VOLUME 3, ISSUE 4  •  MARCH 25, 2017

Table of Contents

Copyright Notice

VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis to visit Egypt on April 28-29

The Pope’s words at the Angelus prayer

Pope meets Rwandan president, apologizes for Church failure during genocide

Pope Francis’ schedule for Fatima visit released

Good Friday Collection to benefit Holy Land Christians

The Holy Father’s Message for the 32nd World Youth Day (Palm Sunday, 9 April, 2017)

The Holy Father Francis’ video message for the 32nd World Youth Day (Palm Sunday, 9 April 2017)

General Audience: Hope founded on the Word

Watch this little girl steal Pope Francis’ hat

Pope Francis prays for victims of deadly London attack

Pope approves second miracle for Blessed Francisco, Jacinta Marto

Holy See Press Office Communique: Audience with the President of the Republic of Cameroon

Vatican abuse prevention event ‘extremely important’ for Church

WORLD NEWS

Catholic priests, religious face wave of violence in DR Congo

Don’t misuse Bible to push death penalty, Philippines bishops say

Local bishop: Ongoing messages at Argentine apparition will be kept private

Italian bishop bans mobsters from being godfathers

Prayers go out amid confusion, chaos following London attack

Dublin prepares for 2018 World Meeting of Families

Priests in Peru encouraged to visit victims of floods, mudslides

U.S. NEWS

A year after genocide declaration, Knights donate nearly $2 million

Don’t cut foreign assistance, Catholic leaders tell Trump

U.S. bishops push for universal, pro-life health care

Supreme Court nominee drilled on abortion, religious freedom at hearings

Lawsuit says girl in boys’ locker room violated student privacy

Judge Gorsuch nomination backed by dozens of pro-life groups

Catholic college’s new bridge too Catholic, neighbors complain

Gorsuch made an important distinction when asked about assisted suicide

Americans agree: Moms and dads should have paid parental leave

Gorsuch praised for record of building unity on religious freedom

FEATURES

Raymond Arroyo’s books are having an astounding impact on at-risk kids

In New York, Catholic convert takes a step toward sainthood

This man was killed for defying Hitler – and now he’s been beatified

What the bishop who resisted the Nazis can teach us today

St. Patrick, St. Joseph, and the conversion that makes all the difference

Here’s a way to learn more about Mary, Queen of Heaven

Why Catholics in Scotland want a statue for this martyred priest

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Sunday • March 26, 2017

Monday • March 27, 2017

Tuesday • March 28, 2017

Wednesday • March 29, 2017

Thursday • March 30, 2017

Friday • March 31, 2017

Saturday • April 1, 2017

The Catholic Digital News

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Volume 3, Issue 4 • March 25, 2017

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis to visit Egypt on April 28-29

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • March 18, 2017

Pope Francis meets with the grand imam Sheik Ahmed Muhammad Al Tayyib at the Vatican on May 23, 2016. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — In what will be his first international trip of the year, Pope Francis will be traveling to Cairo, Egypt, April 28-29, showing that interfaith dialogue is a priority.

He will visit the country in response to an invitation from His Holiness Pope Tawadros II and the Grand Imam of the Mosque of al Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayyib, as well as Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the bishops of the local Catholic Church, a March 18 Vatican communique announced.

While the full program for the Pope’s the trip will be published shortly, he will almost certainly visit Al-Azhar University in Cairo, which has recently partnered with the Vatican to discuss combatting religious justification for violence in a warming of relations between the two.

The Pope’s trip will likely focus largely on inter-faith dialogue and Catholic-Muslim relations – especially in combating Christian persecution – continuing dialogue from a seminar Vatican officials attended in February.

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, along with the council’s secretary and the head of their Office for Islam, traveled to Cairo Feb. 24 to participate in the special seminar at Al-Azhar University.

They discussed the theme “The role of al-Azhar al-Sharif and of the Vatican in countering the phenomena of fanaticism, extremism and violence in the name of religion.”

Persecution of Christians has long been an issue in Egypt, with a recent spike in attacks causing even more reason for alarm.

There have been 40 reported murders of Christians in Egypt in the last three months, His Grace Bishop Angaelos, general bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, said in a statement Feb 28.

Twenty-nine were killed in a bombing at St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo in December. The Islamic State took credit for the bombing and released a video threatening to target Christian “crusaders” in Egypt.

Since the video’s release, more Christians have been killed in Egypt and hundreds have reportedly fled their homes in the Sinai region in the north of the country after several murders there, the group In Defense of Christians said.

Egyptian society was also profoundly shocked by the beheading in Libya of 20 Orthodox Coptic faithful and a companion by Islamic State militants in February 2015.

Pope Francis was invited to visit Egypt by Coptic Catholic bishops during their ad limina visit at the Vatican Feb. 6, during which they also gave a report on the state of the Church in their country.

The Pope had also received an invitation to visit Egypt from the country’s president and from the Grand Imam of al Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayyeb, who occupies a prestigious place in the Sunni Muslim world.

Al Tayyeb paid a visit to the Vatican May 23, 2016 for a meeting with Pope Francis, which marked a major step in thawing relations between the al-Azhar institution and the Holy See, which were strained in 2011 with claims that Pope Benedict XVI had “interfered” in Egypt’s internal affairs by condemning a bomb attack on a church in Alexandria during the time of Coptic Christmas.

Since then relations have continued to move forward at a surprisingly fast pace, leading to the Oct. 21 announcement from the Vatican that sometime this spring the Holy See and the Al-Azhar Mosque and adjunct University will officially resume dialogue.

Francis’ visit to Cairo and to the University in April will likely mark the official resumption of this dialogue.

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VATICAN NEWS

The Pope’s words at the Angelus prayer

The Holy See Press Office • March 19, 2017

Vatican City — At midday today, Third Sunday of Lent, the Holy Father Francis appeared at the window of his study in the Vatican Apostolic Palace to pray the Angelus with the faithful and pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

Before the Angelus

The following is the Pope’s introduction to the Marian prayer:

Dear Brothers and Sisters, good morning!

The Gospel of this Sunday, the Third of Lent, presents to us Jesus’ dialogue with the Samaritan woman (cf. John, 4:5-42). The encounter took place while Jesus was crossing Samaria, a region between Judea and Galilee, inhabited by people whom the Jews scorned, regarding them as schismatic and heretical. However it was this population that would be one of the first to follow the Apostles’ Christian preaching. While the disciples go to the village to find something to eat, Jesus stays by the well and asks a woman, who had come there to draw water, for a drink. A dialogue began from this request. “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” Jesus answered: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water,” a water that slakes any thirst and becomes an inexhaustible wellspring in the heart of one who drinks it.

To go to the well to draw water is tiring and tedious; it would be good to have a gushing source at one’s disposal! However, Jesus talks about a different water. When the woman realizes that the man with whom she is speaking is a prophet, she tells Him about her life and asks religious questions. Her thirst for affection and a full life was not slaked by the five husbands she had; on the contrary, she experienced disappointments and deceptions. Therefore she was struck by the great respect Jesus had for her, and when He speaks to her even of true faith as a relationship with God the Father “in spirit and in truth,” then she intuits that the man could be the Messiah, and Jesus – in a very rare act – confirms this: “I who speak to you am He” (v. 26). He says that He is the Messiah to a woman who had had such a disordered life.

Dear brothers, the water that gives eternal life was effused in our hearts on the day of our Baptism; God transformed us and filled us with His grace. But it may be that we have forgotten this great gift, or reduced it to a simple date, and perhaps we go in search of “wells” whose waters do not slake our thirst. When we forget the true water, we go in search of wells that do not have clean waters. So this Gospel is precisely for us! Not just for the Samaritan woman, but also for us. Jesus speaks to us as He did to the Samaritan woman. Of course, we already know Him, but perhaps we have not yet encountered Him personally. We know who Jesus is, but perhaps we have not encountered him personally, speaking with Him, and we have not yet recognized Him as our Savior. The season of Lent is a good opportunity to draw close to Him, to encounter Him in prayer in a heart to heart dialogue, speaking with Him, listening to Him; it is a good opportunity to see in His face also the face of a suffering brother or a sister. In this way we can renew in ourselves the grace of Baptism, slake our thirst at the wellspring of the Word of God and of His Holy Spirit; and so discover also the joy of becoming architects of reconciliation and instruments of peace in daily life.

May the Virgin Mary help us to draw constantly from the grace, from the water that gushes from the rock that is Christ the Savior, so that we can profess our faith with conviction and proclaim with joy the wonders of the love of God, merciful and the source of every good.

After the Angelus

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I wish to assure my closeness to the dear population of Peru, harshly afflicted by devastating floods. I pray for the victims and for those involved in the aid efforts.

Yesterday, in Bolzano, Josef Mayr-Nusser was proclaimed Blessed. A father and exponent of Catholic Action, he died a martyr because he refused to follow Nazism out of fidelity to the Gospel. For his great moral and spiritual stature, he constitutes a model for the lay faithful, especially fathers, whom we celebrate today with great affection, although the liturgical feast of St. Joseph is celebrated tomorrow since today is Sunday. I greet the Italian faithful from Viterbo, Bolgare and San Benedetto Po, and students from Torchiarolo.

I wish you all a good Sunday. Do not forget to pray for me. Have a good lunch, and goodbye!

Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana (vatican.va)

VATICAN NEWS

Pope meets Rwandan president, apologizes for Church failure during genocide

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • March 20, 2017

Pope Francis meets Rwandan president Paul Kagame at the Vatican on March 20, 2017. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — During a brief meeting with Rwandan president Paul Kagame Monday, Pope Francis voiced his sadness for members of the Church who participated in the 1994 genocide, asking for forgiveness and assuring those who still suffer of his prayer.

According to a March 20 Vatican communique, during the meeting, the Pope “conveyed his profound sadness, and that of the Holy See and of the Church, for the genocide against the Tutsi.”

“He expressed his solidarity with the victims and with those who continue to suffer the consequences of those tragic event,” it read.

In imitation of St. John Paul II’s gesture during the Great Jubilee in 2000, Francis implored God’s forgiveness “for the sins and failings of the Church and its members, among whom priests, and religious men and women who succumbed to hatred and violence, betraying their own evangelical mission.”

Pope Francis, in light of a statement published by the Rwandan bishops at the conclusion of the Jubilee of Mercy asking forgiveness for the failure of the Church and her members, expressed his desire that his own “humble recognition” of the failings of that time, “which, unfortunately, disfigured the face of the Church, may contribute to a purification of memory.”

He also voiced his hope that the renewed apology “may promote, in hope and renewed trust, a future of peace, witnessing to the concrete possibility of living and working together, once the dignity of the human person and the common good are put at the center.”

The genocide began April 7, 1994, after controversy over the plane crash that killed the then-president of Rwanda, a Hutu. In the aftermath, Hutu extremists killed over 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

About 57 percent of Rwanda is Catholic, with another 37 percent Protestant or Seventh-Day Adventist. The churches have worked to bring about healing and reconciliation as well.

The Pope’s meeting with President Kagame, which lasted around 25 minutes, took place inside the Vatican’s apostolic palace and was conducted in English.

During the “cordial” discussion between the two, mention was also made of the good relations between the Church and the State in Rwanda. Specific appreciation was expressed for “the notable path of recovery toward the social, political and economic stabilization of the country.”

Likewise, the collaboration between the State and the local Church in working for “national reconciliation and in the consolidation of peace” nationwide was also cited.

The two also exchanged views on the political, social and regional situation of Rwanda, with specific attention placed on areas suffering due to conflict and natural problems, including the high number of migrants and refugees in need of support from the international community.

After the meeting, Pope Francis greeted the presidential delegation of 9 people, handing each of them a rosary, before exchanging gifts.

Francis gave Kagame three books: his apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium,” his environmental encyclical “Laudato Si,” and his post-synodal exhortation “Amoris Laetitia.”

He also gave the president a medal, telling him that “I like to give this work to Heads of State because for me it represents the biblical passage: ‘a desert that becomes a garden,’ so that the countries can also become gardens.”

On his part, President Kagame gave the Pope a box with a black and white staff inside, explaining that “it’s a rod used to summon the people,” like a sort of “pastoral” hook.

After meeting the Pope, Kagame then met with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States.

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis’ schedule for Fatima visit released

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • March 20, 2017

Pope Francis with Our Lady of Fatima at the General Audience on Wednesday May 13, 2015. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Vatican City — On Monday, the Vatican released the official program for Pope Francis’ two-day visit to Portugal in May, where he’ll celebrate the centenary of the Fatima Marian apparitions and make a brief stop at an air base to meet the country’s president.

Francis will likely make a stop at his favorite Roman basilica, Saint Mary Major, sometime before leaving Rome at 2 p.m. May 12.

He’ll land at the air base in Monte Real around 4:20 p.m. local time, where he’ll be greeted by an official welcoming ceremony and meet with the president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, before making his way to Fatima.

After his meeting with the president, the Pope is scheduled to stop by the chapel of the air base for a moment of prayer before boarding a helicopter that will take him to the Fatima’s multi-use stadium.

From there, he’ll hop inside an open car and drive to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima. Once he arrives around 5:30 p.m., Pope Francis will head to the Chapel of the Apparitions inside the sanctuary, where he’ll recite a prayer.

He’ll then bless the candles in the chapel and offer a special greeting, marking his first public speech of the trip, before praying the rosary with faithful.

The next day, May 13, which marks the first apparition of Mary to the three shepherd children Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta, Francis will meet with Portugal’s Prime Minister António Costa at the city’s Casa “N.S. do Carmo” hotel-convent.

Francis will then head to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary in Fatima, which sits next to the official Shrine, to say Mass. After the celebration, he’ll greet sick and disabled persons who are present.

Lunch will then be served with the Portuguese bishops at the Casa “N.S. do Carmo” before the Pope heads back to the Monte Real air base for his official farewell ceremony.

He’s scheduled to leave around 3 p.m. local time, arriving to Rome’s Ciampino airport around 7 p.m. local time. As usual, he’ll likely pay another visit to the basilica of St. Mary Major to pray and leave flowers before heading back to the Vatican.

Of all Marian apparitions, those relating to Our Lady of Fatima are among the most famous. On May 13, 1917, siblings Francisco and Jacinta Marto – age 9 and 7 – and their cousin, 10-year-old Lucia dos Santos, took their sheep to graze near the Portuguese town of Fatima when they saw a figure of a woman dressed in white and holding a rosary.

After this first appearance, the Virgin Mary then appeared to the children on the 13th of every month from May until October. The message of the Fatima apparitions can be summarized primarily as a call to repentance and prayer.

In 1930, the Catholic Church proclaimed the supernatural character of the apparitions and a shrine was erected at Fatima. It was visited by Pope Paul VI May 13, 1967, and later by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

St. John Paul II had a particularly strong devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. After a harrowing assassination attempt in 1981, he credited his survival to her miraculous intervention. As a sign of his gratitude, he placed the bullet from the failed assassination in her crown.

“Pray for the brother who shot me, whom I have sincerely forgiven. United to Christ, as a priest and victim, I offer my sufferings for the Church and the world,” Pope John Paul II said on that occasion.

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VATICAN NEWS

Good Friday Collection to benefit Holy Land Christians

CNA/EWTN News • March 21, 2017

(Lamppost Collective via Shutterstock)

Vatican City — As Christians in the Middle East continue to suffer innumerable hardships this Lenten season, the Vatican has announced that this year’s Good Friday Collection will benefit Christian communities in the Holy Land.

“Once again, from every part of the Church, expressions of solidarity come together effectively in the Good Friday Collection,” stated Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, in a recent press release.

“Our sense of communion in the suffering and risen Christ moves us again this year to undertake the important initiative that is the Collection for the Holy Land,” Cardinal Sandri said.

This announcement means that in most Catholic parishes around the world, a Good Friday Collection will be taken up to aid Christian parishes and their outreaches in the Holy Land. This initiative has been an annual tradition in the Church since its institution by Blessed Pope Paul VI.

According to Blessed Pope Paul VI, the collection was crated “not only for the Holy Places but above all for those pastoral, charitable, educational, and social works which the Church supports in the Holy Land for the welfare of their Christian brethren and of the local communities.”

The Catholic communities that will benefit from this aid include the Latin Patriarchal Diocese of Jerusalem, the Franciscan Custody and other jurisdictions, such as the Greek-Melkite, Coptic, Maronite, Syrian, Chaldean, and Armenian churches.

These funds will be used to help the parochial schools, hospitals, and community centers in these areas to protect and care for their communities, which often include refugees, asylum-seekers, children, and victims of war.

“Living the Christian faith in the Middle East is not at all easy. Especially in Iraq, Syria and Egypt, where Christian communities have experienced an ‘ecumenism of blood,’ individuals are daily pressured to abandon their land or even their faith,” Cardinal Sandri stated.

“The unforgettable faces of thousands of children and teens, fleeing violence and persecution in Syria and Iraq, continue to challenge us, even as these young people, thanks to our Collection, are being welcomed by Christian schools and neighboring counties.”

While this collection is a one-time offering on Good Friday, the cardinal noted that there are additional ways of aiding Christians in the Middle East outside of the Lenten and Easter seasons.

“The small Christian presence in the Middle East has great need of the support and attention of the entire Church. Constant prayer is the first and greatest assistance they seek.”

Cardinal Sandri also said that Holy Land pilgrimages are a substantial way to grow the “vitality of the Church in the Holy Land,” and which also boost local economy.

