Nineteen attacks on Christians during Holy Week in Spain

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 resignat… […]

London, England, Mar 6, 2018 / 03:43 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On Tuesday, London’s Court of Appeal upheld a lower court’s decision to end life support for an ill 21-month-old boy, despite the parent’s wishes to continue treatment.

Justice Anthony Hayden of the High Court ordered two weeks ago that life support could be removed from Alfie Evans, who is stationed at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool. Hayden said that “continued ventilatory support is no longer in Alfie’s interests.”

Alfie is in a “semi-vegetable state” due to an unknown neurological degenerative condition. His parents want to transfer him to the Vatican-linked Bambino Gesu Pediatric Hospital in Rome, to receive further diagnosis and treatment.

However, the Liverpool hospital where Alfie is currently said it considered further treatment to be “futile.”

“Our aim is always to try and reach an agreement with parents about the most appropriate care plan for their child. Unfortunately there are sometimes rare situations such as this where agreement cannot be reached and the treating team believe that continued active treatment is not in a child’s best interests,” said the hospital.  

Justice Eleanor King was one of the three judges who denied the appeal on March 6 and agreed with the High Court’s previous decision.

Justice Hayden “could not have done more to ensure the father and mother had every opportunity to express their views and have them taken into consideration,” she said, according to BBC.

She said the evidence showed that the child was “deeply comatose” and “to all intents and purposes unaware of his surroundings.”

Justice King applauded Tom Evans’ passionate “fight on with Alfie’s army,” but said the father had “no clear plan.”

Evans said afterward that he would challenge the case before the Supreme Court.

“At this moment, Alfie’s not ready so we’re not ready to let go,” he said, according to the BBC.

Head of Alfie’s parents’ legal team, Barrister Stephen Knafler QC, said the state’s decision wrongly hinders “parental choice.”

The court ruling echoes a similar case last year, when England’s courts ordered Charlie Gard to be taken off life support.

At 11 months old, Gard died in July 2017 after a months-long debate regarding his parents’ right to pursue further treatment. The parents had fundraised over $1.6 million to seek experimental treatments and had received offers from European and U.S. hospitals. However, courts rejected the request to transfer him for experimental therapy.

The case drew widespread attention and outcry. Dr. Melissa Moschella, a Catholic University of America philosophy professor, disagreed with the court’s decision, telling CNA that the United Nations “clearly indicates that the parents, not the state will have primarily responsibility.”

 “It seems to me completely wrongheaded that the state should be stepping in here when the decision that the parents are making is really aimed at the best interests of the child,” Moschella said in 2017.

“It’s not crazy, it’s not abusive, it’s not neglectful. It’s the decision of parents who want to, however they can, to give their very sick child a chance for life.”

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At the end of the Mass of consecration on Nov. 1, 2023, María Ruiz Rodríguez shows the ring symbolizing her membership in the Ordo Virginum. That’s the only outward sign of her consecration. / Credit: Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem

Jerusalem, Nov 12, 2023 / 07:00 am (CNA).

On the 25th day of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Church in Jerusalem welcomed a new consecrated member into its fold. María Ruiz Rodríguez made her consecration in the Ordo Virginum on Nov. 1, permanently rooting herself in the local ecclesiastical community.

“A thought crossed my mind, a temptation: ‘What purpose does this step serve in the midst of current events? Doesn’t the Church have more urgent matters to attend to than to stop and celebrate the consecration of a humble woman like me?’” Ruiz shared with CNA a few days later. But she said she was immediately aware of something else. 

“I told myself: I cannot delay this commitment… In fact, uniting my life with the Church in a time of suffering is even more meaningful,” she said.

Ruiz, now 42, is originally from Spain and arrived in Jerusalem in 2018 for a period of discernment. At that time, she was a member of the “Monastic Family of Bethlehem, the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and St. Bruno,” an institute of consecrated life established in France in 1950. 

It was Ruiz’s first time in the Holy Land, even though the desire to visit the sacred places in the Holy Land had long been a dream in her heart. 

