Hans Küng’s massive 720-page On Being A Christian, published in English by Doubleday in 1976, had enormous impact on my theological life as a first-year Lutheran seminarian. Küng, now 91 and in poor health, was […]
Washington D.C., Nov 25, 2019 / 04:20 pm (CNA).- New asylum rules from the Trump administration put vulnerable people at risk and could further destabilize Central America, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Relief Services have said…. […]
Beijing, China, Nov 25, 2019 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- Leaked government documents from China have shed light on the country’s extensive network of internment camps for religious minorities, and exposed the use of an algorithm to determine who will be a… […]
Vatican City, Nov 25, 2019 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Argentine Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta will be returning to his home country to face charges of sexual and financial misconduct on Tuesday, he announced in a statement […]
Nagasaki, Japan, Nov 25, 2019 / 01:35 pm (CNA).- When Pope Francis offers Mass during international trips, an image of the Marian devotion of the country he is visiting is usually placed near the altar. On Nov. 24 the image used at a papal Mass in Nagasaki had an additional significance: It is a sculpture of Mary that survived the explosion of the atomic bomb in 1945.
They call her the Virgin of Nagasaki or the Burnt Virgin. On Aug. 9, 1945, it was at the altar of the former Urakami cathedral, just a few blocks from the epicenter of the explosion of an atomic bomb dropped by American forces during the Second World War.
Originally the bust was part of a wood carving sculpted abroad and given to the cathedral in 1920. It was inspired by the painting of the Immaculate Conception by Spanish painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.
The bomb that destroyed Nagasaki was dropped at 11:01 in the morning. That day Catholics were praying the novena of the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, for which a Mass was held. Everyone in the cathedral died, incinerated by temperatures exceeding 7,000 degrees. More than 35,000 people died in the city within hours; thousands more died in the months to follow. The cathedral was left in ruins.
When the bust was found, the face of the Virgin seemed fatally damaged, with empty eye sockets, and the cheeks and hair charred, and a crack on the left side of the face which, some believers say look now like tears of the Mother of God.
The image, also known as the Virgin of Urakami, is now placed in the new city’s new cathedral, built in 1959 on the ruins of the first one. It has become a symbol of peace and the fight against the use of nuclear weapons.
A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Bonn, Germany, Nov 25, 2019 / 12:55 pm (CNA).- The German bishops’ conference announced Monday that a ceremonial “Synodal Candle” will be lit on the first Sunday of Advent to officially launch the nation’s “synodal process,” which is scheduled to run over two years and pass resolutions about Church life in Germany.
The launch ceremony will be hosted by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who will light a candle together with lay leader Karin Kortmann in Munich’s famous Frauenkirche, or “Cathedral of Our Dear Lady.”
Draft statutes of the – no longer binding – “synodal process” were approved Nov. 22 by a majority of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) at the lay group’s plenary assembly.
During deliberations, a motion to amend the statutes to include a focus on evangelization was rejected.
CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German language news partner, reported Nov. 25 that ZdK member Karl zu Löwenstein reminded fellow delegates of Pope Francis’ call for a new evangelization during Nov. 22 deliberations regarding the synod. Before debating and passing resolutions about the structure of the Church, one should first put Christ’s message at the center, he argued.
However, two vice presidents of the lay Catholic organization disagreed. Both Claudia Lücking-Michel and Karin Kortmann, both German politicians, argued that any amendment would delay the start of the synodal process.
The German bishops had initially planned a “binding” synodal process for German Catholics, which would pass normative resolutions on moral and ecclesiastical issues. But a Vatican intervention raised concerns that the proposed process constituted a particular council, and could not take place without permission from the Vatican. After that intervention, the initial draft statues were amended to ensure they were no longer canonically binding.
On a visit to German last week, Cardinal Robert Sarah expressed concerns about the planned synod. Sarah has gone so far as to offer a special prayer for the Church in Germany, given developments there, warning “If a synod aims to change the doctrine of faith, then it is no longer a synod.”
In an unusual move, Pope Francis in June personally wrote a letter to all German Catholics, warning of meaningless structural maneuvering and reiterating a call to evangelization ahead of the announced process.
In addition to concerns about a lack of focus on spreading the Gospel, the actual agenda of the process – which exclusively targets the topics of sexual morality, power and ecclesial offices – and public demands of the ZdK for the blessing of homosexual couples and the ordination of women, have come in for sharp criticism from noted theologians.
CNA Deutsch contributed to this report.
San Diego, Calif., Nov 25, 2019 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- The American Medical Association announced last week that it had adopted a number of new policies, including advocacy for a federal ban on “so-called reparative or conversion therapy for sexual orientation or gender identity.”
During the AMA interim meeting held in San Diego, the group’s policy-making body chose to “develop model state legislation” to ban health care providers from efforts to change sexual orientation or gender identity,” the group said in a Nov. 19 statement.
“The support for legislative bans strengthens AMA’s long-standing opposition to this unscientific practice,” the medical association said.
