St. Maximilian Kolbe, pictured just prior to his arrest on Feb. 17, 1941. / Church in Poland
Denver Newsroom, Feb 18, 2022 / 16:15 pm (CNA).
On Thursday, the Catholic Church in Poland shared a photo commemorating the 81th anniversary of St. Maximilian Kolbe’s arrest by the Nazis. The image, the last one taken of the saint before his final arrest, was notable for what it didn’t show…Kolbe’s signature long beard.
By the time the photo was taken, Kolbe had already been arrested by the Nazis once, but was clearly resolved to continue his nationwide evangelization efforts. The monastery he had established at Niepokalanów, 25 miles west of Warsaw, had become a major Catholic publishing center.
The beard with which Kolbe is often pictured is notable for several reasons, one of which was the fact that not many of his Franciscan counterparts in Poland sported them. He shaved his signature beard in order to blend in with his fellow Franciscans, and with society at large.
St. Maximilian Kolbe. Wikimedia Commons/CNA
The second reason is that Kolbe’s beard is the only first-class relic that exists of him. The rest of his body was incinerated in the ovens of Auschwitz after he was murdered by the Nazis in 1941.
Father James McCurry, a Conventual Franciscan and minister provincial of the Our Lady of the Angels Province, gave a homily in 2016 commemorating the 75th anniversary of Kolbe’s martyrdom in which he mentioned the saint’s beard.
McCurry, author of the book “Maximilian Kolbe: Martyr of Charity,” said that Kolbe chose to keep the beard upon his return from six years of missionary work in Japan. In those days, it was customary for missionaries to grow long beards, and Kolbe wanted to keep it as a reminder of his missionary days, and as a reminder to always be a “missionary” of the Gospel.
McCurry said Kolbe’s beard made him unusual among his Conventual Franciscan counterparts, who generally did not wear them. Kolbe’s fame was spreading among Poland thanks to his publishing work, and his unique beard helped him to stand out all the more.
It was for this reason that Kolbe eventually, after the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland, made the decision to shave it, McCurry said, so as not to stand out. Kolbe’s founding of the Militia Immaculata (MI), an evangelization movement identifying with Mary, put him high on Nazi watchlists.
One book on his life offers this quote from the saint: “Beards provoke the enemy who rapidly is approaching our friary. Our Franciscan habits also will provoke him. I can part with my beard. I can’t sacrifice my habit.”
After a fellow brother cut off Kolbe’s beard for him, the brother at first tried to save the beard, but Kolbe objected, and told him to throw it in the stove. So, obediently, the brother threw it into the stove, but the fire was not lit, so the brother later retrieved it and stored it in a pickle jar.
Today, Kolbe’s beard is his only surviving first-class relic.
Father McCurry was also a friend of Franciszek Gajowniczek, the man for whom Kolbe laid down his life at Auschwitz in late July 1941, following his arrest on Feb. 17.
Gajowniczek was one of the ten men selected to be executed in reprisal for one prisoner’s escape from the barracks. He cried out, “What will happen to my wife and children?” And in response, Father Kolbe stepped forward and offered to take his place. The ten were placed, naked, in a starvation chamber.
All ten of those condemned that day died eventually; six starved, and the deaths of the rest, including Father Kolbe, were hastened by an injection of carbolic acid.
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Schoolchildren in Tigray, Ethiopia, eat biscuits and tea provided by Mary’s Meals. / Copyright Mary’s Meals
St. Louis, Mo., Sep 3, 2023 / 05:00 am (CNA).
A Catholic charity providing thousands of free meals daily to schoolchildren in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, recently resumed operations after a brutal civil war precluded it from its mission for almost three years.
Since 2017, Mary’s Meals has worked with the Daughters of Charity in Tigray to bring food to schoolchildren there. Pre-2020 they fed an estimated 24,000 children a day, but the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent commencement of the country’s devastating civil war halted the program. Mary’s Meals had every intention of reopening in the fall of 2020 following COVID, but the start of the conflict precluded those plans.
“It was really heartbreaking to see that what we were expecting to be quite a joyous occasion in terms of the resumption of school feeding, children being welcomed back into schools and being able to return to what must have felt a bit more like normal life, suddenly being decimated by this terrible conflict,” Alex Keay, director of programs at Mary’s Meals International, told CNA.
Schoolchildren in Tigray, Ethiopia, eat biscuits and tea provided by Mary’s Meals. Copyright Mary’s Meals
Today, as of late August, Mary’s Meals is able to serve high-energy biscuits and hot tea to approximately 10,000 children in 14 schools. Over the next few months, the group says, its program and menu will be expanded as cooking facilities that were destroyed or looted in the fighting are replaced.
Keay called the resumption of the food distribution a “joyous occasion.”
“We’ve been able to restart school feeding just in the last couple of weeks. And more of those schools will be reopening and we will be able to get food to those schools, and we would like to be able to reach even more schools. We know the need is there,” Keay said, speaking from Mary’s Meals’ home country of Scotland.
