MPAA Rating: PG USCCB Rating: A-II Reel Rating: (4 out of 5 reels) Christianity in America is going through a bit of an identity crisis, to put it mildly. In the last thirty years, there […]
Washington D.C., Apr 6, 2017 / 04:25 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Religious freedom advocates at the United States capitol on Thursday sent a message of solidarity to all those imprisoned or tortured for their religious beliefs.
“You are not alone. We a… […]
Dublin, Ireland, Apr 6, 2017 / 03:53 pm (CNA).- Facing legal scrutiny over foreign funding of efforts to fight Ireland’s anti-abortion law, a pro-abortion group has returned a $25,000 grant to billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundati… […]
Aleppo, Syria, Apr 6, 2017 / 02:53 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The attitude of Christians in Aleppo seems to have improved since Syrian government forces re-took the city, and they believe the prayers of Christians abroad have helped them, one religious sister reports.
Sister Maria Sponsa Iusti Ioseph, a native of Peru, told CNA that the Christians in Aleppo have received with love the words of Pope Francis.
When government forces took the city from rebels in December, the sisters told the faithful “that the Holy Father is praying for us and a lot of people in the world are too.”
“They really appreciate that and they feel protected by the prayers of Christians,” Sister Maria Sponsa said. “At the same time they feel very happy because they know that their suffering is not in vain, but it helps the people in the West. If they know that there are conversions because of that offering, that gives them a lot of strength to go on.”
The sister is a religious of the Institute of the Incarnate Word who lives in the city of Aleppo, which was taken from rebels in December 2016. She recounted how Christians have lived in the last four months.
The Christians in Aleppo attend Mass frequently. Before Mass, they pray a Rosary for peace.
“Once a month a Eucharist is celebrated for the deceased in the Cathedral of the Child Jesus,” Sister Maria Sponsa said. “Now thanks be to God, the Christian cemetery has been recovered—it was controlled by the rebels. Christians can visit their dead again and bring over bodies interred elsewhere for burial there.”
Sister María Sponsa said that the people’s attitude has improved since the government’s capture of the city. This change was noticeable during Christmas.
“We saw that people were walking happily down the street. Their faces were completely changed,” she said. “Even though they are usually very cheerful, you could notice another kind of joy. It was like a respite.”
“Some of the window lights were lit up and the churches had also decorated their domes with lights. They even set up a Christmas tree in the street.”
During previous Christmases since the civil war began, “there were no lights in the windows, nor were there churches decorated with lights, nor was there any Christmas atmosphere.”
“When we visited the people we would ask them if they had set up a manger scene, but they didn’t want to have one because it brought back memories for them,” Sister Maria Sponsa reported. “Before the war they lived so happily, they shared the holidays with their families. And so it was depressing for them to put out those things that represented those memories in the midst of a difficult situation.”
However, for the 2016 holidays some people put out their decorations again.
The religious sister also stressed that the suffering caused by shortages in the city, such as water, food and shelter, has resulted in Christian and Muslim neighbors working together to survive.
“Today we all share the same lot. Everyone is suffering because of this situation. They help each other out. The people of Aleppo are very respectful and very open, thanks be to God,” she said. “That makes it easier for good relationships among everyone.”
Sister María Sponsa said that the home of the Incarnate Word sisters in Aleppo is open to anyone who wants to visit them.
“People like to come to the house. And so we have little get-togethers, have a little coffee,” she said. “We even have coffee with the people after Sunday Mass. They enjoy it. They talk with us and get a little relief from the situation they’re going through.”
For Sister Maria Sponsa, Syrians “express affection very differently from Latinos.”
“It seems to me they’re much warmer,” she said. “For example after five minutes they say ‘I miss you.’ When they know you well they call you and ask how you’re doing.”
“There, you hardly come into a house and they don’t ask you if you’re going to have coffee. They say, ‘with or without sugar?’ They talk with you for five minutes and then they give you the coffee,” she commented.
The Franciscans and the Salesians usually prepare the Christian children, youths and adults to receive the sacraments for the first time.
