Indianapolis, Ind., Aug 5, 2019 / 04:30 pm (CNA).- A Jesuit-sponsored high school in Indiana has asked the Vatican to overturn Indianapolis Archbishop Charles Thompson’s decision to revoke the school’s Catholic identity, and announced that … […]
Washington D.C., Aug 5, 2019 / 04:26 pm (CNA).- A bipartisan group of 18 senators is urging the Trump administration not to shut down refugee admissions, but rather to increase admissions.
Citing “alarming” reports that the administration … […]
Portland, Maine, Aug 5, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- A pair of petition campaigns for a people’s veto referendum vote have kicked off in Maine with the support of the state’s Catholic bishop, as residents attempt to repeal a law that legalizes t… […]
Editor’s note: The following Statement from Dale Ahlquist, President, Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, originally appeared at Chesterton.org. MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (August 5, 2019 – Feast of Our Lady of the Snows) On August 1, 2019, […]
Liverpool, England, Aug 5, 2019 / 03:23 pm (CNA).- Merseyside Police are investigating the vandalization of St. Oswald’s, a church in inner city Liverpool that had windows smashed and graffiti painted it on it Saturday.
Saint Oswald King and Martyr Catholic Church was vandalized Aug. 3, the Liverpool Echo reports.
The church and its presbytery had six windows broken, and “beast” written in chalk on the outside, according to the Liverpudlian daily. The area where the windows were damaged have been boarded up.
The damage was reported to police shortly before noon, and the police believe the damage to have been inflicted earlier that morning.
A spokesman for Merseyside Police encouraged everyone to share information with the authorities on the crime or the criminals involved.
The current St. Oswald’s building was built in the 1950s. This replaced a building from the 1840s designed by Augustus Pugin, of which only the west steeple survives.
The presbytery dates to 1847, and was designed by E. W. Pugin.
Minneapolis, Minn., Aug 5, 2019 / 12:18 pm (CNA).- Ahead of its annual convention this week, the Knights of Columbus announced August 1 that it donated more than $185 million to charity in 2018.
“The men who choose to become Knights of Columbus are generous, and their impact is immense. While we are known mainly for our local efforts, our reach is global,” said Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus.
The Knights of Columbus is a fraternal and charitable organization with over 1.9 million members and more than 16,000 councils worldwide.
It was founded by Fr. Michael McGivney in 1882 to provide relief and assistance to members, their families, and widows of members, as well as opportunities for fraternity and service for Catholic members. The “four pillars” of the Knights are charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism.
According to the Knights, the $185 million in charitable giving came from direct fundraising, the efforts of local Knights councils, and its insurance operations; the Knights offer insurance and annuities products to members.
The group also says its members gave over 76 million hours of hands-on service in 2018, worth over $1.9 billion according to a valuation of volunteer work by the Independent Sector.
More than 16,000 Knights councils in nine countries were responsible for the volunteer work and for raising money for charitable causes, which included relief for persecuted Christians, disaster aid, support for crisis pregnancy centers and pro-life initiatives, the Archdiocese of the Military Services, U.S.A., and the Knights’ annual pilgrimage to Lourdes for wounded military veterans.
In just over 12 months between 2017 and 2018, the Knights raised and delivered $2 million for the Iraqi town of Karamles; the Knights have helped Christian survivors of the ISIS genocide in the town resettle in their homes and rebuild for the future.
Volunteer work included support for the Special Olympics, coat drives, and food drives for needy families.
“Regardless of how or who the Knights serve, it’s the chance to help those who are unable to help themselves and to be of assistance to the sick or disabled that is at the heart of what being a Knight is all about,” Anderson said.
The annual Supreme Convention of the Knights of Columbus will take place in Minneapolis, Minnesota this week from August 6-8. Knights councils from all over the world will attend, along with bishops and leaders of the organization.
After the opening Mass on the morning of Tuesday, August 6, Anderson will deliver the annual Supreme Knight’s report in the afternoon followed by the States Dinner in the evening.
Mass and an awards session will follow on Wednesday, followed by a Memorial Mass on Thursday.
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Aug 5, 2019 / 11:27 am (CNA).- The funeral of Therese Tran Thi Ly Hoa, a Catholic lawyer in Ho Chi Minh City, was interrupted last week by local officials, amid a disagreement over land ownership, according to UCA News.
