Baltimore, Md., Jun 11, 2019 / 03:30 pm (CNA).- The Church needs to be present to migrants and refugees in the U.S. who are facing detention or deportation, and cannot be “invisible,” U.S. bishops said on the first day of their annual sprin… […]
Mexico City, Mexico, Jun 11, 2019 / 03:03 pm (CNA).- The Mexican bishops’ conference expressed its concern Monday about the immigration and tariffs agreement reached between the governments of the United States and Mexico.
Mexico has agreed to take measures to reduce the number of migrants to the US, in order to avoid tariffs being imposed.
Some 6,000 National Guard troops will be assigned to Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, and some asylum seekers in the US will be sent to Mexico to wait while their claims are processed.
The Mexican bishops’ conference expressed “its concern for the lack of a truly humanitarian reception for our migrant brothers which reflects our convictions regarding the equal recognition and protection of the rights of all human beings” in a June 10 statement.
“Deploying 6,000 National Guard troops on the southern border is not a fundamental solution that addresses the true causes of the migration phenomenon. The fight against poverty and inequality in Mexico and Central America seems to be replaced by fear of the other, our brother,” the bishops said.
“If we as Mexicans have rejected the construction of a wall, we ourselves can’t become that wall,” they added.
For the bishops’ conference “it is completely legitimate and necessary to make courageous decisions to avoid the imposition of tariffs on Mexican products traded with the United States.” Nevertheless, the bishops said, “our migrant brothers must never be a bargaining chip.”
The Church will continue to be committed “without hesitation to provide migrants with the humanitarian aid they require in their transit through our national territory,” the said.
“And so we express our respect and gratitude to the thousands of men and women of the Catholic Church, other churches, and civil society, who for decades have defended, at the risk of their lives, the fundamental rights of migrants in Mexico, the United States, and Central America.”
Bishop Alfonso Gerardo Miranda Guardiola, auxiliary bishop of Monterrey and secretary general of the Mexican bishops’ conference, told CNA that the Church’s care for migrants continues “both in Tapachula, particularly at the entrance point into Mexico, and the country’s north, as well as in all the migrant centers that we have, thanks be to God, provided throughout the national territory.”
“They remain full to the brim and the assistance continues day by day,” Bishop Miranda noted.
He lamented that “this feeling and this attitude of xenophobia, of rejection of the migrant, has arisen in many Mexicans.”
“An anti-immigrant climate or a climate of the criminalization of the migrant has arisen in many parts of Mexico, as if they all were thieves or evildoers.”
For the prelate, it is clear that out of a country “come all kinds of people, but there is a factor at the origin which has to do with violence, poverty and the lack of opportunities, on the levels of education and jobs and also driven by threats from criminal gangs.”
For the Church, he recalled, to assist migrants is to follow “the direct command of Jesus.”
“Even today, in today’s Mass, there are the Beatitudes. That’s our creed, that’s our doctrine, by which we govern our actions: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, no matter if it’s a migrant or a Mexican.”
“It is a person suffering need, so we extend a hand,” he said.
Bishop Miranda pointed out that the causes of migration and how governments address them “are not the Church’s direct responsibility, that belongs to the governments, the international organizations.”
“The Church, Christians, when we see a brother suffering, who’s hurting, we can’t be indifferent, we can’t deprive him of his rights.”
The bishop also emphasized that neither Mexico nor the United States are isolated from the migration problem, and he encouraged “a dialogue, negotiations, international agreements in which large scale solutions are sought.”
If they are not resolved on a global level, he said, “we’re just going to patch up the problems but not provide fundamental solutions.”
As to what pertains to the Church, he added, “it will not cease to do its work on the individual level, the family level, on the level of persons. But politics, in the highest sense of the term, does not just look to the common good of the nation, but also the international, global common good.”
“Sooner or later the repercussions will be global and sooner or later any country that closes itself up is going to suffer the inescapable consequences, because we are all connected,” he concluded.