The religious sister said that every Thursday the sisters get together with the young college students they welcome into their home.
“We talk, we give them a little doctrine, sometimes we watch movies and play board games,” she said. “For them it’s a time of fun and distraction. They’re always waiting for it to be Thursday so we can get together.”
They also organize a co-ed gathering once a month, since the men live with the priests of the same institute.
“When we can take a little walk, we go to the park, although it’s not that safe. We watch movies with them or we invite them.”
The Syrian civil war began in March 2011 with demonstrations against the nation’s president, Bashar al-Assad. The war has claimed the lives of more than 320,000 people, and forced 4.8 million to become refugees. Another 8 million Syrians are believed to have been internally displaced by the violence.
Vatican City, Apr 6, 2017 / 12:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- This Holy Thursday, Pope Francis will wash the feet of prison inmates and say Mass at their penitentiary.
The Pope will visit Paliano prison south of Rome the afternoon of April 13. He will make a private visit and say the Mass of the Last Supper, Vatican Radio reports.
For Holy Thursday in 2013, just after becoming Pope, Francis visited the Casal del Marmo youth detention center in Rome and celebrated Mass there. This occasion was notable for being the first time a Pope included females and non-Christians among those whose feet he washed.
At the time, liturgical law permitted only men’s feet to be washed in the Holy Thursday ceremony.
In January 2016, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments modified the Roman Missal to allow for women’s feet to be washed at the Holy Thursday Mass.
The decision was made in concert with Pope Francis.
In a letter to the congregation’s prefect, Cardinal Robert Sarah, Pope Francis wrote: “For some time I have been reflecting on the rite of the washing of the feet, which forms part of the Liturgy of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, with the intention of improving the ways in which it is put into practice, so that we fully express the meaning of the gesture made by Jesus in the Upper Room, his gift of self until the end for the salvation of the world, his boundless charity.”
The Roman Missal’s text was modified to say that “those chosen from among the People of God are accompanied by the ministers”, while it had previously read: “the men chosen are accompanied by the ministers”.
Many parishes around the world had already been including women in the ritual for years; the decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship made the practice licit.
In 2014, Pope Francis said the Holy Thursday Mass at the Don Gnocchi center for the disabled.
In 2015 he visited Rome’s Rebibbia prison for the Holy Thursday Mass.
For Holy Thursday in 2016 Pope Francis visited a center for asylum seekers in Castelnuovo di Porto, a municipality just north of Rome. He washed the feet of refugees, who included Muslims, Hindus, and Coptic Orthodox Christians.
Vatican City, Apr 6, 2017 / 11:20 am (CNA/EWTN News).- According to Vatican statistics released Thursday, the Church in the Americas lags behind globally when it comes to the number of seminarians per number of Catholics.
In 2015, the Americas had 53.6 seminarians per one million Catholics, trailing just behind Europe with 65.0 seminarians per million Catholics. This is in comparison to Asia’s 245.7 and Africa’s 130.6 seminarians per million Catholics.
The Americas’ low seminarian rate occurs despite the continent’s hold on the highest percentage of baptized Catholics in the world – 49 percent.
These and other statistics, released by the Vatican April 6, are contained within the 2017 Pontifical Yearbook, and the 2015 “Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae.” These volumes, compiled by the Central Office of Church Statistics and edited by the Vatican Press, are being distributed in bookstores now.
In terms of clergy, although the number of bishops grew relative to the number of Catholics, globally, the number of priests declined in 2015, in contrast to an upward trend from 2010-2014.
According to the report, the decline is largely attributable to the geographical areas of Europe and North America.
The percentage of priests in the world did increase by 0.83 percent between 2015 and 2010. With priests, Africa and Asia show a sustained growth dynamic, while the Americas remained almost stationary in that period. Europe and Oceania recorded negative rates of growth.
If considered with regard to the relationship between the size of the geographic areas and the rest of the world it shows that the relative weight of Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central and South America, all grew from 2010-2015, while Oceania and Middle East Asia remained stationary.
