Lent of 2020 was scheduled to be one of my busiest Lenten seasons in years. Something “in the air” changed all that, however, the “down-time” has given me the opportunity to consider a number of […]
Augsburg, Germany, Mar 21, 2020 / 09:00 am (CNA).- Most of the community at the European seminary of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter are sick from coronavirus, and the community is relying on providence and uniting itself with the sick throughout the world.
“The virus did its work in the seminary, and now the better part of the priests and half of the seminarians are sick. But all are abandoned to the Providence of God,” the Seminary of Saint Peter wrote in a March 19 update. The seminary is located in Wigratzbad, Germany, about 90 miles southwest of Augsburg.
“At the time of the so unexpected trial, each one measures the grace which is given to us to live these difficult times as true Christians. As the Lord permits evil only for a greater good, we trust that there will be many returns to God, the only one capable of giving meaning to our ephemeral existence on this earth.”
The seminary had earlier said that coronavirus had been carried to the seminary by an Italian confrere. On March 14 it indicated it had been in strict confinement for a week, and that the disease was rapidly spreading through the seminary.
While the seminary has had to reorganize and do everything themselves, “everyone is generous and adapts without difficulty.”
“The quarantine of Lent doubles as a health quarantine, and since ‘all is grace’ we see in it the opportunity for a salutary meditation on the meaning of life. Life is brief and fragile, and if one is worried about one’s health, one must be even more concerned with one’s salvation. The invisible malice of malady invites us to have more confidence in God, and to further augment our prayers and our penances.”
In its March 19 update, the seminary indicated that “in a few days, the first to heal will be able to take over from the newly sick to maintain the spiritual and material life of the house.”
“Of course we assure you all, especially the sick and health care staff, of our proximity and our wishes of good health. May God keep you, sursum corda! Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.”
St. Peter Seminary was founded in 1988, and it serves around 60 French- and German-speaking seminarians of the FSSP.
The FSSP is a society of apostolic life which celebrates the extraordinary form of the Roman rite. It was founded in 1988 by 12 priests of the Society of St. Pius X. The founders left the SSPX to establish the FSSP after the society’s leader, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, consecrated four bishops without the permission of St. John Paul II.
There are currently almost 287 priests and 150 seminarians in the fraternity. It has parishes and chapels in North America, Europe, Oceania, Nigeria, and Colombia.
Fr. Bernhard Gerstle, superior of the fraternity’s German-speaking district, wrote in a March 18 message that “the ‘corona crisis’ shows us how fragile our lives are and how even our highly developed medicine is facing an enormous challenge. In this difficult situation, you should know that we are particularly close to you and your families.”
He added that all the district’s priests, health permitting, are saying Mass in private and offering the graces to the people. “We are of course also available to you in pastoral matters, whereby all participants (especially our priests) are required carefully to observe the hygienic precautionary measures.”
“We hope and pray that as far as possible none of our confreres and believers will be permanently harmed and that the painful limitations of church life will not last long,” Fr. Gerstle wrote. “Let us also see the current test as an opportunity to set the right priorities in our lives even more than before and to strengthen and deepen our relationship with God.”
Vatican City, Mar 21, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- As more Catholics around the world find themselves unable to receive the Eucharist due to the coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis provided an example of a spiritual communion prayer that can be said from home.
“My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar. I love You above all things, and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart … I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You,” Pope Francis prayed March 21 in his televised daily Mass from his residence in Vatican City.
Pope Francis invited those viewing the livestreamed Mass to find the Lord in prayer. He recited the spiritual communion prayer and then exposed the Blessed Sacrament for Eucharistic Adoration at the end of the Mass.
A spiritual communion is a uniting of oneself to the Sacrifice of the Mass through prayer, and can be made whether one is able to receive Communion or not.
“Let us pray to the Lord, let us return to Him,” the pope said in his homily.
He said that the Gospel parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee provides a lesson in how to pray. While the Pharisee was proud, the tax collector said: ‘‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.”
