Washington D.C., May 11, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- Supreme Court justices on Monday heard arguments for and against extending the Civil Rights Act’s “ministerial exception” to Catholic schools when they fire teachers of religi… […]
Vatican City, May 11, 2020 / 09:20 am (CNA).- The Vatican Museums are preparing to reopen by reservation only with new health measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, according to the general secretary of Vatican City State.
“For the i… […]
Vatican City, May 11, 2020 / 05:18 am (CNA).- Pope Francis Monday appointed Fr. Louis Tylka, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, as coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Peoria to serve alongside Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, CSC.
As coadjutor, Tylka will … […]
Vatican City, May 11, 2020 / 04:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis began his morning Mass on Monday by praying for the unemployed after millions of people lost their jobs amid coronavirus restrictions.
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Vatican City, May 10, 2020 / 05:30 am (CNA).- We must always remember that we are made for heaven, Pope Francis said in his Regina Coeli address Sunday.
Speaking in the library of the Apostolic Palace due to the coronavirus pandemic, the pope said May 10: “God is in love with us. We are his children. And for us He has prepared the most worthy and beautiful place: paradise.”
“Let us not forget: the dwelling place that awaits us is paradise. Here we are passing through. We are made for heaven, for eternal life, to live forever.”
In his reflection before the Regina Coeli, the pope focused on Sunday’s Gospel reading, John 14:1-12, in which Jesus addresses his disciples at the Last Supper.
He said: “At such a dramatic moment Jesus began by saying: ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.’ He says this to us too in the dramas of life. But how can we make sure that our hearts are not troubled?”
He explained that Jesus offers two remedies for our turmoil. The first is an invitation to us to have faith in him.
“He knows that in life, the worst anxiety, turmoil, comes from the feeling of not being able to cope, from feeling alone and without reference points before what happens,” he said.
“This anxiety, in which difficulty is added to difficulty, cannot be overcome alone. That is why Jesus asks us to have faith in Him, that is, not to lean on ourselves, but on Him. Because liberation from anguish passes through trust.”
The Pope said that Jesus’ second remedy is expressed in his words “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places … I am going to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).
“This is what Jesus did for us: He reserved us a place in heaven,” he said. “He took upon Himself our humanity to take it beyond death, to a new place, in heaven, so that where He is, we might be there also.”
He continued: “Forever: it’s something we can’t even imagine now. But it is even more beautiful to think that this forever will be all in joy, in full communion with God and with others, without any more tears, without rancor, without division and upheaval.”
“But how to reach Paradise? What is the way? Here is the decisive phrase of Jesus. Today he says: ‘I am the way’ [John 14:6]. To ascend to heaven, the way is Jesus: it is to have a living relationship with Him, to imitate Him in love, to follow in His footsteps.”
He urged Christians to ask themselves which way they were following.
“There are ways that do not lead to heaven: the ways of worldliness, the ways of self-assertion, the ways of selfish power,” he said.
“And there is the way of Jesus, the way of humble love, of prayer, of meekness, of trust, of service to others. It is to go ahead every day asking: ‘Jesus, what do you think of my choice? What would you do in this situation, with these people?’”
“It will do us good to ask Jesus, who is the way, the directions for heaven. May Our Lady, Queen of Heaven, help us to follow Jesus, who opened heaven for us.”
After reciting the Regina Coeli, the pope recalled two anniversaries.
The first was the 70th anniversary on May 9 of the Schuman Declaration, which led to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community.
“It inspired the process of European integration,” he said, “enabling the reconciliation of the peoples of the continent after the Second World War and the long period of stability and peace from which we benefit today.”
“The spirit of the Schuman Declaration cannot fail to inspire all those with responsibilities in the European Union, called upon to face the social and economic consequences of the pandemic in a spirit of harmony and cooperation.”
The second anniversary was that of St. John Paul’s first visit to Africa 40 years ago. Francis said that on May 10, 1980, the Polish pope “gave voice to the cry of the people of the Sahel, harshly tried by drought.”
