Vatican City, Apr 18, 2020 / 08:00 am (CNA).- A Vatican Congregation has announced that it is sending medical supplies to Syria and the Holy Land as the coronavirus spreads across the Middle East.
The Congregation for the Oriental Churches said … […]
Denver, Colo., Apr 18, 2020 / 06:01 am (CNA).- As health experts predict an increase in suicidal tendencies amid the coronavirus, Catholic professionals have outlined how to seek help and to be aware of those inclined to self-harm.
Dr. Melinda Moore, … […]
Vatican City, Apr 18, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis prayed for those caring for people with disabilities during the coronavirus crisis at his morning Mass Saturday.
Speaking from the chapel of his Vatican residence, Casa Santa Marta, April 18, he said he had received a letter from a religious sister working as a sign language interpreter for deaf people. She told him about the difficulties facing healthcare workers, nurses and doctors looking after disabled patients affected by COVID-19.
“So let us pray for those who are always at the service of these persons with various disabilities,” he said.
The pope made the comments at the start of the Mass, which was livestreamed due to the pandemic.
In his homily, he reflected on the day’s first reading (Acts 4:13-21), in which the religious authorities ordered Peter and John not to teach in the name of Jesus.
The apostles refused to obey, the pope said, replying with “courage and frankness” that it was impossible for them to remain silent about what they had seen and heard.
Ever since then, he explained, courage and frankness have been the hallmarks of Christian preaching.
The pope recalled a passage in the Letter to the Hebrews (10:32-35), in which lukewarm Christians are urged to remember their early struggles and regain their confidence and candor.
“You cannot be Christian without this frankness: if it does not come, you are not a good Christian,” he said. “If you don’t have the courage, if to explain your position you slide into ideologies or casuistic explanations, you lack that frankness, you lack that Christian style, the freedom to speak, to say everything.”
Peter and John’s frankness confounded the leaders, elders and scribes, he said.
“Really, they were cornered by frankness: they didn’t know how to get out of it,” he observed. “But it didn’t occur to them to say, ‘Could this be true?’ The heart was already closed, it was hard; the heart was corrupt.”
The pope noted that Peter was not born brave, but had received the gift of parrhesia — a Greek word sometimes translated as “boldness” — from the Holy Spirit.
“He was a coward, he denied Jesus,” he said. “But what happened now? They [Peter and John] answered: ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God for us to obey you rather than God, you be the judges. It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.’”
“But where does this courage come from, this coward who has denied the Lord? What has happened in this man’s heart? The gift of the Holy Spirit: frankness, courage, parrhesia is a gift, a grace that the Holy Spirit gives on the day of Pentecost.”
“Just after receiving the Holy Spirit they went to preach: a little brave, something new for them. This is consistency, the sign of the Christian, of the true Christian: he is courageous, he says the whole truth because he is consistent.”
Turning to the day’s Gospel reading (Mark 16:9-15), in which the risen Christ reproaches the disciples for not believing reports of his resurrection, the pope noted that Jesus gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit which enables them to carry out their mission to “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”
“The mission comes precisely from here, from this gift which makes us courageous, frank in proclaiming the word,” he said.
After Mass, the pope presided at adoration and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, before leading those watching online in a prayer of spiritual communion.
The Pope recalled that tomorrow he would offer Mass at Santo Spirito in Sassia, a church near St. Peter’s Basilica, at 11 a.m local time.
Finally, those present sang the Easter Marian antiphon “Regina caeli.”
In his homily, the pope clarified that Christians should be both courageous and prudent.
“May the Lord always help us to be like this: courageous. This does not mean imprudent: no, no. Courageous. Christian courage is always prudent, but it is courage,” he said.
Readings: • Acts 2:42-47 • Psa 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24 • 1 Pet 1:3-9 • Jn 20:19-31 As a young boy I enjoyed playing Little League baseball. On a couple of occasions, while playing a lesser […]
CNA Staff, Apr 17, 2020 / 07:00 pm (CNA).- Reports of an Indian hospital’s segregated wards for Hindu and Muslim coronavirus patients drew concern from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, though Indian authorities strongly disputed the allegation.
“USCIRF is concerned with reports of Hindu and Muslim patients separated into separate hospital wards in Gujarat,” the commission said on Twitter and Facebook April 15. “Such actions only help to further increase ongoing stigmatization of Muslims in India and exacerbate false rumors of Muslims spreading COVID-19.”
