Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jun 10, 2019 / 09:30 am (CNA).- Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta has been criminally charged with sexually assaulting two seminarians before a court in Argentina. The bishop has been barred from leaving the country and ordered to under… […]
Baltimore, Md., Jun 10, 2019 / 07:33 am (CNA).- The U.S. bishops’ conference will convene in Baltimore this week, to discuss the ongoing clerical sexual abuse crisis, and to conduct the ongoing regular business of the organization. The meeting be… […]
Prior to global positioning satellites, celestial navigation determined a position on the globe based a reading of the stars. With a sextant three intersecting lines are charted, derived from star fixes above the horizon. The […]
Rome, Italy, Jun 9, 2019 / 08:27 am (CNA).- As several thousand Catholics belonging to the charismatic renewal gathered in Rome this Pentecost weekend, the Vatican officially launched a new international service to aid the ministry in its commitment to… […]
Hagatna, Guam, Jun 9, 2019 / 04:24 am (CNA).- The government of the island of Guam is offering waivers and discounts for contraception through a public health clinic, and the territory’s governor has said she wants to find a doctor willing to perform abortions, after the retirement of the island’s last abortionist.
Governor Lourdes Leon Guerrero, a former nurse who took office in January, recently expressed her wish to expand abortion access in the state, but no doctors on the island are willing to perform abortions.
Though abortion is legal in some cases in Guam, the territory’s last abortion doctor retired in May 2018.
“I’m concerned about [abortion] going underground because then we can’t really control it, we can’t really monitor, we can’t really make sure that the women are doing it in an environment that is conducive to a healthy recovery,” she told the AP last week.
Guam is predominantly Catholic, and Guerrero has said that finding a doctor willing to perform abortions there “will take some work.” She said officials are trying to recruit doctors to come to the island and establish clinics.
Abortion is legal in Guam up to 13 weeks or up to 26 weeks in case of rape or incest, but anyone who terminates a pregnancy without help from a doctor can be charged with a felony, the AP reports. Doctors also have the legal right to refuse to perform an abortion except in the case of a medical emergency.
Women in Guam seeking abortions must fly thousands of miles from the island to seek abortions elsewhere, the AP reports. Many go to Hawaii, as the nearest mainland country, the Philippines, does not allow abortion. U.S. federal law applies in Guam and its people are U.S. citizens; the island is home to about 170,000 residents.
Despite this, there have only two or three Guam women given abortions in Hawaii since last year, and none was an elective procedure, an OB-GYN and University of Hawaii professor told the AP.
The morning after pill, an abortifacient drug, is available in Guam over the counter and by prescription for women over 18.
Pro-life activism on the island, led by the Guam Catholic Pro-Life Committee, saw hundreds of pro-life advocates march in Guam’s first annual Rally for Life in January.
Vatican City, Jun 9, 2019 / 03:29 am (CNA).- Without the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Christians lack that which animates them and gives them internal life and harmony, Pope Francis said on Pentecost.
“Without the Spirit, our Christia… […]
San José, Costa Rica, Jun 8, 2019 / 03:23 pm (CNA).- A bill in Costa Rica would require Catholic priests to violate the seal of confession to report cases of suspected child sex abuse. Its sponsor says he was inspired by similar legislation advancing i… […]
Peoria, Ill., Jun 8, 2019 / 03:14 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of New York will work to help transfer the remains of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, a spokesman for the archdiocese told CNA Saturday. The decision is the conclusion of a long legal battle over the late archbishop’s burial place.
“We have been informed that the New York Court of Appeals has denied further appeal of the New York Supreme Court decision upholding Joan Cunningham’s petition to disinter Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s mortal remains from under the altar at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where they have rested for nearly 40 years,” Joseph Zwilling, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of New York, told CNA.
The denial of the archdiocese’s appeal to keep Sheen’s remains in New York was delivered by the New York Court of Appeals on Friday, June 7.
“While we did not initiate this matter, the Trustees of St. Patrick’s and the Archdiocese believed that it was not simply their duty, but a solemn obligation, to seek to uphold Archbishop Sheen’s last wishes, as directed in his Will, to be buried in New York – a position held until recently by Joan Cunningham herself,” Zwilling said.
