Washington D.C., Apr 18, 2018 / 02:54 pm (CNA).- Thousands of Vietnamese immigrants in the U.S. who were previously protected under an agreement largely for refugees fleeing post-war Vietnam could face detention and deportation in coming months.
The T… […]
The defense of the indefensible leads to rage, and rage becomes a form of madness. […]
Rome, Italy, Apr 18, 2018 / 11:53 am (CNA/EWTN News).- One of the leading organizers of this year’s World Meeting of Families has said the gathering aims to show the world that living the Christian ideal of marriage and family life is not impossible, but is something realistic that can be attained.
“Our message about marriage and family, about fidelity, that God loves you personally, that human life is sacred from the first moment of conception until the moment of death, that chastity is possible for our young people,” is a message often seen as out-of-date, Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh said.
Yet these messages “are achievable for people today,” he said.
“Sometimes people present the Church as being completely out of touch, but actually the Church is hugely in touch. It just wants to keep challenging people to the joy of the Gospel.”
Archbishop Martin spoke to CNA April 18 about the upcoming World Meeting of Families, which is slated to take place in Dublin Aug. 21-26.
Pope Francis will be present at the event Aug. 25-26, where he will preside over the “festival of families” and the closing Mass.
The World Meeting of Families is meant to share “the idea that family is good news, that it is a joyful message, that family is possible,” he said.
We too often “forget the huge number of families who continue faithfully to try to live out a life of love and a life of understanding and commitment to one another in very difficult or challenging circumstances,” he said.
Families, he said, are the first place where people learn to go outside of themselves through compromise and sacrifice, which goes against the individualistic mentality of global society.
“Very few families can survive individualism,” he said, explaining that one’s approach to family life has to start from the perspective of love and joy, which are the heart of the Gospel.
This in turn raises questions about how much social, political and legislative support is available to families, and how challenges can arise if this support is not given.
“Why is it that so many young people will choose not to get married? Maybe because they can’t get a hold of a mortgage, or because the benefit system suits them better to live as single people rather than as a couple with their children. Why is it that legislation on issues like addictions, gambling, or a whole lot of areas where family life can be destroyed, why are these not priorities in social policy-making?”
So in addition to focusing on the Gospel vision of the family, the “harder edge” of the global gathering in August will focus on how families can be supported from all levels of the Church and of society.
Some 16,000 people have registered for the event, most of whom are from overseas, Martin said.
And as the date gets closer, organizers on the ground are starting to “ratchet up” the preparations at a faster pace.
“This is an opportunity for families to meet families from other parts of the world and to learn from each other and to share with one another how we do it; how do we actually survive as a family in this crazy, complicated world,” Martin said.
Excitement is building and Ireland is ready to give the pope and the world “a hundred thousands of welcomes,” he said, using a colloquial Irish saying.
Martin said the gathering will be a time for families to come together and share their experiences, their hopes, and their challenges, without sugar-coating anything.
Acknowledging that no family is perfect, “we’re not in any way trying to romanticize family love,” he said. Rather, the goal is to share the Christian vision of the family, based on hope and love, and to welcome families who are distant or who perhaps don’t feel welcome, he said.
“The word ‘welcome’ is important,” he said, adding that for him, it is sad to hear when people say that for whatever reason, they do not feel entirely welcome in the Church.
And this goes not only for “these neuralgic issues, for example LGBT people or people living in second unions … I’m talking about people who think the Church’s vision of the family is completely out of touch with reality,” Martin said.
“I would love to think that we can talk about ways of welcoming families, welcoming people who … feel that they don’t measure up, or feel that unless their family is perfect, that everyone in their family is living a perfectly holy life, that they are not welcome,” he said.
To this end, he pointed to Gaudete et exsultate, Pope Francis’ exhortation on the call to holiness in today’s world, saying example of holiness can be found in “your mom, your grandmother, your dad. People who struggled but lived as best they could a faithful life.”
“So I think that when we think about reaching out, sometimes we think they are people way out on the margins, but often they are people who are simply trying to struggle to live a good family life everyday and who feel that somehow the Church presents an impossible ideal.”
Vatican City, Apr 18, 2018 / 10:58 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has reportedly rejected a plan approved by the German bishops’ conference to publish guidelines permitting non-Catholic spouses of Catholics to receive the Eucharist in some limited circumstances.
Austrian news site kath.net has reported that Vatican sources say the CDF, with papal approval, has suspended the German bishops’ proposed plan, and sources close to the congregation have confirmed this to CNA.
It is not clear whether the Vatican has asked the bishops’ conference to modify the contents of draft guidelines, whether they have suspended the development of a draft while the matter is considered further, or whether it has been entirely rejected.
