Cardinal Pell begins hearing in Australia over abuse charges

March 5, 2018 CNA Daily News News Briefs 1 Print

Melbourne, Australia, Mar 5, 2018 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal George Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, arrived at a Melbourne court Monday to begin the first day of his preliminary hearing over sexual abuse charges brought against him.

The committal hearing, likely to last upwards of one month, is taking place before Magistrate Belinda Wallington at the Melbourne Magistrates Court to determine if Cardinal Pell will ultimately face a  trial.

Testimonies from alleged victims will be heard during the hearing, although one abuse charge against the 76-year old cardinal was withdrawn Friday, as the key complainant, Damian Dignan, died in January of leukemia.

However, the total number of charges brought against Pell are not public, although some of the charges previously brought against Pell date as far back as 1961.

According to the AP, members of the public and media have been prohibited from attending the hearing during the alleged victims’ testimonies to the Australian court, which began March 5. These testimonies and their cross-examinations could last up to two weeks.

Pell, who is being represented by four lawyers in court, is pleading not guilty to the abuse counts and has denied the charges brought against him, saying, “the whole idea of sexual abuse is abhorrent to me.”

“I am innocent of these charges, they are false,” he told media last June.

After Pell was charged with multiple instances of sexual abuse by Victoria state police in 2016, the cardinal took leave of his position as the prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy and a member of the Pope’s council of nine cardinal advisers. He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Ballarat in 1966.

Pell, who is the most senior Catholic cleric to have been charged with sexual abuse, has been living in Sydney during the ongoing hearings.

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Missionaries of Charity remember Mother Teresa’s birthday

August 26, 2019 CNA Daily News 1

Kolkata, India, Aug 26, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- Hundreds of Missionaries of Charity gathered at their headquarters on Monday to commemorate the birthday of the order’s founder, Mother Teresa.

Archbishop Thomas D’Souza of Calcutta, whose birthday falls on the same day, celebrated Mass on Aug. 26 to recognize what would be the 109th birthday of Saint Mother Teresa.

“It was a splendid celebration. The 109th anniversary of the birth of our beloved Saint Mother Teresa was a moment of thanksgiving through prayer and joy,” said Father Dominic Gomes, vicar general of the archdiocese.

“The chapel was packed with people of all social origins,” he told Asia News.

The event was held at the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata. After Mass, an estimated 300 nuns and novices gathered around the saint’s tomb and sang “Happy Birthday.”

Catholics normally commemorate the feast day of a saint – which often corresponds with the day they died – but the Missionaries of Charity have continued to celebrate Mother Teresa’s birthday as well, even after her death in 1997. During Mother Teresa’s life, her birthday had been a major celebration at the house.

The nuns told UCA News that they celebrate Mother Teresa’s birthday in all 700 of their homes across the world. The nuns will begin a nine-day novena on Aug. 27 in preparation for the saint’s feast day on Sept. 5.

“There can be no feast day without a birthday,” one of the nuns told UCA News. “So, our birthday celebrations could be seen as preparation for the feast day.”

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu Aug. 26, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia. After joining the Sisters of Loretto at age 17, she was sent to Kolkata, where she later contracted tuberculosis, and was sent to rest in Darjeeling.

On the way, she felt what she called “an order” from God to leave the convent and live among the poor.

After she left her convent, Mother Teresa began working in the slums, teaching poor children, and treating the sick in their homes. A year later, some of her former students joined her, and together they took in men, women and children who were dying in the gutters along the streets.

In 1950, the Missionaries of Charity were born as a congregation of the Diocese of Calcutta. In 1952, the government granted them a house from which to continue their mission of serving Calcutta’s poor and forgotten. Today, they operate in 176 countries, serving the “poorest of the poor.”

Mother Teresa was canonized in 2016.

During his homily, Archbishop D’Souza said Christ invites everyone to service and pointed to Mother Teresa as a model of selfless love.

“Jesus invites us to love one another. The Mother served the poorest of the poor with selfless service and passionate love, giving them to Jesus through her work,” he said, according to Asia News.

[…]

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