Year: 2018

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Archbishop Fisher: Priests will suffer punishment before breaking confessional seal

April 10, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Sydney, Australia, Apr 10, 2018 / 06:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Amid attacks on the seal of confession in Australia, Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney has said priests will suffer punishment before betraying their sacred obligations.

Confession “is threatened today both by neglect and attack. But priests will, we know, suffer punishment, even martyrdom, rather than break the seal of Confession,” Archbishop Fisher said April 1 during his homily for Easter Sunday at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney.

“For Confession is a privileged encounter between penitent and God; here the Christian enters the silence and secrecy of the Tomb, to be re-Eastered; and no earthly authority may enter there.”

Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended last year that priests be legally obliged to disclose details of sexual abuse revealed in the confessional, and that failure to do so be made a criminal offense.

Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne has also opposed any moves to mandate violation of the seal, having said that confession “is a fundamental part of the freedom of religion, and it is recognized in the Law of Australia and many other countries. It must remain so here in Australia…(but) outside of this, all offenses against children must be reported to the authorities, and we are absolutely committed to doing so.”

The Archbishop of Sydney’s comments came as part of his teaching on the sacraments and eternal life.

In the sacraments “Christ’s Paschal mystery is remembered, its fruits applied to us here and now, and a heavenly life promised us,” he said. “To miss the sacraments or receive them only half-heartedly, is to fail really to participate in Holy Week. For it’s through the Eucharist and Priesthood that we join Jesus’ Last Supper; in Confirmation and Matrimony that we experience the climax of Good Friday; and with three more sacraments that we rise from the Empty Tomb.”

“Baptism is inextricably tied to Holy Week because Jesus Himself described the crucifixion as the ‘Baptism’ He must suffer; Jesus Himself gave forth water from His pierced side as the source of Baptism; Jesus Himself appeared at Easter to tell His disciples to go out evangelizing and baptizing. This the Church has done ever since. As St Paul explained, to be baptized is to die with Christ, be buried with Christ, and be raised up with Christ to new life. Baptism is the sacrament of rebirth, purification, justification, eternal life…”

Archbishop Fisher noted that in the Soviet Union, baptism was called a “health menace”, and, moreover, that “as recent testimony before the Ruddock Inquiry into Protection of Religious Freedom in Australia highlighted, we cannot take the freedom to hold and practice our beliefs for granted, even here in Australia.”

“Powerful interests now seek to marginalize religious believers and beliefs, especially Christian ones, and exclude them from public life. They would end funding to faith-based schools, hospitals and welfare agencies, strip us of charitable status and protections, cast us as ‘Public Enemy No. 1’. We may not always be as free as we are now to evangelize and baptize as Jesus mandated at the first Easter.”

He then moved from baptism to confession, noting that baptism “cannot be repeated as sin, sadly, can”, and thus there is the “second baptism” of confession.

“From Old Testament times we heard the call to confess our sins and we learnt of God’s boundless mercy,” the archbishop said. “In the fullness of time Christ came absolving sins … the newly Risen Christ passed the authority to absolve contrite sinners to the apostles, saying, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit: those who sins you forgive, they are forgiven; those whose sins you retain, they are retained.’ So Confession is another beautiful Easter gift, stirring us to contrition and resolve to sin no more, enabling a life-long journey of conversion, reconciling us to God and the Church, and giving us ‘pardon and peace’.”

“So the Easter sacrament of Baptism regenerates the spirit; the Easter sacrament of Penance renews the heart; but it is the Easter sacrament of Anointing that restores the body,” he preached.

“Our sacrament for the sick is not green tea or cloning. Our aid to the dying not the secular sacrament of euthanasia, either … But in a country with few religious liberty protections and many pressures for euthanasia, how free will Christian health providers like St Vincent’s be in the future, how free our health professionals, how free patients even, to reverence life from conception to natural death, especially when others think them burdensome or better off dead?”

“The future of our religious freedoms – and so of our sacraments – will depend whether our generation protects both the freedoms and the sacraments,” Archbishop Fisher said.

He noted that “The women go to the Tomb today to anoint the broken body of Jesus and instead find it is risen.”

“Like the Church after the Royal Commission and amidst many humiliations and challenges, like each of us when we feel broken of body or bruised of spirit: we need the healing power of God, anointing the sick person, even the sick Church, so we can be rebuilt, given new purpose and strength.”

“There’s something even better than açai and kale here,” he said, referring to “our culture’s secrets to living forever or till it feels like forever.”

“The Maundy Thursday sacraments of Holy Eucharist and Holy Orders teach the Church to live with Christ for worship and service. The Good Friday sacraments of Holy Confirmation and Holy Matrimony reveal she must die with Christ for inspiration and love. And the Easter sacraments of Holy Baptism, Holy Penance and Holy Unction show we must repent and let Christ transform our spirits, hearts and bodies, that He might raise them up to eternal life.”