“For two years, I set aside my savings to make a pilgrimage in 2000, the year of the Great Jubilee. However, in that very year, I entered the convent, so I gave up. I felt that Jesus was saying to me: ‘I am your Holy Land.’ In a way, I had already arrived in Jerusalem,” Ruiz said.

It was in the Holy Land that Ruiz first came into contact with some consecrated women of the Ordo Virginum.

“I was looking for my place and I felt called,” she said. 

The Ordo Virginum, Ruiz continued, “is the oldest form of consecration in the Church”. Abandoned over the centuries in favor of the religious life, it was rediscovered with the Second Vatican Council as a form of life that, “in a radically transformed historical context” possesses “a surprising force of attraction” and is “capable of responding not only to the desires of many women to dedicate themselves totally to the Lord and to their neighbors, but also to the concurrent rediscovery by the particular Church of its own identity in communion with the one Body of Christ” (cf. Instruction “Ecclesiae Sponsae Imago” on the “Ordo Virginum”).

Consecrated women in the Ordo Virginum choose to live a life of virginity “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” in a lay form of life. They do not wear religious habits, do not live in communities, have no common statutes or rules, or even superiors. Instead, they maintain a personal reference to the local bishop — in this case, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa — who acts as guarantor of their journey of discernment and presides over their consecration. 

The sole commitment these consecrated women make is the “resolution of chastity,” which they express during the Rite of Consecration. The only symbol they wear is a ring, emphasizing the spousal character of this vocation, which reflects the mystery of the Church as “Bride of Christ.” Engraved in Ruiz’s ring is an inscription in Hebrew meaning “O my life,” referring to Christ, and the date of her consecration.

Women who consecrate themselves in the Ordo Virginum support themselves through their jobs. Ruiz is an iconographer and has been working for the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem for about four years. She was drawn into a project aimed at renewing liturgical books — the Missal and the Evangeliary — with her artwork.

“I first approached iconographic art when I was a nun. It was first of all a spiritual journey, a path of prayer. More than an artistic expression, an icon is a profession of faith. Before beginning the work, I invoke the Holy Spirit and ask for forgiveness for my own sins and for those who will venerate these images. I was interested in this dimension of relationship,” Ruiz shared. She spent a year researching the style and colors.

“The patriarch asked me to create something that would speak to local Christians, who are Latin by tradition but Eastern by culture. A style that was uniquely mine yet rich in the entire iconographic tradition of the Church of Jerusalem. The art of Armenian manuscripts certainly had a significant influence on me.”

The patriarch takes a personal interest in overseeing Ruiz’s work. “We read the Gospel together and choose which scenes to represent, taking into account the particularity of each evangelist. He particularly enjoys highlighting passages that are less frequently represented in the artistic tradition. This is a project close to his heart,” she told CNA.  

Currently, Ruíz is in the process of creating images for the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. 

“The process is very laborious and involves multiple stages for each page: the pencil lettering, the crafting of the icons, then the ink lettering and finally the gilding.” The plan is for a volume of about 200 pages with 250 images. 

“Making this work in Jerusalem has a special value: I can visit the places where that Gospel was lived” but also “immerse myself in Jewish culture,” she said. “This has opened my eyes to the richness that Judaism brings to Christianity. There is a perfect continuity and at the same time an unprecedented newness in the person of Christ.”

Ruiz learned the local languages — Arabic and Hebrew. The Mass of her consecration brought together within one place all the diverse “souls” of the Jerusalem Church: priests, friars, religious, and laity, Arab Christians and Hebrew-speaking Christians, each hearing the word of God in their own language. There were migrants, foreigners, Jews, and Christians of various denominations. 

“I believe my being a foreigner is a blessing for this Church,” Ruiz said. “Why were there such different people in the church that day? Because I am neither Arab nor Jewish, and this allows me to bring both of these peoples into my heart together. In the praise of God we were one people, transcending the divisions that usually separate us. The Church in Jerusalem also needs this, to remember its universal vocation.” 

With her consecration, Ruiz embarks on her new journey as a “living stone” of the Jerusalem Church: “I am certain that I am finally in the right place. It is not an act of heroism. I am simply where God wants me to be.”

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