Year: 2020

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Cardinal Parolin in Lebanon: The Church, Pope Francis are with you after Beirut explosion

September 4, 2020 CNA Daily News 3

Vatican City, Sep 4, 2020 / 05:00 am (CNA).- Cardinal Pietro Parolin told Lebanese Catholics at a Mass in Beirut Thursday that Pope Francis is close to them, and praying for them, during their time of suffering.

“It is with great joy that I find myself among you today, in the blessed land of Lebanon, to express to you the closeness and solidarity of the Holy Father and, through him, of the whole Church,” the Vatican’s Secretary of State said Sept. 3.

Parolin visited Beirut Sept. 3-4 as the representative of Pope Francis, a month after the city experienced a devastating blast which killed nearly 200 people, injured thousands, and left thousands without a home.

The pope has called for Sept. 4 to be a universal day of prayer and fasting for the country.

Cardinal Parolin celebrated Mass for around 1,500 Maronite Catholics at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon, a major pilgrimage site in the hills of Harissa, north of Beirut, on the evening of Sept. 3.

“Lebanon has suffered too much and the past year has been the scene of several tragedies affecting the Lebanese people: the acute economic, social and political crisis which continues to rock the country, the coronavirus pandemic which has worsened the situation and most recently, a month ago, the tragic explosion of the port of Beirut which ripped open the capital of Lebanon and caused terrible misery,” Parolin said in his homily.

“But the Lebanese are not alone. We accompany them all spiritually, morally and materially.”

Parolin also met with Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun, a Catholic, in the morning of Sept. 4.

Cardinal Parolin brought the president greetings from Pope Francis and said that the pope was praying for Lebanon, according to Archbishop Paul Sayah, who is responsible for external relations for the Maronite Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch. 

Parolin told President Aoun that Pope Francis “wants you to know that you are not alone in these difficult times that you are experiencing,” Sayah told CNA.

The Secretary of State will conclude his visit with a meeting with Maronite bishops, including Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai, the Maronite Catholic patriarch of Antioch, during lunch Sept. 4.

Speaking via phone from Lebanon the morning of Sept. 4, Sayah said that the patriarchs have a deep appreciation and gratitude to the Holy Father for his closeness “in such difficult times.” 

“I’m sure today [Patriarch Rai] will express those sentiments to Cardinal Parolin face-to-face,” he noted.

Commenting on the Aug. 4 Beirut explosion, Sayah said “it’s a huge disaster. The suffering of the people… and the destruction, and the winter is coming and people will certainly not have the time to rebuild their homes.”

Archbishop Sayah added, however, that “one of the beautiful things about this experience is the influx of people volunteering to help.”

“Young people especially have really flocked in the thousands into Beirut to help, and also the international community which has been present offering assistance in various ways. It’s a good sign of hope,” he said.

Cardinal Parolin also met with religious leaders at the Maronite Cathedral of St. George in Beirut. 

“We are still shocked by what happened a month ago,” he said. “We pray that God may render us strong to care for every person who was affected and to accomplish the task of rebuilding Beirut.”

“As I arrived here, the temptation was to say that I would have liked to meet you in different circumstances. I said, ‘no,’ however! The God of love and mercy is also the God of history and we believe that God wants us to accomplish our mission of caring for our brothers and sisters in this present time, with all its difficulties and challenges.”

In his homily, delivered in French with Arabic translation, Cardinal Parolin said the Lebanese people can identify with Peter in the fifth chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel.

After fishing all night and catching nothing, Jesus asks Peter “to hope against all hope,” the Secretary of State noted. “After objecting, Peter obeyed and said to the Lord: ‘but at your word I will let go of the nets… And having done so, he and his companions caught a great multitude of fish.’”

“It is the Word of the Lord which changed the situation of Peter and it is the Word of the Lord which calls today the Lebanese to hope against all hope and to move forward with dignity and pride,” Parolin encouraged.

He also said that “the Word of the Lord is addressed to the Lebanese through their faith, through Our Lady of Lebanon and through Saint Charbel and all the saints of Lebanon.”

Lebanon will be reconstructed not only on a material level, but also on the level of public affairs, according to the secretary of state. “We have every hope that Lebanese society will be based more on rights, duties, transparency, collective responsibility and the service of the common good.”

“The Lebanese will walk this path together,”  he said. “They will rebuild their country, with the help of friends and with a spirit of understanding, dialogue and coexistence that has always distinguished them.”


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News Briefs

Europe’s Catholic bishops back archbishop blocked from returning to Belarus

September 4, 2020 CNA Daily News 2

CNA Staff, Sep 4, 2020 / 03:00 am (CNA).- Catholic bishops across Europe have expressed support for an archbishop who was refused entry to his homeland of Belarus. 