“At least 30% of the local community in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem live and work thanks to the presence of pilgrims,” Cardinal Sandri said.

The cardinal encouraged individuals to give generously to this year’s Good Friday Collection, pointing to the words of St. Paul: “for God loves a cheerful giver.”

“As we prepare for Easter, let us renew our commitment to becoming artisans of peace, praying and working that peace may dwell in the heart of every person, especially our brothers and sisters of the Holy Land and the Middle East.”

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VATICAN NEWS

The Holy Father’s Message for the 32nd World Youth Day (Palm Sunday, 9 April, 2017)

The Holy See Press Office • March 21, 2017

Vatican City — The following is the full text of the Message that the Holy Father Francis is sending to young people throughout the world on the occasion of the 32nd World Youth Day, which will be celebrated at diocesan level on 9 April 2017, Palm Sunday, on the theme “The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is His name” (Luke, 1:49).

Holy Father’s Message: “The Mighty One has done great things for me” (Luke 1:49)

Dear Young Friends,

Here we are, on the road again, following our great meeting in Kraków, where we celebrated the Thirty-first World Youth Day and the Jubilee for Young People as part of the Holy Year of Mercy. We took as our guides Saint John Paul II and Saint Faustina Kowalska, the apostles of divine mercy, in order to offer a concrete response to the challenges of our time. We had a powerful experience of fraternity and joy, and we gave the world a sign of hope. Our different flags and languages were not a reason for rivalry and division, but an opportunity to open the doors of our hearts and to build bridges.

At the conclusion of the Kraków World Youth Day, I announced the next stop in our pilgrimage, which with God’s help will bring us to Panama in 2019. On this journey we will be accompanied by the Virgin Mary, whom all generations call blessed (cf. Lk 1:48). This new leg of our journey picks up from the one that preceded it, centered on the Beatitudes, and invites us to press forward. I fervently hope that you young people will continue to press forward, not only cherishing the memory of the past, but also with courage in the present and hope for the future. These attitudes were certainly present in the young Mary of Nazareth and are clearly expressed in the themes chosen for the three coming World Youth Days. This year (2017) we will reflect on the faith of Mary, who says in the Magnificat: “The Mighty One has done great things for me” (Lk 1:49). The theme for next year (2018) – “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God” (Lk 1:30) – will lead us to meditate on the courageous charity with which the Virgin welcomed the message of the angel. The 2019 World Youth Day will be inspired by the words “I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38), Mary’s hope-filled reply to the angel.

In October 2018, the Church will celebrate the Synod of Bishops on the theme: Youth, Faith and Vocational Discernment. We will talk about how you, as young people, are experiencing the life of faith amid the challenges of our time. We will also discuss the question of how you can develop a life project by discerning your personal vocation, whether it be to marriage in the secular and professional world, or to the consecrated life and priesthood. It is my hope that the journey towards the World Youth Day in Panama and the process of preparation for the Synod will move forward in tandem.

Our age does not need young people who are “couch-potatoes”

According to Luke’s Gospel, once Mary has received the message of the angel and said “yes” to the call to become the Mother of the Savior, she sets out in haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was in the sixth month of her pregnancy (cf. 1:36, 39). Mary is very young; what she was told is a great gift, but it also entails great challenges. The Lord assured her of his presence and support, yet many things remain obscure in her mind and heart. Yet Mary does not shut herself up at home or let herself be paralyzed by fear or pride. Mary is not the type that, to be comfortable, needs a good sofa where she can feel safe and sound. She is no couch potato! (cf. Address at the Vigil, Kraków, 30 July 2016). If her elderly cousin needs a hand, she does not hesitate, but immediately sets off.

It was a long way to the house of Elizabeth, about 150 kilometers. But the young woman from Nazareth, led by the Holy Spirit, knows no obstacles. Surely, those days of journeying helped her to meditate on the marvelous event of which she was a part. So it is with us, whenever we set out on pilgrimage. Along the way, the events of our own lives come to mind, we learn to appreciate their meaning and we discern our vocation, which then becomes clear in the encounter with God and in service to others.

The Mighty One has done great things for me

The meeting of the two women, one young and the other elderly, is filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit and charged with joy and wonder (cf. Lk 1:40-45). The two mothers, like the children they bear, practically dance for joy. Elizabeth, impressed by Mary’s faith, cries out: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (v. 45). One of the great gifts that the Virgin received was certainly that of faith. Belief in God is a priceless gift, but one that has to be received. Elizabeth blesses Mary for this, and she in turn responds with the song of the Magnificat (cf. Lk 1:46-55), in which we find the words: “The Mighty One has done great things for me” (v. 49).

Mary’s is a revolutionary prayer, the song of a faith-filled young woman conscious of her limits, yet confident in God’s mercy. She gives thanks to God for looking upon her lowliness and for the work of salvation that He has brought about for the people, the poor and the humble. Faith is at the heart of Mary’s entire story. Her song helps us to understand the mercy of the Lord as the driving force of history, the history of each of us and of all humanity.

When God touches the heart of a young man or woman, they become capable of doing tremendous things. The “great things” that the Almighty accomplished in the life of Mary speak also to our own journey in life, which is not a meaningless meandering, but a pilgrimage that, for all its uncertainties and sufferings, can find its fulfilment in God (cf. Angelus, 15 August 2015). You may say to me: “But Father, I have my limits, I am a sinner, what can I do?” When the Lord calls us, He doesn’t stop at what we are or what we have done. On the contrary, at the very moment that He calls us, He is looking ahead to everything we can do, all the love we are capable of giving. Like the young Mary, you can allow your life to become a means for making the world a better place. Jesus is calling you to leave your mark in life, your mark on history, both your own and that of so many others (cf. Address at the Vigil, Kraków, 30 July 2016).

Being young does not mean being disconnected from the past

Mary was little more than an adolescent, like many of you. Yet in the Magnificat, she echoes the praises of her people and their history. This shows us that being young does not mean being disconnected from the past. Our personal history is part of a long trail, a communal journey that has preceded us over the ages. Like Mary, we belong to a people. History teaches us that, even when the Church has to sail on stormy seas, the hand of God guides her and helps her to overcome moments of difficulty. The genuine experience of the Church is not like a flash mob, where people agree to meet, do their thing and then go their separate ways. The Church is heir to a long tradition which, passed down from generation to generation, is further enriched by the experience of each individual. Your personal history has a place within the greater history of the Church.

Being mindful of the past also helps us to be open to the unexpected ways that God acts in us and through us. It also helps us to be open to being chosen as a means by which God brings about his saving plan. As young people, you too can do great things and take on fuller responsibilities, if only you recognize God’s mercy and power at work in your lives.

I would like to ask you some questions. How do you “save” in your memory the events and experiences of your life? What do you do with the facts and the images present in your memory? Some of you, particularly those hurt by certain situations in life, might want to “reset” your own past, to claim the right to forget it all. But I would like to remind you that there is no saint without a past, or a sinner without a future. The pearl is born of a wound in the oyster! Jesus, by His love, can heal our hearts and turn our lives into genuine pearls. As Saint Paul said, the Lord can show His power through our weakness (cf. 2 Cor 12:9).

Yet our memories should not remain crammed together, as in the memory of a hard drive. Nor can we archive everything in some sort of virtual “cloud.” We need to learn how to make past events a dynamic reality on which to reflect and to draw lessons and meaning for the present and the future. This is no easy task, but one necessary for discovering the thread of God’s love running through the whole of our life.

Many people say that young people are distracted and superficial. They are wrong! Still, we should acknowledge our need to reflect on our lives and direct them towards the future. To have a past is not the same as to have a history. In our life we can have plenty of memories, but how many of them are really a part of our memory? How many are significant for our hearts and help to give meaning to our lives? In the social media, we see faces of young people appearing in any number of pictures recounting more or less real events, but we don’t know how much of all this is really “history,” an experience that can be communicated and endowed with purpose and meaning. Television is full of “reality shows” which are not real stories, but only moments passed before a television camera by characters living from day to day, without a greater plan. Don’t let yourselves be led astray by this false image of reality! Be the protagonists of your history; decide your own future.

How to remain connected, following the example of Mary

It is said of Mary that she treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart (cf. Lk 2:19, 51). This unassuming young woman of Nazareth teaches us by her example to preserve the memory of the events of our lives but also to put them together and reconstruct the unity of all the fragments that, put together, can make up a mosaic. How can we learn to do this in practice? Let me offer you some suggestions.

At the end of each day, we can stop for a few minutes to remember the good times and the challenges, the things that went well and those that went wrong. In this way, before God and before ourselves, we can express our gratitude, our regrets and our trust. If you wish, you can also write them down in a notebook as a kind of spiritual journal. This means praying in life, with life and about life, and it will surely help you to recognize the great things that the Lord is doing for each of you. As Saint Augustine said, we can find God in the vast fields of our memory (cf. Confessions, X, 8, 12).

Reading the Magnificat, we realize how well Mary knew the word of God. Every verse of her song has a parallel in the Old Testament. The young mother of Jesus knew the prayers of her people by heart. Surely her parents and her grandparents had taught them to her. How important it is for the faith to be passed down from one generation to another! There is a hidden treasure in the prayers that past generations have taught us, in the lived spirituality of ordinary people that we call popular piety. Mary inherits the faith of her people and shapes it in a song that is entirely her own, yet at the same time the song of the entire Church, which sings it with her. If you, as young people, want to sing a Magnificat all your own, and make your lives a gift for humanity as a whole, it is essential to connect with the historical tradition and the prayer of those who have gone before you. To do so, it is important to be familiar with the Bible, God’s word, reading it daily and letting it speak to your lives, and interpreting everyday events in the light of what the Lord says to you in the sacred Scriptures. In prayer and in the prayerful reading of the Bible (lectio divina), Jesus will warm your hearts and illumine your steps, even in the dark moments of life (cf. Lk 24:13-35).

Mary also teaches us to live “eucharistically,” that is to learn how to give thanks and praise, and not to fixate on our problems and difficulties alone. In the process of living, today’s prayers become tomorrow’s reasons for thanksgiving. In this way, your participation in Holy Mass and the occasions when you celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation will be both a high point and new beginning. Your lives will be renewed each day in forgiveness and they will become an act of perennial praise to the Almighty. “Trust the memory of God … His memory is a heart filled with tender compassion, one that rejoices in erasing in us every trace of evil” (cf. Homily at Mass, World Youth Day, Kraków, 31 July 2016).

We have seen that the Magnificat wells up in Mary’s heart at the moment when she meets her elderly cousin Elizabeth. With her faith, her keen gaze and her words, Elizabeth helps the Virgin to understand more fully the greatness of what God is accomplishing in her and the mission that he has entrusted to her. But what about you? Do you realize how extraordinarily enriching the encounter between the young and the elderly can be? How much attention do you pay to the elderly, to your grandparents? With good reason you want to “soar,” your heart is full of great dreams, but you need the wisdom and the vision of the elderly. Spread your wings and fly, but also realize that you need to rediscover your roots and to take up the torch from those who have gone before. To build a meaningful future, you need to know and appreciate the past (cf. Amoris Laetitia, 191, 193). Young people have strength, while the elderly have memory and wisdom. As Mary did with Elizabeth, look to the elderly, to your grandparents. They will speak to you of things that can thrill your minds and fill your hearts.

Creative fidelity for building the future

It is true that you are still young and so it can be hard for you to appreciate the importance of tradition. But know that this is not the same as being traditionalists. No! When Mary in the Gospel says: “The Mighty One has done great things for me,” she means to say that those “great things” are not over, but are still happening in the present. It is not about the distant past. Being mindful of the past does not mean being nostalgic or remaining attached to a certain period of history, but rather being able to acknowledge where we have come from, so that we can keep going back to essentials and throwing ourselves with creative fidelity into building the future. It would be problematic and ultimately useless to cultivate a paralyzing memory that makes us keep doing the same things in the same way. It is a gift of God to see how many of you, with your questions, dreams and uncertainties, refuse to listen to those who say that things cannot change.

A society that values only the present tends to dismiss everything inherited from the past, as for example the institutions of marriage, consecrated life and priestly mission. These end up being seen as meaningless and outdated forms. People think it is better to live in “open” situations, going through life as if it were a reality show, without aim or purpose. Don’t let yourselves be deceived! God came to enlarge the horizons of our life in every direction. He helps us to give due value to the past so as better to build a future of happiness. Yet this is possible only if we have authentic experiences of love, which help us concretely to discern the Lord’s call and to respond to it. For only that can bring us true happiness.

Dear young people I entrust our journey towards Panama, together with the process of preparation for the next Synod of Bishops, to the maternal intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I ask you to keep in mind two important anniversaries in 2017: the three-hundredth anniversary of the finding of the image of Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil and the centenary of the apparitions in Fatima, Portugal, where, God willing, I plan to make a pilgrimage this coming May. Saint Martin of Porres, one of the patron saints of Latin America and of the 2019 World Youth Day, in going about his humble daily duties, used to offer the best flowers to Mary, as a sign of his filial love. May you too cultivate a relationship of familiarity and friendship with Our Lady, entrusting to her your joys, your worries and your concerns. I assure you that you will not regret it!

May the maiden of Nazareth, who in the whole world has assumed a thousand names and faces in order to be close to her children, intercede for all of us and help us to sing of the great works that the Lord is accomplishing in us and through us.

From the Vatican,

FRANCIS

Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana (vatican.va)

VATICAN NEWS

The Holy Father Francis’ video message for the 32nd World Youth Day (Palm Sunday, 9 April 2017)

The Holy See Press Office • March 21, 2017

Vatican City — Today, 21 March 2017, the Holy Father’s Message to young people in preparation for the 32nd World Youth Day 2017 was published. The Day will be celebrated at diocesan level on 9 April 2017, Palm Sunday, on the theme: “The Mighty One has done great things for me” (Luke 1:49).

This year, to encourage wider dissemination of the Message, Pope Francis wished to present it to young people throughout the world with a video in which he indicates certain themes from the document and invites them to undertake the path of spiritual preparation leading to the next international celebration of World Youth Day, scheduled to take place in Panama from 22 to 27 January 2019.

The following is the full text of the Holy Father’s video message.

The Holy Father’s video message

Dear young people,

With the memory vividly in our minds of our meeting together at World Youth Day 2016 in Krakow, we have set out towards the next goal that will be, God willing, Panama in 2019. These moments of encounter and conversation with you are very important to me. I want this journey to proceed in line with preparations for the next Synod of Bishops because it is dedicated to you young people.

We are accompanied on this journey by Our Mother the Virgin Mary. She encourages us with her faith, the same faith that she expressed in her song of praise. Mary said, “The Mighty One has done great things for me” (Lk 1:49). She knew how to give thanks to God who looked upon her littleness, and she recognized the great things that God was accomplishing in her life. So she set off to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was old and needed her to be close by. Mary did not stay at home because she was not a young couch potato who looks for comfort and safety where nobody can bother them. She was moved by faith because faith is at the heart of Our Mother’s entire life story.

Dear young people, God is also watching over you and calling you, and when God does so, he is looking at all the love you are able to offer. Like the young woman of Nazareth, you can improve the world and leave an imprint that makes a mark on history _ your history and that of many others. The Church and society need you. With your plans and with your courage, with your dreams and ideals, walls of stagnation fall and roads open up that lead us to a better, fairer, less cruel and more humane world.

As you follow this path, I encourage you to cultivate a relationship of familiarity and friendship with Our Lady. She is our Mother. Speak to her as you would to a Mother. Together with her, give thanks for the precious gift of faith that you have received from your elders, and entrust your whole life to her. She is a good Mother who listens to you and embraces you, who loves you and walks together with you. I assure you that if you do that, you will not regret it.

Have a good pilgrimage to World Youth Day 2019.

May God bless you all.

Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana (vatican.va)

VATICAN NEWS

General Audience: Hope founded on the Word

The Holy See Press Office • March 22, 2017

Vatican City — This morning’s General Audience took place at 9.30 a.m. in St. Peter’s Square, where the Holy Father Francis met with groups of pilgrims and faithful from Italy and all over the world.

In his address in Italian the Pope focused on the theme “Hope founded on the Word” (cf. Romans 15: 1-2, 4-5).

After summarizing his catechesis in several languages, the Holy Father addressed special greetings to the groups of faithful present. He then invited those present to live the event of 23 and 24 March, “24 Hours for the Lord,” to rediscover the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

The General Audience concluded with the recital of the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostolic Blessing.

Catechesis of the Holy Father

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

For some weeks now the Apostle Paul has been helping us to understand better what Christian hope consists of. And we have said that it was not optimism, that it was something else. And the Apostle helps us to understand this. Today he does so by aligning two attitudes that are more important than ever for our life and for our experience of faith: endurance and encouragement (vv. 4.5). In the passage from the Letter to the Romans that we have just heard, they are mentioned twice: first with reference to the Scriptures and then to God Himself. What is their deepest and truest meaning? And how do they shed light on the reality of hope? These two attitudes: endurance and encouragement.

