Blessed John Henry Newman (1801-1890) – a theologian who came to prominence in the Victorian Age – can help us check the Church’s spiritual pulse in the post-modern twenty-first century, thanks to his prescient sense […]
Washington D.C., Apr 12, 2017 / 02:33 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Three chairmen of the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference have voiced strong support for a measure that would restore certain religious freedoms to child welfare providers.
The recently introduced Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act of 2017 would prevent the federal government, and any state receiving federal funds for child welfare services, from taking adverse action against a provider that, for religious or moral reasons, declines to provide a child welfare social service.
Under the previous administration, several faith-based child welfare providers in multiple states including in Massachusetts, Illinois, California, and the District of Columbia, have been forced to shut down their adoption and foster care services because of beliefs that children should be placed with a married mother and father.
In the case of Illinois, more than 3,000 children were displaced after religiously affiliated adoption and foster care services had to close their doors. Catholic Social Services of Southern Illinois decided to cut ties from their affiliated Catholic diocese and operate as a separate Christian non-profit in order to maintain consistent services for the children.
Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, and Bishop James D. Conley of Lincoln expressed their support for the Inclusion Act in letters to Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) in the U.S. House of Representatives and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) in the U.S. Senate, who introduced the bill.
“The Inclusion Act would remedy this unjust discrimination by enabling all providers to serve the needs of parents and children in a manner consistent with the providers’ religious beliefs and moral convictions,” the bishops said.
“Our first and most cherished freedom, religious liberty, is to be enjoyed by all Americans, including child welfare providers who serve the needs of children. The Inclusion Act protects the freedom of all child welfare providers by ensuring they will not be discriminated against by the government because of their religious beliefs or moral convictions,” they wrote.
The Bishops also stressed that the Inclusion Act respects the religious freedom of parents who are looking to place their children into adoption or foster care services.
“Women and men who want to place their children for adoption ought to be able to choose an agency that shares the parents’ religious beliefs and moral convictions. The Inclusion Act recognizes and respects this parental choice.”
It was a Sunday afternoon. The venue was a hospital chapel that had been Anglican but is now used by any Christian group who requests it. It was amongst the Victorian statues and monuments to […]
Vatican City, Apr 12, 2017 / 07:21 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As the Church this week reflects on Jesus’ crucifixion and death, Pope Francis said that it is the cross that gives us hope, and urged faithful to enter into the mystery of Christ’s death by contemplating the joy that comes from sacrifice.
“During these days, days of love, let us be enveloped by the mystery of Jesus who, like a grain of wheat, in dying gives us life. He is the seed of our hope,” the Pope said April 12.
“Let us contemplate the Crucified Christ, the source of hope. Little by little we realize that hope with Jesus is learning to see, indeed right now, the plant in the seed, Easter in the cross, life in death.”
Speaking during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, Francis told pilgrims he was giving them some homework. He instructed them when they get home to stop in front the crucifix, look at Jesus and tell him: “With you, I can always hope. You are my hope.”
“Now imagine the crucifix,” he told the crowd, “and all together say to Jesus Crucified, three times: ‘You are my hope.’” When the crowd said, Francis wasn’t convinced, and had them repeat it again even louder.
“We we really believe that in the Crucified Christ our hope is reborn,” he said, but cautioned that “it is a different hope from that of the world. What hope is this? The hope that is born of the cross.”
Love and hope come together on the cross of Christ, he said, explaining that this is a cross everyone must carry at different points in their lives.
“But it’s beautiful to help others, to serve others,” he said, noting that this can get tiring at times, “but life is like that…This is love and hope together: to serve and give.”
“Of course, this love comes from the cross, from sacrifice, as it did for Jesus,” he said, stressing that the cross in itself is not the goal, but rather “a necessary step” to the ultimate goal, which is “glory, as Easter shows us,” he said.
It is in laying down one’s life, not holding onto it, that we find true joy, the Pope said, and pointed to the sacrifice of a mother, which he said is “another beautiful image that Jesus left to his disciples during the Last Supper.”
Jesus says in John 16:21 that “the woman, when giving birth, is in pain, because her hour has come; but, when she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the suffering, because of the joy that a child has come into the world.”
This is what mothers do, Francis said, noting that they give life to another through suffering, but then they are “joyful and happy (because) love gives birth to life and even gives meaning to pain.”
