VOLUME 3, ISSUE 14  •  JUNE 3, 2017

Table of Contents

Copyright Notice

VATICAN NEWS

In Genoa, Pope challenges workers, religious and youth

Pastoral visit of the Holy Father Francis to the Archdiocese of Genoa (27 May 2017) – Meeting with the world of work at the Ilva Factory

Pope Francis: Jesus intercedes for us – every day, every moment

The Pope’s words at the Regina Coeli prayer

Here’s what Pope Francis and Justin Trudeau talked about

Vatican: South Sudan not on Pope’s itinerary for 2017

Pope Francis: A shepherd must freely follow the Spirit

General Audience: The Holy Spirit makes us overflow with hope

Pope Francis condemns ‘abhorrent’ Kabul attack

Pope Francis: I am always joyful when I see young priests

Audience with the participants in the meeting organized by the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe

Looking forward to 10 years of Summorum Pontificum

Pope Francis to honor two priests who lived ahead of their times

WORLD NEWS

In Iraq, necessity makes priests become engineers

Kidnapped Filipino priest pleads for help in video

South Korean president seeks Pope’s support in reconciliation efforts

Rome conference to address safeguarding children online

U.S. NEWS

Military chaplains help traumatized soldiers, but who helps them?

Portland archbishop calls for prayer, action following train stabbing

Trump admin ponders new religious freedom rule for HHS mandate

Planned Parenthood’s services are declining, except for abortion

Illinois makes foster care workers support transgenderism

FEATURES

Why women aren’t choosing adoption – and how pro-lifers can change that

Silence and the meaning of the Mass

In Rome, Catholic Charismatic Renewal to celebrate 50 years

Double review: ‘Baywatch’ and ‘Dead Men Tell No Tales’

Memorial Day calls us to reflection, prayer and conversion

Priest plants himself at popular music festival, goes viral on Reddit

Everything you need to know about Pentecost

Movie review: ‘Wonder Woman’

SCRIPTURE READINGS

Sunday • June 4, 2017

Monday • June 5, 2017

Tuesday • June 6, 2017

Wednesday • June 7, 2017

Thursday • June 8, 2017

Friday • June 9, 2017

Saturday • June 10, 2017

The Catholic Digital News

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

Volume 3, Issue 14 • June 3, 2017

Copyright © 2017 by LGC Publishing. All rights reserved.

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

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

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

The Catholic Digital News

Website: catholicdigitalnews.com

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

VATICAN NEWS

In Genoa, Pope challenges workers, religious and youth

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 27, 2017

Pope Francis leaves the Cathedral of St. Lawrence in Genoa on May 27, 2017. (Angela Ambrogetti/CNA)

Genoa, Italy — On Saturday Pope Francis paid a visit to the Italian diocese of Genoa, where he had lengthy Q&A sessions with youth, the city’s working class, and their bishops, priests and religious, challenging them and offering anecdotes to modern problems.

After landing just around 8a.m. local time May 27, the Pope was greeted by Genoa’s archbishop, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, who just finished his term as president of the Italian Bishops Conference. He was replaced by Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, archbishop of Perugia.

Once he left the airport, Francis immediately went to a warehouse where he met with the city’s workers. Afterward, he met the diocese’s bishops, priests and religious at the city’s cathedral before heading to a special shrine where he spoke with youth.

In each of the meetings Pope Francis responded to questions, taking his time to respond well to each of their concerns.

After the meetings, he is slated to eat lunch with the poor, refugees and prisoners before greeting sick children at the Pediatric Gianna Gaslini Hospital. The Pope made a phone call to the hospital earlier this week to tell the children that he was coming to see them, and assured them that Jesus is always with us difficult moments.

Established in 1931, the hospital is linked to the University of Genoa and is considered as one of the most prestigious children’s hospitals in Europe. It has formally recognized as a scientific institute for research, hospitalization and healthcare.

After greeting the children, Pope Francis will head to the city’s Kennedy Square to celebrate Mass before returning to Rome.

Workers

In his audience with the workforce, Francis responded to four questions: one from an entrepreneur, the head of a company, who asked for a word of encouragement in his responsibilities; two questions from workers on how to recover from the economic crisis and how to avoid careerism and foster fraternity, and one question from an unemployed woman who asked how to stay strong despite challenges of not having consistent work.

In his responses, Francis said that in the world today, work today is “at risk,” because “it’s a world where work isn’t considered with the dignity it has and gives.” Work, he said, “is a human priority,” and because of this, “it’s a Christian priority, and also a priority of the Pope!”

Speaking inside a warehouse, the Pope said he wanted to meet with them there because the Church is where the people are, “in your places of work, in the places where you are.”

In his response to the first question, the Pope said, “there is no good economy without good businessmen,” adding that they are “the figure of a good economy,” since society functions well when there are honest and caring people in charge.

He cautioned against the temptation to do one’s work well just because they get paid to do it, saying this mentality is an injustice to the working system, “because it negates the dignity of work, which begins with working for dignity, for honor.”

On the other hand, a good boss “knows his workers, because he works beside them, with them,” the Pope said. “Let’s not forget that a businessman above all must be a worker. If he doesn’t have this sense of the dignity of work, he won’t be a good businessman.”

The Pope then warned against the temptation to solve problems in a company by firing people, explaining that a person who does this “is not a businessman, he is a commercialist. Today he sells his employees, tomorrow he sells his own dignity.”

“A sickness of the economy is the progressive transformation of workers into speculators, profiteers,” he said, adding that “workers must absolutely not be confused with profiteers,” because they are different things.

Profiteers, he said, “eat” people, leaving the economy abstract and “without a face.” In addition, laws intended to help the honest then end up penalizing the honest and profiting the corrupt.

He also warned the workers against competition in the workplace, calling it “an anthropological and Christian error,” as well as an “economic error,” since it forces people to work against each other.

Too much competition destroys the “fabric of trust” that binds every organization, he said, noting that when a crisis arrives, “the company implodes” because there is no longer a sense of collegiality uniting it.

Francis then issued a stern warning against the “non-virtue” of meritocracy, referring to the political philosophy that power ought to be invested in individuals solely based on their abilities and talents.

This attitude “denatures” the human being and creates inequality, he said, explaining that under this mentality the poor are faulted for their disadvantage and the rich are “exonerated.”

On the economic crisis, Francis noted that with unemployment, there often come illegal contracts and inhumane working conditions.

He noted that he’s heard of people who are forced into working 11 hours a day for just 800 euro a month, or they who are paid illegally under the table with no contract or benefits.

In these cases, work becomes about survival, he said, noting that while this is part of it, work is about “much, much more,” because by working, “we become more human,” since we participate in God’s act of creation.

“Work is man’s friend, and man is work’s friend,” he said, explaining that there are few joys greater than what one experiences in a good and healthy workplace, and there are fewer sorrows greater than when work harms, exploits or even “kills” people.

He pointed to the societal paradox that there is an increasing number of people who are unemployed but want to work, and fewer and fewer people who work too much and want time off.

This is based on the logic of consumption, Francis said, calling it “an idol of our time” that eventually leads us to worship “pure pleasure,” rather than appreciating the value of “fatigue and sweat,” which are the backbone of work.

Bishops, Priests and Religious

Pope Francis opened his nearly 2-hour conversation with bishops, priests, religious and seminarians by leading them in a moment of silent prayer for the victims of yesterday’s attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt, that killed 28.

After then reciting a Hail Mary for the deceased, the wounded and their families, the Pope took four questions on how to maintain a good spiritual life daily, how to keep the charism of an order fresh as time passes, how to foster priestly brotherhood and what to do about the current vocational crisis.

When it comes to having a good spiritual life, the Pope said two things are essential: a constant encounter with God through prayer, and being close to the people.

He noted that the world today is constantly “in a hurry,” and that it’s often difficult to take time to be with people and listen to their problems and concerns. But this doesn’t mean being inactive, he said, adding that “I am afraid of static priests.”

Priests who are obsessed with structure and organization are better “businessman” than pastors, he said, noting that they might pray and celebrate Mass, Jesus himself was “always a man on the street,” in the midst of his people and “open to the surprises of God.”

There’s a certain tension between these two extremes, he said, but urged consecrated people to “not be afraid of this tension,” because it’s a sign of “vitality” and movement.

He told priests to be flexible in their prayer, always seeking a true encounter with God, and urged them to allow themselves to “get worn out be the people,” and not to “defend your own tranquility,” since Jesus himself prioritized relationships with the people, yet always set aside time to be with his Father.

When it comes to fostering a stronger sense of brotherhood among priests, the Pope said that first of all this means letting go of “that image of the priest who knows everything,” and who doesn’t need the input of others.

Self-sufficiency does a lot of harm to a consecrated person, he said, and asked the priests and religious how many times during a meeting they stop paying attention to what a fellow brother or sister is saying, and let their minds go “into orbit” with other things.

Even if what the other person says isn’t necessarily of immediate interest, it’s important to pay attention, he said, explaining that each person “is a richness.” He told them to look for moments to pray together, go for lunch or play sports together, which all help to form stronger ties.

He also warned against “murmuring” and “jealousy,” noting that at times when he reviews information collected on possible candidates for bishops, “you find true calumny or opinions (that) devalue the priest.”

To speak poorly of a brother is to “betray” him, Francis said, and warned, as he often does, about the dangers of gossip and the importance of forgiveness.

When it comes to keeping charisms fresh, the Pope emphasized the importance of staying attached to the concrete realities of a diocese or project.

While a congregation might be “universal” in the sense that it has houses throughout the world, the “concreteness” of involvement in the diocese helps give the order “roots,” allowing it to remain and also to grow as they see different needs come up.

On the vocational crisis, Francis immediately pointed out the low birthrate in Europe, particularly Italy, saying the lack of vocations is also tied to the “demographic problem” that people don’t want to get married or have children.

“If there are no young men and women, there are no vocations,” he said, explaining that while this is not the only reason for the crisis, it’s something that must be kept in mind.

He also stressed the importance of looking critically at what is happening in the world and posing the question: “what is the Lord asking right now?”

“The vocational crisis is affecting the entire Church,” including the priesthood, religious life and even marriage, he said, noting that many young couples don’t want to commit themselves to the vocation of marriage, but instead prefer to cohabitate.

Given the widespread nature of the crisis, “it’s a time to ask ourselves, to ask the Lord, what must we do? What must we change?” he said, adding that “to face problems is necessary, (but) to learn from problems is obligatory.”

His words have a special resonance given that the next Synod of Bishops, set to take place in October 2018, will address the topic: “Young People, Faith and the Discernment of Vocation.”

Francis cautioned against the temptation of “conquest” when it comes to filling empty convents and seminaries, stressing that true vocational work “is hard, but we must do it.”

“It’s a challenge, but we must be creative,” he said, and emphasized the importance of bearing personal witness through the living of one’s own vocation, which “is key” to showing youth how rewarding a life offered for Christ and others can be.

Youth

In a meeting with youth at Genoa’s Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Guard, he also took questions from four youth, two boys and two girls, telling them he wouldn’t give them “pre-made answers,” but personal answers.

In their questions, the youth asked how to be a missionary in the face modern challenges; how to go beyond modern distractions and love those in difficulty and crisis around us; how to have a strong spiritual life, and how to have sincere relationships in a culture of indifference.

Francis said that being a missionary above all “means letting yourself be transformed by the Lord.”

“Normally when we live these activities, we are joyful when things go well, and this is good, but there is another transformation that you don’t see, it’s hidden and is born in the lives of all of us,” he said, adding that to be a missionary “allows us to learn how to look, how to see with new eyes.”

He told the youth to stop being “tourists,” many of whom come to the city and take pictures of everything, but “don’t look at anything.”

“To look at life with the eyes of tourists is superficial … it means I don’t touch reality, I don’t see things as they are,” he said, noting that going out on mission helps us to go beyond the superficial and “draw near to the heart of another.”

It also destroys hypocrisy, he said, explaining that for adults, but especially for youth to have this attitude, “is suicide. Understand? It’s suicide.”

Accepting Jesus’ invitation to me a missionary, he said, helps us to look at each other in the eye and purifies us from seeing the Church divided into the “good” and the “bad.”

He said that to respond to the needs of people in difficulty – the poor, migrants, homeless and unemployed – we must first of all “love them. We can’t do anything without love.”

No matter how many projects we set up or are involved in, it’s useless without love, he said. The Pope explained that whenever he can he likes to ask people, when they give to the poor, if they “touch the hand of the person” they give to, or if they pull back immediately.

Love, he said, is the ability to take hold of the “dirty hand” and to look at people in situations of drugs, poverty and hardship, and to say that “for me, you are Jesus.”

Pope Francis said focusing on the person who has been wounded and excluded, rather than their situation, is part of “the madness of the faith,” and of the announcement of Jesus.

He told the youth to never ignore people or “make the person into an adjective,” calling them a “drunk,” because they are a person with a name. “Never make people into adjectives!” he said, adding that “God is the only one who can judge, and he will do it in the Final Judgement for each one of us.”

Giving advice for how to have a strong spiritual life, the Pope tied his answer to the city’s link with boaters and sailors, telling them that if they want to be a good disciple, “you need the same heart as a navigator: a horizon and courage.”

“If you don’t have a horizon … you will never be a good missionary,” he said, and warned against the distractions new media technologies can bring.

“You have the opportunity to know everything with new technologies, but these information technologies make you fall into a canal many times, because instead of informing us, the saturate us,” he said. And when you are saturated, the horizon “gets closer and closer” and soon “you have a wall in front of you.”

When this happens, the horizon is lost as is the ability to contemplate, he said, and told the youth to take time to contemplate and make good decisions, instead of “eating” whatever is put in front of them.

He also urged the youth to question what has become almost routine in today’s “normal culture.” He asked if it was normal that “so many migrants come from far away, bloodied by a selfishness that leads to death” end up living in difficulty in foreign countries. “Is it normal that the Mediterranean has become a cemetary?”

Instead of just accepting that this is the norm, he told them to ask themselves: “is this normal, or is this not normal?” and to always “have courage to seek the truth.”

At the close of his meeting with youth, Francis offered a special greeting to prisoners of watching the meeting via television before heading to lunch with poor, refugees, homeless and prisoners from Genoa.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

VATICAN NEWS

Pastoral visit of the Holy Father Francis to the Archdiocese of Genoa (27 May 2017) – Meeting with the world of work at the Ilva Factory

The Holy See Press Office • May 27, 2017

Vatican City — At 7:30 this morning the Holy Father departed by air from Rome-Ciampino airport for his pastoral visit to the Archdiocese of Genoa.

Upon arrival at the airport in Genoa, the Pope was received by His Eminence Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, archbishop of the city, Giovanni Toti, president of the Liguria region, Fiamma Spena, prefect of Genoa, the mayor Marco Doria, and the airport director Paolo Sirigu.

The Holy Father then travelled by car to the Ilva factory where he met with representatives of the world of work.

During the meeting Pope Francis answered four questions posed by a manager, a union representative, a worker and an unemployed person.

At the end he transferred by car to the Cathedral of Genoa for a meeting with the bishops of Liguria, the clergy, seminarians, men and women religious, lay collaborators with the Curia and representatives of other confessions.

The following are the Holy Father’s answers:

The Holy Father’s answers to questions

Question from manager Ferdinando Garré of the Naval Repairs district: In our work, we find ourselves struggling with so many obstacles - excessive bureaucracy, slowness in public decision-making, lack of services or adequate infrastructure - which often do not allow the best energies of this city to be released. We share this challenging journey with our chaplain and are encouraged by our archbishop, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco. We turn to you, Holiness, to ask for a word of closeness. A word of comfort to encourage us before the obstacles we businessmen come up against every day.

Pope Francis: Good morning, everyone!

It is the first time I have come to Genoa, and being so close to the port reminds me of where my father left … This is very emotional for me. And thank you for your welcome. Mr. Ferdinando Garré: I knew the questions, and for some I wrote down some ideas to respond; and I also keep my pen in my hand to note down something that comes to mind at the time, to answer. But for these questions on the world of work I wanted to think well so as to answer well, because today work is at risk It is a world where work is not considered with the dignity it has and gives. Therefore, I will answer with the things I have thought about, and some that I will say at the time.

First, a premise. The premise is: the world of work is a human priority. It is, therefore, a Christian priority, our priority, and also a priority of the Pope. Because it comes from that first command that God gave to Adam: “Go, till the earth, work the earth, tame it.” There has always been friendship between the Church and work, starting with a working Jesus. Where there is a worker, there is the interest and the gaze of love of the Lord and of the Church. I think this is clear. It is beautiful that this question that comes from a businessman, an engineer; from his way of speaking abut the enterprise, the typical entrepreneur’s virtues emerge. And since this question was posed by a businessman, we will talk about them. Creativity, love for your business, passion and pride for the work of the hands and intelligence of yourself and your workers. The businessman is a key figure in any good economy: there is no good economy without a good entrepreneur. There is no good business without good entrepreneurs, without your ability to create, to create jobs, to create products. In your words we also perceive your esteem for the city - and we understand this - for its economy, the quality of the workers, and also for the environment, the sea. … It is important to recognize the virtues of workers. Their need - workers - is the need to work well so that the job is done well. Sometimes it is thought that a worker works well just because he is paid: this is a serious disrespect towards workers and labor as it denies the dignity of work, which begins precisely in working well for dignity, for honor. The true manager - I will try to make the profile of a good manager - the real manager knows his workers, because he works alongside them, he works with them. Let’s not forget that the entrepreneur must be first of all a worker. If he does not have this experience of dignity, he will not be a good manager. He shares the workers’ efforts and shares the joys of work, of solving problems together, of creating something together. If and when he has to lay off someone, this is always a painful decision and he would not do it if possible. No good manager likes to lay off his people - no, he who thinks he can solve the problem of his job by firing people, is not a good entrepreneur, he is a trader, who sells his people today and tomorrow sells his dignity. He always suffers, and sometimes from this suffering new ideas emerge to avoid dismissal. This is the good entrepreneur. I remember, almost a year ago, a little less, at Mass at Santa Marta at 7 am, at the exit I was greeting the people who were there, and a man approached. He was crying. He said, “I came to ask for a grace: I am at the limit and I have to make a statement of bankruptcy. That would mean firing sixty workers, and I do not want to, because I feel like I am firing myself.” And that man was crying. He was a good manager. He fought and prayed for his people because they were “his”: “They are my family.” They were attached to one another.

A disease of the economy is the progressive transformation of entrepreneurs into speculators. The entrepreneur must not be confused with the speculator: there are two different types. The entrepreneur must not be confused with the speculator: the speculator is a figure similar to what Jesus in the Gospel calls a “mercenary,” as opposed to the Good Shepherd. The speculator does not love his company, he does not love his workers, but sees business and workers only as a means to make a profit. He uses, uses the company and the workers to make a profit. Firing, closing down, moving the company is not a problem to him, because the speculator uses, exploits, “eats” people and means for to reach profit targets. When the economy is inhabited by good entrepreneurs, businesses are friendly to people and even to the poor. When it falls into the hands of speculators, everything is ruined. With the speculator, the economy loses face and loses its faces. It is a faceless economy. An abstract economy. Behind the speculator’s decisions there are no people, and therefore we do not see the people who are to be dismissed and cut out. When the economy loses contact with the faces of concrete people, it itself becomes a faceless economy and therefore a ruthless economy. We must fear the speculators, not the entrepreneurs; no, do not fear businessmen because there are so many good ones! No. Fear speculators. But paradoxically, sometimes the political system seems to encourage those who speculate on work and not those who invest in and believe in the job. Why? Because it creates bureaucracy and controls, starting from the hypothesis that the agents of the economy are speculators, so those who are not speculators remain disadvantaged, and those who can find the means to circumvent controls and reach their goals. It is known that regulations and laws intended for the dishonest end up penalizing the honest. And today there are so many real entrepreneurs, honest managers who love their workers, who love the company, who work alongside them to carry ahead the business, and these are the most disadvantaged by these policies that favor speculators. But honest and virtuous entrepreneurs go ahead, in the end, despite everything. I like to quote a good phrase of Luigi Einaudi, economist and president of the Italian Republic. He wrote: “Thousands, millions of individuals work, produce and save despite everything we can invent to molest them, to obstruct them, and to discourage them. It is a natural vocation that drives them, not just the thirst for gain. The taste, the pride of seeing your business thrive, obtain credit, inspire trust in an increasingly broad clientele, expand their factories, are a springboard for progress just as powerful as profit. If that were not the case, it would not be possible to explain why there are entrepreneurs who in their own companies exhaust all their energies and invest all their capital, often earning an income far more modest what they could surely and comfortably obtain with other efforts.” They have that mystical love …

Thank you for what you said, because you are a representative of these entrepreneurs. Be mindful, entrepreneurs, and also you, workers: beware of speculators, also of the rules and laws that in the end favor speculators and not true entrepreneurs. In the end they leave people without work. Thank you.

