Vatican City, Aug 29, 2018 / 04:57 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Divorce and separation may be common, but the model families should strive after is unity, and people should not forget those husbands and wives who, even amid difficulties, continue to be faithfu… […]
Pittsburgh, Pa., Aug 29, 2018 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholics who are demoralized, angered, or scandalized by revelations about sex abuse must feel free to talk to clergy and other Catholics, and other Catholics must reach out to them, a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh has said.
“I would invite those who are wavering to be open about their concerns – their anger, their frustration, their questions – so that someone can respond to them,” Father Nicholas Vaskov, executive director of communications for the Pittsburgh diocese, told CNA.
“I would also encourage them to stay close to God in prayer so that he can hear their calls to him and respond with his compassion and love.”
Father Vaskov, who is also administrator St. Mary of Mercy parish in downtown Pittsburgh, reflected on the tendency of some people scandalized by abuse allegations to stop going to Mass. He encouraged Catholic clergy and laity to “be patient with those who are scandalized by the reports.”
“Listen attentively as they share what is on their heart,” he said. “I would also suggest that clergy and laity reach out to those who they know are particularly troubled by what they have learned. Thoughtful conversation can be such an effective way to process what is troubling us.”
On Aug. 14 a Pennsylvania grand jury released its report claiming to have identified more than 1,000 victims of 300 credibly accused priests from 1947 to 2017 across six Pennsylvania dioceses. It presented a portrait of efforts by Church authorities to ignore, obscure, or cover up allegations, either to protect accused priests or to spare the Church scandal.
Approximately two-thirds of the accused priests have died. Due to laws regarding the statute of limitations, nearly every abuse allegation cannot be criminally prosecuted, although two indictments have been filed. One priest named in the report was convicted of sexually assaulting a student in the early 1990s.
Before the report’s release, Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh confirmed that some of the priests named in the Pennsylvania grand jury report into sexual abuse remain in active ministry, but stressed that none faced substantiated allegations of child sexual abuse.
Responding to the report, Zubik emphasized that “the Diocese of Pittsburgh today is not the Church that is described in the grand jury report,” and that “it has not been for a long time.” Data from the diocese showed that more than 90 percent of abuse incidents took place before 1990.
The bishop apologized to victims of clergy sex abuse and to “any person or family whose trust, faith and well-being has been devastated by men who were ordained to be the image of Christ.”
The Catholic response is ongoing. The grand jury report could affect the future of Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, a previous Bishop of Pittsburgh. Wuerl is already a center of controversy as critics ask what he knew of allegations of sex abuse and sexual exploitation against his predecessor, Archbishop Theodore McCarrick.
On Aug. 20 National Public Radio and its member stations had sought comment from listeners, asking, “Have you stopped going to Mass as often, left your church or left the Catholic faith entirely because of these revelations or ones that were previously reported?”
Pittsburgh-area couple Andy and Courey Leer were among those who had responded to NPR about their reaction.
“So it goes beyond just the priests and their superiors,” Courey, 31, told NPR. “It leads me to question entire Catholic communities. Who knew what? And not only why didn’t they expose them, but, how long have people been turning the other way?”
Courey attended part of Mass with her two-year-old daughter after the report was released but they didn’t stay.
“I think a part of me was thinking I’m going to go to Mass and I’m going to get an okay to leave and not come back,” she said. “And of course that’s not going to happen. Part of me just wanted someone to say ‘we really messed up, it’s all on us, and you guys use your own moral discretion to decide what’s best because we have no moral authority’.”
According to NPR, she said the priest acknowledged the report and “offered little more than prayers.” She stood up with her daughter and left after the homily.
“And I’m thinking ‘is this our last Mass?’ And it’s hard. I can’t fathom when she’s eight years old saying ‘no we don’t go to church, sorry you can’t receive Communion, even though your mom and dad did, your grandparents did, you don’t get to do that’.”
The Leers told NPR that they will miss the sacraments, community dinners, and the music ministry. They said they want to see Church leaders push for more investigations into sex abuse in dioceses around the country.
“They don’t need to be worried about our spirituality right now,” said Andy, 32. “They need to be worried about dealing with the corruption, and dealing with the priests that are out there that need to answer for what they’ve done, and the people that have potentially covered up and withheld information.”
Andy, 32, was a teenager when decades-old claims against his priest, Father Joseph Pease, surfaced. He thought the “bad apple” had been removed. He later watched the movie “Spotlight,” about sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston, but he said the issue “doesn’t really hit until it’s in your backyard.”
The Leers said they don’t know what it will take for them to go back to church.