Love is the “engine” that fuels our hope, he said, and encouraged pilgrims to ask themselves: “Do I love? Have I learned to love? Am I learning every day to love more?”
“There is no other way to overcome evil and to give hope to the world,” he said, except by serving with humility and love.
“Have you thought about this?” he asked. No one likes to lose power and the logic of the seed that must die before bearing fruit is difficult to understand, he said, but stressed that this is the way of God.
He pointed to how many times in life we move forward with the mentality that the more we have the more we want. However, Jesus clearly says the opposite: “He who loves his life will lose it.”
This is why our hope is born from Christ’s transformation of death into life, he said, explaining that in the same way Jesus transforms our own sin into forgiveness, “our death into the resurrection, our fear into confidence.”
“That’s why there on the Cross, our hope is born and is always born again; that’s why with Jesus all our darkness can be transformed into light, every defeat into victory, every disappointment into hope. Every? Yes, every.”
Vatican City, Apr 12, 2017 / 04:22 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday the Vatican announced that EWTN’s Chairman of the Board Michael Warsaw has been named by Pope Francis a consultor of the Vatican Secretariat for Communications.
The announcement of Warsaw’s appointment was made in an April 12 communique from the Vatican, along with the names of 13 other new consultors.
Warsaw was promoted to Chairman of the Board for EWTN in 2013. He has worked for EWTN since 1991, and had been named president in 2000, and CEO in 2009. He also serves as publisher of the National Catholic Register since the paper’s acquisition by EWTN in 2011.
He has worked for more than 35 years in media, and has overseen EWTN’s television, radio, and internet programming and production, as well as hosting the program “Bookmark.” He had been appointed COO in 2009.
EWTN was founded in 1981 by Mother Angelica, of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration. The network today transmits programming to more than 264 million homes in 144 countries. What began with approximately 20 employees has now grown to nearly 400.
The religious network broadcasts terrestrial and shortwave radio around the world, operates a religious goods catalog and publishes the National Catholic Register and Catholic News Agency, among other publishing ventures.
In addition to Warsaw, other new consultors to the Secretariat are: Fr. Ivan Maffeis, Undersecretary of the Italian Bishops Conference; Fr. José María La Porte, Dean of the Faculty of Institutional Social Communications of the Pontifical University of Santa Croce; Fr. Peter Gonsalves, S.B.D., Dean of the Faculty of the Science of Social Communications at the Pontifical Salesian University; Fr Eric Salobir, O.P., Promoter General for Social Communications of the Order of Preachers; Fr. James Martin S.J. of America Magazine; Fr. Jacquineau Azétsop S.J., Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Pontifical Gregorian University; Paolo Peverini, Professor of Semiotics at Luiss Guido Carli University; Fernando Giménez Barriocanal, President and Managing Director of Radio Popular-Cadena COPE; Ann Carter of Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications; Graham Ellis, Vice Director of BBC Radio; Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio, Chief ICT Auditor at the United Nations and Michael Paul Unland, Executive Director of the Catholic Media Council.
Manchester, N.H., Apr 12, 2017 / 04:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has dismissed a New Hampshire priest from the clerical state, after the priest was convicted of stealing some $300,000 from the local diocese, a hospital and a deceased priest’s estate.
“On February 28, 2017, Pope Francis decreed Edward J. Arsenault dismissed from the clerical state, and dispensed him from all obligations subsequent to sacred ordination, including that of celibacy,” the Diocese of Manchester said in a statement last week.
“By virtue of this decree, Edward J. Arsenault has no faculties to act, function, or present himself as a priest.”
In 2014, Arsenault was sentenced to four years in prison. He was ordered to repay $300,000 in restitution, according to local media reports.
Arsenault was convicted of writing checks from the dead priest’s estate to himself and of billing a hospital for consulting work he never did, according to the Associated Press.
He admitted to spending the money on travel and expensive restaurants for himself and a male partner. He pleaded guilty to three charges of theft in 2014.
Last week, Arsenault was moved to house arrest. He is up for parole in February next year, the Associated Press reported.
As a priest, Arsenault had previously worked for the Manchester diocese. He helped to handle a clergy sex abuse scandal in the state and to implement new child protection policies.
Vatican City, Apr 12, 2017 / 12:29 am (CNA).- A new initiative in Italy will allow blood donors to receive a free ticket to the Vatican Museums.