There is no ideal society this side of the Second Coming. Flawed people can’t create such things, and we’re all flawed, so social gains are offset by social losses. Current tendencies of thought, which reject […]
Los Angeles, Calif., Jun 11, 2019 / 02:12 pm (CNA).- After a story in the New York Post sparked new interest in the drama of a years-long legal dispute involving Katy Perry and the sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles… […]
Baltimore, Md., Jun 11, 2019 / 11:35 am (CNA).- On the morning of the first day of the USCCB’s General Assembly in Baltimore, discussion began on three proposals to improve episcopal accountability.
As the discussion developed June 11, muc… […]
Baltimore, Md., Jun 11, 2019 / 10:54 am (CNA).- The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 2019 Spring General Assembly kicked off in Baltimore Tuesday with a brief address from USCCB President Cardinal Daniel DiNardo and a message from Archbishop Christophe Pierre, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, explaining the rationale for the Vatican’s cancelation of votes last November.
Pierre was unable to attend the meeting in Baltimore as he was in Rome with a meeting with his fellow Apostolic Nuncios, and his remarks were delivered June 11 by Msgr. Walter Erbi, chargé d’affaires of the Vatican nunciature in Washington.
Both Pierre and DiNardo spoke on the progress that has been made in tackling the sexual abuse crisis in the Church in America since last November’s general assembly, particularly the importance of careful discernment. In November, the Vatican intervened and canceled planned votes on various measures designed to increase accountability among bishops, much to the displeasure and confusion of nearly every bishop present.
“Through the mercy of Christ, we will make progress, and may our discernment lead us to God’s will,” said DiNardo.
According to Pierre, this delay was meant to ensure that careful prudence was taken in response to the crisis.
“I would say that among the reasons the Holy Father asked for a delay was his belief that the whole Church needed to walk together – to act in a synodal way, and that this ‘walking together’ of the whole Church, following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, would make the path forward clearer,” he said.
Since that time, the U.S. bishops have gone on a weeklong retreat, and the world’s bishops’ conference presidents met in Rome for the Meeting on the Protection of Minors in the Church. After that meeting Pope Francis issued the motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi, which outlined new strategies to for the Church hold sexual abusers accountable for their actions.
“It seems to me that Pope Francis’ emphasis on synodality and walking together is a manifestation of the four principles articulated in Evangelii gaudium,” said Pierre, referring to Pope Francis’ 2013 apostolic exhortation on the proclamation of the gospel in today’s world. These principles are: “time is greater than space,” “unity prevails over conflict,” “realities are more important than ideas,” and “the whole is greater than the part.”
It was this first principle, Pierre explained, that resulted in November’s delayed votes. Pierre wrote that Pope Francis believed that additional prayer and time were needed in order to address the abuse crisis as a worldwide Church.
“Technology and social media condition us to desire an immediate response to practically everything,” he said, particularly in the United States. “The idea that time is greater than space is a useful remedy. In an ecclesial context, faster responses do not always produce the best results.”
Pierre’s speech also emphasized the importance of Church unity and “walking together” to combat the abuse crisis, particularly at the meeting in Rome. The contributions of the episcopal heads from around the country proved valuable, he said.
Guided by the Holy Spirit and each other, “together, the whole Church was able to take steps – to walk together – to address the problem and concrete actions could begin – without one group running ahead of the others and another lagging too far behind,” he said.
This, plus the “concrete ideas” offered by Pope Francis at the summit and in his motu proprio, could only be accomplished with the additional time gained by delaying the vote, Pierre wrote.
“The Holy Father calls the whole Church to walk together in this moment of crisis,” he said, and there can be “no hesitation in responding vigorously as a matter of justice.”
“We must meet our people in their concrete situations, proposing the life-giving Word to them as a sure guide for understanding their experiences and for guiding their moral and spiritual lives,” added Pierre. If this is not done, the bishops run the risk of being disconnected and ineffective in dealing with their flock.
“In the process of walking together, we also have the opportunity to hear from different members of the group,” wrote Pierre, emphasizing the need to include the laity in these discussions.
“With Christ, together we can walk and face the realities of the Church today, and together discern the path forward.”
Baltimore, Md., Jun 11, 2019 / 10:24 am (CNA).- Advisory bodies to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called Tuesday for the bishops to urge the Holy See to make public all documentation related to the misconduct of Theodore McCarrick, in accord w… […]
Rome, Italy, Jun 11, 2019 / 09:01 am (CNA).- The recently installed head of the Knights of Malta directed Monday that all liturgical ceremonies within the community must use the ordinary, and not the extraordinary, form of the Roman rite.