He praised an initiative by young people to plant a million trees in the Sahel region, forming a “Great Green Wall” to combat the effects of desertification.
“I hope that many will follow the example of solidarity of these young people,” he said.
The pope also noted that May 10 is Mother’s Day in many countries.
He said: “I want to remember all mothers with gratitude and affection, entrusting them to the protection of Mary, our heavenly Mother. My thoughts also go out to the mothers who have passed to the other life and accompany us from heaven.”
He then called for a moment of silent prayer for mothers.
He concluded: “I wish everyone a good Sunday. Please don’t forget to pray for me. Have a good lunch and goodbye for now.”
Afterwards, he offered his blessing while overlooking an almost empty St. Peter’s Square.
Vatican City, May 10, 2020 / 03:30 am (CNA).- Church leaders must put prayer before all other things, Pope Francis said at his morning Mass Sunday.
Speaking in the chapel at Casa Santa Marta, his Vatican residence, the pope said May 10 that praying must be a bishop’s first priority.
He said: “The bishop’s prayer, the first task: to pray. And the people, seeing the bishop pray, learn to pray. Because the Holy Spirit teaches us that it is God who ‘does things’.”
“We do a little, but it is He who ‘does the things’ of the Church, and it is through prayer that the Church advances. And that is why the leaders of the Church, so to say, the bishops, must go ahead with prayer.”
In his homily, the pope reflected on Sunday’s Gospel reading, John 14:1-14, in which Jesus tells his disciples that he is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to the Father except through him.
He described the passage as Jesus’ “declaration of access to the Father.” It was, he suggested, as if Christ “opened the doors of the omnipotence of prayer.”
Believers should pray with trust and courage, he said. He gave the examples of Abraham “haggling” with God to save Sodom in Genesis 18:20-33, and Moses asking the Lord to spare his people in Exodus 32:1-35. Therefore Christians should not pray timidly.
“To pray is to go with Jesus to the Father who will give you everything,” he said. “Courage in prayer, frankness in prayer.”
The pope then turned to the day’s second reading, Acts 6:1-7, in which the apostles respond to complaints about food distribution in the early Christian community.
He noted that, in order to focus on prayer and preaching, the apostles “enlightened by the Holy Spirit, ‘invented’, so to speak, the deacons,” selecting seven men of good reputation to oversee food allocation.
He said: “This is the bishop’s task: to pray and preach. With this strength that we have heard in the Gospel: the bishop is the first one who goes to the Father, with the trust that Jesus gave, with courage, with parrhesia [bold speech], to fight for his people. The first task of a bishop is to pray.”
The pope recalled “a holy parish priest” who whenever he met a bishop would ask him how many hours a day he prayed.
Prayer is a bishop’s primary task, he said, “Because it is the prayer of the head of the community for the community, the intercession to the Father so that he might guard the people.”
He concluded: “It is sad to see good bishops, good people, good people, but busy with many things, the economy, and this and that… Prayer in first place. Then the other things. But when the other things take space away from prayer, something doesn’t work…”
“This is how the Church goes forward, with prayer, the courage of prayer, because the Church knows that without this access to the Father she cannot survive.”
The pope ended the celebration with adoration and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The congregation then sang the Easter Marian antiphon “Regina caeli.”
At the start of Mass, the pope recalled two recent commemorations. May 8 marked the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. May 9 was the 70th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, which proposed the creation of a European Coal and Steel Community, leading to the foundation of the European Union.
He said: “Let us ask the Lord for Europe today to grow united in this unity of brotherhood which makes all peoples grow in unity in diversity.”
Lima, Peru, May 9, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Peruvian congresswoman Luz Milagros Cayguaray Gambini has demanded the country’s health minister provide the legal and scientific basis for a directive that would allow abortion when a pregnant woman is infected with the novel coronavirus.
Abortion is illegal in Peru except when pregnancy would cause death or permanent harm to a pregnant woman.
On April 22, Peru’s Minister of Health Victor Zamora issued a directive calling for provision of emergency contraception in the country, and allowing abortion for pregnant women who test positive for the coronavirus.
