Vatican City, Oct 31, 2019 / 10:25 am (CNA).- Pope Francis spoke Thursday about education as a path to peace, saying that if people of faith do not transmit concrete values to young people, the message will get stuck in the incomprehensible abstract.
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Grand Rapids, Mich., Oct 31, 2019 / 08:01 am (CNA).- Catholic Charities West Michigan has announced plans to build a $4.5 million detox center, expected to serve 700 people a year recovering from drug or alcohol addiction.
The new center in Muskegon, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, will have 14 beds and offer three- to five-night stays, with some 80 employees including a doctor, according to local media.
Chris Slater, Executive Director of Catholic Charities Western Michigan, told CNA that they expect to break ground on the new center before the end of the year, with a 12 to 14 month timeline.
Slater said he used a Community Needs Assessment, released by various agencies active in the city including Mercy Health System, to determine what areas the community needed the most help improving.
The answer, he said, was a no-brainer.
“All throughout all of them, right on the top of the list, is substance abuse disorder treatment. It’s ravaging Muskegon county,” he said.
“It would have been negligent not to do something about it, in my opinion.”
A report from the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, released in 2018, found that Grand Rapids, which is less than an hour’s drive from Muskegon, had the second-most total opioid related deaths from 2013-2015 in the state after Detroit, with 138 reported.
The report found that the largest number of drug-related overdose deaths occurred among men aged 26-35, and men aged 46-55.
The county didn’t previously have a facility to treat drug and alcohol addicts under the supervision of a doctor. Slater says he hopes the new Catholic Charities detox center will plug holes in the community’s ability to care for people in need.
The county also ranks highly for per-capita deaths related to alcohol abuse.
“So when we had patients in Muskegan who wanted treatment, we were shipping them all over the state. And that posed another problem because even if they could find a bed for them, then we had transportation issues, and no way to get these patients there.”
He said for the past 18 months, he has worked closely with healthcare providers, social service agencies, the sheriff’s department, and the prosecutor’s office to get a feel for the community’s support for the project, which he says was strong from the get-go and has continued to build.
Slater said there will be opportunities for patients – who will be served regardless of their religious beliefs – to meet with a chaplain and to make use of a chapel being built along with a new office building near the detox center.
“We’ll be equipped to incorporate faith into patients’ recovery as they request,” he said.
WoodTV8 reports that the new detox center will neighbor the Muskegon Rescue Mission, which has its own food pantry, and as a result Catholic Charities will no longer have its own food pantry but will partner with other organizations to support their food services.
Catholic Charities obtained the land for the project through a land swap with the city, which will receive Catholic Charities’ old building, located less than a mile away, once the new center is completed.
A spokesperson for the city said that revitalizing the old building will help make it a “high-quality new asset” in the area.
Vatican City, Oct 31, 2019 / 06:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has decreed that the feast of Our Lady of Loreto be included in the Roman Calendar as an optional memorial to be celebrated on December 10.
“This celebration will help all people, especially families, youth and religious to imitate the virtues of that perfect disciple of the Gospel, the Virgin Mother, who, in conceiving the Head of the Church also accepted us as her own,” Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, stated in the decree published Oct. 31.
With the decree, the optional memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Loreto must appear in all calendars and liturgical books for the celebration of the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours.
Catholic pilgrims travel to the small Italian town of Loreto to stand inside the Holy House of Mary, preserved in a basilica, in which traditional holds the Virgin Mary was born, raised, and greeted by the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation.
“This shrine recalls the mystery of the Incarnation, leading all those who visit it to consider ‘the fullness of time,’ when God sent his Son, born of a woman, as well as to meditate both on the words of the Angel announcing the Good News and on the words of the Virgin in response to the divine call,” states the decree signed on Oct. 7, the feast of the Holy Rosary.
The Holy House of Mary in Loreto, Italy, has been a popular pilgrimage site since the Middle Ages with Galileo, Mozart, Descartes, Cervantes, St. Therese of Lisieux, and many popes and saints visiting throughout history.
Historic documentation shows that the Holy House of Mary was brought from Palestine to Italy in the 13th century.
“In the Holy House, before the image of the Mother of the Redeemer and of the Church, saints and blesseds have responded to their vocation, the sick have invoked consolation in suffering, the people of God have begun to praise and plead with Mary using the Litany of Loreto, which is known throughout the world,” it states.
With the decree, the Vatican released the readings and prayers for the annual Dec. 10 celebration of Our Lady of Loreto. The reading for the Liturgy of the Hours comes from St. John Paul II.