We may define endurance also as patience: it is the capacity to sustain, to carry on our shoulders, to remain faithful, even when the burden seems to become too great and unbearable, and when we are tempted to judge negatively and abandon everything and everyone. Encouragement, instead, is the grace of knowing how to perceive and to show in every situation, even in those most marked by disappointment and suffering, the presence of God’s compassionate action. Now, Saint Paul reminds us that endurance and encouragement are transmitted to us in a special way in the Scriptures (v. 4), that is, the Bible. Indeed, the Word of God, first of all, leads us to turn our gaze to Jesus, to know Him better and to conform to Him, to increasingly resemble Him. Secondly, the Word reveals to us that the Lord is truly the “God of endurance and encouragement” (v. 5), Who always remains faithful in His love for us; that is, He endures in His love with us, and He never tires of loving us! He endures, He always loves us! And He takes care of us, tending to our wounds with the caress of His goodness and His mercy, that is, He consoles us. He never tires of encouraging us either.

From this perspective we can also understand the Apostle’s initial affirmation: “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves” (v. 1). This expression, “we who are strong,” may seem presumptuous, but in the logic of the Gospel we know that it is not so; or rather, that it is precisely the opposite, because our strength does not come from us, but from the Lord. He who experiences in his own life the faithful love of God and His encouragement is able, or rather, compelled stay close to his weaker brothers and to take on their frailty. If we stay close to the Lord, we will have the strength to be close to the weakest, those most in need, and to encourage and give strength to them. This is what it means. We can do this without complacency, instead simply aware of being a “channel” that transmits the gifts of the Lord; and in this one can truly become a “sower” of hope. This is what the Lord asks of us, with that strength and that capacity to console and to be sowers of hope. And nowadays we need to sow hope, but it is not easy …

The fruit of this style of life is not a community in whom some belong to an “A-list” made up of the strong, and others a “B-list,” consisting of the weak. The fruit is, instead, as Saint Paul says, to “live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus” (v. 5). The Word of God nurtures a hope that translates in a concrete way into sharing, into mutual service. Because even those who are “strong” sooner or later find themselves experiencing fragility and being in need of the comfort of others; and vice versa, in weakness one can always offer a smile or a hand to a brother in difficulty. And it is a community that thereby “with one voice [glorifies] the God and Father” (cf. v.6). But all this is possible if we place Christ and His Word at the center, because He is the strong one, it is He Who gives us strength, Who gives us patience, Who gives us hope, Who gives us encouragement. He is the “strong brother” Who takes care of each one of us: indeed, we all need to be lifted onto the shoulders of the Good Shepherd and to feel wrapped in His tender and thoughtful gaze.

Dear friends, we are never able to thank God enough for the gift of His Word, that He makes present in the Scriptures. It is there that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ reveals Himself as the “God of endurance and encouragement.” And it is there that we become aware of how our hope is founded not on our abilities and our strengths, but on God’s support and on the fidelity of His love, that is, on God’s strength and consolation.

Greetings in various languages: English

I greet the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s Audience, particularly the groups from England, Denmark, Norway and the United States of America. May this Lent be a time of grace-filled time of spiritual renewal, filled with the Lord’s blessings of joy and peace.

I also offer a special welcome to the participants in the “Watershed” Conference on replenishing water values for a thirsty world,” co-hosted by the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Argentine Chapter of the Club of Rome. Today is World Water Day, instituted twenty-five years ago by the United Nations, while yesterday was the International Day of Forests. I am happy that this meeting is taking place, for it represents yet another stage in the joint commitment of various institutions to raising consciousness about the need to protect water as a treasure belonging to everyone, mindful too of its cultural and religious significance. I especially encourage your efforts in the area of education, through programs directed to children and young people. Thank you for all that you do and may God bless you!

Holy Father’s appeal

I invite all communities to live with faithful the events of 23 and 24 March, to rediscover the Sacrament of Reconciliation: “24 Hours for the Lord.” I hope that this year too, the special moment of grace that is the Lenten journey may be lived in many churches, to experience the joyful encounter with the mercy of the Father, Who welcomes and forgives all.

Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana (vatican.va)

VATICAN NEWS

Watch this little girl steal Pope Francis’ hat

CNA/EWTN News • March 22, 2017

A little girl at the General Audience greets Pope Francis and tries to take his zuchetto in St. Peter’s Square on March 22, 2017. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — A cute moment was captured on camera Wednesday, as a 3-year-old girl “stole” Pope Francis’ zucchetto – or skull cap – at the papal general audience.

Little Estella lives in Georgia. She was in Rome with her godfather, Mountain Butorac. Waiting in St. Peter’s Square at the general audience, she was invited by a member of the papal security team to go greet the Pope as he came by.

Pope Francis offered the young girl a kiss on the cheek, and she reached up and grabbed his zucchetto. A moment later, she returned the hat to a laughing pontiff.

Meanwhile, Butorac captured the incident on his phone camera, and posted it to Twitter, where it quickly received more than 8,000 likes.

“It’s exciting!” Butorac told BuzzFeed News. “I’m sure every godparent would love for their godchild to meet the Holy Father. Mine just did and it was not only a special holy moment, but hilarious too!”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis prays for victims of deadly London attack

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • March 23, 2017

A police officer stands guard near Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament on March 22, 2017 in London, England. (Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

Vatican City — After four people died in an apparent terrorist attack in London yesterday, Pope Francis has voiced his sorry and solidarity for the victims and their families, entrusting them and the nation to God’s mercy.

“Deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life and of the injuries caused by the attack central London, His Holiness Pope Francis expresses his prayerful solidarity with all those affected by this tragedy,” a March 23 letter signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin read.

The Pope commended the souls of those who died “to the loving mercy of Almighty God,” and prayed for “divine strength and peace upon their grieving families,” while assuring of his prayer for the entire nation.

Francis’ letter comes the day after a deadly March 22 attack on London’s Parliament took the lives of four people.

During the attack, a car apparently plowed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before crashing into the fence surrounding the Parliament building. The assailant then attempted to enter the Parliament building with a knife, stabbing one police officer before being shot by other officers on the grounds.

According to the Guardian, four people were killed, including the police officer who was stabbed and one man believed to be the assailant. About 20 others were reported injured, some severely.

Nearby government buildings were placed on lockdown while authorities worked to ensure the safety of the area. Scotland Yard said the attack is being treated “as a terrorist incident until we know otherwise.”

The incident marks the first mass-casualty terrorist attack in Britain since the 2005 bomb attack on London that claimed the lives of 52 people when four bombers blew themselves up in the city’s public transportation system.

March 22 also marks the one-year anniversary of the Brussels airport bombings that left more than 30 dead and 300 injured. Those bombings were declared the deadliest act of terrorism in Belgium’s history.

The use of a vehicle as a weapon yesterday’s London attack is reminiscent of the methods used last year by terrorists in Nice and Berlin.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, issued a March 23 statement to the priests and parishes of his diocese saying yesterday’s attacks “have shocked us all.”

“The kind of violence we have seen all too often in other places has again brought horror and killing to this city,” he said, and urged pastors to lead their people in prayer, particularly for the victims and their families.

He offered special prayers for victim Aysha Frade, who was killed by the car on Westminster Bridge and whose two young children attend the diocese’s St. Mary of the Angels Primary School.

He also offered special prayers for Frade’s husband and a group of French students who were injured in the attack, as well as police officer Keith Palmer, the officer who died, and his family.

“Let our voice be one of prayer, of compassionate solidarity and of calm,” the cardinal said.

“All who believe in God, Creator and Father of every person, will echo this voice, for faith in God is not a problem to be solved, but a strength and a foundation on which we depend.”

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VATICAN NEWS

Pope approves second miracle for Blessed Francisco, Jacinta Marto

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • March 23, 2017

Our Lady of Fatima. (Joseph Ferrara/Our Lady of Fatima in L.A. Archdiocese via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0)

Vatican City — On Thursday Pope Francis approved the second and final miracle needed to canonize Blessed Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the shepherd children who witnessed the Fatima Marian apparitions.

The Pope approved the miracle in a March 23 audience with Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, during which he advanced six other causes, approving one other miracle, two causes for martyrdom and three of heroic virtue.

In addition, the Pope also approved a positive vote from members of the canonization for six martyrs who are already Blessed, but do not yet have a second miracle for their cause.

However, the most significant of the causes approved is that of Francisco and Jacinta Marto. With the approval of the second miracle, the two may now be canonized Saints. It is likely Pope Francis will preside over their canonization himself while in Fatima May 12-13 for the centenary of the apparitions.

Francisco, 11, and Jacinta, 10, were the youngest non-martyrs to be beatified in the history of the Church.

The brother and sister, who tended to their families’ sheep with their cousin Lucia Santo in the fields of Fatima, Portugal, witnessed the apparitions of Mary, now commonly known as Our Lady of Fatima.

During the first apparition, which took place May 13, 1917, Our Lady asked the three children to say the Rosary and to make sacrifices, offering them for the conversion of sinners. The children did, praying often, giving their lunch to beggars and going without food themselves. They offered up their daily crosses and even refrained from drinking water on hot days.

In October 1918, Francisco and Jacinta became seriously ill with the Spanish flu. Our Lady appeared to them and said she would to take them to heaven soon.

Bed-ridden, Francisco requested his first Communion. The following day, Francisco died, April 14, 1919. Jacinta suffered a long illness as well. She was eventually transferred to a Lisbon hospital and operated for an abscess in her chest, but her health did not improve. She died Feb. 20, 1920.

Pope John Paul II beatified Francisco and Jacinta May 13, 2000, on the 83rd anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady at Fatima, teaching us that even young children can become saints.

In addition to Francisco and Jacinta, the Pope also approved a miracle for Bl. Angelo da Acri, a Capuchin priest who died in October 1739, allowing for his canonization.

Causes for martyrdom approved by the Pope – meaning they can be beatified – include Fr. Giuseppe Maria Fernández Sánchez and his 32 companions, who were priests and coadjutor brothers of Congregation of the Mission, as well as six laypersons from the Association of the Miraculous Medal of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who were killed in hatred of the faith in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War.

Another martyrdom cause approved by the Pope was that of Servant of God Regina Maria Vattalil, a Poor Clare nun killed in hatred of the faith in 1995.

The martyrs who were already Blessed but may now be canonized based on the Congregation’s vote are: Andrea de Soveral and Ambrogio Francesco Ferro, diocesan priests, and Matteo Moreira, layman, killed in hatred of the Faith in Brazil in 1645, and Cristoforo, Antonio and Giovanni, teenagers, killed in hatred of the Faith in Mexico in 1529.

He also declared the heroic virtue of the following people: Daniele da Samarate, a Capuchin priest; Macrina Raparelli, founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of Basiliane Daughters of St. Macrina; and Daniela Zanetta, a laywoman.

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VATICAN NEWS

Holy See Press Office Communique: Audience with the President of the Republic of Cameroon

The Holy See Press Office • March 23, 2017

Vatican City — The Holy Father Francis today received in Audience, in the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the president of the Republic of Cameroon, His Excellency Mr. Paul Biya, who subsequently met with His Eminence Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, accompanied by His Excellency Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, secretary for Relations with States.

During the cordial discussions, the existing good relations between the Holy See and Cameroon were evoked, as was the important contribution the Church offers to the development of the country, especially in the fields of education and healthcare. Taking into consideration the peaceful co-existence and mutual respect between the various religious groups, attention was focused on the importance of promoting national cohesion, enhancing the richness of the various historic and cultural traditions of the country, with respect for human and minority rights.

Finally, there was an exchange of views on some themes of international interest, with particular reference to the current challenges affecting the region.

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VATICAN NEWS

Vatican abuse prevention event ‘extremely important’ for Church

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • March 23, 2017

Front view of St. Peter’s Basilica. (Pramio Garson via Shutterstock)

Vatican City — On Thursday a Vatican event on the prevention of child abuse narrowed in on the importance of education in schools and parishes in the safeguarding of children – not only for teachers, but for parents and children – and on the Church’s role.

Led by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, he told CNA at the March 23 event that Catholic schools are, of course, a very important part of the Church’s and Commission’s ministry.

There are “60 million children in our care in Catholic schools and so this kind of a conference is extremely important for the ministry of the Church,” O’Malley said. “And we were very gratified that so many cardinals made time to be a part of this.”

The seminar was attended by five different cardinals in addition to O’Malley, including Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, head of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Congregation for Bishops.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life; Cardinal George Pell, Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy; and Cardinal Peter Turkson, Prefect of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, were also in attendance.

Additionally, every Vatican department was represented in some way.

Fr. Hans Zollner SJ, who heads the Center for Child Protection (CCP) at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is also a member of the commission, told CNA that it was a “very successful event, in drawing many high ranking members of the Curia, including a number of cardinals … all the dicasteries represented.”

“This is taking shape and the formation that we have offered to dicasteries has also been very fruitful.”

Sponsored jointly by the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (PCPM) and the Pontifical Gregorian University’s Center for Child Protection, the day-long educational seminar focused on what the local church and institutions are doing to combat abuse of minors specifically in schools and the home.

It included a presentation by Kathleen McCormack, Chair of the PCPM Working Group on Education of Families and Communities, and presentations by representatives from the South American countries of Mexico, Colombia and Argentina, as well as Australia and Italy.

One participant, Fr. Luigi Gritti, a graduate of a CCP course on child abuse, told CNA that it was important that South America was a focus of the seminar, since the Western world is usually the focus when discussing this issue.

“It tells you that the problem is present and acknowledged by the people, but also that something is being done to address the problem. So I think it’s a good development,” he said.

The presentations on South America all highlighted the importance of including children: speaking with and listening to them, teaching them about what is safe and appropriate behavior from adults, as well as becoming familiar with the visual and verbal signs that could indicate the occurrence of abuse, whether physical, emotional or sexual.

The presenters for each country explained the unique cultural challenges they face in preventing abuse and in handling allegations, as well as what policies are currently in place.

In the presentation on Australia, Francis Sullivan, CEO of Truth, Justice and Healing Council, said that in the end, the question of why the sex abuse crisis happened in our Church comes down to cultural problems and to corruption.

Australia’s sexual abuse crisis has been one of the most shocking and widely known in the Church. Feb. 6, Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse held its final three-week review of how the Catholic Church in Australia has responded to sex abuse allegations.

Referencing a quote from Pope Francis where he said that we don’t only need to reform the Church, but also the heart, he said that “child sexual abuse has broken the heart of the Church.”

“We have never fully appreciated that the decisions that our leaders made in order to facilitate and cover up (abuse), actually broke the heart of what it means to be Catholic, and we need to go back and fully confront that,” he said.

“Let’s not distract Church leaders from recognizing that this is a Church problem. Sure, it might happen in other institutions, sure, it happens in families. But the fact that it happened within the Catholic Church says something about the corruption within our Church … That we are not true to what we are meant to be.”

Friday the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors begins their next Plenary Assembly, and one of the central topics will be how to ensure that survivors and victims are always the first priority, O’Malley said in his introductory remarks.

“The assembly begins tomorrow and of course that is one of the things we’ll be talking about,” he told CNA. A meeting of survivors is planned for June that the commission will also be involved in, he said.

Regarding the participation of survivors, Fr. Zollner told CNA that “we need to be informed by survivors and victims, we need to listen to them, and we need to take into account what has been and is their experience.”

Other topics at the Plenary Assembly will include how the commission will continue after the mandate concludes at the end of the calendar year, he said, and “we will see what are the structural steps, or the development, we will need so that our journey continues,” he said.

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WORLD NEWS

Catholic priests, religious face wave of violence in DR Congo

by Adelaide Mena (CNA/EWTN News) • March 17, 2017

(Salim October via Shutterstock)

Washington D.C. — Following recent attempts at brokering peace between the government and political opposition leaders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Catholic priests and religious are facing violent backlash around the country.

According to Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic aid society that works in the country, Catholics have experienced a slew attacks on churches and convents. In particular, a Carmelite Convent and a Dominican Church were both ransacked in late February.

Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, the Archbishop of Kinshasa, told the organization that the incidents “lead one to believe that the Catholic Church is being targeted deliberately, in order to sabotage her mission of peace and reconciliation.”

“Along with all bishops, we denounce these acts of violence, which are likely to plunge our country further into unspeakable chaos,” he said.

The attacks follow recent attempts by the Catholic Church in the DRC to mediate between talks between the government of President Joseph Kabila and the opposition. The opposition to President Kabila and claims of a constitutional crisis follow after his refusal to step down from office at the end of 2016.

Since then, the Congolese Bishops’ Conference has helped to broker a peace deal that would arrange for the peaceful transition of power. However, after delays for the funeral of opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi and other conflicts, the peace agreement has all but dissolved, according to some reports. Presidential elections are now expected to take place at the end of 2017.

“Politicians ought to acknowledge with humility, before their nation and the international community, their political tendencies and the immorality of their self-serving decisions,” Cardinal Monswengwo said in a statement about the elections.

The attacks have continued into March. According to Crux, 25 Catholic Seminarians in Malole in the south of the country had to be evacuated by UN peace-keeping forces by helicopter after armed troops attacked the seminary. The attackers were part of a militia loyal to former tribal leader Kamwina Nsapu, who died in August 2016.

For the Catholics, the violence has been terrifying.

“They systematically broke down the doors to different rooms and destroyed everything inside. They entered the teachers’ rooms and burned their belongings,” Father Richard Kitenge, rector of the seminary, told Agence France-Presse.

Recently, the Church has also lead anti-corruption initiatives in the province and local area. The animosity towards the Church also extends outside of the church or convent walls.

“In the street, it’s not unusual to hear threats against the Church,” Father Julien Wato, the Dominican priest of Saint Dominic’s Church, the Kinshasa church vandalized in February said in a statement after the event.

