.” A good sense of humor “lifts you,” he said, and allows you to see things with a renewed perspective.

The Pope also cautioned against having an attitude of rigidity, as well as an attitude of hypocrisy. Pointing to the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospels, Francis noted that it ends with Jesus saying “be merciful like the Father,” which was the theme of the Jubilee.

God’s justice and mercy were intertwined, he explained.

“It doesn’t say: be just like the Father,” he noted, but stressed that “it’s the same! The justice and mercy of God are one thing. Mercy is justice and justice is mercy. And they cannot be separated.”

Another interview topic was the temptations a Pope faces. Francis said they are “the temptations of any person, of any man,” according to the weakness of their own personality.

The devil always uses these weaknesses to enter, he said, naming impatience, egoism and “a bit of laziness” as examples. The saints were also tempted, but went to Jesus and placed their trust in him for help.

Pope Francis was also asked what bothered him most: the insults of his critics versus the false admiration of flatterers.

His immediate response was “the second. I am allergic to flatterers. I have an allergy.” This allergy “comes to me naturally,” he said, because “to flatter another is to use the person for a purpose … to get something for oneself.”

On the topic of stress, the Pope said that even though he frequently feels tired, he has a way to keep his stress level down: “I pray: that helps me a lot.” Celebrating Mass, praying the rosary and the Liturgy of the Hours as well as simply speaking freely with the Lord are all things the Pope said help him to stay calm and balanced.

The Pope has another way to relive stress. “I sleep well,” he said, deeming this “a grace from the Lord.”

“I sleep like a log,” he said.

Francis confessed that he has his aches and pains like everyone else, such as his sciatica, but sleeping well helps with his health.

The interview then turned to various conflicts throughout the world. The Pope considered how the virtue of mercy could be lived better at the political level among States.

In response, Francis again spoke against the arms trade and drug trafficking. He repeated his previous references to a piecemeal “Third World War” underway throughout the world. He said the world needs a heightened sense of tenderness capable of “caressing the flesh of the suffering Christ” to overcome this violence.

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WORLD NEWS

U.K. cardinal: There are more homeless people than you think

by CNA/EWTN News • November 11, 2016

(Catholic News Agency/Shutterstock)

London, England — Those who are homeless, both those who live on the streets and those who move from place to place, need active charity from Christians, Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster has said.

“A walk through these streets at night, or early morning will show what a problem this is,” the cardinal said, linking the response to homelessness to the Gospel imperative to show attention to those most in need.

He spoke Nov. 2 to the Caritas Social Action Network parliamentary reception.

The cardinal cited sustained increases in homelessness in the last six years, where at least 3,500 people in England and Wales sleep on the streets on the average night. Spending cutbacks on homelessness prevention and human services have strained charities.

In addition, there is the “hidden homelessness” of people who may have a job, but sleep on couches, spare rooms or bed and breakfasts because they have no home of their own. Some spend nights at different friends’ houses, or go to all-night parties to avoid sleeping on the street.

“We will be sitting next to such people on the tube and in our churches,” Cardinal Nichols said.

Preventing homelessness is a priority because it is difficult to stop its “vicious cycle.” For single men, family breakdown is a leading contributor to homelessness, and such a breakdown’s leading cause is financial difficulty.

“Then there is the scourge of drug and alcohol addiction,” the cardinal continued. “And of course, those without suitable accommodation upon release from prison are the most likely to find themselves on the streets, back in this vicious cycle.”

He praised the work of Catholic charities in aiding prisoners, providing shelters and improving family relationships. Diocese of Westminster volunteers work over 4 million hours each year.

“All over England and Wales, parishes and charities offer a range of support to people who are homeless: from extensive skills training, counselling, hostels and move-on accommodation, to simply offering a hot meal and clothing to those with nowhere else to turn,” the cardinal said.

“This is love in action, the corporal works of mercy, sharing the goods of one of the wealthiest societies on earth with those at its peripheries, the victims of economic and social systems which remain heartless unless enlivened by a sense of moral purpose and generosity.”

Such work is rooted in faith in God and in God’s grace to “raise our fallen nature to this steady and determined desire to create here a better society, one which reflects more closely God’s compassion and mercy, which we all so clearly need!”

Cardinal Nichols praised government focus on the homeless, efforts to secure affordable housing, and local funding for new approaches to homelessness.

He noted the importance of prison reform, given the link between homelessness and imprisonment. The cardinal also announced the release of a document on prison reform, “The Right Road,” which draws on expertise from Catholic charities, chaplains, and other relevant experts.

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WORLD NEWS

‘Remarkable’ resilience of persecuted Christians focus of new film

by CNA/EWTN News • November 12, 2016

Under Caesar’s Sword. (Jason Cohen Productions)

South Bend, IN — Christian persecution around the world is the focus of the documentary short film Under Caesar’s Sword, and the people it portrays.

“What is remarkable about persecuted Christians is their resilience. They are not just victims. Understanding this is the key to being in solidarity with them,” said Daniel Philpott, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame and the movie’s co-director.

The 26-minute film shows Christian communities in Turkey, India and elsewhere which suffer religious freedom violations. It interviews Christian families, refugees and regional leaders as well as scholars.

Under Caesar’s Sword focuses on their “creative strategies” to survive, build alliances and resist persecution, Notre Dame News reports.

The erasure of Christian culture in the Middle East is one focus, as is human rights activism among Christians in India.

In the Kandhamal riots of late 2007 and early 2008, rioters in the eastern India state of Odisha killed 45 people and destroyed more than 80 churches. Christians were targeted for forced conversion to Hinduism.

In the film, the widow of a man who refused to convert recounted how he was tortured and killed in front of her and their two children.

“They beat my husband badly as we pleaded with them to stop,” she said. “They dragged him for a kilometer with a cycle chain around his neck.”

Timothy Shah, associate director of Georgetown University’s Religious Freedom Project, reflected on many Christians’ response to persecution.

“Christians have spontaneously responded to their own suffering by enlarging their concern and compassion and work for justice to include others as well,” Shah said.

“It’s important because that’s what their faith calls them to, but it’s important too in that I think many Christians realize the only world in which they are going to be more secure is a world in which everyone is more secure.”

Open Doors USA, an advocacy group that serves persecuted Christians in over 60 countries, said more than 7,100 Christians were killed for their faith in 2015. An estimated 100 million Christians endure some form of persecution each year.

The documentary film was directed by Jason Cohen Productions. It was produced by the Under Caesar’s Sword initiative, a partnership of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture and Georgetown University’s Religious Freedom Project.

The Under Caesar’s Sword film is available at no cost on-line, as is a discussion guide for groups. It can be seen at the website ucs.nd.edu/film.

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WORLD NEWS

Kidnapped Mexican priest found alive with signs of torture

by CNA/EWTN News • November 14, 2016

(Neville Elder via Shutterstock)

Mexico City, Mexico — The Mexican Conference of Bishops issued a statement acknowledging that Fr. José Luis Sánchez Ruiz, who was kidnapped Nov. 11 in his home state of Veracruz was found alive, but with visible signs of torture.

The statement, issued by the bishop of San Andrés Tuxtla, Bishop Fidencio López Plaza praised God for hearing their prayer, and confirmed that “Indeed, Father José Luis Sánchez Ruiz was abandoned with remarkable traces of torture.”

Fr. Sánchez Ruiz is the 54 year-old pastor of the Parish of the Twelve Apostles in the diocese of San Andrés Tuxtla, located in the state of Veracruz. In recent months, priests have been the target of violence and kidnappings, particularly in the states of Veracruz, Guerrero and Michoacan. Since the election of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in 2012, at least 15 priests have been killed in the country.

Fr. Sánchez Ruiz is the third Catholic priest kidnapped in Veracruz since September, 2016, but the first found alive.

Previously, Fr. Sánchez Ruiz has denounced the upheaval and violence in the region. According to the BBC, the priest “received threats in recent days because he is a defender of human rights,” said a spokesman for the diocese, Fr Aaron Reyes. “He has criticized the system of corruption and the crime problem in Catemaco.”

The pastor’s abduction from his parish sparked two days of protests in the town of Catemaco, where the church is located.

Bishop Fidencio López Plaza thanked the authorities for their help searching for Fr. Sánchez Ruiz, and asked for patience in waiting for the intervention of the prosecutor. He also thanked “all the lay faithful who from their parishes and encouraged by their priests, have remained in a state of prayer.”

“Thank God and thank you all for so many signs, and so many gestures of faith and brotherhood. May God bless them, may God protect them, may God give them peace,” the bishop said.

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WORLD NEWS

Islamist extremism is a major religious freedom threat. But not the only one

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • November 15, 2016

(Aaron Groote via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Rome, Italy — Religious freedom is under threat worldwide from phenomena like Islamic “hyper-extremism,” but there are also other dangers, a new report from Aid to the Church in Need says.

“The importance of religious freedom is for me the difference between life and death,” Father Jacques Mourad said in the report’s foreword.

The Christian monk was held by the Islamic State group in Syria for five months before his escape in October 2015.

“Our world teeters on the brink of complete catastrophe as extremism threatens to wipe out all traces of diversity in society,” Fr. Mourad said. “But if religion teaches us anything it is the value of the human person, the need to respect each other as a gift from God.”

Aid to the Church in Need is an international Catholic pastoral charity. Every two years it publishes a report that analyzes the state of religious freedom in 196 countries.

The latest report, published Nov. 15, covers the period from June 2014 to June 2016.

It shows major threats to religious freedom from the rise of “Islamist hyper-extremism,” with the Islamic State group being the prime example.

The extremist phenomenon is described as “a process of heightened radicalization, unprecedented in its violent expression.” It is characterized by “an extremist creed and a radical system of law; systematic attempts to annihilate or drive out all groups that don’t conform to their outlook, including co-religionists; cruel treatment of victims; use of social media to recruit followers and to intimidate opponents by parading extreme violence.”

The report says this hyper-extremism has had “a global impact.” It is able to affiliate with extremist groups and has “well-resourced support networks.”

The report shows that radical Islamism is on the rise. Attacks have occurred in one out of five countries around the world, including Switzerland, Australia and 17 African countries.

However, the Middle East is the region that is most of all suffering from the rise of this extremism.

Aid to the Church in Need explained: “this hyper-extremism is eliminating all forms of religious diversity and is threatening to do so in parts of Africa and the Asian Sub-continent.” It aims “to replace pluralism with a religious monoculture.”

This extremism also fueled the refugee crisis in countries like Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria.

Major Islamic leaders have condemned this extremism, speaking out in many public declarations.

Fr. Mourad reflected on the future of religion in the world.

“If we are to break the cycle of violence threatening to engulf our world, we need to replace war with peace,” he said. “In this day and age more than ever, it is time to cast aside religious hatred and personal interests and learn to love one another as our faiths call us to do.”

Islamic extremism is not the only threat.

The report says that countries where one particular religion is identified with the nation state have “stringent religious freedom restrictions.” These include Hindu India, Islamic Pakistan and Buddhist Burma.

Aid to the Church in Need highlighted 38 countries where religious freedom at risk. Of these, 23 are ranked among the most at risk.

In 12 of these 23 countries, the threat to religious freedom is driven by non-state actors. There, discrimination and persecution involve organized non-government groups.

Religious freedom has worsened in 37 percent of the world’s countries. In 55 percent of the world’s countries, there have been no changes on state of religious freedom in comparison with the 2014 Aid to the Church in Need report.

Religious freedom improved just in three countries: Egypt, Bhutan and Qatar.

The worst places in terms of religious freedom are Eritrea and North Korea. In China, religious minorities are considered threats to the stability of the country. This is why the Chinese government pushes for these groups to come under State control, with grave consequences for groups that do not toe the party line.

For instance, in the Chinese province of Zheijang, government authorities issued a series of new rules in 2015 that led to the demolition of crosses and the removal of symbols of faith. According to the new rules, religious buildings cannot be taller than 78 feet. Crosses cannot be placed at the top of the church tower, but they must be placed on buildings’ walls. Their size on the wall can only be one tenth the size of the building.