In a Sept. 3 statement, the presidency of the Council of Bishops’ Conferences of Europe (CCEE) said it hoped that Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz would be allowed to return home immediately.

“While ensuring their own prayers for the beloved pastor and for the whole Belarusian community, they hope for an immediate return home for the Archbishop of Minsk and a resumption of his episcopal ministry,” the statement on behalf of bishops from 45 European countries said.

The archbishop of Minsk-Mohilev was turned back by border guards when he attempted to return to Belarus Aug. 31 following a trip to Poland. He told CNA Sept. 1 that he was “very much surprised” and had demanded an official explanation. 

The incident occurred amid ongoing demonstrations in Belarus following a disputed presidential election Aug. 9. The incumbent, Alexander Lukashenko, claimed victory with 80% of the vote. His challenger, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, was detained after she complained to the electoral committee, then fled to Lithuania. 

The decision to stop Kondrusiewicz, a Belarusian citizen, from returning home has provoked international concern. Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, urged the Belarusian authorities Sept. 1 to readmit Kondrusiewicz to the country.

Belarusian authorities should allow the re-entry of Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, so he can tend to his flock during the ongoing protests. He and all Belarusian people must be allowed to exercise their fundamental freedoms, including freedom to worship. https://t.co/S5Gyiq7SdB

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) September 1, 2020

 

The archbishop had spoken out in defense of protesters following the election. 

He demanded an investigation last week into reports that riot police blocked the doors of a Catholic church in Minsk while clearing away protesters from a nearby square.

He prayed outside of a prison Aug. 19 where detained protesters were reported to have been tortured.

Kondrusiewicz met with Interior Minister Yuri Karaev Aug. 21 to express his concerns about the government’s heavy-handed response to the protests.

He told CNA that he feared the country was heading towards civil war.

“The situation is very, very difficult, very critical,” he said.

Catholics in Belarus will hold a day of prayer Sept. 7 for the archbishop’s swift return to the country.

The CCEE statement was issued by its secretariat in St. Gallen, Switzerland. The organization, which was officially established in 1971, has 39 members, comprising 33 bishops’ conferences, the Archbishops of Luxembourg, the Principality of Monaco, the Maronite archbishop of Cyprus, the bishop of Chişinău, Moldova, the eparchial bishop of Mukachevo, and the apostolic administrator of Estonia.

The group’s statement said: “The CCEE Presidency expresses the closeness of the entire European Episcopate to Msgr. Kondrusiewicz and to the Church in Belarus in this delicate matter and makes their own the appeal of Pope Francis ‘to dialogue, the rejection of violence and respect for justice and law.’ And, together with the Pope, entrust ‘all Belarusians to the protection of Our Lady, Queen of Peace.’”

The CCEE concluded by saying that Europe’s bishops “encourage everyone to commit themselves to peacefully resolve the conflict and to pursue, with confidence, the path of dialogue for the good of man and of society as a whole.”


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The Dispatch

Lessons from the mystics

September 3, 2020 Paul Senz 4

Kathryn Jean Lopez is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, where she directs the Center for Religion, Culture, and Civil Society, and also serves as editor-at-large of National Review magazine. Her columns appear […]

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News Briefs

Shrine in memory of aborted children dedicated in Mexico

September 3, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

Guadalajara, Mexico, Sep 3, 2020 / 04:59 pm (CNA).- The Mexican pro-life association Los Inocentes de María (Mary’s Innocent Ones) dedicated a shrine in Guadalajara last month in memory of aborted children. The shrine, called Rachel’s Grotto, also serves as a place for reconciliation between parents and their deceased babies.

In an August 15 dedication ceremony, the archbishop emeritus of Guadalajara, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, blessed the shrine and emphasized the importance of promoting “awareness that abortion is a terrible crime that frustrates the destiny of many human beings.”

Speaking with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner, Brenda del Río, the founder and director of Los Inocentes de María, explained that the idea was inspired by a similar project by a choral group that created a grotto next to the adoration chapel of a monastery in Frauenberg, southern Germany.

The name “Rachel’s Grotto comes from the passage in the Gospel of Matthew where King Herod, seeking to kill the Christ Child, massacres all children two years and younger in Bethlehem: “A cry was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more.”

The main goal of Los Inocentes de María, Del Río said, “is to combat violence against children, both in the womb and in early childhood, newborns and up to two, five, six years old, when lamentably many are murdered,” some are even “thrown into sewers, onto vacant lots.”

So far the association has buried 267 preborn children, newborns and infants.

The shrine is part of a project by the association to make the first cemetery for aborted babies in Latin America.

Del Rio explained that the parents of aborted babies will be able to go to the shrine “to reconcile with their child, to reconcile with God.”