Question from Micaela, union representative: Today we talk about industry again, thanks to the fourth industrial revolution or “Industry 4.0.” Well: the world of work is ready to accept new productive challenges that bring prosperity. Our concern is that this new technological frontier and the economic and productive recovery that sooner or later will come, will not bring with it new quality employment, but will instead contribute to the rise in precariousness and social hardship. Today, the real revolution would be to transform the word “work” into a concrete form of social redemption.

Pope Francis: It first came to mind to me to answer with a play of words. … You finished with the word “social redemption” [in Italian – “riscatto“], and I think of “social blackmail” [in Italian – “ricatto“]. What I am about to say is a real thing that happened in Italy about a year ago. There was a queue of unemployed people applying for a job, an interesting job, in an office. The girl who told me this story – an educated girl, who spoke several languages, which was important for that role – said they had told her “Yes, you can start … ; there will be 10-11 hours a day …” – “Yes, yes!” she said, immediately, because she needed work – “and it starts with – I think they said, I do not want to make a mistake, but it was no more than 800 euros per month.” And she said, “But … just eight hundred? For eleven hours?.” And the man – the speculator, he was not a businessman, the employee of the speculator – said to her, “Miss, look at the line of people behind you: if you don’t like it, you can go.” This is not riscatto, redemption, but rather ricatto, blackmail!

I will now say what I had written, but your last word reminded me of this. Illegal work. Another person told me that he had a job, but from September to June; he was laid off in June and taken on again in October, September. And this is how it goes – illegal work.

I welcomed the proposal to have this meeting today, in a workplace and workers, because these too are places of the people of God. Dialogues in workplaces are no less important than the dialogues we have in parishes or solemn conferences, because the places of the Church are the places of life and therefore also squares and factories. Because someone can say, “But this priest, what does he say to us? Go to the parish!” No, the world of work is the world of the people of God: we are all Church, all people of God. Many of the meetings between God and men, spoken of by the Bible and the Gospels, occurred while people were working: Moses hears the voice of God calling him, and revealing his name while grazing his father-in-law’s flock; Jesus’ first disciples were fishermen and were called by Him while working by the lake. It is very true what you say: lack of work is far more than not having a source of income for to live on. Work is also this, but it is much, much more. By working we become a fuller person, our humanity flourishes, young people become adults only by working. The Church’s social doctrine has always seen human work as a participation in creation that continues every day, also thanks to the hands, mind and heart of the workers. On Earth there are a few joys greater than those we experience working, just as there are fewer pains greater than those of work, when work exploits, crushes, humiliates, kills. Labor can do great harm because it can do great good. Work is the friend of man, and man is the friend of work, and for this reason it is not easy to recognize it as an enemy, because presents itself like a person at home, even when it strikes us and hurts us. Men and women are fed through work: by work they are “anointed with dignity.” For this reason, the entire social pact is built around work. This is the core of the problem. Because when you do not work, or you work badly, you work little or you work too much, it is democracy that enters into crisis, and the entire social pact. This is also the meaning of Article 1 of the Italian Constitution, which is very beautiful: “Italy is a democratic republic founded on labor.” On this basis we can say that taking work away from people or exploiting people with work that is unworthy, or poorly-paid or whatever, is unconstitutional. If it were not founded on labor, the Italian Republic would not be a democracy, because the place of work is occupied and has always been occupied by privileges, castes, and revenues. It is therefore necessary to look without fear, but with responsibility, to the technological transformations of the economy and life, and not to be resigned to the ideology that is gaining ground everywhere, that imagines a world where only half or maybe two-thirds of the workers will work, and the others will be maintained by social subsidies. It must be clear that the real goal to reach is not that of “income for all” but rather, “work for all.” Because without work, without work for all, there will be no dignity for all. The work of today and that of tomorrow will be different, perhaps very different – we think of the industrial revolution, there has been a change; here too there will be a revolution – it will be different from yesterday’s work, but it will have to be work, not pension, not retirement: work. One retires at the right age, it is an act of justice; but it goes against the dignity of the person to put them in retirement at the age of 35 or 40 years, to give them state benefits, and say, “get by.” “But do I have enough to eat?” Yes. “Can I support my family, with this check?” Yes. “Do I have dignity?” No! Why? Because I do not work. Today’s work will be different. Without work, you can survive; but to live, you need work. The choice is between surviving and living. And there needs to be work for everyone. For young people … Do you know the percentage of young people aged 25 and under, unemployed, in Italy? I will not say it: look for the statistics. And this is a debt on the future. Because these young people grow up without dignity, because they are not “united” by the labor that gives dignity. But the cornerstone of this question is this: a monthly check, a monthly allowance that enables you to support a family does not solve the problem. The problem must be resolved with work for everyone. I think I have answered more or less …

Question from Sergio, a worker on a training course promoted by the Chaplains: Not infrequently in the workplace, competition, career, and economic aspects prevail, but work is a privileged occasion for witnessing and proclaiming the Gospel, lived by adopting attitudes of brotherhood, collaboration, and solidarity. We ask your Holiness for advice on how to journey better toward these ideals.

Pope Francis: The values of work are changing very fast, and many of these new values of large businesses and big finance are not values in line with the human dimension or, therefore, with Christian humanism. The emphasis on competition within the company, besides being an anthropological and Christian error, is also an economic mistake as it neglects the fact that the business is first of all cooperation, mutual assistance, and reciprocity. When a business scientifically creates a system of individual incentives that put workers in competition with each other, perhaps an advantage can be gained in the short term, but it soon ends up undermining that fabric of trust that is the soul of any organization. And so, when a crisis arises, the company unravels and implodes, because there is no longer any rope to hold it together. It must be said strongly that this competitive culture among workers within a business is a mistake, and is therefore a vision that needs to be changed if we want the good of enterprise, workers and the economy. Another “value” that is actually a disvalue is the so-called “meritocracy.” Meritocracy is very appealing because it uses a beautiful word: “merit”; but since it is exploited and used ideologically, it is distorted and perverted. Meritocracy, beyond the good faith of the many who invoke it, is becoming a way of ethically legitimizing inequality. The new capitalism, through meritocracy, gives a moral appearance to inequality because it interprets the talents of people not as a gift: talent is not a gift according to this interpretation: it is a merit, determining a system of cumulative advantages and disadvantages. Thus, if two children are born differently in terms of talent or social and economic opportunities, the economic world will interpret the different talents as merits and will pay them otherwise. And so, when those two children retire, the inequality between them will be multiplied. A second consequence of the so-called “meritocracy” is the change of the culture of poverty. The poor person is considered undeserving and therefore to blame. And if poverty is the fault of the poor, the rich are exonerated from doing anything. This is the old logic of Job’s friends, who wanted to convince him that he was guilty of his misfortune. But this is not the logic of the Gospel, it is not the logic of life: meritocracy in the Gospel is instead found in the figure of the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son. He despises his younger brother and thinks he must remain a failure because he deserves it; instead the father thinks no son deserves the acorns that are for the pigs.

Question from Vittoria, unemployed: We unemployed feel that the Institutions are not only distant, but like stepmothers, more intent on passive assistance than committing themselves to creating the conditions favorable to work. We are comforted by the human warmth with which the Church is close to us and the welcome that each one of us finds at the house of the Chaplains. Your Holiness, where can we find the strength to continue to believe, and never to give up despite all this?

Pope Francis: That’s it! Those who lose their job and can not find another good job, feels that they lose their dignity, just as those who are forced by necessity to accept bad or unsuitable jobs. Not all jobs are good: there is still too much bad work without dignity, in the illegal trafficking of weapons, pornography, gambling and all those businesses that do not respect the rights of workers or nature. How bad is the work of those who are paid a lot because they do not have timetables, limits, boundaries between work and life because the job becomes the entire life. A paradox of our society is the presence of a growing share of people who would like to work but are not able to, and others who work too hard, who would like to work less but are unable to because they have been “bought” by businesses. Work, on the other hand, becomes “brother work” when alongside it there is the time for non-work, feast days. Slaves do not have free time: without the feast day, work becomes slavery, even if well-paid; and in order to feast, we have to work. In families where there is unemployment, it is never really Sunday and festivities sometimes become sad days because work is lacking on Monday. To celebrate the feast, you need to celebrate labor. One marks the time and rhythm of the other. They go together.

I also believe that consumption is an idol of our time. Consumption is the center of our society, and therefore also the pleasure that consumption promises. Grand shops, open twenty-four hours a day, every day, new “temples” that promise salvation, eternal life; cults of pure consumption and therefore of pure pleasure. This is also the root of the labor crisis in our society: work is fatigue, sweat. The Bible knew it very well and reminds us of it. But a hedonistic society, that sees and wants only consumption, does not understand the value of fatigue and sweat and therefore does not understand labor. All idolatries are experiences of pure consumption: idols do not work. Work is labor: there are pains in the generation of joy for what has been generated together. Without regaining a culture that values fatigue and sweat, we will not find a new relationship with work and we will continue to dream of the consumption of pure pleasure. Work is the center of every social pact: it is not a means for consumption, no. It is the center of every social pact. Between work and consumption there are so many things, all important and beautiful, called dignity, respect, honor, freedom, rights, rights of all, women, children, children, the elderly. … If we sell out labor for consumption, with work we will soon sell out these accompanying words: dignity, respect, honor, freedom. We must not allow this, and we must continue to ask for work, to generate it, to estimate it, to love it. We must also pray for it: many of the most beautiful prayers of our parents and grandparents were prayers of work, learned and recited before, after, and during work. Work is a friend of prayer; work is present every day in the Eucharist, whose gifts are the fruit of man’s land and work. A world that no longer knows the values, and the value, of work does not understand the Eucharist either, the true and humble prayer of workers and workers. The fields, the sea, factories have always been “altars” from which beautiful and pure prayers have been raised, which God has received and gathered. Prayers said and recited by those who knew and wanted to pray, but also prayers said with the hands, with sweat, with the fatigue of work by those who did not know how to pray with their mouth. God has also welcomed them and continues to welcome them today too.

For this reason, I would like to end this dialogue with a prayer: it is an ancient prayer, the “Come, Holy Spirit” which is also a prayer for work and for work.

Come, Holy Spirit, send forth the heavenly radiance of your light. Come, father of the poor, father of workers. Come, giver of gifts; come, light of the heart. Greatest comforter, sweet guest of the soul, sweet consolation. In labor, rest; in heat, temperance; in tears, solace.

Cleanse that which is unclean, water that which is dry, heal that which is wounded. Bend that which is inflexible, fire that which is chilled, correct what goes astray. Grant the reward of virtue, grant the deliverance of salvation, grant eternal joy. Amen.

Thank you!

And now, I ask the Lord to bless you all, to bless all workers, businessmen, the unemployed. Each one of us, think of the entrepreneurs who do everything to give work; think of the unemployed, think of workers. And may this blessing descend upon all of us and all of them.

[Blessing]

Many thanks!

Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana (vatican.va)

VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis: Jesus intercedes for us – every day, every moment

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 27, 2017

Pope Francis at the General Audience in St. Peter’s Square on April 20, 2016. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Genoa, Italy — Pope Francis celebrated Mass for the feast of the Ascension in Genoa Saturday, telling faithful that Jesus never leaves us alone and is constantly praying and interceding for us to the Father.

“Jesus is truly with us and for us: in heaven, he always shows the Father his humanity, our humanity,” the Pope said during his May 27 day trip to Genoa.

He noted in the day’s Gospel from Matthew, before he ascends into heaven, tells his disciples, “all power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

This power and strength “connect heaven and earth,” Francis said, explaining that when Jesus ascended into heaven “our human flesh crossed the threshold of heaven: our humanity is there, in God, forever.”

A keyword that can be used to describe Jesus’ strength and power, he said, is “intercession,” because “Jesus intercedes for us with the Father every day, every moment. In every prayer, in every request of ours for forgiveness, above all in every Mass, Jesus intervenes.

Pope Francis offered Mass to conclude his trip to the Italian diocese of Genoa, which is guided by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, who just finished his term as president of the Italian Bishops Conference, and has been replaced by Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, archbishop of Perugia.

After arriving to the city, Francis immediately had back-to-back meetings with members of the working force in Genoa, with the diocese’s bishops, priests and religious, and with youth, giving off-the-cuff responses to questions asked in each encounter.

He then had lunch with some 100 poor, refugees and prisoners before stopping by the city’s pediatric hospital and making his way to Kennedy Square to offer Mass before heading back to Rome.

In his homily, the Pope said the ability to intercede isn’t just a task Jesus carries out, but is also one that he has entrusted to the entire Church. Each of us has the power to pray for others, he said, asking: “Do I pray? Do we, as a Church, as Christians, exercise this power bringing people and situations to God?”

“The world needs it. We ourselves need it,” Francis said, noting that for many people, their days are spent running between work and various commitments. The risk with this, he said, is that “we can get lost, close in on ourselves and become restless about nothing.”

In order to avoid this, he said we have to “throw the anchor to God,” entrusting to him the burdens, people and situations we deal with on a daily basis.

“This is the strength of prayer, which connects heaven and earth, which allows God to enter into our time,” he said, noting that prayer isn’t something we do to find peace or internal harmony for ourselves, but is an active intercession to God.

“It’s not tranquility, it’s charity. … It’s to put yourself into play to intercede, insisting assiduously to God for each other,” he said, adding that prayerful intercession is “our first responsibility,” because it gives us the strength to go forward.

“This is our power: not to prevail or to cry out louder, according to the logic of the world, but to exercise with strength the meekness of prayer, with which wars can be stopped and peace obtained.”

A second keyword from the Gospel that shows the nature of Jesus’ strength and power is “announcement,” Pope Francis said, pointing to the moment when Jesus invites his disciples to “go forth and make disciples of all nations.

This is “an extreme act of trust in us,” the Pope said, noting that Jesus believes in us more than we believe in ourselves. He sends us out despite our shortcomings, knowing that “we will never be perfect and that, if we wait to become better to evangelize, we will never start.”

However, one thing that is important to overcome right away is “closure,” he said, insisting that “the Gospel cannot be locked up and sealed, because the love of God is dynamic and wants to reach everyone.”

“To announce, then, means moving, going out of ourselves,” Francis said, adding that with the Lord, “we cannot be quiet, accommodated in your own world or nostalgic for memories of the past; with him it is forbidden to lay down in the securities acquired.”

For Jesus, security is moving forward with trust and confidence. Because of this, he prefers “discomfort and constant revivals” to ease and comfort.

“(Jesus) wants us going out, free from the temptations of contenting ourselves when we are doing well and when we have control,” the Pope continued.

Pointing to Jesus command to “go,” Francis said this going out “into the world” is something the Lord still asks of us today, and which “belongs to the Christian identity.”

A Christian is never stationary, but constantly moving with the Lord and with others, Francis said, but cautioned that this doesn’t mean a Christian is a runner that tries to beat others to the finish line.

Instead, a Christian is a pilgrim and a “hopeful marathonist,” who is meek, faithful, creative and enterprising, while also being decisive, active, respectful and open, he said.

Pope Francis closed his homily telling faithful to imitate the disciples, and bring the announcement of the Good News to “the streets of the world.”

Jesus, he said, “wants the announcement to be carried with his strength: not with the strength of the world, but with the clear and gentle strength of joyful testimony. This is urgent.”

He urged faithful to pray for the grace “to not fossilize ourselves” by getting caught up on things that don’t matter, but to work concretely for peace and the common good.

“Let us put ourselves into play with courage, convinced that there is more joy in giving than in receiving,” he said, adding that “the Lord is alive and risen, who always intercedes for us, whether in the strength of our going, or the courage our path.”

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

VATICAN NEWS

The Pope’s words at the Regina Coeli prayer

The Holy See Press Office • May 28, 2017

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

The following is the Pope’s introduction to the Marian prayer, which substitutes the Angelus at Easter time:

Before the Regina Coeli

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

Today, in Italy and in other countries, we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus into heaven, forty days after Easter. Today’s Gospel passage (cf. Mt 28: 16-20), which concludes the Gospel of Matthew, presents to us the moment of the definitive departure of the Risen Lord from His disciples. The scene is set in Galilee, the place where Jesus had called them to follow Him and form the first core of His new community. Now those disciples have gone through the “fire” of the Passion and the Resurrection; at the sight of the Risen Lord, they bow before Him, some however still doubtful. To this frightened community, Jesus leaves the immense task of evangelizing the world; and He embodies this task in the order to teach and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (cf. v. 19).

The Ascension of Jesus into heaven thus constitutes the end of the mission the Son received from the Father and the beginning of the continuation of this mission by the Church. Indeed, from this moment the presence of Christ in the world is mediated by His disciples, by those who believe in Him and proclaim Him. This mission will last until the end of history and will enjoy every day the assistance of the Risen Lord, Who assures: “I am with you every day, until the end of the world” (v. 20).

And His presence brings strength in persecutions, comfort in tribulations, support in the difficult situations that the mission and proclamation of the Gospel encounter. The Ascension reminds us of this assistance from Jesus and from His Spirit, that gives confidence and security to our Christian witness in the world. He reveals to us why the Church exists: she exists to proclaim the Gospel, and only for that! And also, the joy of the Church is to announce the Gospel. We, all the baptized, are the Church. Today, we are invited to understand better that God has given us the great dignity and responsibility of announcing it to the world, of making it accessible to humanity. This is our dignity, this is the greatest honor for each of us, for all the baptized!

On this Day of the Ascension, as we turn our gaze to heaven, where Christ ascended and sits at the right hand of the Father, let us strengthen our footsteps on earth to continue with enthusiasm and courage on our journey, our mission of witnessing and living the Gospel in every environment. However, let us be well aware that this does not depend primarily on our strengths, organizational abilities and human resources. Only with the light and strength of the Holy Spirit can we effectively fulfil our mission of making Jesus’ love and tenderness increasingly known and experienced by others.

Let us ask the Virgin Mary to help us contemplate the heavenly goods the Lord promises us, and to become ever more credible witnesses of His Resurrection, of the True Life.

After the Regina Coeli

Dear brothers and sisters,

I wish to express my closeness to my dear brother Pope Tawadros II and to all the Egyptian nation, which two days ago suffered another act of atrocious violence. The victims, which included children, were faithful on their way to a shrine to pray, and they were killed when they refused to deny their Christian faith. May the Lord welcome these brave witnesses, these martyrs, in His peace, and convert the hearts of the violent.

We also pray for the victims of the terrible attack in Manchester last Monday, where so many young lives were cruelly taken. I am close to the families and those who mourn the departed.

