Fourteen children whose mothers considered abortion were baptized last month in Madrid by the city’s archbishop, Cardinal Carlos Osoro.
The newly baptized are children of women in vulnerable situations who considered abortion during their pregnancies. They were aided by the Más Futuro Association, a Catholic organization that offers support to expectant mothers and mothers in need.
Baptized Sept. 27 were a 6-year-old girl, two four-year-old boys and 11 babies less than a year old.
Nine more children were scheduled to be baptized at the same time, but were unable to be present because they were waiting for the results of coronavirus tests.
Cardinal Osoro honored the children’s mothers during the baptismal rite, telling them: "You have chosen life, we know that death will come, but you have chosen life."
Some of the women had previously undergone abortions.
Present at the baptism were volunteers of the Más Futuro Association, who pray at abortion clinics in Madrid, and offer alternatives to women at the clinics who are considering abortion.
A version of this reported was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Pope Celestine V was canonized in 1313 and since 1327 has been buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in L’Aquila. / Daniel Ibáñez / CNA
Rome Newsroom, Aug 21, 2022 / 03:38 am (CNA).
Peter of Morrone was an unusual choice for pope.
He was not a cardinal, for one, but a Benedictine monk and hermit living in a remote mountainous cave. He was also around 80 years of age.
But the Church’s 11 living cardinals had spent more than two years in a stalemate over the new pope’s election. So when the saintly Peter delivered to the cardinals the message that God would punish them for any further delays — his name was put forward, and soon after, on Jul. 5, 1294, a consensus was reached.
Bishops carried to Peter’s mountain hermitage the news of his election to the papacy. He reportedly was reluctant to accept, even trying to flee. Still, on Aug. 29, 1294, he was crowned Pope Celestine V in the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in the city of L’Aquila.
Peter of Morrone is depicted inside the basilica of L’Aquila. Daniel Ibáñez / CNA
According to historical sources, besides kings, nobles, and cardinals, more than 200,000 people attended the ceremony, a grand moment of celebration.
One month later, one of Celestine’s first actions as pope was to declare the possibility for anyone to receive a plenary indulgence who, having confessed his or her sins and sincerely repented of them, devotedly visited the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio between sunset on Aug. 28 and sunset on Aug. 29, the feast of the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist.
Women are praying in the basilica in L’Aquila in August 2022. Daniel Ibáñez / CNA
A plenary indulgence is a grace granted by the Catholic Church through the merits of Jesus Christ, Mary, and all the saints to remove the temporal punishment due to sin.
Celestine’s indulgence was exceptional at the time, given it was available to anyone, regardless of status or wealth, and cost nothing except personal repentance at a time when indulgences were often tied to almsgiving. For this reason, some consider the Celestinian Forgiveness, as it came to be called, history’s first jubilee.
Unfortunately, Pope Celestine V did not reign long enough to see the legacy of his indulgence. As pope in 1294, he was also the ruler of the Papal States, but he soon proved to be an ineffectual political leader.
On Dec. 13, five months after his election, he resigned from the papacy.
Pope Boniface VIII, Celestine’s successor, imprisoned the former pope out of fear that opponents to the resignation might try to install Celestine as an antipope. Celestine V died a prisoner ten months later.
Peter of Morrone was canonized in 1313 and since 1327 has been buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in L’Aquila.
The Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in L’Aquila. Daniel Ibáñez / CNA
According to Johannes Grohe, a professor of Medieval History, the Celestinian Forgiveness was the precursor to the Holy Years, or Jubilees, which the Church typically celebrates every 25 years.
In 1300, Pope Boniface VIII issued a bull of indulgence proclaiming that Christians who confessed their sins, received the Eucharist and made a pilgrimage to Rome could receive a plenary indulgence.
Boniface VIII “was inspired” by Celestine V’s own “Jubilee” in L’Aquila, which started in 1294 and continued after his papal abdication and death, Grohe told EWTN News in an interview last month. “This indulgence of Pope Celestine V was the precursor, one could say, to the first great Jubilee.”
Both traditions continue to this day. In L’Aquila, the Celestinian Forgiveness, or Perdonanza Celestiniana as it is called in Italian, will celebrate its 728th year with a visit from Pope Francis on Aug. 28 to open the Holy Door.
Now a week-long festival, the Forgiveness has come to be an essential cultural, as well as spiritual, event.
Jubilee years in the Church, also called Holy Years, have continued throughout the centuries. A critical aspect of a Holy Year is the indulgence attached to walking through the Holy Door of one of Rome’s four major basilicas, including St. Peter’s.
Preparations are already underway in Rome and the Vatican for the next ordinary jubilee in 2025.
A priest has resigned as a parish pastor after he performed a same-sex civil union ceremony in the town hall of the Italian town of Sant’Oreste. The priest is not expected to return to ministry for at least a year.
On July 11, Fr. Emanuel Moscatelli officiated at a ceremony in which two women, friends of the priest, contracted a civil union, in a ceremony described in the Italian media as a wedding.
The priest did not wear liturgical vestments, wearing instead a red, white, and green ceremonial sash, often worn by mayors and other Italian civic officials when conducting government business. Moscatelli was delegated by Valentina Pina, the town’s mayor, to perform the ceremony.
News of the ceremony was first reported by Italian news agency ADN Kronos July 20. On the same day, Bishop Romano Rossi of Civita announced that the priest had resigned as pastor of St. Lorenzo’s Parish in Sant’Oreste, of his own free will.
In a statement published July 20, Rossi said he had met with Moscatelli July 14, and the priest had agreed to resign his ministry, and to “take a reasonable period of reflection to recover clarity and the joy of his priestly ministry in the concrete reality of the world of today.”
“Fr. Emanuel expressed his full trust in the Church as mother, and in his bishop, and is fully accepting of the plan that I will propose.”
“I made him understand the mess he made, I can understand that in certain circumstances of weakness, friendship or the spirit of the time comes into play, but celebrating a civil union is too much,” Rossi told Italian news site La Nuova Bussola.
“Now I have the duty of helping this priest of mine to see clearly inside himself. And relaunching his priestly life on new foundations, I believe there is room for recovery after the mistake he made. Anyway, let’s take a year and let’s see,” the bishop added.
In his initial statement, Rossi said that he aims to convey to Moscatelli “clarity on a doctrinal level, and communion on a pastoral level” during his period outside of active ministry, which the bishop said will take place in Milan, north of Sant O’reste.
Same-sex marriage is not legal in Italy, but same-sex civil unions have been legal since 2016, and are often contracted in ceremonies resembling wedding celebrations.
It is not clear whether the priest will face a canonical penalty or process in response to his actions. Canon 1369 of the Code of Canon Law says that “A person is to be punished with a just penalty who, at a public event or assembly…gravely harms public morals, or rails at or excites hatred of or contempt for religion or the Church.”
The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexual acts are “sins gravely contrary to chastity,” it teaches also that those who identify as gay or lesbian should “be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
On the question of civil unions, in 2003, the Vatican’s Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith taught that “respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.”
“In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection,” the CDF added.
it’s a cruelty that black boy can’t grow among his own, stop that cruelty and send him back to Africa.