Pope convokes world-wide meeting of bishops on abuse crisis

Vatican City, Nov 3, 2017 / 11:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his prayer video for November Pope Francis prays for the Church in Asia, that despite challenges it may continue to be a source of peace and dialogue between religions.

“On this continent, where the Church is a minority, the challenges are intense,” the Pope says in the video.

“Let us pray that Christians in Asia may promote dialogue, peace, and mutual understanding especially with those of other religions.”

Released Nov. 3, the video shows people of different religions and countries from throughout Asia. It also shows scenes of life in Asia, including the celebration of Mass.

“The most striking feature of Asia is the variety of its peoples who are heirs to ancient cultures, religions and traditions,” the Pope says.

Because of this variety, dialogue becomes an “essential part of the mission of the Church” in Asian countries, he pointed out.

The Pope’s prayer for Asia comes just a few weeks ahead of his Nov. 27 – Dec. 2 pastoral visit to Burma and Bangladesh.

The Catholic population in both countries is very small. In Bangladesh less than three percent of the population is Catholic, and in Burma it’s less than one percent.

In addition to being a minority religion in itself, the Church in these countries is also made up of people from a variety of ethnic minority backgrounds as well.

His visit is expected to focus on peace and coexistence, especially amid persecution of minorities.

An initiative of the Jesuit-run global prayer network Apostleship of Prayer, the Pope’s prayer videos are filmed in collaboration with the Vatican Television Center and mark the first time the Roman Pontiff’s monthly prayer intentions have been featured on video.

The Apostleship of Prayer, which produces the monthly videos on the Pope’s intentions, was founded by Jesuit seminarians in France in 1884 to encourage Christians to serve God and others through prayer, particularly for the needs of the Church.

Since the late 1800s, the organization has received a monthly, universal intention from the Pope. In 1929, an additional missionary intention was added by the Holy Father, aimed at the faithful in particular.

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Santa Fe, N.M., Mar 25, 2019 / 10:38 am (CNA).- The Archbishop of Santa Fe said recently that people praying to “Saint Death” won’t find the answers they’re looking for.

Archbishop John Wester told the Associated Press recently that Catholics praying to the skeletal figure, popular in Central America, may be fooled into thinking that “Santa Muerte” is an approved devotional practice in the Church.

But the practice of praying to “Saint Death” is not consistent with Catholic teaching, the archbishop said.

“It’s really wrong,” Wester told the AP.

“I think in part, it’s (because) people are looking and searching. It’s a symptom of a search looking for answers.”

“Our devotion is to the God of life,” he added.

In 2013, a Vatican official condemned devotion to “Santa Muerte,” equating it to “the celebration of devastation and of hell.”

“It’s not every day that a folk saint is actually condemned at the highest levels of the Vatican,” Andrew Chesnut, a Santa Muerte expert, told CNA in 2016.

Chesnut is the Bishop Walter F. Sullivan Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of “Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint,” the only English academic book to date on the subject.

Despite her condemnation from on high, Santa Muerte remains increasingly popular among criminals, drug lords and those on the fringe of society, as well as cultural Catholics who maybe don’t know (or care) that she is condemned by the Church.

“She’s basically the poster girl of narco-satanic spirituality,” Chesnut said.

According to Chesnut’s estimates, Santa Muerte is the fastest growing religious movement in the Americas – and it’s all happened within the past 10-15 years.

“She was unknown to 99 percent of Mexicans before 2001, when she went public. Now I estimate there’s some 10-12 million devotees, mostly in Mexico, but also significant numbers in the United States and Central America,” he said.

Part of the attraction to Santa Muerte, as several sources familiar with the devotion explained, is that she is seen as a non-judgemental saint that can be invoked for some not-so-holy petitions.

“If somebody is going to be doing something illegal, and they want to be protected from the law enforcement, they feel awkward asking God to protect them,” Fr. Andres Gutierrez, the pastor of St. Helen parish in Rio Hondo, Texas, explained to CNA in 2016.

“So they promise something to Santa Muerte in exchange for being protected from the law.”

Devotees also feel comfortable going to her for favors of vengeance – something they would never ask of God or a canonized saint, Chesnut said.

“I think this non-judgemental saint who’s going to accept me as I am is appealing,” Chesnut said, particularly to criminals or to people who don’t feel completely accepted within the Mexican Catholic or Evangelical churches.

The cultural Catholicism of Mexico and the drug wars of the past decade also made for the perfect storm for Santa Muerte to catch on, Chesnut explained. Even Mexicans who didn’t grow up going to Mass every Sunday still have a basic idea of what Catholicism entails – Mass and Saints and prayers like the rosary, all things that have been hi-jacked and adapted by the Santa Muerte movement.

“You can almost see some of it as kind of an extreme heretical form of folk Catholicism,” he said. “In fact, I can say Santa Muerte could only have arisen from a Catholic environment.”

This, coupled with the fact that Mexican Catholics are suddenly much more familiar with death, with the recent drug wars having left upwards of 60,000 – 120,000 Mexicans dead – makes a saint of death that much more intriguing.

“Paradoxically, a lot of devotees who feel like death could be just around the corner – maybe they’re narcos, maybe they work in the street, maybe they’re security guards who might be gunned down – they ask Santa Muerte for protection.”