Today World Social Communications Day is celebrated, on the theme “Do not be afraid because I am with you“ (Is 43.5). Social media offer the opportunity to share and disseminate news widely; such news can be good or bad, true or false; let us pray that communication, in all its forms, may be truly constructive, in the service of truth, rejecting prejudices and spreading hope and trust in our time.

I greet you all, dear Romans and pilgrims: families, parish groups, associations, schools.

In particular, I greet the faithful from Colorado; the Bavarian folk groups who are here for the great parade in the centenary of the feast of the Patrona Bavariae; and I greet Polish faithful, with a blessing also for those attending the pilgrimage to the Piekary Shrine.

I greet the Comboni Missionaries, who celebrate the 150th anniversary of their founding; the pilgrimage of the Hospitaller Sisters of Ascoli Piceno; groups from Naples, Scandicci, Thiesi, Nonantola, and the pupils of the “Sacred Heart of the Incarnate Word” School in Palermo.

A special thought and encouragement goes to the representatives of voluntary associations promoting organ donation, a “noble and meritorious act” (Catechism, No. 2296). I would also like to welcome the employees of Mediaset Roma, in the hope that their work situation may be resolved, with the aim of the true good of the company, not merely its profits, but respecting the rights of all people involved: and the first is the right to work.

I would like to conclude with a great greeting to all the people of Genoa and a great thank you for the warm welcome they gave me yesterday. May the Lord bless them abundantly, and may Our Lady of the Guard keep them.

I wish everyone a good Sunday. Please do not forget to pray for me. Have a good lunch, and goodbye!

Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana (vatican.va)

VATICAN NEWS

Here’s what Pope Francis and Justin Trudeau talked about

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • May 29, 2017

Pope Francis meets with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the Vatican on May 29, 2017. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — Pope Francis met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a private audience which focused on religious freedom as well as reconciliation with native people of Canada.

According to a brief May 29 communique from the Vatican, Pope Francis and Prime Minister Trudeau conversed on the topics of integration and reconciliation with indigenous people, as well as religious liberty and current ethical issues.

In their 36-minute meeting which the Vatican described as “cordial,” they touched on the positive bilateral relations between the Holy See and Canada, “along with the contribution of the Catholic Church to the social life of the country.”

Afterward “in the light of the results of the recent G7 summit, attention turned to various matters of an international nature, with special attention to the Middle East and areas of conflict,” the communique stated.

During the visit, Trudeau extended an invitation to Pope Francis to visit the country of Canada, during which time he could bring the Church’s apology for harm done to indigenous people in Canada in the mid-19th through 20th centuries when 150,000 children from native tribes were forced to undergo “enculturation” to the state through attendance at residential schools.

Some 6,000 children died in the schools and though they were state-owned, a number were managed by Catholics. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which ran from 2008-2015, called for action on 94 points, one of which was an apology from the Catholic Church.

In 2009, Benedict XVI did apologize for the Church’s participation in the system during a meeting with the head of the Canadian National Assembly, Phil Fontaine, showing “his pain and anguish caused by the deplorable conduct of some members of the Church,” adding that “acts of abuse can never be tolerated by society.”

The Prime Minister’s spokesman, Cameron Ahmad, said Trudeau’s main agenda for the conversation with Francis was reiterating the open invitation to the Pope to come to Canada and for “reconciliation” with the indigenous communities on this point.

Ahmad also said that other important topics for Trudeau included the climate, religious and ethnic diversity – such as interreligious dialogue – and immigration.

At the end of the meeting, the Pope gave Trudeau a medallion symbolizing forgiveness, joy and mutual acceptance. It also references the scripture passage from Matthew 5:7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

Francis also gave him a copy of his environmental encyclical Laudato Si, as well as copies of his 2015 Apostolic Exhortation on the family “Amoris Laetitia” and his 2013 exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium.”

Along with the three customary documents, the Pope also gave the prime minister a copy of his message for the 2017 World Day of Peace, which he signed, just like the one he gave to U.S. President Donald Trump during their meeting last week.

For his part, Trudeau gifted Francis a copy of “Relations de Jesuits du Canada,” a rare 6-volume edition that documents the Jesuits’ reports on Canadian territory, and a Jesuit vocabulary in a special edition.

The meeting was not Trudeau’s first visit to the Vatican. A Catholic, he met St. John Paul II in 1980 during the papal meeting of his father, former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau with the pope.

Afterward, Trudeau met with Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Secretary for Relations with States Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher.

Absent from Trudeau’s agenda for the audience were any topics related to life-issues, particularly that of euthanasia. Assisted suicide was legalized by the federal government in Canada on June 17, 2016. It now falls to the local provinces to reform the medical system to be in conformity with the new laws.

Canadian bishops from the provinces of Ontario and Quebec met with Pope Francis recently for their ad limina visits in April and the beginning of May. During the meetings the bishops all expressed concerns regarding the threat to freedom of conscience in relation to euthanasia’s legalization.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

VATICAN NEWS

Vatican: South Sudan not on Pope’s itinerary for 2017

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 30, 2017

Pope Francis arrives in St. Peter’s Square for the General Audience on Sept. 21, 2016. (Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

Vatican City — On Friday Vatican spokesman Greg Burke confirmed that while Pope Francis had voiced his desire to travel to South Sudan for an ecumenical visit alongside Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby, it won’t be happening this year.

The trip is still being considered, just “not this year,” Burke told journalists May 30. He did not elaborate on when the visit, which had been tentatively planned for October, might take place.

Francis had hoped to travel to the war-torn country to promote peace, after making a similar effort during his 2015 visit to the Central African Republic.

Although Burke didn’t cite specific reasons for the postponement of the Pope’s visit to South Sudan, various Italian media outlets have reported that the decision was made due to security concerns.

The Pope previously voiced his intention to visit South Sudan alongside Anglican Primate and Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. The trip would have marked the first time Catholic and Anglican leaders made such a trip together.

The idea was likely the fruit of a meeting the Pope had with ecumenical leaders from South Sudan last fall, when Archbishop Paulino Luduku Loro of Juba traveled to Rome together with Rev. Daniel Deng Bul Yak, Archbishop of the Province of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan and Sudan, and Rev. Peter Gai Lual Marrow, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan.

The three of them met with Pope Francis Oct. 27, 2016, to discuss the desperate situation of the country with Pope Francis. During the visit, they not only highlighted their joint collaboration in seeking to alleviate the effects of the crisis, but they also invited the Pope for a formal visit.

Arranged by Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, President of the Vatican’s dicastery for Integral Human Development, the meeting focused largely on current tensions dividing Sudanese people, and the collaboration of different Christian denominations in promoting reconciliation and the common good.

Sudan has been the scene of nearly continuous civil war since it gained independence in 1956. Many of the initial problems were caused by corruption in the government, which led to the political, economic, and religious marginalization of the country’s peripheries.

South Sudan became an independent country in 2011, but has been torn by a civil war since December 2013, between the state forces – the Sudan People’s Liberation Army – and opposition forces, as well as sectarian conflict.

A peace agreement was eventually signed, but was broken by violence in the summer of 2016, prompting the South Sudan Council of Churches to publicly condemn the violence and pray for peace. A ceasefire was then ordered by President Kiir and then-Vice President Machar in July.

Machar, the former rebel leader, ended up fleeing the country. However, despite this, violent fighting in the country has continued.

In comments to CNA after their meeting with the Pope in 2016, Archbishop Loro emphasized the joint ecumenical effort of Christian Churches in South Sudan, saying “all are Christian religions and we are perfectly together.”

Different Christian communities have always spoken about the situation of the country together, and because of this it was “perfectly in place” that the three of them would come to the Vatican together to voice concerns surrounding the state of their country.

“We are together and we are really speaking one voice and one language” to raise awareness of the humanitarian, political and social crisis of the country both locally and internationally, the archbishop said.

Should Francis ever go to South Sudan, Loro said the Pope would visit as “a religious leader” whose presence “would have a great impact and would be very welcome by us and by civil society, and it would be a great help for us.”

As far as international visits go, the only other confirmed trip on the Pope’s calendar is his Sept. 6-11 visit to Colombia. Pope Francis has also spoken about a possible trip to India and Bangladesh toward the end of 2017, however, it has not yet been confirmed.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis: A shepherd must freely follow the Spirit

CNA/EWTN News • May 30, 2017

Pope Francis says Mass at the chapel of Santa Marta house in the Vatican on April 24, 2017. (L’Osservatore Romano)

Vatican City — Pope Francis on Tuesday urged priests and bishops not to be afraid to “step down completely” from their assignment when they are called to a new duty.

“All shepherds have to step down. There comes a moment where the Lord says ‘go to another place, come here, go there, come to me.’ And it’s one of the steps that a shepherd must take,” he said during his homily May 30 at the chapel of the Vatican’s Santa Marta residence.

The shepherd must “be prepared to step down in the correct way, not still hanging on to his position,” he said.

In the first reading of the Mass, St. Paul addresses the Church leaders in Ephesus. The Pope said Paul left the Ephesus to go to Jerusalem, following the Holy Spirit’s call.

The Pope highlighted what he called the three “apostolic attitudes” demonstrated by St. Paul during a council with the priests of Ephesus, and he urged the faithful to pray that priests, bishops, and the Pope would live their lives accordingly.

The first attitude involves never turning back, and guiding the Church without compromise.

The second is obedience to the Spirit and the recognition that the life of a shepherd is a “journey,” always open to the voice of God.

St. Paul left Ephesus “because he had nothing of his own, he had not wrongly taken control of his sheep. He had served them … this is a shepherd without compromises who is now a shepherd on a journey.”

The third attitude involves the acknowledgement that “I am not the center of history. Whether it’s large history or small history, I am not the center, I am a servant.”

“With this most beautiful example, let us pray for our shepherds, for our parish priests, our bishops,” Pope Francis exhorted. “Let us pray for our shepherds.”

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

VATICAN NEWS

General Audience: The Holy Spirit makes us overflow with hope

The Holy See Press Office • May 31, 2017

Vatican City — This morning’s General Audience took place at 9.20 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 “The Holy Spirit makes us overflow with hope” (cf. Rm 15:13-14).

After summarizing his catechesis in several languages, the Holy Father addressed special greetings to the groups of faithful present.

The General Audience concluded with the recital of the Pater Noster and the Apostolic Blessing.

Catechesis of the Holy Father

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

As we approach the Solemnity of Pentecost we cannot neglect to speak of the relationship between Christian hope and the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the wind that drives us onwards, that keeps us on the path, that makes us feel we are pilgrims and strangers, that does not permit us to settle and to become a “sedentary” people.

The Letter to the Hebrews compares hope to an anchor (cfr. 6:18-19); and to this image we can add that of the sail. If the anchor is what gives the boat is security, keeping it “anchored” amid the waves of the sea, the sail is instead that which makes the boat move and advance on the waters. Hope is truly like a veil; it collects the wind of the Spirit and transforms it into the driving force pushing the boat, depending on the case, out to sea or to the shore.

The apostle Paul concludes his Letter to the Romans with this wish: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rm 15,13). Let us reflect on the content of these beautiful words.

The expression “God of Hope” does not mean only that God is the object of our hope, that is, Whom we wish to reach one day in eternal life; it also means that God is He Who already makes us hope, or rather makes us “joyful in hope” (Rm 12): joyful now to hope, and not only to hope to be joyful in the future, after death. “Where there is life, there is hope,” according to a popular saying; and it is true also in reverse: where there is hope, there is life. Men need hope to live, and they need the Holy Spirit to hope.

Saint Paul, we have heard, attributes to the Holy Spirit the capacity even of making us “abound in hope.” Abounding in hope means never being discouraged; it means hoping “against all hope” (Rm 4:18); that is, to hope even when there lacks any human reason to hope, as it was for Abraham when God asked him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, and as it was, even more so, for the Virgin Mary under Jesus’ cross.

The Holy Spirit makes this hope possible, giving us the inner witness that we are children of God and His heirs (cf. Rm 8:16). How could He Who gave his own only Son not give us every other thing along with Him? (cf Rm 8.32). “Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (cf Rm 5:5).

The Holy Spirit does not only make us capable of hope, but also of being sowers of hope, of also being, like Him and thanks to Him, “Paracletes,” that is, consolers and defenders of our brothers. Blessed Cardinal Newman, in one of his discourses, said to the faithful, “Taught by our own pain, our own sorrow, nay, by our own sin, we shall have hearts and minds exercised for every service of love towards those who need it. We shall in our measure be comforters after the image of the Almighty Paraclete, and that in all senses of the word, — advocates, assistants, soothing aids. Our words and advice, our very manner, voice, and look, will be gentle and tranquillizing” (Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. V, London 1870, pp.300s). It is above all the poor, the excluded, those who are not beloved who are in need of someone to be their “Paraclete,” that is, consoler and defender.

The Holy Spirit nurtures hope not only in the heart of men, but also in all creation. The apostle Paul says that even creation “waits with eager longing” for liberation and groans and suffers as in the pain of childbirth (cf Rm 8:20-22). “The energy capable of moving the world is not an anonymous and blind force but the action of the ‘Spirit of God … moving over the face of the waters’ (Gn 1: 2) at the beginning of the Creation” (Benedict XVI, Homily, 31 May 2009). This too leads us to respect creation: one cannot besmirch a painting without offending the artist who created it.

Let the upcoming feast of Pentecost find us harmonious in prayer, with Mary, Mother of Jesus and our Mother. And may the gift of the Holy Spirit make us abound in hope.

Greetings in various languages: English

I greet the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in today’s audience, particularly the groups from England, Belgium, Norway, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, Tahiti, Uganda, Canada and the United States of America. I also greet the pilgrims who have come to take part in the Vigil of Pentecost on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Upon all of you, and your families I invoke a rich outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. God bless you all!

Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana (vatican.va)

VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis condemns ‘abhorrent’ Kabul attack

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 31, 2017

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

Vatican City — After a major suicide bomb tore through a busy neighborhood in Kabul, killing at least 80 people, Pope Francis condemned the ‘brutal’ act, offering his prayers for the victims and for peace in the country.

“Having learned with sadness of the abhorrent attack in Kabul and of the many dead and seriously injured, Pope Francis expresses his heartfelt condolences to all affected by this brutal act of violence,” a May 31 telegram signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said.

Pope Francis, he said, “commends the souls of the deceased to the mercy of the Almighty, and assures the people of Afghanistan of his continued prayers for peace.”

The Pope’s letter, addressed to Afghani ambassador to Italy, was sent hours after a suicide bomb exploded in the diplomatic quarter of Kabul, Afghanistan, killing some 80 people and wounding nearly 300 others, according to CNN.

Hidden in a water delivery truck, the bomb exploded near the German Embassy and the Afghan presidential palace in one of the busiest areas in town. A major local cell phone company and a popular TV station, as well as several large shops and supermarkets, were in close vicinity, making the likelihood of a high number of civilian casualties a guarantee.

The BBC’s Afghan driver Mohammed Nazir, who spent four years with the broadcaster and had a young family, was among the casualties. According to the BBC, four of their journalists were also injured in the attack, but are expected to live.

According to CNN, the Taliban in a statement denied responsibility for the attack, despite the fact they have been gaining territory in the area. As of now, group has yet claimed responsibility.

Wednesday’s bombing took place just four days after 29 Christians were gunned down in buses by militants wearing masks and military uniforms.

Claimed by the Islamic State, the attack targeted Christians en route to St. Samuel the Confessor monastery in Minya, Egypt, and was the latest in a string of attacks against Coptic Christians in Egypt.

A similar attack took place in Kabul in July 1016, when twin explosions went off during a demonstration by members of Afghanistan’s mainly Shi’ite Hazara minority, who had been protesting the planned route of a multi-million-dollar powerline.

At least 80 people were killed and 230 people wounded in the explosions, which were claimed by the Islamic State.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis: I am always joyful when I see young priests

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • June 1, 2017

A priest walks through St. Peter’s Square. (Daniel Ibañez/CNA)

Vatican City — On Thursday Pope Francis spoke with the Vatican department in charge of priests, saying he is always happy when he sees young priests, because they are important for Christ and represent the youthful face of the Church.

“I am always joyful when I meet young priests, because in them I see the youth of the Church,” the Pope said June 1.

He pointed to various young biblical figures, such as David, who was not presented by his father as a potential king because of his young age, and the prophet Jeremiah, who thought that he was too young for the mission the Lord entrusted to him.

Speaking directly to young priests, Francis said “you are chosen, you are dear to the Lord! God looks at you with the tenderness of a Father and, after making your heart fall in love, will not let your steps waver.”

“You are important in his eyes and he has confidence that you will be at the height of the mission to which you have been called,” he said, stressing that it’s important for young priests to find pastors and bishops “who encourage them in this perspective, and not only wait for them because there is need for a replacement and to fill empty places!”

Pope Francis spoke to members of the Congregation for Clergy currently participating in their plenary assembly.

The gathering takes place just six months after the promulgation of the congregation’s new “Ratio Fundamentalis,” the Vatican’s document on priestly formation, which was released Dec. 7, 2016.

This document, Francis said, “speaks of integral formation, capable of including all aspects of life; and so it indicates the path to form the missionary disciple. A fascinating and demanding path.”

In reflecting on the fascinating and demanding aspects of this path, the Pope said he immediately thought of young priests, who “live the joy of the beginning of ministry and, together, feel the weight.”

A young priest, he said, “lives between the enthusiasm of the first projects and the anxiety of apostolic fatigue, in which they immerse themselves with a certain fear, which is a sign of wisdom.”

While the joy and strength of his recent anointing is acutely felt, the new priest’s shoulders gradually become “burdened” by the weight of the responsibility of his various pastoral commitments and the expectations of his flock, the Pope observed.

“How does a young priest live all this? What does he carry in his heart? What does he need so that his feet, which run to bring the joyful announcement of the Gospel, are not paralyzed in front of the fear of the first difficulties?” the Pope asked.

He noted that young people today are frequently judged “a bit superficially, and are too easily labeled as a ‘liquid’ generation, deprived of passions and ideals.”

While there are certainly youth who are fragile, disoriented and “infected by the culture of consumerism and individualism,” this doesn’t mean that youth capable of generous service and involvement don’t exist, Francis said.

“With all their limits, they are always a resource,” he said, and urged participants to ask themselves how they, in their parishes, view young priests.

Turning again to the new Ratio, which speaks of the priest as “a missionary disciple in permanent formation,” Pope Francis underlined three attitudes he said are key for any priest, but especially those who are just beginning their ministry.

These attitudes, he said, are: to pray without ceasing, to always walk and to share with your heart.

Consistent prayer is essential in the life of a priest “because we can be fishers of men only if we first recognize that we have been ‘caught’ by the tenderness of the Lord,” he said.

Like the fishermen of Galilee who dropped their nets and followed Jesus, priests have also left behind their own personal plans in order to take up their own nets and “catch” the faithful entrusted to them, the Pope said, adding that “if we are not strictly linked to (the Lord), our fishing will never be successful.”

To live in harmony in prayer, work and rest “represents a precious resource to face apostolic fatigues,” Francis said, stressing that “every day we need to stop ourselves, putting ourselves in a position to listen to the Word of God and to pause in front of the tabernacle.”

He also touched on the need to listen to one’s body, “which is a good doctor,” and which tells us when we’ve reached the limit.

On the need to always keep walking, the Pope said this is important because a priest never really “arrives,” but remains a disciple, a pilgrim “overlooking the threshold of the ministry of God and the holy ground of the people entrusted to him.”

A priest, Pope Francis said, can never “feel satisfied” or let go of a certain “healthy apprehension that makes him stretch out his hands to the Lord” in order to be trained and fulfilled.

He told priests to always “be open to the surprises of God,” adding that with this openness to what is new, young priests especially “can be creative in evangelization, frequenting with discernment the new places of communication, where faces, stories and the questions of people are met, developing the ability to socialize, to relate and to announce the faith.”