“I have thus decided, as supreme guarantor of the cohesion and communion of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem of which Providence made me Grand Master, that henceforth all the liturgical ceremonies within our Order must be performed according to the ordinary rite of the Church (rite of St. Paul VI) and not the extraordinary rite (Tridentine rite),” Fra’ Giacomo Dalla Torre wrote in a June 10 letter to the order.
“This decision applies to all the official liturgical celebrations such as investitures, masses [sic] during our pilgrimages, memorial masses, [sic] as well as the feasts and solemnities of the Order.”
Dalla Torre was elected grand master of the Knights of Malta in May 2018, after serving as interim leader for a little over a year.
His appointment as interim grand master was part of ongoing reform of leadership after the Knights’ former grand master, Matthew Festing, resigned at Pope Francis’ request Jan. 24, 2017.
Festing’s resignation in early 2017 had marked the end of a month-long back and forth between the Order of Malta and the Holy See, beginning with the forced dismissal of Grand Chancellor Albrecht von Boeselager from both his position and his membership in the order in early December 2016. Boeselager, whose brother Georg von Boeselager was appointed a member of the Board of Superintendents of the IOR in 2016, was reinstated after Festing was pressured to resign.
Boeselager had been dismissed because of allegations that under his tenure the order’s charity branch had inadvertently been involved in distributing condoms in Burma to prevent the spread of HIV.
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is a Catholic lay religious order originally founded as the Knights Hospitaller around 1099 in Jerusalem. Now based in Rome, it is present in 120 countries with over 2,000 projects in the medical-social field and more than 120,000 volunteers and medical staff.
Dalla Torre said that as religious superior, it is his duty to ensure that “the communion that unites all the members of our religious family” is “present in every aspect of our Order’s life.”
“Among all the elements which constitute our spiritual life, the question of the liturgy to use in our celebrations has a particular significance.”
He wrote that “As you all know, Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificium, [sic] albeit leaving every priest the freedom to celebrate privately in an extraordinary form, nevertheless states that inside a religious institute the matter is to be decided by the Major Superior according to the norm of law and their particular statues (Summorum Pontificium, [sic] art. 3).”
Summorum Pontificum states that “If communities of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, whether of pontifical or diocesan right, wish to celebrate the conventual or community Mass in their own oratories according to the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal, they are permitted to do so. If an individual community or an entire Institute or Society wishes to have such celebrations frequently, habitually or permanently, the matter is to be decided by the Major Superiors according to the norm of law and their particular laws and statutes.”
Dalla Torre asked that all members of the Knights be informed of the decision, in particular the head chaplains, so that it may be respected.
Washington D.C., Jun 11, 2019 / 03:01 am (CNA).- Catholic commentators have welcomed a Vatican document warning that gender theory is a cultural and ideological revolution that undermines both human dignity and the right understandings of sexual difference and complementarity, though the document was not without its critics.
“There’s a lot of confusion out there right now in regards to gender theory in education and this document provides much-needed clarity about the truth of the human person,” said Dr. Joan Kingsland, a moral theologian and curriculum advisor for Ruah Woods, an Ohio-based organization focused on St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.
The Congregation for Catholic Education’s “Male and Female He Created Them” was released June 10.
“In the mainstream media no doubt there will be the typical ideological reaction against the Church for imposing an antiquated view of sexuality on its members; but others will be relieved that the Church is providing clarity about such an important aspect of the human person,” Kingsland told CNA.
The American response to the document, she said, takes place in “the overall context of an over-sexualized culture that leaves many wounded and on the defensive,” she added. “There are lifestyles which enslave the person and leave the person in darkness about the true good and real happiness.”
The document comes as many parts of the country celebrate LGBT Pride Month activities. Many cities in the U.S. and Western Europe as well as corporate and NGO sponsors mark the month with a campaign of LGBT advocacy. Some Pride events and parades notoriously attract people who engage in public nudity, lewdness, and other acts. Many countries have increasingly embraced LGBT causes, and advocacy on behalf of self-identified transgender people has resulted in many controversial changes.
