Catholic parish hosts ecumenical Ash Wednesday service in N Ireland

Tuam, Ireland, Sep 5, 2019 / 04:24 pm (CNA).- The Catholic Church in Ireland has for the first time recognized a miracle attached to the Knock Shrine, where a woman was cured of multiple sclerosis thirty years ago.

Marion Carroll had been bedridden for years until she was healed in 1989 during a blessing with a monstrance at the shrine.

“I recognise that Marion was healed from her long-standing illness while on pilgrimage in this sacred place,” Bishop Francis Duffy of Ardagh and Clonmacnois said in his homily during a Sept. 1 Mass at the shrine, located in Knock, about 20 miles north of Tuam.

“Many have attested to the dramatic change that came about in Marion here and on her return to Athlone in 1989. Without doubt there was a healing, a cure of the illness that beset Marion for several years. Marion was liberated from sickness and its impact on her and on her family. It is also a healing for which there is no medical explanation at present, it is definite and yet defies medical explanation.”

Bishop Duffy was leading a diocesan pilgrimage to the shrine, in which Marion and her family participated.

Archbishop Michael Neary of Tuam also spoke at the Mass, saying, “today the Church formally acknowledges that this healing does not admit of any medical explanation and joins in prayer, praise and thanksgiving to God. In these situations, the Church must always be very cautious. This is illustrated by the fact that thirty years have elapsed since this took place, during which time the examination by the Medical Bureau testifies that there is no medical explanation for this healing.”

While many visitors to the shrine have claimed cures or favors, this is the first cure which the Church in Ireland has recognized as miraculous.

Carroll was cured in 1989, when Bishop Colm O’Reilly, then Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois, blessed her with a monstrance.

She had been taken to the shrine on a stretcher, as she was paralyzed. Her eyesight was also impaired, and she was epileptic.

After the Mass, she was taken to a rest and care centre, where she asked that her stretcher be opened; when it was, she stood up and was well.

Since her cure, Carroll has volunteered at the shrine, assisting pilgrims.

The Knock Shrine is built on the site of an 1879 apparition of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, St. John the Evangelist, angels, and the Lamb of God on the south gable of the town church. For a period of about two hours, a crowd gathered to adore the apparition and to pray the rosary. Despite a rainstorm, the ground around the gable did not get wet.

Unlike most other Marian apparitions, the Virgin Mary was silent the entire time and did not offer any sort of message or prophesy.

Vatican officials found the apparition at Knock to be “trustworthy and satisfactory” after two separate commissions, in 1879 and in 1936.

Shortly after the apparition, Knock became a sight of pilgrimage. Pilgrims chipped away the original wall by taking away pieces of cement as relics.

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CNA Staff, Jun 23, 2020 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- Several amendments which sought to reduce the proposed time limit on abortions or to maintain limits on the abortion of unborn children with disabilities were defeated Friday on the Channel Island of Guernsey.

A bill is being considered to ‘modernize’ the territory’s abortion law and increase the abortion time limit to 24 weeks, as it is in the UK. The existing law, adopted in 1997, permits abortion up to 12 weeks.

The territory is a self-governing Crown Dependency for which the UK is responsible, located off the coast of Normandy. It sets its own laws on abortion. The draft law would extend to Guernsey and its associated islands, but not Alderney and Sark, which are also part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey.

During a June 19 debate deputies of the territory’s parliament, the States of Guernsey, rejected four amendments to the bill. These would have retained the same time limits for the abortion of children with disabilies as of all unborn children; made clear that non-fatal conditions such as Down syndrome or cleft palate are not considered fatal foetal abnormalities; and changed the time limit for abortions to 16 or 22 weeks, rather than 24.

“The main debate continues and it remains to be seen whether any of the amendments are supported and so mitigate some of the worst excesses of the proposed amendments to Guernsey’s abortion law,” Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth, the diocese which includes Guernsey, wrote in a June 23 message.

“We are saddened by the outcome of this week’s vote but remain committed to fight for the right to life for all from conception to the grave,” he added.

Amendments that would allow foetal pain relief after 18 weeks; to require that mothers affirm they consent to the abortion and have not been coerced; to offer counselling before and after an abortion; and to strengthen conscientious objection for medical professionals, are still up for consideration by the States.