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News Briefs

Commentary: The peripheries of our own vision

April 10, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Washington D.C., Apr 10, 2018 / 04:21 pm (CNA).- While Pope Francis’ latest apostolic exhortation focuses on joy and holiness in everyday life, one passage has drawn sharp reactions from Catholics on the left and the right.

“Our defense of… […]

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London abortion clinic buffer zone would criminalize prayer, pro-lifers say

April 10, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

London, England, Apr 10, 2018 / 03:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As a London borough considers adopting a buffer zone around its abortion clinic to keep pro-life activists at a distance, one such group says the measure would discriminate against women who are helped through prayer and support vigils.

The Ealing Council, which serves the west London borough, is considering the ordinance during an April 10 meeting.

It follows a report recommending that a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) with a censorship zone be set up around the Marie Stopes Clinic, which performs about 7,000 medical and surgical abortions a year.

“The report ignores the testimony of women who have been helped by vigils,” said an April 5 statement from Be Here For Me, a pro-life organization which is fighting against the proposed buffer zone measure.

“The PSPO is so broadly worded that it criminalizes offers of support to women, as well as criminalizing prayer,” the statement continued.

The council denies it is criminalizing prayer. Its report stays that “’It should be clear from the order that the only ‘prayer’ which is prohibited is that which amounts to an act of approval/disapproval of issues relating to abortion services … It is not a general ban on prayer and it applies only within the ‘safe zone’ defined by the order.”

Be Here for Me has said that Ealing Council has “swallowed the pro-choice narrative without question.”

The pro-life group has primarily advocated against a PSPO because of the women who have been aided and supported through pro-life groups outside of the abortion clinics. The group has published multiple testimonies telling the stories of women who have been assured and supported through the prayer vigils.

“When I was pregnant, I was lost, confused, I didn’t know what to do… I was worried because I was on my own,” said a woman who testified on the Be Here For Me website, saying she went to an abortion clinic to terminate her pregnancy, but changed her mind.

“When I got there I met a lady outside the abortion clinic… I told her everything,” she continued, saying that “if there was no one outside the clinic I don’t think I would have kept the baby.”

She also noted that “seeing my baby now, I’m so happy that I met someone that very day.”

Another woman said the protester outside the abortion clinic “was our angel,” and another noted that she “felt under strong pressure to have an abortion,” but was relieved when she spoke to someone who was offering support outside of the clinic.

The proposed buffer zone has come amid allegations of intimidation and threats from protestors outside abortion clinics.

However, pro-life groups have denied the accusations. Antonia Tully of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children told members of parliament that the alleged intimidation “is not what is happening,” according to the Telegraph.

Another SPUC spokesperson, Alithea Williams, has said that “if people were genuinely being intimidated then of course we would want to condemn that, but there are laws in place about harassment and intimidation and nobody has been arrested at these sites.”

The Be Here For Me organization is hosting a rally at the town hall on Tuesday as the Ealing Council cabinet meets to vote on the buffer zone. The rally aims to “send a clear message to the Ealing Council and the media assembled that there is strong opposition to banning help outside abortion centers.”

“This will be the end of a vital support option that 100s of women have accessed at Ealing in recent years,” said the Be Here For Me group.

If the Ealing Council passes the proposed buffer zone, it will be the first location in United Kingdom to have an enforced PSPO. Other locales, including Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Portsmouth, and two other London boroughs have considered similar measures.

Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has said that “behaviour that seeks to deliberately target women for harassment and intimidation should not be tolerated,” and a local Labour MP, Rupa Haq, has said that the buffer zone is meant “not to stop protests, but to ask protesters to instead make use of the many places they could protest – from Parliament Square to town centres … The women accessing clinics are not seeking debate – they are trying to make their own personal decision about their own pregnancy.”

The matter of buffer zones around abortion clinics is also being discussed in the British Parliament.

MPs have heard testimonies of harassment during a recent parliamentary committee, and Home Secretary Amber Rudd has ordered an assessment of protests outside abortion clinics. Rudd has said that “it is completely unacceptable that anyone should feel harassed or intimidated simply for exercising their legal right to healthcare advice and treatment. The decision to have an abortion is already an incredibly personal one, without women being further pressured by aggressive protesters.”

Will Quince, a Conservative MP, told The Telegraph that “Looking at legislation to introduce buffer zones or exclusion zones for protesting around clinics of this nature is something we have to look at … I think we do need to be looking to legislate.”

In the US, a July 2017 city ordinance in Louisville, Ky., created a temporary buffer zone around the city’s only abortion clinic. In 2014 the US Supreme Court struck down on free-speech grounds a Massachusetts law requiring a 35-foot buffer zone around abortion clinics, only to have the state legislature enact a new 25-foot zone.

Ontario adopted a similar law in 2017.