“These school meals that we’re providing are a critical lifeline at this time, but also they are enabling the children to return to school after more than a three-year absence.”
A refugee camp in Tigray, Ethiopia. Copyright Mary’s Meals
Widespread starvation has been reported recently in Tigray, especially since U.N. and U.S. food aid has been disrupted in recent months due to revelations of corruption. Overall, more than 20 million people in Ethiopia rely on food assistance. A persistent drought has made food scarcity even worse. According to reports from the region, many mothers giving birth at local hospitals in Tigray have been unable to breastfeed due to their own hunger, and many malnourished children “near death” have been showing up at hospitals.
It is estimated that 600,000 people have died in the conflict and there are reports of ongoing violence in various parts of Tigray. Though Ethiopia is extremely diverse overall, the Tigray region is overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian, at about 96%.
Keay said Mary’s Meals is focused on providing nourishing meals for children in areas where access to education is limited. The logistics are challenging, and the on-the-ground help of the Daughters of Charity is vital, he said.
“They would sooner give away the food in their cupboard than have people come to their door hungry with nothing,” Keay said of the religious sisters.
“Our model is a low-cost model, but I think a very efficient model whereby the community is taking a strong ownership and a really strong part in making sure that those programs operate successfully,” he added. “So they’ll be the ones that manage the local preparation of the meals, they’ll organize the volunteer cooks to come every day to cook the food and to make sure that every child that comes to that school gets fed. And then our role is that we’ll provide the food, the training, the monitoring, and the support to those communities so that that food is in the right place at the right time and that the children will all be fed.”
Schoolchildren in Tigray, Ethiopia, eat biscuits and tea provided by Mary’s Meals. Copyright Mary’s Meals
Schools provide a “beacon of hope” in an otherwise hope-starved country, and providing free meals at the schools helps to provide an incentive for students to get educated, he said. Major challenges remain, though, as many of the schools themselves have been shelled and looted amid the conflict.
“The children came with a lot of energy and a lot of passion for education, a lot of determination to really engage in their schools and to try and get the best from their education. And we certainly see that in terms of the … high attendance rates … once school feeding had started. That’s not uncommon for us to see that all of a sudden more children are encouraged to go to school,” Keay continued, drawing on his own experience visiting the country this year.
“The amazing thing is that the children were already coming back to those schools even though there was no furniture to sit on. Many of the teachers are still not back in their posts. A lot of the classrooms are actually damaged, the walls are damaged, or there’s holes in the ceiling. But the children are already coming back to those schools and are really, I guess, leading by example in their communities in terms of trying to get the schools back up and running.”
A destroyed school building in Tigray, Ethiopia. Copyright Mary’s Meals
The conflict in Tigray stemmed in part from the outsized role the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the primary political party representing the region, has played in recent decades in national politics in Ethiopia despite Tigrayans’ status as an ethnic minority. The political coalition that the TPLF led was dissolved in 2018 by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed after he took office. The coalition’s ethnicity-based regional parties were merged into a single party, the Prosperity Party, which the TPLF refused to join. Tigrayan leaders have said they were unfairly targeted by political purges and allegations of corruption.
On Nov. 4, 2020, Abiy announced a military offensive in response to an alleged attack on a military base in Mekelle, the capital of Tigray. The conflict soon escalated into an all-out civil war in which mass atrocities have been reported. Eritrea, Ethiopia’s neighbor to the north and former adversary, joined the side of the Ethiopian government early in the conflict. Some have accused Abiy’s government of ethnic cleansing.
For much of the war, Tigray was under blockade by the Ethiopian government, which halted all humanitarian aid and forbade aid workers and media from entering the region. The Ethiopian government and the TPLF signed a peace deal brokered by the African Union (AU) in November 2022, bringing the war to an end on paper.
A damaged school building in Tigray, Ethiopia. Copyright Mary’s Meals
The needs in Tigray over the past few years have been largely overshadowed by other major world events, such as the war in Ukraine. Keay said it is important that people take notice of the “huge, devastating humanitarian situation” in Tigray.
“Tigray is a place that for the most part, people will be familiar with for probably quite negative reasons. There’s been terrible famines in that part of Africa, and a lot of those images, I think, have stuck in a lot of people’s minds. But it’s a very beautiful part of the world, with a real strong sense of identity and culture for the Tigrian people. They’re very distinctive in their culture, the way people dress. And there’s been a lot of work in that part of Ethiopia in recent years around development, and really a lot of progress has been made,” Keay said.
The brutal war, Keay said, has “really set back the development that’s been happening in Tigray.”
“From a state that was really blossoming and a lot of really positive things were happening in terms of sustainable food being grown for the communities … to a situation where the vast majority of Tigrayans are now dependent on food, hand out food aid to be able to survive. And it’s going to take a long time, I think, to repair that damage.”