Father Vaskov cited his experiences with churchgoers who went to Mass in the wake of the latest news. He thought there was an upturn in attendance for the Aug. 15 feast of the Assumption, a holy day of obligation which came a day after the release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report.
He also reflected on what churchgoers told him, such as one woman at Mass last Sunday.
“She said that while it was difficult for her to go, she knew that she couldn’t be anywhere else because it is only in the Eucharist that we can be renewed,” the priest said. “Another conversation with a recent convert to the Catholic faith revealed the depth of his love for Christ and His Church and his desire to stay close to the sacraments when he felt his frustration was getting the better of him.”
Fr. Vaskov said that in response to the abuse scandals, many parishes had organized holy hours, days of Eucharistic adoration, discussion groups, and listening sessions. He said he has had “beautiful moments” praying with people for “strength in their lives and in the lives of those who have been harmed by abuse.”
“I have also had some very fruitful conversations with parishioners, friends and strangers over the past weeks because they were willing to open up about their concerns,” the priest said. “That doesn’t mean that every issue is resolved or every suffering is healed, but it is the beginning of an important discussion that needs to happen.”
Participation in Mass on Sundays is “at the heart of the Church’s life”, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, and “participation … in the Sunday Eucharist is a testimony of belonging and of being faithful to Christ and to his Church.”
By attending Sunday Mass the faithful together “testify to God’s holiness and their hope of salvation. They strengthen one another under the guidance of the Holy Spirit,” according to the Catechism.
Participation in the sacrifice of the Mass is the means by which “we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life” and render worship to God.
The Catechism adds that “the institution of the Lord’s Day helps everyone enjoy adequate rest and leisure to cultivate their familial, cultural, social, and religious lives.”
Father Larry Adams, a priest at St. Ursula’s Church in the Pittsburgh diocese, told NPR that he understands the frustration of his fellow Catholics, but the struggle to confront abuse is why he became a priest.
“To a certain extent. I’m kind of a ‘spotlight’ priest — the movie Spotlight,” he said. “When this broke, (it) was kind of the time when I was discerning what my vocation would be. And in a certain way, what has formed me is the desire to be part of this Church, and be part of the solution.”
Arlington, Va., Aug 29, 2018 / 12:27 am (CNA).- For the third year in a row, Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia has given away free school supplies for children in need, ages 5-17.
This year’s giveaway was held on Aug. 24 a… […]
San Jose, Calif., Aug 28, 2018 / 07:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A 73-year-old bishop in California has changed his retirement plans after media reports sparked criticism of his decision to purchase a five-bedroom home for $2.3 million in California’s overheated housing market.
While Bishop Patrick McGrath of San Jose said the purchase made economic sense as a good investment, he said he “erred in judgment” to purchase the house.
“I failed to consider adequately the housing crisis in this valley and the struggles of so many families and communities in light of that crisis,” he said Aug. 27. “I have heard from many on this topic and I have decided that I will not move into this house.”
The diocese will put the house up for sale “as soon as possible” and any profits will go to Charities Housing, under Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County.
“I assume full responsibility for this decision and I believe that the sale of the house is the appropriate action. I thank those who have advised me,” he said.
The 3,300 square-foot home sits on one-third of an acre in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood.
The bishop first considered living in a diocese-owned house on cemetery property, but the retrofitting would have been too expensive.
Liz Sullivan, communications director for the Diocese of San Jose, told CNA the renovation’s exact costs are not certain but the return on investment would not be good, “since few people would choose to live in a cemetery.” The house’s future would have been uncertain after the bishop left.
“The bishop is in good health for a man of 73, but a single-level house was desirable because of the stairs,” Sullivan added.
McGrath said the Diocesan Finance Council and the College of Consultors approved the home purchase which later became a matter of controversy.
“I agreed with them that in economic terms the purchase of the home made sense in terms of financial return on investment,” said the bishop.
The median sale price of a home in the city is now over $1 million, compared to a California-wide home price of $600,000, a record high as of May 2018, Business Insider reports. In the last year, the median sale price of San Jose homes increased by 24 percent ($210,000), the real estate site Trulia reports.
The bishop, who became head of the Diocese of San Jose in 1999, said when his retirement planning began he wanted to stay in the diocese.
“This has been my home for nearly 20 years,” he said.
Under policy set by the U.S. bishops’ conference, the Diocese of San Jose is responsible for paying the bishop’s housing and upkeep when he retires.
McGrath said the home was purchased using a fund dedicated to housing retired bishops and using proceeds from the sale of a Menlo Park condominium where his predecessor, Bishop Pierre DuMaine, had lived before he moved into assisted living.
