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The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has elected a host of new leadership positions this week. Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the Archdiocese of the Military Services has been elected president. Archbishop William E. Lori […]
An illustration by Fabiola Garza (left) and the cover of Ascension Press’ book, “Catholic Princess Saint Stories, Volume I.” / Images courtesy of Fabiola Garza and Ascension Press
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 22, 2022 / 17:30 pm (CNA).
A major Catholic publishing house is pulling a book on Catholic princess saints days after an illustrator took to social media saying that the company had published the book based on her ideas and illustrations.
Ascension, a publisher of Catholic books and digital media, including Father Mike Schmitz’s “Bible in a Year” podcast, emailed a statement to CNA Tuesday announcing that it would no longer be selling the book, “Catholic Princess Saint Stories, Volume I,” which was released earlier this month.
Fabiola Garza, the illustrator who is at odds with Ascension, posted on social media that she had spent months talking with the publisher about plans for a book on princess saints. When those talks did not lead to a contract, she decided to shop her idea around, and eventually signed a contract with Word on Fire to publish a book on princess saints.
Garza, who works as an illustrator for the Disney Design Group in Orlando, Florida, published an account of her dealings with Ascension on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter following the publication of the publisher’s book on princess saints.
My unfortunate experience with Ascension Press #catholicartist #catholic pic.twitter.com/GUVgDXK4gH
— 🌷Fabiola Garza🌷 (@CatholicColors) November 17, 2022
“PLEASE SHARE Hold Ascension accountable,” Garza wrote. “MY EXPERIENCE WITH ASCENSION HAS BEEN THE MOST AWFUL OF MY CAREER. I like many artists cannot afford a lawyer, and my hope is that by making this known no other Catholic creative will have to go through this,” she wrote.
In her social media post, Garza said that in 2019 she was approached by an editor at Ascension about a book on saints who were princesses.
“Ascension contacted me because he heard me speaking on Leah Darrow’s Podcast about my idea to do a PRINCESS SAINTS BOOK,” she wrote, adding that she signed a mutual non-disclosure agreement with the publisher.
“In the end, I decided not to sign with ASCENSION,” she wrote in the social media post.
In its statement, Ascension said it had decided to pull the book after Garza went public with her story.
“An illustrator Ascension worked with several years ago recently posted on social media about her experience working with us. We strongly disagree with the allegations in her post and we are confident that our approach was consistent with the law and industry standards,” the statement said.
“Nevertheless, as a leader in Catholic publishing, Ascension aspires to hold itself to a higher standard and we will therefore be voluntarily discontinuing sales of the book in question,” the statement said.
In its statement Ascension said that after Garza told the publisher that she had decided not to work with the company it went ahead with plans to come out with a book about princess saints by a different author and illustrator. Ascension maintains that the book it published was different from the one it had discussed with Garza.
Over the eight months Ascension had discussed the project Garza had provided one illustration of St. Joan of Arc, and when it went with a new illustrator, it chose different saints to highlight, Ascension said.
“As we each had different creative visions for the project, we continued our vision with a new illustrator. We chose different saints for our book alongside a different storytelling style and different illustrations,” Ascension said.
“For background on the project, we provided the new illustrator with the single image of St. Joan of Arc that Fabiola had shared publicly. Our new illustrator went on to create illustrations for 80 pages of stories about St. Margaret of Scotland, St. Bathild of France, and St. Jadwiga of Poland,” read the statement.
Garza posted photos of her illustration of St. Joan of Arc alongside an illustration from Ascension’s book, noting the similarities between the two. Both illustrations feature blue ribbons and banners surrounding the drawings of the saints.
In its statement, Ascension denied any wrongdoing but said it regretted showing the new illustrator Garza’s original drawing.
“Any similarities between Fabiola’s St. Joan of Arc drawing and our illustrator’s depiction of St. Margaret of Scotland (such as a banner, ribbons, a crown, and a blue garment) are incidental and common in portraits of princesses in works by other artists,” the company said.
“Nevertheless, we understand and respect that Fabiola is deeply invested in her artwork, and we acknowledge that a better course of action would have been to use other public sources rather than her drawing as a reference for our illustrator.”