In a May 5 letter, Cayguaray demanded Zamora to “Indicate what the legal basis” is for the directive that allows doctors to “end the pregnancy,” if the mother has contracted COVID-19.
The legislator also challenged Zamora to indicate “the scientific and medical basis the norm is based upon.”
At issue is whether a positive test for coronavirus is sufficient to establish that a pregnancy threatens the life of a woman. Gambini says that assertion is unproven and unfounded.
Cayguaray has also written to Dr. Enrique Guevara Ríos, director of the country’s Perinatal Maternal Institute, asking him to report how many pregnant women with COVID-19 have been treated to date, “how many have had their pregnancies terminated,” “on what grounds,” and “what current regulation has been applied to carry out the interruption of those pregnancies.”
The Arequipa Doctors for Life Association has criticized the health directive in a statement.
“At this time in which all our efforts as a nation should be aimed at improving our precarious health system to mitigate the serious impact of the pandemic, the circumstances are being used to dictate measures that threaten the lives of Peruvians in their most vulnerable stage, life in the womb,” the group said.
Regarding the “morning after pill,” the group expressed surprise and concern “that the Ministry of Health promotes the irresponsible and reckless use of this drug in the general population and particularly for minors, and even worse, dispenses with obtaining the person’s medical history, which is an essential tool for the responsible practice of medicine, thus seriously exposing the users to danger.”
Aborting a child because the mother has COVID-19, the doctors said “is contrary to the principles that govern medical practice, which must always be based on the application of therapies that are based on rigorous scientific studies and with respect to elementary ethical principles” which guide medical science in providing the best strategies to protect patients.
When a woman is pregnant “we have two patients to take care of, the mother and the unborn child,” the doctors association stressed.
Concerning the babies themselves, five newborns whose mothers have COVID-19 were recently discharged from a government hospital in Peru. A sixth, also born of a coronavirus patient who is in serious condition in the intensive care unit, was born prematurely and remains hospitalized. None of the babies have tested positive for COVID-19.
In a May 5 interview with the El Comercio daily, Dr. César García Aste, who heads the hospital’s neonatology department, explained that there are strict protocols as to how the baby is to be fed in order to avoid infecting it.
A doctor from the hospital is assigned to follow up daily by phone on the baby’s condition for an average of 14 days, and “so far we haven’t had a problem with any of the five babies,” Garcia said.
A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news agency. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
CNA Staff, May 9, 2020 / 06:01 am (CNA).- Pakistan’s government has declined to include the Ahmadi religious group in its National Commission for Minorities, drawing attention to the group whose Muslim self-identification is rejected by many Musl… […]
Vatican City, May 9, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- The devil uses envy to try to thwart the proclamation of the Gospel, Pope Francis said at his morning Mass Saturday.
In his homily in the chapel at Casa Santa Marta, May 9, the pope reflected on the day’s first reading, Acts 13:44-52, in which the Jewish community at Antioch rejects St. Paul’s preaching about Jesus.
He said: “On the one hand there is the Lord, there is the Holy Spirit who makes the Church grow, and it grows ever more: this is true. But on the other hand, there is the evil spirit that seeks to destroy the Church.”
After citing other examples in the Acts of the Apostles where the apostles faced rejection, the pope asked: “And what is the devil’s instrument to destroy the Gospel proclamation? Envy. The Book of Wisdom [2:24] says it clearly: ‘Through the devil’s envy sin has entered the world’ — envy, jealousy, here. Always this bitter, bitter feeling.”
Reflecting on this enduring struggle, Pope Francis quoted St. Augustine of Hippo, who wrote in “The City of God” that “the Church progresses on her pilgrimage amidst this world’s persecutions and God’s consolations.”
“A Church that has no difficulty lacks something,” he said. “The devil is too calm. And if the devil is calm, things are not going well. Always the difficulty, the temptation, the struggle… the jealousy that destroys. The Holy Spirit creates the harmony of the Church, and the evil spirit destroys. Until today.”