These new rules were part of a campaign to demolish crosses and churches that began in 2013 in Zheijang.

While Chinese officials claimed that the buildings torn down in the demolition campaign violated construction rules, both Catholics and Protestants showed that many of the buildings were built after local authorities had given permission.

Over 2,000 crosses and churches had been destroyed by March 2016.

The process of “Sinicization,” that is, making everything Chinese, has harmed other religions. In China’s Xinjiang region, Muslims who were students, teachers and civil servants were forbidden to fast during Ramadan.

Aid to the Church in Need’s 2014 report had found religious freedom dwindling in Europe and the U.S., mainly due to pressure from extreme feminist and LGBT lobby groups.

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What the poor suffer from most happens in developed countries

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • November 16, 2016

Rooftops of a slum in Bangkok, Thailand. (Dario Lo Presti via Shutterstock)

Rome, Italy — While rarely talked about, Neglected Tropical Diseases are the most widespread ailment among the world’s poorest of the poor – yet also ironically the most prevalent in top global economies, experts say.

Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) are “the most important diseases you’ve never heard of. These are the most common afflictions of the world’s poor,” Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, told CNA Nov. 11.

“Every single person who lives in poverty, profound poverty, has at least one of these diseases,” he said, noting that since they typically don’t lead to death, they are “neglected but they’re not rare,” with many people suffering not just from “a single disease, they have multiple diseases at the same time.”

Hotez is President of Sabin Vaccine Institute and Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. He also serves as the U.S. Science Envoy.

Founded in 1993, the institute is nonprofit that focuses on medical research to reduce the impact of vaccine-preventable and neglected tropical diseases. Scientists, researchers and advocates are all part of the team seeking to end needless suffering through these ailments.

Joined by hundreds of others, Hotez was in Rome for a Nov. 10-12 conference organized by the Pontifical Council for Healthcare Workers titled “For a culture of welcoming and supportive health at the service of people with rare and neglected diseases.”

The conference was held in two different sessions, one focusing on rare diseases, while the other, at which Hotez was a keynote speaker, focused on NTDs, which infect over 1 billion of the world’s across the globe.

Specifically addressed were the 18 most prominent NTDs, including Ascariasis, Hookworm Disease, Schistosomiasis, Dengue, Chagas disease, Onchocerciasis, Rabies and Hansen’s Disease (leprosy).

In his comments to CNA, Hotez noted that when the Sabin Institute was founded the primary focus was in poor countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and poverty-stricken countries in Latin America, the problem has shifted.

“One of our new findings is that it’s the poor living among the wealthy that paradoxically account for most of the world’s neglected tropical diseases,” he said.

“If you look on the total numbers basis, it’s the G20 countries, the 20 largest economies together with Nigeria … that now account for the world’s neglected tropical diseases,” he said, stressing that the diseases are spread among the poor, so “it’s the concentration of intense poverty.”

NTDs “reinforce poverty” in that they often consist of debilitating conditions that make people too sick to work, disproportionately affect women and children and in some cases “actually shave IQ off of kids to ruin their future wage-earning potential.”

Pointing to Brazil as an example, Hotez noted that although Brazil is the largest economy in Latin America, the northeast is plagued by intense poverty, and therefore disease.

“That’s where you have Zika, and Zika arose out of there not by coincidence but because of poverty,” he said.

Hotez said recent data also shows that Catholic countries “are disproportionately suffering from these diseases,” and stressed the need for the Church to be involved as part of the solution.

Pope Francis has made his “intense drive to do something about poverty” known, he said, adding that if we want to take on poverty, “the most cost-efficient way to do it is to take on the poverty-promoting disease.”

He voiced his hope that the Church would take action in addressing the problem of NTDs, advocating to G20 leaders to promote medical treatments that already exist and to push for further research and development to come up with vaccines.

One strong sign of the Church’s commitment to the fight against NTDs was the presence of Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin at the conference, who “seems very committed to this,” Hortez said.

Increased collaboration with Cardinal Peter Turkson and his new dicastery for Integral Human Development is also part of the plan, he said, explaining that Sabin Institute will likely be providing “the background information and being a conduit for that dicastery to make it actually happen.”

“The action that I would like to see is engagement by the Church of the G20 leaders. And if anybody can do it, it’s this Pope.”

Pope Francis spoke to conference participants on the last day of the gathering, telling them that each person, “above all a person who suffers, because of a ‘rare’ or ‘neglected’ disease as well, without any hesitation deserves every kind of commitment in order to be welcomed, treated and, if possible, healed.”

He praised the efforts of doctors and researchers in looking for solutions and further cures, and stressed the need to care for the environment in order to better care for the poor.

“The relationship between these diseases and the environment is decisive,” he said, noting that while many of the diseases have a genetic cause, for others “environmental factors have a major importance.”

“Even when the causes are genetic, a polluted environment acts as a multiplier of damage. And the greatest burden falls on the poorest populations,” he said, stressing the need to have greater respect for “our common home.”

He also spoke of the need for justice in the sense that while care for those suffering from rare or neglected diseases typically centers around an impersonal, doctor-patient relationships, “it is equally true that the approach, at a social level, to this health-care phenomenon requires a clear application of justice, in the sense of ‘giving to each his or her due.’”

This basically means “equal access to effective care for equal health needs, independently of factors connected with socio-economic, geographical or cultural contexts,” he added, and assured of his prayer and blessing for all those suffering from disease, as well as those present and their work.

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Stealing Hosts for anti-Catholic art? Not illegal, Spanish judge says

by CNA/EWTN News • November 16, 2016

(Elisa Pires via JMJ Rio 2013/Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Madrid, Spain — Critics of a Spanish judge say he wrongly dismissed charges against an artist who stole consecrated Hosts for an exhibit that disrespected the Catholic faith.

The Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers announced it would file an appeal and be prepared “to go to the highest court necessary in the face of what is becoming a campaign of serious offenses against the Christian faith and religious freedom.”

Abel Azcona stole more than 240 consecrated hosts from Masses celebrated in the cities of Madrid and Pamplona. He later took nude photos of himself arranging them on a floor to spell the word ‘pederasty.’ In November 2015, he displayed the photos as part of an art display in a city-owned exhibition hall available for public use.

When that exposition was over, the would-be artist sold the consecrated hosts for more than $268,000.

Azcona was charged for an alleged offense against laws respecting religious sentiments. However, Judge Fermín Otamendi of the Pamplona Second District Court of Discovery closed the case against Azcona.

In his ruling, the judge described the consecrated and stolen hosts as “small white round objects.” He claimed that there had been no desecration of the sacred hosts because according to the Spanish Royal Academy dictionary desecration is defined as “treating something sacred without due respect or using it for profane purposes.”

He rejected charges that the accused treated something sacred without due respect, claiming “lack of respect should not be confused with not doing what the Catholic Church requires its faithful to do with the consecrated hosts in the act of Communion.”

The judge claimed Azcona made use of the hosts “discreetly, without his conduct being able to be characterized as disrespectful, offensive or irreverent.” The exhibition of the artwork “does not constitute derision of the beliefs, rites or ceremonies of the Catholic Church nor is it an affront to those who profess or practice said beliefs,” according to the judge.

Polonia Castellanos, president of the Christian Lawyers Association, objected to the ruling. She considered the judge’s description of the consecrated Hosts to be an effort to “rule out deliberate harmful intent.”

Even though the perpetrator stated on several occasions that he used consecrated Hosts, the judge said in his ruling that “nowhere in the exhibit was it indicated that the hosts with which he had spelled out the word ‘pederasty’ were consecrated hosts.”

The Association of Christian Lawyers cited Article 525 of the Spanish Penal Code, which protects religious freedom against those who “in order to offend the religious sentiments of the members of a religious confession, publicly deride by word, in writing, or through any type document their dogmas, beliefs, rites or ceremonies.”

The 110,000 petition signatures delivered to the Pamplona city council objecting to the exhibit also constitutes evidence of an offense against religious sentiments, the group said.

The petition asked the city’s mayor, Joseba Asirón, to pull the exhibit. There were also numerous public protests against the display. Archbishop Francisco Pérez of Pamplona offered a Mass of Reparation that more than 4,500 faithful attended.

The Association of Christian Lawyers said the facts were sufficiently serious that, at minimum, oral arguments should be held.

“Dismissing the case without even hearing from the parties in court is to have the least consideration for the fundamental right of religious freedom,” the group said.

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Promoting reconciliation and forgiveness, Salesians remain in Syria

by Blanca Ruiz (CNA/EWTN News) • November 18, 2016

A young Syrian refugee. (Thomas koch via Shutterstock)

Damascus, Syria — Fr. Alejandro León is a Salesian missionary who has lived more than 13 years in the Middle East, and in Syria since 2011 – precisely when its civil war began. He has said that being there during the war is “ a sign of mercy and the love of God,” even though it involves risking his own life and often being close to death.

The priest, born in Venezuela in 1979, said he has witnessed several miracles, because he works with young people who can put aside revenge and foster a love for reconciliation, which has led them to care for the relatives of Muslim extremists.

“Taking that step has been hard, but it has been very freeing for them” and “they have realized that those women and children are not culpable, and in the end, they are also our brothers and sisters,” he told CNA.

He knew when he joined the Salesians that he wanted to “offer to the young people the education and generosity that he had received.” So in 2003, when he was 24, he offered to go “wherever was the greatest need,” and his superiors indicated the Middle East.

After studying in Egypt and Italy, Fr. León, who was recently ordained a priest, was sent to Syria. “The war was beginning and I accepted,” he said.

Agreeing to go to a country at war scared him, he said, but he recalled that once he was there he realized something fundamental: “I had a very happy life thanks to my family and the Salesians and it really grieves me that there were so many children that could not have the same opportunity.”

“The risk is worth it, and if this turns out badly and something happens to me, I believe I have lived long enough to have found the meaning of life and this is to know I am deeply loved by God.”

“Even though as Salesians we have promised obedience to our superiors, they have given us a lot of freedom so that just those who want to stay in Syria are there. I believe than each one of us, of the seven who are in the three communities, have experienced powerful moments of abandonment, of decisively surrendering ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord, telling him that no matter what happens, I’m in his hands for as long as he wants,” the missionary reflected.

The three Salesian communities in Syria are located in Aleppo, Damascus, and Kafroun (35 miles northwest of Homs).

Their homes are known in Syria as an “oasis of peace” because they seek to unite under the Gospel and with Christ all the Christians in the area.

Fr. León said that in Syria, “there are times when we need to care of the sick, the dying, or burials, and you know that on the way missiles and bombs are falling, but it’s in these situations in which you decide you’re going to go all the way or just halfway. Because if we stay in Syria it’s not to take care of the buildings but to serve and be a sign of mercy and the love of God in the midst of the people, and that involves risking our lives.”

“We risk our lives sometimes, even though we try to be as prudent as possible. But what can’t happen is that in order to protect ourselves we only go halfway with our service: we’re staying in Syria to serve, and we decided that as long as there are Christians who need us, we’ll be there in Syria with them.”

This sense of fidelity and service to the Christians is based, Fr. León explained, “on the sense of family, which is so important for Salesians.”

In his work with the young people as director and general coordinator for the activities the Salesians undertake in Syria, Fr. León noted that the biggest challenge is to form them so they are prepared to rebuild their country once the war is over.

“There will be companies and countries ready to rebuild the walls in the cities, but what will be needed are persons, young people, very prepared to rebuild the hearts, souls and the spirit of that society … this will be the main mission of the Syrian youth.”

Another difficulty is “the cultural idea of vengeance which is very ingrained,” which does not arise out of hatred but out of “love for that loved one who has died and who must be avenged because of that love.”

“In Syria everyone has someone to avenge” the priest lamented, adding that his work is also to seek to promote reconciliation and not vengeance.