“We tried to hold our dead relative’s funeral well and did not cause any problems, but officials harassed us and showed a lack of respect for the dead,” Cao Ha Truc, a relative of Therese, told UCA News.
Therese Hoa was buried Aug. 1. She had spent much of her career combatting what she maintained was corruption by local government officials.
The funeral was held on a nearly 12-acre plot of land from which some 100 households, many of them Catholic, were evicted in January.
For the funeral, the family erected a tent to provide shelter while people prayed for the repose of Therese’s soul. Such prayers would be said for more than a week.
The family has said that police surrounded the site and removed tents and chairs.
Those who lived on the property said it was acquired by the Parish Foreign Missions Society in 1954, when the area was part of the State of Vietnam.
The government said that homes on the land were built illegally, and it intends to build schools and public facilities on the lot.
Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen of Parramatta, who was born in Vietnam, denounced the seizure of the land Jan. 11.
“This area, attached to the Catholic Parish of Loc Hung, has been the home and work centre of many families,” he said. “Generations of people migrated from the communist North at the partitioning of Vietnam in 1954. They are mostly low-income families, students, former prisoners of conscience and amputee-veterans of the South Vietnamese Army.”
Bishop Vincent stated that “the authorities often resort to the use of force to seize properties and land in places which have potential commercial value. This has been a pattern of behavior on the part of the communist government in Vietnam ironically since the so-called “doi moi” (reform) era, as demonstrated in many incidents throughout the country.”
Rome, Italy, Aug 5, 2019 / 10:09 am (CNA).- White rose petals fell from the ceiling of St. Mary Major Basilica Monday, as Romans celebrated the anniversary of a 4th century Marian miracle.
The miracle, which inspired the construction of the papal Marian basilica, involved a miraculous snowfall in Rome on Aug. 5 in the year 358.
According to tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared to both a nobleman named John and to Pope Liberius (352-366) in a dream foretelling the August snow and asking for a church to be built in her honor on the site of the snowfall. The church was rebuilt by Pope Sixtus III (432-440), after the Council of Ephesus in 431 declared Mary to be the Mother of God.
Cardinal Stanislsw Rylko, archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major, celebrated the Mass to mark the 1,661th anniversary of this “miracle of the snow.”
“On the occasion of this great feast of the Basilica of St. Mary Major, Jesus Christ also addresses us, each one of us, this phrase: ‘Here is your Mother’. This invitation suggests having confidence in her, without fear, and listening to her, to let yourself be guided by her,” Rylko said in his homily Aug. 5.
“Christ continues to entrust His mother to each of us, ‘Here is your Mother’ and we, like the apostle John, are called to take Mary to our house, to allow her to enter our lives, to make her a part of our joys, of our problems, of the challenges we face everyday,” he said.
Among the four major papal basilicas in Rome, St. Mary Major is the only one that maintained its original structure. Mosaics dating back to the 5th century can be seen in the central nave of the basilica, which also houses the relic of the Holy Crib from the birth of Christ.
The dedication of St. Mary Major is celebrated each year on Aug. 5 with a Mass in which white rose petals fall from the ceiling as the “Gloria” is sung. The feast is preceded by a triduum of prayer at the basilica Aug. 2-4.
This year there will also be a light and laser show in the piazza in front of the basilica at 9 p.m. to celebrate the feast. The show will be dedicated to Notre Dame Cathedral, which was damaged by a fire in April. It will also recognize the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death this year.
“Let us not forget the words of the Virgin during the wedding at Cana. Our Mother today, as then, continues to say to each one of us: ‘Do whatever Jesus tells you,’” Cardinal Rylko said at the Mass.
Cincinnati, Ohio, Aug 5, 2019 / 08:30 am (CNA).- An auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, and member of the USCCB committee on child protection, is facing accusations that he failed to report to Cincinnati’s archbishop a series of al… […]
Vatican City, Aug 5, 2019 / 01:08 am (CNA).- Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI met last week with a recently dismissed professor of moral theology at Rome’s Pontifical John Paul II Institute, amid ongoing controversy regarding recent changes to the Institute.