The new document also follows several years in which the Church in the US has once again come under fire for clergy sex abuse scandals that victimized minors of both sexes as well as adult men and women.
The document cited the need to reaffirm “the metaphysical roots of sexual difference” to help refute “attempts to negate the male-female duality of human nature, from which the family is generated.”
Such a negation “erases the vision of human beings as the fruit of an act of creation” and “creates the idea of the human person as a sort of abstraction who ‘chooses for himself what his nature is to be’.”
The text is signed by Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education. It outlines the philosophical origins of the gender theory movement and notes the broad movement to enshrine its distinct view of human nature in policy and law.
Theories of gender, whether moderate or radical, agree that “one’s gender ends up being viewed as more important than being of male or female sex,” according to the document, which also reflects on the role of gender theory in education and speaks of a “crisis” in any alliance between the school and the family.
“Although ideologically-driven approaches to the delicate questions around gender proclaim their respect for diversity, they actually run the risk of viewing such difference as static realities and end up leaving them isolated and disconnected from each other,” it said.
The document said that despite the challenges, dialogue remains possible. It also called for protection of human and family rights, decried unjust discrimination, and noted points of unity among people with different perspectives on gender ideology.
Father Philip Bochanski, executive director of Courage International, told CNA the document deserves “careful study and reflection.” On an initial reading, he said, “it is already clear to me that it is both insightful and useful for our constant efforts to ‘speak the truth in love’ (Eph 4:15) to the world about the Good News of God’s plan for our lives.”
Courage International is an apostolate for people with same-sex attractions who commit to strive for chastity.
Bochanski praised the document’s structure of “listening, reasoning, proposing” for providing “a clear and solid framework for ministry” that accords with Pope Francis’ advice that those in ministry “must accompany people starting from their situation.”
“The document then lays out succinctly and clearly the anthropological and moral principles that are the foundation of our understanding of human sexuality, so that such a dialogue can assist each person to view his or her own desires and experience in light of the plan of God,” he said. “And it courageously confronts trends of secular thought that are confusing or opposed to that plan, calling all people to conform their lives more completely to Christ.”
According to Kingsland, the proper context for speaking about sexuality is “love and the call of the human person to communion.”
“We are made in the image of God who is a communion of love,” she said.
Father James Martin, S.J., a media commentator and editor-at-large for the Society of Jesus’ magazine America, criticized the document in a June 10 tweet.
“It rightly calls for ‘dialogue’ and ‘listening,’ but sets aside the real-life experiences of LGBT people. Sadly, it will be used as a cudgel against transgender people, and an excuse to argue that they shouldn’t even exist,” he said.
“The document is mainly a dialogue with philosophers and theologians, and with other church documents; but not with scientists and biologists, not with psychologists, and certainly not with LGBT people, whose experiences are given little if any weight.”
Martin then shared with his 246,000 Twitter followers a New Ways Ministry Tweet which linked to its blog post and said:
“The Vatican’s new document on gender will be used to oppress and harm LGBT people. It perpetuates false stereotypes that encourage hatred, bigotry, and violence.”
U.S. bishops’ statements have said New Ways Ministry is not approved of or recognized by the Catholic Church and it is misleading to claim that it “provides an authentic interpretation of Catholic teaching and an authentic Catholic pastoral practice,” then-U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Cardinal George said in a 2010 statement.
Kingsland said the Congregation for Catholic Education’s document acknowledges confusion about the concepts of human nature and human freedom and sees the need to clarify these for “a correct and full vision of the human person.” It is also important for concepts like “natural inclinations” to be understood rightly, and important to express a concept of human rights that does not undermine “the true good of the human person.”
Kingsland noted the document’s “clear continuity” between the past and present teaching of the Church. The document cites the teaching of John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis, she noted.
She welcomed the document’s call to form individual teachers and to build up “an entire educational community,” saying, “they are called to be witnesses above all.”
Baltimore, Md., Jun 10, 2019 / 11:00 pm (CNA).- Several bishops and other Church leaders have said they will return money given to them by retired West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield, who is accused of serially sexually harassing or coercing semina… […]
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