Mexican bishops mourn pilgrims killed in traffic accident

The Benedictine Monastery of San Jose in Costa Rica’s Diocese of Cartago, which was canonically closed Nov. 7, 2021. / Diocese of Cartago.

Cartago, Costa Rica, Nov 10, 2021 / 10:24 am (CNA).

The Diocese of Cartago has ordered the canonical closure of the San José Benedictine Monastery, a diocesan foundation that had functioned ad experimentum for some years.

“This decision of ecclesiastical closure is carried out as a result of an internal administrative process of the Church, which originated in a pastoral visit to the Monastery; this being done in accordance with the powers conferred by the Code of Canon Law, whose result and conclusions were endorsed by the Congregation for the Institutes of Religious Life and Societies of Apostolic Life in Rome,” the diocese stated Nov. 7.

Father Jorge David Arley Campos, press officer for the Diocese of Cartago, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister news agency Nov. 9. that “as the assessment and investigation of the fruits of the experience is an internal process, the specific reasons” for the closure are not published, since “it was the decision of the commission in charge and the judicial vicar of the diocese.”

“The final decision was made known but not the reasons, since there are elements of secrecy in the matter and they cannot be exposed to public opinion due to the nature of the entrusted secret, in order not to damage the conscience of the faithful and to avoid incorrect interpretations by the faithful,” the priest said.

On its Facebook page, the monastery calls itself a “monastic community governed by the Rule of Saint Benedict, cloistered under our constitutions, and our main work is: prayer and manual labor.”

“We are a cloistered community, we do not do pastoral work outside the monastery. We do not belong to the Diocese of Cartago,” the Facebook page states.

The Nov. 7 diocesan communiqué says that “the members of this diocesan experience have been allowed and offered all our collaboration in their transfer to other experiences of community, if they see fit, awaiting word from them.”

The diocese said that while it has closed the monastery and thus ended its ecclesial mission, it is aware that the monastery was also established as a civil association enrolled in the Civil Registry and so “it belongs to them to determine its future as a civil association.”

From Nov. 7 “the Diocesan Experience of the San José Benedictine Monastery will not be part of the Diocese of Cartago, likewise there will be no authorization for the celebration of the sacraments and sacramentals in the place of that experience.”

Fr. Arley Campos explained to ACI Prensa that as a civil association the monastery is “a legal entity under which they were legally protected as a group.”

“As an association it’s up to them to determine their future, but they are no longer canonically a movement of the Catholic Church,” the priest said.

An article published Nov.1 La Nación, a San José daily, says that “the Benedictine monks of the San José Monastery, in Paraíso de Cartago, charged that the current bishop of Cartago, Mario Enrique Quirós Quirós, has persecuted them for years to ‘eliminate’ their ‘presence ‘in the diocese and take from them their monastery grounds.”

The monastery was founded about eight years ago under Bishop José Francisco Ulloa Rojas. Bishop Quirós succeeded him in 2017.

In its Nov. 7 statement, the Diocese of Cartago doesn’t mention the article in La Nación, but noted that “the land and facilities where the campus of said experience have been located is the property of the indicated Association and has never been the subject of discussion.”

A response sent by the Diocese of Cartago to La Nación says that “the members of the San José Monastery, which was founded by the diocese, were informed of the conclusion of said experience, as a result of not obtaining the expected fruits during this time.”

The diocese further noted that members of the monastery “have been given the opportunity to exercise, pursuant to CIC c. 50, their right of reply.”

Canon 50 of the Code of Canon Law establishes that “before issuing a singular decree, an authority is to seek out the necessary information and proofs and, insofar as possible, to hear those whose rights can be injured.”

The press officer of the Diocese of Cartago explained to ACI Prensa that what happened in this case was the “closure of a diocesan foundation that was subject to evaluation and that could have become an autonomous monastery,” as they exist in other parts of the world.

Fr. Arley Campos said that the members of the group can stay on their property, “since the material goods they enjoy are theirs and their internal regulations, like those of any civil group, are those that govern their action.”

However, the priest clarified, “its mode of operation and what that entails is no longer covered by the Diocesan Church of Cartago.”

[…]

Managua, Nicaragua, May 31, 2018 / 05:17 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A mortar attack on a Jesuit university in Nicaragua last weekend resulted in no deaths or injuries, and has been condemned by the school’s rector as “cowardly.”

On May 27, three masked people fired mortar at two guards standing at the main gate of the University of Central America, located in the country’s capital of Managua.

Fr. José Alberto Idiáquez, the rector of the university, denounced “…this cowardly night attack by para-police forces that, protected by the impunity guaranteed by the current (government), have been using the hours of the night to intimidate and kill innocent citizens in the neighborhoods of the capital and other cities.”

“Although they did not succeed in wounding or killing any of our guards, that was the intent, because of the charge of gunpowder used and because of the closeness of the shot,” he added.

The attack is the latest in a spate of violence and civil unrest in the country, which began April 18 after President Daniel Ortega announced social security and pension reforms. The changes were soon abandoned in the face of widespread, vocal opposition, but protests have only intensified after more than 40 protesters were killed by security forces.

In his statement, Idiaquez said that this is the second time the university has been under attack, noting the destruction of the school’s entrance during the April 18 protests.

The university, which has become a center of student-led anti-government activism, suspended all academic and administrative activities in the days following the latest attack.

