What Pope Francis did when guards tried to stop these Chinese pilgrims

Vatican City, Apr 6, 2018 / 11:05 am (CNA).- Before he died, the late Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, emeritus Archbishop of Bologna, told friends that he wished for a conference that would gather bishops and other Catholics to reflect on the state of the Church.

The conference “Church, where do you go?,” scheduled for April 7 in Rome, can be considered the fulfillment of Cardinal Caffarra’s wish.
 
Not by chance, the conference is dedicated to his memory. Not by chance, the subtitle of the conference is “only the blind would deny there is confusion in the Church,” a passage of one of his latest interviews.
 
A number of significant topics that have arisen during Pope Francis’ pontificate will be discussed: the 50th anniversary of the Humanae Vitae; questions about the Church’s doctrine on matters of sexual morality; the issue of conscience, which was crucial during the 2015 synod on family, and the concept of “discernment,” which is sometimes used in arguments justifying more open access to communion for divorced and remarried Catholics.
 
The topics of discussion will also include the limits of the papal authority and infallibility.
 
There are all the ingredients of a rich food for thought.
 
Relators of the conference are Cardinals Raymond Leo Burke, Walter Brandmueller and Joseph Zen Zekiun; Bishop Athanasius Schneider; philosopher Marcello Pera; professors Renzo Puccetti and Valerio Gigliotti; and journalist Francesca Romana Poleggi.
 
The titles of the lectures touch critical issues, and also explore the possibility of correcting the pope, if his statements seem to contradict Catholic doctrine. This demonstrates the increasing preoccupation in some circles with the protection of the deposit of faith.
 
Though some presentation titles might seem harsh, the topics are real, and they are intended to be part of an attempt to respond to open issues, such as those put forth by the 2016 dubia of four cardinals, that asked the pope certain questions about the doctrine of the Church, in light of the different ways Amoris Laetitia was being interpreted.
 
The late Cardinal Caffarra was one of the signatories of those dubia, and his approach to the issue provides a good way to glimpse into the conference, beyond any possible vis polemica.
 
Cardinal Caffarra always underscored he was not against the Pope, but he was merely seeking clarity on issues of faith. His signature at the end of the dubia, and the following letter he sent to the Pope to solicit a response, was intended as a search for the guidance of Peter on questions on faith and doctrine.
 
The Apr. 7 conference will be concluded by a short video interview Cardinal Caffarra granted on the issue of Humanae Vitae, one of the increasingly controversial topics of the moment.
 
Presenting a book on the contribution of Cardinal Karol Wojtytla (then Pope John Paul II) to the preparatory commission of Humanae Vitae, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, emeritus prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, stressed that overturning the teaching of the Bl. Paul VI encyclical would be “a crime against the Church,” and denounced the work of a “secret commission” to re-write Humanae Vitae.
 
The commission is a study group led by professor Gilfredo Marengo, that is said to be looking back to the genesis of the encyclical.
 
The genesis of Humanae Vitae is one of main topics of discussion, and Renzo Puccetti, one of the lecturers, described it very well in the book “I veleni della contraccezione” (“The poisons of contraception”) that explains how the contraceptive pill was invented, developed and spread, describes the work of the lobbies of demographic control and how Catholics responded with natural family planning, and describes the struggle between bishops, theologians, doctors, and association of lay people over contraception.
 
This struggle poisoned the years before and after the Second Vatican Council, but Paul VI resolved to staying faithful to the doctrine.
 
The rebellion that followed provides a lot of clues about what is going on now. The encyclical was strongly resisted by a group of theologians that grabbed the headlines, and the pope was subjected to strong pressures.
 
The first step was to question the authoritativeness of the encyclical, saying that norms of contraception were not mandatory, as the document did not present a solemn declaration of infallibility.
 
This is the reason why Cardinal Wojtyla, who took part the in the preparatory committee, recommended that Paul VI clearly express the infallibility, not of the encyclical, but of the teaching expressed in the encyclical, a part of deposit of faith that needed to be preserved to stay faithful to the Gospel.
 
If the story behind Humanae Vitae says a lot about how campaigns against Catholic teaching is carried on even nowadays, the issue of pope’s infallibility is another interesting topic.
 