Nearly half of the Congo’s 67.5 million people are Catholic. Previously, nearly 6 million people died in the 1996-2003 conflict over the nation’s transfer of power.

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WORLD NEWS

Don’t misuse Bible to push death penalty, Philippines bishops say

CNA/EWTN News • March 20, 2017

(Thomas Hawk via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Manila, Philippines — Remember what Jesus’ cross stands for, and don’t misuse the Bible to justify the death penalty, the Philippines’ Catholic bishops have said.

“To the people who use the Bible to defend the death penalty, need we point out how many other crimes against humanity have been justified, using the same Bible?” the country’s bishops asked.

“We humbly enjoin them to interpret the Scriptures properly, to read them as a progressive revelation of God’s will to humankind, with its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ, God’s definitive Word to the world.”

Their words came in a March 19 pastoral statement on the death penalty signed by Archbishop Socrates B. Villegas of Lingayen Dagupan, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. The statement was read at all Masses in the country on Sunday.

Jesus came not to abolish the law, but fulfill it, the bishops explained: “Jesus was never an advocate of any form of ‘legal killing.’ He defended the adulterous woman against those who demanded her blood and challenged those who were without sin among them to be the first to cast a stone on her.”

The letter opened with a quotation from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “God proved his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

The death penalty was abolished in the Philippines in 2006. At present President Rodrigo Duterte, who is also leading a brutal crackdown on drugs, has advocated its restoration.

In their letter, the Catholic bishops recounted the passage of a House of Representatives bill that would restore the death penalty.

“It was Ash Wednesday when members of the lower House, on the second reading of the death penalty bill, outvoted by voice-voting the nays with their ayes. Ironically, they were captured on television shouting in favor of death with their foreheads marked with crosses made of ashes,” the bishops said.

“Could they have forgotten what that cross meant?”

They questioned whether the legislators had missed that the crosses on their foreheads “were supposed to serve as a loud statement of faith in the God who, for love of us, chose to give up his life for our salvation, rather than see us perish.”

According to the bishops, the saying of the Bible, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” was challenged by Jesus, who advocated non-retaliation of evil for evil and justice founded on mercy.

“Even with the best of intentions, capital punishment has never been proven effective as a deterrent to crime,” they continued. “Obviously it is easier to eliminate criminals than to get rid of the root causes of criminality in society. Capital punishment and a flawed legal system are always a lethal mix. “

The statement also spoke about the victims.

“We are not deaf to the cries of the victims of heinous crimes. The victims and their victimizers are both our brothers and sisters. The victim and the opressor are both children of God,” they said.

They said the guilty should repent and make reparation for their sins. The bishops offered love, compassion and hope to crime victims.

The death penalty will be applied more to the poor, who cannot afford adequate legal defenses, the bishops said.

“As a law, death penalty directly contradicts the principle of inalienability of the basic human right to life, which is enshrined in most constitutions of countries that signed the universal declaration of human rights,” they said.

The Philippines bishops called for prayers for the country’s legislators.

“Let us offer all our Masses for them, asking our Crucified Lord who offered his whole life, body and blood, for the salvation of sinners, to touch their consciences and lead them to abolish capital punishment once and for all,” they said.

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WORLD NEWS

Local bishop: Ongoing messages at Argentine apparition will be kept private

by Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • March 21, 2017

The Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Rosary of San Nicolás. (Thialfi via Wikimedia, public domain)

San Nicolás de los Arroyos, Argentina — It’s been called the Medjugorje of Argentina.

A now widely-popular apparition of Mary began in the early 1980s when rosaries began to glow in multiple homes in the town of San Nicolás de los Arroyos, a city of 138,000 people about 150 miles from Buenos Aires.

After seeing this phenomenon, local wife and mother Gladys Quiroga de Motta began praying to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary first allegedly appeared to Motta on Sept. 25, 1983, as a glowing figure wearing a blue crown and veil.

Motta has only a fourth grade education and no formal biblical or theological schooling. She is the mother of two daughters, and a grandmother. Since 1983, she has continued to receive apparitions and messages from both Christ and Mary, containing calls for peace and warnings about the urgency of conversion for all mankind.

The recent Bishops of San Nicolás de los Arroyos have granted approval of the Marian apparition and have granted official license for the revelations to be published, through what is called an imprimatur in canon law. This means that the content of the messages was not found to be contrary to faith or morals.

The apparition, called Our Lady of the Rosary of San Nicolás, has inspired devotion throughout the region and draws thousands on pilgrimage annually.

Last May, the revelations of the apparitions through 1990 were declared to be “of supernatural origin” and worthy of belief by Bishop Hector Cardelli of San Nicolás de los Arroyos, who retired in September 2016 at the age of 75.

“I recognize the supernatural nature of the happy events with which God through his beloved daughter, Jesus through his Most Holy Mother, the Holy Spirit through his beloved spouse, has desired to lovingly manifest himself in our diocese,” he said at the time.

His successor, Bishop Hugo Santiago, asked in a March 13 video announcement that any further messages from the apparition not be published.

In 1990, Bishop Domingo Castagna had also asked that further messages be kept private. The two following Bishops of San Nicolás de los Arroyos decided to allow the messages’ publication, and so the messages of the apparition through 2015 are published.

Miracle researcher Michael O’Neill of miraclehunter.com told CNA that Bishop Santiago is likely making the decision so that he can familiarize himself with the apparition and avoid confusion among the faithful. He had previously been a priest of the Diocese of Rafaela, and Bishop of Santo Tomé.

“From a practical perspective, Bishop Santiago may not be as familiar with the Marian events of San Nicolás as he wants or needs to be, and therefore while he acclimates himself to the volume, regularity and content of these messages, he may be slowing (the publication of messages) down out of caution and care for the faithful,” O’Neill said in an e-mail interview.

The handling of the messages of the San Nicolás apparition has been particularly challenging because, like those of Medjugorje, the visionary is still alive and still claiming to receive messages. The Church typically does not rule definitively on ongoing apparitions, but waits until the messages have stopped to determine their authenticity. Similarly, a cause for canonization cannot be opened for someone who is still living.

San Nicolás is remarkable in that a portion of the messages from the apparition, those between 1983 and 1990, have been declared supernatural and worthy of belief, putting them on par with other apparitions like Fatima and Our Lady of Guadalupe.

This is because Bishop Cardelli “felt that the messages were so important for the faithful in our modern world and perhaps because he understood that such an approval would happen in many years if the messages were waited out in traditional fashion,” O’Neill said.

When determining whether an apparition is supernatural in origin, bishops consult the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 1978 Norms regarding the manner of proceeding in the discernment of presumed apparitions or revelations.

An approved apparition must be free from factual error, with no doctrinal errors attributed to God, Mary, or the saints. Any theological and spiritual doctrines presented must be free of error. The person(s) receiving the messages is/are to be psychologically balanced, honest, moral, sincere, and respectful of church authority. The events cannot be associated with moneymaking or mass hysteria, and must show healthy spiritual fruits.

There is nothing in the messages after 1990 that has been necessarily contentious or contrary to faith and morals, according to O’Neill. Rather, while the almost daily messages have been approved and validated by local bishops, they have not been approved through any formal statement.

Bishop Santiago will continue to receive and examine the messages from Motta, but his decision to keep them private for the time being “seems to bring the events into more clearly defined boundaries for the guidance of the faithful,” O’Neill said.

The messages of the San Nicolás apparition have consistently dealt with “common themes of approved apparitions over the years: prayer, conversion, penance and a return to the sacraments,” O’Neill said.

At various times, the Virgin Mary apparition referred Motta to several Bible verses. One month after the first appearance, the apparition gave her a white rosary and said, “Receive this Rosary from my hands and keep it forever and ever. You are obedient; I am happy because of it. Rejoice, for God is with you.”

Early on in the apparitions, the Virgin Mary asked Motta to find a statue that had been blessed by a Pope and was forgotten in a church. She found the statue Nov. 27, 1983, where Mary had told her to look – in the belfry of the city’s cathedral, where it had been left because it had been damaged and not restored.

The statue in question was of the Mother of God holding the Child Jesus. It had been brought from Rome after it was blessed by Leo XIII. The statue resembled the apparitions Motta had received.

Motta has also received at least 68 visits and messages from Christ.

According to reports, Motta has shared the apparitions’ messages from the beginning and has been obedient to church authorities. She now lives a life of great devotion and keeps a low profile. She reportedly received stigmata – the wounds of Christ – on her wrists, feet, side and shoulder.

There have been several documented healings related to the apparitions, including the healing of a boy with a brain tumor.

Motta has shared about 1,800 messages from the Virgin Mary. Many focus on topics such as peace, repentance, returning to the sacraments, and drawing people closer to Christ.

But there are also messages with an apocalyptic theme, predicting great turmoil for humanity ahead.

“So each new message carries tremendous weight as the newest addition to a larger volume of validated messages and events,” O’Neill said.

Father René Laurentin, an expert on Marian apparitions, recounted the apparitions’ messages in his book An Appeal from Mary in Argentina.

At one point, Mary said: “Many hearts do not accept my invitation to prayer and to conversion. That is why the work of the devil is growing and expanding.”

Mary has also stressed the importance of prayer, especially the rosary, and said that she wanted to cure mankind of the “illness” of materialism.

The apparition of Christ also had many warnings for mankind.

“Today I warn the world, for the world is not aware: souls are in danger. Many are lost,” Christ said in a 1987 apparition. “Few will find salvation unless they accept me as their Savior. My mother must be accepted. My mother must be heard in the totality of her messages. The world must discover the richness she brings to Christians.”

The popularity of the apparition has grown throughout the region, and Bishop Castagna ordered the construction of a shrine as the Virgin had requested. Construction began in 1987 and the shrine was consecrated in 1990. Every year, a massive pilgrimage to the shrine takes place May 22.

O’Neill said he believes that the popularity of and devotion to Our Lady of the Rosary of San Nicolás, and its lack of controversy when compared to Medjugorje, is due to the strong belief in the authenticity of the apparition by the bishops and the local faithful.

O’Neill, who himself has closely studied the apparition, messages and statements of the Bishops of San Nicolás, said he has “seen in the writings and statements of the local bishops there how much they believed it to be an authentic apparition event.”

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WORLD NEWS

Italian bishop bans mobsters from being godfathers

CNA/EWTN News • March 22, 2017

(Public domain via Pixabay)

Palermo, Italy, — Hollywood precedent notwithstanding, an Italian bishop has announced that known members of the mafia cannot be godparents for the Catholic sacraments of baptism or confirmation.

The diocesan decree came from Michele Pennisi, Bishop of Monreale, near Palermo in Sicily, Italy.

“The mafia has always taken the term godfather from the church to give its bosses an air of religious respectability, whereas in fact the two worlds are completely incompatible,” the bishop said in the announcement.

He admitted that it may be hard to enforce, given the secrecy of the mafia, the Guardian reported.

“If someone has not been convicted we cannot judge people on rumours, without proof,” he said, adding that he would not ban anyone willing to repent of their actions.

“If one of them admits to having done wrong, asks to be pardoned for the bad they have done, in that case we can discuss a path of conversion.”

Pennisi has been outspoken against the mafia before, and received death threats in 2008 after he banned Catholic funerals for known mobsters.

According to Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, Bishop Pennisi made the decision after Giuseppe Riina, son of the notorious “boss of bosses” ‘Toto’ Riina, was allowed to act as a godfather at the Catholic baptism of his nephew.

“But the Christian godfather must guarantee the child’s education and upbringing in the faith and how can he do that if his life is in contradiction of the gospel, if it is violent and totally ruled by the god money. There is a total incompatibility here and we’ve got to be clear about that …” Bishop Pennisi said.

The move is just the latest in attempts by Church authorities to crack down on the notorious and influential groups in the country.

In 2014, Pope Francis said that members of one of the most notorious mafia groups, the “‘nDrangheta” were excommunicated from the Church.

“The ‘nDrangheta represents the adoration of evil and total contempt for the common good. … Those who in their lives have chosen this path of evil are not in communion with God, they are excommunicated …” he said at the time, according to the Irish Times.

This year, on March 21, Italy’s first “National Day for Remembrance and Commitment to Remembering the Victims of the Mafia,” Pope Francis sent a message to Mafia victims gathered in Locri, Italy, expressing his “spiritual closeness” to them.

The Holy Father said that he “hopes that the meeting will help to reflect on the causes of the numerous violations of law and legality, which in many cases lead to violence and criminal offenses.”

Pope Francis also assured his prayers for those who “fight the social problem of crime and corruption” and offered his apostolic blessing.

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WORLD NEWS

Prayers go out amid confusion, chaos following London attack

CNA/EWTN News • March 22, 2017

Westminster Bridge and Big Ben in London, England. (Daniel Gale via Shutterstock)

London, England — Church and government leaders offered prayers in the aftermath of an attack in London on Wednesday afternoon.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by the incident in Westminster this afternoon,” read a post on Twitter from the news page of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

“We pray tonight for the victims, their families, for all affected by this terrible attack and those who responded so bravely,” said Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster.

Details surrounding the March 22 attack in Westminster remained unclear some four hours after an attacker in a car apparently plowed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge. The assailant then reportedly crashed the car and attempted to enter the Parliament building with a knife before being shot by armed police.

According to the Guardian, four people were killed, including one police officer and one man believed to be the assailant. About 20 others were reported injured, some severely.

Nearby government buildings were placed on lockdown while authorities worked to ensure the safety of the area. Scotland Yard said the attack is being treated “as a terrorist incident until we know otherwise.”

March 22 marks the one-year anniversary of the Brussels airport bombings that left more than 30 dead and 300 injured. Those bombings were declared the deadliest act of terrorism in Belgium’s history.

While details surrounding the London attack remain uncertain, religious and national leaders offered condolences and prayers.

“Please join me in praying for the people of #London, especially those killed and injured today. St. George and St. Paul, pray for us,” said Bishop James Conley of Lincoln on Twitter.

“Terrible scene in London,” said U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan in a post on Twitter. “Praying for the victims of this apparent act of terror. We stand with our friends in Parliament and Great Britain.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also released a statement offering prayers.

“On behalf of the United States, I express my condolences to the victims and their families,” he said. “The American people send their thoughts and prayers to the people of the United Kingdom. We condemn these horrific acts of violence, and whether they were carried out by troubled individuals or by terrorists, the victims know no difference.”

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WORLD NEWS

Dublin prepares for 2018 World Meeting of Families

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • March 23, 2017

2018 World Meeting of Families video. (Archdiocese of Dublin)

Dublin, Ireland — Just a little more than a year away, the Archdiocese of Dublin released a video Wednesday inviting families from around the world to come together in Ireland for the World Meeting of Families in August 2018.

“I’m very pleased to have been asked to host this meeting, and to invite you to join with us in preparing for this event, and hopefully also to come to Dublin, to celebrate with families from all around the world,” Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin says in the video.

The next World Meeting of Families will be held Aug. 22-26, 2018. As the promo video, released March 22, says, it will include – “God-willing – having Pope Francis join us for the Festival of Families and the final Mass.”

Pope Francis’ visit to Dublin in 2018 will be a significant moment for Ireland, since it has been almost 40 years since their last visit from a Pope, Ireland’s ambassador to the Holy See, Emma Madigan, told CNA in January.

The Archdiocese of Dublin is currently using the website worldmeeting2018.ie to provide information about the event in English, as they work on launching a more comprehensive, multi-lingual site soon, which will also include ticket and registration information.

The theme of the 9th World Meeting of Families is “The Gospel of family, joy for the world.” As the video says, “The joy of love experienced by families is also the joy of the Church. Our Catholic Church is a family of families.”

“Our Holy Father Pope Francis is encouraging families from all across the world to come to Ireland in 2018 to celebrate family life. And to reflect on the importance of family in our lives,” Cardinal Kevin Farrell says in the video.

Prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, as well as a Dublin native, Cardinal Farrell is one of the persons responsible for organizing the event.

The last World Meeting of Families, which took place in Philadelphia in 2015, was attended by around 18,000 people for the congress and somewhere around 800,000-900,000 for the final Mass with Pope Francis.

The last World Meeting of Families was a huge success, according to Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia. “The spirit of the whole city was strikingly positive,” he told CNA Sept. 29, 22015 in an interview following the event.

Dublin is looking forward to a similar event in 2018.

“Every society, every person, understands a universal bond, a bond that connects us: family,” the promotional video states. “We look forward to welcoming people from every corner of the world to our shores for the 2018 World Meeting of Families.”

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WORLD NEWS

Priests in Peru encouraged to visit victims of floods, mudslides

CNA/EWTN News • March 23, 2017

Archbishop Jose Eguren of Piura, Peru visits a town affected by flooding. (Archdiocese of Piura)

Piura, Peru — On the occasion of the worldwide “24 Hours for the Lord,” the Archdiocese of Piura encouraged priests to visit and bring aid to the victims of the natural disasters in northwestern Peru.

In a message released March 20, Archbishop José Antonio Eguren Anselmi of Piura recalled that the “24 Hours for the Lord” on March 25 “is intended to facilitate during Lent access to the sacrament of Confession for the faithful, along with Eucharistic adoration, the recitation of the Holy Rosary and other kinds of liturgical activities.”

“Without changing the nature of this initiative by the Holy Father, and after personally visiting in these weeks various districts and cities in our battered archdiocese, I thought we could celebrate it this year, besides in our churches, by visiting our brother victims in our parish communities who now more than ever need an encouraging voice to find again the reason for their hope.”