Finally, Francis pointed to the need to share with one’s heart, because “priestly life is not a bureaucratic office nor a collection of religious or liturgical practices to get through.”

Priests, he said, carry in their own flesh “the joys and anguish of the people,” spending time with them and listening “in order to heal the wounds of others, and offering the tenderness of the Father to all.”

New priests have a prime opportunity to live this experience by sharing with youth and teens, Francis said, explaining that this means being with them “not only as a friend among others, but as the one who knows how to share their life with his heart, to listen to their questions and participate concretely in the different ups and downs of their lives.”

“Youth don’t need a professional on the sacred or a hero who, from above and from the outside, responds to their questions,” he said. “Rather, they are attracted by whoever sincerely commits their lives, supporting them with respect and listening to them with love.”

To genuinely share their experiences “means having a heart full of passion and compassion, above all toward youth,” the Pope said, adding that these three qualities imply the priestly life is lived by “looking up and thinking big.”

“It’s not an easy task, but one can full trust in the Lord, because He always precedes us on the journey!” he said, and asked for Mary’s intercession and guidance.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

VATICAN NEWS

Audience with the participants in the meeting organized by the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe

The Holy See Press Office • June 1, 2017

Vatican City — At midday today, in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father Francis received in audience the participants in the meeting organized by the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe to for the 20th anniversary of its founding.

The following is the Pope’s address to those present at the meeting:

Address of the Holy Father

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I offer you a warm greeting, dear families belonging to this Federation that is celebrating its twentieth anniversary. I thank your President, Antoine Renard, for his kind words.

Twenty years is not much time to attempt an overall assessment, but it is certainly a good occasion to give thanks for the vitality and the enthusiasm with which you have carried out your daily commitment. Your Association, “young” in spirit and in years, is called to attract others in the service of families, so that Europe can continue to consider the family its most precious treasure. This image of “treasure” was present in your meeting yesterday, which brought families from many countries of Europe to Rome. It is an image that well reflects the esteem that all of us must have for the family. In effect, families are not museum pieces, but through them, the gift is made concrete in mutual commitment and generous openness to children, but also in service to society. Families are thus a kind of leaven that helps to make the world more humane and more fraternal, where no one feels rejected or abandoned.

1. Your wide gamut of activities is summed up in integral service to the family, which is the fundamental cell of society, as I recently reiterated to the authorities of the European Union gathered for the sixtieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. Your work, in both the ecclesial and civil sectors, would at first sight seem to respond to a variety of disparate needs. Yet in fact it responds to the service of that good news which is the family. In Amoris Laetitia, I emphasized how, on the basis of the family, we can make the gift concrete through the beauty and the joy of mutual love. Seen in this light, your activity should help remind everyone that there is no better ally for the integral progress of society than to favor the presence of families in the social fabric. Today too, the family is the foundation of society and it remains the most suitable structure for ensuring for people the integral good necessary for their continuing development. I wanted to stress how the unity of all the members of the family, and the fraternal commitment of the family with society, are allies of the common good and of peace, also in Europe.

The family is the interpersonal relationship par excellence, inasmuch as it is a communion of persons. Your relationships as spouses, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, make it possible for every person to find a place in the human family. The way to live out these relationships is dictated by communion, the driving force of true humanization and evangelization. Today more than ever, we see the need for a culture of encounter that can enhance unity in diversity, reciprocity and solidarity between generations. This “family capital” is called to impregnate the economic, social and political relationships of the European continent. The way of “being family” that you want to spread is not subject to any contingent ideology, but grounded in the inviolable dignity of the person. On the basis of that dignity, Europe will be able to be truly one family of peoples (cf. Address to the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 25 November 2014).

2. Crises of different types are presently springing up in Europe, not least in the institution of the family. But crises are incentives to work harder and better, with trust and hope.

I am familiar with your initiatives to promote concrete policies favoring the family in the areas of the economy and employment, and not only these, with the goal of procuring a dignified and fitting employment for all, especially the young, who in many areas of Europe endure the scourge of unemployment. In these initiatives, as well as in others directly related to the legislative field, concern for showing respect and for the dignity of each person should always prevail. In this sense, the culture of encounter always includes an attitude of dialogue in which listening is always necessary. May your dialogue be always based on actions, testimonies, experiences and lifestyles that speak more loudly than your speeches and programs. This is indispensable for if families are to play the role of “protagonists” to which my predecessor Saint John Paul II called them (Familiaris Consortio, 44).

Four crises in particular affect Europe at the present time: demographics, migration, employment and education. These crises might find positive outcomes precisely in the culture of encounter, if different social, economic and political actors were to join in shaping policies supportive of families. In these four areas, you are already working to propose answers tailored to families, seeing in the latter a resource and an ally for the person and his or her milieu. In this sense, your task very often will be to invite to a constructive dialogue with the various actors on the social scene, without concealing your Christian identity. Indeed, that identity will enable you always to look beyond appearances and the present moment. As you have clearly stressed, the culture of the ephemeral calls for an education for the future.

3. To carry out this demanding work, the family cannot remain isolated like a monad. Families need to go out from themselves; they need to dialogue and to encounter others, in order to build a unity that is not uniformity and that can generate progress and advance the common good.

Dear families, you have received much from your elders. They are the permanent memory that must encourage us to employ the wisdom of the heart and not merely technical expertise in crafting initiatives about the family and for the family. They are the memory and the younger generations are the responsibility facing you. With this wisdom, for example, your service to the sacredness of life takes concrete form in the covenant between generations and in service to all, especially those most in need, the disabled and orphans. It takes concrete form in solidarity with migrants, in the patient art of education that views each young person as a subject worthy of all the family’s love, in defending the right to life of the unborn who have no voice, and in ensuring dignified living conditions for the elderly.

The work before you is great and complex. Only by strengthening your association and inviting other families to join with you, will the task become less arduous, since union makes for strength. Frequently it will fall to you to be the ferment that teaches others to work together, respecting legitimate differences and approaches.

4. In conclusion, I encourage you to develop with creativity new methods and resources, so that the family can exercise, both in the ecclesial and the civil sectors, the threefold task of supporting the younger generation, accompanying others along the often rocky roads of life, and pointing to values and meanings in the journey of everyday life. This threefold mission can be a specific contribution that your Federation, by its daily service, can offer to families in Europe.

I give you my blessing and I accompany you with my prayers, asking the intercession of the Holy Family of Nazareth. And I ask you, please, not to forget to pray for me.

Copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana (vatican.va)

VATICAN NEWS

Looking forward to 10 years of Summorum Pontificum

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • June 1, 2017

A Mass said for the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage in Rome held on Oct. 25, 2014. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Vatican City — Ten years after Benedict XVI broadened access to the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, the document by which he did so is being hailed as a means of closing the rift of division following liturgical changes made after the Second Vatican Council.

“Sometimes there are these polemics, but I think Benedict tried to overcome these polemics, saying that even in the liturgy there is a certain progress … but clearly in full continuity with the tradition of the Church,” Fr. Vincenzo Nuara, OP, told CNA May 31.

Tensions were heightened after the Second Vatican Council’s reforms, and “unfortunately these situations of contrast, of opposition are created” even today, Fr. Nuara said.

In light of this situation, Benedict XVI’s 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, which widened access to the pre-Vatican II liturgy, “was not an instrument to divide” or throw further fuel on the flames, he said.

Rather, “it was an instrument to unite. To unite, and to bring again that ecclesial peace that’s needed in this time.”

“I see it as a positive instrument, not negative,” Fr. Nuara said. “It’s not an instrument for going backwards. It’s an instrument to reconnect ourselves in continuity” with different ecclesial styles.

Fr. Nuara is president of the association “Priestly Friends of Summorum Pontificum“ and founder and spiritual assistant of the “Youth and Tradition“ association.

He is also one of the organizers of an upcoming Sept. 14-17 pilgrimage marking the 10th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum, and spoke to journalists at a working breakfast on the event.

The motu proprio was issued July 7, 2007, and went into effect Sept. 14 of that year, the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

The document established that the post-Vatican II Roman Missal, first issued by Blessed Paul VI, is the ordinary form of the Roman rite, and that the prior version, last issued by St. John XXIII in 1962 and known as the Traditional Latin Mass or the Tridentine Mass, is the Roman rite’s extraordinary form.

In the motu proprio, Benedict noted that the Traditional Latin Mass was never abrogated. He acknowledged clearly the right of all priests of the Roman rite to say Mass using the Roman Missal of 1962, and established that parish priests should be willing say the extraordinary form for groups of the faithful who request it.

Benedict also established that the faithful could have recourse to their bishop or even the Vatican if their requests for celebration of the extraordinary form were not satisfied.

The provisions of Summorum Pontificum for the use of the extraordinary form replaced those of St. John Paul II laid down in Quattuor abhinc annos and Ecclesia Dei.

According to that indult, priests and faithful who wished to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass had to get permission from their bishop to do so. It could only be for those who requested it, could not normally be said at parish churches, and the bishop could set days and conditions for its celebration.

After the Second Vatican Council, the Missal issued by Bl. Paul VI, also known as the Novus Ordo, was widely adopted. It was widely translated into vernacular languages, and is often celebrated with the priest facing toward the congregation.

However, not a few faithful continued to be attached to the earlier form of the liturgy, and Benedict’s motu proprio was considered a generous response to these faithful.

Benedict wrote in the motu proprio that the two forms “will in no way lead to a division” in the Church’s belief “for they are two usages of the one Roman rite.”

In his letter to bishops accompanying Summorum Pontificum, Benedict also noted that “the two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching.”

Fr. Nuara reflected that since Summorum Pontificum, “those who have permission to use the ancient form of the liturgy have also at the same time rediscovered the sanctity of the new.”

This mutual enrichment is a discovery Fr. Nuara said he himself has made in his 25 years as a priest, during which he has celebrated both the new and ancient liturgical formulas.

But it is also a discovery “that many (other) priests have made.”

“Benedict is a positive man. Benedict, who reflects as a theologian and a pastor, realized that the ancient form that has grown in the history of the Church for years, can give new impetus to the new form,” he said.

The Mass “is the bridge where they meet, because the Eucharist is the point of encounter … the sacrament of unity,” Fr. Nuara said, adding that what “must be avoided” is that people “take advantage of their particular trend or attention to one or the other liturgy, to create fences of division and separation.”

Benedict himself celebrated the new form of the liturgy “with great dignity,” but before his election as Bishop of Rome was also known to celebrate the ancient liturgy with the same esteem.

What Summorum Pontificum seeks to do, then, is to work for this unity, he said, adding that at 10 years since its publication, his hope is that people from both sides will work toward this goal.

“We want to send, to communicate this message,” he said. “Because the Church is a family, the family of God.”

When the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage takes place in September, it will be a privileged time to show this unity, he said.

The event’s first day, held at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, will feature keynote addresses from Archbishop Guido Pozzo, secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei; Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and president of the PCED; and Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship.

Pilgrims who come will participate in various other activities throughout the rest of the three days, including adoration and a Eucharistic procession presided over by Archbishop Pozzo on Sept. 16, followed by a Pontifical High Mass said by Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, Archbishop Emeritus of Bologna.

Titled “Summorum Pontificum: A renewed youth for the Church,” the pilgrimage is being organized by the “Priestly Friends of Summorum Pontificum“ and “Youth and Tradition” associations in partnership with the Coetus Internationalis Summorum Pontificum.

Speaking of the title in comments to journalists, Fr. Nuara noted that a “truly surprising” phenomenon is that the “true protagonists” of this new “season of the Church … are the youth.”

In his letter accompanying the motu proprio, Benedict had noted that while “it has clearly been demonstrated that young persons too have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist, particularly suited to them.”

“Benedict XVI already in 2007 was aware that the new recipients of this liturgy, loved, desired and also sought, were the youth,” Fr. Nuara said.

Pope Francis has also commented on the fact that many of the enthusiasts for the Traditional Latin Mass are young people who never knew it growing up, but encountered it later.

“Youth can’t be nostalgic for something they didn’t know,” Fr. Nuara said, adding that “this is very nice, because by experience I can say that the youth who draw near to the ancient liturgy of the Church love it” for the reverence and silence of the celebration.

In celebrating the ancient form, “you really understand who is at the center, who the protagonist is,” the priest said, noting that “youth understand very well that this liturgy speaks of … the essential truth of the faith.”

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

VATICAN NEWS

Pope Francis to honor two priests who lived ahead of their times

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • June 1, 2017

Pope Francis greets pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square at the General Audience on Oct. 19, 2016. (Lucia Ballester/CNA)

Vatican City — With a visit to the tombs of Father Lorenzo Milani and Father Primo Mazzolari this June, Pope Francis will pay homage to two historic Italians who aimed to change their society for the better.

Both Fr. Milani and Fr. Mazzolari combined their social advocacy with a profound devotion and obedience to the Church.

Both priests have been wrongly portrayed as “anti-clerical” priests. Their writings have often been misquoted in order to make them appear to dissent from the Church. However, they always obeyed any restriction the Church placed upon them, and they never preached outside of the Catholic Church.

Fr. Mazzolari believed that a parish priest was called to be a reference point for the community, and also called to work for the re-evangelization of Christianity. He clearly describes this approach in his book “La Bella Avventura,” or “The Beautiful Journey.”

Fr. Milani had a similar approach, which he applied by teaching poor children about the social doctrine of the Church. At a time of increasing communist influence in the region, he declared that “only the Gospel” would be his guide.

Pope Francis’ June 20 visit will start in the small municipality of Bozzolo in Lombardy, where Fr. Mazzolari is buried.

There, he will deliver a short commemorative speech. Then, he will go to the even smaller municipality of Barbiana in South Tyrol, where Fr. Milani lived. He will meet with some former students of the priest’s “people’s school.”

Father Primo Mazzolari was born in 1890 in a village close to Cremona, in Northern Italy. He entered the seminary in 1902, at the age of 11. Soon after being ordained a priest a decade later in 1912, he found himself discerning how to react to the First World War. He was originally in favor of Italy’s entry into the war. He worked as a military chaplain, but the war experience changed his mind. He became a strong pacifist.

He distinguished himself as an anti-fascist under Italy’s fascist regime. After Italy signed an armistice with Allied forces in 1943, he became an active member of the Italian Resistance against the Nazi occupation.

With the end of the Second World War, he developed a strong social commitment. He founded and edited the bi-monthly magazine “Adesso,” whose name means “Now.”

The magazine was shut down in 1951 under order of the Congregation of the Holy Office, which later became the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. That same year, the Holy Office barred the priest from preaching outside of his diocese.

At the time, pre-Vatican II, many of the social advocacy topics covered by “Adesso” were seen as controversial. In addition, the regent of the Pontifical Household wrote a book describing the publication as “combative.”

Within a year, “Adesso” was reopened, but Fr. Mazzolari was then ordered not to write about social issues. As was his response to every request from Church authorities, he obeyed.

The Mazzolari Foundation is dedicated to the priest’s legacy. Fr. Bruno Bignami, the foundation’s current president, met with Pope Francis at the end of April.

Fr. Bignami gave the Pope one of Fr. Mazzolari’s books and an issue of the foundation’s magazine, which included an article that emphasized the links between Fr. Mazzolari and Fr. Milani.

One of Fr. Mazzolari’s books, “You Shall Not Kill,” underscored a “preferential option for non-violence” which should be expressed in “a strong movement of Christian resistance against war,” Fr. Bignami said. These issues are echoed in Pope Francis’ latest message for the World Day of Peace.

Late in his life, Fr. Mazzolari met Pope St. John XXIII, who called him “the trumpet of the Holy Spirit.” Bl. Paul VI was known to voice appreciation for the priest after his death.

Historians recognize that Fr. Mazzolari had an impulsive personality, and was so bold that his words were hardly welcomed at first. He nevertheless humbly accepted the restrictions issued against him by the Holy Office from 1934 to 1960, though he always noted that he was never sanctioned for doctrinal issues. He died in 1959.

The cause for his beatification was started in 2013, and the Congregation for the Causes of Saints took up his case in 2015.

Equally faithful and impulsive was Fr. Milani.

Pope Francis lauded the priest in an April 23 video message for a presentation of Fr. Milani’s complete works.

Fr. Milani came from a wealthy family of staunch secularists, and converted to Catholicism in his youth. Ordained a priest in 1947, he had his first experience of parish life in the Church of San Donato near Florence. Then he was appointed parish priest of Barbiana, a small village in the Tuscany mountains, in December 1954. It was there that he began his commitment to the education of the poor.

A few days after his arrival, he gathered the youth in a “people’s school” originally created outside the official Italian educational system. In 1956, he organized a high school that offered training in industrial trades.

In 1958, he published the book “Pastoral Experiences,” in which he offered an analysis of the Church of the time. He offered his own explanation of the increasing divide between the Church and the Italian people.

The book bore the imprimatur of Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa, then-Archbishop of Florence, authorizing its publication. Its foreword was written by Bishop Giuseppe d’Avack of Camerino. Nevertheless, the Holy Office ordered the book removed from circulation, determining that although it did not contain doctrinal errors, reading it was “deemed not opportune.”

The prohibition was formally removed in 2014 by Pope Francis – at the request of Cardinal Giuseppe Betori of Florence, Fr. Milani’s old diocese – allowing “Pastoral Experience” to be reprinted without express ecclesiastical authorization.

Fr. Milani carried on with his educational project for the poor. In 1965, he again faced controversy when he wrote an open letter to Tuscany’s military chaplains.

The priest strongly criticized the chaplains’ statement that claimed that Christian conscientious objection was “strange to the Christian commandment of love and an expression of cowardice.”

The priest’s strong defense of Christian objection to war and military service was declared “a crime against the state” by political authorities, and Fr. Milani was tried for defending a crime. He was declared not guilty at his first trial but found guilty by the appeals court. He died of leukemia in 1967, before he faced sentencing.

Fr. Milani also co-authored a book with his boys and girls in Barbiana. The book, titled “Letter to A Professor,” expressed the need for more efforts to provide poor children with equal educational opportunities. The book has been translated to more than 40 languages.

As Pope Francis noted, Fr. Milani wrote: “I will never revolt against the Church, because I need for my sins to be forgiven several times a week, and I do not know where to seek this forgiveness if I left the Church.”

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

WORLD NEWS

In Iraq, necessity makes priests become engineers

CNA/EWTN News • May 27, 2017

(Unsplash)

Rome, Italy — Priests in Iraq are helping reconstruct around 13,000 homes in the Plain of Nineveh which have been damaged or destroyed by ISIS so that Christians will have a place to come back to.

To accomplish this, the Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has created a Commission for the Reconstruction of Nineveh.

Besides celebrating Mass, the priests also serve as surveyors and obtain electric service and materials for the reconstruction of homes. The first work is being done in places that ISIS occupied for a short time and where there is not a lot of material damage.

One of the members of this project is Fr. Georges Jahola, a Syrian Catholic priest from Qaraqosh.

The priest told ACN that “here in Iraq if the Church doesn’t do these things, who’s going to do them? We have the capacity to act and do the talking, and also the contacts.”

The reconstruction of the Plain of Nineveh includes five Chaldean Christian villages: Badnaya, Karamlesh, Telleskof, Bakofa and Telkef, located in the eastern part.

Fr. Salar Boudagh, another member of this initiative, said that $7,000 is needed to renovate a lightly damaged home. To restore a burned home costs $25,000 and to reconstruct a totally destroyed home runs $65,000.

“We have begun the reconstruction of Telleskof and Bakofa, because there damage to the homes is not too serious, as opposed to what is happening in Badnaya where 80 percent of the homes are destroyed,” the priest said.

“Before the arrival of the Islamic State 1,450 families lived in Telleskof, 110 in Bakofa, 950 in Badnaya, another 700 in Telkef and 875 in Karamlesh,” said Fr. Boudagh, who is also the Vicar General of the Chaldean Diocese of Alqosh.