Schoolchildren in Tigray, Ethiopia, eat biscuits and tea provided by Mary’s Meals. Copyright Mary’s Meals
The BBC reported earlier this month that at least 1,400 people have starved to death in Tigray since food assistance from the U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP), the global humanitarian organization addressing food security, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was suspended about four months ago. The suspension came about after it was revealed by Tigrayan authorities that nearly 500 people had been stealing the food, including government officials and nongovernmental organization staff.
Keay said that from an accountability standpoint, the Daughters of Charity have developed a very “transparent and accountable system that meant that the food was being put directly into [needy people’s] hands.”
“Other organizations were having to suspend their programs because of concerns about food not getting to those that it was intended to. But it was very clear when we were there and being on the ground, seeing the food being distributed, that it is really possible to be able to put the food directly into the hands of those that we’re trying to serve,” he noted.
Mary’s Meals now operates in 18 countries, after its founding in Malawi in 2002. Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, a Catholic and founder and CEO of Mary’s Meals, was declared a “CNN Hero” in 2010 and has also been awarded the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth for his work. The organization says it feeds 2.4 million children every day throughout the 18 countries where it is present, with the largest share of those children in Malawi.
Pope Francis has repeatedly called for peace in Tigray. In 2021, after his weekly Angelus, the pope prayed a Hail Mary for the people of the Tigray region.
Washington D.C., Mar 18, 2020 / 04:35 pm (CNA).- As much of the world faces quarantines, social distancing, and “shelter in place” orders amid the coronavirus pandemic, Catholics have faced unexpected challenges in accessing – and offering – the sacraments of the Church.
Catholics in some places impacted by the pandemic have learned that the sacrament of confession – the remedy for sin and a conduit of God’s mercy – has become rather difficult to find.
The sacrament of penance requires a number of practical conditions. The penitent must make a manifestation of sins to a priest acting in the person of Christ, express true contrition and resolve to sin no more. It also requires the conferral of absolution – forgiveness, from the priest, according to the sacramental formula of the Church. And a valid sacramental confession requires that all of those things happen in one place, the Church has long taught.
But as the pandemic continues, and social prohibitions grow stricter, some Catholics are wondering why they can’t confess their sins virtually – over the phone, via text, or on Skype.
Father James Bradley, assistant professor of canon law at The Catholic University of America, told CNA that the coronavirus epidemic had created a new kind of pastoral urgency which many bishops and priests are trying to meet.
He told CNA on Wednesday that “the pastoral needs of the faithful,” have to be met “especially in this extraordinary time,” and that pastors are seeking new approaches to deliver spiritual care, including the sacraments.
“Canon law is clear: the faithful have a right to the sacraments, and the Church’s ministers should do all they can to provide them.”
Bradley noted the importance of online resources for Catholics. But he cautioned that innovation in ministry must be coupled with an understanding and respect for the nature of the sacraments.
“Digital communications can and do assist people in deepening their faith, especially through catechesis and formation,” he said. “We see wonderful examples of the internet as a tool for evangelization. We can appreciate this all the more in the present crisis, with dioceses and parishes encouraging and supporting their people through online ministries.”
“At the same time, the nature of the sacraments is not simply juridical. The law governs the celebration of the sacraments, but it does so by reason of the nature of the sacraments themselves.”
“The Pontifical Council for Social Communications puts it clearly: ‘Virtual reality is no substitute for the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the sacramental reality of the other sacraments, and shared worship in a flesh-and-blood human community. There are no sacraments on the Internet; and even the religious experiences possible there by the grace of God are insufficient apart from real-world interaction with other persons of faith.’”
Bradley told CNA that there are limits to what can be done online.
“Some laws regarding the sacraments are flexible, for instance the norm of hearing confessions in a church or oratory. Others are not, for instance that absolution requires a validly ordained priest,” he said.
Father Giorgio Giovanelli, a professor of canon law at Rome’s Pontifical Lateran University, told Catholic News Service this week that he believes confession could take place over the phone, if Pope Francis would extend his permission.
“Some would object that the priest must be present. OK. That’s the kind of thing people would say in the 1980s, but the development of technology has allowed us to have other kinds of presence,” the priest told Catholic News Service.
“Am I less present by telephone? Virtual presence is real. Who could say that the celebrative dimension of the sacrament in these very particular, narrowly defined situations is lacking?” he asked.
But Bradley told CNA that innovative approaches to ministry have to be grounded in the Church’s teaching. Underpinning canon law, he said, is the essential theology of the sacraments, often rooted in a necessary person-to-person encounter.
“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.”
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, told CNA that “physical presence is absolutely 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 said that all sacraments involve a physical dimension. In marriage, that dimension is expressed in the sexual union of husband and wife. In other sacraments, it is expressed in the rites and rituals themselves, he said.
“You can’t baptize someone who’s not actually present, you can’t participate in the sacrifice of the Mass — a priest can’t confect the Eucharist— without being physically present,” the theologian added.
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.
“Even in the Old Testament, Moses had to be in front of the burning bush to know he was in the presence of God,” Weinandy 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. While the Church is not going to change the essential elements of the sacrament, Weinandy said, creative pastoral ministry will find new and creative ways to extend the gift of God’s mercy.
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