“Our Syrian young people are going to refugee centers where there are, in addition to many abandoned people, women and children of the Muslim extremists who are taking part in the attacks,” he explained.

“You would have to put yourselves in the shoes of those guys and think about what they have overcome to be able to help and take care of, for example, the son of someone who ordered the bombing that killed my cousin or my brother.”

“Taking that step, for a lot of them has been hard, but it also has been very freeing. They have realized that in the end the children of those extremists are not culpable and in the end they are also our brothers and sisters.”

He said that the war and “the mystery of suffering” has made a lot of young adolescents with whom the Salesian work in Syria to have serious doubts about their faith.

“The problem of evil has created a crisis of faith, but with our witness and being close to them, many young people have overcome this and afterwards have been able to have a much more authentic experience of Christ.”

In fact, this country “is among those that have given the most vocations to the Salesian family, even before the war. Also those who during the war have overcome their doubts, have come into a deep spiritual life which makes them ask themselves what God wants from them. And that is something beautiful.”

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Don’t let politicians drive you crazy, Kenya’s bishops advise

by CNA/EWTN News • November 18, 2016

Bishops attending a meeting of religious and clerics with Pope Francis at St. Mary’s School in Nairobi on Nov. 26, 2015. (Martha Calderon/CNA)

Nairobi, Kenya — Ahead of Kenya’s 2017 elections, the country’s Catholic bishops warned about the potential for inflammatory language and politician-driven ethnic tensions to add to violence and endanger the country.

“The well-being and prosperity of our country depends on all of us,” the bishops said in a Nov. 11 statement. “This is the only Kenya we have and we must guard our liberties jealously so that those who come after us will find a country where there is peace and harmony. We should never allow few individuals to spoil the peace in Kenya and interfere with our inheritance.”

“Together we can build a country that is just and free from corruption, a country that is orderly and respects the rule of law and a country where the dignity of every person is respected and valued,” they added.

The statement, titled “For Love of our country, work for peace and unity,” was signed by Bishop Philip Anyolo of Homa Bay, chairman of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops, according to the Catholic News Agency for Africa.

The bishops stressed the need for peaceful elections, voicing concern about “the resurgence of violence, confrontational languages and hate speeches.” They warned such habits could return the country to the period of 2007-2008 when civil conflict became a real concern.

Kenyans should avoid a tribalistic mentality where voters decide to elect “one of our own” at the expense of other communities, they advised.

“We wish to caution, again and again, our politicians to avoid inflammatory language, and the tendency to set one community against the other,” the bishops continued, asking leaders to promote harmony and peace.

“Politicians are tearing into one another and making dangerous statements capable of whipping up ethnic tensions, clashes and violent political rivalry,” the bishops said. “Accusations and counter accusations are being traded at the expense of the truth.”

“The lives of Kenyans are very precious and anybody threatening or attacking them has no place in any decent and civilized society. We condemn these acts of violence in the strongest terms and we call for the arrest of any person inflicting violence and continuous suffering to others.”

Among the topics the bishops’ letter addressed was the issue of politics in church.

“The Church is called to be the conscience of the society. Consequently those working in the Church must be seen to be above party politics,” they said. “We call upon the clergy not to use the Church or the pulpit to promote any political candidate.”

The bishops would not allow churches and church functions to be used as campaign platforms and “forums of hate speech.”

“As much as politicians and those aspiring to elective positions are free to worship and pray where they want, they should not use such opportunities to make their campaign statements,” said the bishops.

Another topic of concern was terrorist attacks in regions that border Somalia and efforts to radicalize or recruit youth.

“The intention of these evil people is clear – to create animosity between Christians and Muslims in this country,” the bishops said. “We should never succumb to this temptation for evil can only be overcome by good.”

The bishops lamented “perpetual infighting” among elected leaders and the “disease” of corruption, an evil “that seems to be perpetrated without shame or fear.”

They spoke as Kenya’s Ministry of Health faces allegations of mismanagement.

“Tolerating corruption and letting those considered ‘untouchable’ free to loot the taxpayers’ money for the sake of political expediency shows weak leadership in the fight against corruption,” the bishops said.

On the topic of education, the bishops said children should receive a religious education from the time they start school so that they become “respectful, God-fearing, hardworking, honest and orderly people.”

“We must reject outside interference from those who are bent to derail our young people from our God given values that are at the heart of our moral fabric,” they said, rejecting the exclusion of religious education and sex education that lacks the context of good values.

“We call upon all our Catholics and all people of good will to pray for Kenya so that we can have peace and build a one united nation,” their statement concluded. “God bless Kenya!”

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New Venezuelan cardinal says country’s crisis prompted red hat

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • November 18, 2016

(Elise Harris/CNA)

Rome, Italy — Venezuelan Archbishop Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo is one of the Pope’s picks from the peripheries who will get a red hat this weekend, which the new cardinal-elect says is a sign of the Vatican’s concern for the people amid the country’s ongoing crisis.

“The Holy Father has shown a special interest for Venezuela,” Cardinal-elect Porras told journalists Nov. 15.

“I think that never as now, here in the Vatican, have there been senior leaders who have had a direct or close relationship with the reality of Venezuela,” he said, adding that “undoubtedly the situation of the country” is what influenced the Pope’s decision to name him cardinal.

This round of consistory red-hatters “is a bit special” in the context of the Jubilee of Mercy, he said, noting that the majority of his fellow cardinal-elects are “‘outsiders,’ we come from dioceses or sees which traditionally have never had cardinals.”

On Oct. 9 Pope Francis announced that Archbishop Porras and 16 other priests and bishops would be named cardinals Nov. 19, the eve of the close of the Jubilee of Mercy. His nomination makes him one of just two cardinal-electors from Venezuela, meaning he is eligible to vote in the next conclave, alongside fellow Venezuelan Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino.

Porras, Archbishop of Merida, spoke to journalists about his nomination in the context of Venezuela’s current social and economic situation Nov. 15, just days before he is set to be elevated as cardinal by Pope Francis.

He recalled receiving a letter from the Pope, which didn’t simply offer congratulations, but provided “a program” for how to carry out ministry in his new role.

The letter, he said, cautioned against getting “carried away” by the excitement and compliments for his appointment. To be a cardinal, it read, “is not for a worldly joy, but to know that it’s a responsibility that has to do mainly with the poor.”

The new cardinal-elect spoke about the significance of having two electors from Venezuela for the first time, which he said is due to the fact that the Church is “the strongest and most unified” institution in Venezuela.

“The loss of institutions in Venezuela is very serious. Everything works discretionally in power,” he said, noting that the Church in Venezuela “has been a very critical voice in denouncing the problems that exist in the country.”

Venezuela is currently on the point of a humanitarian emergency in which fundamental necessities are inaccessible and many, including children, die due to the lack of basic foods and medicines.

In the aftermath of Chavez’s stormy reign and the takeover of his successor, Nicolas Maduro, in 2013, 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 after former president Chavez died from cancer in 2013. The regime is known to have committed gross abuses, including violence, against those who don’t share their political ideologies.

When it comes to the stance of the Church in the crisis, Porras noted that since the bishops frequently speak out against the Maduro regime, they are labeled as siding with the opposition. However, he stressed that “The Church in Venezuela is not with the opposition, it’s with the people.”

“The hierarchy is with the people,” he said, noting that according to documentation from 1531 when Venezuela first received a bishop until now, the Church has always pointed out the problems that need to be solved.

“All governments, from Romulo Betancourt to now have seen us as the opposition,” he said, insisting that the Church’s behavior, particularly in the past 50 years, “has been in continuity” with her attitude in the past.

“We are on the side of the people and not on the side of any political bias,” he said, explaining that in their meetings with people from both government and opposition parties, “we usually say things quite clearly. And there are those who receive it and those who don’t.”

Porras also spoke about Pope Francis and his Latin American roots, which he says are at the heart of the Pope’s closeness to the people.

In both Europe and North America, Pope Francis’ style “is sometimes seen as something like a good pastor who doesn’t have much depth in thought, that he is simply a good pastor.”

This attitude “is a mistake,” Porras said, saying that if there’s one virtue the Church in Latin America has “it is closeness, simplicity and presence in the midst of problems.”

Different currents of thought since the Second Vatican Council such as liberation theology and the theology of the people, “which Pope Francis represents,” has a lot to do with this cultural sense of closeness, Porras said.

The ‘theology of the people’ was popular in Argentina in the 1950s as an alternative to radical liberation theology. While radical liberation theologians looked to Marxist interpretations of the Gospel, theology of the people was founded on common peoples’ culture and devotion, including their spirituality and sense of justice.

A true “pastoral theology,” Porras said, can be understood by looking to the concept of an internist doctor in medicine, who is the one that has “a fairly general vision” of things, and as such is able to take the richness of other areas of theology “and always relate them to reality, to daily life.”

“This is one of the great contributions” Latin American theology has, Porras said, explaining that the true value of it “is clearly expressed in the thought and actions of Pope Francis.”

He spoke about the Pope’s frequent call for pastors to take on “smell of the sheep,” which is something “we have to be permanently,” particularly given the country’s current situation.

“Unfortunately, in Latin America and Venezuela also, those who arrive at the government remain isolated in a kind of capsule and have very little relation with the people, with real problems,” he said, noting that as bishops, staying close to their flock is a key way “to be able to see what reality” is like.

Many say Venezuela is a rich country, “but what Venezuela has had throughout the 21st century is a rich government, but not a rich population,” the archbishop said, explaining that currently “everything is the opposite.”

“Imagine at this moment that there is no food, where there are no medicines, where violence is unleashed and where impunity and corruption are evident because the mere presence of works and people of the Church is already a call to what should be.”

When asked about the recent election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States, Porras said Trump’s pre-election rhetoric on immigration has “a short circuit,” especially given the fact that there are many Latinos who live in the U.S.

“Simplistic readings of this should not be made,” he said, noting that in the context of a changing world, when the needs of the people are at least in some way “recognized by political diligence,” the politicians “must also look for solutions to these problems.”

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For Bangladesh’s new cardinal, papal visit will boost faith

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • November 19, 2016

Cardinal Patrick D’Rozario. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Vatican City — After becoming the first prelate from Bangladesh to ever get a red hat, newly-elevated Cardinal Patrick D’Rozario said his country is waiting for the Pope’s visit in 2017, which will not only rejuvenate the Church, but will help strengthen interfaith ties.

Pope Francis’ visit to Bangladesh will be “a great event for the whole Church in the country, especially for interreligious harmony, the rights of government workers and for climate change,” Cardinal D’Rozario told journalists Nov. 19, after being elevated as cardinal earlier that day.

“He’s a kind of ‘spiritual guru,’ the Holy Father,” the cardinal said, predicting the visit will “boost-up the spirituality, the communion of all the people.”

When asked when the Pope’s Bangladesh visit will take place, the new cardinal joked “I’m going to take him there right now!” Turning practical, he said that due to the country’s hot season and monsoon season, the trip will likely take place in the second half of 2017 at the end of the year.

Cardinal D’Rozario, the Archbishop of Dhaka, was one of 17 priests and bishops to be made a cardinal by Pope Francis during a special consistory Saturday, set to coincide with the close of the Jubilee of Mercy.

True to the Pope’s style, many of the new cardinals named by Francis come from small countries or islands that have never before had a cardinal, as well as from countries which present particular challenges in terms of pastoral outreach, such as those stricken with violence or persecution.

Cardinal D’Rozario is the first-ever cardinal from Bangladesh. Other countries with their first cardinal include the Central African Republic, Mauritius Island, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Lesotho and Albania.

Speaking to journalists, the cardinal said the Pope’s visit to Bangladesh will also serve as a stimulus to strengthen community bonds weakened by recent acts of terrorism.

On July 1 Islamic terrorists laid siege to a restaurant in Bangladesh, killing 20 people. The attack took place just as Muslims in the midst of the month of Ramadan were about to break their fast at sundown.

According to Cardinal D’Rozario, such attacks “are very foreign to our culture,” which has enjoyed interreligious harmony and dialogue “for many, many years. So this is something foreign.”