“For these families, the first condition to return to their villages is security.”

The priest emphasized that “our area, the eastern part of the Nineveh Plain, is controlled by a Christian security force, the Zeravani, who are guaranteeing us 100 percent security. It’s an official militia which is paid by Kurdistan.”

In Qaraqosh, 6,327 houses of Syrian Catholics and 400 homes of Syrian Orthodox Christians must be rebuilt.

Fr. Jahola explained that after the liberation of Qaraqosh from the control of the jihadists, an operation which took place in November and December of 2016, 6,000 houses in the city were photographed. These were divided into sectors and classified according to the level of damage.

“There are very damaged or totally destroyed homes that would need to be rebuilt from the ground up, burned homes or hit by a missile that can be restored, and finally, there are homes partially damaged the we can renovate with little means,” he said.

“When we began we had a team of 20 volunteer engineers; now we have 40 and some 2,000 workers ready to begin work. We’re optimists, since electric service is slowly being restored throughout the city,” Fr. Jahola said.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

WORLD NEWS

Kidnapped Filipino priest pleads for help in video

by Elise Harris (CNA/EWTN News) • May 30, 2017

Fr. Chito Suganob. (YouTube)

Marawi, Philippines — A week after Islamist militants kidnapped some 240 Catholics in the Philippines, a video has surfaced online showing one of the hostages, Fr. Chito Suganob, calling for the government to halt their military offensive in the city.

Shown wearing a black polo and jeans, Fr. Suganob at the beginning of the 5-minute video lists the other “prisoners of war” taken hostage with him, including several Catholic college students and professors, as well as some 200 others, including women and children.

He speaks directly to Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, asking him to withdraw his army from the city and “to stop the airstrikes, and to stop the cannons.”

With a cracked voice, the priest, who is vicar general of the Marawi territorial prelature, asks the president to “please consider us,” saying that “it’s hard” for the hostages to bear, because they can hear gunfire and cannons going off around them.

The militants, he said, “don’t ask for anything … they just ask that you leave this place peacefully.”

Militants of the Maute group stormed the city of Marawi, on the southern Philippines island Mindanao, May 23. The group, formed in 2012, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2015.

The militants’ violence began after a failed army and police raid to capture Isnilon Hapilon, a local Islamist leader.

The Maute militants have burned several buildings, including the Catholic cathedral and the bishop’s residence. They are also said to have freed more than 100 inmates from prisons in the city. The fighting has reportedly killed at least 20 people in the city.

The group was blamed for a September 2016 bombing that killed 15 people in southern Davao, the president’s hometown. A military raid on their jungle camp last month reportedly found homemade bombs, grenades, combat uniforms, and passports of suspected Indonesian militants.

The militants have threatened to kill their hostages if the nation’s military fails to cease its current offensive against them.

Bishop Edwin de la Peña y Angot, Prelate of Marawi, told CBCP News that he was not home at the time of the attack, but his secretary is reportedly among the hostages.

The bishop said he received a phone call from a militant who used his secretary’s phone. On the other end of the line was a militant who introduced himself as a member of the Islamic State, and demanded a unilateral ceasefire.

Bishop Peña said he was allowed to speak with Fr. Suganob at the time in order to help make their demands clear.

“Mr. President, if you want me to kneel before you just to knock your heart in favor of our families who are crying out there in different places, for our relatives … we will do that,” the priest said.

He warned that the use of violence by the army will only put the lives of the hostages at further risk, since the militants are “ready to die for their religion.”

Speaking directly to Duterte, he stressed that “you can’t use force and violence because they have the commitment they will die for this.”

“Please consider us, we are victims,” he said, explaining that if needed, he would beg for their release and for the army to withdraw.

The video, according to CBCP News, first surfaced on the Facebook account of a user named “Datumasa Khalid.” Although it’s still unclear where the video was filmed, Fr. Suganob is seen standing in front of houses and vehicles that have been destroyed.

According to Philippines station ABS-DBN News, the death toll from fighting in Marawi has risen to 104, including some 65 militants, 20 government forces, and 19 civilians.

Much of the city’s population of more than 200,000 has fled the city, though officials believe as many as 2,000 have been trapped by the fighting.

In response, the area’s Caritas branch on May 29 launched a solidarity appeal asking dioceses to contribute what they can to help the displaced. As a start, the charitable organization has offered an initial 300,000 Philippine pesos ($6,000) for relief efforts in nearby Diocese of Iligan.

In the wake of the kidnapping, the Filipino bishops have urged prayers for Fr. Suganob and the other hostages.

While the majority of Filipinos are Catholic, they make up only five percent of the population in Marawi, a mostly Muslim city.

Archbishop Socrates Buenaventura Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, president of the Filipino bishops’ conference, last week urged prayers for peace and asked the militants to show mercy.

“We call on the Maute group that claims to bear arms in the name of a Merciful and Benevolent God – the very same God we Christians worship and adore – to do the One God true honor by the mercy and benevolence that are two of our God’s most exalted attributes,” he said May 24.

The archbishop also addressed the response of government forces, saying, “We beg of them to make the safety of the hostages a primordial consideration.”

Duterte, who has been heavily criticized for a brutal crackdown on illegal drugs, has placed all of Mindanao under martial law.

The president has sought peace talks with two large Muslim rebel groups in the country’s south but has ordered the military to destroy smaller extremist groups like the Maute.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

WORLD NEWS

South Korean president seeks Pope’s support in reconciliation efforts

by Andrea Gagliarducci (CNA/EWTN News) • May 31, 2017

North and South Korea flags. (Cigdem via Shutterstock)

Vatican City — On the eve of President Trump’s visit to the Holy See, the newly elected president of South Korea sent a special envoy to ask for Vatican support in efforts to foster reconciliation in the Korean peninsula.

Bishop Hyginus Kim Hee-jong, archbishop of Gwangju and president of the Korean Bishops Conference, served as South Korean president Moon Jae-in’s special envoy for a one-week mission.

He was able to meet with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, on May 23, and to talk briefly with Pope Francis at the end of morning Mass in Domus Sanctae Marthae on May 26.

“I was sent by the president to ask the Holy Father for his support in the reconciliation process between North and South Korea, and I hope the Vatican can act as a mediator,” he told CNA.

He added that the mediation “could be the same as the mediation made during the restoration of relations between Cuba and the Unites States.”

Bishop Kim said that one of the main goals of the mission is to ask the Holy See to facilitate the opening of relations between North Korea and the United States, which “would help Korea in the path toward reconciliation” with the South, as at the moment “North Korea has not the trust of Western countries.”

The bishop stressed that “dialogue is the only way. North Korea is trying to show its military strength, but we have to keep engaging in dialogue. If North Korea becomes open to dialogue, tensions in the Korean peninsula will drop.”

Bishop Kim said that the meeting with Cardinal Parolin was scheduled to be only 15 minutes, but lasted instead 45 minutes.

“Cardinal Parolin,” he underscored, “wanted to know in depth the situation in South Korea and the relations with the North. He agreed that dialogue is the only way out.”

The meeting with Pope Francis was just a short greeting at the end of the morning Mass. It lasted about five minutes, and Bishop Kim briefed the Holy Father on the Korean situation. “The Pope seemed very interested to get the details,” he said.

According to the bishop, “the Catholic Church is a reference point in South Korea. For any issue of national interest, they look at the Catholic Church, and look for the Church’s statements and recommendations.”

Bishop Kim is familiar with the situation inside North Korea, and has able to travel across the border a number of times. He will be in the North again next week as part of a delegation of seven South Korean religious leaders invited by Pyongyang to a meeting.

“There is the wish for North Korea to allow Catholics to travel to the South, and let South Korean priests to meet the communities in the North,” he explained.

“The Holy See has always been on the side of Korea in the difficult moments of its history, and we hope this will happen again. If we achieve peace between North and South Korea, we state as from now our commitment to work for peace in East Asia and, on a larger scale, for peace in the world. We want to be a tool for peace.”

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

WORLD NEWS

Rome conference to address safeguarding children online

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • May 31, 2017

(Unsplash)

Rome, Italy — An international congress in Rome this autumn will bring together experts to focus on the problem of online sexual abuse of minors and how to better safeguard children on the internet.

The Oct. 3-6 meeting is hosted by the Pontifical Gregorian University’s Center for Child Protection and will conclude in an audience with Pope Francis during which he will be presented a “Declaration on Child Dignity in the Digital World.”

According to a May 31 statement, there are 3.2 billion internet users worldwide, children making up over one quarter of these – about 800 million users. These children and adolescents “are vulnerable to entirely new forms of harm and abuse such as trolling, cyberbullying, sextortion, and grooming for sexual exploitation.”

The international congress “will focus on the latest scientific research and technical understanding in this field, bringing together global experts and decision makers to discuss the risks and challenges of the digital age and its impact on the dignity of children.”

The invitation-only meeting intends to bring in more than 140 academic experts, leaders in business and civil society, high-level politicians, and religious representatives recognized around the globe.

The four days will include keynotes, plenary sessions, workshops, and a discussion forum focusing on the fields of cyber protection, cyber education, and cyber responsibility.

Afterward, the conference will issue a “Call for Papers” with the hope to stimulate innovative research and solutions to the problem of child protection online.

The congress is organized in partnership with WePROTECT Global Alliance, a movement dedicated to changing the handling of online child sexual exploitation around the world, and Telefono Azzurro, a non-profit whose purpose is the protection of minors from abuse and violence.

Fr. Hans Zollner, SJ, president of the CCP and a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, said in a statement that “the congress provides an outstanding opportunity to exchange knowledge and good practice on risks and prevention as children navigate this new digital world.”

Ernesto Caffo, the scientific coordinator of the congress, added that they “are proud to bring

together many of the world’s leading scholars and researchers in the field of child

victimization.”

Their goal for the conference being to “substantially expand the body of knowledge on these complex issues and generate true global dialogue.”

UK Minister for Internet Safety and Security Joanna Shields said that while our increasingly connected society greatly empowers children, it “also exposes them to risks that compromise their safety and wellbeing.”

“To address these escalating global threats we need a broad coalition of government, faith leaders, academia and industry, all committed to protecting the dignity of children in this digital age.”

The congress follows a day-long seminar held March 23 on the prevention of child abuse, hosted by the CCP and the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

The seminar 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.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

U.S. NEWS

Military chaplains help traumatized soldiers, but who helps them?

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • May 26, 2017

An army chaplain conducts a memorial service in Helmand, Afghanistan. (Defense Images via Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0)

Washington D.C. — As military veterans and victims of violence are treated for psychological trauma, the emotional wounds of missionaries and military chaplains might be overlooked, but are just as present.

And with mass shootings, suicides, and acts of terrorism on the rise, more and more first responders like policemen, firemen, hospital workers, and clergy will “continually bear the brunt” of experiencing these horrors.

That’s according to Monsignor Stephen Rosetti, a psychologist and former president of the St. Luke Institute, who spoke to CNA.

“The priests are helping others, and the question is who helps them?” he asked.

Monsignor Rosetti led the St. Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Md., an organization that provides psychological care for priests and religious in need of treatment for mental illness, addiction, and other disorders.

Part of the institute’s ministry is helping military chaplains and missionaries who have served in war-torn areas, but also religious who have ministered to victims of trauma at home – amidst events like natural disasters and mass shootings.

Military chaplains suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or other mental illnesses related to their ministry shared their struggles with the Washington Post last year. Repeatedly serving as a listening ear for the dark problems of soldiers, combined with experiencing the horror of battlefield combat and seeing the dead bodies of friends, can take its toll on a priest’s psyche.

“Just about all” priests and religious returning from a war-torn areas will need “some sort of support,” Monsignor Rossetti noted, like a “detoxing” in their transition from a stressful environment to life back in the U.S.

However, a few will require special attention, he said. These are cases where someone has experienced a particularly appalling atrocity or ongoing violence or stress, “almost too much for the human soul to bear.”

“I think especially of missionaries who are in violent areas,” he said, those who have witnessed “mass murders” or “unbelievable poverty and disease.”

For any clergyman traveling to a poor or war-torn area, “we try to train them as best we can to deal with such trauma” before they depart, the monsignor said, “but sometimes the situation is just so horrible that there’s a real human toll to it.”

Trauma – inflicted especially through acts of terrorism, mass shootings, and suicides – is on the rise, he said. The suicide rate in the U.S. is the highest in decades; the number of mass shootings are also on the rise.

Catholics cannot act as if the first responders like parish priests or military chaplains won’t be affected, he insisted. We must “help train them” to deal with trauma, he said, noting the need for “qualified laypeople” in fields like psychology.

Also, he added, “I think we shouldn’t isolate our chaplains.” Rather, we should be working to connect “first responders” like police, emergency medical technicians, hospital nurses and priests, who can talk about their experiences with each other and “support each other,” he said.

Tragedies can make or break someone’s faith, he added. If a person who has experienced trauma is treated with professional psychological care and a network of support, it can help sustain one’s faith and not break one’s spirit.

“Unspeakable sufferings do challenge our faith, and in times when our faith is a little bit too glib, it kind of bashes that and challenges it,” he admitted. “So these kind of events really challenge us to move deeper into the Lord’s passion and eventually, hopefully, His resurrection.”

“It can build up your faith in a new, deeper way, or sadly sometimes people lose their faith.”

This article was originally published on CNA June 5, 2016.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

U.S. NEWS

Portland archbishop calls for prayer, action following train stabbing

CNA/EWTN News • May 30, 2017

(Prath via Shutterstock)

Portland, OR — Archbishop Alexander K. Sample of Portland, Oregon, urged his followers on Facebook to practice Christ-like actions after a stabbing attack on a commuter train Friday left two people dead.

“I ask the faithful in western Oregon and all people to join me in taking some spiritual and practical actions in working towards peace and respect for those who make up this wonderful and diverse community,” Archbishop Sample wrote on Sunday.

Jeremy Joseph Christian, a 35-year-old convicted felon, shouted ethnic and religious slurs at two young women on the train, one of whom was described as wearing a Muslim head-covering, according to a statement from the Portland Police Department.

When three men attempted to intervene, Christian reportedly stabbed them before leaving the train. Ricky John Best, 53, died at the scene, and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche, 23, died in hospital. Micah David-Cole Fletcher, 21, remains in hospital in Portland with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, according to the police statement. Best was a member of Christ the King parish in Milwaukie, Oregon, according to the Archdiocese of Portland’s Catholic Sentinel.

Christian is currently being held without bail on two counts of aggravated murder and charges of attempted murder, intimidation and being a felon in possession of a restricted weapon.

Archbishop Sample urged the faithful, first and foremost, to pray for the victims and their families, for those who may feel unsafe in the city, and for those whose hearts have hardened to the love of God, turning to violence and hatred.

He also suggested they work with local citizens, government officials and faith-based agencies, such as Catholic Charities, to work to welcome all people to the Portland community.

“It is only through these Christ-like actions that we can truly make a real and tangible change to this continuing and growing disregard for the dignity of every human person,” the archbishop wrote.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

U.S. NEWS

Trump admin ponders new religious freedom rule for HHS mandate

by Kevin Jones (CNA/EWTN News) • May 31, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump. (Christopher Halloran via Shutterstock)

Washington D.C. — A leaked draft of a federal rule that would protect religious organizations from the controversial federal contraception mandate has won the support of religious liberty advocates, who say that it is sorely needed.

“What the rule ultimately says, is that, given how widely available these products already are, there is simply no need for the government to force unwilling religious groups who serve the poor to provide them or to pay massive fines that would shut down these types of ministries,” said Mark L. Rienzi, an attorney at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the legal group that represents the Little Sisters of the Poor.

“As I understand it, this rule shows the United States government finally acknowledging that people can get contraceptives without forcing nuns to provide them,” he said May 31.

Rienzi spoke to reporters in a Wednesday conference call about a 125-page draft memo of a religious liberty rule reportedly under consideration at the Department of Health and Human Services.

The rule would add to, not replace, an Obama-era HHS rule, announced in late 2011, that required employers’ health plans to include coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some drugs that can cause abortion. The initial rule’s religious exemption was so narrow it only exempted houses of worship, drawing widespread objections and lawsuits from more than 300 plaintiffs. Among those suing over the mandate is EWTN Global Catholic Network. CNA is part of the EWTN family.

Subsequent revisions allowed some changes to the mandate for some religious entities. However, groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor objected that the rule still required their complicity in providing such coverage, which violates their religious and moral standards. Refusal to comply with the rule would result in heavy – potentially crippling – fines.

The draft religious liberty rule would allow any employer to request an exemption based on moral or religious objections.

“Expanding the exemption removes religious and moral obstacles that entities and certain individuals may face who otherwise wish to participate in the healthcare market,” said the May 23 draft posted to the news site Vox.

Employers seeking an exemption would have to have a clear statement in their health plan documents that they do not cover contraception or related products. The rule would also allow health insurers to decline to cover contraception and allow individuals to object to participation in a health plan that covers birth control.

During his presidential run, Donald Trump had pledged to aid the Little Sisters of the Poor in an October letter to Catholic leaders.

And in a May 4 executive order, he asked three cabinet departments to consider amended rules that would “address conscience-based objections to the preventive-care mandate.”

The same day, he hosted the Little Sisters of the Poor in the Rose Garden of the White House.

“With this executive order,” he said, “we are ending the attacks on religious liberty.”

However, their legal fight continues. Rienzi said the Little Sisters will still seek a court order to bar the government from imposing similar requirements in the future.

While a new federal rule protecting religious liberty would be “a very good thing,” he said, the Little Sisters have always wanted a court to definitively say that “the government cannot force them to provide abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception.”

“The alternative would be a world where the Little Sisters of the Poor and other groups, every four to eight years, have to be staring at the Federal Register, waiting and worrying to see whether the government is going to try to re-impose this.”

The Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision of 2014 ruled that the mandate violated the religious freedom of closely-held private companies, but this did not apply to the Little Sisters’ case, as their organization is a non-profit. In May 2016, the Supreme Court ordered a lower court to re-hear the nuns’ case, a decision considered a technical win for the Little Sisters.

One backer of the Obama-era rule, National Women’s Law Center vice president Gretchen Borchelt, told the New York Times she did not know the details of the new rule. Nonetheless, she charged that whatever the rule is, her group thinks it will “allow an employer’s religious beliefs to keep birth control away from women.”

She said her organization was preparing a lawsuit to challenge the proposed rule. Possible grounds for the lawsuit could be inadequate explanation or justification for the rule, which makes it “arbitrary and capricious.” She thought the lawsuit could argue that the 2010 Affordable Health Care Act bars discrimination in health programs that receive federal funds. The act also bars the health secretary from issuing any rule that “impedes timely access to health care services” or creates “unreasonable barriers” for individuals seeking “appropriate medical care.”

Rienzi said such lawsuits would not succeed, given that these groups did not challenge the Obama administration’s other non-religious exemptions from mandatory contraception in health plans.

“There’s nothing at all unreasonable about the federal government respecting religious liberty. Congress didn’t impose this requirement in the first place, the agency did,” he said.

The Kaiser Family Foundation said that before the mandate, more than 20 percent of U.S. women of childbearing age paid out-of-pocket for oral contraceptives. After the mandate, that number is now 4 percent.

According to Rienzi, figures on contraception coverage and contraceptive use ignore that the Obama administration had already exempted about one in three Americans, either on grandfathered plans or other government plans like military families. Big companies like Chevron and Pepsi were exempted by Congress for reasons of finance and convenience.

“About 100 million Americans did not have plans subject to this mandate,” he said.

“Some of the criticisms of the rule, at least that we’re seeing so far, suggest that it will take contraceptives away from many people,” he added. “That is quite inaccurate.”

Rienzi estimated only 120,000 to 130,000 people were employed by religious employers that would qualify for exemptions.

