Cardinal Gregory: Beatitudes teach us to ‘respect and love’ all human life

Denver Newsroom, Aug 18, 2020 / 12:00 am (CNA).-  

A Texas diocese has launched a series of parenting workshops to help moms and dads create a better family life for their children.

The Diocese of Victoria will soon roll out the “Be an Amazing Parent” series of online workshops, offered on the evenings of Aug. 19, Aug. 26 and Sept. 2.

Each workshop will address a unique aspect of the family structure, including healthy marriages, family communication, and household environment. The workshop was helped shaped by a diocese-wide survey answered by parishioners who described an interest in more parental resources, especially during the pandemic.

Justin Reyes, Director for the Office of Family Evangelization in the Diocese of Victoria, said the goal of the initiative is to “give families hope during this time” of COVID-19 and “to help parents see themselves as the ones God has put to be the parents for their children.”

“We are called to be an amazing parent and only we can do it for our kids, no one else is going to do it. We are going to give them some practical tips and advice that will help them … but also build a community,” Reyes told CNA.

When Reyes began his position last year, he issued a survey to parishioners asking what needs the diocese could help with. The responses mostly centered on parenting.

The top three challenges parents described facing were demanding schedules, overuse of technology, and financial hardships.

“One hope that I have is helping families think about priorities will help them slow down a little bit and then see what’s really important and then spend their money accordingly,” he said.

“In today’s consumer culture, [people are] trying to keep up with the Joneses …. but [we want to] help families slow down and a [see] what’s most important is the mission right in your home.”

So far, around 20 or 25 Catholics couples have signed up for the workshops, which will be hosted in interactive online sessions.

The sessions are the beginning of the diocese’s parenting outreach, which will continue with  regular follow-up sessions, where parents can connect, first virtually and then in person. The diocese hopes those sessions will be an opportunity for parents to build a community so they can exchange resources and share advice.

The first session, “Marriage: The Core of Parenting,” will address how investing in a healthy marriage can provide a strong base and foundation for raising children.

The hosts for the workshop will include Fr. Gary Janak, who is a licensed professional counselor, and Laura and Justin Reyes, who will offer insights and examples from their own marriage.

“We’re planning on talking about keys for a healthy marriage,” he said. “My wife and I are going to share testimonies from our own lives.”

“Fr. Gary is going to speak from the role of counseling … because he meets with couples very often and has actually developed a marriage retreat … It is a really wonderful program that helps marriages go from good to great.”

In the second session, Ashley Silvas and Valeria Dubourdieu, counselors at the diocesan Emmaus Center, will lead the workshop “Communicating with Your Children,” a topic that is especially important during the pandemic, said Reyes.

“Ashley really wants to go talk about the coronavirus and how it’s affecting children, how they’re expressing their feelings and emotions differently. One of the things that Ashley talks about is if [children] are stressed out, they’re not showing it in the same way. Then [kids are] picking up [ques] from their parents, the way parents are reacting to things.”

A final workshop in the series, “Creating a Family Culture,” will include presentations from several families, who will discuss their experiences establishing a Catholic culture in the home. Thes couples will be introduced by Reyes as if in a talk show format.

“[Each] family is going to come up one at a time and share a little bit about themselves, their journeys, and the culture they are trying to instill, [which] they are basing off the three cardinal virtues of faith, hope, and love.

“They Flynns, they have seven kids and they are going to talk about hope,” he said. “The mom, Michelle, she prayed the rosary every day …and each day was for a different child. So they had the faith and the hope that their families stayed united … and the other hope of the rosary is that God remains in their lives.”

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Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, under whose canonical authority the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius are. / Daniel IbanezCNA

Springfield, Ill., Jan 26, 2022 / 17:32 pm (CNA).
The Diocese of Springfield in Illinois has instituted regulations… […]

CNA Staff, Sep 18, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- What do St. Thomas More, St. John Paul II, and Dag Hammarskjöld have in common?

According to a new course by the International Catholic Legislators Network, they all modeled the beatitudes in their roles as political and religious leaders.

In the second part of online classes for Catholic and other Christian political leaders, ICLN is studying these three men for their course “The Virtues Practiced by Great Statesmen who Changed the World.”

“What these remarkable leaders had in common was that they were Christians first, and all else followed from this that constituted their core identity,” the ICLN said in a statement about the course.

“The times in which they lived and fruitfully worked in the service of God and their fellow human beings were no less challenging than the conflict-ridden and confused world in which we live today,” the ICLN stated. “Thus, they offer concrete answers and useful suggestions for what it takes to be a faithful and highly effective Christian leader in public office in secular society today.”

St. Thomas More was a 15th century lawyer, author, and statesman who lost his life opposing Henry VIII’s plan to subordinate the Church to the English monarchy.

More’s eventual martyrdom would come as a consequence of Henry VIII’s own tragic downfall. The king wanted a declaration of nullity of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, a marriage that Clement VII declared to be valid. More refused, and was eventually imprisoned and killed for refusing to accept Henry VIII’s new marriage to Anne Boleyn and for rejecting his attempt at seizing control of the Church. In the ICLN course, More will be studied for modeling the virtues of humility and righteousness, according to the course outline.

Dag Hammarskjöld is the second statesmen to be studied in the course. Hammarskjöld, a Swedish diplomat, served as the Secretary General for the United Nations from 1953-1961. He was known for being a deeply religious man who led with integrity and a strong peacekeeping ability. “From scholars and clergymen on my mother’s side, I inherited a belief that, in the very radical sense of the Gospels, all men were equals as children of God, and should be met and treated by us as our masters in God,” he said in a radio program in 1953.

Hammarskjöld died under mysterious circumstances in a plane crash in 1961 while on a peacekeeping mission to what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Initial investigations said the cause of the crash was likely pilot error, while subsequent investigations have said that the plane may have been attacked or compromised. The ICLN course noted that Hammarskjöld will be studied as someone who modeled the beatitudes of being “pure in heart” and a “peacemaker.”

St. John Paul II is the third statesmen that the ICLN will study, as someone who modeled the virtues of “courage under persecution and suffering”, as well as mercy. As a young seminarian, St. John Paul II (then Karol Wojtyla) lived through Nazi rule of Poland in World War II. As a priest, bishop, and cardinal, he worked peacefully to oppose the anti-religious communist rule in Poland. Once he became pope in 1978, besides leading the Catholic Church for more than 25 years, John Paul II was a key leader in bringing about a peaceful end to communist rule in eastern Europe.

Dr. Christiaan Alting von Geusau, J.D., LL.M, will be the instructor for the ICLN course. Catholic and Christian political leaders who wish to participate in the course may register online. The course will be held for 50 minutes each Thursday, and participants may participate in the live-streamed course or through saved recordings of the course.

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