Heavy rains in Peru have triggered days of floods and mudslides in Peru, which have killed more than 70 people in the country. Hundreds of thousands have been affected by the natural disasters.

A third of the population affected by the natural disasters are in the Piura region.

The Archbishop of Piura suggested to the priests that “this Saturday, March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, in conjunction with pastoral workers, catechists, and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, you organize with due prudence some activity to visit the Lord in our victim brothers.”

“I know that a lot of you are already taking action and I commend you and encourage you to continue,” he emphasized.

Archbishop Eguren encouraged “visiting the affected sectors of the parish to being them assistance with food, clothing, personal hygiene items, which have been collected in your parish communities during these days.”

Another suggestion from the prelate was to “organize a Liturgy of the Word or recitation of the Holy Rosary to pray with our brothers, while the priest hears confessions, anoints the sick, and the ministers of Holy Communion distribute the Eucharist to the elderly, sick, and everyone who requests it.”

Other activities recommended by the archbishop are visiting the sick in healthcare facilities, inmates in prison and organizing events for the children of the affected families.

“These are just a few ideas and suggestions I’m sharing with you. I’m sure you have many more and probably better ones,” he said.

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U.S. NEWS

A year after genocide declaration, Knights donate nearly $2 million

CNA/EWTN News • March 17, 2017

Farman, a Syrian refugee. (Elena Dorfman via Flickr)

Washington D.C. — Last year, in a nearly unprecedented event, the United States declared that Christians, Yezidis, Shi’a Muslims, and other religious and ethnic minorities are victims of ISIS genocide.

It was only the second time the State Department has used the label to describe ongoing atrocities committed by a state or non-state actor. Genocide is the “crime of crimes,” according to the United Nations, because it involves the intentional destruction, “in whole or in part,” of an entire people.

Marking the one-year anniversary of that declaration, the Knights of Columbus are continuing their work to assist persecuted Christians in the region by contributing nearly $2 million in new assistance.

In a statement announcing the new aid, the fraternal organization’s CEO Carl Anderson said that “words are not enough” to protect Christians and other targeted populations.

“Those targeted for genocide continue to need our assistance, especially since many have received no funding from the U.S. government or from the United Nations. The new administration should rectify the policies it found in place, and stop the de facto discrimination that is continuing to endanger these communities targeted by ISIS for genocide.”

Many others have also called on the Trump administration to do more to help Christians and other minorities in the Middle East on the anniversary of the declaration. This week, Professor Robert Destro of the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America announced a joint statement of “recommended actions” for the administration to take to protect genocide survivors.

The document was a call “to stand up constantly” for minorities “who are being targeted today by ISIS and all of its affiliates around the world” and was signed by numerous political and religious leaders.

The Knights of Columbus played a key role in lobbying for the declaration of the Christian genocide last year, as they compiled and presented a 278-page report to the State Department, documenting evidence of Christian genocide at the hands of ISIS.

Since 2014, they have donated more than $12 million to aid Christians in the Middle East, which has gone to medical clinics in Iraq, Easter food baskets for displaced Christians under the care of the Archdiocese of Erbil, general relief for the Christians of Aleppo, Syria, via the city’s Melkite Archdiocese, and support for the Christian refugee relief programs of the Syriac Catholic patriarch.

Anderson said 2017 may be “the decisive year in determining whether many Christian communities throughout the Middle East will continue to exist,” and has called for aid from the U.S. government and the international community.

The Knights of Columbus are also leading a Novena (nine days of prayer) from March 12 to 20 for grace and solidarity with Christians in the Middle East. Donations to support Christian refugees and other religious minorities can be made at christiansatrisk.org.

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U.S. NEWS

Don’t cut foreign assistance, Catholic leaders tell Trump

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • March 19, 2017

Children at Catholic Relief Services’ Food for Education program in Senegal. (Lane Hartill/Catholic Relief Services)

Washington, D.C. — The United States mustn’t cut foreign aid while conflicts, famines, and a worldwide refugee crisis rage, Catholic leaders are insisting.

Amid a “huge, unprecedented refugee situation” around the globe and four countries with famines or on the cusp of famine “we’re just extremely concerned that the resources won’t be there to respond to those really critical humanitarian needs,” Bill O’Keefe, vice president for government relations and advocacy at Catholic Relief Services, told CNA on Friday of President Donald Trump’s proposed budget that cuts some foreign assistance.

President Trump’s “skinny” proposed “America First” budget for FY 2018 – a more detailed plan will be released later — increases defense spending and immigration enforcement, and makes significant cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department, among other agencies and programs, to offset those increases.

“This includes deep cuts to foreign aid. It is time to prioritize the security and well-being of Americans, and to ask the rest of the world to step up and pay its fair share,” President Trump stated in the proposal.

The proposal trims almost a third – 29 percent – of the International Affairs Budget, David Beckmann, president of the group Bread for the World, told CNA.

And while the number of persons displaced from their homes is at its highest ever recorded at over 65 million, with over 21 million of those refugees, the U.S. should not be cutting its foreign aid to vulnerable populations, CRS insisted.

With huge movements of people comes instability, O’Keefe said. “If we don’t meet” the humanitarian needs of vulnerable populations, “people will move and that will be destabilizing.”

106 faith leaders signed a letter sent to congressional leaders on Thursday in “support for the International Affairs Budget that every day brings hope to poor, hungry, vulnerable and displaced men, women and children around the world.”

Signers of the letter included Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, Bishop Gregory J. Mansour of the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn and chairman of the board of Catholic Relief Services, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, and Archbishop Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee.

“With just 1 percent of our nation’s budget, the International Affairs Budget has helped alleviate the suffering of millions; drastically cutting the number of people living in extreme poverty in half, stopping the spread of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDs and Ebola, and nearly eliminating polio,” they stated.

“Additionally, it promotes freedom and human rights, protecting religious freedom for millions around the world.”

In Trump’s budget proposal, foreign assistance would be targeted toward countries of greater “strategic importance” to the U.S.

This shifting of priorities could have serious consequences for the future of U.S. foreign policy, O’Keefe noted, as countries deemed “less strategic” for aid could see their societal problems greatly increase without assistance in the next few years.

“If you ignore countries that are fragile, poorly governed, with lots of poor and disenfranchised people, then they end up becoming strategic countries that you then have to fight wars in,” he said.

“We’d like to see our government investing more in prevention, and in building the capacity of societies to deal with their own problems and in the diplomacy to resolve conflicts without military action.”

He noted that the budget proposal keeps “much of the global health funding” like the PEPFAR program to fight AIDS in Africa, O’Keefe said, which is good.

However, the proposal targeted many other programs like the McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program, which “allows CRS to support basic education in rural school settings,” O’Keefe said. The president had said that program “lacks evidence that it is being effectively implemented to reduce food insecurity.”

The proposal also touches anti-trafficking programs and anti-gang programs, and the State Department’s 60 year-old Food for Peace program would see cuts, CRS noted.

“We understand the budget challenges,” O’Keefe insisted, while adding that “you’re not going to be able to balance the budget on the one percent that goes to foreign aid,” especially since it’s already been trimmed disproportionately for the last nine years.

He added that domestic and international anti-poverty programs have “been squeezed” to make room for military spending, which would prioritize short-term goals over long-term stability.

Some domestic programs saw cuts, including “housing and heating for poor people,” Beckmann noted, and certain block grants that provide funding for the program Meals on Wheels, a volunteer food delivery program to the elderly.

“How can you cut Meals on Wheels?” Beckmann asked.

The president of the organization, Ellie Hollander, explained what may be at stake in the proposal.

“The problem with a skinny budget is it is lean on details. So, while we don’t know the exact impact yet, cuts of any kind to these highly successful and leveraged programs would be a devastating blow to our ability to provide much-needed care for millions of vulnerable seniors in America, which in turn saves billions of dollars in reduced healthcare expenses,” Hollander stated.

Some of the other federal programs the President suggested cutting included the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities and some funding for Meals on Wheels and the National Institutes of Health.

Programs fighting opioid addictions would receive a half-a-billion dollar boost in Trump’s plan, however. The Centers for Disease Control has labeled opioid overdoses an epidemic, and said that 33,000 people died from using prescription opioids and heroin in 2015.

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U.S. NEWS

U.S. bishops push for universal, pro-life health care

CNA/EWTN News • March 20, 2017

Senate side of the U.S. Capitol building. (Public domain)

Washington D.C. — The bill drafted to replace the Affordable Care Act has good pro-life measures but still presents “grave challenges” that must be remedied, said one leading bishop in a recent statement.

“Laudably, the AHCA [American Health Care Act] proposes to include critical life protections for the most vulnerable among us,” Bishop Frank Dewayne of Venice, chair of the U.S. Bishops’ Domestic Justice and Human Development committee, stated last Friday of the new bill that would make changes to the Affordable Care Act.

However, there are also “some very troubling features” in the new law, like restrictions on health care “access for those most in need,” Bishop Dewayne continued.

The American Health Care Act, currently under consideration in Congress and set for a floor vote soon, would be the biggest overhaul of health care policy since the Affordable Care Act passed under President Obama.

It would keep in place certain provisions, like insurers not being able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, but would also phase out the expansion of Medicaid coverage from the old law and could substantially reduce Medicaid coverage.

Pro-life groups have in general been pleased with the language in the bill, particularly its stripping federal funding of Planned Parenthood for one year and its protections against taxpayer funding of abortion coverage in health plans.

Pro-life groups are also concerned that the Senate Parliamentarian could remove the language from the bill because, as it is to be passed through the budgetary procedure of reconciliation, such pro-life language could be interpreted as not pertaining to the budget.

These pro-life protections would be important, Bishop Dewayne insisted.

And the bill gives greater flexibility to the states, which could be good, although if it affects the “effectiveness or reach” of the “social safety net” it could be bad, the bishop wrote.

However, there are problematic provisions within the bill, Bishop Dewayne insisted. For instance, it lacks conscience protections that were also lacking under the Affordable Care Act. These could protect doctors, hospitals, and health care providers against mandates under the old law that they perform certain procedures like abortions or gender-transition surgeries.

Also, such a provision could protect employers, especially religious non-profits, against rules like the health care law’s contraceptive mandate that they provide birth control, sterilizations, and drugs that can cause abortions.

The most notable case here was that of Hobby Lobby, an arts-and-crafts chain owned by a Christian family who objected to the mandate because they believed that some drugs they had to cover in employee health plans could cause early abortions. The owners argued that this was a violation of their religious beliefs.

Also, the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious non-profits sued over the process of how they had to notify the government of their objection to the contraceptive mandate, saying it still forced them to cooperate with the provision of contraceptive coverage against their religious beliefs.

No conscience protections to nullify the harm caused by these mandates exists in the proposed legislation, Bishop Dewayne said.

Other provisions existing in the new bill are problematic, he continued. The Affordable Care Act provided federal subsidies for low-income persons to buy health insurance, while in the new bill tax credits would be provided.

This new system, though, could reduce the benefits for the elderly and low-income persons and “appears to create increased barriers to affordability,” Bishop Dewayne said.

The Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate – a penalty for not purchasing health insurance – would be replaced with a 30 percent fine on a person’s new premium if there has been a long enough gap in their health coverage.

This could dissuade many from buying new plans if they lose their old health plan, Bishop Dewayne said.

Also in the proposed law are higher comparative limits that the elderly can pay in premiums when compared to younger enrollees. Under the Affordable Care Act, those limits were three to one, whereas under the proposed law the elderly could pay as much as five times the premiums of younger enrollees.

“Some studies show that premiums for older people on fixed incomes would rise, at times dramatically,” the bishop said.

Ultimately, the problematic parts of the Affordable Care Act should not be replaced with equally bad or worse policies, he concluded.

“(I)n attempting to improve the deficiencies of the ACA, health care policy ought not create other unacceptable problems, particularly for those who struggle on the margins of our society,” he said. “As Pope Francis has said, ‘Health, indeed, is not a consumer good, but a universal right which means that access to healthcare services cannot be a privilege.’”

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Supreme Court nominee drilled on abortion, religious freedom at hearings

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • March 21, 2017

The U.S. Supreme Court building. (Addie Mena/CNA)

Washington, D.C. — The judge nominated to replace Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court answered questions on abortion and religious freedom jurisprudence on Tuesday.

While he avoided commenting on how he may rule in certain cases, Judge Neil Gorsuch of the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals discussed the legal principles underlying topics such as the right to life and freedom of religious expression.

Speaking to the Senate Judiciary Committee, he acknowledged Roe v. Wade – the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion throughout the U.S. – as settled precedent, though he declined to say whether it was decided correctly and how he would rule in future abortion cases.

Tuesday marked the second day of the committee’s confirmation hearing for Judge Gorsuch to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Gorsuch was tapped by President Donald Trump in February to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016.

Trump had insisted while on the campaign trail in 2016 that he would appoint pro-life justices to the Supreme Court.

When asked at the final presidential debate in October if, as president, he wanted the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion throughout the U.S., Trump answered that “if that would happen, because I am pro-life and I will be appointing pro-life justices … it [the legality of abortion] will go back to the individual states.”

On Tuesday, Gorsuch was asked by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, “whether Roe was decided correctly.” Gorsuch answered that the decision “is the precedent of the United States Supreme Court.”

Roe, he said, “was reaffirmed in Casey in 1992 and in several other cases. So a good judge will consider a precedent of the United States Supreme Court worthy as treatment of precedent like any other.”

When Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), ranking member on the committee, asked Gorsuch about assumptions that he could vote to overturn Roe, he reiterated that it was “settled.”

“Once a case is settled, that adds to the determinacy of the law. What was once a hotly contested issue is no longer a hotly contested issue. We move forward,” Gorsuch answered. “It has been reaffirmed many times. I can say that.”

He expounded upon abortion law in a discussion with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who asked about the authority of states to set limits on abortions given that medical knowledge of unborn human life has developed with time.

Graham referenced the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision of 1992, which established the “viability” standard for states’ abortion laws, that they could restrict abortions after an unborn baby shows “viability.”

Recent research shows that unborn babies can “feel excruciating pain” at 20 weeks post-gestation, Graham argued, and so the “state has a compelling interest” to step in and limit abortions conducted after five months.

Currently, 19 states have “Pain-Capable” laws banning abortions after five months of pregnancy, except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake.

Rather than voicing support or opposition for such laws, Gorsuch simply promised that if an abortion law case came before him as a Supreme Court justice, he would, as Graham had asked, “look at the facts,” “read the briefs,” and “make a decision” from that.

Sen. Grassley also asked about the Griswold decision of 1965 that legalized contraception in the U.S. based on a right to privacy of married couples. Gorsuch answered that the case has precedent as it is “50 years old.”

“It’s been repeatedly reaffirmed, all very important factors again, in analyzing precedent.”

Senators also pressed Gorsuch about religious freedom cases, particularly the application of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to jurisprudence. RFRA was a law passed in 1993, and it set up a test to determine cases where a person claimed their free exercise of religion had been violated by the federal government.

The government may not “substantially burden” one’s free exercise of religion, the law says, unless it proved that its law “furthered a compelling governmental interest” and was the “least-restrictive means” of doing so.

RFRA has surfaced in Supreme Court cases as of late, especially in cases of employers or religious non-profits against the government’s birth control mandate. That mandate forces employers to provide cost-free coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives, and drugs that can cause abortions in employee health plans.

Gorsuch, while on the Tenth Circuit, ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, an arts-and-crafts chain owned by a Christian family who claimed that the mandate violated their religious freedom because they had to provide employees coverage for drugs they believed caused abortions.

He insisted on Tuesday that the religious freedom law “applies not just to Hobby Lobby. It also applies to the Little Sisters of the Poor and protects their religious exercise,” he said, and protected a Muslim prisoner in Oklahoma who wanted to keep his beard at a certain length for religious purposes against prison rules.

Gorsuch joined the dissent in the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor where they claimed that the federal government’s “accommodation” offered to them to opt-out of the mandate still violated their religious beliefs. The Tenth Circuit ruled against the sisters, but Gorsuch joined the dissent.

In the Hobby Lobby case, critics of the Court’s decision said that the business was not protected by RFRA because it was not a “person.”

Gorsuch explained how he reasoned that the law protected “closely-held for-profit corporations” as well.

The Green family claimed they owned “a small, family-held company,” Gorsuch said. “They exhibit their religious affiliation openly in their business. They pipe in Christian music. They refuse to sell alcohol or things that hold alcohol. They close on Sundays though it costs them a lot.”

“Congress didn’t define the term” of “person” when they wrote the law, he continued. The Court invoked the “Dictionary Act,” which states that “the words ‘person’ and ‘whoever’ include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals.”

“So you can’t rule out the possibility that some companies can exercise religion,” Gorsuch said. “And of course we know churches are often incorporated. And we know non-profits like Little Sisters, or hospitals can practice religion. In fact, the government in that case conceded that non-profit corporations can exercise religion. Conceded that.”

Additionally, the birth control mandate was not the “least-restrictive means” of ensuring contraception coverage, he added. The Supreme Court ruled “that it wasn’t as strictly tailored as it could be because the government had provided different accommodations to churches and other religious entities.”

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Lawsuit says girl in boys’ locker room violated student privacy

CNA/EWTN News • March 21, 2017

(Amboo who via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0)

Philadelphia, PA — A Pennsylvania high school wrongly allowed a female student into the boys’ locker room and violated an undressing male student’s privacy and his right to be free from harassment, a lawsuit charges.

