Denver Newsroom, Jul 29, 2020 / 11:35 am (CNA).- As numerous U.S businesses have closed because of the effects of the coronavirus, a Kentucky parish has opened a ministry to help job seekers “rethink” the job hunt during the pandemic.
“Rethinking Employment: New-Age Branding” is led by Brayton Bowen, a parishioner of Louisville's Epiphany Parish with 20 years of experience in human resources.
He told CNA that the organization not only prepares people for work but it also offers clients emotional support, noting that self-esteem can take a hit from losing a job.
“This is a ministry to help individuals who are either unemployed or underemployed,” he said. “We are helping individuals with resume writing …. interviewing skills, and finances during unemployed periods.”
A client will first reach out to Bowen and then be connected to a specialist in the field. Because of the pandemic, the people are connected through email, telephone, or Skype. While the ministry is faith-based, clients do not need to be Catholics.
Bowen said the ministry will provide virtual workshops on employment skills with other members of the group, which is encouraged to be anonymous. He said this group setting helps individuals find opportunities for networking. The ministry will also publish notices about job fairs, personal branding tips, and other employment opportunities.
The apostolate focuses on personal branding and how to advertise oneself as competent in technology. He said a big point is developing a “virtual selfie” that helps businesses recognize the potential employee as efficient in the current age.
“The realization is that more and more of the opportunities going forward are going to be dependent upon technology. So we want people to become more comfortable using technology. We want them to market themselves so that they're seen as technologically relevant, not necessarily super skilled, but relevant in an economy that is prompting people to work from home or work virtually,” he said.
He said that while rebranding, the organization also helps clients focus on their human dignity. He said the experience of losing a job can be strenuous and it is important for people to understand they are unique.
“They have skills, abilities, and competencies. They're in transition for sure, but they are unique and God only made one of them and they walk and talk in the shape of the particular brand that they have,” he said.
“We really want them to understand that a job is what they do, but it's not who they are. We really want to build their self-esteem and help them re-establish their footing.”
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The trailer of the upcoming Russell Crowe movie “The Pope’s Exorcist” indicates that the film might not do justice to the Italian exorcist Father Gabriel Amorth or the rite of exorcism as practiced in the Catholic Church, according to an exorcist organization Amorth himself helped to found.
The International Association of Exorcists on March 7 voiced concern that the film seems to fall under the category of “splatter cinema,” which it calls a “sub-genre of horror.”
The Vatican, the statement said, is filmed with a high-contrast “chiaroscuro” effect seen in film noir.
This gives the film a “‘Da Vinci Code’ effect to instill in the public the usual doubt: Who is the real enemy? The devil or ecclesiastical ‘power’?” the exorcists’ association said.
While special effects are “inevitable” in every film about demonic possession, “everything is exaggerated, with striking physical and verbal manifestations, typical of horror films,” the group said.
“This way of narrating Don Amorth’s experience as an exorcist, in addition to being contrary to historical reality, distorts and falsifies what is truly lived and experienced during the exorcism of truly possessed people,” said the association, which claims more than 800 exorcist members and more than 120 auxiliary members worldwide.
“In addition, it is offensive with regard to the state of suffering in which those who are victims of an extraordinary action of the devil find themselves,” the group’s statement added. The statement responded to the release of the movie trailer and promised a more in-depth response to the film’s April 14 theatrical release.
Father Gabriele Amorth, chief exorcist of Rome, speaks to CNA on May 22, 2013. Steven Driscoll/CNA
Amorth, who died at age 91 in 2016, said he performed an estimated 100,000 exorcisms during his life. He was perhaps the world’s best-known exorcist and the author of many books, including “An Exorcist Tells His Story,” reportedly an inspiration for the upcoming movie.
Several of Amorth’s books are carried by the U.S. publisher Sophia Institute Press. The publisher’s newly released book “The Pope’s Exorcist: 101 Questions About Fr. Gabriele Amorth” is an interview in which the priest addresses many topics ranging from prayer to pop music.
Michael Lichens, editor and spokesperson at Sophia Institute Press, voiced some agreement with the exorcist group.
“The International Association of Exorcists is right to be concerned and I’m thankful for their words,” Lichens told CNA. “My hope is that audiences will remember that Father Amorth is a real person with a great legacy and perhaps a few moviegoers will look up an interview or pick up his books.”
