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Does ‘Fratelli tutti’ change Church teaching on the death penalty?

October 6, 2020 CNA Daily News 3

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 6, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- In his new encyclical, Pope Francis reiterated that the death penalty is “inadmissible.”  Did the pope change centuries of Church teaching with that statement? A leading theologian told CNA that the pope’s teaching was a development, not a rupture with the Church’s past.

In Fratelli Tutti, released on Sunday, Pope Francis cited both Pope St. John Paul II and new language added to the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty, calling the practice “inadmissible” and urging for its abolition worldwide.

“Saint John Paul II stated clearly and firmly that the death penalty is inadequate from a moral standpoint and no longer necessary from that of penal justice. There can be no stepping back from this position,” Pope Francis wrote in paragraph 263 of the encyclical.

“Today we state clearly that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible’ and the Church is firmly committed to calling for its abolition worldwide,” he said.

Some Catholic commenters have claimed that Pope Francis’ statement constituted a “definitive change” in Church teaching.

But the pope’s teaching was a development in line with statements of recent popes, not a rupture from doctrine, theologian Fr. Thomas Petri told CNA.

Fr. Petri is dean and acting president of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C.  

“When you talk about the development of teaching, you’re always talking about growing from what has come before, and never sort of a rupture,” he said.

“I definitely think it’s in the line of what previous popes have taught,” Fr. Petri told CNA, pointing to Popes St. John Paul II and St. Paul VI as examples. “There has been an increasing hesitation about the use of the death penalty by the state.”

The Church’s position on the death penalty has always been part of the ordinary magisterium, Petri said, the teaching that “states have the right to inflict the penalty of death.” St. Paul admonished Christians about the legitimate power of the state to “bear the sword,” in chapter 13 of his letter to the Romans, which Pope Francis cites in Fratelli Tutti.

Many saints and popes have upheld this right of the state to punish justly, Petri said, and “no pope can somehow come out and contradict that”—an act which would indeed be a “rupture” in Church teaching, the theologian said.

Pope Francis, he said, did not contradict Catholic teaching. In the 2018 revision to the Catechism, the pope referred to the death penalty as “inadmissible” but did not call it “intrinsically evil”—and this was a significant choice in words.

“There was a clear message of not using that word [intrinsically evil], when I think a lot of people would have liked him to use that word,” Petri said.

Petri told CNA that Pope Francis is speaking in continuity with recent popes including Pope St. John Paul II, who issued “a very strong statement” about capital punishment in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae; he said that the death penalty should only be used “when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society,” but added that because of improved security in prisons, “such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.”

Popes John Paul II and Francis have worked with the “prudential application” of the Church’s magisterial teaching on the authority of the state, Fr. Petri said, and not reversed it.

The Church has historically taught that the “primary reason for punishment” is “retribution,” he said, which is not revenge but “the idea that the punishment has to fit the gravity of the crime.” Secondary reasons for punishment included the rehabilitation of the criminal and the protection of society.

John Paul II put “protecting society” at the “front and center” of the Church’s teaching on punishment, Petri said, and Pope Francis has continued this teaching in his magisterium, which reflects a new understanding of punishment. 

Many in society view the death penalty now “simply about protecting society from killers and people who are dangerous, being a deterrent, and maybe rehabilitation,” Petri said, and supporters of the death penalty’s continued use should consider if “it cultivates or curries in them emotions of revenge,” which “is not retribution.”

While Popes Francis and John Paul II are making prudential applications of the Church’s teaching in areas of faith and morals, the level of assent required to their teaching is not just “prudential,” Petri explained.

When a cleric takes a profession of faith before becoming a pastor or a dean of a seminary, he said, he must assent to not only divine revelation and definitive propositions of Church teaching on faith and morals, he said, but also the teaching of the pope and bishops exercising the authentic magisterium.

“That’s more than just giving it the benefit of the doubt, it’s basically saying ‘I’m going to subscribe my intellect and will to what you’re teaching even if I don’t understand it, I’m going to try to understand it.’”

For a teaching that has been repeated frequently in statements and high-level documents, including in the Catechism, it’s hard to dismiss assent as merely a matter of prudence, Petri said.

“You can probably disagree with whether or not there should be life prison terms, but not this. I don’t think you can say this about the death penalty issue.”


