Bishop Tomé Ferreira da Silva, who resigned as Bishop of São José do Rio Preto Aug. 18, 2021. Credit: Diocese de São José do Rio Preto via Facebook.
Sao Jose do Rio Preto, Brazil, Aug 18, 2021 / 16:01 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis accepted the resignation of the Bishop of São José do Rio Preto on Wednesday, five days after a sexually explicit video of the bishop was shared on the internet.
Bishop Tomé Ferreira da Silva, 60, led the Diocese of São José do Rio Preto from November 16, 2012, until Aug. 18. His resignation was announced by the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil.
“The Apostolic Nunciature informs that the Holy Father accepted the request today of resignation from the pastoral government of the Diocese of São José do Rio Preto, presented by His Excellency,” said the CNBB’s statement.
The statement was signed by Bishop Joel Portella Amado, an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of S. Sebastião of Rio de Janeiro and secretary general of the CNBB.
Archbishop Moacir Silva of Ribeirão Preto was named the apostolic administrator of the Diocese of São José do Rio Preto.
On Aug. 13, a minute-long video of Bishop Ferreira da Silva on a video call with another man began making the rounds on social media. In the video the bishop, wearing a striped polo shirt, is seen masturbating.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that masturbation “is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action” and that “the deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.”
Bishop Ferreira da Silva reportedly told the Brazilian network Globo that he is the person in the video, and he believed that its release was an act of revenge porn by someone with whom he lives. He told Brazilian media that he would be speaking to his attorney as well as Brazil’s state police force to determine how the video was released.
This is not Bishop Ferreira da Silva’s first brush with controversy, and he has been investigated multiple times by the Vatican for alleged sexual misconduct or for covering up sexual misconduct.
In 2015, he was accused of having a romantic relationship with his driver. Three years later, the diocese was investigated amid reports that the bishop had failed to investigate reports of abuse. He further was accused of sending sexually explicit messages to an adolescent.
Bishop Ferreira da Silva denied all charges.
The disgraced bishop had been ordained a priest of the Diocese of Campanha in 1987, and in 2005 he was consecrated a bishop. He served as auxiliary bishop of São Paulo until his appointment to São José do Rio Preto in 2012.
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Father Patrick Hughes shows how to make a traditional St. Brigid’s Cross in County Cavan, Ireland. / Credit; Courtney Mares/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Feb 1, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Ireland on Thursday is celebrating the 1,500th anniversary of the death of St. Brigid of Kildare, the Emerald Isle’s female patron saint.
St. Brigid (c. 453–524 A.D.) is credited with pioneering female monastic life in Ireland. Her feast is celebrated on Feb. 1, which became an annual public bank holiday across Ireland last year in her honor.
“St. Brigid was a huge figure of authority in the early Church, baptized by St. Patrick, professed by St. Mel, spiritual adviser to St. Conleth,” Bishop Denis Nulty of Kildare and Leighlin said at a Mass ahead of her feast.
Ireland’s Kildare County has organized lectures, pilgrimages, and many activities in its Brigid 1500 Program to mark the anniversary, including a workshop on how to weave a St. Brigid’s Cross — St. Brigid’s most enduring symbol.
A St. Brigid’s cross is traditionally made out of rushes or reeds freshly pulled from the ground.
Father Patrick Joseph Hughes, a country priest in County Cavan, can make a St. Brigid’s cross from rushes in a matter of minutes.
Hughes told CNA that the story that has been handed down over the years is that St. Brigid was trying to explain to the local chieftain, who did not believe in God, that Jesus was his savior and died on a cross for him. The chieftain did not understand, so she made a cross out of rushes from the ground and presented it to him: “‘Look,’ she said, ‘that’s a cross, and Jesus was stretched out on that for the world.’”
On the eve of the Feast of Saint Brigid, it is tradition in Ireland to make a St. Brigid’s Cross out of rushes.