The bipartisan U.S. federal government commission linked to a story in the Indian Express newspaper that cites a hospital official and a patient in the city of Ahmedabad in the western coastal Indian state of Gujarat.
India’s Ministry for External Affairs opposed the commission, saying it was spreading “misguided reports” and “adding religious color” that distracts from India’s efforts to combat the novel coronavirus.
“No segregation is being done in civil hospitals on the basis of religion, as clarified by the Gujarat government,” the ministry said April 15.
The reports concern Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, where there are some 1,200 beds prepared for patients suffering from the novel coronavirus.
Medical Superintendent Dr. Gunvant. H. Rathod described the hospital division to the Indian Express, saying “generally, there are separate wards for male and female patients. But here, we have made separate wards for Hindu and Muslim patients.”
“It is a decision of the government and you can ask them,” he said.
Deputy Chief Minister and Health Minister Nitin Patel said he was not aware of the situation and would make inquiries. Ahmedabad’s district magistrate, K.K. Nirala, also was not aware of any decision, the Indian Express reports.
However, the Indian Express cited a hospital patient who said the names of 28 men in a ward were called out, and they were moved to another ward.
“While we were not told why we were being shifted, all the names that were called out belonged to one community. We spoke to one staff member in our ward today and he said this had been done for ‘the comfort of both communities’,” the patient said.
The Gujarat Health and Family Welfare Department said the reports were “absolutely baseless.” Rather, it said, patients are treated based on symptoms and severity and “according to treating doctors’ recommendations.
As of Wednesday, new known cases of coronavirus in Gujarat rose by 127 to 766, with 88 cases in Ahmedabad. The death toll there totals 33, the Times of India reports.
The Indian newspaper The Week reported that the commission had previously criticized India’s Citizenship Amendment Act, which became effective in January 2020.
In December 2019 the commission expressed concern about the legislation, which enshrined a pathway to citizenship for immigrants but specifically excluded Muslims. The commission recommended U.S. sanctions on India as a possible response.
The U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom reviews alleged religious freedom violations and makes policy recommendations to the U.S. president, Secretary of State, and Congress.
The commission’s 2019 report said that religious freedom conditions in India “continued a downward trend” in 2018. It said India’s “history of religious freedom has come under attack in recent years with the growth of exclusionary extremist narratives—including, at times, the government’s allowance and encouragement of mob violence against religious minorities—that have facilitated an egregious and ongoing campaign of violence, intimidation, and harassment against non-Hindu and lower-caste Hindu minorities. Both public and private actors have engaged in this campaign.”
Mob violence against Christians by Hindus has been particularly acute.
In August 2019, six suspected members of a radical Hindu group were arrested after dozens of Catholics were attacked on a Marian pilgrimage from Karnataka to the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health in Velankanni, a coastal town in south east India.
In September, around 500 armed Hindu extremists attacked a Jesuit mission in the Archdiocese of Ranchi. Armed with sticks, chains, iron bars, knives, and pistols, the mob beat tribal students including two who were seriously injured, and also seriously damaged the school’s facilities.
Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal has said numerous mob lynchings of Christians have occurred in which the victims are accused of eating beef or otherwise harming cattle, which are considered sacred in Hinduism.
Karnataka state suffered a wave of anti-Christian violence in 2008, when Hindu extremist groups led attacks on churches, schools and homes of Christians and physically beat hundreds of people. A 2011 independent report on the violence, known as the Saldhana Report, charged that attacks were pre-planned and backed by the state’s highest government authorities.
Socialism has once again made its way onto the political stage in the United States. Members of the Democratic party tout socialist agendas and policies, and often even refer to themselves explicitly as “Democratic Socialists.” […]
Denver, Colo., Apr 17, 2020 / 05:12 pm (CNA).- It has been one month since most schools across the US closed their doors due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The solution to shuttered schools may seem simple, on the surface: move curriculum and teachers online. Teach classes on Zoom videos, assign and receive homework through Google Classroom, and send communications and grades via email or an online school portal.
But what happens when students, sent home to learn from their bedrooms or kitchen tables, do not have access to the internet at their house? Or when the whole family is studying or working from home, and the one computer in the household is needed by several people at once?
