Harrisburg, Pa., Sep 17, 2018 / 01:22 pm (CNA).- A class action lawsuit filed Sept. 17 is seeking to require the Catholic dioceses of Pennsylvania to release all records involving allegations of child sexual abuse in the last 70 years.
The lawsuit, fi… […]
Amsterdam, Netherlands, Sep 17, 2018 / 12:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A report published Saturday by a Dutch daily claims that just over half of the Netherland’s bishops between 1945 and 2010 were either child abusers or allowed the transfer of abusive priests.
NRC Handelsblad said Sept. 15 that in that time, four bishops abused children, and 16 others “allowed the transfer of paedophile priests who could have caused new victims in other parishes.” There were in that time period 39 bishops in the country.
The Church in the Netherlands said that “bishops did not act with sufficient care” in transferring priests.
A Church spokeswoman told AFP that most of the clerics accused in the report are now dead, and that the statute of limitations has expired in all cases.
The report was based on a 2011 independent report commissioned by the Church in the Netherlands, as well as victims’ testimony to an inquiry commission, and research by NRC.
The independent report had said that as many as 20,000 minors were sexually abused at Catholic institutions in the country during the 45-year span, by about 800 clerics, religious, and laity.
The Dutch report comes on the heels of a similar report in Germany, and amid clerical sex abuse scandals in the US, Chile, Ireland, and Australia.
Washington D.C., Sep 17, 2018 / 10:45 am (CNA).- Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has denied allegations made against him by Christine Blasey Ford. Ford authored a letter accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct when the two were high school studen… […]
Denver, Colo., Sep 17, 2018 / 10:44 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has appointed several Americans to participate in October’s Vatican synod on young adults, the faith, and vocational discernment. They will join the bishops elected as delegated to the s… […]
Vatican City, Sep 17, 2018 / 08:05 am (CNA).- Following reports that the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China could be about to sign an agreement on the appointment of bishops in the country, attention has turned to the role of Archbishop Theodore McCarrick in fostering Vatican-China relations over the last two decades.
Over 20 years, Archbishop McCarrick traveled to China on at least eight occasions, sometimes staying in a state-controlled Beijing seminary, often serving as an unofficial bridge between the Vatican and Chinese government-appointed bishops until 2016.
Prior to allegations of sexual abuse and harassment becoming public this summer, the former cardinal had been an outspoken proponent of a deal between Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Church under Pope Francis, according to Chinese reports.
“I see a lot of things happening that would really open many doors because President Xi and his government are concerned about things that Pope Francis is concerned about,” McCarrick told The Global Times, in an exclusive interview in Feb. 2016.
The interview quoted McCarrick as saying that the similarities between Pope Francis and Xi Jinping could be “a special gift for the world.”
The the state-approved Chinese newspaper also reported that McCarrick traveled to China in Feb. 2016 — “a trip in which the cardinal said he would visit some ‘old friends.’”
“His previous visits included meetings with Wang Zuo’an, head of the State Administration for Religious Affairs and late bishop Fu Tieshan, former president of Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China (BCCCC), an organization not recognized by the Holy See,” The Global Times reported.
In June 2014, David Gibson reported in the Washington Post that McCarrick had traveled to China “in the past year” for “sensitive talks on religious freedom.”
This detail aligns, in part, with the 11-page “testimony” of former apostolic nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò. Viganò recounted a meeting with McCarrick in June 2013, during which Vigano claims he was told by McCarrick, “The pope received me yesterday, tomorrow I am going to China.”
McCarrick was hosted by the Beijing seminary during at least two trips to China, according to a 2006 State Department document made available via Wikileaks.
The vice-rector of a Communist-approved seminary, Fr. Shu-Jie Chen, described twice hosting McCarrick in an account found in a cable from Christopher Sandrolini, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See.
Chen described himself as “king” of the seminary, saying that he “could do what he wanted within its walls.”
Sandrolini also noted that the vice rector “downplayed persecution of the underground Church,” calling the underground church “uneducated” and “elderly.” He said that Chen seemed “unconcerned” that “evangelization was not an option for official religious personnel.
A cable from U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Francis Rooney in March 2006 noted that Archbishop Claudio Celli, who was at that time the Holy See’s principal China negotiator, insisted that McCarrick was not in a position to negotiate with China and that his visits to China were “unofficial.”
There appears to be a gap between McCarrick’s trips to China between 2006 and 2013, though McCarrick’s influence was still active.
In 2009, the archbishop had a message relayed to a friend in China through Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House of Representatives. Pelosi conveyed McCarrick’s greetings to Bishop Aloysius Jin of Shanghai, formerly a leading Chinese Jesuit.
