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No monkey business: Chimps don’t have human rights, philosophers say

May 11, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Denver, Colo., May 11, 2018 / 11:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After a New York judge said that courts must seriously consider whether animals deserve some legal protections afforded to people, Catholic philosophers say that human beings are unique, and that, when it comes to law and ethics, that matters.

“Chimps are amazing living beings… and it could be a big mistake to just think of the chimps as things or instruments,” said Dr. John Crosby, a philosophy professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio.

“Undeniably, there is something there mysterious [about them]. There is something of worth, but there is not a person. And therefore, because they are not a person, there are no real rights the chimp has,” he told CNA.
 
Nonhuman Rights Project has sought to release two New York-based chimpanzees, Tommy and Kiko, from the cages of private owners, and into a wild animal sanctuary. Steven Wise is the lawyer in charge of the animals’ defense.

In March 2017, Wise filed for habeas corpus relief, citing the similarities between mankind and primates. The filing alleged that chimps’ captivity constituted a kind of unlawful imprisonment.

On May 8, New York’s highest court rejected an appeal from Wise aimed at freeing the chimpanzees. The Court of Appeals voted 5-0 in favor of an intermediate appellate court in Manhattan that denied the chimps’ legal status in June 2017. The appellate court ruled that chimps are not legal persons.

“The asserted cognitive and linguistic capabilities of chimpanzees do not translate to a chimpanzee’s capacity or ability, like humans, to bear legal duties, or to be held legally accountable for their actions,” wrote Justice Troy Webber last year, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Judge Eugene Fahey, who voted against the chimps’ rights to habeas relief on Tuesday, argued that while a chimp might not be considered a person, animals might have the right to legal redress.

“While it may be arguable that a chimpanzee is not a ‘person,’ there is no doubt that it is not merely a thing,” he said in an opinion statement. “In elevating our species, we should not lower the status of other highly intelligent species.”

“The Appellate Division’s conclusion that a chimpanzee cannot be considered a ‘person’ and is not entitled to habeas relief is in fact based on nothing more than the premise that a chimpanzee is not a member of the human species,” Fahey wrote.

There are a lot of similarities between chimps and people, Fahey said, drawing attention to chimps’ advanced cognitive skills, ability to self-recognize, and a high percentage of shared DNA with humans, at least 96 percent.

He asked whether some animals should have the right to readdress wrongs committed against them. Animals are not morally culpable or legally responsible, he said, but neither are infants and some ill people, and therefore they might enjoy similar legal rights.

“Even if it is correct, however, that nonhuman animals cannot bear duties, the same is true of human infants or comatose human adults, yet no one would suppose that it is improper to seek a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of one’s infant child.”

Dr. Crosby agreed that animals should not be treated poorly, and he lamented over the mistreatment of animals by farms and luxury product testing. However, he disagreed with the judge’s argument about babies and comatose adults, noting chimpanzees permanently lack moral culpability.

Babies grow into morally responsible adults and comatose patients may potentially get better, he said. Even if the patient does not get better, he added, people “are the kind of being that in the normal instance has moral agency and something is blocking exercise of it.”

Animals do not have moral agency or free will, he said, while highlighting a few major differences between chimpanzees and people.

“A person is a being that possesses himself and is capable of originating action, where he freely determines himself,” said Crosby. “It’s very difficult to claim that any chimp, however amazingly skilled, is a free agent.”

Cautioning against conferring upon them the status of persons, Crosby said people should instead remember their moral obligations towards animals.  

“These animals merit a certain reverence. We ought to think of ourselves not just as users of them, but somehow custodians of them,” he said. “There are right and wrong ways of acting towards chimps and other animals, but they are not the subject of rights since they are not persons.”

Father Brian Chrzastek, a philosophy professor at the Dominican House of Studies, also reflected on the difference between chimps and people. He said that humans have a higher potential for abstract thought and originality. While animals act by instinct, he said people engage rationally with the world.

“Humans are different in kind. It’s not like we are just smart chimpanzees or something. We’re an entirely different level of thought, an entirely different kind of species,” he told CNA.

 

[…]

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Selfies and Twitter – how one Polish diocese is promoting life

May 11, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Lublin, Poland, May 11, 2018 / 10:36 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archdiocese of Lublin has launched a campaign urging Catholics to take to social media in defense of the unborn, using selfies as a way to voice gratitude for one’s life and the right to be born.

“When we take a selfie we show ourselves, but in this case, we give a sign that we are committed to defending life and the family,” Archbishop Stanislaw Budzik of Lublin said in a May 10 statement coinciding with the launch of the campaign.

“We want to show gratitude to God for the gift of life, to our parents for letting us come to this beautiful world and to all those who defend life, who speak with joy and gratitude about life,” he said, adding that “it is worth devoting all our strength” to defending life and family.