These are the questions Catholic schools have grappled with after the coronavirus forced the shutdown of schools across the nation, many of them for the rest of the school year.
The Archdiocese of Denver made the decision to close its schools on the night of Thursday, March 12. The following Friday had already been a planned day off for students and a working day for teachers, which was to the schools’ advantage as they figured out how to shift completely to distance learning.
“All Thursday night we figured out, okay, what would have to be true to make distance learning successful in the next two weeks?” Abriana Chilelli, director of curriculum and instruction in the Denver archdiocese, told CNA.
“Certainly, technology rose to the top, but also that children had internet access, that schools were able to get devices out to students. So we put together a think sheet, if you will, about a school’s capability of distance learning,” she said.
Originally, Chilelli said, the Catholic school system was planning for a two-week closure, but with some thought that it could be extended in a more long-term way.
During those two weeks, Chilelli said, some teachers “chose the paper-based route,” sending home packets with two weeks worth of materials with students.
During those initial two weeks, schools worked to get in touch with every family to evaluate their technology and internet needs for a longer-term closure.
“We realized…that we were short about 500 devices for students and 50 for teachers, plus 200 hotspots,” said Carol Nesbitt, director of schools marketing and communications in the Archdiocese of Denver. Those were the numbers after the archdiocese’s schools had already lent out whatever extra laptops and devices they had on hand.
“I heard of a student up in Glenwood Springs at St. Stephen’s school. The principal said he was trying to use his mom’s burner cell phone to get his assignments,” Nesbitt told CNA.
“We’ve heard from other principals who have said that (student’s families) have five people in one house, and mom and dad are both trying to work from home and they have one computer. So the kids can’t get on their Zoom call because mom has a call with her boss and different things,” she said.
The shortage motivated the office of schools to send out two emails, asking Denver Catholics to contribute to an emergency relief fund. So far, Nesbitt said, the fund has received $220,000 in donations, “which I think is incredible.”
It’s enough to start buying more computers and distributing them to families on a lending basis, Nesbitt said.
“The first 50 came yesterday…and we delivered to three schools right away, and the rest are coming in over the next few days. And we’ll turn those around as quickly as possible,” she said. “(It’s) all hands on deck to try to deliver those, of course, using social distancing measures,” she said. Families have also been able to pick up supplies from schools.
Chilelli said she thinks when it came to setting up long-term distance learning, Catholic schools were at an advantage because of their smaller sizes.
“I’m watching these large districts that, still a month later, don’t have contact with such huge percentages of their students. So I just think it’s a huge advantage of Catholic schools that we’re smaller, we can be more nimble and we have this one-on-one relationship with all of our families,” she said.
Dr. Brooke C. Tesche is the chancellor of education for the Diocese of Allentown, which has already announced that its schools will be closed for the remainder of the school year.
Tesche said while they’ve had some students who are lacking computers or tablets on which to do their work, the Catholic school system has been working to accommodate these students any way they can. One way, she said, has been through lending out existing technology at the schools to families.
Two local internet providers are currently offering free services in order to help students continue their education, which has also helped in Allentown.
“So many families who would not have been able to connect, are able to connect,” she said.
Still, Tesche added, there are students who do not have computers on which to complete their homework. For these students, teachers are putting together paper learning packets with two weeks of materials at a time. Parents and students can either pick up their packets in person, or see the packets mailed to students.
“So it’s definitely a challenge right now, but (teachers are) responding and using I think as many options as possible to make sure that the kids continue to move forward,” she said.
Tesche emphasized that schools are moving forward in their curriculum – rather than providing students with busy work or enrichment activities, teachers are working to prepare their students to be ready for the next grade level, whether schools will resume in-person in the fall or not.
The Diocese of Allentown is also unique in that it has the only Catholic high school for students in recovery from substance addiction, Kolbe Academy.
The school is in its first full year of operation, and so while it is “unfortunate” that the coronavirus closed the school’s doors in its first year, Tesche said those students have been able to move their instruction, and their counseling and therapy, completely online.
“We just had a student this week celebrate 100 days clean and sober,” she said. “I’m really proud of that. They are doing really good work.”
Additionally, the school system has also partnered with Catholic Charities at this time in order to be able to address any mental health or social-emotional needs that families might have, Tesche said.
“We’re just dovetailing really nicely to make sure they have support of Catholic Charities,” she said.
