Denver, Colo., Jun 12, 2017 / 05:01 pm (Denver Catholic).- In what was a historic first for the Archdiocese of Denver, the exhumed remains of a potential saint were laid to rest at the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception June 7.
The canoni… […]
Vatican City, Jun 12, 2017 / 04:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In order to foster collegiality, Pope Francis has added to the usual schedule of bishops’ ad limina visit to Rome: one additional meeting with the heads of the Vatican dicasteries.
The ad limina apostolorum – “to the tomb of the apostles” – visits are the meetings that groups of bishops from each ecclesiastical region in the world have with the Pope every five years. In such occasions they also visit and celebrate Mass at the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul.
Before meeting the Pope, the bishops from a particular country or region visit all the dicasteries Vatican dicasteries and can schedule personal meetings with the head of each dicastery to discuss particular matters.
During such visits, bishops’ conferences prepare exhaustive reports for each dicastery, describing the status of the Church in the country or region.
Before Pope Francis, the meeting of the bishops with the Pope included an exchange of speeches: the president of the bishops’ conference delivered a speech to describe the state of the region, and the Pope delivered a speech in his turn which provided pastoral recommendations and priorities.
After the exchange of speeches, the Pope held a short conversation with each bishop individually.
But since the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis chose the format of an open conversation with the whole group of bishops. All of them are allowed to ask questions, and the Pope responds off the cuff.
The Pope also prepared a formal speech, a copy of which was provided to each bishop.
With time, even the delivery of the papal speech fell into disuse. Now, no official papal text is prepared and therefore the press only knows of the matters discussed during the visit from the bishops who attended it.
Pope Francis has made an additional, recent change: the bishops have now a meeting presided over by Pope Francis with many heads of the Vatican dicasteries.
Not all the heads of Vatican dicasteries take part in the meeting, but only those whose dicasteries are in some way related to pastoral care or some of the main issues at stake in the ecclesiastical region visiting Rome.
Bishop Thomas Dowd, auxiliary bishop of Montreal, told CNA that “for the first time with our group, the Pope met twice with the bishops: before in a meeting with several heads of the Vatican dicasteries, and after for the usual exchange of opinions, which lasted about two hours.”
Bishop Dowd described it as a working meeting which included representatives from the Secretariat of State, the Congregation for Clergy, the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, and the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.
Thanks to provided translation, the Pope, prefect, and bishops of Quebec had “an open exchange of opinions about the Church in the region and its needs. We got advice from the Curia. We gave our input to them, the Curia officials gave their input to us.”
Bishop Dowd added that “the Pope listened to us, and we had coffee together at the end.”
The auxiliary bishop of Montreal recounted: “The Pope basically said: ‘We want to hear from you about what is your situation. Tell us your experience’. The various dicasteries had prepared remarks based on the reports that we sent in advance to the ad limina visit.”
He added that, as the discussion went on, “some of the dicasteries read the texts they prepared, but most of them did not read the texts, but reacted to the experiences raised during the open discussion.”
During the meeting, Pope Francis listened attentively to all the discussions. He spoke at the end, to summarize the discussions and provide an overall reaction.
The bishops of Peru followed next in May, with the same new extra meeting.
Archbishop José Antonio Eguren Anselmi of Piura told CNA that the double meeting, first with the heads of the dicasteries and then only with the bishops “gives great attention to the local Churches, since we have the possibility to spend at least four hours with the Pope.”
Detroit, Mich., Jun 12, 2017 / 03:29 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Dozens of Chaldean Christians were arrested by federal immigration officials over the weekend in the Detroit metropolitan area, leaving the local Church community with sadness and frustration.
“Yesterday was a very strange and painful day for our community in America,” Bishop Francis Kalabat of the Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle of Detroit stated Monday in a Facebook post.
“With the many Chaldeans that were awakened by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and consequently picked up for deportation, there is a lot of confusion and anger,” he added.
Fr. Anthony Kathawa of St. Thomas Chaldean Church in West Bloomfield, Mich., told CNA June 12 that “As a community, we’re all suffering seeing the loss of our loved ones.”