Garza posted emails she had exchanged with Ascension. In their correspondence, she says that on Oct. 7, 2020, she decided to discontinue talks on the book because no contract had been signed.
Garza wrote to Ascension explaining her reason for looking for another publisher.
She said she had asked for “some details on contract and compensation before I continued to work.” She said she was told “that we hadn’t got to the contract stage because we didn’t yet have a complete sample chapter.” She said she was told that the firm was “contemplating bringing in another author entirely, who I would have no ability to vet, interview, or apparently control in any way.”
In an email to CNA, Ascension said that it never signed a contract in part because Garza “wanted to be both the author and illustrator.”
“This creative difference was one of the key reasons that Fabiola and Ascension never signed a contract together,” Ascension said in its statement.
Garza told CNA that she decided to break off talks with the publisher because she began to get nervous when no contract was proposed.
After emailing Ascension earlier this month to express her disappointment that it had published a book on princess saints, the publishing house offered to compensate her for the time spent on the project.
Garza then took to social media because, she told CNA, she could not afford to get legal help. She explained that she felt that by going public she could help other “Catholic creatives” facing similar situations.
“So many people have emailed me with similar stories, and nobody has ever talked about it publicly. I could see that I’m in a position to do this, and perhaps I owe it to the community to start a conversation on it,” she said. “But if everything has always been treated in a very hush hush way, I was like, ‘There’s never going to be any change.’”
Upon being informed by CNA that Ascension had pulled its book, Garza said she was relieved.
“Oh, my gosh, I’m gonna cry,” she said after reading Ascension’s statement. “I know that it’s not a direct apology. I mean, it’s corporate speak, you know. I understand that they have to protect themselves as much as possible. I would have loved a direct apology,” she said.
“But even the fact that because of people helping this is able to happen without having to go to court is amazing, because that sounded awful. Yeah, that sounded awful,” Garza said. Later, Garza thanked Ascension for pulling the book.
Her book with Word on Fire is written but still being edited and won’t be published for over a year, adding that she works full-time.
Archbishop Nelson Perez speaks about the heroic virtues of Father Bill Atkinson, O.S.A., and the work performed to prepare the formal documents related to his cause for beatification and canonization. / Sarah Webb
Denver, Colo., Nov 22, 2022 / … […]
Fr. Travis Clark after his Sept. 30 arrest. / St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 22, 2022 / 15:40 pm (CNA).
Travis Clark, formerly a priest of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, pled guilty Monday to a felony count of obscenity for his actions in filming pornographic material with two hired women atop the altar of Saints Peter and Paul Parish in Pearl River, Louisiana.
Clark admitted his guilt as part of a plea deal in the state district court in Covington, Louisiana.
Clark received a suspended three-year prison sentence, three years supervised probation and a $1,000 fine, WAFB.com reported.
On Sept. 30, 2020, the now-defrocked priest was arrested, along with the two women involved. A bystander called the police after seeing the lewd actions occurring while passing by the church windows. When authorities arrived at the scene, they removed Clark, the two women, multiple articles of sexual paraphernalia as well as lights and recording devices.
In the wake of the arrest, Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans called Clark’s behavior “obscene,” “deplorable,” and “demonic.” Aymond ordered the burning and replacement of the desecrated altar.
The two women arrested with Clark pled guilty in July to misdemeanor counts of institutional vandalism. Both received two years probation. One of the women refers to herself as “Satanatrix” and had posted on social media the day before that she planned to “defile a house of God.”
Though the desecrated altar had to be destroyed, the Archdiocese of New Orleans released a statement at the time saying that, “there was no desecrating of the Blessed Sacrament” and that no other sacred vessels were known to be involved.
Widespread riots and violence were not the only consequences following the death of George Floyd in police custody in 2020. In our intellectual life, as Edward Feser observes in his taut, riveting new book All […]
Lech Walesa on Nov. 19, 2022, at the Conservative Action Political Conference (CPAC) in Mexico. / Credit: Ana Paula Morales / ACI Prensa
ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 22, 2022 / 13:30 pm (CNA).