“She [Pelosi] relayed Cardinal McCarrick’s good wishes to Bishop Jin. Bishop Jin said he and Cardinal McCarrick had exchanged visits, beginning when the latter was Bishop of Newark,” the State Department cable reads.
During McCarrick’s time as Archbishop of Newark, Aloysius Jin Luxian was not recognized as a bishop by the Vatican. He was ordained a coadjutor bishop of Shanghai without papal approval in 1985, his position was not recognized by the Vatican until 2004. Bishop Jin died in 2013.
A 2007 article in The Atlantic described the close friendship between McCarrick and Jin, and how McCarrick claimed to have relayed messages from the Chinese government-appointed bishop to the pope in the 1990s.
Both the State Department and Chinese media recorded a 1998 visit to China by Archbishop McCarrick. On that trip he was one of three American clerics to visit China to discuss religious freedom, meeting with Bishop Michael Fu Tieshan, vice-chairman of the Chinese Communist Party’s Standing Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress.
Fu was made a bishop by Beijing 1979 without approval of the pope.
Chinese media reported that McCarrick paid a visit to the National Seminary in Beijing in 1998.
In Aug. 2, 2003, the South China Morning Post reported that McCarrick “spent three days in Beijing earlier this week on what was ostensibly a private visit.”
McCarrick was “the first cardinal from a western country to visit the mainland since relations between China and the Vatican turned frosty after a dispute over canonisation in October 2000,” the article continued.
In a Dec. 2003 State Department cable, U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Jim Nicholson wrote that Vatican Office Director for China Monsignor Gianfranco Rota-Graziosi “did not expect concrete improvement stemming from the informal trip last summer of Washington Cardinal McCarrick to China.”
On Sept. 14, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Holy See could be about to enter a deal with China which would include the recognition of seven illicitly consecrated bishops serving in the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association – a state-sponsored form of Catholicism whose leaders are chosen by Communist authorities.
Reports of the Holy See and Chinese government working towards a formal agreement on the appointment of bishops have been circulating since January, 2018. At the same time, China has launched an increasing crackdown on religious practice in the country, demolishing churches and harassing worshippers.
Women in the Church are freed for the prophetic role that can only belong to “outsiders.” […]
Washington D.C., Sep 16, 2018 / 07:00 am (CNA).- Northeast Washington, D.C., has seen rapid gentrification over the past decade. What was once a very poor neighborhood is now home to many high-end businesses, including a Whole Foods Market–and an innovative food pantry inspired in part by the upscale grocery store.
While the Whole Foods Market is open seven days a week, the “Holy Foods Market,” run by the Holy Name of Jesus Parish, located on K Street NE, is open twice a month.
Instead of a traditional food pantry, where those in need would receive a bag of food, clients who visit the Holy Foods Market are able to “shop” through the shelves and pick out what food items they would like.
The pastor at Holy Name of Jesus, Fr. Bill Carloni, said that he wanted to replicate the experience he had visiting Whole Foods in his parish’s food pantry. The idea grew into Holy Foods Market, which began operations in May, a little more than a year after the Whole Foods opened down the street.
The pantry serves about 80 to 100 families a month, Carloni told CNA in an interview. Unlike many food pantries, few of the clients at Holy Foods Market are homeless. Most of the people served by the Market retirees, single parents, or the elderly. Each client is paired with a volunteer who assists them with the process of “shopping” for food.
Clients choose for themselves how much or how little food they need, within a certain limit. No one is required to take any particular food item, and some “customers” may only want certain things like milk, cereal, or peanut butter, Carloni said.
The setup of Holy Foods Market helps to preserve the clients’ dignity, the pastor told CNA. The pantry does not verify the income of its clients, though it does request that they either live within the approximate geographic boundary of the parish, or else have some sort of interaction with the church, either spiritually or as a volunteer.
“I’ve had feedback from a person, who said, ‘You know, I’m so thankful that you treat me like a human being,’” said Carloni.
“I think that often they say ‘beggars can’t be choosers,’ but that’s the whole point. We don’t want people to feel like beggars, and I think this does help humanize what we do. It does make them feel like they’re shopping.”
Allowing people to choose their own food items also has other benefits, Carloni explained to CNA. Because clients only pick items they actually want, no donated food is wasted.
The system also allows the Market to better accommodate clients with special diets or food allergies.
The previous system of distributing pre-packed bags of food resulted in many items going to waste, said Carloni, noting that cans of food were often found discarded outside of the pantry.
“There was one person who said specifically that she used to come, every month, to get food. But then when she would get home, she would empty the bag and she would keep about half the contents and then she would re-donate the other half back to the pantry, ” said Carloni.
“So she was trying not to waste it, actually, but what would end up happening is that she’d get the same stuff back the next month.”