Pope Francis visited the Holy House in Loreto earlier this year on the Solemnity of the Annunciation, during which he called Loreto “a privileged place where young people can come in search of their vocation.”
“It is necessary to rediscover the plan drawn by God for the family, to reaffirm its greatness and irreplaceability in the service of life and society,” Pope Francis said in Loreto March 25.
“The Holy House of Mary is the ‘home of the family,’” he said during his visit, noting that “in the delicate situation of today’s world, the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman takes on an importance and an essential mission.”
In a homily in 1995, St. Pope John Paul II called the Holy House of Loreto, “the house of all God’s adopted children.” He continued:
“The threads of the history of the whole of humankind are tied anew in that house. It is the Shrine of the House of Nazareth, to which the Church that is in Italy is tied by providence, that the latter rediscovers a quickening reminder of the mystery of the Incarnation, thanks to which each man is called to the dignity of the Son of God.”
Mobile, Ala., Oct 31, 2019 / 04:00 am (CNA).- The end of October and the first few days of November comprise of “Allhallowtide” in the Church–All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day. During the month of November, the Church take… […]
Dallas, Texas, Oct 30, 2019 / 07:00 pm (CNA).- A Dallas county district judge has ordered Dallas police to return certain documents to the Catholic Diocese of Dallas that were seized during a raid on diocesan property on May 15.
Documents unrelated to… […]
Enugu, Nigeria, Oct 30, 2019 / 06:12 pm (CNA).- The vice-rector of a seminary in Nigeria was kidnapped earlier this week and released two days later, the latest in the ongoing violence against priests that has led Enugu State authorities to ramp up sec… […]
Monterrey, Mexico, Oct 30, 2019 / 05:19 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Rogelio Cabrera López of Monterrey said Sunday he supports the reform of the Healthcare Law in Mexico’s Nuevo Leon state allowing conscientious objection for doctors and nurses.
Speaking to the press Oct. 27, Cabrera said that “conscientious objection is a universally established right; I think that sometimes the problem is how it is understood or put into practice.”
“Doctors and nurses have the right to have their moral, spiritual, and personal convictions respected, but never in detriment to or contempt of anyone,” he said.
The Nuevo Leon Congress passed a bill Oct. 15 that will allow doctors and nurses to have recourse to conscientious objection not to participate in procedures such as abortion.
The new text added to Article 18 of the Nuevo Leon Healthcare Law states that “doctor and nursing personnel that are part of the State Healthcare System, shall be able to exercise conscientious objection and excuse themselves from participating in providing services established by law. When the life of the patient is at risk or it is a medical emergency, conscientious objection cannot be invoked, if so, the professional will be held responsible”.
This text reproduces the wording of the 2018 federal General Law on Healthcare.
However, various pro-choice groups have claimed the reform would be used to discriminate against persons with same-sex attraction.
Speaking with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency, Oct. 22, legislator Juan Carlos Leal, who introduced the reform bill, said the accusations against it are false and that “conscientious objection applies to the procedure, not the person. We’re talking about the objector or doctor refusing to perform a procedure or a service but not because of the person, but the service itself.”
Washington D.C., Oct 30, 2019 / 04:08 pm (CNA).- A policy in the Diocese of Charleston, South Carolina requires priests to withhold the Eucharist from politicians and political candidates who support legal protection for abortion.
“Because of th… […]
Vatican City, Oct 30, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- Cardinal Angelo Becciu has denied any impropriety in a real estate investment made with Vatican funds and insisted that he only acted in the best interests of the Holy See.
In an interview with Italian media published Tuesday, the former deputy at the Holy See’s Secretariat of State rejected any wrongdoing in the authorization of a $200 million property deal to develop a building in London.
Responding to what he called “slanderous charges” that he had “played with and tampered with the money of the poor” in the 2014 transaction, the cardinal defended the investment, saying it was “accepted practice.”
Speaking to ANSA, the cardinal said “My conscience is clear and I know I have always acted in the interest of the Holy See and never in my personal one. Those who know me well can attest to that.”
Becciu served as “sostituto,” or second-ranking official at the Secretariat of State from 2011-2018, when Pope Francis named him a cardinal and moved him to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.
The interview came in response to media coverage of an ongoing investigation by Vatican criminal and financial authorities into a 2014 $200 million investment made through Athena Capital, a Luxembourg investment fund, which financed a stake in the development of a luxury apartment project in London.