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San Francisco archbishop urges ‘devotion and love’ for Eucharist as indoor Masses resume

October 6, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

CNA Staff, Oct 6, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).-  

At an outdoor rosary rally and Mass held Oct. 3, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone encouraged Catholics to renew their respect and devotion to the Eucharist as indoor Masses resume across the city.

“Have we accepted this fast from the Eucharist as an opportunity God has given us to renew our devotion and love for the sacrament?” Cordileone said during his homily at the rally outside the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption.

The office of San Francisco’s mayor announced Sept. 29 that places of worship will be permitted to hold services indoors at 25% capacity, up to 100 people, beginning Sept. 30.

The city had been allowing only one worshipper at a time in places of worship, regardless of the building’s size, while allowing multiple patrons in other indoor establishments. Parishes in San Francisco had been adapting to the restrictions by holding multiple concurrent, outdoor Masses each Sunday.

The Oct. 3 annual rosary rally began at St. Anthony of Padua Church in the city’s mission district with a procession to the cathedral.

Reflecting on the city’s namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, Cordileone held up Francis’ devotion to the Eucharist as an example, and noted that in times of scandal, corruption and division within the Church, the temptation can arise to criticize and “do things our own way.”

“Instead, let us take our lead from the poor man of Assisi, and tend to the inner work: prayer, fasting, love and respect for the Blessed Sacrament, embracing and serving the poor,” he said.

“The real work of reform begins within each soul and within the heart of the church.”

Cordileone urged Catholics to prepare for receiving Communion by frequently going to confession, praying and attending Eucharistic adoration, CatholicSF reported. Worshippers should be prayerfully silent whenever they are in the presence of the Eucharist and should dress properly for Mass, Cordileone said.

At the rosary rally, five families were selected to pray each decade in a different language: English, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Latin.

At the end of the rosary, Archbishop Cordileone renewed the archdiocese’s consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which was first done in 2017, CatholicSF reported. 

Cordileone also encouraged Catholics to participate in a national virtual rosary, to be led by Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles Oct. 7, on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Beginning Sept. 30, outdoor worship services in San Francisco may host up to 200 people. Singing or chanting indoors will be prohibited, and “the place of worship must conduct a health check of patrons before they enter the facility.”

An estimated 1,500 Catholics in San Francisco had marched in Eucharistic processions across the city Sept. 20 to protest the city’s continued restrictions on public worship.

“One person at a time in this great Cathedral to pray? What an insult. This is a mockery. They are mocking you, and even worse, they are mocking God,” Cordileone said at the Mass following the processions Sept. 20. 

The US Department of Justice had on Sept. 25 warned San Francisco officials that its restrictions on public worship in the city may have been unconstitutional.

The DOJ on Sept. 25 sent a letter to Mayor London Breed, warning that the city’s rule allowing only “one worshipper” in places of worship at a time regardless of their size— while allowing multiple patrons in other indoor establishments— is “draconian” and “contrary to the Constitution and the nation’s best tradition of religious freedom.”

Archbishop Cordileone said last week that “respect for each other’s rights and compassion for each other’s needs are core San Francisco values. God bless Mayor Breed for responding to her constituents’ call.”

He added, however, that “California’s limit of no more than 100 people inside of a house of worship regardless of the size of the building is still unjust. We want and we intend to worship God safely: with masks, social distancing, sanitation, ventilation, and other such safety protocols. But we will not accept believers being treated more severely than other, comparable secular activities.”

 


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Aid to the Church in Need providing aid to nuns in poverty during pandemic

October 5, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

CNA Staff, Oct 5, 2020 / 10:00 pm (CNA).- The Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) in Spain is providing aid to nearly 70 religious communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo facing extreme poverty due to the coronavirus crisis.

ACN said that because of the pandemic and lockdown in the African country, they will extend urgent subsistence aid to 69 religious communities in the ecclesiastical province of Bukavu, located in eastern Congo.

The pontifical foundation noted that the pandemic has worsened the nuns’ already “extremely difficult” situation, in a country constantly suffering from ethnic conflicts, insecurity, armed incursions from neighboring countries, kidnappings and rapes.

“Since the state of emergency decreed by the president of the DRC on March 24, wages have been suspended,” ACN explained.

Some of the religious sisters work in healthcare and that sector has lost income because it is compensated “according to the number of patients and now people are reluctant to go to the hospital for fear of being infected with the virus.”

“Those who work in schools would receive a part of what the students’ parents paid, but at a time when schools are closed due to COVID-19, they have also lost this income,” the charitable organization lamented.