“The Lord teaches us how to pray … how we must approach the Lord: with humility,” Francis said.
“When we begin praying with our own justifications with our securities, that’s not prayer. That is like speaking to a mirror. Instead when we begin praying with our true reality – I’m a sinner – this is a good step forward in allowing the Lord to look at us. May Jesus teach us this,” he said.
Pope Francis prayed at the beginning of Mass for families who cannot leave their homes due to quarantine.
“Perhaps the farthest they can go is their balcony,” he said. “May they know how to find a way of communicating well, of building loving relationships within the family. And that they might know how to conquer the anguish of this moment together as a family.”
“We pray for peace in families today during this crisis, and for creativity,” Pope Francis said.
Denver, Colo., Mar 21, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- The policy of social distancing means that the newly-homebound are seeing less of coworkers than they did just weeks ago. They’re seeing fewer friends too. But they might be seeing a lot more of their family, or their roommates. And that isn’t easy.
For some, especially those who live alone, social distancing can bring with it a sense of isolation and loneliness. But for those who live with family or roommates, staying home means spending a lot of time together. After a few days of fun, being “alone together,” all the time, can become difficult.
Neither living alone nor with other people is easy in a time of great stress, Dr. Christina Lynch told CNA. But there are ways to build and maintain healthy relationships during the coronavirus pandemic.
A supervising psychologist at Denver’s St. John Vianney Theological Seminary, Lynch offered CNA a few suggestions for maintaining friendships, and family relationships, under quarantine, “shelter in place” orders, or social distancing policies.
Lynch suggests accepting that losing control is a difficult feeling.
“When we can’t be in control, we become agitated. This is part of our survival mechanism that God gave us so that we do whatever it takes to survive. Unfortunately, [through] the negative[ty] of social media and the internet, it’s made us so attached to the world and to what others think and to comparing ourselves that we think we have to always be busy,” she said.
It is difficult to be restricted to a house, Lynch said. It is difficult not to be busy. To address that, she emphasized the importance of building a routine, especially one that includes prayer, and recreation.
Lynch emphasizes that the “family is the first Church,” and suggests households – families or roommates- set daily routines of prayer, which might included Bible studies, morning and night prayers, or daily rosaries. She encouraged Catholics to bless each other with holy water, and to set up a prayer corner with statues and pictures of the saints.
“A prayer sets the tone for the whole day,” she said.
Quoting an old adage, Lynch said it’s true that “the family that prays together stays together.”
“Ask each member each day what they need prayers for, so you can start a tradition of writing down on a piece of paper each family member’s prayer intention.”
Families and roommates should also be proactive about building an atmosphere of healthy communication, where thoughts and feelings have a safe place to be shared, she said.
People need to be sensitive to one another, especially during this anxious time, and foster a positive environment, Lynch added.
“Reframe thoughts and feelings of anxiety to how you can do good for others,” she said.
“Communicate with each other. This is really important when you live together in close quarters, especially when you can’t escape from each other. So you need to set up a place and a time to actually share your feelings and thoughts, and process them out loud,” she said.
“If there’s a dispute, start with something positive about that person or about what they do. Then mention [about] the behavior, how that behavior has affected you or the household or the family. But, don’t accuse, don’t be accusatory or blaming about anything. It’s good to be constructive in that communication.”
Lynch added that shared recreational activities can have a positive effect on the mood of everyone during a period that feels like confinement. She suggested board games, making collages, or watching movies together.
“Use board games, cards or even invent a board game,” she further added. “This is a great thing to use our creativity that God intended and to start doing things for good.”
Lynch offered a few suggestions for people living alone during the quarantine. She emphasized the importance of maintaining a schedule that involves exercise, community, and prayer.
She also suggested keeping a journal, and keeping in daily contact with friends or relatives.
“If you live alone, it’s very important to make sure you have connections with others if you can’t every day. So whether you set up a schedule with a friend or a family member to FaceTime or just talk to them on the phone. Maybe each day pick two people that you’d like to talk to and make a phone call to them, [or] ask your family to check in with you,” she said.