A sursis motivé to stay the deliberation of the draft law and allow for broader public consultation was defeated by a 19-20 vote June 18.

The draft law would also decriminalize the procurement of abortion outside the legal framework; drop a requirement that the mother consult with two medical practitioners; increase the time frame for procuring the abortion of a child diagnosed with ‘fetal anomaly’; allow nurses and midwives to preform medical abortions; and allow medical abortions at home.

It would also force conscientious objectors to make referrals without delay; “make clear that health practitioners may not refuse to participate in care required to save the life or prevent serious injury to the physical or mental health of a woman”; and “create a power in the Law for the Committee for Health & Social Care to make regulations making further provision in relation to the circumstances in which the right of health practitioners to conscientiously object to the provision of care in relation to abortions may be exercised.”

According to official figures, 113 abortions were performed in Guernsey in 2018, with a further three involving Guernsey residents performed in England and Wales.

The Catholic Church on the island held an all night prayer vigil at St. Joseph’s Church in St. Peter Port  ahead of the debate last week. The parish is also urging parishioners to write their deputies, and to pray that the legislation fails.

Bishop Egan of Portsmouth urged Catholics earlier this month to resist the “fundamentally detestable” efforts to liberalize the island’s abortion law.

In a June 7 message he argued the proposed changes would violate the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” and the injunction “Love thy neighbor as thyself”, which formed the basis of laws in civilized societies.

“This is why abortion and the current proposal to ‘modernize’ — that is, to increase — its availability in Guernsey is fundamentally detestable,” he said. “Under the bogus word ‘modernization,’ an attempt is being made to further liberalize abortion, to make it a lot easier and a lot more common.”

Egan said: “They want to allow abortions much later in pregnancy, abortions to be carried out with less red tape, abortions to take place at home and outside hospitals, and, grimly, abortions right up to birth for a disabled child, a child unwell, or a child with Downs syndrome. How must a person with Downs syndrome feel about this?”

“They refer to abortion euphemistically as a ‘procedure,’ a ‘termination’ with help from ‘the professionals.’ But what procedure can justify any professional terminating the life of an innocent baby? The more you see what an abortion is, the more you can see it is anti-life, anti-human and anti-woman.”

He added: “This is why I am appealing to all of you and to everyone of good will in Guernsey to resist and to face down these sinister proposals coming before the legislature. The post-COVID lockdown is not the right time to ram through legislation like this, not without a full, open and frank consultation and debate.”

In a joint letter, John P. Ogier, pastor of Spurgeon Baptist Church, and Fr. Bruce Barnes, the Catholic Dean of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, also criticized the timing of the debate.  

They wrote: “We believe this is an entirely inappropriate time to be considering such a sensitive and morally important issue, in the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic and with such a truncated timescale for public debate and consideration.”

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Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, speaking to journalists, Dec. 9, 2022 / Marcin Mazur

Kyiv, Ukraine, Dec 10, 2022 / 00:00 am (CNA).

Every effort for peace in Ukraine coming from Pope Francis and the Holy See is welcome, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister said Friday, whether it is helping to mediate for the exchange of prisoners or in assisting migrants and refugees. 

However, the time for broad negotiations after the Russian aggression has not come yet, Dmytro Kuleba told a small delegation of journalists visiting Ukraine on Dec. 9 that his country has requirements for any such mediation to eventually take place. 

The interview lasted about 40 minutes, and the questions dealt with Holy See-Ukraine relations, Holy See efforts for peace, and how Ukraine would welcome this effort.

Though appreciating Pope Francis’ constant mention of the Ukrainian situation and expressing an open invitation to the pope to visit the country, Kuleba also told CNA that some of the pope’s words have been “painful” for Ukrainians.

Pope Francis has often stressed that the Holy See is available to facilitate broad negotiations. Kuleba told journalists that “the protocolar response would be that a negotiation would be more than welcome,” but “the sad truth is that the time for this broad mediation hasn’t come yet and the reason for that is President [Vladimir] Putin.”

If you want peace, Kuleba said, “you do not send 100 missiles every week to destroy infrastructure. You do not send one wave of your soldiers after another into the Donbas. You don’t do all these things when you seek a peaceful solution.”

And so, he concluded, “the day for a big mediation will come, but we are not there yet, to our deepest regret.”