He noted how for the past nine months he has been working with the government and other religious leaders in the country “in order to build that communion again.”

The cardinal also reflected on his feelings about his elevation to the College of Cardinals. When he first got the news, he said, “I could not believe it, I could not accept it.” He said he was moved by the letter Pope Francis sent him, in which the pontiff emphasized that “when the people come and wish you and greet you, remember the Lord is gazing on you. He is up there gazing, looking at you.”

Another of the new cardinals is Cardinal Dieudonné Nzapalainga of Bangui in the Central African Republic. The country was Pope Francis’ first stop last November as part of his tour of Africa.

For Cardinal Nzapalainga, the consistory “is a very great day for us,” particularly “because the Pope came to Central Africa to open the Holy Door.”

In an unprecedented move, the Pope jump-started the Jubilee of Mercy by opening the Holy Door in Bangui Nov. 29, 10 days before the Holy Year officially began. Not only did it mark the first time a Pope had opened a Holy Door outside of Rome, but the act was also seen as a strong sign of solidarity with the war-torn country.

The Central African Republic’s president Faustin-Archange Touadéra, was also present for the consistory alongside the President of the Assembly, the lower house of the country’s parliament, and the country’s Imam.

Given the presence of both religious and governmental leaders at his official elevation ceremony, Cardinal Nzapalainga said, “we think that it’s something more than for us, it’s something for the whole Church in Africa and the whole country.”

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Help for the poor, dialogue with Trump – Archbishop Kurtz’s parting vision

by CNA/EWTN News • November 14, 2016

Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz walking out of the Paul VI Hall during the Synod of Bishops on Oct. 9, 2015. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Baltimore, MD — Concrete outreach to those in need should be the focus of the U.S. bishops going forward, as well as “respectful dialogue” with the Trump administration, the bishops’ conference president said Monday.

“United with Pope Francis, we are confident and we are hopeful, as we hear once again the echo of the words of Jesus: what you did for one of my least, you did for me,” Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville told the U.S. bishops.

Archbishop Kurtz is the outgoing president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, finishing a three-year term. He spoke at their general assembly in Baltimore, Maryland Nov. 14. The bishops are entering their 100th year of holding plenary gatherings.

“Whether it is protecting the child in the womb and her mother or a family seeking a better life as they migrate from another country, it is our task to think not of our own interests but of the common good,” he said. “We embrace that task with enthusiasm and enter respectful dialogue with President Donald Trump and with both houses of Congress.”

He said this dialogue would seek “concrete actions.”

“There’s been an unprecedented lack of civility and even rancor in the national elections just completed. Now we are required to move forward with respect for those in public office,” he said. “We seek the common good based on truth and charity, without imposing, but strongly proposing, as we have done for 99 years.”

The main focus of Archbishop Kurtz’s remarks was not the political elections, but the tasks facing the U.S. bishops today.

“Jesus spoke and acted in very concrete ways. Empowered by His grace, so do we,” he told the bishops.

He encouraged their outreach to pregnant mothers, to the dying, to the family “fleeing for a better life for their children,” and the inner city family “seeking opportunities and not racial profiling.” He encouraged the bishops’ outreach to those who wish to serve others with “integrity of faith.”

Bishops should work to build trust in their neighborhoods, he continued. He predicted they would find “signs of hope from unexpected places” in the future leaders born today and could draw hope from their encounters with others.

Archbishop Kurtz recounted his encounter with a refugee family in Ukraine, where he met a young eight-year-old refugee with Down Syndrome.

“He instinctively jumped into my arms, gave me a big smile and said in a language that my heart understood: ‘I love you’,” the archbishop recounted. “The lesson is obvious: we bishops and all who serve the Lord need also to open our hearts to the joy that others will give to us. Joy and love are not only to be given but also to be received.”

For the archbishop, that boy was “a trusting child of God deserving a chance,” much like many American young people.

In February, Archbishop Kurtz met with two dozen unaccompanied minors in El Paso before Pope Francis said Mass on the other side of the border.

He asked them their dreams, and they said they wanted only to work, to study and to join their family.

“Quickly I asked: ‘not also to pray?’ and without a pause they said ‘Yes, to pray to God to help’,” he recounted.

“Our nation is on thin ice when refugees are spoken of in the abstract,” Archbishop Kurtz said. “After I met the unaccompanied youth seeking reunion with their families, the issue became very clear. Surely the situations are complex but the voiceless remain anonymous unless there is a face to the voice.”

He encouraged the bishops to find in such people these “flashes of inspiration and encouragement that come to us from God.”

The archbishop listed several challenges facing the bishops: threats to the global community, especially religious persecution, and challenges within the United States, related to the dignity of the human person.

He also mentioned possible problems for American Catholics, citing “challenges to unity in truth and charity within our Church as we tirelessly announce the good news of Jesus Christ, to draw all to Christ and to walk with all toward conversion.”

Archbishop Kurtz recounted the encouragement he had received from his friend and mentor, the late Bishop emeritus David B Thompson of Charleston. He also encouraged the bishops to pay attention to one another and to remember that they are a “family, a ‘communio’ of pastors.”

“Just as a family seeks to serve each other as a prerequisite for authentic service beyond, so we do too. If not, our pastoral hearts will be shallow and short lived with others,” he said.

He voiced gratitude to the bishops and the bishops’ conference staff

Archbishop Kurtz closed with a reflection on his episcopal motto “Hope in the Lord.”

“This is not a pie-in-the-sky hope but a hope grounded in the reality of God’s grace in the midst of challenges,” he said.

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Keep calm and follow Jesus, U.S. bishops say after the election

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • November 14, 2016

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville speaks at a press conference in Philadelphia on Sept. 26, 2015. (Mary Rezac/CNA)

Baltimore, MD — As the country recovers from a divisive election and many in the U.S. are living in uncertainty, the Church must offer everyone hope, the outgoing president of the U.S. bishops’ conference maintained Monday.

“The Church at her best has always been a beacon of hope,” Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville stated Nov. 14 at a press conference during the bishops’ fall general assembly in Baltimore.

He added that the Church “advocates for people who feel that they’re disenfranchised or are filled with fear,” and pointed to statements he made earlier in the morning to migrants and refugees, who might be fearful after the recent presidential election.

Just as Christ said in the Gospels “I am with you,” he exhorted his fellow bishops to repeat to these persons who have fled violence and persecution: “we are with you.”

The bishops are meeting for their annual general assembly Nov. 14-16 in Baltimore. On Monday they heard the final presidential address of outgoing president Archbishop Kurtz, as well as an address by the Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S., Archbishop Christophe Pierre.

Regarding the recent presidential election, Archbishop Kurtz said earlier on Monday that he had written to President-elect Donald Trump expressing a “willingness to work together” for the “protection of life” and the “promotion of human dignity.”

The bishops “have been very clear for the right to life of the child in the womb,” Archbishop Kurtz insisted, adding that the Church is defending human dignity by opposing the legalization of assisted suicide, which was recently approved by voters in Colorado and by the city government of Washington, D.C.

Trump’s victory has been met with protests in cities across the country, capping what was already a polarizing election cycle.

Bishops responded to the protests by stating their respect for freedom of speech while insisting that a “peaceful transition of power” take place. “I think that these can be reconciled,” said Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, chair of the bishops’ domestic justice and human development committee, of the protests and peace.

There is nothing “more American than a peaceful transition of power,” he stated.

The bishops were also asked about the fear of immigrants and refugees. Trump ran on a strong immigration platform that called for, among other things, a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison for those deported from the U.S. who try to illegally re-enter.

Last year he called for a halt on Muslims being able to enter the country, for national security reasons. He expanded that policy this past summer by saying that the U.S. should not accept refugees from countries “compromised by terrorism.”

He said on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he plans to deport 2 to 3 million undocumented persons “that are criminal and have criminal records” after he is sworn in as president.

Archbishop Wenski recognized the validity of fears many in the U.S. have of being deported, but exhorted them to stay calm.

In 1980, when President Reagan was elected, the archbishop recalled he met with Haitian detainees who were crying in fear. He recalled telling them, “don’t worry, nothing’s changed,” pointing to other countries where violent riots might take place during a transition of power.

“We have a rule of law,” Archbishop Wenski said on Monday. “Nobody can arbitrarily try to send out of the country, in one fell swoop, 11 million people.”

“Those people [Haitians] are still here,” he added, saying that “it’s time to take a deep breath” and to “continue our advocacy.”

“If they build a wall, we have to make sure they put some doors in that wall,” he said, referring to Trump’s campaign promise to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Catholics should also support those who have been helping immigrants all along, Archbishop Kurtz added. Many Catholic Charities workers have been serving immigrants for a long time, and we must “encourage and even salute in some ways” these workers, he said.

Plus, there is public support for immigration reform which would include a “path to permanent residency” and “eventual citizenship,” Archbishop Wenski said.

The bishops were also asked about the implementation of Amoris laetitia, Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on love in the family, and if it would uphold Pope St. John Paul II’s teaching in Familiaris consortio that the divorced-and-remarried may receive reconciliation in the sacrament of Confession only if they have repented of having broken the sign of the covenant and, if for serious reasons they cannot separate, they agree to live in complete continence, living as brother and sister.

Archbishop Kurtz instructed Catholics to “read first chapter four and five” of the letter, and pointed to what “our Holy Father has said,” that “very clearly that there is no desire on his part to make any canonical changes or any new doctrine.”

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DiNardo, Gómez elected new heads of U.S. bishops

by CNA/EWTN News • November 15, 2016

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston (l) and Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles (r). (Bohumil Petrik/CNA and Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Baltimore, MD — The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on Tuesday elected Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston as its president, and Archbishop Jose Gómez of Los Angeles vice-president.

Cardinal DiNardo has served as conference vice-president since 2013. He was elected president at the bishops’ fall assembly Nov. 15 in Baltimore, and will serve a three-year term.

The bishops’ conference president plays a significant role in coordinating and leading charitable and social work and education, while providing a public face for the Catholic Church in the U.S.

Cardinal DiNardo has served as Archbishop of Galveston-Houston since 2006, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 2007. Archbishop Gómez succeeded as Archbishop of Los Angeles, in 2011.

In the vote for president, Cardinal DiNardo received 113 votes. There were 10 candidates, and the nominee with the second-largest number of votes was Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans, who garnered 30 votes.

Cardinal DiNardo and Archbishop Gómez had both also been selected (at the 2014 general assembly) by their fellow US bishops to be among the delegates to the 2015 Synod on the Family.

Cardinal DiNardo was born in Steubenville in 1949, and was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh in 1977.

He was appointed coadjutor bishop of Sioux City in 1997, succeeding as its ordinary the following year. He was then named coadjutor archbishop of Galveston-Houston in 2004.

The cardinal was chosen vice president of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference in 2013. He had previously served as the head of the bishops’ pro-life committee, where he was outspoken against the contraception mandate of the Obama administration.

In addition, has been a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture, the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, and the Pontifical Council for the Economy.

Archbishop Gómez heads the largest U.S. diocese, with more than 4 million Catholics. He is the highest-ranking Hispanic bishop in the United States.

Born in Monterrey, Mexico in 1951, he was ordained a priest of Opus Dei in 1978. In 2001, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Denver, and made Archbishop of San Antonio in 2004. In 2010 he was appointed coadjutor archbishop of Los Angeles, succeeding as its ordinary the next year.

Archbishop Gomez has worked extensively in Hispanic ministry and played a key role in creating the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders. He has also been outspoken on pro-life issues, immigration, and the death penalty.

In 2008, Archbishop Gomez was appointed as a consultant to the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. He has served in various roles for the US bishops’ conference, including in cultural diversity, doctrine, and Hispanics and liturgy.

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New U.S. bishops’ leader to immigrants: We have your back

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • November 15, 2016

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo. (Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston)

Baltimore, MD — After the recent presidential election, the new president of the U.S. Bishops is adamant about standing with all vulnerable persons, including the unborn and immigrants.