“Why not write some letters to your friends and your family? You could write emails too. Start making the connection with those we’ve lost connections with, possibly, or with people we still have connections with.”
The global pandemic is difficult, Lynch said. But she said that looking for opportunities to be grateful will help keep relationships stable, and help quell a sense of anxiety.
“Be grateful for your blessings. Have each member of the household write a list of what they’re grateful for each day. It can even be the same things as days go on, because it’ll start to really connect the positive neurons in your brain where you will begin to start to think positively first before you think negatively,” she said.
Vatican City, Mar 21, 2020 / 12:19 am (CNA).- Cardinal Joseph Zen published Saturday a blog post accusing the Vatican’s secretary of state of manipulating Pope Francis, and continuing his ongoing criticism of the Holy See’s approach to the Catholic Church in China.
“My personal impression is that [Cardinal Pietro] Parolin manipulates the Pope, at least in things regarding the Church in China,” Zen, the emeritus bishop of Hong Kong, wrote in a post published on his personal blog.
The post “Supplement to my answer to Cardinal G.B. Re,” was dated March 10, although it was actually published March 21. It seemed to be an addendum to a March 3 open letter Zen wrote to Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re.
Zen’s March 21 and March 3 letters came in response to a Feb. 26 letter from Re, dean of the Church’s College of Cardinals, to the Church’s cardinals, which claimed that that the China-Vatican deal represents the minds of St. John Paul II and of Benedict XVI, and that Zen’s opposition to the deal is misguided.
Even before it was signed, Zen has been a zealous critic of the Vatican’s 2018 provisional agreement with the People’s Republic of China. He says the agreement, which has not been publicly released, concedes a deliberative role to the Chinese government in the selection of bishops, and puts at risk of persecution many of the Catholics in China.
In his March 3 letter, Zen wrote to Re that “if you want to prove to me that the recently signed agreement was already approved by Benedict XVI, you just have to show me the text of the agreement, which I am barred from seeing till now, and the archival evidence which you say you could verify.”
Zen’s more recent post claimed that while he has been critical of Re over the China deal, “The Problem is not between me and Re. The problem is with Cardinal Parolin.”
“It’s difficult to understand how this man has become so powerful to dominate the whole Roman Curia. He could dismiss the Commission for Church in China without a word and nobody stood up to protest against such impoliteness.”
Zen has previously alleged that Parolin closed the Vatican’s commission on the Church in China, which was established under Benedict XVI and included Vatican officials and Church leaders from the region, in order to silence criticism from Zen about the Church’s engagement with the Chinese government.
The cardinal’s March 21 post also criticized Parolin for assigning Archbishop Savio Hon, formerly the secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the only high-ranking Chinese cleric in the curia, to a diplomatic post in Greece.
Those moves, Zen has claimed, made it easier for Parolin to execute the 2018 agreement with Beijing.
While Zen’s March 21 post criticized that agreement, calling it “immoral” and “against the Catholic conscience,” the cardinal reserved his most stringent criticism for a set of June 2019 “pastoral guidelines” issued by the Vatican, regarding the responsibilities of Chinese priests to the country’s government.
That document, Zen said, is “blatantly evil, immoral, because it legitimizes a schismatic Church!”
The Church in mainland China has been divided for some 60 years between the underground Church, which is persecuted and whose episcopal appointments are frequently not acknowledged by Chinese authorities, and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, a government-sanctioned organization.
Zen argued that the 2019 “pastoral guidelines” legitimize the false notion of a specifically “Chinese” Catholic Church “independent” from the oversight of the pope.
“Parolin has repeatedly affirmed that the word ‘independent’ should today no more be understood as “absolutely independent”, because in the Agreement the Pope is recognized as the Head of the Catholic Church (I cannot believe this, until they show me the Chinese text of the agreement),” Zen wrote.