In February, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising announced that the German bishops’ conference would publish a pastoral handout for married couples that allows Protestant spouses of Catholics “in individual cases” and “under certain conditions” to receive Holy Communion, provided they “affirm the Catholic faith in the Eucharist”.
The announcement was made “after intensive debate” at the conclusion of the general assembly of the German bishops’ conference, which was held Feb. 19 – 22 in the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt, and attended by 62 members of the bishops’ conference under the leadership of conference chairman Cardinal Marx.
Last month, seven German bishops sent a letter to the CDF and to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity asking for clarification on the matter. The signatories did not consult beforehand with Cardinal Marx.
The seven bishops asked whether the question of Holy Communion for Protestant spouses in interdenominational marriages can be decided on the level of a national bishops’ conference, or if rather, “a decision of the Universal Church” is required in the matter.
The letter was signed by Cardinal Rainer Woelki of Cologne, Archbishop Ludwig Schick of Bamberg, Bishop Gregor Hanke of Eichstätt, Bishop Konrad Zdarsa of Augsburg, Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau, Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg, and Bishop Wolfgang Ipolt of Görlitz.
“From the view of the signatories, the goal in a question of such centrality to the Faith and the unity of the Church must be to avoid separate national paths and arrive at a globally unified, workable solution by way of an ecumenical dialogue,” the Archdiocese of Cologne told CNA Deutsch April 4.
The Code of Canon Law already provides that in the danger of death or if “some other grave necessity urges it,” Catholic ministers licitly administer penance, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick to Protestants “who cannot approach a minister of their own community and who seek such on their own accord, provided that they manifest Catholic faith in respect to these sacraments and are properly disposed.”
Father Romanus Cessario, O.P., reminds readers of the eternal focus of the priest, takes aim at the buzzword “discernment,” and shows why every attack on the […]
Vatican City, Apr 18, 2018 / 05:20 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A private meeting took place early Wednesday morning between Pope Francis and Tom Evans, the father of two-year-old Alfie Evans, who is currently at the center of a legal battle to keep him alive.
Tom Evans said that in the April 18 meeting, which took place at the Santa Marta residence in the Vatican, he asked the pope for asylum in Italy for his family so that Alfie can be moved to the Bambino Gesu hospital in Rome to receive treatment.
Two-year-old Alfie Evans suffers from an unidentified degenerative neurological condition and has been under continuous hospitalization since December 2016.
In February, the court ruled that Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, where Evans is receiving care, could legally stop treatment for Alfie against his parent’s wishes, arguing that continuing treatment is not in his best interest, and that his life support should be switched off.
Despite the desire of Alfie’s parents, Kate James and Tom Evans, to take their son to Bambino Gesu hospital in Rome, several judges have ruled in the hospital’s favor.
“Alfie is doing really well, he’s fighting very hard and we believe that he can still wake up and that he’s got a lot of potential,” Evans told journalists April 18. He said that in their meeting, Pope Francis gave him a lot of sympathy and encouragement, telling him he has “strength like God.”
The pope’s positivity gave him hope, Evans continued, noting that the meeting was “very confident, very calm. I was really nervous, but I just spoke the truth, spoke from my heart.”
Evans stated that he will return to Liverpool tonight to be with his son and Kate, but they are hopeful that when and if Alfie is permitted to come to Italy, the doctors will be able to diagnose and treat him.
“Just because he has a brain disability that no one knows of doesn’t mean that we have to take that life away from him. As I’ve always said, Alfie is a child of God and he’ll remain a child of God and he’ll go when [God] says he’ll go.”
In his statement to Pope Francis, Evans said that Alfie “is sick but not dying and does not deserve to die. He is not terminally ill nor diagnosed. We have been trying our best to find out his condition, to treat or manage it.”
“We see life and potential in our son and we want to bring him here to Italy, to the Bambino Gesù, where we know he is safe and he will not be euthanized,” the statement continues.
“When Alfie shows me and his mum any sign of suffering or dying, we will enjoy every last moment with him, but Alfie has not yet shown us he is ready to go, so we continue to fight just as he shows us to.”
At the end of the general audience Wednesday, Pope Francis asked for a moment of silent prayer for Alfie, saying that he would like to “reiterate and strongly confirm that the only master of life, from the beginning to the natural end, is God!”
“And our duty, our duty is to do everything to preserve life,” he stated.
Despite their parent’s wishes, High Court judge, Justice Anthony Hayden, ruled in February that the hospital can remove Alfie’s life support.