Caroni told CNA that he believes sometimes people can approach ministries like a food pantry with a “wrong mentality” and that those who are less fortunate “should be grateful and they should just take whatever they get.”
Fr. Carloni said that for many of the clients at the Market, it is extremely humbling to have to ask for a handout or for food assistance, and they strive to make the process of “shopping” as dignified and “customer oriented” as possible.
“I think a lot of people at one point or another have been in need of charity. Receiving love shouldn’t come at the cost of your dignity.”
Vatican City, Sep 16, 2018 / 06:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A fundamental rule of being a disciple of Christ is the necessity to make sacrifices and deny one’s self, Pope Francis said in his Angelus address Sunday.
“Jesus tells us that in orde… […]
Palermo, Italy, Sep 15, 2018 / 04:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- During a day trip to Sicily Saturday, Pope Francis told priests and religious to fight their vices and strive to live a consistent witness of morality.
“One cannot live a double morality: one for the people of God and another in their own home,” the pope told a group of priests, religious and seminarians in Palermo, Italy, Sept. 15.
“No, the witness is only one. The testimony of Jesus always belongs to him. And for his love [the priest] undertakes a daily battle against his vices and against all alienating worldliness.”
He referred to the room of Bl. Pino Puglisi, who was assassinated by the Mafia 25 years ago, saying it stands “in genuine simplicity. It is the eloquent sign of a life consecrated to the Lord, who does not seek consolations and glory from the world.”
People look for simplicity in priests and in consecrated men and women. He said: “People are shocked not when they see that the priest ‘slips,’ is a sinner, repents and goes on… People’s scandal is when they see worldly priests, with the spirit of the world.”
People are scandalized, he continued, when they see a priest who is like “an executive,” rather than a pastor. “And this puts it right in your head and in your heart: shepherds yes, executives no!”
In the meeting, the pope also discussed clericalism, stating that clericalism is to think the Church is “above the world,” when the Church is in fact “inside the world, to make it ferment, like leaven in the dough.”
“For this reason, dear brothers and sisters, every form of clericalism must be banned. It is one of the most difficult perversions to remove today, clericalism.”
He also warned against careerism, which he said is about power, and emphasized that priests and religious are meant to be people of service. To be a good witness, therefore, he said, “means fleeing every duplicity, that hypocrisy which is so closely linked to clericalism; to escape every duplicity of life, in the seminary, in religious life, in the priesthood.”
Francis was also critical of “pastoral projects,” which he said are often “pharaonic,” or extravagant, not simple. “We go to meet people,” he said, “with the simplicity of those who want to love them with Jesus in the heart… without riding the fashions of the moment.”
What have pastoral projects done? “Nothing!” he said. “Pastoral plans are necessary, but as a means, a means to help [those near us], preaching the Gospel, but in themselves they are not useful. The way of the encounter, of listening, of sharing is the way of the Church.”
He listed ways to grow the Church within the parish, such as helping young people at school, accompanying people as they discern vocations, meeting families and the sick, creating meeting places to pray and to learn. This is the “pastoral care” that brings fruit, he said.
Condemning gossip and division, saying they “are not sins that everyone does,” Francis added that “always the error must be distinguished from the one who commits it,” and people should be loved and treated as brothers and sisters. He pointed to the example of Don Pino, who welcomed everyone with an open heart, even criminals.
He also told priests that they are a man of God 24 hours a day, not only when wearing vestments, and that the liturgy is life for them, not just a ritual. “This is why it is fundamental to pray to the One we talk about, to nourish ourselves with the Word that we preach, to adore the Bread we consecrate, and do it every day,” he said.
“It demonstrates that the Church is a sacrament of salvation,” he said, “that is, a sign that indicates and an instrument that offers salvation to the world.”
Following his encounter with priests and religious at the cathedral, Pope Francis met with the young people of Palermo and the surrounding areas.
Asked a question about how to know God’s will for one’s life, he said it cannot be found by looking in a mirror or staying locked in one’s room, but “in relationship.”
God speaks “in the journey and in relationship with others. Do not close yourselves, confide in Him, entrust everything to Him, seek Him in prayer, seek Him in dialogue with others, seek Him always on the move, look for Him on the way,” he said.
“This is important: Jesus believes in you more than you believe in yourselves. Jesus loves you more than you love yourself. Seek him out of yourself, on the way: He awaits you.”
Doing this, you will hear the Lord’s invitation, he said. “Pray with your words: with what comes from your heart. It is the most beautiful prayer.”
At the end of the meeting, noting the probable presence of non-Catholics in the crowd, the pope forwent giving his usual apostolic blessing, instead saying an off-the-cuff prayer for blessing on all those present. “May the Lord God accompany all these young people on the journey and bless everyone,” he prayed.
© Catholic World Report