Is Amoris Laetitia or any other Papal document beyond the possibility of any mistake? To this extent, it is worthy to note that Cardinal Walter Brandmueller, another of the speakers, wrote in 1992 a book titled “The Church and the right to be wrong” about the Galileo case.
 
Cardinal Brandmueller took the example of Galileo to stress that the Church does not claim any infallibility except in some, well defined cases. Things can be discussed, in the end. Noting this is also an indirect response to those who blame any critic of Amoris Laetitia as a critic of papal authority itself.
 
Cardinal Burke is a very well known personality, and on numerous occasions he has addressed the problems of confusion over Catholic teaching. and the need to tackle that issue for the sake of the faithful.
 
Cardinal Zen has become the loudest voice in the defense of the Church’s freedom in China. While a discussion on the China-Vatican deal on the appointment of bishops is underway, Cardinal Zen has expressed the concern of many Catholics of China, and decried a return to Ostpolitik, the label given to Holy See’s policy with Eastern bloc countries on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Ostpolitik was a diplomacy of dialogue and concessions, developed in the 60s by Msgr. Agostino Casaroli, later St. John Paul II’s Secretary of State.

Ostpolitik was also strongly criticized from the Cardinals of the Church of Silence, i.e., Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, Primate of Poland, and above all Cardinal Jozef Mindszenty, Archbishop of Budapest-Esztergom, that both considered the Holy See’s approach as amounting to too much dialoguing with the countries of the Soviet bloc.
 
Bishop Schneider of Astana, Kazakhstan, has been one of the strongest defenders of  Catholic teaching and a promoter of the Kazakhstani profession of truths on marriage.
 
Is the current approach on issues of doctrine and morality a replica of the Ostpolitik approach? Is the Church dialoguing too much with the world, giving up the primary task of evangelization?
 
Those are issues that will be explored during the April 7 discussion.
 
The conference will end with a declaration, which will likely restate the truth of faith regarding doctrine on marriage and sexuality.
 
According to the veteran Vatican watcher Sandro Magister, “this ‘declaratio’ will be the polar opposite of that ‘Kölner Erklärung’ – the declaration signed in Cologne in 1989 by German theologians now in the good graces of Francis – which concerned the principles later reaffirmed by John Paul II in the 1993 encyclical “Veritatis Splendor.”
 
It remains to be seen how much the conference will garner attention and make an impact. It is likely it will be labeled as an “anti-Francis” conference, but it is also likely that there will be a poor response to the hard-hitting questions raised during the lectures.

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Vatican City, Mar 2, 2017 / 08:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Vatican conference on biodiversity has found that wasteful attitudes when it comes to consumption could be leading to the extinction of certain species, and that changing personal habits and a promoting more equal distribution of the earth’s resources could make the difference.

“We’re consuming more than is what available…there’s no doubt that in the richer countries in the world, we’re wasting an enormous amount and that’s all adding to the total,” Professor Peter Hamilton Raven said March 2.

Part of the reason for this waste, he said, is because “we don’t really understand the value of what we’re wasting. It appears to be a free commodity, like air, or space or fuel.”

“According to our standard of living we’re sucking resources from all over the world,” he said, noting that with the current rate of consumption, half of the world’s biodiversity could be extinct by the end of the century.

Based on the science, this hypothesis “is entirely possible if we continue with our greedy and unequal habits,” Raven said, adding that the loss is “something we cannot recover from easily.”

He stressed the importance learning to value the resources available to us, saying that to prevent the loss of biodiversity can’t happen “without having exhibited the reverence for life which must be a characteristic of our species.”

Raven, a professor at the Missouri Botanical Garden and research institute, spoke at a news briefing on a Feb. 27-March 1 study week on biological extinction, subtitled “How to Save the Natural World on Which We Depend.”

Hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the main aim of the gathering was to “review what we know about biological extinction, its causes and the ways in which we might limit its extent,” according to the final March 2 statement released by participants.

Alongside Raven at the briefing was Archbishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Professor Werner Arber, President of the Academy, and Professor Partha Sarathi Dasgupta, a member of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences.