Dr. William Kobler, an AMA board member, said that “conversion therapy has no foundation as scientifically valid medical care and lacks credible evidence to support its efficacy or safety” and that “it is clear to the AMA that the conversion therapy needs to end in the United States given the risk of deliberate harm to LGBTQ people.”
According to the group, conversion therapy for minors has been banned by 18 states and the District of Columbia.
One of the most recent states to have adopted such as ban is Massachusetts. Its law was signed in April.
The Massachusetts Catholic Conference opposed the legislation, saying it “attempts to create a solution to a problem which does not exist,” adding that it will “deny the right of parents to engage therapists who could help their child who is experiencing gender dysphoria and is confused and uncomfortable with this experience.”
Massachusetts’ law defines the banned activities as “any practice by a health care provider that attempts or purports to impose change of an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including but not limited to efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”
Under the law, health care professionals will be permitted to “provide acceptance, support, and understanding” of a minor’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, to “facilitate an individual’s coping, social support and identity exploration and development”, or seek “to prevent or address unlawful conduct or unsafe sexual practices”, as long as they “do not attempt or purport to impose change of an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The Massachusetts Catholic Conference said the law is unnecessary because “licensed clinical professionals are highly trained in their field and guided by ethical principles.”
It noted that minor who has “unwanted same sex attraction or gender identity, this law would prevent a licensed professional from counseling the minor towards a resolution to those unwanted urges … these professionals, with years of education and experience dealing with mental health issues, would be removed from the process of helping a young client struggling with these highly personal issues.”
The Heritage Foundation’s Ryan Anderson told CNA the Massachusetts law “imposes an ideological ban because the state disagrees with the viewpoint of certain professionals. It’s not targeted at harmful practices, but at particular values.”
A 2009 American Psychiatric Association task force recommended that the appropriate response to those with same-sex attraction involves “therapist acceptance, support, and understanding of clients … without imposing a specific sexual orientation identity outcome,” and that efforts to change orientation “involve some risk of harm.”
The APA considered homosexuality to be a mental disease until 1973. A former president of the APA said in a 2012 video interview that within the organization, political stances “override any scientific results.”
During its interim meeting, the AMA also adopted policies promoting “fully incluvise [electronic health records] for transgender patients” and encouraging “medical education accreditation bodies to both continue to encourage and periodically reassess education on health issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity in the basic science, clinical care, and cultural competency curricula.”
Baltimore, Md., Nov 25, 2019 / 11:27 am (CNA).- Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport has been appointed chairman of the board of directors for Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the agency announced Monday.
Caggiano was appointed by Archbishop Jose Gomez … […]
Vatican City, Nov 25, 2019 / 10:15 am (CNA).- The personal secretary to Pope Francis will leave his position in December, after nearly seven years of service to the pope.
Msgr. Fabian Pedacchio, an Argentine priest, will return to duties at the Vatica… […]
Tokyo, Japan, Nov 25, 2019 / 09:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis met Monday with Emperor Naruhito of Japan. It was the first meeting of the two less than two weeks since Naruhito completed the rituals that made him the newest emperor in the world’s oldest continuous hereditary throne.
Pope Francis is on his first visit to Japan, a country he’s desired to experience since he was in seminary. The trip lasts from Nov. 23-26.
The relationship between the Holy See and Imperial Household has been a strange one, but the papacy has a surprising amount in common with the Japanese imperial throne. And Pope Francis and Emperor Naruhito share similar stories about their rise to positions of leadership.
On Monday, the pontiff and the emperor reportedly greeted each other in Spanish, Pope Francis’s native language.
The meeting lasted approximately 30 minutes, after which Pope Francis moved on to St. Mary’s Cathedral in Tokyo to speak to Japanese youths.
Naruhito broke with Japanese imperial protocol by personally escorting the pope to his car after their conversation. The emperor is generally expected to stay inside his palace.
That decision speaks to the personal relationship between the two rulers, who have been openly supportive of each other in the past.
Earlier in the year, Pope Francis sent a letter of congratulations to Naruhito, wishing him luck in his governance.
The pope also sent a Vatican representative to the ceremony and celebratory banquet of the Emperor’s ascension to the throne last month.
Much as Pope Francis became the pontiff after the unexpected resignation of Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, Naruhito rose to the Chrysanthemum Throne after the sudden resignation of Emperor Emeritus Akihito, his father.
Pope Francis was the first pope to follow a resignation since 1417, and Emperor Naruhito was the first to become emperor through similar means since 1817.
Emperor Emeritus Akihito’s resignation was the first since the establishment of the 1947 Japanese Constitution, and surprised the nation.
Both resignations brought some criticism from traditionalists.
Although the Emperor is the highest priest of the Shinto religion, the Imperial Family has in the past had Catholic members.
The Emperor’s own mother, Michiko, was raised in a Catholic family and attended Catholic schools in her youth. She has not openly practiced Catholicism since before she married Emperor Emeritus Akihito.
Additionally, the late Prince Asaka converted to Roman Catholicism in 1951, after the close of the Second World War, and practiced the faith until his death in 1951.
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