“This was a man who included St. Padre Pio and Blessed Giacomo Alberione as mentors, as well as Servant of God Candido Amantini, who was his teacher for the ministry of exorcism,” he said. “Father Amorth fought as a partisan as a young man and grew to fight greater evil as an exorcist. His life is an inspiration and I know that his work and words will still reach many.”
Amorth was born in Modena, Italy, on May 1, 1925. In wartime Italy, he was a soldier with the underground anti-fascist partisans. He was ordained a priest in 1951. He did not become an exorcist until 1986, when Cardinal Ugo Poletti, the vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, named him the diocesan exorcist.
The priest was frequently in the news for his comments on the subject of demonic forces. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph in 2000, he said: “I speak with the devil every day. I talk to him in Latin. He answers in Italian. I have been wrestling with him, day in, day out, for 14 years.”
The movie “The Pope’s Exorcist” claims to be “inspired by the actual files of the Vatican’s chief exorcist.” The Sony Pictures movie stars the New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe as Amorth. Crowe’s character wears a gray beard and speaks English with a noticeable accent.
“The majority of cases do not require an exorcism,” the Amorth character says in the movie’s first trailer. A cardinal explains that Crowe’s character recommends 98% of people who seek an exorcism to doctors and psychiatrists instead.
“The other 2%… I call it… evil,” Crowe adds.
The plot appears to concern Amorth’s encounter with a particular demon. Crowe’s character suggests the Church “has fought this demon before” but covered it up.
“We need to find out why,” he says.
The trailer shows short dramatic scenes of exorcism, including a confrontation between Amorth and a girl apparently suffering demonic possession.
The International Association of Exorcists said such a representation makes exorcism become “a spectacle aimed at inspiring strong and unhealthy emotions, thanks to a gloomy scenography, with sound effects such as to inspire only anxiety, restlessness, and fear in the viewer.”
“The end result is to instill the conviction that exorcism is an abnormal, monstrous, and frightening phenomenon, whose only protagonist is the devil, whose violent reactions can be faced with great difficulty,” said the exorcist group. “This is the exact opposite of what occurs in the context of exorcism celebrated in the Catholic Church in obedience to the directives imparted by it.”
CNA sought comment from Sony Pictures and “The Pope’s Exorcist” executive producer Father Edward Siebert, SJ, but did not receive a response by publication.
Amorth co-founded the International Association of Exorcists with Father René Laurentin in 1994. In 2014 the Catholic Church recognized the group as a Private Association of the Faithful.
The association trains exorcists and promotes their incorporation into local communities and normal pastoral care. It also aims to promote “correct knowledge” about exorcism ministry and collaboration with medical and psychiatric experts who have competence in spirituality.
Exorcism is considered a sacramental, not a sacrament, of the Church. It is a liturgical rite that only a priest can perform.
Hollywood made the topic a focus most famously in the 1973 movie “The Exorcist,” based on the novel by William Peter Blatty.
“Most movies about Catholicism and spiritual warfare sensationalize,” Lichens of Sophia Institute Press told CNA. “Sensationalism and terror sell tickets. As a fan of horror movies, I can understand and even appreciate that. As a Catholic who has studied Father Amorth, though, I think such sensationalism distorts the important work of exorcism.”
“On the other hand, ‘The Exorcist’ made the wider public more curious about this overlooked ministry. That is a good thing that came out, despite other reservations and concerns,” he continued. “Still, I would love it if a screenwriter and director spoke to exorcists and tried to show the often-quotidian parts of the ministry.”
An unhealthy curiosity can be a problem, Lichens said.
“When I work as a spokesperson for Amorth’s books, I am always concerned about inspiring curiosity about the demonic,” he told CNA. “As Christians, we know we have nothing to fear from the demonic but curiosity might lead some to want to seek out the supernatural or the demonic. Father Amorth has dozens of stories of people who found themselves afflicted after party game seances.”
Lichens encouraged those who are curious to read more of Amorth’s writings, some of which are excerpted on the Catholic Exchange website. Sophia Institute Press has published “Diary of an American Exorcist” by Monsignor Stephen Rosetti and “The Exorcism Files” by the American lay Catholic Adam Blai.