On Sunday, the Detroit Free Press reported that ICE made around 40 arrests of Chaldeans in the Detroit area, according to community leaders.
ICE explained in a statement that Iraq, in negotiations with the U.S., had “agreed to accept” the individuals, who had criminal records.
“As a result of recent negotiations between the U.S. and Iraq, Iraq has recently agreed to accept a number of Iraqi nationals subject to orders of removal,” ICE stated.
A federal judge had also “ordered them removed,” ICE said, noting that their previous criminal offenses included homicide, rape, sexual assault, kidnapping, and “weapons violations.”
A “majority” of those detained are now at the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown, Ohio.
Many of those with criminal records have served their time in prison and have since become good citizens and members of the community, local Church leaders insisted.
“We understand that maybe there was a problem in the past, but there’ve been a lot of people moving forward,” Fr. Kathawa told CNA. “They’ve changed, become better, made families in this great country of opportunity and peace.”
“And now with them leaving, it’s causing chaos within our community, within our families, within our Church,” he added.
“The Church does not oppose justice, all hardened criminals that are a danger to society should be picked up,” Bishop Kalabat stated. “Many who were picked up are not hardened criminals but for the last decades have been great citizens.”
Regarding Sunday’s arrests, the local Church has been in touch with the State Department, members of Congress, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on the matter, the bishop added.
Chaldeans are an Iraqi indigenous community and speak Aramaic. The Chaldean Catholic Church is an Eastern Catholic Church which uses the East Syrian rite.
The Chaldean Catholic community in Detroit dates back to the early 20th century, and an apostolic exarchate was established in 1982. There are around 150,000 Chaldeans in the Detroit area, which is the largest Chaldean diaspora community living outside the Middle East, according to the Chaldean Community Foundation.
Around 30,000 refugees were re-settled in Michigan since the Iraq War began in 2003, and more Syrian refugees are expected to be re-settled there in the coming years, the foundation noted.
Martin Manna, president of the locally-based Chaldean Community Foundation, told the Detroit Free Press that deporting the Chaldeans to Iraq “is like a death sentence.”
The U.S. State Department declared in March of 2016 that the Islamic State had committed genocide against Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria.
The fight to dislodge the Islamic State from Iraq is ongoing as parts of Mosul are still under the group’s control. Although the villages of many Christians in northern Iraq have been liberated, many are still not yet able to return to their homes. Many families are still dependent on aid groups for their livelihood.
There have been efforts in Congress to designate groups targeted for genocide, like Christians in Iraq and Syria, as P-2 refugees, which would expedite their resettlement process in the U.S. as refugees.
Contrary to rumors, the local Church had not signed off on any of the deportations, Bishop Kalabat insisted in a Facebook post on Monday.
“It has been rumored that our Church signed documents regarding the deportation issue. To my capacity, as a permanent member of the church synod, I would like to formally state that this is NOT true, and that was no signed document or any type of agreement made with the Iraqi government or anyone else, that would allow the deportation of Chaldeans to Iraq,” he stated. “There was no such thing discussed, signed, or issued.”
The arrests follow a spike in ICE immigration arrests that began with President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration at the beginning of his presidential term.
In the first 100 days after that order was signed, ICE reported in May that immigration arrests were up 40 percent in comparison with that same time period in 2016.
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Vatican City, Jun 12, 2017 / 12:14 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Consolation is never self-reliant, Pope Francis said during Mass on Monday, noting it is only possible to receive the Lord’s encouragement through another.
“No one can console himself, no one – and whoever tries to do it ends up looking into the mirror – staring into the mirror and trying to ‘make oneself up,’” said the Pope during his June 12 Mass at the chapel of the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta.
“The experience of consolation, which is a spiritual experience, always needs ‘someone else’ in order to be full.”
He reflected on the day’s readings, in which Saint Paul described the need for the Lord’s consolation in his second letter to the Corinthians, and the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew.
He said the “doctors of the law” will not have true consolation because they are the ones who console themselves. “One ‘consoles’ with these closed things that do not let one grow,” he said, “and the air that one breathes is that narcissistic air of self-reference.”
This narcissism never allows for growth or a view of the entire picture, he explained.