North America and Europe declined in the same period, which explains why the world-wide decline in priests in 2015 is largely attributable to these two areas.
Overall, Catholics grew globally from 1.272 billion in 2014 to 1.285 in 2015 – representing almost 18 percent of the population.
This “confirms the positive trend in the number of Catholics in the world, especially in the African continent, whose relative weight continues to increase over time,” the report states.
The significance of the Catholic Church in Africa continues to be confirmed as the number of baptized Catholics in the continent grew from 15.5 to 17.3 percent of all Catholics globally.
The growth in Catholics in the Americas and Asia is also important – up 6.7 percent in America and 9.1 percent in Asia – although these numbers fit with overall demographic development in the two continents, according to the report.
On the other hand, Europe’s contribution to the world’s Catholics made a sharp decline from 23.8 percent in 2010 to 22.8 in 2015.
In the period from 2010-2015, there was also a significant growth in the number of bishops, deacons, lay missionaries and catechists, although this is in contrast to a decline in professed religious brothers and sisters.
The priestly vocation crisis is particularly critical in America, the report noted, where the ratio between Catholics and priests exceeds 5,000 Catholics per priest. The ratio in Europe is weakened, with 1,595 Catholics per priest, though this is the most positive ratio in absolute terms.
In Asia the situation improved slightly, from 2,269 to 2,185 Catholics per priest, and Africa is stable with around 5,000 Catholics per priest.
After reaching a peak in 2011, the overall number of seminarians has undergone a gradual decline. Africa is the only continent not to experience this decline, making it the region with the greatest potential in the vocation crisis, the report explained.
The sun was fading as I boarded a London underground train. My destination was different from that of my fellow travellers. Few, I imagine, were on their way to a religious house; none were going […]
Vatican City, Apr 6, 2017 / 07:48 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Thursday the Vatican announced that Pope Francis has chosen Msgr. Daniel H. Mueggenborg, a priest of the Diocese of Tulsa, to be an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Seattle.
Over the cour… […]
Vatican City, Apr 6, 2017 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican office which governs the use of the extraordinary form of the Roman rite has given priests permission to say a special Mass for the feast of Our Lady of Fatima this year, noting the importance of the apparition’s centenary.
In an April 5 decree the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei gave permission for any priest of the Latin Rite to celebrate a votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary on May 13, 2017 – the 100th anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady at Fatima, Portugal.
The decision was made because “many of the Christian faithful who are attached to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite have a particular and fervent devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary of Fatima” and out of a wish “to encourage the devotion of the faithful to the Blessed Virgin Mary of Fatima,” according to a translation of the decree made by Gregory DiPippo, editor of New Liturgical Movement.
The permission is significant because in the extraordinary form, May 13 is the third class feast of St. Robert Bellarmine – which means Our Lady of Fatima cannot normally be celebrated.
In the ordinary form, meanwhile, May 13 is already an optional memorial of Our Lady of Fatima.
If a Votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart is celebrated on May 13 in the extraordinary form, it may include a commemoration of St. Robert Bellarmine, as per the rubrics of the Roman Missal of 1962.
The Marian apparitions at Fatima are among the most famous of Mary’s appearances. On May 13, 1917, siblings Francisco and Jacinta Marto – age 9 and 7 – and their cousin, 10-year-old Lucia dos Santos, were taking their sheep to graze when they saw a figure of a woman dressed in white and holding a rosary.
After this first appearance, the Virgin Mary then appeared to the children on the 13th of every month from May until October. The message of the Fatima apparitions can be summarized primarily as a call to repentance and prayer.
Francisco and Jacinta died in 1919 and 1920, respectively, and were beatified in 2000. The path to their canonization was opened in March, when a second miracle attributed to their intercession was recognized by the Pope.
Lucia became a Carmelite nun and died in 2005. Her cause for beatification is open.