After outlining the cardinal’s criticism, Zen’s March 21 blog post, expressed that “during the last 20 years, because of the wrong policy of the Holy See in dealing with the Church in China, pursued by a group of people who dared even not to follow the line of the Pope, the underground community was more and more like abandoned, considered inconvenient, almost as an obstacle to unity, while in the community officially recognized by the Government the “opportunists” grow more and more numerous, fearless and defiant because encouraged by people inside and around the Vatican, intoxicated by their illusions of the Ostpolitik.”
“Are we going towards the unity of the Church in China?” Zen asked. “What kind of unity? Which kind of Church?”
Jerusalem, Mar 21, 2020 / 12:00 am (CNA).- A bishop in Israel has renewed a call for educational leaders to address “bigoted attitudes” in the teaching of young people, and stated that failures of the Israeli education system to promote plu… […]
Detroit, Mich., Mar 20, 2020 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- A dissenting Catholic LGBT advocacy group rejects Church teaching and confuses the Christian path to holiness, Auxiliary Bishop Gerard Battersby of Detroit has said.
While the bishop’s March 9 letter to the Detroit archdiocese’s priests forbids Mass for Dignity Detroit members, it stresses that the Dignity Detroit members are invited to join the Catholic faithful to affirm Church teaching and “missionary transformation.”
A Mass for the group and its members is not possible “in any parish church, chapel, or diocesan facility,” said the bishop. “This will no doubt be difficult for some to hear, but it arises from heartfelt pastoral concern for members of Dignity Detroit.”
“As you know, Dignity Detroit has long operated its ministry in the Archdiocese of Detroit while rejecting some of the Church’s teachings on sexual morality,” said Bishop Battersby. “These teachings, though challenging, promote human flourishing and bring joy when received with open hearts. This situation is thus a source of sadness, for those who reject the teachings deprive themselves of the blessings that come with living a life in Christ.”
The Dignity Detroit group on its website describes itself as “a faith community of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Catholics, their families and friends who unite to celebrate God’s love for all persons.” It is a chapter of Dignity USA, which is headquartered in Massachusetts.
Dignity USA put out a March 18 statement including responses from both national and chapter leaders.
Dignity Detroit’s leadership council said that Bishop Battersby had contacted the chapter leaders in mid-January and asked to meet with them to discuss the pastoral letter and the archdiocese’s initiatives for people with same-sex attraction. The meeting was set for late March.
Frank D’Amore, President of Dignity Detroit, said it was “extremely disappointing” that the measures were sent out before the meeting.
“We truly believe that it is impossible to learn anything about our community and not be moved by the love our members have for the Catholic faith, and the integrity with which they live their lives,” he said, according to Dignity USA. “It is hard to understand why church officials would cast out people struggling to remain connected with the Church while so many are leaving.”
“Archdiocesan officials clearly do not understand the truth of what it means to be gay or transgender, and how integral these components of our identities are,” D’Amore continued. “For many of us, it took years of struggle with what we’d been taught to be able to embrace our identities as grace, as blessings from our loving God. Dignity Detroit’s work helps save many people from shame, and many families from the kinds of divisions that used to be the rule among Catholics. Our ministry literally saves lives.”
For Battersby, however, the possibility of confusion about holiness is also a paramount issue.
“As we endeavor to provide a culture of empathy and understanding throughout the Archdiocese according to the light of the Gospel, it is essential that the Church not seem to condone Dignity Detroit’s competing vision for growth in holiness,” he said in his letter to priests.
He asked the priests to refrain from offering Mass for Dignity Detroit members anywhere in the archdiocese “lest we confuse the faithful by seeming to endorse an alternative and contradictory path to sanctity.”
While the bishop did not go into detail about the history of Dignity Detroit chapter or its national organization, Dignity USA has called for major changes in the Church and has been backed by major, politically powerful LGBT organizations.