At a recent conference, Lech Walesa, a friend of St. John … […]
Pope Francis speaks in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 15, 2022. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Nov 22, 2022 / 12:30 pm (CNA).
Why did Pope Francis dismiss the entire leadership of the Church’s worldwide charity arm Tuesday?
What role will Pier Francesco Pinelli play as temporary administrator of Caritas Internationalis, appointed by papal decree on Nov. 22?
A key date to understanding the move and how it aligns with the pope’s broader reforms is Oct. 15, 2022.
On that day, Pope Francis received in audience at the Vatican Father Giacomo Canobbio and delegates of Bain Capital. The financial investment firm is where Pinelli previously worked. And Canobbio is the priest who, without announcement, was appointed by Pope Francis to the role of commissioner of the Pontifical Lateran University.
Both appointments are typical for the pontiff and his preferred modus operandi: Pope Francis sends an inspection or appoints a commissioner whenever he wants to reform something.
There were no apparent reasons for appointing a commissioner to Caritas Internationalis — just as there were no apparent reasons for appointing a commissioner at the Pontifical Lateran University.
However, Pope Francis has previously ordered a number of inspections.
Bishop Claudio Maniago was made the inspector of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, after which the pope appointed Archbishop Arthur Roche as prefect of the dicastery. Next, Bishop Egidio Miragoli inspected the Congregation of the Clergy, which was still in progress when the pope appointed the Korean bishop Lazzaro You Heung-sik — later created cardinal— as prefect of the dicastery.
At the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis appointed several commissions.
One such body was the commission of reference on the administrative-economic structures of the Holy See, known by its Italian acronym COSEA. Another was CRIOR, the commission for studying the Institute of Works of Religion reform, commonly known as the Vatican Bank.
Their work, once completed, resulted in the extensive overhaul of the Vatican’s financial departments and the new Institute of Works of Religion statutes, promulgated in 2019.
However, the appointment of a commissioner in Caritas Internationalis has another clear precedent: the inspection of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development.
The inspection took place in July 2021 and was led by Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago. The team also included Sister Helen Alford, vice-rector of the Pontifical Angelicum University, an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences; and Pinelli, the new administrator of Caritas Internationalis.
A trained engineer and experienced manager, Pinelli has worked with several institutions as well as a consultant for management and investment firms.
According to Vatican rumors not officially confirmed but provided to CNA from multiple sources, Pinelli was also involved in restructuring what is now the Dicastery for Integral Human Development.
A press release from the dicastery said Pinelli was an engineer “with a more humanist than technical way of proceeding” and that he was “formed in Ignatian spirituality,” a man who “from an early age was active as a volunteer working with recovering drugs addicts, in development cooperation, support for missionary works, and catechesis.” The statement also noted that he is married with three children and three grandchildren.
The release also emphasized that “in 33 years of work,” Pinelli had gained managerial experience in different sectors, including a large energy company.
Having worked both as a project manager for energy companies and as a management consultant for Bain, Pinelli also has experience working with religious and secular works and institutions, according to the release.
Obviously, his formation and positions in some Jesuit institutions may have played a role. It seems likely that Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, the current prefect of the dicastery, had a word in involving him and others.
However, it is still hard to assess which issues are at stake. It seems clear that the pope wants to reform Caritas Internationalis, including its statutes and bylaws.
Founded in 1951, the Catholic confederation is made up of 162 charitable organizations based in 200 countries around the world. Its headquarters are located on Vatican territory in Rome, and the Vatican oversees its activity.
According to Czerny’s dicastery, “no evidence emerged of financial mismanagement or sexual impropriety”; however, “deficiencies were noted in management and procedures, seriously prejudicing team spirit and staff morale.”
The reform of the statutes will be the first task of the new commissioner.
Pinelli will be assisted by Maria Amparo Alonso Escobar, Caritas Internationalis’ head of advocacy, and by Jesuit Father Manuel Morujão, who will provide personal and spiritual accompaniment to Caritas employees, according to Pope Francis’ decree.
In May 2023, the next Caritas Internationalis general assembly is expected to be held in Rome, with the appointment of the new president, general secretary, and treasurer. By then, the reform process will likely be completed.