Last year while we were filming in Ireland, Father Patrick Hughes gave us a quick demonstration of how to make one.
St. Brigid’s Catholic Church in Kildare will kick off the feast day on Feb. 1 with a Mass at 9:15 a.m. offered by Bishop Nulty.
The bishop recently installed St. Brigid’s relics in St. Brigid’s Catholic Church on Jan. 29 as part of the 1,500th anniversary celebrations.
The relics were taken from the bone fragment of St. Brigid’s head, which has been kept in St. John the Baptist Church in Lumiar, Portugal, since three Irish knights brought it there in 1273. The Portuguese church gave the relic to the Brigidine Sisters in Tullow, Ireland, in the 1930s, and they recently gifted it to St. Brigid’s in Kildare.
“Today we have brought her home,” Nulty said. “Obtaining the relic of a saint like Brigid is no easy feat. I visited Lumiar in October 2021 with the singular intention of securing a relic for St. Brigid’s Church. I was privileged then to hold the relic of her head, which is contained in a splendid brass casket. Sadly, I couldn’t squeeze it into my Ryan Air flight bag!”
Notably, the Catholic bishop and female Anglican leaders will also come together for an ecumenical service at 11 a.m. on the feast day at the historic St. Brigid’s Cathedral, built on the site of the ancient hilltop where St. Brigid founded her monastery in the year 480 A.D. The previously Catholic cathedral, consecrated in 1230, is now an Anglican cathedral.
The service will be followed by a “pause for peace,” a minute of silent prayer for peace. St. Brigid was known as a peacemaker. Among the many stories told about St. Brigid, local tradition holds that Brigid gave away her father’s sword in exchange for food for a family suffering from hunger.
The fifth-century abbess St. Brigid is one of Ireland’s three patron saints, along with St. Patrick and St. Columba. Most historians place her birth around the year 450, near the end of St. Patrick’s evangelistic mission.
St. Brigid. Credit: Octave 444, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
It is notoriously hard to establish the historical details of Brigid’s life, but according to one of the more credible biographies of Brigid — Hugh de Blacam’s essay in “The Saints of Ireland” — Brigid was born out of wedlock to a pagan chieftain named Dubthach and a Christian slave woman named Broicsech. The chieftain sold the child’s pregnant mother to a new master but contracted for Brigid to be returned to him eventually.
Brigid was likely baptized as an infant and raised as a Catholic by her mother. Thus, she was well formed in the faith before leaving Broicsech’s slave quarters at around age 10 to live with Dubthach and his wife.
After this, Brigid’s faith grew immensely. She gave generously to the poor and tended to the sick. One story says Brigid once gave away her mother’s entire store of butter, which was later replenished after Brigid prayed.
Once she was released from servitude, she was expected to marry. However, Brigid had no interest in marrying. She went so far as to disfigure her own face and prayed that her beauty be taken from her so no one would want to marry her. Because she refused to change her mind about marriage, she received permission to enter religious life.
Brigid, along with seven friends, is credited with organizing communal consecrated religious life for women in Ireland.
In 480, Brigid founded her monastery in Kildare, which was called “Church of the Oak.” The monastery sat on top of a shrine to a Celtic goddess. Throughout the rest of her life, she established several monasteries across Ireland.
Brigid rooted her life as a nun in prayer, but she also performed substantial manual labor: cloth making, dairy farming, and raising sheep. She also spent time traveling across Ireland founding new houses and building up a uniquely Irish form of monasticism. When she was not traveling, pilgrims made their way to Kildare, seeking the advice of the abbess.
“What were the character traits that defined St. Brigid of Kildare? To mention just a few, she was hospitable, she was a peacemaker, she was a strong woman of faith,” Nulty said.
Children’s Hospital Colorado announced that it is halting “gender-affirming” surgeries. / Thechildrenshospital|Wikimedia|CC BY-SA 3.0
Denver, Colo., Jul 26, 2023 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
Children’s Hospital Colorado will stop performing purported “gender-affirming” surgeries on patients aged 18 years and older, citing an “unprecedented” number of referrals and a need to focus on pediatric patients.