The Archbishop of Bukavu, François-Xavier Maroy, applied for aid from ACN, which responded by allocating 120,000 euros (about $140,000) to support 464 religious from six different congregations.

ACN’s project director in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Christine du Coudray, said that as a foundation it is obliged “to give them relief in their destitution, relief that they will know how to multiply to those people more dispossessed than they are,” in a country that “has lived under smoldering conflict for 20 years.”

“When the conflicts have made all the NGOs flee, the Church and especially the religious sisters remain close to the most disadvantaged population, like anonymous good souls, in accordance with the spirit of Mother Teresa,” she added.

ACN noted its support for sisters is an addition to the work that it has already been doing in the country with the aid provided to priests, who because of the lack of Sunday collections and other resources have no means to survive on or carry on their pastoral work.

“Now that their parishioners are confined to their homes, life has become more difficult for everyone because most of the people are unemployed  (around 96% of the population) and live only on what they get from day to day,” lamented the bishop of the diocese of Mbuji-Mayi, Bernard-Emmanuel Kasanda.

The novice master of the Congregation of Labor Chaplains, Fr. Clemente Mwehu Muteba thanked ACN for its support and said that with the financial help he has been able to pay for fuel to continue his apostolate at his chapel in Lubumbashi, in the province of Alto Katanga and but also to pay “for some paper to meet the needs for the formation of the young people.”

Another member of the congregation of chaplains, Fr. Alain Mwila Wa Ilunga, said that it‘s a real relief to receive this financial support, which he has decided to share “with the most helpless and the poor who are sick so they can nourish themselves with their daily bread.”

This report was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news agency. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.


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Cardinal Pell accuser denies Becciu bribery allegations

October 5, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

CNA Staff, Oct 5, 2020 / 05:45 pm (CNA).-  

The accuser of Cardinal George Pell has denied he was bribed into making allegations of abuse against the cardinal, after Italian media have reported the allegation that Cardinal Angelo Becciu might have wired money to Australia as a bribe during Pell’s trial.

“My client denies any knowledge or receipt of any payments,” attorney Vivian Waller, who represents a man who accused Pell of sexual abuse, said in an Oct. 5 statement. “He won’t be commenting further in response to these allegations.”

That denial came after speculative reports in Italian newspapers indicated that Becciu had been accused of wiring money from an undisclosed Vatican account to Australia while Pell was facing a 2018 criminal trial, on charges that he sexually abused two boys while he was Archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.

Pell was convicted of that charge, after a first trial ended in a hung jury, and in 2019 sentenced to prison. He was freed on April 7, 2020, after Australia’s High Court concluded the jury in Pell’s trial did not act rationally when it found no possibility of doubt in the charges the cardinal faced.

The cardinal’s initial conviction deeply divided Australia, with many jurists otherwise unfavorably disposed toward Pell calling the allegations against him unreasonable and implausible. The cardinal was accused of sexually abusing two boys in a cathedral sacristy while fully vested and carrying his crozier, or bishop’s staff, at a time when multiple people testified that Pell was elsewhere and the sacristy occupied.

Until 2017, Pell led an effort called for by Pope Francis to bring order and accountability to the Vatican’s finances, which have long lacked centralized procedures, controls, or oversight. Bell clashed in that role with Becciu, who as sostituto of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State served effectively as the pope’s chief of staff. Becciu at one point acted to cancel a contract Pell had made for an external audit of Vatican finances.

Since at least 2018, criminal investigators have been reviewing a web of investments and transactions at the Secretariat of State that are connected to Becciu; last month the cardinal was fired from his position at the Vatican and resigned “the rights proper to cardinals,” while formally remaining a member of the College of Cardinals.

It is believed Becciu may soon face criminal charges for his role in several Vatican investment and financial schemes of questionable integrity and legality that amount to hundreds of millions of euro.

Reports that Becciu may have transferred money to Australia to set up Pell have attracted international attention since they emerged in Italian newspapers on Friday and over the weekend.

The allegation is reportedly tied to Msgr. Alberto Perlasca, a former Pell deputy who is said to be cooperating with investigators. But while the supposed allegations have made headlines in Italy, Australia, the U.K, and the U.S., they have not been independently confirmed and remain attributed only to anonymous sources.

Pell’s former attorney, Robert Richter, QC, has called for an investigation into the allegations, and on Monday morning Pope Francis met with the apostolic nuncio to Australia. Becciu has denied the allegations.  

 


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