Caritas Internationalis will undergo a review “in order to improve its management norms and procedures — even while financial matters have been well-handled and fundraising goals regularly achieved — and so better to serve its member charitable organizations around the world.”
However, a reform of the statutes already took place in 2019 and was approved by the pope with a rescript of Jan. 13, 2020.
As for the change of the statutes of Caritas Internationalis, it was simply a matter of passing the competencies from the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which no longer exists, to the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, which has absorbed its functions.
As for the rules of procedure, these changes were not communicated. But they generally accepted some of the requests approved by the Caritas General Assembly, which envisaged encouraging the presence of women within the highest representative bodies and including two young people in the same representative bodies.
In particular, there was talk of the Representative Council of the federation, abbreviated with the name RE.CO., the acronym for Representative Council. These indications have now been implemented and will become operational.
The structure of Caritas Internationalis was thus “adjusted” and adapted to the reform of the Curia.
However, the statutes of Caritas Internationalis remained confirmed in the structure as Pope Benedict XVI reformed them in 2012. Those statutes strengthened the collaboration between Caritas Internationalis and the Holy See and clearly outlined the competencies of the Vatican Secretariat of State.
Not only that: the new structure of Caritas Internationalis gave greater coordination to departments and bodies connected to the Holy See, which also concerned doctrinal aspects.
It is noteworthy that the 2012 reform was part of a more extensive project by Benedict XVI to accomplish Pastor Bonus’s provisions fully.
Pastor Bonus was the apostolic constitution that regulated the functions and tasks of the Curia offices, and Praedicate Evangelium now replaces that.
However, the reform came after a governance crisis. In 2011, the Secretariat of State did not approve the renomination of the former secretary general, Lesley-Anne Knight. (However, her work was praised by the president of Caritas Internationalis at the time, Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodriguez Maradiaga.) As a result, she was replaced by Michel Roy, a Frenchman who worked with Secours Catholique — the Caritas in France.
Knight’s non-confirmation also stemmed from the new approach given with the subsequent reform of Caritas Internationalis.
It was an approach that derived from the formulation of Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate. In the encyclical, Benedict XVI stressed that human development and foreign aid could not be separated from the demand for truth. The encyclical also pointed to the fact that many international organizations were promoting abortion, contraception, sterilization, and euthanasia.
This was an approach that Knight did not fully share, as she publicly explained to the media at the time.
While some approved of Knight’s departure, others were disappointed. Despite a robust generational change in Caritas Internationalis in recent years, these divisive feelings may have lingered in the background and fueled some complaints about “management and procedures.”
The tone of the dicastery’s press release suggests that the reform will be more managerial. But, above all, it is a substantial change in philosophy from the reform of Benedict XVI.
In short, it could be another paradigm shift by Pope Francis, comparable to some degree to his restrictions of the Traditional Latin Mass.
From this point of view, Pope Francis has identified several people to help complete his changes to the Church’s structure.
In carrying out the reform, the pope does not hesitate to demote someone like Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, current president of Caritas, who now finds himself mandated to “liaise” with Pinelli and his staff for the upcoming general assembly.
Tagle was rumored to be appointed the next prefect of the Dicastery of Bishops. Even if these rumors were to be confirmed, Tagle’s public image has now been compromised by the Caritas decision. This will also weigh in a future conclave.
Pope Francis, however, is completing his goals. As he said in one of his homilies in the days of the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020 — and also in a meeting with the Candia Foundation in April — he remains critical of humanitarian organizations that do good work but spend 60% of their budget on wages. The pope called on them to keep costs to a minimum, “so that most of the money goes to the people.”
In the United Arab Emirates, a group of women will join other women from around the world on Dec. 8, 2022, to honor the Virgin Mary in the Worldwide Women’s Rosary. / Credit: Facebook page St.Joseph’s Cathedral Abu Dhabi AUH
CNA Newsroom, Nov 22, 2022 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
Women from all over the world will join together Dec. 8 for the public recitation of a rosary to Our Lady. In the United Arab Emirates, where only 7% of the population professes Christianity, women are participating in the initiative in a special way.