The surgeries involved “chest reconstruction,” the Denver Post reported. The procedures remove breast tissue to create a masculine appearance for women who identify as men. Staff are now referring prospective surgery patients to other hospitals.
The hospital said it has not performed such surgeries on patients under age 18, though it continues to provide puberty blockers and hormones and other services that aim to affirm the self-identified gender of some patients.
“We have been receiving unprecedented referrals for gender-affirming care, and in order to continue delivering expert multidisciplinary care to our pediatric patients and their families, we have made the difficult decision to no longer provide gender-affirming surgical procedures for adult patients 18 years of age and older,” the hospital told CNA in a statement.
Though a spokesperson for Children’s Hospital Colorado told the Denver Post last week that children’s hospitals have been “directly threatened as a result of the gender-affirming care provided in their institutions,” she later told NBC News that threats to other hospitals did not drive the decision.
The hospital’s TRUE Center for Gender Diversity still provides puberty-blocking medicines, cross-sex hormone therapy, and counseling as well as referrals to other services, according to its website.
“Using puberty blockers can avoid body changes that do not align with your identity,” the TRUE Center website says. It says hormone therapy can help produce secondary sex characteristics like voice pitch and breast development “that align with your gender identity.”
Catholic ethics rejects the removal of healthy sexual organs as a form of mutilation, according to an FAQ by the National Catholic Bioethics Center. The Catholic vision of the person as a unity of body and soul means that a person cannot change his or her sexual identity.
Purported gender-affirming drugs and procedures, especially for minors, have also drawn political scrutiny, public protest, and sometimes threats.
In November 2022, the New York Times published an article questioning the use of puberty blockers, which are often presented as a safe, reversible option. There are various protocols for using the drugs, little documentation of patient outcomes, and the drugs are not government-approved for use in gender therapies.
The drugs are prescribed as early as age 8 so that self-identified transgender patients can begin cross-sex hormones at age 12 or 13. However, puberty can help clarify self-perceived gender, and patients could be making life-altering choices prematurely. Among those who have used the drugs, bone strength analysis finds that their bone growth does not fully rebound.
There are also concerns that the drugs’ interference with hormonal development could disrupt mental growth and brain development in areas such as critical thinking, sophisticated self-reflection, social skills, and problem-solving skills.
“Our team is now working with impacted adult patients to explore referrals to the many other hospitals in the region that provide this care for adults,” the hospital said in its statement. “Children’s Hospital Colorado takes a holistic approach to ensure a patient’s mental and physical needs surrounding their gender identity and expression are met.”
An unnamed woman whose child was seeking to schedule chest reconstruction at Children’s Hospital Colorado after turning 18 this fall spoke about the changes to The Denver Post.
Before they could schedule the surgery her child’s primary care physician and a psychologist had to evaluate the child’s physical health and ability to make a decision about the procedure. Health insurers also had to agree to pay for the procedure.
She said her child has now been referred to the University of Colorado Hospital’s surgery center. She told the Denver Post the whole process has to restart, thwarting her child’s goal of finishing the surgery before leaving for college next year.
Colorado is the first state to define gender-affirming care as an essential health benefitand requires coverage of it in individual plans and small group plans, according to the website of the Division of Insurance at the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. Colorado’s Medicaid program will streamline the process to provide people on Medicaid access to the drugs and surgeries on Aug. 30, 9 News reported.
An October 2022 Reuters report on children seeking gender care said 776 U.S. patients aged 13 to 17 with a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis underwent mastectomies from 2019 to 2021. This figure, compiled by health technology company Komodo Health Inc., was based on insurance claims data and did not include procedures paid for out of pocket. Genital surgeries were performed on another 56 patients in this time period.