The pope noted that in the first reading the community at Antioch turned the leading women and men of the city against the apostles. He observed that temporal powers are often an instrument through which envy is stirred up against Christians.
He said: “Let us be careful with the preaching of the Gospel: never to fall, to put our trust in temporal powers and money. The trust of Christians is Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that He sent, and it is precisely the Holy Spirit who is the leaven, it is the strength that makes the Church grow.”
“Yes, the Church goes ahead, in peace, with resignation, joyful: between ‘the consolations of God and the persecutions of the world.’”
The pope led those watching via livestream in an act of spiritual communion, composed by St. Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorists.
He prayed: “My Jesus, I believe that you are present in the most Blessed Sacrament. I love You above all things and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there, and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You.”
The pope ended the celebration with adoration and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The congregation then sang the Easter Marian antiphon “Regina caeli.”
At the start of Mass, the pope noted that May 9 is the feast day of St. Louise de Marillac, the French founder of the Daughters of Charity. Her feast normally falls on March 15 but was transferred this year because it fell on a Sunday in Lent. A painting of the 17th-century saint was brought to the pope’s chapel to mark the occasion.
The Daughters of Charity belong to the Vincentian family. Vincentian nuns live at the Casa Santa Marta, the pope’s residence, and run a pediatric dispensary at the Vatican.
At the start of Mass, the pope said: “Today is the commemoration of St. Louise de Marillac: let us pray for the Vincentian sisters who have run this clinic, this hospital, for almost 100 years and have worked here, in Santa Marta, for this hospital. May the Lord bless the sisters.”
Denver Newsroom, May 8, 2020 / 05:29 pm (CNA).- Mother’s Day is going to look different for most families this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
For Catholics, some churches are in the process of slowly re-opening public Masses, but the dispensation from the Sunday obligation continues to stand, as the virus has not gone away and a cure or vaccine has yet to be found.
While most Catholics are eager to return to Mass, a small group of Catholics are relieved that they will not be sitting in a public pew this Mother’s Day.
“We actually heard from one woman who said, ‘I kind of feel badly about saying this, but I’m sort of glad that we won’t be in the pews this year for Mother’s Day,’” Ann Koshute, founder of Springs in the Desert Catholic ministry, told CNA.
“That’s something that we hear and that everybody I think on the team has experienced at one point in this journey,” she said – the desire to avoid Mass on Mother’s Day. That’s because Koshute, along with other members of her ministry, have had painful experiences with infertility, and the customary Mother’s Day blessing given to mothers at many parishes that day can bring their grief and sense of loss poignantly to the fore.
“I think that so often people in our own families, our friends, and even our pastors don’t really understand the full extent of the pain and the grief or even the full extent of the issue of infertility, of how many couples are really dealing with it,” she said.
The pain of infertility, and the lack of resources available to Catholics on the subject, was why Koshute and her friend, Kimberly Henkel, founded Springs in the Desert, a Catholic ministry to spiritually and emotionally support women and couples experiencing infertility and infant loss. Originally, Henkel and Koshute, who have both experienced infertility, thought they might write a book. But they decided to start with a ministry website and a blog that could bring people together and allow for other women and couples to share their experiences. The group is relatively new, and held its first retreat in Philadelphia in December. They were set to hold a second one this weekend – Mother’s Day weekend – in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, when, well, the pandemic hit.
Now, they’ve moved the retreat online and opened it up to Catholics across the country – and they’ve been overwhelmed by the response.
“We thought that we would be really excited if maybe a couple dozen people found out about it and came. We are over 100 participants now. And it’s free and it’s going to be available all weekend,” Koshute said. The retreat is trying to address the emotional and spiritual experience of infertility and loss for a broad range of people, Henkel said – from mothers who have miscarried, to women who are past child-bearing years and still grieving the loss of infertility, to women “who feel like their biological clocks are ticking and just haven’t met the right guy.” But now that it’s a virtual, pre-recorded, watch-at-your-leisure retreat, it also has the potential to reach a population that is often more reluctant to gather in groups and talk about their experiences of infertility: men. “It’s mostly women who are emailing us (about the retreat), although we know that many of their husbands will watch with them. But we’ve also had a few men email us,” Koshute said.