“The fund is a fund that can be used for nothing else,” the bishop said. “When I’m not around anymore, the house can be sold. It’s a good investment in that sense. It probably makes more money this way than if it were in the bank.”
One McGrath critic said that the house purchase “seems very inappropriate.”
“Our diocese is greatly underfunded as it is,” said the parishioner, who asked the Mercury News not to be identified to avoid harming relationships with other Catholics.
The Mercury News’ report cited Bishop McGrath’s own advocacy for affordable housing, such as a 2016 commentary piece backing a $950 million bond measure for affordable housing.
In his initial remarks, McGrath said he had looked at places “way out in the East Bay,” but he liked the valley.
“I thought it would be nice to be here, to be of assistance if I can,” he said.
The bishop has not announced a retirement date, though he has asked the Holy See permission to retire before the required retirement date of 75 years to allow a younger man to become bishop.
Bishop Oscar Cantú, 51, was named Coadjutor Bishop of San Jose in July; as such, he will succeed as Bishop of San Jose upon Bishop McGrath’s retirement.
The retiring bishop had looked forward to a house with a yard.
“I like to putter around in the garden,” McGrath said. “So I think it would be good for me.”
McGrath acknowledged to the Mercury News that many retired clerics live in retirement communities, in rectories, or in other accommodations.
“But I’d like to live in a house so I would have the freedom to help the diocese but not disturb the priests in the rectories,” he said.
Washington D.C., Aug 28, 2018 / 05:44 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has released a statement responding to accusations that he had curtailed an investigation in 2014 into the sexual misconduct of Archbishop John C. Nienstedt.
“… […]
Vatican City, Aug 28, 2018 / 05:10 pm (CNA).- Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s personal secretary said Tuesday that the former pope has not commented on a testimony released Saturday by a former Vatican ambassador, and that he has no plans to do so.
Archbishop Georg Gänswein told German newspaper Die Tagepost Aug. 28 that accounts Benedict had “confirmed” Vigano’s testimony were “fake news.”
On Aug. 25, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 77, who served as apostolic nuncio in Washington D.C. from 2011 to 2016, published an 11-page document which called for the resignation of Pope Francis and several cardinals and bishops, whom he accused of covering-up of sexual misconduct allegations against former cardinal Theodore McCarrick.
In the testimony, Viganò wrote that Benedict had “imposed on Cardinal McCarrick sanctions similar to those now imposed on him by Pope Francis” and that Viganò personally told Pope Francis about those sanctions in 2013.
Edward Pentin, a National Catholic Register correspondent, reported Aug. 25 that the Register had “independently confirmed that the allegations against McCarrick were certainly known to Benedict, and the Pope Emeritus remembers instructing Cardinal Bertone to impose measures but cannot recall their exact nature.”
In a blog post published Tuesday, Pentin wrote that that the Register’s sources confirmed only Vigano’s statement that sanctions had been issued against McCarrick by Pope Benedict. Gänswein’s report, Pentin said, did not deny the Register’s reporting.
Pentin also mentioned a New York Times interview with Tim Busch, a board member of EWTN, in which Busch is reported to have told the Times that “leaders of the publication [the Register] had personally assured him that the former pope, Benedict XVI, had confirmed Archbishop Viganò’s account.”
“What Archbishop Gänswein said is entirely accurate,” Pentin wrote. “Any assertion that the Pope Emeritus had seen the entire testimony, and confirmed it, is untrue.”
CNA and the National Catholic Register are both owned by EWTN News, Inc
Vatican City, Aug 28, 2018 / 05:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis is personally considering the appeal of Guam Archbishop Anthony Apuron, who was found guilty of certain unspecified accusations back in March.
On Sunday, during the press conference on the papal plane, Pope Francis was asked a question from an Irish journalist seeking for clarification on reports that he was “not favorable” to changing the Vatican tribunal inquiry process in abuse cases.
The question was in response to abuse survivor Marie Collins claiming that Pope Francis was opposed to the creation of a tribunal of inquiry on bishops and their accountability. Earlier in the week, Collins had called for changes to canon law that would permit zero-tolerance policies for those accused of abuse.
Pope Francis said that this was not exactly true, and that it was a complicated issue due to the “different cultures of the bishops that had to be judged.”
As an example of how he was open to changes, he brought up Apuron’s case. Apuron was accused of a multitude of offenses, including raping his nephew in 1989 or 1990. In March, Apuron was found guilty of “certain” charges and sentenced to be removed from office and forbidden from living in the archdiocese. He immediately filed an appeal.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith did not state the charges for which the archbishop was found guilty. Sources close to the case told CNA at the time that the archbishop was found guilty of a minority of the allegations leveled against him.