“Obviously this country has a lot of ways to get contraception to people without forcing Catholic nuns to get involved. It’s certainly a big enough country that we have room both for religious Catholic nuns and for people who want access to contraception,” Rienzi said.

Other backers of the draft religious freedom rule included the Susan B. Anthony List.

“The taking of human life is the antithesis of health care,” the group said. “No one, including religious orders like the Little Sisters of the Poor, or groups like Susan B. Anthony List should be forced to be complicit in the provision of abortion inducing drugs and devices.”

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

U.S. NEWS

Planned Parenthood’s services are declining, except for abortion

CNA/EWTN News • June 1, 2017

(Glynnis Jones via Shutterstock)

Washington D.C. — The controversial abortion provider Planned Parenthood has lost over half a million unique patients in five years, but its abortion figures remain the same – a consistency its critics have blasted.

“While non-abortion services are declining, Planned Parenthood continues to perform a record number of abortions – over 300,000 per year,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, Susan B. Anthony List president.

“They’ve performed more than 1.6 million abortions in the last five years alone.”

The pro-life group, citing the abortion provider’s own annual reports, said that in the period from 2011-2016 Planned Parenthood’s number of unique patients have dropped by 600,000, a 20 percent decline. Cancer screenings have halved, while contraceptive services are down 18 percent. STD screenings have dropped five percent.

At the same time, its abortion numbers are stable. In the last five years, Planned Parenthood performed about 11,290 adoption referrals total. That makes a ratio of 145 abortions for each adoption referral.

“Women are turning away from abortion giant Planned Parenthood,” Dannenfelser said. “It’s time to re-direct Planned Parenthood’s funding to community health centers.”

“Taxpayers would be disentangled from the grisly abortion industry and get a better return on their investment in women’s health,” she said.

While the abortion provider enjoyed protection and influence under the Obama administration, the U.S. House of Representatives has now passed a bill that would defund Planned Parenthood for one year. The proposal would shift $422 million to community health care centers.

The Susan B. Anthony List backs the shift, saying that community health centers have strong bipartisan support and work in under-served communities. The centers provide mammograms, mental heath services, and other care for women that is not available at Planned Parenthood.

The abortion provider’s latest annual report said its website has received nearly 70 million visitors from 2015-2016. The report claims 75 percent of Americans support continued Medicaid reimbursement for preventive care at Planned Parenthood.

The report describes attacks on Planned Parenthood as having reached “fever pitch,” citing “a record number of state laws” regulating abortion. The organization claimed to have nearly 650 Planned Parenthood health centers in the year 2015.

The organization is struggling in some parts of the country. Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains recently announced the closure of six facilities in its region due to financial concerns, including its only Wyoming clinic. Four Iowa facilities will also close.

The abortion provider is under scrutiny after the release of investigative reports beginning in 2015 appearing to show Planned Parenthood leaders involved in the illegal sale of unborn baby parts and other fetal tissue for profit. The reports prompted a multi-million dollar damage control campaign from Planned Parenthood and its allies like the Open Society Foundations, the Hewlett Foundation and the Democracy Alliance, records from the Open Society Foundations indicate.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

U.S. NEWS

Illinois makes foster care workers support transgenderism

CNA/EWTN News • June 2, 2017

(Nito via Shutterstock)

Chicago, IL — Earlier this month, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) issued new standards that require its employees and potential foster parents to accept and encourage children who wish to alter their gender.

The new policies state that the department “will not tolerate exposing LGBTQ children and youth to staff/providers who are not supportive of children and youths’ right to self-determination of sexual/gender identity,” The Federalist reported earlier this week.

According to the standards, all children have a “right to self-determination of gender and sexual orientation” and to choose their “sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression” which should be viewed as “developmental milestones, not problematic behavior.”

The role of social workers and foster parents is to “facilitate exploration of any LGBTQ matters through an affirming approach … by being open, non-judgmental, and empathic.”

The standards were created with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has long championed extreme LGBT and transgender ideology, and targets any staff, volunteers or potential foster parents who are not sufficiently “LGBTQ-affirming.” Non-compliant adults face either “discipline” or “discharge.”

Mary Rice Hasson, director of the Catholic Women’s Forum at The Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., criticized the new policies in an opinion piece in The Federalist last week, noting that the “fiat” to the new ideology now trumps biological facts.

“No matter that sexual difference is a scientific fact, or that billions of sane people across the world acknowledge it,” she said.

The standards also state that the agency will not contract with any private agencies unless their policies are “at least as extensive” as the department’s LGBTQ policies.

“… the state’s child welfare agency is a closed shop, populated with closed minds, and intends to keep it that way. No believers in the binary need apply,” Hasson said.

She also noted that because parents relinquish all responsibility and authority over their children when they are wards of the state, parents could not request that their child not receive transgender procedures. They would simply be informed if or when their child has started hormone therapy or other treatments.

In an interview with The Christian Post, Meg Kilgannon, executive director of the Fairfax, Virginia-based Concerned Parents and Educators, criticized the policy, saying that it is ultimately an “erasure of the human person.”

She noted that this policy illustrates deeper issues regarding transgenderism than the much-discussed “bathroom wars” that often make headlines.

“… when you really start to dig into this issue and you start to think about all of the ramifications that something like this means, you discover that gender identity compels speech” by coercing people to use compliant words and pronouns, she said.

“If a government entity is set to be the ultimate arbiter of someone’s truth, being or existence, then at what point do parents get left out of the equation?” Kilgannon asked.

Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled against a similarly coersive transgender policy - the Obama administration’s mandate that health professionals must carry out gender reassignment surgeries, even if they have medical or religious objections.

“The regulation not only forces healthcare professionals to violate their medical judgment, it requires them to violate their deeply held religious beliefs,” U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas said in a Dec. 31 decision granting a temporary injunction against the Obama administration.

“Tragically, the regulation would force them to violate those religious beliefs and perform harmful medical transition procedures or else suffer massive financial liability,” the judge added.

Many in the medical field have expressed serious concerns about encouraging transgenderism - particularly hormonal regimens and genital surgeries - in children.

In a paper entitled “Gender Ideology Harms Children,” last updated in May 2017, The American College of Pediatricians said that to encourage a child into thinking that “a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse,” they added.

Plastic surgeon Dr. Patrick Lappert said during a conference earlier this year that one of the biggest problems with transgender sex change surgeries is that they are permanent and irreversible in any meaningful way, Dr. Lappert said.

“… it’s a permanent, irreversible mutilation of the human person. And there’s no other word for it,” he said.

“It results in permanent sterility. It’s a permanent dissolution of the unitive and the procreative functions. And even the unitive aspect of the sexual embrace is radically hindered if not utterly destroyed,” he said.

This is not the first time that the Illinois DCFS has introduced controversial LGBTQ policies. In 2011, they became the first state to force the Catholic Church out of adoption and foster care services for their refusal to place children with same-sex couples.

Currently, the DCFS is also embroiled in another controversy regarding the death of Semaj Crosby, a foster child under their care. It was announced Wednesday that current DCFS director George Sheldon has resigned in the face of the ethics probe. In the last five years, the DCFS has gone through eight directors or acting directors amid various failures in leadership, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

FEATURES

Why women aren’t choosing adoption – and how pro-lifers can change that

by Matt Hadro (CNA/EWTN News) • May 29, 2017

(Unsplash)

Washington D.C. — At 21 years old, Millie Lopus was pregnant and scared. A rising college senior at Loyola University Maryland, she was being pressured into having an abortion by her ex-boyfriend, the father of the child.

But after he drove Millie to a nearby Planned Parenthood to set up an abortion appointment, she recalled having “a sliver of grace,” and she “did not set up an appointment that day.”

“I chose instead to go through with the pregnancy,” she recalled, and gave the baby up for adoption. “I am eternally grateful that I have been spared the abortion experience,” Lopus said at a May 15 panel on “Adopting Life.”

The Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C. hosted a three-part panel series on adoption on May 8, May 15, and May 22. The goal was to discuss how the pro-life movement can create a “radical culture of hospitality” for those facing a crisis pregnancy, and for their children.

Lopus’ story reflects countless other narratives of young mothers who are pressured against giving their baby up for adoption.

Today, mothers choose abortion at a far greater rate than adoption. In 2014, there were almost 1 million abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, but there were only 18,329 infant domestic adoptions, according to numbers provided by the National Council for Adoptions.

“Adoption as a real solution is often overlooked,” said Elizabeth Kirk, a writer and researcher who spoke on one of the CIC panels.

There are several reasons for this, she explained. Women have said in studies that “adoption is not a realistic option for them” and that they would suffer more guilt in leaving their child to an unknown future than in terminating the pregnancy.

They may also be facing pressure from loved ones or advisors against adoption. There are reported instances of Planned Parenthood workers “advising women that adoption is more traumatic than abortion,” Kirk said. Even crisis pregnancy centers may be reticent to bring up adoption to a mother because they fear that broaching the topic may “drive her to abort her child.”

Yet if a women is truly incapable of raising her child, and adoption isn’t in the picture, then abortion may seem like “the only real choice,” she said.

As for Millie Lopus? After she decided to carry the baby to term, she returned to school for the fall semester of her senior year. She played the entire tennis season, where she finished first in the conference in the doubles tournament. She left Loyola in the spring to have her baby daughter, and gave her up for adoption to a Catholic family.

Her daughter is now 24 years old, an actor and singer, and Lopus has three other children of her own. She now directs the New Women’s Care Center in Baltimore, a Catholic pro-life crisis pregnancy resource center offering free pregnancy tests, sonograms, and resources for pregnant mothers. For post-abortive women, they also refer for retreats through Project Rachel.

Yet within the pro-life movement, there still exists a debate over how much emphasis to place on the option of adoption. Many mothers may be emotionally or financially unable to raise their child and some, like Kirk, argue that far too little is said to these mothers about their option to give their child up for adoption.

Negative stories from the foster care system may be responsible for much of the stigma against adoption, even though mothers have the choice of offering a child for adoption privately or through a small center. There are almost 112,000 children waiting to be adopted in the foster care system, the average wait time being 31.8 months. Around 55 percent of the children have been placed with families three or more times, Kirk noted.

Studies show detrimental effects on children the longer they stay in the system, deficits in education, relationships, and an uptick in future criminal activity.

As a result, pregnant women “think their children are better off dead than placed with an adoptive family,” Kirk said.

Yet many Catholic parents are waiting to adopt and love a child, especially if they are not able to have any of their own, panel members insisted.

Once the prohibitive costs of the process are removed from the equation, “everyone starts looking at adoption for what it really is, it’s the greatest act of love,” Mary L. Ball, J.D., founder of Holy Family Adoption Agency, said at the May 15 CIC panel.

Birth mothers “want more for their child than they can give them,” she said, while a married couple is also looking to give a child unconditional love.

“I really think that adoption is the missing link in the pro-life movement,” she said. “We don’t talk enough about it.”

Dr. Grazie Christie, a radiologist and a policy advisor for The Catholic Association, agreed, and shared her own decision to adopt after having four children.

“We didn’t need a child. We had plenty of children,” she said of her family, yet “we had so much” and wanted to adopt as “an act of love.” They adopted a child from outside the U.S.

Yet she wasn’t ready for the skepticism and criticism she faced for her decision.

“We got a lot of negativity from people around us,” she said, including questions and observations like “You’re crazy,” “You don’t know what you’re going to get,” “You’re going out to get other people’s problems and bring them home,” and “Don’t you have enough children?”

“I was pained by it,” she said, but when she received her new daughter and began caring for her, “it was hands-down the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me.”

More married couples, upon finding that they are unable to have children, are turning to fertility treatments or in-vitro fertilization, but there are thousands of babies available for adoption, aching for a home, Dr. Christie said.

Ultimately, Christians and pro-lifers should be doing much more to promote adoption even if they themselves can’t adopt children, panel experts insisted.

“We have to very much, very specifically, very purposefully build a culture of adoption,” Dr. Christie said. “It has to be seen as yet another way that God matches children with their parents.”

“We all have a duty to practice this kind of radical hospitality” and “welcome the stranger,” Kirk said. And today’s stranger is the unwanted child in danger of abortion, she added. “Every couple is called to think about what they’re doing to help the orphan, to help the widow.”

This doesn’t necessarily mean that all couples must adopt a child, however.

For instance, Tina Andrews is CEO of ADORE Children and Family Services, which is a “therapeutic foster care agency” for children who have been neglected or abused. For prospective parents, she promotes “fostering to adopt,” where couples must undergo 40 hours of training and be involved in a foster parent support group before they can be paired with a child. ADORE monitors the placement of the child even after the family takes them in.

Many parents may “want a child,” she said, but they lack the parenting skills or the necessary support system for a child, and so her group looks to make sure that the fit will be the right one.

However, promoting adoption may be as simple as “educating people about the reality of what contemporary adoption looks like,” Kirk said. Now, a mother has more power to choose the family she will place her child with, and this growth in culture should be talked about.

Dr. Christie said that while going through the adoption process, she was struck by the fact that adoption mirrors God’s relationship with us.

“In bringing joy to others, in redeeming others” through adoption, “we allow ourselves to be redeemed in the process,” added Rabbi Mitchell Rocklin, resident research fellow at the Tikvah Fund.

“We need to live by example in this area,” he said of pro-lifers. “I think it’s a cultural change that needs to happen.”

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

FEATURES

Silence and the meaning of the Mass

by Bishop Robert Barron • May 30, 2017

Robert Cardinal Sarah’s recent book The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise explores a number of themes both theological and spiritual, all centering around the unhappy role that noise has come to play in our culture and more specifically in the Church. His observations are most trenchant in regard to the liturgy, which should come as no great surprise, given his role as head of the Vatican Congregation devoted to liturgy and sacraments. As I read the sections of his book dealing with the importance of silence during Mass, I often found myself nodding vigorously.

I came of age in the period immediately following the Second Vatican Council, when an enormous stress was placed, quite legitimately, on the conciliar call for “full, conscious, and active participation” in the Mass. That famous phrase, derived from the ground-breaking work of the theologians of the liturgical movement of the early and mid twentieth century, was a clarion call to the laity to assume their rightful role as real actors in the liturgy and not mere spectators. But in its practical application this came too often to imply that the laity must be continually stimulated into action during the Mass: processing, standing, singing, responding, clapping, etc. It was as though the directors and leaders of the liturgy felt they must be constantly grabbing the congregation by the shoulders and shaking them into conscious participation.

Silence, accordingly, tended to be construed as the enemy, for it would lull the people into inattention and boredom. Hardly anyone in the post-conciliar liturgical establishment appreciated that silence could be a sign of heightened, even enraptured, attention on the part of the congregation, a deeply contemplative entry into the mystery of the Mass. And what several decades of this in turn has produced, especially among the young today, is the impression that the Mass is a sort of religiously-themed jamboree, during which our fellowship is celebrated and at which lots and lots of sound is indispensable. I will confess that during many years as a priest, and now as a bishop, I have often wondered whether our hyper-stimulated congregations know exactly what they are participating in. They know that they are active, but active precisely in what?

The Mass is the act by which the Son of God, in union with his mystical body, turns toward the Father in worship. Through our full, conscious, and active participation in this right praise, we become more rightly ordered, more completely configured to Christ and more thoroughly directed toward the Father. We do indeed experience heightened fellowship with one another during the Mass, but this is because we are realizing, not so much our mutual affection, but our common love of a transcendent third, to use Aristotle’s language.

In this regard, one of the most illuminating rubrics under which to read the Mass is that of call and response: Christ the head, through the priest who is acting in Christ’s person, calls out to the members of his mystical body, and they respond, somewhat in the manner of the lovers in the Song of Songs. At the very commencement of the liturgy, the priest (again, operating not in his own name but in persona Christi) says, “The Lord be with you,” and the people respond, “and with your spirit.” The spirit in question here is the power of Christ dwelling in the priest through the sacrament of Holy Orders. This exchange continues throughout the Mass, Head and members conversing with one another and solidifying their communion. Jesus speaks his Word in the Old Testament readings and in the Pauline epistles, and the members of his body sing back to him in the responsorial psalm; Jesus announces himself in the Gospel, and the people chant back, “Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ;” Jesus breaks open the Word through the preaching of the priest, and the people respond with the Creed, a signal of their faith.

Having prepared the gifts (presented by the people), the priest says, “Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the Father almighty.” This line is of great significance, for it signals the moment when Christ and the members of his body are turning toward the Father in order to perform an act of sacrifice and thanksgiving. How beautifully the Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer expresses this dynamic: “Lift up your hearts!” says Christ to his people; they respond, “We lift them up to the Lord,” and then Jesus, through his priest, says, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.” What follows is the magnificent Eucharistic Prayer, directed toward the Father and prayed by Head and members together, the latter’s many sacrifices — small and large — subsumed into the former’s definitive sacrifice on the cross. At the conclusion of the liturgy, Christ sends his mystical body, now more perfectly ordered to the Father, back into the world to effect its transformation.

Cardinal Sarah imitates his master Joseph Ratzinger in insisting that silence rightly asserts itself throughout this entire process. The silence of gathering, recollecting, listening, praying, offering, etc. There is plenty of sound in the Mass, but unless silence is cultivated therein as well, we can easily lose sight of what we are doing in this most sublime of prayers.

Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries (wordonfire.org). He is the creator of two award-winning documentary series, Catholicism and Catholicism: The New Evangelization.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

FEATURES

In Rome, Catholic Charismatic Renewal to celebrate 50 years

by Hannah Brockhaus (CNA/EWTN News) • May 30, 2017

A Renewal in the Holy Spirit Movement concert in St. Peter’s Square on July 3, 2015. (Daniel Ibanez/CNA)

Rome, Italy — Some 30,000 followers of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal will be in Rome this week to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the movement with meetings and Mass, culminating in a prayer vigil led by Pope Francis in the Circus Maximus.

The May 31 – June 4 jubilee is being organized by the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services and the Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowships.

The celebrations are capped on each end by events with Pope Francis, starting with the Wednesday General Audience and ending with Mass in St. Peter’s Square for Pentecost.

On the vigil of Pentecost the Pope will address participants during an ecumenical prayer vigil.

Organizers told journalists Tuesday that they expect participants to hail from some 220 countries around the world. Of these, around 300 are evangelical or Pentecostal leaders.

There will also be 600 priests and 50 bishops present.

The program includes meetings, symposia and workshops in locations across Rome, including testimony by some of the witness of the early years of the charismatic renewal.

Other smaller events throughout will include Eucharistic adoration, concerts, conferences, and street evangelization. Mass on Friday will be said by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.

Salvatore Martinez, president of Italy’s Catholic charismatic association, told journalists May 30 that the Golden Jubilee is a sign of communion, unity, and charity.

“The Pope urges us to be protagonists of history, and to make these charisms a dynamism of love for men of our time,” he said. “Spiritual ecumenism will be the culminating moment, the heart of this spiritual celebration.”

This spiritual ecumenism will not include discussion of doctrine, according of Michelle Moran, president of ICCRS.

Gilberto Gomes Barbosa, head of the Catholic Fraternity, said the work must be about “spiritual communion,” not indoctrination.

Pope Francis met with members of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal at Roman gatherings in 2014 and 2015.

Speaking June 1, 2014, the Pope voiced hope that both evangelical and Catholic charismatic groups, would share the same office as a sign of ecumenism.

His attendance for two consecutive years at the Catholic charismatic movement’s Renewal with the Spirit convocation and his planned participation during this year’s Golden Jubilee celebration show his attention to charismatic movements as a means to foster an ecumenical path and dialogue.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

FEATURES

Double review: ‘Baywatch’ and ‘Dead Men Tell No Tales’

by Carl Kozlowski • May 30, 2017

Hollywood has been having a hard time coming up with original ideas over the past several years. With countless superhero movies, reboots of old ideas and franchises putting out their umpteenth sequels, it’s a rare treat to find a movie that actually has some inventiveness.