Parents can give their child a name, handwriting it on a small piece of paper to be transcribed on a clear plastic tile placed on the walls next to the shrine.

“These acrylic tiles will be attached to the walls, with all the children’s names,” she said, and “there is a small mailbox for the father or mother to leave a letter for their child.”

For Del Río, the impact of abortion in Mexico extends to the country’s high rate of murders, disappearances, and human trafficking.

“That is contempt for human life. The more abortion is promoted, the more the human person, human life, is despised,” she said.

“If we Catholics do nothing in the face of such a terrible evil, a genocide, then who will speak? Will the stones speak if we keep silent?” she asked.

Del Río explained that the Inocentes de María project goes into marginalized and crime-ridden areas, looking for pregnant women and new mothers. They offer workshops for these women in local Catholic churches, teaching them about human dignity and development in the womb.

“We’re sure, men and women alike – because we also have men here with us helping out – that we’re saving lives with these workshops. Telling them, ‘Your baby is not your enemy, it’s not your problem,’ is to restore a whole life,” the association director said.

For Del Río, if babies from a young age receive from their mothers “the message that they are valuable, precious, a work of God, unique and unrepeatable,” then in Mexico “we will have less violence, because a child who is hurting, we tell the moms, is a child who will end up on the streets and in prison.”

At Los Inocentes de María, she said, they tell the parents who have had an abortion and are seeking reconciliation with God and their children, that “you are going to meet your children the moment you die, radiant, beautiful, splendid, that they are going to come to welcome you at the gates of Heaven.”

 

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

 


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News Briefs

San Francisco ministry to share Catholic teaching on end-of-life

September 3, 2020 CNA Daily News 2

Denver Newsroom, Sep 3, 2020 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of San Francisco is set to begin training volunteers who will help parishes support Catholics in making end-of-life decisions for themselves and loved ones, informed by Catholic teaching about death.

Deacon Fred Totah, director of pastoral ministry for the archdiocese, told CNA that he fields a lot of questions about end-of-life problems in his parish— more so now than ever, amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Catholic end-of-life ministry is a response to California’s 2015 legalization of assisted suicide under the End of Life Option Act, which took effect during June 2016. Under the law, patients may request and physicians may prescribe life-ending medications.

The Catholic Church teaches that assisted suicide and euthanasia— which both involve the intentional taking of life— are never permissible. Withholding “extraordinary means” of medical treatment and allowing death to occur naturally can be morally permissible under Catholic teaching.

The bishops of California, along with healthcare leaders, launched an initiative called Caring for the Whole Person in 2016 to help to educate people about Catholic teaching on dying.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles launched its Whole Person Care ministry during February 2020, and the Diocese of Stockton began doing training for its ministry in March.

Other California dioceses are in the process of building core teams for their ministries, Totah said, and he has reached out to them to offer help building their end-of-life ministries.

‘The door is always open for anybody to partner with us,” he said.

Totah told Catholic San Francisco that it is his hope that every parish eventually will have an end-of-life ministry. The ministry might also be combined with an existing parish ministry, he said, such as grief and consolation, Legion of Mary, or ministry to the sick and homebound.

A five-week Zoom training for the 25 volunteers will begin Sept. 16, and will run until Oct. 14.

The training will encompass five modules, he said, including an introduction to palliative and hospice care; Catholic teaching on end-of-life problems; planning for end-of-life; and grief and bereavement in the parish setting.

The Catholic Medical Association, along with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Health Association, have long supported an expansion of palliative care— medical care and pain management for the symptoms of those suffering from a serious illness, rather than the premature ending of their life.

The CMA emphasized their position that “the goal of palliative care is to promote effective relief of pain and suffering, not to eliminate the sufferer.”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services prohibit Catholic health care facilities from condoning or participating in euthanasia or assisted suicide.

A report from the California Department of Public Health said 374 persons ended their lives by assisted suicide in 2017 – the first full year that the law had been in effect.

The California Catholic Conference reiterated its opposition to assisted suicide in the beginning of 2018, criticizing the lack of data collected and a lack of transparency in the law’s implementation.

In January 2020, a county Superior Court dismissed a legal challenge against the End of Life Option Act, which a group of doctors had filed upon its passage. The US Supreme Court had the year before declined to review the case.

Oregon, Washington, Maine, New Jersey, Hawaii, Colorado, Vermont and the District of Columbia have all legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia along with California. In Montana the practice is legal by a court ruling.

Countries with legal euthanasia are the Netherlands, Belgium, Colombia, Luxembourg, and Canada. Assisted suicide is legal in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany.

The US House of Representatives in October 2019 sent a bill to the Senate that would expand funding and training for palliative care. The bill is currently in a Senate committee.


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