Martha and Darío are a Colombian married couple living in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. There they have developed an active faith life, and on Dec. 8 they will be part of a Catholic community that will join the Worldwide Women’s Rosary.
It was a job position for Darío that led him and his wife to move to the United Arab Emirates in 2008 and start their lives over, 8,000 miles from their native Colombia.
In an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language sister news agency, Darío said that during their first few years of living there they attended the celebration of the Eucharist in English at St. Joseph Cathedral in Abu Dhabi. An announcement during Mass led them to meet a group of Spanish-speaking people who were attending Mass in Spanish.
Some time later, Martha was asked to be in charge of coordinating the Mass, and with the help of her husband, who had experience in the life of the Church in Colombia, she undertook the task, joined by one of her friends.
Darío approached the then pastor of the cathedral to offer his help. From that moment on, he began working as a coordinator for the Spanish-speaking community.
Thus “began the activities aimed at the formation of a community, of a Spanish-speaking Catholic Church, in the midst of a parish that has countless different languages and cultures congregated in the same place,” he recalled.
The tasks followed one another: community outreach, locating rooms for catechesis, preparation of the Mass and soon there were some 220 families from countries such as Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Panama, and Spain.
Abu Dhabi belongs to the South Vicariate of the United Arab Emirates, a country where the official and most widespread religion among its inhabitants is Islam, at 75% of the population, and approximately 7% professing Christianity.
“It’s common to think that in a place where the Catholic faith is not the main recognized faith, different kinds of difficulties may arise,” Darío acknowledged.
“Here, on the contrary, we constantly receive ‘friendly challenges’ to faithfully demonstrate our faith to others in love, in charity, in respect, in tolerance,” he said.
The official language of the vicariate is English, but at St. Joseph Cathedral, Mass is offered in Spanish once a month.
The same is true of the Arab, Filipino, Sri Lankan, and Indian communities (in their different language groups), as well as small German-, French-, and Italian-speaking communities.
As for education in the faith, unlike in Latin America, catechesis is not directed toward sacramental preparation, but during the 12 years of primary and secondary school, catechesis is given on weekends as an extracurricular activity.
In the Spanish-speaking community, there is also catechesis for families whose children will receive the sacraments in their country of origin. “At the same time, parents receive their faith formation,” Darío explained.
At Martha’s initiative, since they arrived in Abu Dhabi, she and her husband began to pray the Pilgrim Holy Rosary in the homes of different people. Later, it was transferred to the cathedral, where a group of women met once a week.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the practice had to be suspended, and it hasn’t been possible to restart it because normal activities in the country only resumed two weeks ago.
The news about the Worldwide Women’s Rosary came through Fanny Tagle, a Chilean who participates in coordinating the initiative and who was a classmate of Darío’s in a professional development course. And so Tagle conveyed the proposal to him.
Martha and Darío took the idea to the parish, where the priest decided to support it, proposing to offer the intentions of the rosaries that are said in the half hour before each Mass from Dec. 5–8 for the Worldwide Women’s Rosary.
In the entire country, which is about the size of the state of Maine, there are only nine Catholic parishes, which means that “people of different cultures and different countries flock to the eucharistic celebrations.” Darío estimates that every Sunday some 15,000 people attend Mass.
On liturgical solemnities such as the Immaculate Conception on Dec. 8, it’s not possible to hold any activity outside of Mass, and the rosary cannot be prayed in the church.
During the month of October, the Catholic community of the United Arab Emirates celebrates the devotion to the holy rosary. A heavily attended rosary service is held to close the month’s events, and this year it brought together close to 1,300 people. It was the first one to be led by the new bishop of the vicariate, Paolo Martinelli.
To join the global initiative Dec. 8, the couple is considering meeting in a house and livestreaming it from there on the Facebook page of the Spanish-speaking community of Abu Dhabi.
Representatives from Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, and the United States have already confirmed their participation in the Worldwide Women’s Rosary.
Also participating will be women from Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Uganda, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
null / Juanje Garrido/Shutterstock
Denver, Colo., Nov 22, 2022 / 11:30 am (CNA).
The use of puberty blockers on self-identified transgender children and teens has drawn scrutiny in a recent New York Times article, and other commentators echo it… […]
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