This week sees the release of a particularly dire entry, as the feature-film adaptation of the legendarily stupid 1990s TV hit “Baywatch” hits the big screen and fails to entertain on any level, while adding heavy layers of unnecessary raunchy humor.

At the same time, Johnny Depp sails in to save the day for families and anyone who enjoys good, mostly clean fun with his latest adventure as Captain Jack Sparrow, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.”

Following the vapid adventures of a group of Los Angeles lifeguards, “Baywatch” inexplicably became the most-watched TV show in the world, with a weekly audience of more than a billion people for 12 seasons starting in 1989. That maddening fact is no doubt what drove Paramount Pictures to bring “Baywatch” back to life on the big screen this weekend.

The new incarnation teams Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron as lifeguards with clashing styles in an attempt to add a layer of ridiculous, self-knowing comedy to the slow-motion running, skimpy outfits and ocean heroics. Johnson replaces David Hasselhoff in the lead role of Mitch Buchannon, who almost immediately finds that a slickly packaged baggie of a new illegal drug has washed up on the beach, and wants to find the source.

But before he can launch his investigation, Efron shows up as a new, impossibly buff and incredibly stupid guy named Matt Brody, who was a two-time Olympic champion swimmer before an embarrassing televised incident in which he vomited in a pool and kept swimming. Mitch’s boss Captain Thorpe (Rob Huebel) thinks having an Olympian on the squad will be great publicity for the Baywatch team and orders Mitch to add him without the required physical tryout.

Brody’s cockiness clashes with Mitch’s attempts to take the job seriously, and results in a nonstop parade of pretty-boy insults from Mitch that generated only one big laugh from the audience. Meanwhile, a pudgy loser named Ronnie (Jon Bass) is added to the team due to his sheer determination, setting up a series of awkward encounters with his lust interest CJ (Kelly Rohrbach) that are embarrassing for both his character and the audience to endure.

The Baywatch gang ultimately set its sights on new local club owner Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra) as their chief suspect, as bodies start to pile up. The scenes where she appears to act nefariously with her henchmen and victims feel like a live-action version of a “Scooby-Doo” villain, ensuring “Baywatch” doesn’t have one second of suspense or mystery along the way.

What it does have is a constant jarring clash of tones, veering wildly between slow-motion action scenes and incredibly vulgar attempts at laughs that aren’t able to be described in a Catholic/family setting. There are also at least 60 uses of the “F” word, plenty of crass sexual innuendoes and a surprisingly gruesome end for the villain. Thankfully, the audience at an early screening met the movie with silence, providing hope that there are still some standards for what audiences will find funny these days.

Meanwhile, the latest “Pirates” marks the first film in six years for that series, and a welcome return to form for Depp, whose movies have mostly bombed in the interim. The new edition opens by following Henry, the son of Captain Jack’s old sidekicks Will and Elizabeth, as he attempts to free his father from the curse of the Flying Dutchman.

The curse forces Will to forever ferry the souls of the dead, living apart from his son and his wife, Elizabeth. Henry thinks Poseidon’s trident, which holds power over the seas, can break the curse, and despite his father claiming nothing will help him, Henry tracks down Captain Jack years later and enlists his help in finding the trident.

The two run afoul of a ghost zombie ship led by a ghostly Spanish captain named Salazar – a long-ago enemy of Jack – and his equally undead crew. They meet a gorgeous astronomer named Carina, who has a book written by Galileo that she believes has the clues needed to find a mysterious island that holds the trident.

After Henry helps Jack escape a guillotine and Carina escape hanging after being wrongly accused of witchcraft, the three team up to find the trident. Jack believes it will help him discover treasure, while Carina hopes it will help her find her long-lost father and Henry aims to break his father’s curse.

Yet Captain Salazar and his crew are also in hot pursuit of revenge against Jack, teaming with Sparrow’s other longtime enemy Captain Barbossa to bring him down. The resulting race against time and the wilds of the sea make for a richly entertaining adventure that most can easily enjoy.

As always, Disney keeps the pirates’ language squeaky clean, aside from some occasional innuendoes, and the swashbuckling action and inventive stunts are played for excitement and laughs. That combination keeps the movie from being bloody or seriously violent, though Captain Salazar and his menacing crew might prove too scary for kids under 10.

Of course, Jack is frequently drunk, but this is also portrayed in such a cartoonish fashion that it’s impossible to take seriously. A big and surprising plus this time is the strong themes of family and forgiveness that arise through the quest to free Will and Carina’s determination to find her own father, and an equally surprising and moving change of heart by one key character.

All told, the new “Pirates” is a winner for just about any age, while “Baywatch” drowns. Don’t let yourself get pulled down with it.

Carl Kozlowski has been a professional film critic and essayist for the past five years at Pasadena Weekly, in addition to the Christian movie site Movieguide.org, the conservative pop culture site Breitbart.com’s Big Hollywood, the Christian pop culture magazine Relevant, and New City newspaper in Chicago. He also writes in-depth celebrity interviews for Esquire.com and The Progressive. He is owner of the podcasting site radiotitans.com, which was named one of the Frontier Fifty in 2013 as one of the 50 best talk-radio outlets in the nation by talkers.com and will be re-launching it in January 2014 after a five-month sabbatical. He lives in Los Angeles.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

FEATURES

Memorial Day calls us to reflection, prayer and conversion

by Deacon Keith Fournier • May 31, 2017

Honoring those who have died in service to the Nation on Memorial Day is a uniquely American custom. There are numerous cities which claim they were the first to celebrate the Day. There are multiple explanations of its history.

On the last Monday of the month of May, Americans are invited to pause to remember the men and women who died while serving our Nation in the military. Their heroic witness should challenge us to live our lives differently.

Americans visit cemeteries or memorials dedicated to the war dead. We reflect on the deeper questions of life and death. We call to mind the memories of those who died in service. There are community wide parades and picnics. The Holiday has become the unofficial start to the summer season in the United States.

We pause for prayer and reflection. We summon a new resolve to live our first principles. I am drawn to these words of Jesus on this Memorial Day, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Military service can lead to laying one’s life down. Those who do so are heroes. We should reflect on their valor and virtue.

We need saints and heroes.

I am reflecting on a heroic Catholic Chaplain named Father Emil Kapaun today. He lived those words of Jesus on the battlefield, during the Korean Conflict. He poured himself out for the wounded whom he carried in his arms as he prayed for them. He lived those words even more fervently in a prisoner of war camp, where he died doing the same thing.

Fr Kapuan is a saint, a holy one. All Christians are saints, in the sense of having been set aside for the Lord to live holy lives. We are all called into communion with Jesus. And in Him, into with one another. That communion is lived in the Body of Christ. We are called to bring Jesus Christ to others with word and witness. To be poured out for the sake of a world waiting to be born anew in Him.

But there are some who excel in sacrificial Christian love. Fr Emil Kapuan is one. His cause for canonization is moving forward. In the Catholic and Orthodox Christian Churches, there is a process through which holy Christian men and women are canonized. They are then declared publicly to be Saints, with a capital “S.”

From the earliest centuries of the Church, those who demonstrated heroic virtue in life – or died as a Christian Martyr were given a special place of honor. This is where the practice of canonizing some members of the Body of Christ began. It continues in the Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches. The Catholic Catechism explains:

By canonizing some of the faithful, i.e., by solemnly proclaiming that they practiced heroic virtue and lived in fidelity to God’s grace, the Church recognizes the power of the Spirit of holiness within her and sustains the hope of believers by proposing the saints to them as models and intercessors (CCC #828).

As we continue to experience the ominous dark cloud of a growing culture of death – nothing less than a national spiritual revival can turn us back to the right course. As we witness the utter rejection of the truth about marriage and the family and society founded upon it, we need National repentance.

Our Nation has lost its way. As we experience the continued erosion of liberty, and witness the disregard of the first freedom, we need saints and heroes as models. They call each one of us to sacrificial love.

Christians in the United States should pray fervently for those who serve in the military. We should honor them and respect their sacrifice. We should also support them in every way we are able to do so.

I live in Southeastern, Virginia where there are many members of the military. The parish I serve is filled with military families. Every day I witness the many kinds of sacrifices which military families make for our Nation.

How to observe the holiday?

Though considered a secular holiday, Memorial Day is profoundly spiritual. A national moment of remembrance takes place at 3:00 p.m. At that time, we observe a moment of silence and prayer. President Trump issued a Memorial Day Proclamation in which he set the entire day apart for prayer.

He has asked all of us to unite in prayer with these words:

Now, therefore, I, Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Memorial Day, May 29, 2017, as a day of prayer for permanent peace, and I designate the hour beginning in each locality at 11:00 a.m. of that day as a time when people might unite in prayer. I urge the press, radio, television, and all other information media to cooperate in this observance.

I further ask all Americans to observe the National Moment of Remembrance beginning at 3:00 p.m. local time on Memorial Day.

I also request the Governors of the United States and its Territories, and the appropriate officials of all units of government, to direct that the flag be flown at half-staff until noon on this Memorial Day on all buildings, grounds, and naval vessels throughout the United States and in all areas under its jurisdiction and control. I also request the people of the United States to display the flag at half-staff from their homes for the customary forenoon period.

Let’s follow the President’s request. Memorial Day calls us to reflection, prayer and conversion. On this Memorial Day, I also ask you to consider a practice I was inspired to embrace years ago. Whenever you see a man or a woman in uniform, stop and shake their hand. Look them in the eyes. Thank them for their service to our Nation. Then tell them “God bless you.”

Deacon Keith A. Fournier is Founder and Chairman of Common Good Foundation and Alliance. A member of the clergy, a Roman Catholic Deacon, he is also a constitutional/human rights lawyer and public policy advocate who served as the first and founding Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice in the nineteen nineties. He has long been active at the intersection of faith, values, and culture and currently serves as Special Counsel to Liberty Counsel. Deacon Fournier is also a Senior Contributing Writer for THE STREAM.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

FEATURES

Priest plants himself at popular music festival, goes viral on Reddit

by Mary Rezac (CNA/EWTN News) • June 1, 2017

Fr. David Jenuwine. (Dominic Figueroa/SPSE Napa)

Napa, CA — What’s a good way to reach a lot of young people all at once?

Plant yourself at an entrance of a popular music festival with a sign, some free stuff, and a smile.

That’s what Catholic priest Fr. David Jenuwine did last weekend, at BottleRock Napa, a three-day music festival with roughly 30,000 in attendance.

His sign read simply: Catholic priest. Blessings, Prayers, Confessions, Answers.

Fr. Jenuwine, parochial vicar at St. Apollinaris Parish in Napa, California, told CNA that he had been trying to brainstorm creative ways to reach out to young adults when he heard about the music festival. He said he was inspired after hearing a talk on evangelization a few weeks ago by EWTN personality Fr. Mitch Pacwa.

“My youth minister said well, BottleRock is this weekend, but it’s chaos,” he said.

“And I went, alright, let’s do it!”

Fr. Jenuwine placed himself on one side of the festival, while his St. Paul Street Evangelization team camped out on the other side. They prayed for 20 minutes before the Blessed Sacrament before hitting the streets, “begging for the graces we need and to get ourselves in the zone,” Father said.

Besides prayers and answers, they offered rosaries, prayer cards and miraculous medals. They went fast.

“That first night we gave away every rosary, every prayer card, every miraculous medal we had, but sure enough we found more, so we went out again Sunday,” Fr. Jenuwine said.

They stayed at the festival for about five hours on Saturday, and another couple hours on Sunday.

The responses varied widely, the priest said.

“I pretty much just made eye contact with people and said ‘Hi, how’re you doing?’” Father recalled. “And some people were like, ‘Is he really a priest?’”

Others greeted him warmly: “Hi Father! Nice to see you out here.”

Some were more skeptical. When one of the St. Paul team handed out a rosary, the recipient asked, “Does it come with a lecture?”

“There was one guy who said, ‘What are you bringing this here for?’” Father recalled.

“And I said, ‘We’re here to tell you God loves you.’ And he said, ‘I already know that.’ So I said, ‘Well good! You’re one of the few.’”

Others tried to avoid him by pulling out their phones and pretending to be busy.

“But even in that, if they were purposely ignoring us then we made an impression, because they knew we were out there,” he said.

There were also some people who got blessings on Saturday that came back for another on Sunday.

“There were some people getting out of their Uber and they said, ‘Hey he’s still here! Father, can we get a blessing?’”

“I even heard a couple confessions,” he said, though the confessees were people he already knew.

And although he advertised “answers” on his sign, there was one thing people asked that Father didn’t know: “Where is the parking lot?”

“I said I promised I’d try, but I do not know where the parking is,” Father said, laughing.

His youth minister, Dominic Figueroa, snapped a photo of Father hanging out under his street lamp with his sign, and Father posted it on Facebook. Yesterday, friends started to realize that the post was trending on Reddit. It now has more than 640 votes and nearly 100 comments.

It’s an evangelization experience that he and his St. Paul team are looking to do again. They already have an event scoped out this weekend.

“I think we made a little splash,” Father said. “In a sense, this kind of started something for us.”

The biggest takeaway, he said, was “how easy it was.”

“I think too often we get tied up in planning, planning, planning. But when the Spirit moves, go with Him! No excuses.”

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

FEATURES

Everything you need to know about Pentecost

CNA/EWTN News • June 2, 2017

(Molodec via Shutterstock)

Denver, CO — This weekend, the Church celebrates Pentecost, one of the most important feast days of the year that concludes the Easter season and celebrates the beginning of the Church.

Here’s what you need to know about the feast day:

The timing and origins of Pentecost

Pentecost always occurs 50 days after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and ten days after his ascension into heaven. Because Easter is a moveable feast without a fixed date, and Pentecost depends on the timing of Easter, Pentecost can fall anywhere between May 10 and June 13.

The timing of these feasts is also where Catholics get the concept of the Novena - nine days of prayer - because in Acts 1, Mary and the Apostles prayed together “continuously” for nine days after the Ascension leading up to Pentecost. Traditionally, the Church prays the Novena to the Holy Spirit in the days before Pentecost.

The name of the day itself is derived from the Greek word pentecoste, meaning 50th.

The reason Pentecost falls 50 days after Easter comes from a parallel Jewish holiday, Shavu`ot, which falls 50 days after Passover. Shavu’ot is sometimes called the festival of weeks, referring to the seven weeks since Passover.

Originally a harvest feast, Shavu`ot now commemorates the sealing of the Old Covenant on Mount Sinai, when the Lord revealed the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai. Every year, the Jewish people renew their acceptance of the gift of the Torah on this feast.

What happens at Pentecost?

In the Christian tradition, Pentecost is the celebration of the person of the Holy Spirit coming upon the Apostles, Mary, and the first followers of Jesus, who were gathered together in the Upper Room.

A “strong, driving” wind filled the room where they were gathered, and tongues of fire came to rest on their heads, allowing them to speak in different languages so that they could understand each other. It was such a strange phenomenon that some people thought the Christians were just drunk - but Peter pointed out that it was only the morning, and that the phenomenon was caused by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit also gave the apostles the other gifts and fruits necessary to fulfill the great commission - to go out and preach the Gospel to all nations. It fulfills the New Testament promise from Christ (Luke 24:46-49) that the Apostles would be “clothed with power” before they would be sent out to spread the Gospel.

Where’s that in the bible?

The main event of Pentecost (the strong driving wind and tongues of fire) takes place in Acts 2:13, though the events immediately following (Peter’s homily, the baptism of thousands) continue through verse 41.

Happy Birthday, Church

It was right after Pentecost that Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, preached his first homily to Jews and other non-believers, in which he opened the scriptures of the Old Testament, showing how the prophet Joel prophesied events and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

He also tells the people that the Jesus they crucified is the Lord and was raised from the dead, which “cuts them to the heart.” When they asked what they should do, Peter exhorts them to repent of their sins and to be baptized. According to the account in Acts, about 3,000 people were baptized following Peter’s sermon.

For this reason, Pentecost is considered the birthday of the Church - Peter, the first Pope, preaches for the first time and converts thousands of new believers. The apostles and believers, for the first time, were united by a common language, and a common zeal and purpose to go and preach the Gospel.

Pentecost vestments and customs around the world

Typically, priests will wear red vestments on Pentecost, symbolic of the burning fire of God’s love and the tongues of fire that descended on the apostles.

However, in some parts of the world, Pentecost is also referred to as “WhitSunday,” or White Sunday, referring to the white vestments that are typically worn in Britain and Ireland. The white is symbolic of the dove of the Holy Spirit, and typical of the vestments that catechumens desiring baptism wear on that day.

An Italian Pentecost tradition is to scatter rose leaves from the ceiling of the churches to recall the miracle of the fiery tongues, and so in some places in Italy, Pentecost is sometimes called Pascha Rosatum (Easter roses).

In France, it is tradition to blow trumpets during Mass to recall the sound of the driving wind of the Holy Spirit.

In Asia, it is typical to have an extra service, called genuflexion, during which long poems and prayers are recited. In Russia, Mass goers often carry flowers or green branches during Pentecost services.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

FEATURES

Movie review: ‘Wonder Woman’

by Carl Kozlowski • June 2, 2017

There have been more than 40 superhero movies since “Batman Begins” established the current wave of comic book films in 2005. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and exhausted by these bombastic blockbusters, because outside of the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, they’re starting to blend together and rarely display any real sense of humanity beneath the flash and noise.

Thankfully, this weekend’s “Wonder Woman” breaks that dreary mold and creates a spectacle that is both action-packed and thoughtful, wildly inventive and deeply human all at once.

Perhaps the key to that successful and all-too-rare mix of excitement and emotion lies in the fact that this marks the first superhero film to center on a female lead, and the surprising choice of Patty Jenkins (“Monster”) as its director – but more on that later. This is a film that works on multiple levels and is certain to make a superstar out of Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who handles both personae of Wonder Woman and her alter ego Diana Prince with aplomb.

The film opens by detailing Diana’s childhood on a secret island paradise populated exclusively by powerful and attractive female Amazons, who were created by the god Zeus to fend off his evil son Aries’ attempts to inspire unending war among humans. As the Amazons prepare for what they feel is an inevitable showdown with Aries by developing all manner of battle skills, Diana dreams of joining them.

Her mother, Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen), is reluctant to have Diana learn the art of war, even as her sister General Antiope (Robin Wright) insists that she train. Once Diana masters her skills on the cusp of adulthood, a burning biplane falls from the sky and into the nearby ocean — and she dives in to save the pilot, a British spy named Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) who has been infiltrating the Germans amid WWI.

It’s the first time Diana has ever seen a human, much less a male one, and she finds that a slew of German soldiers are hot on his trail. A spectacular and innovative epic battle ensues, pitting the gun power of the Germans against the flaming arrows, swordplay and impressive equestrian skills of the Amazons.

Steve was being chased by the Germans because he had stolen the notebook of the evil female Dr. Isabel Maru (Elena Anaya), who has concocted a powerful new chemical weapon that can render gas masks useless. He needs to get proof of the gas to his intel superiors before the Germans can launch an attack with it, while Diana is convinced that Aries is on the front lines of the war and that she alone can find him, destroy him and bring eternal peace to mankind.

The two team up for witty and exciting battles and espionage, as well as an inevitably developing relationship. The contrast between Diana’s female-driven upbringing and Steve representing a male-driven world leads to some truly clever and thoughtful exchanges about human nature, male-female relations and the struggle between good and evil on both a personal and worldwide scale.

Director Jenkins and writer Alan Heinberg shine most when they effectively balance the tragedy of war and its destruction, with the moral imperative of fighting for good when peace isn’t an option. It’s an impressive feat, and one that builds on her direction of Charlize Theron to an Oscar in “Monster,” a film that showed both the horror and the wounded humanity of notorious serial killer Aileen Wuornos.