In 2015 Dignity USA called for same-sex unions to be blessed as sacramental marriages in the Catholic Church, a position far at the fringes of historic Christianity. It also advocated for the ordination to the priesthood of women, those of same-sex sexual orientation, and those of variant gender identity. The Church has never recognized the ordination of women as valid and has explicitly barred the ordination of men with deep-seated homosexual tendencies.
Dignity USA’s annual convention in 2015 included as a keynote speaker the pornographic sex columnist Dan Savage, a critic of monogamy and of Benedict XVI.
As of March 20 the Dignity Detroit website publicized a Mass held every Sunday night at Sacred Heart Chapel of Marygrove College. The private graduate college was run by the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary until December 2019, when it announced its closure.
Dignity Detroit said that the chapel is still open despite the college’s closure, though it is unclear whether this information has been updated in light of new closures and other precautions since the coronavirus pandemic began to dominate U.S. life.
The bishop commended Dignity Detroit’s outreach to the poor. However, he said the group’s rejection of Church teaching on chastity is “incompatible with the path of sanctification on which Christ bids his Church to travel and is at odds with the important work of the Courage and EnCourage apostolates.”
Courage is a Catholic apostolate intended for people with same-sex attraction who want to live according to Church teaching. EnCourage is a partner apostolate for parents and families of Courage members.
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of Dignity USA, said almost all Dignity chapters have been expelled from Catholic space. As far back as the 1970s and 1980s Catholic priests were barred from serving Dignity chapters.
“There are few experiences as devastating as being kicked out of your family home and being told you are not worthy of being fed,” she said.
Duddy-Burke said Dignity USA is supporting the Detroit chapter during the controversy.
Bishop Battersby said he has communicated the problems with Dignity with “respect and genuine affection” for the membership. He has extended to them a “heartfelt invitation” to “join us in our missionary efforts to promote the New Evangelization and to participate in a ministry to the same-sex attracted that is faithful to the teachings of Christ’s Church.”
He said such a step is needed as part of the “missionary pivot” underway in the Archdiocese of Detroit, following its 2016 archdiocesan synod and Archbishop Allen Vigneron’s pastoral letter “Unleash the Gospel.”
“As we seek to leave no one behind in our missionary transformation and to help everyone entrusted to our care find salvation, please know that your support for the Courage and EnCourage apostolates, your prayers, and your pastoral concern for the men and women of Dignity Detroit, are greatly appreciated and will surely bear fruit for the kingdom of God.”
Bishop Battersby, who has been an auxiliary bishop since January 2017, discussed why the matter wasn’t previously addressed. He said he presumed it was addressed in a pastoral approach applying the principle of the “law of graduality.”
While Bishop Battersby did not expand on his meaning, such approaches generally refer to accommodating individuals’ or groups’ gradual growth towards the fullness of morality and living a more consistent Christian life.
“No matter how you view that earlier approach, I pray that you recognize the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the present decision,” he told the archdiocese’s priests.
Bishop Battersby spoke in his role as the archbishop’s delegate for the pastoral implementation of the synod action step dedicated to providing “resources for developing a culture of empathy and understanding throughout the Archdiocese, according to the light of the Gospel” so that people who experience “the challenges of gender identity and same sex attraction will find support for growing as a human person in the virtue of Christ–like chastity.” The action step is numbered 3.3B2 in Vigneron’s pastoral letter.
As CNA has previously reported, Dignity USA has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants from wealthy LGBT funders to support the Equally Blessed Coalition, which currently includes the dissenting Catholic groups Dignity USA, New Ways Ministry, and Call to Action.
Funding has come from the Arcus Foundation, founded by the billionaire heir Jon Stryker, who is not Catholic. Its U.S. strategy includes funding Christian groups which work for pro-LGBT doctrinal change within their denominations. It has funded groups in other Christian communities, including Episcopalian groups and Methodist groups, before and during their churches’ global fracturing over issues such as ecclesial authority and homosexuality.
Darren Walker, president of the deeply influential Ford Foundation, was a longtime board member of the foundation.