Details of the investment were first reported by the Financial Times earlier this month. The money was taken from Swiss bank accounts under the control of the Secretariat of State and kept separately from other curial accounts held at the Vatican.
The London investment, along with a nearly $50 million 2018 investment in the same property, has raised questions about the internal control of Vatican money held in international banks and investment vehicles, especially after repeated efforts to bring financial practices into line with international practices and standards.
On Tuesday, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said the investment was a one-off, and the fund in question appeared to be “well managed.” He said that he was working to clear up questions about the project.
“We are working to clear up everything. This deal was rather opaque and now we are trying to clear it up,” Reuters quoted Parolin as saying.
Becciu told ANSA that there is a difference between Vatican funds intended for the benefit of the poor and the proceeds of the annual Peter’s Pence collection taken up in every parish in the world and sent to Rome.
“It is accepted practice for the Holy See to invest in property, it has always done so: in Rome, in Paris, in Switzerland and also in London,” Becciu said, insisting that the deal was “regular and registered according to law.”
“In the Secretariat of the State we had a fund entitled ‘money of the poor’. And it was destined for the poor. If, on the other hand, for money of the poor they want to refer to Peter’s Pence, we have to clarify,” Becciu said.
“The Pence is not only for the pope’s almsgiving but also the funding for his Pastoral ministry,” Becciu said, suggesting that the Secretariat’s two investments in the luxury apartment development were an appropriate use of donated funds.
Becciu did not address his reported involvement in other complicated Vatican transactions during the interview.
On Oct. 29, CNA reported that Becciu was involved in a complicated series of events and financial transactions around the purchase of the Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata (IDI), an Italian hospital that collapsed in 2013 under 800 million euros of debt through theft and fraud.
As sostituto, sources told CNA, Becciu was the “driving force” behind requests for a $25 million grant from the U.S. based Papal Foundation, ostensibly to supply short-term liquidity to the hospital, but actually intended to help remove a 50 million euro bad loan from the books at the Vatican’s central bank, APSA.
While the balance of the grant was cancelled after pushback from Papal Foundation board members, $13 million dollars was initially sent to the Secretariat of State, though how the money was used has not been reported.
Becciu told CNA that although he had been involved in the purchase of the IDI by a partnership created by the Secretariat of State, “Cardinal Parolin assumed the office of Secretary of State [in 2013] and I no longer concerned myself with IDI.”
In early 2019, Cardinal Parolin, wrote to the Papal Foundation saying the $13 million would be reclassified as a loan, rather than a grant, and would be repaid.
Two sources within the Papal Foundation told CNA that the Vatican has proposed the loan be repaid through “discounts” applied each year to the list of grants requested of the Papal Foundation by Vatican offices and Catholic apostolates.
“The poor will end up paying the debt,” a source close to the Papal Foundation told CNA.
Becciu’s role in authorizing the $200 million investment, and the potential focus on his time at the Secretariat of State by Vatican investigators have placed his tenure there under renewed scrutiny. While there, he was responsible for the cancellation of an external audit of all curial finances, intended to centralize information and details of Vatican assets and funds held away from the Vatican and unavailable for scrutiny.
On October 1, Vatican prosecutors raided the Secretariat of State’s offices. Documents and devices were seized. Although the Vatican did not indicate what exactly had prompted the investigation, subsequent reporting has indicated the London property investment and Cardinal Becciu were being looked into.
The next day, a confidential memo was leaked announcing the suspension of five Vatican employees, including two officials: Msgr. Mauro Carlino, who oversees documentation at the Secretariat of State, along with layman Tomasso Di Ruzza, director of the Vatican’s Financial Intelligence Authority (AIF). Di Ruzza was subsequently cleared to return to work following and internal AIF investigation.
Becciu’s interview came two days after the same paper reported that Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had been hired to consult on the deal in May, 2018, just weeks before taking office.
Conte has since distanced himself from the Vatican-backed deal and ensuing investigation.
On Monday, his office released a statement in response to the FT’s story saying “it should be noted that Mr. Conte only gave a legal opinion and was not aware of, and was not required to know, the fact that some investors were connected to an investment fund supported by the Vatican and now at the center of an investigation.”
Vatican City, Oct 30, 2019 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- In a conciliatory gesture 37 years after the Falklands War, military bishops from Great Britain and Argentina exchanged statues of the Virgin Mary Wednesday in St. Peter’s Square.
Argentine troops br… […]
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