In 1930, the Church proclaimed the supernatural character of the apparitions and a shrine was erected at Fatima. It was visited by Blessed Paul VI in 1967, and later by St. John Paul II and by Benedict XVI.
St. John Paul II had a particularly strong devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. After a harrowing assassination attempt in 1981, he credited his survival to her miraculous intervention. As a sign of his gratitude, he placed the bullet from the failed assassination in her crown.
Pope Francis will make a pilgrimage to the Fatima shrine for the centenary of the apparition next month.
He will visit the chapel of the apparitions and bless candles there on May 12. The following day, he will say Mass in the square before the shrine and greet the sick. He is also scheduled to meet with Portugal’s bishops, president, and prime minister.
Philadelphia, Pa., Apr 6, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholic schools in Philadelphia have seen a revitalization in finances and quality of education thanks to the initiative of Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, says a group that collaborated with him on the effort.
“While fund-raising certainly helped, the faith and wisdom of Archbishop Charles J. Chaput was equally important,” the Faith in the Future foundation said.
“He recognized the passion of lay leaders – Catholic and non-Catholic alike – for these schools and he empowered them to take action.”
The archdiocese began a partnership in 2012 with the Faith in the Future to increase fundraising and new leadership in overseeing Catholic school management.
“We need to have ongoing interest on the part of the donor community – not only Catholics but people who share our commitment to education – the ongoing support of the archdiocese of course, and our people and our pastors are all included,” Archbishop Charles Chaput said at the time, according to the Catholic Philly.
The foundation is now in charge of 17 high schools and four special education schools. The program started off in 2012 with nearly 13 million dollars in donations and has increased to 19.4 million in 2016. In a recent column for the Philadelphia Inquirer, the group’s leaders lauded Archbishop Chaput for his part in the growing success of the city’s Catholic schools.
Faith in the Future works to fund the school’s operational deficits then reinvests the surpluses into new programs. The organization also oversees improvements to operations and market strategies to further promote enrollment.
In the beginning of 2012, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was planning on closing 44 elementary schools, four high schools, and displacing nearly 24,000 students. Among other challenges, the archdiocese felt heavy financial strains from organizational issues and abuse scandals.
“The resources simply don’t exist. Many of our parishes are financially strained. The archdiocese itself faces serious financial and organizational challenges that have been developing for many years and cannot be ignored,” Archbishop Chaput had told the Catholic Standard & Times.
As part of the revamping initiative, many schools have undergone significant transformation. West Catholic was reborn as West Catholic Preparatory High School, and has since doubled its enrollment – adding engineering and technology programs as well as a partnership with Drexel University. The U.S. Department of Education also accepted Our Mother of Consolation into the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program, which is an award recognizing academic excellence. Both schools were originally among those slated to close.
The foundation’s CEO, Samuel Carter, said that only three schools are now running on deficits. Carter noted they have accumulated a surplus over the past three years, and funds are being channeled back into new technologies and programs.
In a February 2016, Faith in the Future announced that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia will extend their contract until 2022. At the announcement, Carter pointed to an information system that tracked the market analysis of potential students in order to better market the school’s qualities. He also discussed the increased strategies for access to assisted funding from areas like BLOCS or the Maguire Foundation, according the Catholic Philly.
Besides increased funds by donors and better school organization, expansions to the EITC and OSTC of Pennsylvania’s tax systems have made tuition assistance more readily available for families. Both of the programs apply tax breaks or credits to businesses who provide a charitable donation. Businesses are able to receive 75-90 percent state tax credit for any amount up to $750,000.
Last year, Philadelphia’s Catholic school system saw 93 percent of their graduates attend college, and more than half were awarded with at least one scholarship. As reported by Catholic Philly, Archbishop Chaput expressed his gratitude for the foundation, the lay community’s involvement, and the Catholic identity guiding the schools.
“The foundation’s zeal for excellence in management, guided by a strong Catholic identity, has served our high schools and schools of special education exceptionally well. I’m confident the foundation will continue to strengthen our educational system for the benefit of the region’s children,” the archbishop said.
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