“One in particular, it just really touched my heart. And he said that he was searching the web for help for his wife on Mother’s Day. And I was just so filled with praise and thanksgiving to God for that, for a husband to see that hurt in his wife and to want to find a way to help her,” she added. Men and women typically experience the grief of infertility quite differently, Koshute noted. “For us women, it’s so visceral because life is conceived within us and we carry that life. But for a man, it’s so different,” she said.
“(Men are) kind of distant from that experience until the child is actually born. And so I think many times men, the grief and the burden that they carry is their wife’s. They really carry her sadness and I think feel at a loss because they want to make everything right. They want to fix this, and they want to make her whole. And the mystery of infertility is that it’s not that simple. And that’s one of the things that makes it so difficult,” she said. Henkel said she experienced her own difficulties in trying to discuss infertility with her husband. Now that they’ve experienced the joy of growing their family through adoption, she said, he is much more open to inviting other men to share their experiences. Henkel said she is hoping that an additional benefit of this retreat being online is that it will facilitate discussions between couples watching the videos together. Both Henkel and Koshute said that while the experience of infertility and loss is painful, and they want to help couples acknowledge and accept that pain, they also want Springs in the Desert to be a positive and supportive experience for couples and women, where they can find hope and redemption even in their suffering. One of the topics they focus on is how all women are called to motherhood in their lives, whether it is spiritual or biological.
“My experience has shown me that my motherhood is really engaged in so many ways that I never considered before,” Koshute said.
“Not just with my godson or with other children in my family, but with women who are older than I who are friends and who might come to me with a difficulty or problem and I can help them,” or by helping family members in need or through charitable works, she added. “That’s one of the messages that we try to get across to women and to couples as well, that those kinds of things, what we would maybe refer to as spiritual motherhood, is not illegitimate,” she said.
“It’s not second-place. It’s a real way of engaging and living out our motherhood. It’s also not a replacement for a baby. So it’s not as if you go out and volunteer in your community and now you won’t have this longing for a child anymore. But we’ve really found through our own experience and through talking with other women that the more we kind of put ourselves out there and give ourselves to others, the more that we can begin to see that motherhood enacted in us.”
Henkel said she also likes to encourage couples to look at the ways God is calling them to be fruitful in their marriages outside of biological children.
“We really encourage these couples that they are not forgotten, they’re not being punished. That God loves them so much and that he has something amazing for them. He’s using this to draw them near to him and to allow them to cry out to him and ask for him to guide them, to lead them, to give them his love and show them what fruitfulness he has for them, what place in ministry and mission he has for them.” Henkel and her husband in particular like to share with couples their experience of foster care as one example of where God might be calling them to be fruitful. After a frustrating and expensive experience with some adoption agencies, Henkel and her husband decided to look into giving a home to children through foster care.
“Here is a situation where these children really need families,” she said. “It’s hard because there’s no guarantee you’re going to get to keep this child, so there’s a sense of this new greater level of having to learn how to trust God.” “I think that with a couple discerning that fruitfulness, it’s also discerning – where is God really calling you? There’s so much need in this world. And he wants to use us.”
Couples interested in the Springs in the Desert Mother’s Day weekend retreat can sign up for free online at the Springs in the Desert website. Content will be uploaded and available for anyone who registers, Henkel said, even if they register late. The retreat team will also be hosting a live talk on Sunday, May 10 at 2 p.m. Eastern on the ministry’s Facebook page.
“There’s a place for you in Springs of the Desert,” Henkel added. “There’s so many women who have reached out to us in Philly. We added several more women to our group, to our team, our official team, women who came to the retreat. One woman had come there and she said she had had a miscarriage, and neither one of us has experienced that. So we said, please join us. We want your voice.”
“We’re trying to really bring the voices of many different women to our team so that people will feel there is somebody that is talking they can really relate to. Because there are all of these different situations, but they’ve got obviously a very similar undercurrent.”
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