Benedict XVI invited Monsignor Livio Melina to meet with him in on Aug. 1, a source close to Melina told CNA.
The pope emeritus “wanted to receive Prof. Mons. Livio Melina at a private audience. After a long discussion of the recent events at the Pontifical Institute John Paul II, he granted his blessing, expressing his personal solidarity and assuring him of his closeness in prayer.”
Melina, who was president of the John Paul II Institute from 2006 until 2016, was dismissed from the institute after the recent promulgation of new statutes, or rules of order, for the graduate school, and a decision to eliminate the chair of moral theology which Melina held.
The new statutes were first called for in 2017, when Pope Francis announced he would legally refound the Institute, and broaden its academic curriculum, from a focus on the theology of marriage and the family to an approach that will also include the study of the family from the perspective of the social sciences.
After new statutes were approved last month, students, alumni, and faculty have raised concerns about the role of faculty members in the institute’s new governing structure, about the reduction of theology courses and the elimination of some theology disciplines, and about the dismissal of some faculty members, including Melina and Fr. Jose Noriega.
Faculty members have told CNA they do not object to the pope’s desire to expand the school’s mission or approach, but say that the administrators responsible for implementing that mission have acted unfairly.
The pope emeritus has a long history of collaboration with the Institute.
Benedict XVI “has always closely followed the work of Msgr. Melina in the chair of fundamental moral theology,” Fr. Juan José Pérez-Soba, a professor of pastoral theology and the director of international research in moral theology at the Institute, told CNA.
Pérez-Soba told CNA that then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was later elected Pope Benedict XVI, wrote to commend Melina’s work in moral theology in 1998, and participated in a 2003 conference on the encyclical Veritatis splendor, organized by Melina’s academic department at the John Paul II Institute.
“At that conference, Cardinal Ratzinger delivered a lecture, subsequently published, explaining the renewal of moral theology after the Second Vatican Council. According to Ratzinger, Veritatis splendor was written to develop the full potential of the moral vision of Vatican II, especially Gaudium et Spes. Veritatis splendor expresses a morality ‘not conceived as a series of precepts,’ but as ‘the result of an encounter from which derive corresponding moral actions.’” the priest added.
The priest explained that in his 2003 lecture, Cardinal Ratzinger outlined an approach to morality “where it is seen that ‘the affirmation of absolute commandments, which prescribe what is intrinsically evil, does not mean submitting to the slavery of prohibitions, but opening to the great value of life, which is illuminated by the true good, this is for the love of God himself.’”
“In the light of this importance that Ratzinger gave to fundamental morals in the Institute, the suppression of the chair of fundamental morals and the dismissal of Livio Melina takes on new light,” the professor said.
“This set of changes now appears as a search to change the moral paradigm. There seems to be a desire to discard objective morality, which affirms the truth about the good to which man is called, following Veritatis splendor. And it seems intended to open a process of review of all sexual morality from subjectivism, starting with Humanae vitae.”
Pérez-Soba added that during several visits to the Institute during his pontificate, Benedict XVI spoke of the school’s importance.
In a 2006 speech, Benedict “pointed out two key features of the Institute’s mission: first, to teach how marriage and family belong to the core of the truth about man and his destiny; and, second, to show that the revelation of Christ assumes and illuminates the depth of human experience. The enormous number of families who, having studied at the Institute, attended this audience, was a sign of great pastoral fruitfulness in the teaching of John Paul II,” the priest said.
More than 250 students and alumni of Rome’s John Paul II Institute have signed a letter expressing their concern about the school’s new statutes, and the dismissal of Noriega and Melina. The letter expresses concern that current students will not be able to complete the academic programs in which they are currently enrolled, and the faculty dismissals have taken place without due process.
On July 31, Fr. Jose Granados, the Institute’s vice-president, told CNA that “the identity of the Institute is seriously threatened,” and called for administrators to resume discussion with faculty members about the approach to implementing Pope Francis’ call for an expansion of the school’s approach.
The Catholic Herald reported Aug. 2 that Institute administrators told a reporter that “the institute remains desirous of giving exhaustive responses, but asks a few weeks’ time in the month of August in order to formulate adequate responses.”
© Catholic World Report