Cunningham is Sheen’s niece and closest living relative. Cunningham has said in the past that although her uncle’s will states that his wish was to be buried in New York, she believes he would have wanted to have been interred in Peoria if he knew it would help advance his cause for sainthood.
The Peoria diocese opened the cause for Sheen’s canonization (the process to become an officially recognized saint in the Catholic Church) in 2002, after Archdiocese of New York said it would not explore the case. In 2012, Benedict XVI recognized the heroic virtues of the archbishop.
In September 2014, Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria suspended Sheen’s cause on the grounds that the Holy See expected Sheen’s remains to be in the Peoria diocese.
In 2016, Cunningham filed a legal complaint seeking to have her uncle’s remains moved to the Cathedral of St. Mary in Peoria.
The Archdiocese of New York has repeatedly appealed the attempt to transfer Sheen’s remains to Peoria, arguing that Vatican officials have said the Peoria diocese can pursue Sheen’s canonization regardless of whether his body is buried there.
Archbishop Sheen was a beloved television catechist during the 1950s and 60s in the United States. Sheen was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois at the age of 24, and was appointed auxiliary bishop of New York in 1951, where he remained until his appointment as Bishop of Rochester, New York in 1966. He retired in 1969 and moved back to New York City until his death in 1979.
On June 8, the Archdiocese of New York confirmed to CNA their cooperation in the transfer Sheen’s remains.
“In light of the court’s denial of further appeal, the Trustees of St. Patrick and the Archdiocese will work cooperatively with Mrs. Cunningham and the Diocese of Peoria to arrange for the respectful transfer of Archbishop Sheen’s mortal remains.”
Vatican City, Jun 8, 2019 / 12:12 pm (CNA).- The world needs an ecological “conversion” in order to manifest the Church’s vision of an integral human ecology, Pope Francis said in an address to a conference on the social teaching of t… […]
Vatican City, Jun 8, 2019 / 11:01 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said Saturday he wants people to recognize the Church as their home and a place where they are always welcome.
“How I wish,” he said June 8, that people would recognize the Church “for this more than mercy, for this more than humanity and tenderness, of which there is so much need!”
That “you would feel at home, the ‘maternal home’ where you are always welcome and where you can always come back,” he said.
“You would always feel welcomed, listened to, interpreted well, helped to take a step forward in the direction of the kingdom of God… As a mother knows how to do, even with her now-grown children.”
Pope Francis preached on the motherhood of the Church during an evening Mass for the Vigil of Pentecost for Catholics of the Diocese of Rome.
“What are we celebrating today, all together, in our city of Rome?” he asked. “We celebrate the primacy of the Spirit, which makes us dumb before the unpredictability of God’s plan, and then startled with joy: ‘Then this was what God had for us!'”
Pope Francis encouraged Catholics to take the gifts of the Holy Spirit with them, bringing them in the midst of their brothers and sisters, especially those living in the city of Rome.
“Hear their need for salvation, the cry that comes to Him and that we usually do not hear,” he said. “It is about opening eyes and ears, but above all the heart, listening with the heart.”
“Then we will really get going,” he continued. “Then we will feel within us the fire of Pentecost, which drives us to cry out to the men and women of this city that their slavery is over and that it is Christ the way that leads to the city of Heaven.”
The vigil Mass will conclude with Rome Catholics carrying an icon of Our Lady of Divine Love in procession from St. Peter’s Square to Porta Capena square, which is near Circus Maximus.
The diocese also invited people to join afterward in a traditional night-time pilgrimage ending at Rome’s Shrine of Divine Love, which is located in the far southern outskirts of the city and is the home of the icon of Our Lady of Divine Love.
In his homily, Pope Francis recalled the image and Pope Pius XII’s “special act of thanks and supplication to the Virgin, for the protection of the city of Rome” 75 years ago, on June 11, 1944.
“Divine Love is the Holy Spirit, which springs from the Heart of Christ. It is the ‘spiritual rock’ that accompanies the people of God in the desert, so that drawing from the living water, they can quench their thirst along the way,” he said.
© Catholic World Report