In comments to journalists, Dasgupta echoed Raven’s concern about waste, saying that when it comes to biodiversity, “an enormous proportion of lifeforms are invisible…the microbes, the soil, the decomposers” and critters that we don’t typically think about.  

“If you are only looking at the final goods and services,” he said, “you forget” the resources that go into producing them.

Particularly in urban areas that are more “detached” from the natural world, a person might see an earthworm crawling around on the ground, “but you forget how important they are,” he said, adding that the purpose of the conference was to take a look at some of the invisible organisms that might have gone missing.

For much of mankind, particularly in developed countries, “we think there is an unlimited pool of resources so we can take what we like,” he said, but stressed that this is not the case.

In their final statement, participants concluded that that based on comparisons with the fossil record, the current loss of species rate “is approximately 1,000 times the historical rate, with perhaps a quarter of all species in danger of extinction now and as many as half of them may be gone by the end of the present century.”

Due to man’s dependency on living organisms for necessities such as food and medicine to climate and even beauty, these losses “will inflict incalculable damage on our common prospects unless we control them.”

In their discussion, participants said the danger isn’t isolated to the extinction of species, but also effects the how the earth functions in general.

The “enormous increase” in human activity in the past 200 years alone not only threatens various species, but the use of fossil fuels “is putting huge strains on the earth’s capacity to function sustainably,” they said, and citing rising sea levels, higher global temperatures and ocean acidification as examples.

Discussion also focused at length on the topic of inequality, particularly the disparity between rich versus developing countries, linking the issue of poverty to an imbalance in consumption which results in the endangerment of certain species.

Participants argued that the 19 percent of the world’s richest people use “well over” half of the world’s resources, and because of this, wealthier nations are “substantially responsible for the increase in global warming and, consequently, the decrease in biodiversity.”

On the other hand, they said the world’s poor, “who do not enjoy the benefits of fossil fuels, are indirectly responsible for deforestation and some destruction of biodiversity, because their actions take place within a world economic system dominated by demands made by the wealthy, who have much higher overall consumption levels without paying any externalities to conserve global biodiversity.”

Given the vast difference between the rich and the poor on a global plane, participants suggested “wealth redistribution” as one positive action that could be taken.

“Ending extreme poverty, which would cost about $175 billion or less than 1 percent of the combined income of the richest countries in the world, is one major route to protecting our global environment and saving as much biodiversity as possible for the future,” they said, adding that this can be done differently in individual poor regions.

The panel present at the news briefing also addressed the point of population growth, saying conference participants across the board recognized that the loss of biodiversity and the negative effects of climate change don’t have to do with the number of people on the planet, so much as their habits and behavior.

In comments to journalists, Archbishop Sorondo said that throughout the conference, “what was clear is that the population is not the cause of climate change, but it’s the human activity and use of fossil fuels that produces climate change.”

“Consequently the population isn’t the cause, but human activity, which uses those resources,” he said, adding that it’s not a question “of how many human beings, but the activity and use of the materials consumed.”

“So today, to conserve biodiversity and to have an integral environment, this depends on human activity,” he said, and stressed the importance of educating families on the issue.

Dasgupta echoed the statement, encouraging people “not to translate the sustainable output” that nature offers as solely up to human numbers, because a sustainable number of people “depends on the standard of living, the quality of life that we have on average.”

Consumption is a key to this point, he said, adding that the disparity between rich and poor compounds the issue. On this point, “growth doesn’t seem to change the distribution amongst us,” he said, adding that “if the distribution doesn’t change it’s as if you’re becoming richer.”

In his comments, Raven noted that while the earth can’t sustain “an infinite” number of people, “no one really knows the number of people the world will really support.”

But when it comes to the issue of consumption, Raven said a sense of solidarity, “love and charity” ought to guide our actions, encouraging people to not just care about the future of “their own children and grandchildren,” but also “for others.”

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Vatican City, Mar 23, 2017 / 02:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On Thursday a Vatican event on the prevention of child abuse narrowed in on the importance of education in schools and parishes in the safeguarding of children – not only for teachers, but for parents and children – and on the Church’s role.

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

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

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

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

Additionally, every Vatican department was represented in some way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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