“No school should rob any student of his legally protected personal privacy,” said Randall Wenger, chief counsel of the Pennsylvania-based Independence Law Center, a co-counsel to the lawsuit.

“We trust that our children won’t be forced into emotionally vulnerable situations like this when they are in the care of our schools because it’s a school’s duty to protect and respect the bodily privacy and dignity of all students. In this case, school officials are clearly ignoring that duty.”

The student, named in the lawsuit as “Joel Doe,” was in a locker room in his underwear about to put on gym clothes when he noticed a female student in the locker room, also in a state of undress.

When the male student complained to school officials, they told him that students who identify as the opposite sex may choose their locker room. When the male student asked officials to protect his privacy, the officials allegedly told him to tolerate the behavior and make changing clothes in the presence of the student as natural as possible.

The school is in Boyertown Area School District, which covertly allowed students of the opposite sex into its schools’ locker rooms and restrooms, according to Alliance Defending Freedom, a co-counsel in the case. The district allegedly did not notify parents of the change.

The lawsuit against the school district was filed March 21 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. It claims the student suffered sexual harassment prohibited under Title IX of federal law, violation of privacy guarantees under the U.S. Constitution, and violation of state privacy law.

“Our laws and customs have long recognized that we shouldn’t have to undress in front of persons of the opposite sex,” said Kellie Fiedorek, legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, who said state law requires schools to have separate facilities on the basis of sex.

She charged that some schools are “forcing our children into giving up their privacy rights.”

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Judge Gorsuch nomination backed by dozens of pro-life groups

CNA/EWTN News • March 22, 2017

Judge Neil Gorsuch delivers brief remarks after being nominated by U.S. President Donald Trump to the Supreme Court on Jan. 31, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Washington D.C. — Judge Neil Gorsuch deserves “swift confirmation” to the U.S. Supreme Court, leaders of pro-life and pro-family groups have said.

“Neil Gorsuch has proven himself to be a defender of the most basic human rights,” said the March 20 letter, organized by the Susan B. Anthony List and addressed to U.S. Senators.

The letter cited Gorsuch’s book, “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia,” in which he said “human life is fundamentally and inherently valuable and the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.”

Over 50 leaders signed the letter, including representatives of the Susan B. Anthony List, Live Action, National Right to Life, Students for Life, and state pro-life groups and pro-family groups.

They praised Gorsuch as an intelligent and fair-minded nominee with a fitting temperament, citing his 2006 unanimous confirmation by the Senate to his current seat on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“We believe that Judge Gorsuch’s thoughtful opinions illuminate how he would decide difficult questions on the Supreme Court,” the letter said.

If approved by the Senate, Gorsuch’s presence on the Supreme Court could affect important cases involving religious freedom and legal abortion, among others.

The letter praised the judge’s “keen understanding and respect for religious liberty” in the cases of Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor. Both faced federal requirements to provide employee health insurance coverage for drugs and procedures they considered to be violations of religion and ethics. They filed legal challenges saying the mandates were unconstitutionally burdensome on their religious freedom.

“Many of our organizations applauded Judge Gorsuch when he evinced a keen understanding and respect for religious liberty in cases involving Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor, concluding that application of the Affordable Care Act’s preventive service mandate, coupled with massive fines on religious objectors to elements of the mandate, substantially burdens religious liberty.”

The letter also cited Gorsuch’s dissent in a 10th Circuit panel decision that sided with abortion provider Planned Parenthood.

The panel overrode the finding of a federal district court over Planned Parenthood’s alleged involvement in violations of laws barring the procurement of fetal tissue for profit. The panel also issued an injunction against the Utah governor’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood over the allegations.

Gorsuch said the panel majority failed to follow appropriate standards of judicial review and failed to show customary deference to the lower court’s factual findings.

According to the March 20 letter, Gorsuch would apply an “originalist” approach to the U.S. Constitution and would respect the separation of powers in the tradition of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The letter praised the Gorsuch’s statement that judges should “administer justice equally to rich and poor alike, following the law as they find it and without respect to their personal political beliefs.”

Several of the letter’s signers, including Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List and Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, served on the Catholic advisory board to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign for president.

Gorsuch, an Epsicopalian, has clerked for Supreme Court Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy. He attended Columbia University and Harvard Law School. He earned his doctorate at Oxford University, where his studies were supervised by the influential Catholic legal philosopher and natural law theorist John Finnis.

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Catholic college’s new bridge too Catholic, neighbors complain

by Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • March 22, 2017

A depiction of the planned pedestrian bridge at Villanova University. (Villanova University)

Philadelphia, PA — A bridge featuring crosses on the property of Villanova, a Catholic university in a Philadelphia suburb, will be built despite complaints from some local taxpayers.

After an hour long debate, the Board of Commissioners of the township of Radnor voted 6-0 last month to approve the controversial pedestrian bridge that will connect Villanova University’s main campus with an expansion of the campus.

The crux of the debate was the two, 4-foot 7-inch crosses planned for the top of the bridge, which will be visible to travelers on Route 30 underneath. Some local taxpayers complained that the school was crossing the line of separation of church and state by placing the crosses over a public road.

“I think they are overstepping their sense of ecumenism to shove these crosses in our faces,” Sara Pilling, a longtime resident and opponent of the crosses, told The Inquirer Daily News before the meeting.

Others argued that taxpayer dollars should not fund a bridge that will feature displays of religion.

Villanova officials argued that the school was within its rights to place crosses on the bridge, which will be owned by the university and on university property.

“On every building on campus, there’s a cross,” Fr. Peter Donohue, university president, told the Inquirer.

“I understand people’s sensitivities, but it’s just something we’ve always done. It’s just part of who we are. We are a faith-based institution.”

Some locals believe that a compromise would be to turn the crosses so they face the pedestrians, or to incorporate them into the design of the bridge in a more subtle way.

“While we recognize the importance of Villanova to our community and the notoriety it brings to Radnor, are there less ostentatious ways to reflect a Catholic institution?” said Roberta Winters, president of the League of Women Voters of Radnor, in an interview with The Inquirer.

Commissioner Luke Clark told local media that the bridge has been in the works for a long time, and is a way to keep safe the hundreds of students who cross that road every day.

“The design looks great. The crosses are going to go up there. Is it right or wrong? I don’t know. But at the end of the day it is on their property. They are a religious institution and the law for the most part is in their favor,” said Clark.

Even after the board unanimously voted to approve the bridge, some concerned locals contacted the non-profit Freedom From Religion Foundation. The foundation wrote a “strongly worded letter” to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), contending that they were unconstitutionally funding Christian symbols on the bridge and asked them to removed either the crosses or their funding.

The department told local media that its $3.7 million contribution to the project was for the portion of the span over the right of way it controls.

PennDOT said it could not control what the university did with its own property and with its own funds, which are providing for the crosses and most of the bridge.

After the township vote Villanova’s assistant vice president of government relations and external affairs Chris Kovolski told The Inquirer: “We’re pleased that the conversation tonight resulted in an outcome that allows the university to move forward.”

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Gorsuch made an important distinction when asked about assisted suicide

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • March 22, 2017

Judge Neil Gorsuch listens during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 20, 2017. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Washington D.C. — Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch made a crucial ethical distinction in his response to questions about doctor-prescribed suicide during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, said one ethicist.

When asked what his views were on end-of-life care in the case of a terminal patient enduring unbearable pain, Gorsuch replied that “anything necessary to alleviate pain would be appropriate and acceptable, even if it caused death. Not intentionally, but knowingly. I drew the line between intent and knowingly.”

This is an important distinction, said Edward Furton Ph.D., director of publications and an ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center. He told CNA that the situation presents the case of “double-effect,” where proper steps taken to alleviate a patient’s pain may have the side effect of causing their death, but are permissible when certain conditions are met.

“You’ve got a good intention, the action you’re doing is good – in this case, it’s alleviating the pain with appropriate amounts of medication,” he explained, emphasizing that the dosage of pain medication may never be lethal and should not render the patient unconscious except when “absolutely necessary.”

“You’ve got a side effect, which is not intended, but is foreseen. It is going to happen, but you don’t want it to happen, you’re doing your action for another reason. And there is really no other route to alleviate the pain. So this is perfectly appropriate, it makes good sense,” Furton said.

Gorsuch, a judge on the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, faced his third day of questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday as he is considered for confirmation to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.

He wrote a book in 2006 on “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia.” Gorsuch explored various arguments made in favor of doctor-prescribed suicide and euthanasia before offering his own observations and opinions.

The book “was my doctoral dissertation, essentially,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. It was written “in my capacity as a commentator” and not as a judge, he clarified. The book was published the same year he was nominated and confirmed to the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

He argued in the book that “human life is fundamentally and inherently valuable, and that the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.” Regarding doctor-prescribed suicide, he upheld laws prohibiting it, basing his argument upon “secular moral theory.”

Asked by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) to briefly discuss his book, Gorsuch suggested that doctor-prescribed suicide could pose a significant threat “to the least amongst us – the vulnerable, the elderly, the disabled.”

It does this by becoming a cheap end-of-life option offered to vulnerable people, he said. “I do know that when you have a more expensive option and a cheaper option, those who can’t afford the more expensive option tend to get thrust into the cheaper option.”

“It’s a long book. It’s complicated. And I do not profess to have the right, final, or complete answer,” he admitted. “I hoped, at most, to contribute to a discussion on an unanswered social question where all people – and I do think all people – have a good faith interest in trying to reach some consensus socially on it.”

Currently, doctor-prescribed suicide is legal in six states and in the District of Columbia, with some 25 states to consider legalizing it this year.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) pressed Gorsuch on the matter on Wednesday, citing California’s End of Life Option Act that legalized the procedure in the state.

“I, in my life, have seen people die horrible deaths – family, of cancer – when there was no hope. And my father, begging me, ‘stop this Diane, I’m dying,’” she explained. “And my father was a professor of surgery.”

“And the suffering becomes so pronounced – I just went through this with a close friend – that this is real. And it’s very hard,” she continued, asking him what he thought of California’s law.

Gorsuch, speaking in his personal capacity, said that for some terminal patients, “at some point, you want to be left alone. Enough with the poking and the prodding. ‘I want to go home and die in my own bed in the arms of my family.’”

“And the Supreme Court recognized in Cruzan” – a 1990 decision on an end-of-life case – “that that’s a right in common law, to be free from assault and battery, effectively. And assumed that there was a Constitutional dimension to that. I agree.”

Gorsuch added that the matter of a terminal, suffering patient foregoing treatment was a personal one for him.

“Your father, we’ve all been through it with family. My heart goes out to you. It does. And I’ve been there with my dad. And others,” he told Feinstein.

Speaking as an ethicist, Furton clarified that in end-of-life cases, pain management may certainly be used but should never be an overdose and should not render the patient unconscious except in extraordinary circumstances.

Pain medication should be “measured, so that it matches the pain that the patient is experiencing,” he said.

“You can’t just give them a massive dose, or something like that,” he said, as “it would bring about their death in a way that was not measured and not connected to a proper intention which is to alleviate the pain.”

And medication should not induce unconsciousness, except in extraordinary cases, he insisted.

“Another important element is that the loss of consciousness in a person who is dying is very significant, and shouldn’t happen unless it’s absolutely necessary, because we should meet our Maker alert and in a prayerful way,” he added.

Furton praised Gorsuch’s knowledge and treatment of the matter as someone who “has obviously thought about these issues very carefully.”

“So I think we should be happy that he has such a strong sense of where to draw the line in a case such as this, where you’ve got a person with intractable pain and needs to have it remedied,” Furton said.

“He understands that that is not intentionally killing somebody. It’s not euthanasia, it’s not physician-assisted suicide. A lot of people don’t understand the difference between those two, so it’s good that he does because he’s obviously going to be a man of considerable power and importance in the area of law.”

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Americans agree: Moms and dads should have paid parental leave

CNA/EWTN News • March 24, 2017

(Catholic News Agency/Unsplash)

Washington D.C. — A new report by the Pew Research Center has found that the overwhelming majority of Americans support paid family and medical leave for workers.

More than 80 percent of adult Americans surveyed believe that women should have paid maternity leave, and just under 70 percent support paid paternity leave.

When it comes to paid leave for new fathers, there are significant generational differences. Of those under 30 years of age, 82 percent believe dads should get paid leave after a birth or adoption. Support drops to 76 percent among respondents from 30-49 years of age, and 59 percent for those 50 and older.

Support for paid family leave was a rare issue of agreement between both candidates in the last presidential election, although Democrats and Republicans have general disagreement on the extent to which the government should be involved in ensuring this benefit.

The study, based on two surveys conducted late last year, found that there is currently a drastic difference in leave opportunities between higher and lower income workers.

Some 60 percent of leave takers with annual household incomes from $30,000 to $74,999 received at least some pay when they took family or medical leave. The same is true for 74 percent of those with incomes of $75,000 or more. But that number drops to 37 percent for leave takers with incomes under $30,000.

For those who take unpaid or partially paid leave, the shortfall in income often proves to be a significant financial strain. The report found that 41 percent of people in this situation cut their leave short, 37 percent took on debt, and 33 percent put off paying bills.

Among lower-income workers who took unpaid or partially paid parental leave, nearly half went on public assistance to cover lost income.

Meanwhile, a little more than half of those who took parental leave said they took less time off than they needed or wanted to take. Lost income was the top reason cited, followed by concerns about the impact that additional leave would have on their jobs.

One in four women who took maternity leave in past two years say it negatively impacted their job or career.

Another area of strong agreement: about three-quarters of respondents believed that employers who offer paid leave are more likely to attract and keep good workers than employers who do not offer paid leave.

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Gorsuch praised for record of building unity on religious freedom

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • March 24, 2017

Judge Neil Gorsuch testifies during the third day of his Supreme Court confirmation hearing on March 22, 2017 in Washington, D.C. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Washington D.C. — Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch received a strong voice of support Thursday from a lawyer at a major religious liberty firm, who said that he shows a record of consensus building and protecting religious freedom for all.

In addition to ruling on some high profile cases, Gorsuch also defended the religious freedom of religious minorities and prisoners, “some of the most politically powerless in our society,” said Hannah Smith, senior counsel with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

Smith testified about Gorsuch before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Gorsuch sits on the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was nominated by President Donald Trump in February to be an associate justice at the U.S. Supreme Court.

In her testimony, Smith pointed to Gorsuch’s ruling in favor of a Native American inmate’s request to have access to a sweat house at his prison, for religious use.

Gorsuch wrote in that Yellowbear case, “While those convicted of crime in our society lawfully forfeit a great many civil liberties, Congress has (repeatedly) instructed that the sincere exercise of religion should not be among them – at least in the absence of a compelling reason. In this record we can find no reason like that.”

He also was “a remarkable consensus-builder,” Smith added, “in an area of jurisprudence that can be quite contentious.”

Smith said she studied 40 religious freedom cases where Gorsuch, appointed to the Tenth Circuit by President George W. Bush, either wrote an opinion or took a position. She found that “judges appointed by a Democratic president agreed with him in 80 percent of those cases.”

Where Gorsuch authored an opinion in a religious freedom case, she added, he “produced a unanimous decision every single time.”

“My assessment is that Judge Gorsuch, as an associate justice of the Supreme Court, would be a jurist committed to protecting this vital freedom,” Smith said of religious liberty. “None of his religious liberty opinions has ever been reversed by the Supreme Court.”

Judge Gorsuch was a Marshall Scholar who received his doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University, studying under Natural Law scholar John Finnis while there. He clerked for Supreme Court justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy before working as the principal deputy associate attorney general at the Justice Department under President George W. Bush.

In 2006, President Bush appointed Gorsuch to the Tenth Circuit. In his time on the circuit, he weighed in on major religious freedom cases including those of Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor against the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate.

He was nominated by President Trump on Feb. 1 to fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016. Senate Democrats, however, have announced their intent to hold up his confirmation through filibuster, which would require the votes of 60 senators to override.

Republicans, who hold the majority in the Senate, have not yet announced if they will invoke the “nuclear option” where the Senate rules would be altered to allow for a simple majority vote in the 100-seat chamber rather than a three-fifths, or 60-seat, vote.

Smith, in her testimony on Thursday, also pointed to Gorsuch’s rulings in recent prominent religious freedom cases.

As a judge, Gorsuch wrote a concurrence with the majority decision in favor of Hobby Lobby, and joined the dissent in the case that went against the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, saying they were exempt from the contraceptive mandate, which “substantially burdened” their religious exercise and was not the “least-restrictive” means of ensuring access to contraceptives.

Later, in the middle of deciding the Little Sisters case, the Court called for the nuns and the government to outline alternative ways of allowing cost-free coverage of contraceptives while respecting the religious freedom of the nuns. After both parties submitted their answers, the Court sent the case back to the lower courts and instructed the parties to come to an agreement.

Ultimately, Smith said, Gorsuch’s record makes it clear that he will uphold the religious liberty of all people.

“His jurisprudence demonstrates an even-handed application of the principle that religious liberty is fundamental to freedom and to human dignity,” she said, “and that protecting the religious rights of others – even the rights of those with whom we may disagree – ultimately leads to greater protections for all of our rights.”

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Raymond Arroyo’s books are having an astounding impact on at-risk kids

by Michelle Bauman (CNA/EWTN News) • March 19, 2017

Raymond Arroyo and his new book, Will Wilder: The Lost Staff of Wonders. (CNA)

Washington D.C. — Raymond Arroyo has an impressive resume.