A later appeal to the European Court of Human Rights failed, and the parent’s appeal earlier this week to have Alfie taken to Italy for treatment was also dismissed by the UK’s Court of Appeal.
Alfie’s case has drawn international attention, and protesters gathered outside his hospital last week to peacefully oppose judges’ decision to end life support.
Evans and James recently launched a new legal challenge, asking the Court of Appeal judges to continue life support and treatment for Alfie. The court officials posted their hearing for Monday, saying that a court judge has decided that Alfie could continue treatment, pending the hearing.
On Sunday Pope Francis made an appeal for prayer for Alfie Evans, and others, “who live, at times for a long period, in a serious state of illness, medically assisted for their basic needs.”
Francis also recently tweeted about Alfie, saying it was his “sincere hope that everything necessary may be done in order to continue compassionately accompanying little Alfie Evans, and that the deep suffering of his parents may be heard.”
Vatican City, Apr 18, 2018 / 03:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis said that to make the sign of the cross is to mark ourselves as Christians, and that it is something we should do often to remind ourselves that we belong to God.
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Manila, Philippines, Apr 17, 2018 / 07:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An Australian nun was arrested and briefly detained earlier this week in the Philippines as the government cracks down on foreign human rights activists in the country.
Sister Patricia Fox was arrested April 16 by immigration authorities at her convent, where she serves as the Philippine superior of the international Catholic congregation Sisters of Our Lady of Sion. She has been working primarily with the rural poor in the country for the past 27 years.
Fox was held for 22 hours by authorities before being released, after “no probable cause” was found for her arrest and she was proven to be a legally documented alien with a missionary visa, according to UCA News. There is still a pending further investigation of her activities to determine whether she should be deported.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ news outlet (CBCP News) reported that they were told Fox was arrested for being an “undesirable alien” for participating in regional farmer protests.
The Philippines’ Intelligence services (NICA) have also charged Fox with participating in anti-government rallies. The organization claims it has a photo of the nun with a clenched fist holding a sign that says “Stop Killing Farmers”, according to Newsweek.
Immigration law in the Philippines stipulates that participating in rallies and political activities is a violation of the right to stay in the country.
Jobert Pahilga, Fox’s lawyer, denied these claims in a statement and said that she “has done nothing wrong or illegal that would warrant her arrest, detention and possible deportation.”
He said that his client was traveling to Tagum City to gather data on human rights violations against farmers in the area.
Fox said that she has stood in solidarity with the rural poor during rallies, but not as a political action.
“I would call it religious because we are called to stand beside the poor,” she told CBCP News. “I haven’t joined partisan political rallies but I have been active in human rights issues.”
Several human rights and Church leaders have denounced the arrest of the nun, including Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo.
Pabillo told UCA news that Fox’s arrest was a “form of persecution and harassment” and that the nun “is too old to run from the government or from whatever allegations they are accusing her of.”
“This is political,” Pabillo added. “The government is trying to intimidate individuals and groups who are in pursuit of social justice for the oppressed and the poor.”
Fox is among several foreign human rights activists who have been arrested or barred from re-entering the Philippines in a recent crackdown on foreigners by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration.
“There’s no martial law yet but they are already going after people who oppose them,” Pabillo told CBCP News.
Fox will remain in the Philippines for the forthcoming investigation.
Guayaquil, Ecuador, Apr 17, 2018 / 06:40 pm (ACI Prensa).- A new documentary film entitled “All or Nothing” tells the story of Sister Clare Crockett, a religious sister who died in the earthquake that took place in 2016 in Ecuador.
The film which is available in Spanish, English and Italian, is “the true story of a sister who gave everything to God, holding nothing back,” her community says.
April 16 marked the second anniversary of the earthquake that struck Manabí Province in Ecuador, in which 262 people died and more than 2,500 were injured.
Sister Clare Crockett of the Siervas del Hogar de la Madre (Sisters of the Home of the Mother) was killed when the community’s building in Playa Prieta, Ecuador, collapsed in the 7.8-magnitude earthquake.
Four aspirants and one resident youth also died in the quake.
The Siervas del Hogar de la Madre have now released the film “All or Nothing: Sister Clare Crockett,” which tells the story of the 33-year-old religious sister, who had been a rising actress when she left her career to pursue God’s calling.
This documentary film shows more than 15 years of Sister Clare’s life – a life which the sisters say “goes straight to our hearts as a call, to ask ourselves what are we ourselves giving or not giving to God.”
Originally from Ireland, Sister Clare wanted to be an actress. By age 18, she lived a life of partying and alcohol.
One day, a friend asked if she wanted to go on a free trip to Spain. The trip turned out to be a 10-day pilgrimage.
