Washington D.C., May 18, 2020 / 05:45 pm (CNA).- The life of Pope Saint John Paul II is proof that religious belief and moral conviction can change the course of history, the pope’s biographer said on Monday, May 18.
Author and papal biogr… […]
From today’s Gospel reading for Mass: I have told you all this that your faith may not be shaken. They will expel you from the synagogues, and indeed the hour is coming when anyone who […]
Rome Newsroom, May 18, 2020 / 03:47 pm (CNA).- One hundred years ago on May 18, Emilia Wojtyla gave birth to her second son, Karol, after a difficult and life-threatening pregnancy. The child would grow up to be St. John Paul II.
In a new book published in Poland, Milena Kindziuk describes how St. John Paul II’s mother was advised to get an abortion.
“She had to choose between her own life and that of the baby she was carrying, but her deep faith did not allow Emilia to choose abortion,” Kindziuk said in an interview with ACI Stampa.
“Deep in her heart she had to be ready to make this sacrifice for the baby she was carrying,” she said.
In her book, “Emilia and Karol Wojtyla. Parents of St. John Paul II,” Kindziuk cites the testimony of a midwife, Tatarowa, and the reports of her two friends, Helena Szczepańska and Maria Kaczorowa, as well as the memories of other Wadowice residents. She said that these showed that Emilia Wojtyla was depressed by the insistence of her first doctor, Dr. Jan Moskała, that she have an abortion.
She said that Emilia and Karol Wojtyla “made a bold decision that, regardless of everything, their conceived baby was to be born. And so they started looking for another doctor.”
They ultimately chose Dr. Samuel Taub, a Jewish doctor from Krakow, who had moved to Wadowice after the First World War.
“Emilia’s friends have kept memories of that visit. The doctor confirmed that there was a risk of complications during childbirth, including Emilia’s death. However, he did not suggest an abortion,” Kindziuk said.
“Emilia had a bad pregnancy: she spent most of her time lying down and still had less strength than usual,” she said. “In this situation, Dr. Taub recommended the woman to lie down, rest often and feed herself very well.”
On the day of the birth, May 18, 1920, “Emilia lay in her apartment in Kościelna street, in the living room … in the presence of a midwife,” Kindziuk explained.
At the same time Karol Sr. and their 13-year-old son Edmund had gone out around 5 p.m. to participate in the prayer of the Divine Office in the parish church across the street where they sang the Litany of Loreto, she added.
“We know from the messages that Emilia asked the midwife to open the window: she wanted the first sound her son could hear to be a song in honor of Mary. In short, Emilia Wojtyla gave birth to her son, listening to the song of the Litany of Loreto,” she said.
St. John Paul II also told his personal secretary Stanislaw Dziwisz that he was born to the litany in honor of the Mother of God, she said, adding that he was elected pope at the same time of day that he was born.
The sainthood causes of St. John Paul II’s parents were formally opened in Poland in May. Karol, a Polish Army lieutenant, and Emilia, a school teacher, were married in Krakow Feb. 10, 1906. The Catholic couple gave birth to three children: Edmund in 1906; Olga, who died shortly after her birth; and Karol in 1920.
Before she died of a heart attack and liver failure in 1929, Emilia was a staple of faith for the household. At the time of her death, the young Karol Wojtyla was a month away from his ninth birthday.
CNA Staff, May 18, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Christians in Nigeria faced escalating persecution and a mounting death toll in the first four months of 2020, a new report has said.
In a report issued on 15 May, the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety) said that 620 Nigerian Christians have been killed since the beginning of the year, and mapped a campaign of destruction and arson carried out against churches in the African nation.
The society, a non-profit founded in 2008 in Nigeria, works to promote civil liberties, the rule of law, criminal justice reform, and good governance. Its report said that “Nigeria’s main Islamic Jihadists: Militant Fulani Herdsmen and Boko Haram/ISWAP have intensified their anti-Christian violence in the old Middle Belt and Northeast regions.”
“The atrocities against Christians have gone unchecked,” the report said, “with the country’s security forces and concerned political actors looking the other way or colluding with the Jihadists.”
Intersociety said that, despite making up nearly half of the country’s population, some 32,000 Christians have been killed in Islamist attacks since 2009.
Christians in Nigeria have been the victims of an escalating series of attacks, including kidnappings for ransom, since the beginning of the year.
In January this year, four seminarians were abducted by gunman from Good Shepherd Seminary. Ten days after the abduction, one of the four seminarians was found on the side of a road, alive but seriously injured. On Jan. 31, an official at the seminary announced that another two seminarians had been released, but that the fourth, Michael Nnadi remained missing and was presumed still in captivity.
It was subsequently announced that Nnadi had been killed.
In an interview from prison earlier this month, the leader of the gang which abducted Nnadi took credit for his killing, telling local media that the 18-year-old seminarian “continued preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ,” and “told [his killer] to his face to change his evil ways or perish.”