Protesters have called for freedom of expression, an end to violent repression, and for Ortega to step down from office.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has also expressed human rights concerns regarding the violence and visited Nicaragua May 17-21 to document human rights violations in four cities and to issue recommendations.

The commission found that since protests began, at least 76 have died and 868 have been injured, including a priest of the Diocese of Matagalpa who was wounded by shrapnel May 15 while trying to separate protesters and security forces, according to the AP.

The Church in the country has been quick to acknowledge the protestors’ complaints and to attempt to mediate peace with the government.

On May 22, the Catholic bishops of the country encouraged Ortega to create “a mechanism of international investigation of the acts of violence which occurred, with guarantees of autonomy and independence to ensure the right to the truth and duly identify those responsible.”

In their letter to Ortega, the bishops stressed the importance of continued dialogues to work towards peace.

On the same day that the letter was issued, the bishop’s conference also announced that bishops and priests are being discredited by attacks orchestrated by the government and that they have been receiving death threats through “anonymous social media” posts.

On May 23, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes of Managua announced that peace talks had been suspended indefinitely after reaching an impasse with the government, which refused to discuss an agenda presented by the bishops that included suggested reforms to presidential elections, according to ABC News. However, Brenes said he is hopeful the talks can eventually continue.

Ortega has been president of Nicaragua since 2007, and oversaw the abolition of presidential term limits in 2014.

He was a leader in the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which had ousted the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and fought US-backed right-wing counterrevolutionaries during the 1980s. Ortega was also leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990.

[…]

Lima, Peru, Jan 21, 2018 / 04:15 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On his last day in Peru, Pope Francis encouraged Catholics to imitate Jesus, who embraces the poor and suffering, and brings hope.

The Pope urged Peru’s youth to look to their grandparents and elders in order to discover “the DNA that guided their great saints,” telling them “do not lose your roots! And you, grandparents and elders, keep passing on to the new generations the traditions of your people and the wisdom that charts the path to heaven.”

“I urge all of you not to be afraid to be the saints of the 21st century,” he said, telling Peruvians that there is no better way to protect their hope “than to remain united, so that these reasons for hope may grow day by day in your hearts.”

Pope Francis offered Mass at Lima’s Las Palmas Airbase on Jan. 21, his last day in Peru, bringing an end to his Jan. 15-21 tour of South America, which also included a three-day visit to Chile.

In his homily, he acknowledged the difficulties Catholics in Peru face. “Sometimes what happened to Jonah can happen to us. Our cities, with their daily situations of pain and injustice, can leave us tempted to flee, to hide, to run away,” the Pope said.

Jonah is an Old Testament prophet depicted in a scriptural book of the same name, who attempted to “flee the presence of the Lord” rather than follow a call from God.

Looking around, “Jonah, and we, have plenty of excuses to [flee],” Pope Francis said, noting that while Lima has many people who are well-off, it is also populated by the homeless: “’non-citizens,’ ‘the half-citizens’ or ‘urban remnants’” found on the streets, many of whom are children.

Faced with the desperation of people in extreme poverty, Francis said some Catholics can contract “Jonah syndrome” – which causes them to be indifferent, “deaf” and “cold of heart” to others.

Quoting his predecessor, Benedict XVI, Francis said “the true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship to suffering and to the sufferer.”

A society that is unable to accept the suffering of others and which is “incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through ‘com-passion,’” he said, “is a cruel and inhuman society.”

The Pope noted that in the day’s Gospel reading, Jesus did the opposite of Jonah: rather than fleeing, he entered a city to encounter those who were desperate and suffering, and to bring them hope.

Francis encouraged Peruvians to respond with the attitude of Jesus, who entered Galilee “to sow the seeds of a great hope.”

A seed of hope, he said, had been passed down through the apostles and the great saints of Peru, and is present now “in order to act once more as a timely antidote to the globalization of indifference.”

“In the face of [Jesus’] love, one cannot remain indifferent,” he said.
 
“He begins to bring to light many situations that had killed the hope of his people and to awaken a new hope,” and calls new disciples, inviting them to walk at a different pace which allows them to notice “what they had previously overlooked, and he points out new and pressing needs.”

Jesus is involved in the lives of his people and is not afraid to get others involved too, Francis said, adding that he calls us and wants to anoint us so that “we too can go out to anoint others with the oil capable of healing wounded hopes and renewing our way of seeing things.”

The Pope said Jesus also wants to awaken in Catholics a hope which “frees us from empty associations and impersonal analyses,” and encourages faith to enter “like leaven” into every aspect of our daily lives.

God will never tire of going out to meet his children, he said, asking “how will we enkindle hope if prophets are lacking? How will we face the future if unity is lacking? How will Jesus reach all those corners if daring and courageous witnesses are lacking?”

“Today the Lord calls each of you to walk with him in the city, in your city,” he said. “He invites you to become his missionary disciple, so that you can become part of that great whisper that wants to keep echoing in the different corners of our lives: Rejoice, the Lord is with you!”

After Mass, Pope Francis thanked all those who helped organize his visit, including Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, the country’s civil authorities and the many volunteers who dedicated their time.

Francis noted that he began his trip by speaking of Peru as a land of hope, which he said comes from the country’s rich biodiversity, its various cultures and traditions, and because of its youth, “who are not the future but the present of Peru.”

[…]