He’s a New York Times bestselling author several times over. He’s an award-winning journalist and producer. And his weekly EWTN show, The World Over Live, reaches more than 350 million global households and 500 U.S. radio affiliates.

So when Arroyo says his Will Wilder series of books for young readers just might be “the most important work I’ve ever done,” it’s quite a statement.

What makes these books so important, in his view? The lifelong impact that they can have on kids.

“When an adult reads your works, they hold it at an arm’s length, even if they may be moved by it,” Arroyo told CNA.

“But a child enters that world with abandon. There are no limitations. The journey they go on is more profound, and because of how impressionable they are in that age, this book is helping them make sense of the world, and it becomes the language they’ll use to interpret that world.”

Reaching these young readers at a critical age is Arroyo’s goal with the second installment in his best-selling series, Will Wilder: The Lost Staff of Wonders (Random House Crown), which arrived in bookstores earlier this month.

The importance of childhood literacy is what led Arroyo to found Storyented a few years ago. The initiative, a project of DP Studios, works to connect best-selling authors with their readers, discussing the canon of work, allowing kids to ask questions, and creating online videos that parents and teachers can use to help excite kids about reading.

Arroyo said he hoped to be a sort of “passport agency” to literacy. And his Will Wilder books are doing just that.

St. Stephen’s Catholic School in uptown New Orleans serves many at-risk students. According to the school’s principal, Rosie Kendrick, some of the students don’t even own books, and it has been an immense struggle to encourage them to read.

But that all changed a year ago, when Arroyo visited the school and gave copies of the first Will Wilder book to the students.

“All they wanted to do was talk about the book,” Kendrick said. There were some students whom she had never seen read a book, now reading in the hallways, unable to put it down. “Will Wilder changed their reading habits by making them want to read.”

Arroyo said he was astounded by the book’s impact. Asked why he thought it was so successful, he pointed to two pieces of positive feedback that he was repeatedly given.

The first was that readers loved the idea that Will made mistakes, and that those mistakes had consequences, but that there were ways for him to go back and repair the damage that he had caused.

“That gave them a sense of hope,” Arroyo commented. He added that readers – especially kids from at-risk backgrounds – were reading about the demons that Will battles in the book and projecting onto these demons their challenges and battle of their own lives.

“The real world impact of how they project themselves into the story has really amazed me,” he said, explaining that numerous readers had told him, “Will gave me hope that I could conquer my own demons, that I could overcome the things that I’m struggling with.”

With some 67 percent of fourth graders reading beneath proficiency at the national level – and studies showing a correlation between illiteracy and jail or welfare later in life – the ability to excite kids about reading is no small feat.

“Kids really want to go on a fun adventure,” Arroyo said. If a book is exciting and has a protagonist that kids can identify with, “they want to go on a journey and find out how it ends.”

In the second installment of his young reader series, 12-year-old Will Wilder must find the Staff of Moses, which has vanished from a local museum, before supernatural terrors are unleashed upon his town.

Arroyo said the idea for the story originated after he read piece in the London Times claiming that the Staff of Moses was actually in a museum in Birmingham, England. While he did not find the argument convincing, it started him thinking: What would happen if the staff was in a museum, and it went missing?

The Will Wilder books have been hailed as containing the excitement of the Indiana Jones and Percy Jackson series. But Arroyo noted that there are a few components that set his series apart.

“All the antiquities and relics mentioned in these books can be found in libraries, museums or churches throughout the world. So that grounds it in a certain reality that other series don’t have.”

In writing the books, he tried to be “excruciatingly accurate” with the descriptions of relics and other antiquities, spending extensive time researching to ensure that the details were correct.

And kids love this accuracy, Arroyo said. He has received numerous letters and pictures from readers who have gone to museums and found the actual objects and artifacts from his books.

There’s another key point that sets the Will Wilder books apart. Will is not an orphan or an abandoned child. He goes on adventures with his entire intact family, along with his friends.

This was an intentional decision, stemming from Arroyo’s frustrations with was he described as an “orphan trope in middle school books.”

But it also served to give the book a wider appeal. The cast is multi-generational, and so, it turns out, are its readers.

Arroyo said he has heard from children, college students, parents and grandparents who have all enjoyed the first book. He said that while he wrote the series for middle grade students, he included deeper reflections and subplots that adults would appreciate.

Ultimately, there’s a universal sense of wonder at the supernatural world that draws all ages to the story, and makes it great for parents and children to read together, he said.

For parents who want to encourage a reluctant reader, Arroyo offered advice. “The most important thing is to read to your child as early as you can, from the time they’re toddlers.” He also stressed the importance of children seeing their parents read books for pleasure.

“Kids are great mimics,” he remarked, adding that reading fiction is particularly important because “fiction enlarges the imagination and puts them not only in the shoes but in the hearts and soul of characters and people they’ll never meet. And the lessons they’ll draw from that are lessons you can’t repeat.”

Finally, Arroyo suggested, parents can take their library or bookstore and give them a chance to browse and find the topics and ideas that fascinate them.

As your children discover their natural interests, feed those interests regularly with good books, he said. “It’s a beautiful thing to see a kid get lost in reading.”

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In New York, Catholic convert takes a step toward sainthood

CNA/EWTN News • March 21, 2017

Fr. Paul Wattson. (Franciscan Friars of the Atonement)

New York City, N.Y. — The Catholic convert who founded the Society of the Atonement, Father Paul Wattson, S.A., could be one step closer to recognition as a saint.

“Father Paul started a small week of prayer on the top of a mountain in Garrison, and now it’s a worldwide movement,” Father Brian Terry, S.A., the minister general for the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, told the Catholic New York newspaper.

Fr. Wattson helped launch the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which is now an international event held in January.

The Archdiocese of New York concluded an 18-month investigation into his cause for canonization on March 9. Fr. Wattson’s writings, along with writings about him, were collected together, boxed and wrapped and sealed with Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s seal.

With the archdiocese’s investigation finished, the materials will now be reviewed by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. This could determine whether he can proceed to beatification and even canonization.

Fr. Terry briefly spoke with Pope Francis about Fr. Wattson in November. He said he gave the pontiff a prayer card, and the Pope “really seemed sincerely interested.”

“He said a saint of unity, a saint of healing, a saint of charity, that is something that is important,” the priest recounted.

Fr. Terry said that Fr. Wattson’s message has been absorbed locally in New York. He hopes that message can go worldwide.

Fr. Wattson was born in 1863 and was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1886. He co-founded the Franciscan Society of the Atonement with Episcopal Sister Lurana White in Garrison, N.Y. The society consisted of both friars and sisters who wanted to promote Christian unity. Though it was originally Episcopal, the society became Catholic when Fr. Wattson converted in 1909. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1910.

He passed away in 1940 at the age of 77.

Cardinal Dolan said the progress in Fr. Wattson’s cause was “an affirmation from above.” He voiced gratitude to God and to those who worked on the priest’s cause.

The U.S. bishops approved his cause for canonization in November 2014 and the cause formally opened in September 2015 at the New York Catholic Center.

Msgr. Douglas Mathers, pastor of St. John the Evangelist-Our Lady of Peace parish in Manhattan, served as the archdiocese’s episcopal delegate for the cause. He said there is no time limit on the process.

“Realistically, it’s the work of God; what God wants is going to happen,” he said.

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This man was killed for defying Hitler – and now he’s been beatified

by Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • March 21, 2017

Joseph Mayr-Nusser. (OTFW, Berlin via Wikipedia CC 3.0)

Vatican City — Italian layman Joseph Mayr-Nusser who refused to take the Hitler oath was beatified March 18 in his home town of Bolsano.

In 1944, Mayr-Nusser, a Catholic husband and father, refused to take the oath of allegiance to Hitler after being drafted into the German army. He died on the way to Dachau concentration camp, to which he had been sentenced.

On Sunday, Pope Francis said that Blessed Joseph is a model for all laymen and fathers “on account of his great moral and spiritual stature.”

Joseph was born on Dec. 27, 1910 to a devout family. Since his family was poor and his older brother Jakob was in seminary studying for the priesthood, Mayr-Nusser didn’t study himself, but worked on the farm and later as the clerk for the Eccel company in Bolzano.

At the age of 22 he joined the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, an international Catholic volunteer organization dedicated to serving the poor and disadvantaged, in an effort to imitate the charity of the saint.

Mayr-Nusser was also involved in Catholic Action, and became head of its division in the Diocese of Trent in 1934. In 1937 he became president of the Bolzano branch of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, spending a large amount of his time visiting the poor and providing them with both material and spiritual support.

When World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, Mayr-Nusser joined the anti-Nazi movement “Andreas Hofer Bund.”

A few years later, civil war also broke out in Italy following the 1943 ousting of Benito Mussolini from power, which led to the German occupation of the northern half of the country.

The Nazi regime had established the “Schutzstaffel,” or “protective squadron.” The regime called not only on local men from Nazi Germany to join the squad, but they also took volunteers and conscripted men from both occupied and non-occupied territories.

Mayr-Nusser was among those conscripted from northern Italy, and so in 1944 was enrolled in an SS unit, forcing him to leave his wife and newborn son for training in Prussia.

However, when it came time for the SS members to swear an oath to Hitler, Mayr-Nusser refused.

According to a fellow comrade, he was “pensive and worried,” but told the general with a “strong voice” that “I cannot take an oath to Hitler in the name of God. I cannot do it because my faith and conscience do not allow it.”

Although his friends and tried to convince him to retract his statement and take the oath, Mayr-Nusser refused, believing that Nazi ideals could in no way be reconciled with Christian ethics and values.

As a result he was jailed, put on trial and sentenced to death for treason. He was ordered to march to the Dachau concentration camp, where he was to be shot by firing squad.

Dachau held many religious prisoners of Nazi Germany, and became known as the “largest monastery in the world” because of the number of clerics there. The camp housed some 2,700 clergy, roughly 95 percent of whom were Catholic priests from Poland, making it one of the largest residences for priests in the history of the Church.

Joseph fell ill with dysentery before he reached Dachau, and died Feb. 24, 1945. When his body was discovered, he had both a Bible and a rosary with him.

Mayr-Nusser’s cause for martyrdom was launched by his home diocese of Bolzano in 2005. Pope Francis declared him a martyr in July 2016, paving the way for his beatification.

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What the bishop who resisted the Nazis can teach us today

by Carl Bunderson (CNA/EWTN News) • March 22, 2017

Blessed Clemens August von Galen. (Domkapitular Gustav Albers/Diocese of Münster CC BY 2.5)

Münster, Germany — When Father Clemens August von Galen was consecrated Bishop of Münster in October 1933, he chose for his episcopal motto Nec laudibus, nec timore – neither by praises nor by fear, which summed up his ministry throughout Germany’s Nazi period.

The motto was taken from the liturgy for episcopal consecration, which prays that the new bishop will love humility and truth, and not be overcome by either praise or fear.

Bishop von Galen wrote in his first pastoral letter that “Neither the praises of men nor fear of men shall move us. Rather, our glory will be to promote the praise of God, and our steadfast effort will be to walk always in a holy fear of God.”

During his entire episcopacy the bishop spoke up against the Nazis’ euthanasia program and racial theories, and defended human rights and the cause of justice. He was the most outspoken of Germany’s bishops during that era, and assisted the writing of Pius XI’s 1937 anti-Nazi encyclical Mit brennender Sorge.

He was made a cardinal in February 1946, just one month before his March 22 death, and he was beatified in 2005 by Benedict XVI.

Blessed von Galen’s motto “would be a great motto to have for a bishop,” Fr. Daniel Utrecht of the Toronto Oratory told CNA. Fr. Utrecht is the author of The Lion of Münster: The Bishop Who Roared Against the Nazis.

Fr. Utrecht was drawn to write about Blessed von Galen because he was a model bishop.

“I was telling some people about him during World Youth Day in 2005, and they said, ‘We need bishops like this, why have we never heard of this guy? Someone should write a book about him,’” he related.

The priest recalled reading in German a two volume work of Blessed von Galen’s documents, letters, and sermons written as a bishop. “They became more and more fascinating, and there just wasn’t much in English to read about him. I eventually came to the conclusion that it was up to me to write an English-language biography.”

Blessed von Galen was born into a German noble family in 1878, and was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Münster in 1904. As a priest he wrote on the origins and limits of state power, and the importance of voting as a responsibility for the common good rather than doing so for private interests.

In the later years of the Weimar Republic, Blessed von Galen supported the German Center Party, which worked to present a Christian voice in defense of Catholic interests and human rights in the public square, and entered into coalition governments with other parties in an effort to balance power.

But the priest was unable to sway many of his acquaintances to support the Center Party – other Catholics were arguing that the Nazi Party was most compatible with Catholic ideals.

Many bishops had barred Catholics from being members of the National Socialist movement. But when Hitler softened his antireligious stance and stated early in 1933 that Christianity would be prominent in Germany’s rule, the bishops took him at his word and began allowing Catholics to join the movement.

But when Blessed von Galen was made a bishop later that year, he maintained his anti-Nazi beliefs. Within a year he clashed with government officials over the rights of Catholic schools and the Nazis’ racial and anti-Jewish ideology.

He was most outspoken against the Nazi’s involuntary euthanasia program, which under which the disabled, mentally ill, deformed, senile, those with Down syndrome, and the incurably sick were killed. The program began in 1939, and more than 70,000 people were euthanized under it.

Blessed von Galen led Catholic protest against euthanasia. He delivered three sermons in the summer of 1941 which condemned the program, as well as Nazi attacks on the Church, and raised public awareness of what has happening. After the sermons’ delivery he was nicknamed “The Lion of Münster,” and they resulted in a Nazi propaganda minister, Walter Tiessler, recommending that he be executed.

The bishop remained outspoken against Nazi atrocities throughout World War II, and afterwards spoke up against injustices committed by the occupying Allied forces.

“I see plenty of parallels today,” Fr. Utrecht told CNA. “I hope that people reading the book get it for themselves.” Blessed von Galen’s “example of courage and being able to speak out in defense of human life is of interest, very much of interest today, in the fight against abortion and euthanasia … the defense of liberty, religious liberty, the defense of a place for religion in the public square is a very, very big lesson that he has for us.”

In addition to supporting Catholic witness to the value of human life in the face of abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the dictatorship of relativism, Fr. Utrecht said that the cardinal can speak to Catholics facing political dictatorships as well.

The priest shared how during a recent trip to Germany he met a priest from Africa who is “very keen on making von Galen known to the Africans, because he said ‘In many places we have totalitarian governments and not enough of the bishops speak out,’ – so he thought there was a great parallel there.”

Since Cardinal von Galen was beatified 12 years ago, there is a need to develop devotion to him, Fr. Utrecht reflected. “Greater devotion to him is the next step, not just locally, but worldwide.”

“There are plenty of people who do know about him and who are pushing devotion to him, but it needs kind of a new push, so I hope we can get a push, and not only there, but among English- reading people elsewhere.”

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St. Patrick, St. Joseph, and the conversion that makes all the difference

by Bishop Robert Barron • March 22, 2017

I am always pleased when the feasts of St. Patrick and St. Joseph roll around every year, the first on March 17th and the second on March 19th. Joseph is especially dear to the Italian people, who celebrate him with festive meals, and Patrick, of course, is specially reverenced by my own people, the Irish, who celebrate him with parades, parties, and (often) too much drinking. Though separated by four centuries and though hailing from extremely different cultures, Patrick and Joseph have a great deal in common, spiritually speaking. For both stubbornly situated their lives in the context, not of the ego-drama, but the theo-drama, and therein lies their importance for the universal church.

Let’s consider Patrick first. A Roman Briton, born in the early fifth century, Patrick, while still a young man, was kidnapped by raiders and brought to Ireland, where he lived the brutal life of a slave. One can only imagine the darkness of these years: torn away from family, friends, and home, compelled to learn an unfamiliar language, treated with disdain, forced to do the most disagreeable work. How often he must have wept. How often he must have cried out to God, wondering how he could have been so thoroughly abandoned. After six years in Ireland, Patrick finally managed to escape and return home. Some accounts have it that he then sojourned in France, doing his theological studies there and becoming ordained as a priest.

Looking at this life from a purely natural or psychological perspective, one would readily conclude that still youthful Fr. Patrick would never want to journey again to the place where his life had hit rock bottom. Or perhaps, he would want to return there as chaplain to an invading army! Instead, he decided to go back to Ireland in order to carry the Gospel to those who had enslaved and persecuted him. How can we explain this? We have to move beyond a merely natural and psychological framework and understand his life theologically. Stated differently, we have to appreciate that Patrick, like all of the saints, saw his life as ingredient in a drama that God was directing and producing. He appreciated that the whole awful experience of being a slave was not simply dumb suffering, but was, strangely, a preparation for the work that God had for him. During those terrible years, he learned a great deal about the history, topography, and language of the Irish; he came, perhaps, to love some of their lore and religious customs. Like Moses among the Egyptians, he came to understand the “enemy” culture from the inside and hence was able, with special skill and creativity, to engage it. Now think of the worst moment of your life, the time when you hit bottom. How do you read it? Pointless pain — or a moment of particular grace?