Her familiarity and appeal is actually part of the danger of this devotion, Fr. Gutierrez said.

“(Santa Muerte) is literally a demon with another name,” he said. “That’s what it is.”

In his own ministry, Fr. Gutierrez said he has witnessed people who “suffer greatly” following a devotion to the folk saint.

Fr. Gary Thomas, a Vatican-trained exorcist for the Diocese of San Jose, told CNA in 2016 that he has also prayed with people who have had demonic trouble after praying to Santa Muerte.

“I have had a number of people who have come to me as users of this practice and found themselves tied to a demon or demonic tribe,” he said.

Fr. Gutierrez noted that while Catholics who attend Mass and the sacraments on a regular basis tend to understand this about Santa Muerte, those in danger are the cultural Catholics who aren’t intentionally engaging in something harmful, but could be opening the door to spiritual harm nonetheless.

Besides her demonic ties, “Santa Muerte” is also a perversion of what the practice of praying to saints is all about, Fr. Ryan Kaup, a Nebraska priest active in Hispanic ministry, told CNA in 2016.

“What we venerate as saints are real people who have chosen this life to follow the will of our Lord and have done great things with their lives, and now they’re in heaven forever, and so that’s why we ask for their intercession,” Kaup said.

“So taking this devotion and this practice that we have of asking for this saint’s intercession and twisting it in such a way as to invoke this glorified image of death is really a distortion of what we believe is true intercession and truly the power of the saints.”

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Vatican City, Jun 18, 2017 / 05:24 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Sunday, following the Angelus, Pope Francis asked pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square to pause for a silent moment of prayer for all those affected by forest fires still raging in central Portugal.

“I express my closeness to the dear Portuguese people for the devastating fires that are destroying the woods around Pedrógão Grande and causing numerous victims and wounded. We pray in silence,” Francis said June 18.

At least 57 people have been killed in huge forest fires in the central part of Portugal Saturday and Sunday, many dying in their cars as they tried to escape the flames, the Portuguese government said Sunday.

Dozens more have been injured in the blazes, with 1,700 firefighters battling the 60-some fires.

The blazes began on Saturday afternoon in the municipality of Pedrógão Grande, before quickly spreading and by evening had taken hold across Portugal.

The Iberian Peninsula has been suffering under a severe heatwave recently, with temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit in several regions. According to the prime minister of the country, dry thunderstorms may have been the cause of the flames.

According to Jorge Gomes, the secretary of state for internal administration, 22 people burned to death in their cars after becoming trapped by flames on the road as they tried to flee. Three others died from smoke inhalation.

In his address before the Angelus, Pope Francis reflected on the Church’s celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi, also called Corpus Domini.

“To nourish ourselves on the Eucharistic Jesus also means abandoning ourselves in him with confidence and allowing ourselves to be led by him,” he said.

“It is about welcoming Jesus in place of our ‘I.’ In this way, the free love received by Christ in the Eucharistic Communion, with the work of the Holy Spirit, nourishes our love for God and the brothers and sisters we meet on the path every day.”

It is in “feeding on the Body of Christ,” he continued, that “we become more and more intimately and concretely the mystical Body of Christ.”

Just like the apostle Paul reminds us in 1 Cor. 10:16-17: “The chalice of the blessing that we bless, is it not communion with the blood of Christ? And the bread that we break, is it not communion with the body of Christ? Since there is only one bread, we are, though many, one body, for we all share in the one bread.”

Francis spoke to some 20,000 people in St. Peter’s Square Sunday from a window of the Casa Santa Marta, reminding them that Jesus in the Eucharist is the “bread of life.”

As the Easter lamb, the Lord sacrificed himself for us upon the cross, giving his body and shedding his blood so that through “the sacrament of his flesh” the world might have eternal life.

In the Eucharist, the Pope said, Jesus accompanies us just as he did the disciples when he lived on earth. He is there to nourish in us faith, hope and charity, to comfort us in trials, and to support us in our work towards justice and peace.

And the spiritual food found in the Eucharist is for everyone, he said.

“This solidarity of the Son of God is everywhere: in cities and in the countryside, in the North and in the South of the world, in countries of Christian tradition and in those of first evangelization.”

Concluding, he prayed to the Virgin Mary, who “has always been associated with Jesus the Bread of Life,” he said.

Help us to “rediscover the beauty of the Eucharist, nurture us with faith, to live in communion with God and with our brothers.”

Following the Angelus, Pope Francis spoke about the upcoming World Day of Refugees, which will be on June 20, and is promoted by the United Nations. The theme is “With refugees. Today more than ever we should be on the side of refugees,” the Pope said.

“Concrete attention goes to the women, men, children fleeing from conflicts, violence and persecution. We remember also in prayer how many of them have lost their lives in the sea or in exhausting land voyages.”

“Their stories of pain and hope can become opportunities for fraternal encounter and true mutual knowledge,” he said. “Indeed, the personal encounter with refugees dissipates distorted fears and ideologies, and becomes a cause of growth in humanity, capable of making room for feelings of openness and for the construction of bridges.”

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