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Cardinal calls for consecration of Mexico to Immaculate Heart of Mary

April 10, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Guadalajara, Mexico, Apr 10, 2018 / 03:27 pm (ACI Prensa).- Facing violence, poverty and corruption, Mexico should be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, said Archbishop Emeritus Juan Sandoval Íñiguez of Guadalajara.

“In face of the tribulations our country is currently going through, and the need we have for a good government, a suggestion occurs to me: that our bishops of Mexico consecrate the country on May 13, the date of the first apparition of Our Lady of Fatima, to the Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary; and that each bishop do the same in his own diocese,” he said in a recent video released by El Universal.

He recalled that the Virgin Mary had requested the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart, in her apparitions to the shepherd children at Fatima.

“A few years later, without violence, without the shedding of blood, the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain fell that divided Europe. The Blessed Virgin of Fatima foresaw future times and told us that the remedy was prayer and to make Christ reign in the world and in society along with her Immaculate Heart,” the cardinal said.

Saint John Paul II sent a letter in December 1983 to the world’s bishops, including the Orthodox bishops, in which he expressed his intention to consecrate Russia to the Heart of Mary.

At that time, Russia was part of the Soviet Union, which had imposed communism on a number of countries especially in Eastern Europe, and a great number of Christians were martyred.

On March 25, 1984, the Feast of the Annunciation, in Saint Peter’s Square, Pope John Paul II consecrated Russia, along with all of humanity, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. and in communion with all the bishops of the world.

Sister Lucia, one of the three Fatima visionaries, affirmed that his consecration “has been done as Our Lady had requested.”

In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell. Over the next two years, the USSR collapsed. On Dec. 8, 1991 – the Feast of the Immaculate Conception –  Soviet leaders declared that the Soviet Union was to be dismantled and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Reflecting on this, Cardinal Sandoval said, “it seems to me that this suggestion is pertinent; hopefully our bishops can carefully consider it, because in this time of tribulation, the voice of our bishops in guiding the people is needed. They are the religious leaders of Mexico, and the people, the people of God, hope for a word from us bishops.”

He emphasized that in consecrating Mexico to the Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, “we will be doing a service to our homeland, and I believe that God will take that into account for us.”

 

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

 

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News Briefs

Condom distribution at Catholic hospital stops after Cincinnati archdiocese speaks up

April 10, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Cincinnati, Ohio, Apr 10, 2018 / 02:19 pm (CNA).- A county-run needle exchange program hosted in a Catholic hospital’s parking lot has stopped distributing condoms, following action from Archbishop Dennis Schnurr and the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
 
“This matter was addressed and favorably resolved last week, as soon as it came to the attention of the archdiocese,” Mike Schafer, director of the archdiocese’s communication and mission promotion department, told CNA April 9.
 
“Condom distribution is no longer part of the Hamilton County Public Health Harm Reduction Program, run from their van parked in the Mercy Health – Clermont Hospital parking lot,” he said. “Archbishop Schnurr engaged with Mercy Health leadership on this issue, with the resulting decision being to disallow condom distribution on hospital property.”  
 
The archdiocese was unaware that condom distribution was part of the Hamilton County Public Health Program until the fact was brought to its attention by CNA inquiries, said Schafer.

Mercy Health is not owned or operated by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Rather, its sponsors include the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of the Humility of Mary, and the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor. The system has hospitals in Ohio and Kentucky.

The Mercy Health – Clermont Hospital in Batavia, Ohio had been hosting in its parking lot a van that was part of a county-run needle exchange program. As part of its harm reduction strategy, the program offered condoms, as well as injection equipment and other health services, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

“After engaging in further discussion with Archbishop Schnurr from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, we have asked the Hamilton County Health Department to discontinue the availability of condoms in the van,” Mercy Health spokesperson Nanette Bentley told CNA April 10. “The Hamilton County Public Health Department needle exchange program van will continue to serve the community, providing needle exchange and access to testing and resources.”

In April 3 comments to CNA, Bentley had described the program as “a harm reduction program aimed at reducing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV and Hepatitis C.”

“The program includes needle exchange, access to testing and condoms as a holistic approach to harm reduction,” she had said, noting that clients would enter the Hamilton County Public Health property when they entered the van. The van was staffed only by county employees.

Previous news reports on the exchange program noted that condoms were distributed at the Mercy Health location, but not in a similar program hosted at two facilities of the Kentucky-based St. Elizabeth Healthcare system. That health system is sponsored by the Diocese of Covington.

The National Catholic Bioethics Center, which handles inquiries on Catholic bioethics issues, has always argued against condom distribution, Catholic bioethicist John Brehany, the center’s director of institutional relations, told CNA.

“One reason is that Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae teaches that every sexual act must retain its essential openness to procreation,” he said. In addition, “if someone has a dangerous disease, really, the better ethical action is not to expose someone else to it at all.”

 

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