“Without blood, there is no life. Without art, life would be empty and sad,” said Barbara Jatt… […]
Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast, Apr 11, 2017 / 05:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The regional conference of West African bishops has commended a regional economic union for its efforts to promote peaceful transfers of power, while also noting areas of concern, including religious intolerance and youth unemployment.
The bishops of the Regional Episcopal Conference of West Africa met March 28-31 in Ivory Coast to discuss their role in the prevention, mediation, resolution, and transformation of conflicts.
The conference includes the bishops of 15 countries, covering the Atlantic coast from Mauritania to Nigeria, as well as Cape Verde, Mali, and Burkina Faso.
The bishops sent a message to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) April 4 highlighting ways in which the two organizations can collaborate.
They noted positively the “democratic transfer of power in many of our countries and the relative peace we are witnessing in our region.”
Noting that economic growth has been a boon to their citizens, the bishops added that nevertheless, “we are at pains to observe some significant challenges within our region which need to be addressed.”
The bishops first listed political transition and instability as a concern; several of the nations in West Africa have experienced coups d’etat or civil war in recent years.
“Political transitions of power in some countries are characterised by the disregard for the rule of law, weak institutions, shrinking space for political participation by all, frequent human rights violations and tortures,” the bishops observed.
“We are also worried about political leaders who employ extra-democratic means to remain in power for life, we appeal to our political authorities to respect the democratic tenets of their countries.”
A dangerous level of unemployment for the youth has also raised concern from the bishops. They said a majority of youths in the region are unemployed “and therefore highly exposed to trafficking, drug abuse, violence and forced migrations. As long as they remain without jobs after their graduation and move about in our sub-region, they are easy preys to warlords and political criminals, who may recruit them for violent crimes and terrorism.”
They urged “putting in place appropriate measures and incentives to create gainful employment opportunities for our youth” to reverse this trend.
Turning to religious intolerance and extremism, the bishops stated that “the desire of religious extremist groups to forcefully ‘islamise’ countries in our region poses a serious threat to the right of every citizen to freely choose and practise the religion of his or her choice.”
Most of the nations in the West African bishops’ conference have a majority- or plurality-Muslim population, and some governments or extremist groups have turned to persecution of Christians and other religious groups.
The bishops commended ECOWAS for its recent intervention in The Gambia, whose president of 22 years, Yahya Jammeh, refused to accept the results of a December 2016 election in which he was defeated.
This resulted in a constitutional crisis and a military intervention by ECOWAS to install the newly-elected president.
“We also wish to express our heartfelt gratitude for the efficiency with which you managed the situation in The Gambia,” the bishops wrote. “We congratulate you on the firm position you took … which led to the constitutional transfer of power to the rightfully elected President. With this, you sent a strong and clear signal to all political actors and leaders in our region.”
The bishops also noted that The Gambia had been declared an Islamic Republic by Jammeh in December 2015, but that the new president, Adama Barrow, had reversed this: “we are happy that this matter has been reversed with the current leadership,” they commented. “We strongly appeal that this situation should not be repeated in any country in our region.”
“Whenever government adopts a particular religion as a state religion, the rights of other citizens to freedom of conscience and worship is infringed upon,” the West African bishops wrote.
The bishops also expressed their concern over the herdsmen who have menaced local communities – particularly the Fulani in Nigeria.
“The recurrence of natural and man-made disasters such as floods, storms, desertification, food insecurity, forced migration, and other humanitarian crises related to climate change have become a serious threat to human and animal survival. Of particular concern is the environmental and social havocs wrecked by the herdsmen who move their cattle across communities and national borders in the region,” they wrote.
“These herdsmen, often armed with dangerous weapons, are associated with rape, murder, destruction of farms, kidnaping and conflicts. While there is freedom of movement of people and goods in our region, we appeal to our authorities to effectively address this particularly destructive activity.”
The bishops concluded by reminding ECOWAS that they are willing to mediate in “governance and political issues” that may arise in the region.
They have created liaison offices with national parliaments, and “monitor public policies and their implementation in order to promote good governance and the common good in public affairs.”
London, England, Apr 11, 2017 / 03:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Charlie Gard is an 8 month old in the United Kingdom who has been fighting for his life against a rare disease.
His parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, wanted to keep him on life support and… […]
Vatican City, Apr 11, 2017 / 03:33 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis chose French biblical scholar, Anne-Marie Pelletier, to write the meditations for this year’s annual Good Friday Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum.
A recipient of the Ratzinger Prize in 2014, as well as a wife and mother, Pelletier’s meditations follow her own scripturally-based Stations of the Cross, or Via Crucis, based on the 14 biblical stations used by St. John Paul II in 1991.
Because the Stations of the Cross do not have a “binding form,” Pelletier told Vatican Radio, “I chose those moments that seemed particularly significant.”
Her stations are not significantly different from the traditional 14 stations followed by pilgrims walking the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, though the biblical stations don’t include the three falls of Jesus or Veronica wiping the face of Jesus as in the traditional devotion.
She also begins with Jesus’ condemnation, rather than his prayer in the garden of Gethsemane.
Using more than just the accounts of Christ’s Passion in the Gospels, Pelletier’s reflection weaves in Scripture and biblical references from both the Old and New Testaments as she reflects on how the entire life of Christ has been leading him, and us, to his ultimate sacrifice.
Pelletier’s meditations also reflect significantly on the perspective of the women along Jesus’ path, especially his mother, Mary.
An important scholar of contemporary French Catholicism, Pelletier has taught biblical studies at the European Institute of Religious Sciences and served as vice-president of the Jewish-Christian Documentation Information Service in Paris. She is the first woman to win the Ratzinger Prize.
The Ratzinger Prize was begun in 2011 to recognize scholars whose work demonstrates a meaningful contribution to theology in the spirit of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Bavarian theologian who became Benedict XVI.
The prize is awarded by the Ratzinger Foundation, which was founded in 2010 with Benedict XVI’s approval to study and promote his writings as a theologian, as a cardinal in charge of the Vatican’s Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, and as Pope.
Pelletier opens the stations with Jesus’ condemnation before the members of the Sanhedrin, who “did not need a lengthy discussion to come to a decision,” she wrote. “The matter had long been settled. Jesus must die!”
Showing how at each point of his life Jesus faced enemies, she wrote that “our recollection must go back even further,” to Bethlehem, to Jesus’ very birth, when “Herod had decreed that he must die.”
Jesus escaped that time, but “already his life hung in the balance. In the sobbing of Rachel mourning her children who are no more, we hear a prophecy of the sorrow that Simeon will foretell to Mary (cf. Mt 2:16-18; Lk 2:34-35),” she writes.
In the fourth station, when Jesus is crowned with a crown of thorns, draped in a purple cloth and mocked with the words, “Hail, King of the Jews!” the paradox of Jesus’ kingship is revealed to us “as a love that seeks only the will of his Father and his desire that all should be saved.”
In this station she prays, “Lord our God, on this holy day that brings your revelation to fulfillment, we ask you to tear down every idol in us and in our world. You know the sway they have over our minds and our hearts. Tear down in us every deceitful illusion of success and of glory.”
When Jesus meets the mourning women of the daughters of Jerusalem, at the seventh station, Pelletier reflects on the gift of tears Jesus bestows upon them, asking them not to weep for him, but for the world.
The tears “fall silently down their cheeks. And undoubtedly, even more often, they fall unseen in the heart, like the tears of blood spoken of by Catherine of Siena,” she writes. “Not that women alone should weep…” she emphasizes, though it is their grief that “embraces all those tears shed quietly and without fanfare in a world where there is much to weep for.”
The eleventh station is devoted to Jesus and his mother Mary. Throughout her son’s life, Pelletier writes, Mary had entrusted each event “to the great patience of her faith” and today, the day of his crucifixion “is the day of fulfilment.”
“The sword that pierced her Son’s side pierces her own heart. Mary too plunges into that bottomless trust whereby Jesus lives to the full his obedience to the Father. Standing there, she does not desert him. Stabat Mater. In the darkness, but with certainty, she knows that God keeps his promises.”
The reflection on the tender faithfulness of women continues in the final station, as Jesus is laid in the tomb and the women prepare to anoint his body the following morning at daybreak, after the Sabbath has ended.
“Grant too that we, who have accompanied you along this path of love to the very end, together with the women of the Gospel, may remain in expectant prayer,” Pelletier concludes.
“For we know that our prayers will be answered by the resurrection of Jesus, which your Church now prepares to celebrate in the joy of Easter night.”
© Catholic World Report