“I would want our work as shepherds and leaders to bring Catholics together to recognize the beauty of the human person, even if someone disagrees with you,” Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Houston-Galveston, the new president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said on Tuesday.

“From our point of view, we certainly respect the government,” he noted of the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump. However, “we also have a shepherd’s heart,” he added, insisting that the Church will continue to serve the hungry and thirsty and welcome the stranger.

Cardinal DiNardo spoke at a press conference at the fall general assembly of the U.S. bishops in Baltimore, Md. As the vice president of the bishops conference, he had been elected president earlier on Tuesday. Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles was elected vice president.

A major underlying theme of the meeting was the recent presidential election, with concerns expressed about the polarization and divisive rhetoric, particularly toward minorities and immigrants.

When asked about dealing with negativity towards minorities, the cardinal stated that the Church would continue defending the vulnerable.

He insisted upon “our capacity to look at the human person and to always raise the issue of how can we most respect the human person who’s in our midst, whether he or she is documented or undocumented.”

Concern for the human person is shown in many issues, he said, noting that “the beginnings and ends of life are extremely crucial” but other issues like torture, the treatment of refugees, and the treatment of civilians in wartime “are all important, crucial issues.”

“I think the current situation both invites some hope that there could be a share of perspectives on the common good,” he noted, and added “we are always going to champion those who are voiceless … but we always want to do it respectfully.”

He pointed to the mass of the previous day, where after the first day of the general assembly, bishops boarded buses for a trip across town to West Baltimore. There they concelebrated mass at St. Peter Claver parish, the oldest African-American congregation in the city and a part of the community where riots happened last April over the death of Freddie Gray.

At the mass that focused on continuing racial reconciliation, Cardinal DiNardo noted that “we came to pray” and “we came to also proclaim the importance of the human person.”

It is these two actions that are “extremely important in these at times divisive issues,” he said.

Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, the newly-elected vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and former chair of the bishops’ migration committee, agreed that prayer and advocating for human dignity must be top priorities for the bishops.

Latinos living in U.S. churches and communities is an “important aspect to keep in mind,” he insisted.

When asked how the bishops conference would dialogue with the Trump administration on pro-life and religious freedom issues, Cardinal DiNardo admitted he didn’t know with certainty what the policies of the Trump administration would be.

“At this point, I’m not sure where the administration is coming from,” he said, adding that “they haven’t quite yet made known” their specific policies on these issues aside from statements made during the 2016 campaign.

The cardinal expressed hope that with the new Trump administration issues would be discussed like the HHS birth control mandate and the religious freedom of groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, and an extension of the Hyde Amendment which would continue to prohibit federal dollars from funding abortions.

“Pro-life issues are very dear to me. I used to be the chair of the pro-life committee at the bishops’ conference,” Cardinal DiNardo said.

Archbishop Gomez said that promoting a “culture of life” is one of the priorities of the bishops’ 2017-20 strategic plan, and it will be seen as a priority.

Educating Catholics to be good citizens must also be a priority, he said. “We Catholics need to know the faith better,” he said. “That way, we can make good decisions in how we act in public life.”

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How to fix our broken sexual culture, according to Archbishop Chaput

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • November 16, 2016

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia speaks with CNA on Sept. 15, 2014. (Joaquin Piero Perez/CNA)

Baltimore, MD — Infidelity, divorce, sexual violence, pornography, hook-up culture – all things that have both increased en masse in society over the last few decades, and have seared pain into the lives of individual men and women.

So how do we even begin to address the problem? By people – especially the youth – choosing to live in true, authentic and virtuous community with one another, says Archbishop Chaput.

“We’re getting a culture that’s just hugely preoccupied with sexuality, and being restrained sexually is not considered a virtue anymore, apparently. I think that’s very hurtful to everyone,” Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, who chairs the U.S. bishops’ working group on Amoris laetitia, told CNA on Monday.

The archbishop, who in a lecture in September noted a marked increase in the number and kind of sexual sins he had heard in the confessional throughout his priesthood, told CNA that young Catholics need virtuous relationships to live chastely in the midst of a promiscuous culture.

“I think it’s really important for us to encourage young people to form communities of young people, peers, who can give them support in the face of this culture of cheapening human relationships,” he insisted.

Archbishop Chaput spoke with CNA during the U.S. bishops’ fall general assembly in Baltimore Nov. 14. He chairs the U.S. bishops’ working group on Amoris laetitia, Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on love in the family.

The exhortation was the fruit of two synods on the family, which sparked controversy amid speculation over whether there would be a change in the Church’s practice that the divorced-and-remarried may not receive Communion.

Since Amoris laetitia was published, some of its vague language has inspired conflicting interpretations. Some have seen it as a break with the Church’s teaching tradition, others as not changing the Church’s teaching. Still others consider it a progression toward a new pastoral praxis, or that it need not be interpreted at all.

For his part, Archbishop Chaput noted in pastoral guidelines for his archdiocese that in putting Amoris laetitia into practice, “the Holy Father himself states clearly that neither Church teaching nor the canonical discipline concerning marriage has changed.”

Francis’ exhortation “should therefore be read in continuity with the great treasury of wisdom handed on by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church … and previous magisterial documents,” he said.

In his Sept. 15 Tocqueville Lecture at the University of Notre Dame, Archbishop Chaput had insisted that the task of rebuilding society comes from personal conversion, not politics. Even if presidential candidates might be unpopular and controversial, he noted, they came from a flawed culture and were nominated by the citizens.

As evidence of this cultural decline, he noted that over recent decades the number of sexual sins he heard in the Sacrament of Confession has increased, as well as their “scope,” “novelty,” “violence,” and “compulsiveness”:

“As a priest, what’s most striking to me about the last five decades is the huge spike in people – both men and women — confessing promiscuity, infidelity, sexual violence and sexual confusion as an ordinary part of life, and the massive role of pornography in wrecking marriages, families and even the vocations of clergy and religious.”

Even more women are now viewing pornography, he said.

All these sins “create human wreckage,” he added, and on a mass scale they bring about “a dysfunctional culture.” Thus, “as families and religious faith break down, the power of the state grows.”

However, given that President-elect Trump has said lewd and degrading things about women, how can the Church begin rebuilding the culture after this election season?

It starts with community, the archbishop said. “I don’t think anybody can be chaste alone, so you need to pick a spouse who helps you to be that way.”

These virtuous communities are “really what the Church should be,” he added. “It should be a community of people who think like Jesus and want to act like He calls us to act.”

“So in some ways, that’s the foundational purpose of the Church, to provide us companions in virtue and worship, and care for the poor. We’re supposed to be companions that call one another to all those things that are essentially part of being a Christian,” he added.

The government has a role in protecting this culture, he said, but has abandoned its duty to protect children and families from the effects of pornography by allowing it in the name of “personal freedom.”

Archbishop Chaput also discussed with CNA how Catholics should react to the recent presidential election – with both “gratitude” and “concern,” he said.

“One, gratitude to God for the opportunities it’s going to give us to protect the Church on religious freedom issues,” he said, noting anticipated changes to the HHS birth control mandate. “And also on the life issues, it seems like there’s openness to supporting the Church’s position on life that wasn’t present before.”

However, serious concerns persist on issues such as immigration, he added, with “the possible deportation of people that will undermine family life in a very serious way.”

“There are a lot of people in my diocese who are very much afraid because of the things they’re imagining that’s going to happen. And that can be hugely disruptive and destructive of the life of families,” he explained.

“Fear is not a good way to live your life. And intense fear for children is especially disruptive. So I think sometimes because of our excitement about the pro-life positive news, we can be naïve about the dangers that exist.”

Ultimately, Catholics should be open to working with the Trump administration on areas of agreement with Church teaching, but must also be vigilant for other areas of policy that oppose Catholic social teaching.

“I think it’s really important to do our best to give the new administration the chance to develop its plan and support it in the good things that it proposes, and to express our concerns about the things that are worrisome,” he said.

“But it’s important for us to pray for government officials. The Scriptures call us to do that.”

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Philly archdiocese releases full text of Archbishop Chaput’s interview with CNS

by CNA/EWTN News • November 17, 2016

Archbishop Chaput processes into Mass on April 1, 2016. (Jeff Bruno)

Philadelphia, PA — The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has published the full text of Archbishop Charles Chaput’s responses to questions posed to him by Catholic News Service earlier this week, which can be found below.

The archbishop’s responses were in relation to an interview with Cardinal-designate Kevin Farrell published Wednesday by CNS, in which the prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life was critical of the pastoral guidelines published by the Philadelphia archdiocese for the implementation of Amoris laetitia in that local Church.

CNS later amended the interview with Cardinal-designate Farrell to include portions of responses given by Archbishop Chaput.

Please find below the full text of the Archbishop of Philadelphia’s responses to CNS.

CNS: Is your ad hoc committee planning a consultation with the entire USCCB about implementing Amoris laetitia?

Archbishop Chaput: It’s already done. The committee solicited thoughts and experiences from bishops around the country. That work was completed some weeks ago. The committee report was then presented to Archbishop Kurtz as USCCB president. Cardinal DiNardo, as the new conference president, will presumably act on it as he and conference leadership find appropriate.

CNS: Why did you feel it was important to issue pastoral guidelines in your archdiocese that went into effect July 1?

Archbishop Chaput: Because both the final synod document and Pope Francis in Amoris laetitia encouraged local bishops to do so. Actually you ask a a rather odd question. It’s more sensible to ask: Why would a bishop delay interpreting and applying Amoris laetitia for the benefit of his people? On a matter as vital as sacramental marriage, hesitation and ambiguity are neither wise nor charitable.

You’ll recall, I’m sure, that I was a delegate to the 2015 synod and then elected and appointed to the synod’s permanent council. So I’m familiar with the material and its context in a way that Cardinal-designate Farrell may not be.

Amoris laetitia was issued on April 8. Our guidelines were actually ready by June 1, after consulting our Priests’ Council, Archdiocesan Pastoral Council, auxiliary bishops, seminary faculty, and a variety of liturgical, canonical and theological experts, both lay and clergy – all of whom made excellent suggestions. We waited until July 1 to complete a final review. Other bishops have issued their own guidelines and responses consistent with the circumstances of their dioceses, which only they, as local bishops, know with real intimacy.

CNS: Cardinal-designate Farrell has told CNS that he believes that under Chapter 8’s guidance, a pastor cannot say to all divorced and civilly remarried: Yes, receive communion. But neither can they say to all: No, it’s not possible unless you live as brother and sister. How would you respond to this observation?

Archbishop Chaput: I wonder if Cardinal-designate Farrell actually read and understood the Philadelphia guidelines he seems to be questioning. The guidelines have a clear emphasis on mercy and compassion. This makes sense because individual circumstances are often complex. Life is messy. But mercy and compassion cannot be separated from truth and remain legitimate virtues. The Church cannot contradict or circumvent Scripture and her own magisterium without invalidating her mission. This should be obvious. The words of Jesus himself are very direct and radical on the matter of divorce.

CNS: Do you have any other comments you would like to make?

Archbishop Chaput: I think every bishop in the United States feels a special fidelity to Pope Francis as Holy Father. We live that fidelity by doing the work we were ordained to do as bishops. Under canon law – not to mention common sense – governance of a diocese belongs to the local bishop as a successor of the apostles, not to a conference, though bishops’ conferences can often provide a valuable forum for discussion. As a former resident bishop, the cardinal-designate surely knows this, which makes his comments all the more puzzling in the light of our commitment to fraternal collegiality.

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On abortion policy, a tale of two White House transitions

by Kevin J. Jones (CNA/EWTN News) • November 17, 2016

(ESB Professional via Shutterstock)

Washington D.C. — Pro-abortion rights groups sought massive change in the Barack Obama administration eight years ago. Now, some pro-life advocates see the incoming Trump administration as a major opportunity to advance their cause.