The procedure is uncommon for patients under age 18, with some hospitals and gender clinics requiring patients to be adults. The surgical procedures are irreversible and have a heightened risk of complications, Reuters reported.
At least 121,882 children ages 6 to 17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria from 2017 through 2021, Reuters said. It defined this dysphoria as the distress caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and the gender assigned to them at birth.
In the same period, at least 4,780 adolescents started on puberty blockers and at least 14,726 started hormone treatment.
At various times over the years, I have wondered if the extent of corruption and depravity in the hierarchy has been somewhat exaggerated by its worst critics. Over the past eight and a half, that thought has not occurred to me at all. The only question is whether things are really even worse than they seem.
This bishop probably represents the iceberg tip. Perhaps more apt is an image of the combustion. This bishop’s spirit reveals itself as lava spewing from the depths of hell. Death on arrival, bringing death to all in its path.
Consider the pace at which this and similar nimeities of chaos are happening. Hold fast to the Lord, all who believe. Satan’s time will run out but not before he wreaks extensive and hideous damage. Hold fast to the Lord.
Yes, but only God wields such power over the Pope. Oremus.
St. Robert Bellarmine: “Just as it is licit to resist the Pontiff who attacks the body, so also is it licit to resist him who attacks souls or destroys the civil order, or above all tries to destroy the Church. I say that it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by impeding the execution of his will; it is not licit, however, to judge him, to punish him, or despose him, for these are acts proper to a superior.”
You know, in this day & age how many of us are still not aware that obscene self-videos , photos, & messages can become public? Goodness. How can one rise to the level of bishop & not figure that out?
Astonishing to those with a sense of shame and conscience. Aquinas has a work called “De Malo.” He there suggests that the intellect and sense of the viciously corrupt are blunted and dulled. Further, I’d venture to guess that this wicked soul of ‘bishop’ da silva is so jaded that he ‘needed’ the excitement of risk in order to perform his pleasure. Kyrie Eleison.
By 
At various times over the years, I have wondered if the extent of corruption and depravity in the hierarchy has been somewhat exaggerated by its worst critics. Over the past eight and a half, that thought has not occurred to me at all. The only question is whether things are really even worse than they seem.
They are much worse than what we see.
This bishop probably represents the iceberg tip. Perhaps more apt is an image of the combustion. This bishop’s spirit reveals itself as lava spewing from the depths of hell. Death on arrival, bringing death to all in its path.
Consider the pace at which this and similar nimeities of chaos are happening. Hold fast to the Lord, all who believe. Satan’s time will run out but not before he wreaks extensive and hideous damage. Hold fast to the Lord.
Resignation is not good enough. Dust off the rite of degradation.
Michael,
Thank you for this. Catholic Culture (referencing CWR) discusses the Rite: https://www.catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=21242
Could the office of the “Rite of “Degradation’ apply to a Pope as well?
Yes, but only God wields such power over the Pope. Oremus.
St. Robert Bellarmine: “Just as it is licit to resist the Pontiff who attacks the body, so also is it licit to resist him who attacks souls or destroys the civil order, or above all tries to destroy the Church. I say that it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by impeding the execution of his will; it is not licit, however, to judge him, to punish him, or despose him, for these are acts proper to a superior.”
A tragic situation and personal betrayal of his ministry.
The public humiliation may well be crushing in some respects. He will need our prayers.
Public humiliation may very well have a salutary effect. Absent something more tangible (i.e. corporal punishment), though, it won’t be enough.
You know, in this day & age how many of us are still not aware that obscene self-videos , photos, & messages can become public? Goodness. How can one rise to the level of bishop & not figure that out?
Astonishing to those with a sense of shame and conscience. Aquinas has a work called “De Malo.” He there suggests that the intellect and sense of the viciously corrupt are blunted and dulled. Further, I’d venture to guess that this wicked soul of ‘bishop’ da silva is so jaded that he ‘needed’ the excitement of risk in order to perform his pleasure. Kyrie Eleison.