“First and foremost, Father Amorth was involved in a healing ministry,” Lichens said. “Like other exorcists, his work often involved doctors in physical and mental health because the goal is to bring healing and hope to the potentially afflicted.”
“Those of us who read Amorth might have been excited to read firsthand accounts of spiritual warfare, but readers quickly see a man whose heart was always full of love for those who sought his help,” he added.
The International Association of Exorcists, for its part, praised the 2016 documentary “Deliver Us,” saying this shows “what exorcism really is in the Catholic Church and “the authentic traits of a Catholic exorcist.” It shows exorcism as “a most joyful event,” in their view, because through experiencing “the presence and action of Christ the Lord and of the Communion of the Saints,” those who are “tormented by the extraordinary action of the devil gradually find liberation and peace.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is backing a coalition of New Jersey pregnancy centers asking the U.S. Supreme Court (pictured) to halt a state investigation into their donor lists. / Credit: Wolfgang Schaller/Shutterstock
Pope Francis waves at pilgrims from China at the general audience in St. Peter’s Square on Sept. 7, 2016. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA.
Washington D.C., Mar 23, 2023 / 14:08 pm (CNA).
In another crackdown on religious freedom, local authorities in an eastern Chinese city ordered parents of kindergarteners to sign a pledge that affirms they are not religious.
Guardians of children at schools in Wenzhou, a city in the Zhejiang province, were asked to sign a “pledge form of commitment for family not to hold a religious belief,” according to the human rights group China Aid.
The pledge states that the parents affirm they “do not hold a religious belief, do not participate in any religious activities, and do not propagate and disseminate religion in any locations.” It also makes them affirm “exemplary observance of the [Chinese Communist] Party discipline and the country’s laws and regulations [and to] never join any Falun Gong and other cult organizations.”
Falun Gong, a religious movement founded in China in the 1990s, is openly critical of the Chinese Communist Party.
The order came from Chinese Communist Party officials in the Longwan district of the city of Wenzhou, according to ChinaAid. The nonprofit is a Christian human-rights organization that received the Democracy Award from the National Endowment for Democracy for its commitment to religious freedom in China in 2019.
The district is home to about 750,000, people. Christians represent about 10% of the city’s population and have grown in number over the past decade. This is much higher than the national average, which is less than 1% Christian.
One preschool teacher anonymously said the local authorities had never gone this far before, ChinaAid reported.
“In the past, the higher-level education department made it compulsory for kindergartens not to be superstitious and not to participate in cult organizations but did not mandate kindergarten children’s families not to believe in religion or participate in any religious activities,” the teacher said.
The Chinese constitution states that citizens “enjoy freedom of religious belief” but limits religious practices to “normal religious activities,” according to the U.S. Department of State. The Chinese government recognizes five religions, which it calls “patriotic religious associations”: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism. However, the city and the nation as a whole have repeatedly been accused of violating the rights of those who practice these religions as well.
In Wenzhou, Christians have faced persecution in several ways. The city banned children from attending religious services and engaging in religious activities in 2017. The following year, the city forbade teachers, hospital workers, and other city employees from holding religious beliefs.
The Vatican signed a deal with the Chinese Communist Party in 2018, but much of the deal has remained secret. The deal was meant to unify the underground Catholic Church with the more public Catholic Church in China by allowing the Chinese Communist Party to play a larger role in the appointment of bishops. This ultimately led to crackdowns on Catholics in the underground churches, which resulted in priests, bishops, and even cardinals being detained or arrested.
One of the fiercest critics of the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown on Catholics is Cardinal Joseph Zen, who was arrested for helping operate the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund to help Hong Kong citizens who protested the Chinese Communist Party. In a 2020 interview with WION, Zen said the Vatican’s deal with China only emboldened the Chinese Communist Party to crack down harder.
“We have only the moral strength to resist peacefully against the persecution,” Zen said. “It’s [important] for us to keep our faith, not to surrender our faith; we can even sacrifice the sacraments — when you are arrested you cannot keep the sacraments but your faith is in your hearts to help you but you cannot deny your faith.”
“Rethinking Employment: New-Age Branding” is vital for a genuine Perestroika.