“Donald Trump ran as a pro-life candidate and we absolutely have a blueprint for the pro-life priorities of the Trump Administration,” Mallory Quigley, communications director of the Susan B. Anthony List, told CNA Nov. 16.

In September the Republican presidential nominee sent a letter to pro-life leaders. His stated priorities were defunding Planned Parenthood, appointing pro-life justices to the Supreme Court, making permanent the Hyde Amendment restrictions on taxpayer funding for abortion, and ending what Trump called “painful late-term abortions after five months.”

“He has surrounded himself with leading pro-life advocates, especially for key roles advising him on domestic policy,” said Quigley. “We are working with the transition team and have already been inundated with resumes from longtime pro-life advocates, including women legislators at the state level, seeking to be part of the team and help make President-elect Trump’s pro-life commitments a reality.”

The Susan B. Anthony List aims to elect pro-life candidates to office. It endorsed President-elect Donald Trump’s candidacy. In September, Trump asked the group’s executive director Marjorie Dannenfelser to serve as national chair of his campaign’s pro-life coalition and on his Catholic advisory board.

The White House transition was much different in 2008 when the president-elect was Barack Obama. A coalition of over 50 pro-abortion rights advocacy groups submitted a lengthy plan to the Obama-Biden White House Transition Project.

The 50-page plan noted vacancies in federal court and “positions of interest” in the federal government where the pro-abortion rights advocates wanted allies to be placed. It named administrative, directorial, and assistant posts within the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Justice, and the Department of State, as well as the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Equal Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission.

The plan listed legislative and policy priorities, some of which were never enacted, on abortion law, conscientious objection, emergency contraception, and other subjects.

One priority was preferred budget language that would end restrictions on abortion funding like the Hyde Amendment. Another priority was an end to the so-called Mexico City Policy that barred U.S. Agency for International Development funds from groups that provide advice, counseling or information about abortion or lobby foreign governments to legalize abortion or make it available.

Other priorities included funding abortions for federal employees and their dependents, for residents of the District of Columbia, Peace Corps volunteers, Native American women, and women in federal prisons.

The plan sought a 133 percent increase in funding for Title X Family Planning Program and $1 billion for international “family planning” programs. It sought total defunding of “abstinence only” sex education in preference to “comprehensive” sex education. It sought restored funding to the United Nations Population Fund, which lost funding under the George W. Bush administration after private and governmental investigations found collaboration with coercive population control programs in China.

Supporters of the plan included NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the American Civil Liberties Union. One of the groups in the coalition was Catholics for Choice, whose claimed Catholic identity has been long rejected by the U.S. bishops.

In December 2008, in the wake of a massive global financial crisis, the Susan B. Anthony List characterized the plan as an “abortion industry bailout.”

The group voiced concern that abortion advocates had been appointed to influential positions in the incoming Obama administration. Ellen Moran, the executive director of the pro-abortion rights campaign fundraiser EMILY’s List, was named White House Communications Director. NARAL legal director Dawn Johnsen was named to the presidential transition’s Justice Department Review Team, though her eventual nomination to head the Office of Legal Counsel was withdrawn after years of opposition by some U.S. Senators.

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards served as an informal advisor to the Obama White House transition team.

For the Susan B. Anthony List, the wake of the 2016 election has been much different.

“We’re very impressed by the experience and talent on the transition team and feel confident our pro-life priorities are reflected in the agenda,” Quigley commented.

During the presidential campaign, some pro-life leaders voiced strong criticism of Trump as a prospective candidate and president.

Dozens of prominent Catholic leaders released a March letter calling Trump “manifestly unfit to be president of the United States,” citing his vulgarity, his “appeals to racial and ethnic fears,” and his position on torture. They questioned the authenticity of his commitment to the right to life.

For Quigley, however, the Trump transition was “off to a great start.”

“Now is the time for the pro-life movement to unify and join the effort,” she said.

She cited the presence of Vice President-elect Mike Pence on the transition team, describing him as a pro-life ally. She said President-elect Trump “understands the importance of choosing the right personnel.”

She pointed to the role of Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus as the president-elect’s chief of staff and the role of Rep. Marsha Blackburn(R-Tenn.) as a member of the transition team’s executive committee. For Quigley, the unanimous re-election of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as Speaker of the House is “a clear sign that House Republicans are united and ready to enact laws that save lives.”

“The Susan B. Anthony List’s entire mission is about electing pro-life leaders and then working with them and holding them accountable to the promises they make to their constituents on the campaign trail,” she added. “We can’t wait to work with our allies in Congress and in the administration to enact lifesaving protections for the unborn.”

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U.S. NEWS

Immigration is a family issue – An interview with Archbishop Gomez

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • November 18, 2016

Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles speaks at a press briefing at the Vatican on Oct. 22, 2015. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Baltimore, MD — In the wake of the presidential election Catholics must remember that immigration is a global issue involving real families, the new vice president of the U.S. bishops’ conference says.

“The important thing is, in the United States, we find the way to have immigration reform,” Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles told CNA in an interview on Tuesday.

“I think it’s important for us as the leading country in the world is to find a solution to allow people to move, respecting the right of every country to protect their borders,” he continued. “Movements of people are happening all over the world.”

The archbishop spoke with CNA just after he was elected vice president of the U.S. bishops’ conference at their fall general assembly in Baltimore Nov. 15. He received 61 percent of the total bishops’ vote in the third round of votes.

As Archbishop of Los Angeles, Gomez oversees the largest archdiocese in the U.S. and a large immigrant population. He headed the bishops’ migration committee before his election as vice president.

Speaking at an interreligious prayer service after the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, Archbishop Gomez called for prayer and peace, insisting he would continue to stand with undocumented immigrants fearful of being deported.

“Men and women are worried and anxious, thinking about where they can run and hide. This is happening tonight, in America,” he stated. “We need to be people of peace, people of compassion. Tonight we promise our brothers and sisters who are undocumented – we will never leave you alone.”

Catholics must better understand the plight of immigrant families, he said on Tuesday.

“These people that move from one country to another are like us. They are fathers and mothers, children, brothers and sisters,” he said.

“People move because they want to improve their lives, and especially the lives of their children. Any parent will do that,” he continued, noting the recent increase in the numbers of child migrants from Central America coming to the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Immigration is families. And family is the foundation of society,” he said. “So Catholics need to understand that. And of course, the history of the Catholic Church, starting with the Holy Family; they migrated because they were in a very challenging situation.”

The archbishop reinforced his post-election call for peace on Tuesday, asking Catholics to pray and to serve others.

“Obviously the first and most important things are prayers. We have to pray for our country. We pray for our government, the elected officials,” he said.

Catholics must also remember that “we have a beautiful understanding of the human person, who we are as created by God,” he added.

“Once I understand that I am a child of God, and I understand that my goal is to serve my brothers and sisters, then we can make a big contribution for everybody in our country to strive for unity and respect for the human person.”

He also thanked his brother bishops upon his election “for trusting me and allowing me to serve them and the people of our country through the conference of bishops.”

When asked how he envisioned the Church’s future as vice president of the conference, he focused on the bishops’ strategic plan for 2017-20, particularly the first goal: evangelization.

“So I think that’s what also Pope Francis is asking us to do, that we all become missionary disciples,” he said.”

“I think we have a big challenge in our lives and in the United States because we need many more saints. In order to evangelize, we all need to be saints,” he insisted.

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FEATURES

A pilgrim, a bishop, and his iPhone

by Bishop Robert Barron • November 15, 2016

I’m in the process of re-reading a spiritual classic from the Russian Orthodox tradition: The Way of a Pilgrim. This little text, whose author is unknown to us, concerns a man from mid-nineteenth century Russia who found himself deeply puzzled by St. Paul’s comment in first Thessalonians that we should “pray unceasingly.” How, he wondered, amidst all of the demands of life, is this even possible? How could the Apostle command something so patently absurd?

His botheration led him, finally, to a monastery and a conversation with an elderly spiritual teacher who revealed the secret. He taught the man the simple prayer that stands at the heart of the Eastern Christian mystical tradition, the so-called “Jesus prayer.” “As you breathe in,” he told him, say, ‘Lord Jesus Christ,’ and as you breathe out, say, ‘Have mercy on me.’” When the searcher looked at him with some puzzlement, the elder instructed him to go back to his room and pray these words a thousand times. When the younger man returned and announced his successful completion of the task, he was told, “Now go pray it ten thousand times!” This was the manner in which the spiritual master was placing this prayer on the student’s lips so that it might enter his heart and into the rhythm of his breathing in and out, and finally become so second nature to him that he was, consciously or unconsciously, praying it all the time, indeed praying just as St. Paul had instructed the Thessalonians.

In the power of the Spirit, the young man then set out to wander through the Russian forests and plains, the Jesus prayer perpetually on his lips. The only object of value that he had in his rucksack was the Bible, and with the last two rubles in his possession, he purchased a beat-up copy of the Philokalia, a collection of prayers and sayings from the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Sleeping outdoors, fending largely for himself, relying occasionally on the kindness of strangers, reading his books and praying his prayer, he made his way. One day, two deserters from the Russian army accosted him on the road, beat him unconscious and stole his two treasures. When he came around and discovered his loss, the man was devastated and wept openly: how could he go on without food for his soul? Through a fortuitous set of circumstances, he managed to recover his lost possessions, and when he had them once again, he hugged them to his chest, gripping them so hard that his fingers practically locked in place around them.

I would invite you to stay with that image for a moment. We see a man with no wealth, no power, no influence in society, no fame to speak of, practically no physical possessions — but clinging with all of him might and with fierce protectiveness to two things whose sole purpose is to feed his soul. Here’s my question for you: What would you cling to in such a way? What precisely is it, the loss of which would produce in you a kind of panic? What would make you cry, once you realized that you no longer had it? And to make the questions more pointed, let’s assume that you were on a desert island or that you, like the Russian pilgrim, had no resources to go out and buy a replacement. Would it be your car? Your home? Your golf clubs? Your computer? To be honest, I think for me it might be my iPhone. If suddenly I lost my ability to make a call, my contacts, my music, my GPS, my maps, my email, etc., I would panic — and I would probably cry for sheer joy once I had the phone back, and my fingers would close around it like a claw. What makes this confession more than a little troubling is that, ten years ago, I didn’t even own a cell phone. I lived my life perfectly well without it, and if you had told me then that I would never have one, it wouldn’t have bothered me a bit.

What I particularly love about the Pilgrim is that he was preoccupied, not about any of the passing, evanescent goods of the world, but rather about prayer, about a sustained contact with the eternal God. He didn’t care about the things that obsess most of us most of the time: money, power, fame, success. And the only possessions that concerned him were those simple books that fed his relationship to God. Or to turn it around, he wasn’t frightened by the loss of any finite good; but he was frightened to death at the prospect of losing his contact with the living God.

So what would you cling to like a desperate animal? What loss would you fear? What do you ultimately love?

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

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We’ve all got it wrong about women in the Catholic Church

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • November 16, 2016

(Jose AS Reyes via Shutterstock)

Rome, Italy — When it comes to talking about women and their role in the Church, discussion tends to focus almost exclusively on getting ordained or being placed in high ranking, decision making positions.

However, amid all the buzz, it’s easy to get lost in the debate and miss the fact that the entire discussion is rotating around the wrong axis.

In simply addressing ordination or curial positions – a line that reduces both women and the discussion about them to clericalism – everyone on both sides of the issue has overlooked that the question is actually much larger, and demands a much greater involvement on the part of the laity.

Ana Cristina Villa, a consecrated laywoman with the Marian Community of Reconciliation who works in the office for women of the new mega-dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, told CNA that what a woman does in the Church is “not just a role, but a vocation … it’s what God calls women to do in the Church.”

She said that as it stands, women don’t really have a big presence in important or decision making positions, “so that should be promoted, and current Canon Law allows this in a good number of ways,” but she also cautioned that the discussion surrounding women in the Church is wider, involving the laity as a whole.