Kuleba told CNA that mediation should have some requirements, as any other commitment the Holy See would undertake. He said he also tackled this issue in the last meeting with the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher.  

Gallagher, whose role is equivalent to that of a foreign minister, spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart on Dec. 2 in Lodz, during the OSCE Ministerial Council. 

Kuleba said he told Gallagher that the Vatican could choose which aspect to help with. 

The Vatican might help with negotiating an exchange of prisoners, for instance, or the “return of thousands of kids kidnapped from Russia,” or also participating “in the implementation of the peace formula.”

However, Kuleba added that “picking an issue is the first step, while the second step is how you address the issue,” adding that “mistakes” needed to be avoided.

Among such “mistakes,” according to Kuleba, are the notion of a brotherhood between Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian people. 

“We are not brothers and if you insist on the concept you are misled,” the Ukrainian minister told journalists since Russians “came to Kyiv to rape, to violate all the laws of God on the land of Ukraine.”

Kuleba also said hat one cannot be “neutral in public comments” and should “always remember that Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is the victim of the aggression.” 

Any attempt at making both sides somehow evenly responsible created “a completely wrong message,” the minister warned.

In his Oct. 2 Angelus, Pope Francis appealed to Russia’s President Vladmir Putin to stop the war, and to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to be seriously open to the pope’s proposal. 

Kuleba explained why he was somewhat critical of such appeals by Pope Francis: While saying President Putin should stop the war made  “perfect sense,” calling on President Zelenskyy to be open to serious peace proposals made it sound like Zelenskyy was “not open to peace.”

In other words, Kuleba added, the pope’s words wrongly “create the impression that both sides are guilty: one is guilty because of the attack, and the other is guilty because [it is] not open to peace proposals.”

Ukraine’s Foreign minister called on journalists to be pay attention when writing about a “serious peace proposal” being “based on the territorial integrity of Ukraine”, including Crimea. 

“Every time you write or read or say that Ukraine insists on the restoration of Crimea, you send a message that Crimea is a special case. But for us and international law, there is no difference between [the towns of] Sebastopol and Kherson, Yalta and Donetsk.”

Speaking about the role religion can play in helping to reconstruct the country, the Ukrainian foreign minister said that the “Russian aggression caused big fractures” among religions. He also pointed to  differences in viewpoints between Muslims in Russia and in Ukraine, and Russian and Ukrainian Jews.

Kuleba said that the “first and foremost expectation from confessions is to console people, to help them spiritually.” Most people turned to God “only in times of hardship,” he added.

“When everything is fine, you forget about God. Now, there is a higher demand for spiritual help, to be consoled by the Church.”

Kuleba also spoke to CNA about sanctions imposed on Dec.1 against some Orthodox clerics and moves to legislate against Russian influence through religious means. 

The Ukrainian government will draw up a law banning churches affiliated with Russia under moves described by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as necessary to prevent Moscow being able to “weaken Ukraine from within,” according to Reuters.

Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council told the government to draft the law following a series of raids on parishes that Kyiv said might be taking orders from Moscow.

Such moves, Kuleba told CNA, were motivated by “unacceptable” behavior by some clerics, such as the blessing of Russian soldiers for success on the battlefield. 

Kuleba, however, praised the role of the churches, especially the presence of chaplains on the front. 

Speaking about Pope Francis’ position on the Ukrainian issue, Kuleba said that he saw improvements. 

“The truth,” he said, “is that this war shattered many foundations of the global political order.”

A big disappointment, he added, was what Pope Francis had said about NATO “barking” at the gates of Russia. 

Kuleba stressed that he understood how and why the pope used the expression, but he noted that this argument was forged in Russia, so even mentioning served to legitimize it.

While it was “painful that the pope said something like that, I have to commend the pope for understanding”, Kuleba added, saying he was grateful to the pontiff for not sticking to “concepts that do not work and do not meet the reality check.”

Ukraine’s foreign minister said he was moved by the public prayer of Pope Francis for Ukraine on Dec. 8 in Rome. “[The] pope’s compassion means a lot to us and goes directly to the heart of Ukrainians,” Kuleba said.

He added that “obviously, we are waiting for his visit. He has many followers in Ukraine”, not only from the Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic communities: “The visit of the pope will be welcomed by a bigger part of Ukrainian society. So we are looking forward to welcoming him.”

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