“Wonder Woman” also features moments of great sacrifice, and shows people in prayer at a key moment. When Steve discusses human relationships with Diana, he at one moment says that people sleep together in marriage, but then also says that marriage often doesn’t work out for people. But over the course of the movie, he does develop a real love for her. It is, however, implied that they sleep together, though the scene cuts right at the start of a kiss and it should barely register with young children if at all.

The comic-book-style action and violence is at the level one can expect from a superhero movie, and the movie avoids the near-sadistic glee of “Dark Knight” series villains like the Joker and Bane to keep this at a level that is rousing and suspenseful without being gruesome.

The one scene that might make parents cringe for a moment – though it’s easily forgotten amid all the greatness in the rest of the film – is one where Diana walks in on Steve as he’s sitting in a pool and then springs up surprised, showing his behind for a split-second and then shows him walking with his hands covering his privates as he grabs a towel. There’s a very implied innuendo comment about his nudity then too.

But first and foremost, this is a fun film from start to finish, with gorgeous visuals, an amazing score and perfect pacing. Even as I dread upcoming special-effects monstrosities like the latest “Transformers” movie, this “Woman” has restored my sense of cinematic “Wonder.”

Carl Kozlowski has been a professional film critic and essayist for the past five years at Pasadena Weekly, in addition to the Christian movie site Movieguide.org, the conservative pop culture site Breitbart.com’s Big Hollywood, the Christian pop culture magazine Relevant, and New City newspaper in Chicago. He also writes in-depth celebrity interviews for Esquire.com and The Progressive. He is owner of the podcasting site radiotitans.com, which was named one of the Frontier Fifty in 2013 as one of the 50 best talk-radio outlets in the nation by talkers.com and will be re-launching it in January 2014 after a five-month sabbatical. He lives in Los Angeles.

Share this article

Original article with sharing options:  Link

SUNDAY • JUNE 4, 2017

Pentecost Sunday

First Reading (Acts 2:1-11; NRSVCE)

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples of Jesus were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs — in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”

Responsorial Psalm (Ps 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34; NRSVCE)

R: (cf. 30) Lord, send forth your spirit, and renew the face of the ground.

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

O Lord my God, you are very great.

O Lord, how manifold are your works!

The earth is full of your creatures.

R: Lord, send forth your spirit, and renew the face of the ground.

May the glory of the Lord endure forever;

may the Lord rejoice in his works.

May my meditation be pleasing to him,

for I rejoice in the Lord.

R: Lord, send forth your spirit, and renew the face of the ground.

When you take away their breath, they die

and return to their dust.

When you send forth your spirit, they are created;

and you renew the face of the ground.

R: Lord, send forth your spirit, and renew the face of the ground.

Second Reading (1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13; NRSVCE)

No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Gospel Reading (Jn 20:19-23; NRSVCE)

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

MONDAY • JUNE 5, 2017

Memorial of Saint Boniface

First Reading (Tb 1:3; 2:1a-8; NRSVCE)

I, Tobit, walked in the ways of truth and righteousness all the days of my life. I performed many acts of charity for my kindred and my people who had gone with me in exile to Nineveh in the land of the Assyrians.

At our festival of Pentecost, which is the sacred festival of weeks, a good dinner was prepared for me and I reclined to eat. When the table was set for me and an abundance of food placed before me, I said to my son Tobias, “Go, my child, and bring whatever poor person you may find of our people among the exiles in Nineveh, who is wholeheartedly mindful of God, and he shall eat together with me. I will wait for you, until you come back.” So Tobias went to look for some poor person of our people. When he had returned he said, “Father!” And I replied, “Here I am, my child.” Then he went on to say, “Look, father, one of our own people has been murdered and thrown into the market place, and now he lies there strangled.” Then I sprang up, left the dinner before even tasting it, and removed the body from the square and laid it in one of the rooms until sunset when I might bury it. When I returned, I washed myself and ate my food in sorrow. Then I remembered the prophecy of Amos, how he said against Bethel,

“Your festivals shall be turned into mourning,

and all your songs into lamentation.”

And I wept.

When the sun had set, I went and dug a grave and buried him. And my neighbors laughed and said, “Is he still not afraid? He has already been hunted down to be put to death for doing this, and he ran away; yet here he is again burying the dead!”

Responsorial Psalm (Ps 112:1b-2, 3b-4, 5-6; NRSVCE)

R: (1b) Happy are those who fear the Lord.

Happy are those who fear the Lord,

who greatly delight in his commandments.

Their descendants will be mighty in the land;

the generation of the upright will be blessed.

R: Happy are those who fear the Lord.

Their righteousness endures forever.

They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright;

they are gracious, merciful, and righteous.

R: Happy are those who fear the Lord.

It is well with those who deal generously and lend,

who conduct their affairs with justice.

For the righteous will never be moved;

they will be remembered forever.

R: Happy are those who fear the Lord.

Gospel Reading (Mk 12:1-12; NRSVCE)

Jesus began to speak to the chief priests and scribes in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. But they seized him, and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted. Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this scripture:

‘The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;

this was the Lord’s doing,

and it is amazing in our eyes?’”

When they realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowd. So they left him and went away.

TUESDAY • JUNE 6, 2017

Tuesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Tb 2:9-14; NRSVCE)

That night I washed myself and went into my courtyard and slept by the wall of the courtyard; and my face was uncovered because of the heat. I did not know that there were sparrows on the wall; their fresh droppings fell into my eyes and produced white films. I went to physicians to be healed, but the more they treated me with ointments the more my vision was obscured by the white films, until I became completely blind. For four years I remained unable to see. All my kindred were sorry for me, and Ahikar took care of me for two years before he went to Elymais.

At that time, also, my wife Anna earned money at women’s work. She used to send what she made to the owners and they would pay wages to her. One day, the seventh of Dystrus, when she cut off a piece she had woven and sent it to the owners, they paid her full wages and also gave her a young goat for a meal. When she returned to me, the goat began to bleat. So I called her and said, “Where did you get this goat? It is surely not stolen, is it? Return it to the owners; for we have no right to eat anything stolen.” But she said to me, “It was given to me as a gift in addition to my wages.” But I did not believe her, and told her to return it to the owners. I became flushed with anger against her over this. Then she replied to me, “Where are your acts of charity? Where are your righteous deeds? These things are known about you!”

Responsorial Psalm (Ps 112:1-2, 7-8, 9; NRSVCE)

R: (see 7c) The hearts of the just are firm, secure in the Lord.

Happy are those who fear the Lord,

who greatly delight in his commandments.

Their descendants will be mighty in the land;

the generation of the upright will be blessed.

R: The hearts of the just are firm, secure in the Lord.

They are not afraid of evil tidings;

their hearts are firm, secure in the Lord.

Their hearts are steady, they will not be afraid;

in the end they will look in triumph on their foes.

R: The hearts of the just are firm, secure in the Lord.

They have distributed freely, they have given to the poor;

their righteousness endures forever;

their horn is exalted in honor.

R: The hearts of the just are firm, secure in the Lord.

Gospel Reading (Mk 12:13-17; NRSVCE)

They sent to Jesus some Pharisees and some Herodians to trap him in what he said. And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me see it.” And they brought one. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Jesus said to them, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were utterly amazed at him.

WEDNESDAY • JUNE 7, 2017

Wednesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Tb 3:1-11a, 16-17a; NRSVCE)

With much grief and anguish of heart I wept, and with groaning began to pray:

“You are righteous, O Lord,

and all your deeds are just;

all your ways are mercy and truth;

you judge the world.

And now, O Lord, remember me

and look favorably upon me.

Do not punish me for my sins

and for my unwitting offenses

and those that my ancestors committed before you.

They sinned against you,

and disobeyed your commandments.

So you gave us over to plunder, exile, and death,

to become the talk, the byword, and an object of reproach

among all the nations among whom you have dispersed us.

And now your many judgments are true

in exacting penalty from me for my sins.

For we have not kept your commandments

and have not walked in accordance with truth before you.

So now deal with me as you will;

command my spirit to be taken from me,

so that I may be released from the face of the earth and become dust.

For it is better for me to die than to live,

because I have had to listen to undeserved insults,

and great is the sorrow within me.

Command, O Lord, that I be released from this distress;

release me to go to the eternal home,

and do not, O Lord, turn your face away from me.

For it is better for me to die

than to see so much distress in my life

and to listen to insults.”

On the same day, at Ecbatana in Media, it also happened that Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, was reproached by one of her father’s maids. For she had been married to seven husbands, and the wicked demon Asmodeus had killed each of them before they had been with her as is customary for wives. So the maid said to her, “You are the one who kills your husbands! See, you have already been married to seven husbands and have not borne the name of a single one of them. Why do you beat us? Because your husbands are dead? Go with them! May we never see a son or daughter of yours!”

On that day she was grieved in spirit and wept. When she had gone up to her father’s upper room, she intended to hang herself. But she thought it over and said, “Never shall they reproach my father, saying to him, ‘You had only one beloved daughter but she hanged herself because of her distress.’ And I shall bring my father in his old age down in sorrow to Hades. It is better for me not to hang myself, but to pray the Lord that I may die and not listen to these reproaches anymore.” At that same time, with hands outstretched toward the window, she prayed and said,

“Blessed are you, merciful God!

Blessed is your name forever;

let all your works praise you forever.”

At that very moment, the prayers of both of them were heard in the glorious presence of God. So Raphael was sent to heal both of them: Tobit, by removing the white films from his eyes, so that he might see God’s light with his eyes; and Sarah, daughter of Raguel, by giving her in marriage to Tobias son of Tobit, and by setting her free from the wicked demon Asmodeus.

Responsorial Psalm (Ps 25:2-3, 4-5ab, 6 and 7bc, 8-9; NRSVCE)

R: (1) To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

O my God, in you I trust;

do not let me be put to shame;

do not let my enemies exult over me.

Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame;

let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

R: To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

Make me to know your ways, O Lord;

teach me your paths.

Lead me in your truth, and teach me,

for you are the God of my salvation.

R: To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love,

for they have been from of old.

According to your steadfast love remember me,

for your goodness’ sake, O Lord!

R: To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

Good and upright is the Lord;

therefore he instructs sinners in the way.

He leads the humble in what is right,

and teaches the humble his way.

R: To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

Gospel Reading (Mk 12:18-27; NRSVCE)

Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. There were seven brothers; the first married and, when he died, left no children; and the second married the widow and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; none of the seven left children. Last of all the woman herself died. In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had married her.”

Jesus said to them, “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.”

THURSDAY • JUNE 8, 2017

Thursday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Tb 6:10-11; 7:1bcde, 9-17; 8:4-9a; NRSVCE)

When they entered Media and already were approaching Ecbatana, Raphael said to the young man, “Brother Tobias.” “Here I am,” he answered. Then Raphael said to him, “We must stay this night in the home of Raguel. He is your relative, and he has a daughter named Sarah.

So he took him to Raguel’s house, where they found him sitting beside the courtyard door. They greeted him first, and he replied, “Joyous greetings, brothers; welcome and good health!” Then he brought them into his house.

Then Raguel slaughtered a ram from the flock and received them very warmly.

When they had bathed and washed themselves and had reclined to dine, Tobias said to Raphael, “Brother Azariah, ask Raguel to give me my kinswoman Sarah.” But Raguel overheard it and said to the lad, “Eat and drink, and be merry tonight. For no one except you, brother, has the right to marry my daughter Sarah. Likewise I am not at liberty to give her to any other man than yourself, because you are my nearest relative. But let me explain to you the true situation more fully, my child. I have given her to seven men of our kinsmen, and all died on the night when they went in to her. But now, my child, eat and drink, and the Lord will act on behalf of you both.” But Tobias said, “I will neither eat nor drink anything until you settle the things that pertain to me.” So Raguel said, “I will do so. She is given to you in accordance with the decree in the book of Moses, and it has been decreed from heaven that she be given to you. Take your kinswoman; from now on you are her brother and she is your sister. She is given to you from today and forever. May the Lord of heaven, my child, guide and prosper you both this night and grant you mercy and peace.” Then Raguel summoned his daughter Sarah. When she came to him he took her by the hand and gave her to Tobias, saying, “Take her to be your wife in accordance with the law and decree written in the book of Moses. Take her and bring her safely to your father. And may the God of heaven prosper your journey with his peace.” Then he called her mother and told her to bring writing material; and he wrote out a copy of a marriage contract, to the effect that he gave her to him as wife according to the decree of the law of Moses. Then they began to eat and drink.

Raguel called his wife Edna and said to her, “Sister, get the other room ready, and take her there.” So she went and made the bed in the room as he had told her, and brought Sarah there. She wept for her daughter. Then, wiping away the tears, she said to her, “Take courage, my daughter; the Lord of heaven grant you joy in place of your sorrow. Take courage, my daughter.” Then she went out.

When the parents had gone out and shut the door of the room, Tobias got out of bed and said to Sarah, “Sister, get up, and let us pray and implore our Lord that he grant us mercy and safety.” So she got up, and they began to pray and implore that they might be kept safe. Tobias began by saying,

“Blessed are you, O God of our ancestors,

and blessed is your name in all generations forever.

Let the heavens and the whole creation bless you forever.

You made Adam, and for him you made his wife Eve

as a helper and support.

From the two of them the human race has sprung.

You said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone;

let us make a helper for him like himself.’

I now am taking this kinswoman of mine,

not because of lust,

but with sincerity.

Grant that she and I may find mercy

and that we may grow old together.”

And they both said, “Amen, Amen.” Then they went to sleep for the night.

Responsorial Psalm (Ps 128:1-2, 3, 4-5; NRSVCE)

R: (see 1a) Happy is everyone who fears the Lord.

Happy is everyone who fears the Lord,

who walks in his ways.

You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;

you shall be happy, and it shall go well with you.

R: Happy is everyone who fears the Lord.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine

within your house;

your children will be like olive shoots

around your table.

R: Happy is everyone who fears the Lord.

Thus shall the man be blessed

who fears the Lord.

The Lord bless you from Zion.

May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem

all the days of your life.

R: Happy is everyone who fears the Lord.

Gospel Reading (Mk 12:28-34; NRSVCE)

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ — this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.

FRIDAY • JUNE 9, 2017

Friday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Tb 11:5-17; NRSVCE)

Anna sat looking intently down the road by which her son would come. When she caught sight of him coming, she said to his father, “Look, your son is coming, and the man who went with him!”

Raphael said to Tobias, before he had approached his father, “I know that his eyes will be opened. Smear the gall of the fish on his eyes; the medicine will make the white films shrink and peel off from his eyes, and your father will regain his sight and see the light.”

Then Anna ran up to her son and threw her arms around him, saying, “Now that I have seen you, my child, I am ready to die.” And she wept. Then Tobit got up and came stumbling out through the courtyard door. Tobias went up to him, with the gall of the fish in his hand, and holding him firmly, he blew into his eyes, saying, “Take courage, father.” With this he applied the medicine on his eyes, and it made them smart. Next, with both his hands he peeled off the white films from the corners of his eyes. Then Tobit saw his son and threw his arms around him, and he wept and said to him, “I see you, my son, the light of my eyes!” Then he said,

“Blessed be God,

and blessed be his great name,

and blessed be all his holy angels.

May his holy name be blessed

throughout all the ages.

Though he afflicted me,

he has had mercy upon me.

Now I see my son Tobias!”

So Tobit went in rejoicing and praising God at the top of his voice. Tobias reported to his father that his journey had been successful, that he had brought the money, that he had married Raguel’s daughter Sarah, and that she was, indeed, on her way there, very near to the gate of Nineveh.

Then Tobit, rejoicing and praising God, went out to meet his daughter-in-law at the gate of Nineveh. When the people of Nineveh saw him coming, walking along in full vigor and with no one leading him, they were amazed. Before them all, Tobit acknowledged that God had been merciful to him and had restored his sight. When Tobit met Sarah the wife of his son Tobias, he blessed her saying, “Come in, my daughter, and welcome. Blessed be your God who has brought you to us, my daughter. Blessed be your father and your mother, blessed be my son Tobias, and blessed be you, my daughter. Come in now to your home, and welcome, with blessing and joy. Come in, my daughter.” So on that day there was rejoicing among all the Jews who were in Nineveh.

Responsorial Psalm (Ps 146:1b-2, 6c-7, 8-9a, 9bc-10; NRSVCE)

R: (1b) Praise the Lord, O my soul!

Praise the Lord, O my soul!

I will praise the Lord as long as I live;

I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

R: Praise the Lord, O my soul!

The Lord keeps faith forever;

who executes justice for the oppressed;

who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free.

R: Praise the Lord, O my soul!

The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.

The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;

the Lord loves the righteous.

The Lord watches over the strangers.

R: Praise the Lord, O my soul!

He upholds the orphan and the widow,

but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

The Lord will reign forever,

your God, O Zion, for all generations.

Praise the Lord!

R: Praise the Lord, O my soul!

Gospel Reading (Mk 12:35-37; NRSVCE)

While Jesus was teaching in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David? David himself, by the Holy Spirit, declared,

The Lord said to my Lord,

‘Sit at my right hand,

until I put your enemies under your feet.’

David himself calls him Lord; so how can he be his son?” And the large crowd was listening to him with delight.

SATURDAY • JUNE 10, 2017

Saturday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

First Reading (Tb 12:1, 5-15, 20; NRSVCE)

When the wedding celebration was ended, Tobit called his son Tobias and said to him, “My child, see to paying the wages of the man who went with you, and give him a bonus as well.” So Tobias called him and said, “Take for your wages half of all that you brought back, and farewell.”

Then Raphael called the two of them privately and said to them, “Bless God and acknowledge him in the presence of all the living for the good things he has done for you. Bless and sing praise to his name. With fitting honor declare to all people the deeds of God. Do not be slow to acknowledge him. It is good to conceal the secret of a king, but to acknowledge and reveal the works of God, and with fitting honor to acknowledge him. Do good and evil will not overtake you. Prayer with fasting is good, but better than both is almsgiving with righteousness. A little with righteousness is better than wealth with wrongdoing. It is better to give alms than to lay up gold. For almsgiving saves from death and purges away every sin. Those who give alms will enjoy a full life, but those who commit sin and do wrong are their own worst enemies.

“I will now declare the whole truth to you and will conceal nothing from you. Already I have declared it to you when I said, ‘It is good to conceal the secret of a king, but to reveal with due honor the works of God.’ So now when you and Sarah prayed, it was I who brought and read the record of your prayer before the glory of the Lord, and likewise whenever you would bury the dead. And that time when you did not hesitate to get up and leave your dinner to go and bury the dead, I was sent to you to test you. And at the same time God sent me to heal you and Sarah your daughter-in-law. I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand ready and enter before the glory of the Lord.

“So now get up from the ground, and acknowledge God. See, I am ascending to him who sent me. Write down all these things that have happened to you.”

Responsorial Psalm (Tb 13:2, 6efgh, 7, 8; NRSVCE)

R: (1b) Blessed be God, who lives forever.

He afflicts, and he shows mercy;

he leads down to Hades in the lowest regions of the earth,

and he brings up from the great abyss,

and there is nothing that can escape his hand.

R: Blessed be God, who lives forever.

So now see what he has done for you;

acknowledge him at the top of your voice.

Bless the Lord of righteousness,

and exalt the King of the ages.

R: Blessed be God, who lives forever.

In the land of my exile I acknowledge him,

and show his power and majesty to a nation of sinners.

R: Blessed be God, who lives forever.

Bless the Lord, all you his chosen ones,

and may all of you praise his majesty.

Celebrate days of gladness, and give him praise.

R: Blessed be God, who lives forever.

Gospel Reading (Mk 12:38-44; NRSVCE)

As Jesus taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”