Villa, who is from Colombia but has lived in Italy for close to 20 years, said she sees that many people in their daily lives still move forward with the attitude that “the Church should do this,” but when they refer to the Church, they “are speaking of the clergy.”

“I think that is a big distortion for the vocation of women, because women are obviously not the clergy,” she said, explaining that “when you get into this discussion about women in the Church you have to understand that there is a wider context.”

In her view, Catholic faithful need to grow in their understanding that, “according to their own vocation,” all “baptized are the Church and all baptized are called to feel the Church as their own and to contribute to the Church.”

“It’s the laity in the Church,” she emphasized, “and the laity have to grow in their sense of responsibility which comes from their baptism, and their baptism makes them full members of the Church.”

Although a lot of headway has already been made in this area, Villa said the Church “still needs to go much more down that path.”

She emphasized the need for stronger mutual cooperation, “because when laity and clergy collaborate on a mission they bring each other’s gifts to problems or situations they need to face, and it is mutually enriching and it makes the Church more present.”

If it is always priests in the Church and never a layperson, and if priests “are always taking responsibility for things where laity are competent, then this mentality that the Church is priests keeps growing and expanding,” she said, noting that this is more common in countries with stronger traditional Catholic roots such Italy and as those in South America.

However, on the other hand, Villa noted that when it comes to women specifically, they are already doing a lot in the Church, most of which is largely unknown.

Women, she said, “are already doing a lot and many times they do it in silence, just responding to God’s vocation wherever God puts them … but there is always a lot happening,” especially in mission territories.

Just because a woman teaching catechesis or caring for the sick in a poor country isn’t visible to the rest of the world, it “doesn’t mean she isn’t there and that the Church isn’t growing because of her daily work and giving of herself,” Villa said.

It’s important to know that these things are already happening, she said, but cautioned that while on one hand it’s good to make them visible, “on the other hand you wonder, is it really necessary to make them visible? For whom?”

“God knows. God calls them, they are responding and the Church is growing because of them,” she said, explaining that not all women are meant to be in the global spotlight.

“When they come out to the public like Mother Teresa, that’s wonderful, but not all of them are called to have a public dimension to their vocation,” she said, and pointed to the example of women contemplative orders, who are “always hidden,” but sustain the Church constantly with their daily prayer and devotion.

“They are there in the monastery living their daily fidelity … they sustain the Church and nobody knows about it,” she said, explaining that this is part of the beauty of how women serve, and that this must be valued.

Villa’s instinct that a dangerous and largely unrecognized clericalism often drives the discussion on women, as well as her insistence that those who adopt this attitude have got it wrong, mirror Francis’ own take on the issue.

When Pope Francis told journalists on the way back from Sweden Nov. 1 that women will never be ordained priests, he was likely acting against “the ‘disease’ of clericalism, and the danger of clericalism setting the tone for discussions of women in the Church,” John Allen of Crux wrote.

“Despite the fact that he stands today at the apex of the clerical pecking order, there’s a sense in which Pope Francis is the most anti-clerical pontiff in Catholic history,” Allen said, adding that “one has the sense when he uses the word ‘clericalism’ that he’s virtually talking about the sin against the Holy Spirit.”

Pope Francis’ innate disdain toward clericalism, particularly surrounding women, can be seen from almost the beginning of his pontificate. In an interview with Vatican Insider in December 2013, Francis responded to a question on whether or not he’d ever consider naming a woman a cardinal.

In his answer the Pope said that “I don’t know where this idea sprang from. Women in the Church must be valued not ‘clericalised.’ Whoever thinks of women as cardinals suffers a bit from clericalism.”

Throughout the three years since, Francis has consistently called for a more “incisive” feminine presence in the Church, yet has refrained from limiting this presence to a mere position.

In a May 16, 2015, speech to men and women consecrated of the diocese of Rome, the Pope said that when people tell him “women must be dicastery heads,” his immediate thought is “Yes, they can, in certain dicasteries they can; but what you are asking is simple functionalism.”

Simply putting a woman in charge of a department “is not rediscovering woman’s role in the Church. It is more profound,” he said, explaining that while women are certainly able to hold leadership positions and that this is happening more often, “this is not a triumph.”

“This is a great thing, (but) a functional thing,” he said, noting that “what is essential to the woman’s role is – speaking in theological terms – acting in a manner which expresses the feminine genius.”

“When we face a problem among men we come to a conclusion, but when we face that same problem with women the outcome will be different. It will follow the same path, but it will be richer, stronger, more intuitive,” he said.

“For this reason women in the Church should have this role, they must clarify, help to clarify the feminine genius in so many ways.”

When we look at what Pope Francis says, it’s obvious that what he envisions for women is not just structural insertion into the Church, but involves opening doors so that the very fiber of what makes a woman “womanly,” her most unique and innate qualities, can flourish.

One of these qualities Francis has never ceased to bring up with praise and adulation is that of intuition and maternity; i.e., that natural maternal instinct each woman has no matter her state or position in life.

In his speech to the men and women consecrated of Rome, the Pope pointed to maternity, saying it isn’t just having children, but involves accompanying people in their growth: “maternity is spending hours next to a sick person, a sick child, a sick brother; it is spending one’s life in love, with that love of tenderness and maternity.”

“On this path we will find even more the woman’s role in the Church. Mary’s love and the love of the Church is a concrete love! Concreteness is the quality of this maternity of women.”

In a speech to theologians in 2014, after appointing several women to the Vatican’s International Theological Commission, an advisory body which assists the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in examining questions of doctrine, he said women have the ability to prompt reflections that men cannot.

“By virtue of their feminine genius, women theologians can take up, for the benefit of all, certain unexplored aspects of the unfathomable mystery of Christ,” he said, and urged commission members to take “full advantage” of the specific contribution that women give to “the intelligence of faith.”

In a 2015 address to the Pontifical Council for Culture, Francis said that women “know how to incarnate the tender face of God, his mercy, which translates into availability to give time more than to occupy spaces, to welcome instead of excluding.”

While speaking to journalists on board his return flight from Sweden Nov. 1, the Pope said that when it comes to theology and the mysticism of the Church, Mary’s role is more important than that of the Apostles on the day of Pentecost.

Women, he said, “can do so many things better than men, even in the dogmatic field,” but he clarified how it is still a separate dimension from that of priests and bishops in the Petrine dimension.

Again and again Pope Francis has repeated the same message that Villa herself expressed: women are more than just what position they hold, and the discussion on them is much wider than what it’s been reduced to.

While the question still looms as to what he will do with the female deaconate, having formed a commission to study the issue and its relevance in modern Church life, it’s clear that he won’t proceed with a “clerical” vision in mind, yet is open and willing to investigate what the different options for women might be.

So, all in all, it’s safe to say that the discussion on women in the Church has so far been fairly limited, and it’s clear that a shift in focus in needed. It seems that we’re only beginning to scratch the surface of what the debate should really entail, and with Francis at the helm, we’re guaranteed to have a few surprises.

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FEATURES

New film shows how mercy can transform your life

by CNA/EWTN News • November 17, 2016

The Face of Mercy. (Knights of Columbus)

Bridgeport, CT — Personal stories about God’s mercy at work in the world today will be the focus of a new Catholic-produced documentary that will air on ABC affiliates across the United States.

“These testimonies remind us that Divine Mercy is not just a devotion or theological concept – it is alive, it is present, and it is a force that can transform the world,” Knights of Columbus CEO Carl Anderson said Nov. 14.

The one-hour film “The Face of Mercy” depicts mercy as the antidote to evil even in great difficulty. Narrated by actor Jim Caviezel, the film interweaves history, theology, and testimonials about the importance of mercy in people’s lives.

Testimonies come from Immaculée Ilibagiza, who forgave those who murdered her family in the Rwandan genocide; a New York police officer who works for peace despite having been shot and paralyzed from the waist down; a young widow who forgave the killer of her husband; a baseball player who became a priest; and a former NFL linebacker who now shares Christ’s mercy with the homeless.

The film was produced by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal order with 1.9 million members worldwide.

Anderson said the film “highlights the sort of transformations that are possible in individual lives that embrace the way of mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation.”

Pope Francis declared a Year of Mercy for the Catholic Church that began on Dec. 8, 2015. It closes this Sunday, Nov. 20.

Broadcast dates and more information are available at faceofmercyfilm.com.

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FEATURES

So what is a consistory, anyway?

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • November 18, 2016

Cardinal’s biretta. (Bohumil Petrik/CNA)

Vatican City — In a simple rite this Saturday, 17 prelates will receive a red biretta from Pope Francis and thus join the College of Cardinals.

Dressed in their red robes, the cardinals-to-be will gather in St. Peter Basilica, profess the Creed, and then approach Pope Francis one by one. The Pope will give each of them the red biretta, and their cardinal’s ring

The Pope will place the red hat on each cardinal’s head and say:

“To the glory of almighty God and the honor of the Apostolic See, receive the scarlet biretta as a sign of the dignity of the cardinalate, signifying your readiness to act with courage, even to the shedding of your blood, for the increase of the Christian faith, for the peace and tranquility of the people of God and for the freedom and growth of the Holy Roman Church.”

As he places the ring on a new cardinal’s finger, the Pope will say: “Receive this ring from the hand of Peter and know that, with the love of the Prince of the Apostles, your love for the Church is strengthened.”

Each cardinal will be assigned a titular church. This is an important act, as the cardinals must be a part of the Diocese of Rome, whose bishop and primate is the Pope. This means cardinals are always linked to Rome, though they come from different countries.

The College of Cardinals reflects how the Synod of the Diocese of Rome evolved to become a governmental body. It is an institution that can be simply considered as “the Pope’s Senate.”

Cardinals are now part of Vatican Congregations and dicasteries, and in that capacity they help the Pope to govern the Church. This was not always the case.

During the Middle Ages, consistories were convoked any time the Pope had to make an important decision. The meeting of cardinals also served as a tribunal. In the twelfth century, Pope Alexander III scheduled one consistory per month. Not long after Alexander III’s pontificate, Pope Innocent III scheduled three meetings per week.

In the 16th century, under Pope Sixtus V’s curial reforms, the consistory lost some of its power. Ever since, cardinals mainly assist the Pope in governing the Church and working in Vatican congregations. The consistory is convoked to give a particular solemnity to important moments of the Church.

The rite of the consistory was reformed in 1969 by Blessed Paul VI. The reform gave a liturgical framework to the creation of a new cardinal, though the event had not previously been seen as a liturgical moment.

Pope Paul’s changes elaborated a rite that put the imposition of the red biretta in a context of prayer. He thus gave a spiritual bond to the cardinals’ intimate union with the Pope.

Father Gianfranco Grieco, a former writer for L’Osservatore Romano who covered all the Paul VI’s international trips, recounted in his book “Paul VI” that the Pope used to convoke a consistory any time he came back from an international trip. He would report his impressions from the trip and exchange opinions with the cardinals.

The rite for the consistory was reformed and simplified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012, while maintaining Paul VI’s vision of a liturgical framework for the creation of new cardinals.

Benedict XVI took from Paul VI’s rite two prayers of the cardinals that refer to the powers God has given to the Church, and especially to the successor of Peter. The successor of Peter, in turn, prays for himself, asking that he will be able to rightly fulfill his office.

Consistories have still had key roles in the life of the Church. Benedict XVI announced his historic resignation of the Petrine ministry on Feb. 11, 2013, during a Consistory for the Canonization of the Martyrs of Otranto.

As for Pope Francis, he has used the consistory as a sort of “advisory board” on core issues.

The Feb. 22, 2014 consistory was preceded by an extraordinary consistory on the issues of the family. It was opened with a speech from Cardinal Walter Kasper that set the tone of the discussion ahead of the two synods on the family.

Pope Francis convoked another extraordinary consistory Feb. 12-13, 2015 to discuss Curia reform, ahead of the Feb. 14-15 consistory for the creation of new Cardinals.