A 2014 grant of $200,000 supported Dignity USA and the Equally Blessed Coalition “to support pro-LGBT faith advocates to influence and counter the narrative of the Catholic Church and its ultra-conservative affiliates,” grant listings from the foundation showed. The effort was linked to the Catholic Church’s Synod on the Family and World Youth Day
In 2012 the Equally Blessed Coalition issued a report attacking the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Knights of Columbus for their work to maintain the legal definition of marriage as a union of one man and one woman. The report’s funders included the LGBT advocacy leader the Human Rights Campaign.
Caraveli, Peru, Mar 20, 2020 / 05:48 pm (CNA).- A Peruvian bishop has rescinded permission for priests of his diocese to hear confessions by telephone, just five days after authorizing them to do so.
Bishop Reinhold Nann of the Diocese of Caravell, Peru said March 15 that priests of his diocese could hear sacramental confessions by telephone, in light of the coronavirus pandemic, and obligatory social isolation in Peru. Nann added that no public Masses or religious services could take place in his diocese.
On Friday, however, the bishop announced that the possibility of confessions by telephone “is annulled” in light of Vatican guidance on the subject of confession issued earlier the same day.
That guidance called for “prudent measures to be adopted in the individual celebration of sacramental reconciliation, such as the celebration in a ventilated place outside the confessional, the adoption of a convenient distance, [and] the use of protective masks.”
The guidance “did not make mention of confession on the telephone,” Nann said, which is why he had rescinded the possibility.
Earlier this week, Fr. James Bradley, an assistant professor of canon law at The Catholic University of America, criticized the idea that confession could be offered through the telephone. “The nature of confession, like all the sacraments, involves a personal and ecclesial encounter with Jesus Christ, who is the Word made Flesh. A virtual reality can never replace the reality of the incarnation. We can deepen our faith through watching a livestream of Mass, but we all know: it’s not the same as being physically present,” Bradley told CNA.
The canon lawyer also noted secondary concerns which should be considered when discussing new or adapted forms of sacramental ministry.
“There are also practical issues that relate to the nature of the sacrament of confession. A telephone call or online meeting raises serious concerns about privacy, anonymity, and safeguarding,” Bradley said.
Fr. Thomas Weinandy, OFM Cap, a member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission, also told CNA that “physical presence is absolutely needed for the validity of the enactment of the sacrament.”
“The reason I say that is because the sacrament is the action of Christ performed by the minister, and for that action to take place, the priest and the penitent must be in communion with one another, in a physical manner.”
Weinandy told CNA that confession is an “interpersonal exchange.” The physical presence of confessor and penitent point to the significance of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.
“The sacraments flow from the Incarnation, and because of that, there has to be a bodily presence of the one who is enacting the sacrament, and the one who is receiving the sacrament. They’re doing the sacrament together,” Weinandy said.
“The Incarnation sets the framework for the sacramental order. Sacraments by their very nature, are incarnational signs that effect what they symbolize and symbolize what they effect, and one must be a part of that sign and reality to participate in the sacrament,” he said.
In the 17th century, the Church declared that confession by letter would be invalid. More recently, in 2011, papal spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, responded to the proposition that sacramental confession might one day take place by iPhone app.
“It is essential to understand well that the sacrament of penance requires necessarily the rapport of personal dialogue between penitent and confessor and absolution by the present confessor,” Lombardi said at the time.
One cannot speak in any way of ‘confession by iPhone,’” Lombardi added.
Priests in some parts of the world have devised creative ways to offer the sacrament of confession during the pandemic, among them “drive-up” confessionals and confession through a rectory window.
ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, contributed to this report.
Vatican City, Mar 20, 2020 / 05:03 pm (CNA).- The pontifical science academies issued a health statement Friday encouraging world leaders to make adjustments to short- and long-term responses to the coronavirus.
The statement was released March 20 by … […]
In the late 1990s, a professor of mine rather off-handedly recommended one of those books that has stayed with me: Josef Pieper’s superlative Leisure: The Basis of Culture (which Ignatius Press has rightly kept in […]
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