Pope Francis said consolation is always from the Lord, and is a two-fold process: receiving a gift and serving others. He said “consolation is a state of transition from the gift received to the service given.”
Consolation must begin with a recognition of one’s own need, he said, explaining that “only then does the Lord come console us, and give us the mission to console others. It is not easy to have one’s heart open to receive the gift and to serve.”
He said an open heart is a happy one because it relies on the Lord, and he reflected on the receptive spirit described in Beatitudes.
“The poor: the heart is opened with an attitude of poverty, of poverty of spirit; those who know how to cry, the meek ones, the meekness of heart; those hungry for justice who fight for justice; those who are merciful, who have mercy on others; the pure of heart; peace-makers and those who are persecuted for justice, for love of righteousness.”
“Thus is the heart opened and [then] the Lord comes with the gift of consolation and the mission of consoling others,” Francis stated.
The Pope contrasted it to the men with closed hearts, who find themselves sufficient: “those who do not need to cry because they feel they are in the right.” He said these men do not understand meekness, mercy, or forgiveness, and in turn they cannot serve others in the same way.
He asked his audience to reflect on how open their hearts are to be able to ask for consolation and then to pass it on to their neighbors.
Ending with words of encouragement, he said the Lord always aims to console us and “asks us to open the doors of our hearts even only just a little bit.”
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Vatican City, Jun 12, 2017 / 10:55 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis met on Thursday with a delegation from a Nigerian diocese which for the last four and a half years has refused to recognize the bishop who was appointed as its shepherd.
He demanded that the clerics of the Diocese of Ahiara accept the bishop appointment that has been made, or face suspension and loss of office.
Fr. Peter Okpaleke was appointed Bishop of Ahiara in December 2012 by Benedict XVI. But the Ahiara diocese is dominated by the Mbaise ethnic group. As an outsider from the nearby Diocese of Awka, Fr. Okpaleke was rejected by much of Ahiara’s clergy and laity, who wanted one of their own to be appointed bishop over them.
The Mbaise are among the most Catholic of Nigerian peoples – 77 percent of the diocese’s population of 670,000 are Catholic. Nearby dioceses range between 19 and 70 percent Catholic.
Families in the rural diocese foster priestly and religious vocations, with at least 167 priestly ordinations for the diocese since its establishment in 1987.
With such a wealth of priests, the Ahiara diocese sends many as missionaries to Western countries, and many Mbaise hoped that one of its own would become their bishop.
In May 2013, an Mbaise emigrant to California and a representative of Mbaise USA, George Awuzie, told CNA that “The Mbaise people wanted their own bishop, who knows what’s going on within the community. They’re sending someone from a different community, a different village, that doesn’t know what we do within our area.”
Mbaise opponents of the appointment blocked access to Ahiara’s cathedral. Due to the strong opposition, Bishop Okpaleke was consecrated and installed outside his new diocese, at Seat of Wisdom Seminary in the Archdiocese of Owerri, May 21, 2013.
In July 2013 Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Abuja was appointed apostolic administrator of Ahiara, but proved unable to solve the problem.
In light of the impasse, Pope Francis met with a delegation from Ahiara June 8 and gave them an ultimatum, saying he is “deeply saddened” by the events there and that the Church “is like a widow for having prevented the Bishop from coming to the Diocese.”
“Many times I have thought about the parable of the murderous tenants … that want to grasp the inheritance. In this current situation the Diocese of Ahiara is without the bridegroom, has lost her fertility and cannot bear fruit.”
“Whoever was opposed to Bishop Okpaleke taking possession of the Diocese wants to destroy the Church,” he charged. “This is forbidden; perhaps he does not realize it, but the Church is suffering as well as the People of God within her. The Pope cannot be indifferent.”
He expressed gratitude for the “holy patience” of Bishop Okpaleke, and said he had “listened and reflected much” on the situation, even considering suppressing the Ahiara diocese.
“I feel great sorrow for those priests who are being manipulated even from abroad and from outside the Diocese,” the Pope stated.
“I think that, in this case, we are not dealing with tribalism, but with an attempted taking of the vineyard of the Lord.”