If the archbishop has been found guilty of sexual abuse of minors, the penalty leveled against him is unusual – often a cleric found guilty of such crimes would be “laicized,” or removed from the clerical state, sources said.
Sources also noted that the archbishop has seemingly maintained his ecclesiastical faculties, and though restricted from residence in Guam, is apparently able to exercise ministry as a priest.
One expert suggested to CNA that the five-judge panel may have been divided on the archbishop’s guilt, which could explain the disparity between a guilty verdict and an unusually light sanction.
One source questioned whether pressure to quickly resolve the matter might have influenced the sentence.
The pope explained that in considering Apuron’s appeal, he is bypassing the traditional “giuria”–the council of bishops that make up a tribunal–and will be considering the appeal himself. This is because Apuron’s situation is a “very difficult case.”
Instead, Pope Francis said he “took it upon myself” and created a commission of canonists who will assist him with the case. This group will make a recommendation within the next month, in order for the pontiff to make a judgement.
“It is a complicated case, on one hand, but not difficult because the evidence is clear,” said Pope Francis.
“I cannot pre-judge, I await the report and then I will judge. I say that the evidence is clear because there is this evidence which led the first tribunal to the condemnation.”
After he was found guilty, Apuron released a statement insisting on his innocence and announcing his appeal.
“I have been informed of the conclusion of the first instance canonical trial against me. While I am relieved that the tribunal dismissed the majority of the accusations against me, I have appealed the verdict,” he said.
“God is my witness; I am innocent and I look forward to proving my innocence in the appeals process,” the statement read.
Chicago, Ill., Aug 28, 2018 / 03:45 pm (CNA).- Archbishop of Chicago Blase Cupich has dismissed recent allegations made by a former Vatican ambassador to the U.S., saying that Pope Francis has a “bigger agenda” to worry about, including def… […]
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Aug 28, 2018 / 03:06 pm (ACI Prensa).- The recent wedding of a young Brazilian woman with terminal cancer was a powerful witness to the sacrifice and permanence of marriage, said the priest who celebrated the sacrament for the couple.
Fr. Mario Silva celebrated the wedding of a young couple, Jessica and Fernando, in the chapel at the Napoleão Laureano Hospital in the Brazilian state of Paraíba Aug. 20.
Silva told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency, that the couple had been civilly married in 2012 and had a three-year-old child.
Jessica, who is now 27, has been fighting a very aggressive form of bone cancer since 2016 and had been hospitalized when the priest was called to administer the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.
“That night, she was in a lot of pain, and when I finished administering the sacrament to her, I asked her… if I could do anything else, and she told me she wanted to get married,” Silva said.
“She told me she had a great desire to receive the blessing of God and she knew that was missing. That would be a great healing and grace in her life. She did not want to die without receiving the blessing of marriage, because both were Catholics and had the dream of getting married in order to have a sacramental life,” he explained.
“I called her family and they gave me the husband’s telephone number. I asked him if he were interested in getting married. I began to visit the hospital more often and to go through with the process of determining whether they could enter into marriage or not,” he related.
Fr. Silva obtained the authorization of the Archdiocese of Paraíba to celebrate the wedding in the hospital and processed the couple’s corresponding papers. He interviewed the couple to ensure that they were certain in their choice and that there were no impediments or grounds for nullity.
He also discussed the nature of sacramental marriage with them.
“I emphasized that this was not simply a social event that lasts a night and then people need another one. I told them that marriage is something that they were administering, that they were giving themselves one to another and that I was just an assistant,” he recounted.
“I explained to them about love, fidelity, joy and sadness in sickness and in health. At that moment I turned to speak to the groom: Fernando, you are aware you are marrying Jessica in a very difficult moment in her life. If your love is capable of enduring these difficulties, you will be able to give her a definitive and free ‘yes’.”
During the homily, the priest spoke “about how people have little hope for Christian marriages” and that celebrating the wedding of Jessica and Fernando was a light for the whole hospital. “I think that that was what created such a stir, besides that the bride and groom had a beautiful appearance,” the priest said.
While Jessica rarely smiled while in the hospital, Silva said, “On the day of the wedding, she was smiling and spoke with great ease which was unusual. You could see that she was very renewed.” He said the bride told her that the sacramental wedding “was like starting over or being reborn.”
“Her husband takes very good care of her and wants to accompany her every day. He left his job and everything to take care of her. He gave witness to permanence and the Catholic marriage was a concrete realization of that,” the priest emphasized.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Washington D.C., Aug 28, 2018 / 12:55 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The body charged with advising the U.S. bishops on sexual abuse prevention has called for an independent lay-led investigation into all allegations of sexual misconduct in the Church and for re… […]
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