It is noteworthy that the Code of Canon Law, reformed in 1983, lays out two forms of consistory: ordinary and extraordinary. An extraordinary consistory is celebrated in particular cases, and all the cardinals are called to take part in it. An ordinary consistory takes place when the Pope needs the cardinals’ counsel on some important, though normal, issue, or to give solemnity to the Pope’s decision, such as the approval of the canonization of saints.

Kevin J. Jones contributed to this report.

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Double review: ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ and ‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk’

by Carl Kozlowski • November 18, 2016

What’s a movie studio to do when it runs out of ideas in a film series that made $7.7 billion worldwide? Create a spin-off series that they hope will carry many of the original fans along with it.

That’s what Warner Bros. is attempting to do this weekend with the release of “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” which is an offshoot of the eight-film “Harry Potter” series following the misadventures of another magically-powered fellow named Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne). The idea is that Newt wrote a magic guidebook of the same name that Harry has previously studied, and that Newt is also a Hogwarts graduate who is beloved by Dumbledore. With fans having waited five years for more magical misadventures, it’s highly likely that this will be casting a spell at the box office as well.

Newt has sailed across the ocean to New York City in 1926, carrying a suitcase filled with magical creatures that are also hopelessly mischievous. Newt is sneaking the creatures back into the U.S. in order to set them free in their natural habitats here, but trouble soon explodes when he and a non-magic New Yorker named Kowalski (Dan Fogler) cross paths and Kowalski accidentally walks off with Newt’s suitcase.

Soon, the beasts – ranging from a comical platypus-like creature who keeps breaking into bank vaults and jewelry stores and eating all the gold it can find, to a giant glowing rhinoceros-style beast that wreaks havoc in the Central Park Zoo – are dashing through New York and destroying streets and builidings. But there’s a more malevolent force at hand, a fierce combination of wind and cloud and spectre, that’s tearing the city apart at even greater levels - and it’s emanating from a young girl with magic powers who must be found ASAP.

There’s far more to the plot, with Newt finding Kowalski and teaming up to save New York City together, Kowalski and Newt each finding romantic sparks with a pair of magically powered sisters, and a secret magical congress trying to order everyone around. It’s a lot of fun, for the most part, with much of it feeling like the first two “Night at the Museum” movies with a supernatural twist.

Yet, like Newt’s magical suitcase, “Fantastic Beasts” is ultimately overstuffed. With so many plot lines to juggle, the movie’s pacing is occasionally disjointed and while it’s an entertaining experience overall, some sequences drag too long and others feel rushed.

Redmayne makes a fun hero to watch, dressed like Dr. Who and bringing an incredulous spirit to his performance that makes him eminently relatable to the audience. He seems as surprised as anyone by the mayhem around him, and it’s refreshing to see him in a light role after his Oscar-winning turn as Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything” and last year’s grating performance as the first man ever to receive gender reassignment surgery in “The Danish Girl.”

But it’s Fogler as Kowalski who’s the movie’s MVP. Every moment he’s onscreen pops with comic energy, while his sad-sack everyman persona also makes a great person to root for romantically.

Surprisingly, “Fantastic” marks “Potter” creator J.K. Rowling’s first foray into actual screenwriting, and all things considered, she’s conceived a world that will be fun for multiple adventures to come. Teaming with David Yates, who helmed the last four “Potter” films, the plan is to create four more Newt Scamander movies over the next eight years.

There’s a deep well of acting talent eager to get in on the action here, with Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton and Katherine Waterston – all veteran performers of note – playing key roles. This bodes well for future magic in the sequels, particularly from a last-minute superstar whose reveal as a key villain marks both a surprise and a perfect casting at once.

As always, the “Potter”/”Fantastic” universe contains no foul language, sex or nudity, no dirty jokes or innuendos, and the violence is of a fantastical, lighthearted variety. There’s a few moments that could be considered scary, but the only possible moral concern to worry about is if some parents worry about the idea of magic being presented as a positive thing to be involved with. I’ve always felt that these movies are so innocently created that the filmmakers’ intentions are not nefarious at all and there’s nothing to fear here, but I certainly won’t tell parents they’re wrong if they disagree.

There have been breakthrough moments in the history of film technology, from the creation of talkies through the addition of color, and the coming, going and resurgence of 3D movie popularity. Add in Technicolor, 70 mm projection and the use of Cinerama along the way and one can find a long list of innovations that either became a standard practice in filmmaking or a noble failure.

Rank the new movie “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” among the list of failures, which is a surprising shame considering it comes from the usually superb filmmaker Ang Lee. Lee has brought the poetic grace of martial arts to the screen in stunning fashion in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” broke the box office taboo against depicting gay romance with “Brokeback Mountain” and crafted dazzling uses of CGI effects in “The Life of Pi.”

However, Lee also brought us the notorious failure of 2003’s “The Hulk,” which mixed ridiculously awkward cartoonish effects to bring the green monster to life amid a cast of human actors. And he’s got a similarly garish mashup of styles working against him in his new film.

Lee shot the film at 120 frames per second (fps), rather than the standard filming process of 24 fps. The first-of-its-kind effort was intended to immerse viewers in the film, particularly in a few intense military combat scenes, but the result actually gives the film a disorienting flat look that’s also so vivid that it serves as a distraction from the plot — which is a good thing, in this case.

Based on a novel of the same name by Ben Fountain, “Halftime” focuses on a 19-year-old soldier named Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn), who becomes a national hero during the Iraq War in 2004 after killing an enemy soldier who had just shot a beloved sergeant named Shroom (Vin Diesel) and his heroics are inadvertently caught on videotape. He and his unit, known as Bravo Squad, have been sent by the US government on a national tour to hype the war and support soldiers, and most of the film depicts a day in which they are being honored at a Thanksgiving football game’s halftime show.

As the fresh-faced yet secretly troubled Lynn and his compatriots await their turn in the spotlight, the narrative alternates between the positive face he must wear during his experiences with fans, a press conference, a hot cheerleader who wants to give him something special for his heroics, and the shaken, sad reality he hides while drifting into flashback memories of life in Iraq and back home in Texas.

This may sound like potentially interesting fodder for a film, but something in the script by Jean-Christophe Castelli is extremely off. The characters largely have no depth to them, all the non-combat scenes are staged with the same, utterly inert energy and the combination of those factors combined with its extremely confusing flashback structure make “Halftime” literally impossible to care about.

I’ve been an ardent opponent of the US military’s Middle East adventures since the Persian Gulf War, and should have been the perfect audience for a film attempting to make a sly and subtle series of points against the war. But on top of all the bad writing and pacing issues already mentioned, the film devolves at a few key points into outright speech-making by characters, and the score by Jeff and Mychael Danna is mostly unheard except for extremely awkward twangy guitar that springs out of nowhere whenever a character discusses something meant to be taken very seriously.

One is left to wonder why Lee and his crew made the effort to shoot this film differently at all, because there are few if any scenes that call for an intensely unique look to draw viewers in. Much of the movie consists of Billy and his fellow soldiers sitting or walking in uniform while waiting for their big halftime moment, and the rest consists of a series of flashbacks that rarely feature action.

There’s nothing here in the script or performances to make viewers say “Wow,” so why bother trying to do so at no doubt great expense visually? While the lead performances by Alwyn (a young Leonardo DiCaprio clone), Kristen Stewart and Diesel are solid, it’s almost maddening to see supporting turns by Chris Tucker and Steve Martin in a movie that gives them little to do, knowing that they have been avoiding sharing their talents in starring roles for years now.

The movie isn’t really offensive anywhere, with some uses of the F word that are scattered throughout the film but don’t seem out of place considering these are soldiers who are angry about what they have gone through in battle. It’s implied that Billy has sex with a cheerleader, but nothing is shown in that scene, though he also has a brief fantasy scene of having sex with her back home in Texas if they were married that is quick but frenzied, with no actual nudity shown. The war violence has some bloody imagery but there’s not much of it, and nothing is more graphic than other R-rated war films such as “Saving Private Ryan” or “Hacksaw Ridge.”

“Halftime” stands as one of the strangest, most disappointing films of the year, and most audiences will be happy to end their own suffering by walking out long before the movie’s own midpoint.

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 • NOVEMBER 20, 2016

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

First Reading (2 Sm 5:1-3; NRSVCE)

All the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron, and said, “Look, we are your bone and flesh. For some time, while Saul was king over us, it was you who led out Israel and brought it in. The Lord said to you: It is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel, you who shall be ruler over Israel.” So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron; and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel.

Second Reading (Col 1:12-20; NRSVCE)

Let us give thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers — all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Gospel Reading (Lk 23:35-43; NRSVCE)

The people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at Jesus, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

MONDAY • NOVEMBER 21, 2016

Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

First Reading (Rv 14:1-3, 4b-5; NRSVCE)

Then I looked, and there was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion! And with him were one hundred forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder; the voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, and they sing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the one hundred forty-four thousand who have been redeemed from the earth. They are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They have been redeemed from humankind as first fruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found; they are blameless.

Gospel Reading (Lk 21:1-4; NRSVCE)

Jesus looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. He said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.”

TUESDAY • NOVEMBER 22, 2016

Memorial of Saint Cecilia

First Reading (Rv 14:14-19; NRSVCE)

I looked, and there was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like the Son of Man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand! Another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to the one who sat on the cloud, “Use your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.” So the one who sat on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was reaped.

Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. Then another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has authority over fire, and he called with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, “Use your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.” So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and gathered the vintage of the earth, and he threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God.

Gospel Reading (Lk 21:5-11; NRSVCE)

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”

They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them.

“When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.”

WEDNESDAY • NOVEMBER 23, 2016

Wednesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Rv 15:1-4; NRSVCE)

I saw another portent in heaven, great and amazing: seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is ended.

And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb:

“Great and amazing are your deeds,

Lord God the Almighty!

Just and true are your ways,

King of the nations!

Lord, who will not fear

and glorify your name?

For you alone are holy.

All nations will come

and worship before you,

for your judgments have been revealed.”

Gospel Reading (Lk 21:12-19; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to the crowd, “They will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

THURSDAY • NOVEMBER 24, 2016

Memorial of Saint Andrew Dung-Lac and Companions

First Reading (Rv 18:1-2, 21-23; 19:1-3, 9a; NRSVCE)

I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority; and the earth was made bright with his splendor. He called out with a mighty voice,

“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!

It has become a dwelling place of demons,

a haunt of every foul spirit,

a haunt of every foul bird,

a haunt of every foul and hateful beast.”

Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying,

“With such violence Babylon the great city

will be thrown down,

and will be found no more;

and the sound of harpists and minstrels and of flutists and trumpeters

will be heard in you no more;

and an artisan of any trade

will be found in you no more;

and the sound of the millstone

will be heard in you no more;

and the light of a lamp

will shine in you no more;

and the voice of bridegroom and bride

will be heard in you no more;

for your merchants were the magnates of the earth,

and all nations were deceived by your sorcery.”

After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying,

“Hallelujah!

Salvation and glory and power to our God,

for his judgments are true and just;

he has judged the great whore

who corrupted the earth with her fornication,

and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants.”

Once more they said,

“Hallelujah!

The smoke goes up from her forever and ever.”

And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”

Gospel Reading (Lk 21:20-28; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those inside the city must leave it, and those out in the country must not enter it; for these are days of vengeance, as a fulfillment of all that is written. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath against this people; they will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken away as captives among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

FRIDAY • NOVEMBER 25, 2016

Friday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Rv 20:1-4, 11 — 21:2; NRSVCE)

I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be let out for a little while.

Then I saw thrones, and those seated on them were given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

Then I saw a great white throne and the one who sat on it; the earth and the heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

Gospel Reading (Lk 21:29-33; NRSVCE)

Jesus told his disciples a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

SATURDAY • NOVEMBER 26, 2016

Saturday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Rv 22:1-7; NRSVCE)

The angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true, for the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.”

“See, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”

Gospel Reading (Lk 21:34-36; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to his disciples, “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”