In March, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja, Nigeria, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to address the violence and kidnappings in a homily during Mass with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria.
“We need to have access to our leaders; president, vice president. We need to work together to eradicate poverty, killings, bad governance and all sorts of challenges facing us as a nation,” Kaigama said.
In an Ash Wednesday letter to Nigerian Catholics, Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze of Benin City called for Catholics to wear black in solidarity with victims and pray, in response to “repeated” executions of Christians by Boko Haram and “incessant” kidnappings “linked to the same groups.”
Other Christian villages have been attacked, farms set ablaze, vehicles carrying Christians attacked, men and women have been killed and kidnapped, and women have been taken as sex slaves and tortured—a “pattern,” he said, of targeting Christians.
On Feb. 27, U.S Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback told CNA that the situation in Nigeria was deteriorating.
“There’s a lot of people getting killed in Nigeria, and we’re afraid it is going to spread a great deal in that region,” he told CNA. “It is one that’s really popped up on my radar screens — in the last couple of years, but particularly this past year.”
“I think we’ve got to prod the [Nigerian President Muhammadu] Buhari government more. They can do more,” he said. “They’re not bringing these people to justice that are killing religious adherents. They don’t seem to have the sense of urgency to act.”
CNA Staff, May 18, 2020 / 01:46 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis described St. John Paul II as “an extraordinary gift of God to the Church and to Poland” in a video message to young people in Kraków Monday.
In the message marking the 100th a… […]
CNA Staff, May 18, 2020 / 01:15 pm (CNA).- The French Council of State ruled Monday that a ban on religious gatherings in the country is a disproportionate response to the coronavirus pandemic, and ordered the government to lift the ban within eight da… […]
CNA Staff, May 18, 2020 / 12:39 pm (CNA).- The coronavirus pandemic is causing drops in charitable donations to Catholic organizations in Japan, especially affecting refugees and vulnerable foreigners, local media are reporting.
Sinapis, an aid group … […]
CNA Staff, May 18, 2020 / 12:30 pm (CNA).- An English bishop died Monday after contracting the coronavirus.
The Archdiocese of Liverpool said that Bishop Vincent Malone, 88, died on the morning of May 18 at the Royal Liverpool Hospital after testing p… […]
CNA Staff, May 18, 2020 / 11:21 am (CNA).- Bishop David O’Connell of Trenton lamented Thursday that the US Congress’ latest coronavirus relief bill would bar private schools’ access to financial relief.
The New Jersey Catholic Conference is encouraging Catholics to ask their Senators and Representatives to include aid for private school families in the stimulus.
The Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (Heroes) Act, H.R. 6800, passed the House May 15, but it is not expected to pass the Senate.
The bill would provide funding for state and local governments, assistance to hospitals, direct payments to American families along with funding unemployment insurance. Moreover, it would extend unemployment benefits, expand the payroll protection program, and increase funding for food stamps. It would also set up a strategic plan for testing for the virus. The bill fails to put Hyde protections in critical spots, thereby allowing for taxpayer funding of abortions.
Bishop O’Connell wrote May 14 that the Heroes Act “would prohibit nonpublic schools including our Catholic schools in the Diocese of Trenton from accessing any portion of the proposed $200 billion including in the legislation for education.”
“Our Catholic schools struggle to stay open as it is, and the pandemic will impact them negatively,” he added.
The bishop directed the people of his local Church to a message prepared by the state Catholic conference to be sent to senators and representatives which notes that “the devastating economic effects of the COVID-19 virus have reached nearly every sector of American society. The Catholic schools in the United States have been severely impacted as well, and their centuries-long tradition of serving families from all walks of life is now imperiled.”
The message asks the legislators to consider including equitable service provision for the private school community, “consistent with previous emergency disaster legislation”; direct aid to private school families in the form of scholarships, and tax credits for scholarship granting organizations; and tax credits or deductions for private school tuition and expenses.
The Heroes Act passed by House by a 208-199 vote. It was supported by one Republican, and 14 Democrats voted against the bill.
The White House has already said it will veto the Heroes Act, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has declared it dead on arrival in the chamber, saying that “I don’t think we have felt yet the urgency of acting immediately.”
Senators have already said that a bill would not pass the chamber before Memorial Day, according to The Hill.
In the Cares Act, the first stimulus bill that passed Congress in March, Planned Parenthood was left out of emergency small business loans because of a 500-employee limit for non-profits to be eligible for Paycheck Protection Program loans. The current bill amends the regulations to allow for Planned Parenthood to access PPP loans.
Hyde protections are not included in the legislation’s funding of state and local governments, and are not attached to subsidies for COBRA premiums or other coverage for furloughed workers that could include abortion coverage.
CNA Staff, May 18, 2020 / 10:30 am (CNA).- New Mexico has agreed to apply the same reopening criteria to churches as it does to retail businesses, after the governor issued updated safety regulations for the coronavirus pandemic.
“Grea… […]
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