In Ontario, the Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board said in a meeting this week that the district has been accommodating students without access to technology by providing them with weekly paper packets. Teachers have adjusted instruction so that each week is planned out in advance, and students can complete the weekly work at their own pace.
“…(the students) enjoy having the freedom to complete their work (on their own schedule)…they can do all their Monday and Tuesday work on Monday. I’ve heard nothing but good things about the work. Surprisingly, no complaints,” Anthony DeLorenzi, an H-SCDSB student representative, said during a board meeting this week, according to local news source SOOTODAY.com.
Rose Burton Spohn, H-SCDSB director of education, told the board that about 70 students in the district were lacking either computers or access to the internet, and that the packets were being delivered to students on an ongoing basis. Teachers have also made themselves available via phone calls to students who lack internet access, she said.
Catherine Thompson is the Superintendent of Catholic Schools for Diocese of Las Vegas. Thompson told CNA that while the district has had some students who lacked access to computers at home, educators were able to fill those needs with what the schools had on hand.
Thompson said that the schools prepared for the impending closures as they watched the development of the pandemic, and particularly how it was affecting some harder-hit states on the East Coast.
Part of that preparation included a couple of surveys sent to parents, asking them about their technological needs as well as what they would like to see out of the distance learning experience.
“(What) we needed to know was what type of devices would be available – iPads, tablets, are they Windows people, are they Mac people. So they provided us with that,” Thompson said.
“Then the next thing we wanted to know was their shared access amongst the entire family. Then we were looking at what is your internet access like? Was it excellent? Like would you rate it as reliable or average, it’s mostly reliable or very, very low quality or very limited? We needed to know if they had a printer, we needed to know if they had a scanner. Then we also wanted to know were they comfortable with us using things like YouTube with the children,” Thompson said.
She added that they also asked about access to non-technology materials, such as paper, pens, or markers. Another part of the preparation included training teachers as well as some parents on how to use platforms such as Zoom or Google Classroom.
Thompson said the teachers and schools also focused on how to make distance learning most effective without students having to spend every moment of their day in front of a screen.
“There are a lot of different pieces that you can do both online and offline,” she said. Some teachers have instruction time and then offline time for students to work.
Other teachers are getting creative and assigning things like “exercise or a drawing a picture or recording something, or just make a tent and go inside and read, little things that they could do both inside and outside,” she said.
Chilelli, too, added that the Denver Catholic school system has always emphasized that technology should not be used in education for its own sake.
“When we were figuring out what must be true about distance learning, we wanted to make sure that yes, it happened at home, but it was also philosophically aligned with what we believe about education and specifically Catholic education,” she said.
“We would always say that we don’t think that education should happen behind a computer screen, and that children should be engaged with texts, with great texts, they should be engaged in human interaction, and with primary documents. So we always promoted distance learning as being necessarily very simple – that it should not be just attempting to take on a technology just simply because it was out there,” she said.
Chilelli said the shift to distance learning also forced teachers to evaluate what the most essential learning standards were for each subject matter, and to focus their time and lessons on those most essential things.
“Let’s make sure that everything we’re asking students do is really worthy of their time, which we would always say, but even more importantly now,” she said.
Overall, Thompson said she’s been very impressed with the work both teachers and parents have done to make this new system work.
“I want people to know that our teachers are absolutely amazing. They are the lifeblood of our schools and they have just …the way and the manner in which they have risen to the occasion, the positive feedback that we’ve heard from our parents,” she said.
“They appreciate all the work that we’re doing on behalf of all of our students. Our schools – while our campuses are closed – our schools are very much open,” she said.
“The amazing teachers and principals, they’ve just done an amazing job working on behalf of our students. So I can’t say enough good things. I think that there will be so many more positives to come out of what’s been such a difficult situation.”
On Easter Sunday the pope issued an emotive letter addressing his “dear friends” of the World Meeting Popular Movements (WMPM), a series of annual gatherings to encourage social justice workers Francis launched about five years […]
CNA Staff, Apr 17, 2020 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- Pro-life adovcates have criticized the governor of Michigan for calling aboriton a “life-sustaining” procedure during an interview on Thursday.
In an April 16 appearance on the podcast &ldquo… […]
CNA Staff, Apr 17, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- A German cardinal has said it is “high time” to restore public liturgies as the country begins to ease lockdown measures. Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of […]
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