“I tried to get out of it, but my name was already on the ticket, so I had to go. I now see that it was Our Lady’s way of bringing me back home, back to her and her Son,” she said, according to EWTN. “I was not a very happy camper. Nevertheless, it was on that pilgrimage that Our Lord gave me the grace to see how He had died for me on the Cross. After I had received that grace, I knew that I had to change.”
“I knew that I had to leave everything and follow Him. I knew with great clarity that He was asking me to trust in Him, to put my life in His hands and to have faith,” she said. “It never ceases to amaze me how Our Lord works in the souls, how He can totally transform one’s life and capture one’s heart.”
Sister Clare went on to become the voice of Lucy on the long-running EWTN children’s television series “Hi Lucy.”
The distribution of the documentary film “All or Nothing” is free and is scheduled to be shown in Ireland, Canada, the United States, England, Italy, Singapore, the Philippines, Colombia, Spain, Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, El Salvador, Uruguay, Peru, Nicaragua, Chile, Latvia, Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.
Viewers interested in scheduling a screening can visit https://www.sisterclare.com/multimedia/film/request?view=form
Freetown, Sierra Leone, Apr 17, 2018 / 04:23 pm (ACI Prensa).- In Sierra Leone, Salesian missionaries are working to extract girls working as prostitutes from their lifestyle, providing them with shelter and helping them to be reunited with family members or placed in adoptive homes.
In 2016, Salesian missionaries working in Freetown realized there was a large number of girls who were selling their bodies to get food.
“The youngest was 9 years old, and the oldest 17. Then the idea came up of creating a shelter as an alternative environment for them to help them get out of prostitution. They sell their bodies to earn $1.80 to $2.50 a day to pay for school because a lot of them go to school just like any other child,” Fr. Jorge Mario Crisafulli explained.
The Salesian priest is the director of their Don Bosco Fambul Center for the Protection of Minors. He recently visited several European cities to present “Love,” a short Spanish language documentary which shows the suffering of girls forced to prostitute themselves and who are rescued from the streets.
The priest has spent 23 years in Africa, and has been in Sierra Leone for three years.
“We have nine programs to help boys and girls living in difficult or emergency situations. Programs for those who have been abused, for Ebola orphans, and even a telephone hotline to take calls from children in a crisis. We are also present in the main prison in Freetown.” The Salesians also have “a bus used to reach out to children who live on the street and prostitute themselves,” he told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency during his brief visit to Rome.
Thanks to their tireless work they have already succeeded in getting 146 girls out of prostitution, although “to just save one, all the effort would be worth it.”
There are many orphans in Sierra Leone, owing to the country’s 1991-2002 civil war as well as a 2014 Ebola outbreak, and many have turned to prostitution as a way to support themselves.
Fr. Crisafulli said that they have already reached out to more than 900 girls who live in this type of slavery.
“I always tell all the the social workers and the Salesians that they mustn’t forget that we are a Salesian community, that we are the Church and we are living out the Salesian charism, which is to help the most vulnerable … Sierra Leone is a country that has suffered a lot, and our mission goes beyond what an NGO does; we are convinced that we are a religious community, doing a mission confided by the Holy Spirit to Don Bosco,” he said.
“I also tell the girls to not think they are trash or bad, as many people tell them, but that they are children of God. We absorb the pain, we travel the streets, and give that pain over to Jesus.”
“The love that we offer is that of transforming the pain of the cross into redemption,” he said.
That is what is shown in “Love,” a short documentary that tells the story of Aminata, one of those underage girls who succeeded in getting out of prostitution and has turned her life around.
The documentary seeks to make that reality known and to show how reintegration into society is possible for these minors.
“You don’t need prostitute yourself to eat, you don’t need to prostitute yourself to get an education, what you need to do is to look for a merciful hand which has no other interest than to do good and help,” Fr. Crisafulli emphasized.
“The social workers do a great job of listening,” he said, “so the girls are able to tell what they have gone through on the streets and why they are prostituting themselves and that is already liberating.”
“Then you have to heal the profound traumas that each one of them has. But it is also a spiritual work. Many of them have told me, ‘God had forgotten me’ or ‘God doesn’t love me.’ Our work also consists in telling them that that’s not true, that God still loves them,” Fr. Crisafulli said.
It is important “to invite them to dream and find something to motivate them to get out of prostitution: going back to school, finishing high school, having a small business, or returning to their families,” he explained.
“It’s true these are not all success stories, because six of them have gone back to the streets, but we don’t throw in the towel. Our intention is never to give up, until we see them out of prostitution.”
© Catholic World Report