The Bishop of Rome charged that “the Church is a mother and whoever offends her commits a mortal sin, it’s very serious.”
“I ask that every priest or ecclesiastic incardinated in the Diocese of Ahiara, whether he resides there or works elsewhere, even abroad, write a letter addressed to me in which he asks for forgiveness; all must write individually and personally,” Pope Francis said.
In their letters asking for forgiveness, the clergy of Ahiara must “clearly manifest total obedience to the Pope” and “be willing to accept the Bishop whom the Pope sends and has appointed.”
Moreover, the Pope demanded that each cleric’s letter be sent within 30 days – by July 9.
“Whoever does not do this will be ipso facto suspended a divinis and will lose his current office.”
Acknowledging that this measure “seems very hard,” Pope Francis said he must do this “because the people of God are scandalized.”
“Jesus reminds us that whoever causes scandal must suffer the consequences,” he told the delegation. “Maybe someone has been manipulated without having full awareness of the wound inflicted upon the ecclesial communion.”
At Bishop Okpaleke Mass of episcopal consecration, Bishop Lucius Ugorji of Umuahia had said that “acceptance of the papal appointment is a respect for the Pope, while the outright rejection and inflammatory statements and protests are spiteful and disrespectful of papal authority,” according to The Sun of Lagos.
Ahiara’s first ordinary, Bishop Victor Chikwe, served from 1987 until his death in Sept., 2010. The diocese was vacant for 26 months before Bishop Okpaleke was appointed.
Awka, whence Bishop Okpaleke comes, is located in the state of Anambra. Ahiara, meanwhile, is located to the south in Imo state. The Mbaise assert that the Nigerian hierarchy favors Anambra.
The Mbaise, who are proud of their identity and strong Catholicism, resent what they call the “Anambranization” of the Church in southeast Nigeria, believing there to be corruption within the Church in Nigeria and a “recolonization” of the Mbaise.
At the conclusion of the audience on Thursday, Pope Francis expressed his gratitude for the presence of the Mbaise who came to Rome, as well as for the patience of Cardinal Onaiyekan, and for Bishop Okpaleke, “whose patience and humility I admire.”
Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, is planning to have the Ahiara diocese and its bishop make a pilgrimage to Rome to meet with Pope Francis “at the conclusion of this sequence of events,” the Vatican announced June 11.
Issele-Uku, Nigeria, Jun 12, 2017 / 03:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- It was supposed to be a quiet retreat weekend last April for Fr. Sam Okwuidegbe, a Nigerian Jesuit priest and director of a local spirituality center.
Before he left, he chatted with his new provincial, Fr. Chuks Afiawari, who joked with Fr. Sam: “Make sure where you are going they don’t kidnap you.”
“We laughed about it,” Fr. Sam recalled.
Little did the priests know that the joke would be an unfortunate foreshadowing of what was to come. In a testimony posted on the website of the Jesuit Superiors of Africa and Madagascar, Fr. Sam recalled how his faith carried him through a traumatic and harrowing experience of kidnapping.
On his way to the retreat, which was to be in Onitsha, in the state of Anambra, Fr. Sam took a familiar, seemingly safe highway on which he had traveled many times.
That’s why he was so surprised when he heard gunshots.
“On glancing back I saw all the vehicles behind me stopping, and trying to reverse … that’s when it hit me that there was something dangerous ahead of me,” he recalled.
“On looking up I saw masked men with AK47 rifles shooting. I was so scared. I also stopped my car abruptly and began to reverse, but as I was trying to do that, a man suddenly appeared … and said, ‘If you don’t get out of the car I’ll shoot you.’”
The priest could see behind him that the men had also stopped another car, a black Mercedes, and were forcing two men out of the car. In a hurry, Fr. Sam left his phone in the car.
He quickly identified the armed kidnappers as Fulani herdsmen, a notoriously violent group whose clashes with farmers have killed thousands of people in Nigeria over the past two decades. According to the Global Terrorism Index, they were the fourth most violent militant group in the world in 2014.
Violence against Christians has also significantly increased in the country in recent years, particularly in Muslim-majority areas. In 2016, one Nigerian bishop lamented that Christians had essentially become “target practice.”