Now let us look at St. Joseph. Every episode of his life recounted in the Bible is a crisis. He discovers, to his dismay, that the woman he loved and to whom he was betrothed to marry, was pregnant. How lost and confused he must have been. The Mosaic law permitted him to hand Mary over to be stoned to death, but his native decency prevented him from taking that path. Instead, he resolved, undoubtedly with a broken heart, to divorce her quietly. But then the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream and explained the anomalous pregnancy. Placing his own fears and preoccupations to one side, Joseph understood what was happening in the context of God’s providence and he took Mary as his wife.

Next, discovering that the child was in mortal danger, Joseph took mother and baby on a perilous journey, across hundreds of miles of trackless desert, to an unknown country, an unknown village, an unknown people. Anyone who has ever been forced into exile, compelled to leave his homeland, or even obliged to move to a new city to take up a job knows the anxiety that Joseph must have felt. Now add to it the keen sense that your baby is being pursued by agents of the government, intent upon murder. But Joseph went because God had commanded him.

Finally, we hear of Joseph desperately seeking his lost twelve-year old son. Speak to any parent who has gone through a similar experience — looking for a child who has wandered away or been taken — and you will hear of a fear beyond measure. And this anxious search went on for three days. Did Mary and Joseph sleep? Did they eat? What did they say to one another? Thus we fully understand Mary’s reaction when, having finally discovered Jesus among the doctors in the Temple: “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety?” And they received that devastatingly understated response: “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house?” Quietly taking the child home, Joseph once more put aside his human feelings and trusted in the purposes of God. The little we know about Joseph is that he experienced heartbreak, fear unto death, and a parent’s deepest anxiety, but each time, he read what happened to him theo-dramatically and not ego-dramatically.

This shift in attitude, this re-orientation of the heart, this conversion is what made Patrick the patron of the Irish and Joseph the patron of the universal Church.

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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Here’s a way to learn more about Mary, Queen of Heaven

by Maggie Maslak (CNA/EWTN News) • March 23, 2017

Coronation of the Virgin by Diego Velazquez. (Public domain)

Charlotte, N.C. — A new, epic narrative about the life of Mary, Queen of Heaven has just been released with the hope of drawing individuals closer to the Mother of God during the upcoming 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima.

“We wanted to tell the story of Fatima. But, what the story of Fatima is really is the story of a battle,” Rick Rotondi, Vice President of New Business at Saint Benedict Press, told CNA.

“That battle goes a long way back to the very beginning of the Bible, with enmity with the serpent. It’s a long story and that’s what we are trying to tell: the battle that Our Lady is engaged with in modern times,” he continued.

The new program is titled Queen of Heaven: Mary’s Battle for You and was released by Saint Benedict Press only a few weeks ago. The video series is broken down into eight different segments, in a document-style format and is hosted by Leonardo Defilippis, a Shakespearean actor and founder of St. Luke Productions.

Throughout the segments, over a dozen theological experts such as Tim Staples, Fr. Dominic Legge, Dr. Carrie Gress, and Fr. Chris Alar weigh in on the life of the Mother of God. The videos also take viewers around the country to places like the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the World Apostolate of Fatima Shrine, and the St. John Paul II National Shrine, where parts of the program were filmed.

The program was created for group study in parishes, where individuals can come together and learn more about the Queen of Heaven as a parish. However, individual study is possible through the use of DVDs.

“As you go through the program, you are learning about the richness of the Marian devotions and how to incorporate them in your life. That full experience is reserved for the parishes, but individuals will have access to the DVD content and a book,” Rotondi said.

Rotondi, who is also one of the script writers and developers for the program, noted that the whole series took about nine months to complete, and is a unique program unlike any other.

The release of the series at the beginning of March “was very deliberate,” Rotondi explained, saying that the centenary of Our Lady of Fatima was the driving force behind its debut.

“Seventy-five percent of the content is a study of Mary in the Bible and Mariology, the study of Marian doctrine, and even Our Lady of Lourdes and Guadalupe. Twenty-five percent is Fatima,” Rotondi stated.

Since its release only a few weeks ago, Saint Benedict Press has received positive feedback about the series, and they hope it continues to grow.

“It’s in a number of parishes currently, and we are getting very favorable responses,” Rotondi said.

Moving forward, the material for Queen of Heaven is also going to be available in a Spanish edition this summer, and DVDs will be released later this year. A book will also be published this May.

Rotondi believes that the goal behind this new series is “to have a deeper love of Our Lady,” and he hopes this program will be able to draw individuals closer to the Mother of God.

“Our Lady always brings us to her Son. I think a lot of people who will watch this love our Lord already, but may have not yet considered Our Lady in these ways,” Rotondi said.

“The greatness of Our Lord is also revealed fully when you realize what a beautiful Queen he has.”

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Why Catholics in Scotland want a statue for this martyred priest

CNA/EWTN News • March 23, 2017

Detail from a mosaic of the martyrdom of St. John Ogilvie in Glasgow’s St. Aloysius parish. (Lawrence OP via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Glasgow, Scotland — Four centuries after the martyrdom of St. John Ogilvie, Catholics in Scotland have launched a campaign to mark the place in Glasgow’s city center where he was executed for preaching the Catholic faith.

The Order of the Knights of St. Columba, a U.K.-based Catholic fraternal organization, is backing the effort, the Scottish Catholic Observer reports.

“There should be something,” said the order’s Supreme Knight Charlie McCluskey. “He’s the only Scottish martyr and there’s not even a plaque. Whether you are Catholic, Protestant, whatever, this was an historic event in the history of the city that should be marked.”

John Ogilvie was born in 1579 to a family of Scottish nobles in Banffshire. Raised a Calvinist, he converted to Catholicism in 1596 while at Louvain, Belgium, after being educated at Catholic institutions. He later joined the Society of Jesus and was ordained a priest in Paris in 1610. He requested he be sent back to Scotland, which had become deeply hostile to the Catholic faith.

He was betrayed by someone who posed as a Catholic, and was then imprisoned for treason. He faced torture by officials who sought the names of other Catholics, facing sleep deprivation and needles pushed under his fingernails.

The torture did not succeed. St. John Ogilvie did not betray the faithful, and he was sentenced to death. He was hanged at Glasgow Cross on March 10, 1615, which later became his feast day.

Pius XI beatified him in 1929, and he was canonized by Blessed Paul VI in 1976. He is the only post-Reformation Scottish saint to have been canonized.

McCluskey has suggested the saint be honored with a statue in an alcove on the Mercat Building, owned by Glasgow City Council, which overlooks the Glasgow Cross.

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia of Glasgow spoke of the saint in his March 10 homily, Scotland’s Sunday Herald reports.

“He died here in our city. He is an honorary Glaswegian. He belongs to Glasgow. And above all, his blood was shed for Christ here in Glasgow,” he said.

The archbishop noted the national shrine to the saint at St. Aloysius Church and a famous painting of him in Glasgow’s St. Andrew’s Cathedral.

Archbishop Tartaglia said the saint’s example is important at a time when Catholics face “more subtle forms of restricting religious freedom.”

The Knights of St. Columba have made tentative inquiries to the Glasgow city council and reported finding no significant objections to the proposal. It aims to proceed if there is sufficient public support.

One of the campaigners to recognize the saint is John Patrick Mallon, who heads the Sancta Familia Media group based at Holy Family Church in Mossend in the Diocese of Motherwell. His group made a short film about the saint at the site of his martyrdom at Glasgow Cross.

“I was just really surprised there was nothing to mark it, not even a cross,” Mallon said. The social media campaign had “an amazing response” drawing the interest of hundreds of people.

The saint’s martyrdom inspired the transformation of the Pontifical Scots College into a seminary in 1616. Pope Francis discussed the saint in an April 14, 2016 address to students of the college.

“The martyrdom of St. John Ogilvie, which was meant to silence the Catholic faith, instead was an impetus for its promotion and for defending the Church’s freedom to remain in communion with the See of Peter,” he said.

“We too are living in a time of martyrdom, and in the midst of a culture so often hostile to the Gospel,” the Roman Pontiff continued. “I urge you to have that same selfless spirit as your predecessors did. Love Jesus above all things!”

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SUNDAY • MARCH 26, 2017

Fourth Sunday of Lent

First Reading (1 Sm 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a; NRSVCE)

The Lord said to Samuel, “Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.”

When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.

Responsorial Psalm (Ps 23: 1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6; NRSVCE)

R: (1) The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;

he leads me beside still waters;

he restores my soul.

R: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He leads me in right paths

for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,

I fear no evil;

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff —

they comfort me.

R: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

R: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

my whole life long.

R: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Second Reading (Eph 5:8-14; NRSVCE)

Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light — for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,

“Sleeper, awake!

Rise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you.”

Gospel Reading (Jn 9:1-41; NRSVCE)

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

MONDAY • MARCH 27, 2017

Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent

First Reading (Is 65:17-21; NRSVCE)

For I am about to create new heavens

and a new earth;

the former things shall not be remembered

or come to mind.

But be glad and rejoice forever

in what I am creating;

for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,

and its people as a delight.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem,

and delight in my people;

no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,

or the cry of distress.

No more shall there be in it

an infant that lives but a few days,

or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;

for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,

and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.

They shall build houses and inhabit them;

they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

Responsorial Psalm (Ps 30:2 and 4, 5-6, 11-12a and 13b; NRSVCE)

R: (2a) I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up.

I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up,

and did not let my foes rejoice over me.

O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol,

restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.

R: I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up.

Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones,

and give thanks to his holy name.

For his anger is but for a moment;

his favor is for a lifetime.

Weeping may linger for the night,

but joy comes with the morning.

R: I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up.

Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me!

O Lord, be my helper!”

You have turned my mourning into dancing.

O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

R: I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up.

Gospel Reading (Jn 4:43-54; NRSVCE)

Jesus went from Samaria to Galilee (for he himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in the prophet’s own country). When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival; for they too had gone to the festival.

Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my little boy dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.” The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household. Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

TUESDAY • MARCH 28, 2017

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

First Reading (Ez 47:1-9, 12; NRSVCE)

The angel brought me back to the entrance of the temple; there, water was flowing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east); and the water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. Then he brought me out by way of the north gate, and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east; and the water was coming out on the south side.

Going on eastward with a cord in his hand, the man measured one thousand cubits, and then led me through the water; and it was ankle-deep. Again he measured one thousand, and led me through the water; and it was knee-deep. Again he measured one thousand, and led me through the water; and it was up to the waist. Again he measured one thousand, and it was a river that I could not cross, for the water had risen; it was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be crossed. He said to me, “Mortal, have you seen this?”

Then he led me back along the bank of the river. As I came back, I saw on the bank of the river a great many trees on the one side and on the other. He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah; and when it enters the sea, the sea of stagnant waters, the water will become fresh. Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish, once these waters reach there. It will become fresh; and everything will live where the river goes. On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”

Responsorial Psalm (Ps 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9; NRSVCE)

R: (8) The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,

though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea.

R: The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;

God will help it when the morning dawns.

R: The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

The Lord of hosts is with us;

the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Come, behold the works of the Lord;

see what desolations he has brought on the earth.

R: The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Gospel Reading (Jn 5:1-16; NRSVCE)

There was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids — blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take it up and walk?’” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.

WEDNESDAY • MARCH 29, 2017

Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

First Reading (Is 49:8-15; NRSVCE)

Thus says the Lord:

In a time of favor I have answered you,

on a day of salvation I have helped you;

I have kept you and given you

as a covenant to the people,

to establish the land,

to apportion the desolate heritages;

saying to the prisoners, “Come out,”

to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”

They shall feed along the ways,

on all the bare heights shall be their pasture;

they shall not hunger or thirst,

neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down,

for he who has pity on them will lead them,

and by springs of water will guide them.

And I will turn all my mountains into a road,

and my highways shall be raised up.

Lo, these shall come from far away,

and lo, these from the north and from the west,

and these from the land of Syene.

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;

break forth, O mountains, into singing!

For the Lord has comforted his people,

and will have compassion on his suffering ones.

But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,

my Lord has forgotten me.”

Can a woman forget her nursing child,

or show no compassion for the child of her womb?

Even these may forget,

yet I will not forget you.

Responsorial Psalm (Ps 145:8-9, 13cd-14, 17-18; NRSVCE)

R: (8a) The Lord is gracious and merciful.

The Lord is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

The Lord is good to all,

and his compassion is over all that he has made.

R: The Lord is gracious and merciful.

The Lord is faithful in all his words,

and gracious in all his deeds.

The Lord upholds all who are falling,

and raises up all who are bowed down.

R: The Lord is gracious and merciful.

The Lord is just in all his ways,

and kind in all his doings.

The Lord is near to all who call on him,

to all who call on him in truth.

R: The Lord is gracious and merciful.

Gospel Reading (Jn 5:17-30; NRSVCE)

Jesus answered the Jews, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes. The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.

“Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out — those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.”

THURSDAY • MARCH 30, 2017

Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent

First Reading (Ex 32:7-14; NRSVCE)

The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”

But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth?’ Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

Responsorial Psalm (Ps 106:19-20, 21-22, 23; NRSVCE)

R: (4a) Remember us, O Lord, when you show favor to your people.

They made a calf at Horeb

and worshiped a cast image.

They exchanged the glory of God

for the image of an ox that eats grass.

R: Remember us, O Lord, when you show favor to your people.

They forgot God, their Savior,

who had done great things in Egypt,

wondrous works in the land of Ham,

and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.

R: Remember us, O Lord, when you show favor to your people.

Therefore he said he would destroy them —

had not Moses, his chosen one,

stood in the breach before him,

to turn away his wrath from destroying them.

R: Remember us, O Lord, when you show favor to your people.

Gospel Reading (Jn 5:31-47; NRSVCE)

Jesus said to the Jews, “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that his testimony to me is true. You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth. Not that I accept such human testimony, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. But I have a testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his form, and you do not have his word abiding in you, because you do not believe him whom he has sent.

“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. I do not accept glory from human beings. But I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?”

FRIDAY • MARCH 31, 2017

Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent

First Reading (Wis 2:1a, 12-22; NRSVCE)

The wicked reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves,

“Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,

because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;

he reproaches us for sins against the law,

and accuses us of sins against our training.

He professes to have knowledge of God,

and calls himself a child of the Lord.

He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;

the very sight of him is a burden to us,

because his manner of life is unlike that of others,

and his ways are strange.

We are considered by him as something base,

and he avoids our ways as unclean;

he calls the last end of the righteous happy,

and boasts that God is his father.

Let us see if his words are true,

and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;

for if the righteous man is God’s child, he will help him,

and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.

Let us test him with insult and torture,

so that we may find out how gentle he is,

and make trial of his forbearance.

Let us condemn him to a shameful death,

for, according to what he says, he will be protected.”

Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray,

for their wickedness blinded them,

and they did not know the secret purposes of God,

nor hoped for the wages of holiness,

nor discerned the prize for blameless souls.

Responsorial Psalm (Ps 34:17-18, 19-20, 21 and 23; NRSVCE)

R: (19a) The Lord is near to the brokenhearted.

The face of the Lord is against evildoers,

to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears,

and rescues them from all their troubles.

R: The Lord is near to the brokenhearted.

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted,

and saves the crushed in spirit.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous,

but the Lord rescues them from them all.

R: The Lord is near to the brokenhearted.

He keeps all their bones;

not one of them will be broken.

The Lord redeems the life of his servants;

none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

R: The Lord is near to the brokenhearted.

Gospel Reading (Jn 7:1-2, 10, 25-30; NRSVCE)

Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him. Now the Jewish festival of Booths was near.

But after his brothers had gone to the festival, then he also went, not publicly but as it were in secret.

Now some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, “Is not this the man whom they are trying to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, but they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Messiah? Yet we know where this man is from; but when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.” Then Jesus cried out as he was teaching in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I am from. I have not come on my own. But the one who sent me is true, and you do not know him. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.” Then they tried to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come.

SATURDAY • APRIL 1, 2017

Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent

First Reading (Jer 11:18-20; NRSVCE)

It was the Lord who made it known to me, and I knew;

then you showed me their evil deeds.

But I was like a gentle lamb

led to the slaughter.

And I did not know it was against me

that they devised schemes, saying,

“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,

let us cut him off from the land of the living,

so that his name will no longer be remembered!”

But you, O Lord of hosts, who judge righteously,

who try the heart and the mind,

let me see your retribution upon them,

for to you I have committed my cause.

Responsorial Psalm (Ps 7:2-3, 9bc-10, 11-12; NRSVCE)

R: (2a) O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

O Lord my God, in you I take refuge;

save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me,

or like a lion they will tear me apart;

they will drag me away, with no one to rescue.

R: O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness

and according to the integrity that is in me.

O let the evil of the wicked come to an end,

but establish the righteous,

you who test the minds and hearts,

O righteous God.

R: O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

God is my shield,

who saves the upright in heart.

God is a righteous judge,

and a God who has indignation every day.

R: O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

Gospel Reading (Jn 7:40-53; NRSVCE)

When they heard these words of Jesus, some in the crowd said, “This is really the prophet.” Others said, “This is the Messiah.” But some asked, “Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee, does he? Has not the scripture said that the Messiah is descended from David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?” So there was a division in the crowd because of him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

Then the temple police went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why did you not arrest him?” The police answered, “Never has anyone spoken like this!” Then the Pharisees replied, “Surely you have not been deceived too, have you? Has any one of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, which does not know the law — they are accursed.” Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before, and who was one of them, asked, “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” They replied, “Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you? Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.”

Then each of them went home.