The Fulani kidnappers led Fr. Sam and the other two men into the forest at gunpoint for eight hours, barely stopping for breaks. They eventually let one of the two other men go, because he could not keep up with the pace, but they first cut his feet so that he could not escape quickly, Fr. Sam recalled.
“The pace in the forest was jogging, jumping over tree trumps, going over leaves, which often cut through our skin. So it was quite brutal!” Fr. Sam said.
“I was so shaken, and began to ask myself, is this happening to me? What am I doing in this forest? What am I doing here? I felt extremely cold and in my confusion … I’d mutter to myself, this can’t be happening, God. This can’t be happening,” he said.
The captors started questioning Fr. Sam and the other man, and were suspicious when Fr. Sam identified himself as a priest; they thought he might be a government spy. They stripped him of all his belongings – his watch, wallet, and rosary.
When they questioned Fr. Sam about his phone, the captors were enraged that he had left it in his car – which was fortunate, the priest said, because he had saved financial information from his work on it.
The militants asked him if he could remember anyone’s number – someone to call who could negotiate for Fr. Sam’s life and pay off the herdsmen. Traumatized by his experience, Fr. Sam couldn’t remember one phone number.
“That triggered a series of beatings…they huddled me up, hands and feet tied to the back with a rope like a goat before a kill. They removed my cassock, then my shirt, threw me into the dirt on the ground, and began to beat me with the back of their guns, they’d kick me hard on my sides, slap across my face, push and pull me hard across the ground…one of them said ‘We are going to burn you alive!’” the priest recalled.
“I really believed that they were going to do it…I began to pray in silence…I said, ‘God, I commit to you, I commit my spirit’ and I resigned to the thought of my fate, that I was going to die that day.’”
Finally, the beating stopped. Fr. Sam said he remembers praying constantly through the whole experience.
“I hoped for a miracle…every minute I’d pray saying all kinds of prayers, I’d pray to Saint Ignatius, say the rosary and the Divine Mercy (chaplet)…at one time I found myself singing heartily but in the inside, a Ghanaian song that says ‘God speak to me…God where are you?’ I kept humming in my heart…it gave me hope,” he said.
Eventually Fr. Sam was able to get the phone number of another Jesuit priest through the contact of the other man in captivity. This priest, Jesuit provincial Fr. Jude Odiaka, began negotiations with the herdsmen.
And while at times he prayed for death, Fr. Sam said he felt better once he had made contact with the Jesuits.
“I knew that word must have gotten around about the kidnapping, and that the sisters at the retreat centre and people who knew me all over, must have been praying for me.”
The other man who had been captured with Fr. Sam also was a great comfort, he recalled.
“…the guy I was kidnapped with…he was a grace for me, a gift from God. I hope I was too for him because we exchanged words of encouragement silently, as we were not allowed to talk to each (other).”
Finally, the captors seemed to have gotten what they wanted, and started talking of letting the men go.
“I intensified my prayers and I prayed to God ‘Please God, make this end well,’” Fr. Sam said.
“I recalled a saying that ‘God will not bring you this far, then abandon you’, so this brought some assurance to my heart,”
When the militants decided to release the men, they were left to wander alone together through the forest, trying to find the pathway out. Eventually, they were able to make it to safety and back home.
While the experience was “painful and traumatizing,” Fr. Sam said one of the best consolations upon his return was hearing from many people, near and far, that they had been praying for him.
“In all these things God revealed to me that I was never abandoned while in the forest, even if I was out of reach and in danger, that God heard the prayers and was with me,” he said.
“It has renewed my faith in God, my faith in people…the human person, God’s gift of friendship and that if what I do matters, then also those people I do it with are also very important.”
Fr. Sam said he also plans to use his experience to help other people in his work as a counselor.
“This has also given me an understanding to accompany those who come to me for help seeking solace, encouragement, strength, hope, renewal…you know…maybe that’s why it happened,” he said.
“I’m going to use it in my work as a counselor, psychologist and help those who come to me for help, because what support can be given to people that have been kidnapped? What help can we give such people? I think I have become part of that help with what I have received, and experienced.”
© Catholic World Report