The campaign, titled “Selfie for Life,” was launched by the Lublin archdiocese ahead of Poland’s national March for Life and Family June 10, and is intended to rally a worldwide defense of life and marriage. Marches will take place in 160 cities throughout Poland.

Participants are asked to take a selfie either alone or with a group, and post it to their social media accounts with the hashtag “#DziekujeZeZyje”, roughly translating as “Thankful for my life.”

Archbishop Budzik kicked off the campaign himself May 10 by posting a selfie on Twitter with the hashtag.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”pl” dir=”ltr”>Zapraszam i zachęcam do akcji &quot;Selfie dla życia&quot; <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/dzi%C4%99kuj%C4%99%C5%BCe%C5%BCyj%C4%99?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#dziękujężeżyję</a> . <a href=”https://t.co/EacqgeYArI”>pic.twitter.com/EacqgeYArI</a></p>&mdash; Stanisław Budzik (@StanislawBudzik) <a href=”https://twitter.com/StanislawBudzik/status/994510485755179008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>May 10, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Each photo published with the hashtag will draw a donation of one Polish zloty (USD 0.28) to a fund called “It’s good that you’re alive.”

At the end of the campaign, which will close with the June 10 march, a virtual heart will be created from all the photos published with the hashtag.

Fr. Pawel Rytel-Andrianik, spokesman for the Polish bishops’ conference, said, “we use selfies to promote ourselves, while in this case it’s about to promote the essential values” of marriage, family and the right to life, and that “everyone is invited to take part.”

[…]

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New US immigration policy violates ‘sanctity of the family,’ critic says

May 11, 2018 CNA Daily News 3

Washington D.C., May 11, 2018 / 03:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Trump administration’s new “zero tolerance” policy for illegal entry into the U.S. is inhumane and will split up families seeking safety, a Catholic analyst of migration policy warned.

“If implemented this will lead to a drastic increase in forcible family separation at the border,” Ashley Feasley, director of policy for Migration and Refugee Services at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told CNA May 10.

“Most importantly it is inhumane and goes against our Catholic values and the sanctity of the family,” she said.

The policy change means prosecution of people who illegally cross the southwest border and the separation of many children from their parents.

Feasley stressed that entering the border with one’s child is not automatically an instance of child smuggling.

“Many of these families are willingly turning themselves over to Border Patrol. They are not hiding. They are asking for protection, they are vulnerable and looking for safety,” she said.

“[The policy change] will also erode judicial efficiency, taking away resources to prosecute the most dangerous, in favor of prosecuting every parent,” she said. The new policy could cost up to $620 per night to detain a family of one parent and two children.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions addressed law enforcement officials in Arizona and California in two May 7 speeches.

“If you cross this border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you. It’s that simple,” Sessions said, according to National Public Radio. “If you smuggle illegal aliens across our border, then we will prosecute you. If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law. If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border.”

Border agents detained close to 40,000 unauthorized immigrants on the Mexico border each in March and April alone. They include 5,000 to 10,000 families and underage minors traveling alone.

The Department of Justice will send 35 more prosecutors and 18 more immigration judges to handle the caseload, Sessions has said.

The attorney general said there is now “zero tolerance” for illegal border crossings. The goal is for “100 percent” of all people who cross the border illegally to face charges of “improper entry by an alien,” which can result in up to six months in prison. Alleged violators will be referred to federal prosecutors through the Department of Homeland Security.

Thousands more migrants could be held in detention facilities or children’s shelters. Families with juveniles will be separated and the minors will be sent to separate facilities.

Under previous practice, people caught illegally crossing the border were returned to Mexico after a guilty plea and a brief detention. The violation is a misdemeanor under federal law.

Sessions said the Department of Justice would take up as many referrals from DHS “as humanly possible.”

However, Feasley warned that there are many dangers of family separation. It is “extremely traumatic” for children to experience, especially after a lengthy, stressful trip to the U.S. Very young children have been separated and left with strangers, many of whom do not speak their language.

“Then these children are put into shelter facilities which are confined spaces. The experience is doubly traumatizing,” Feasley continued. “The American Academy of Pediatrics has cautioned against the long lasting emotional trauma and harm that separation can cause children.”

Some migrants have tried to challenge their treatment under U.S. authorities.

One Honduran woman, Olga George, was charged with illegal entry and separated from the four young children accompanying her. She has retained lawyers who charge that the Justice Department is discriminating against her for being a Central American.

A Congolese woman who sought asylum was detained and separated from her young daughter for months until DNA testing during court proceedings confirmed their identities.

If immigrants detained at the border have valid asylum claims, they could still receive federal criminal convictions on their record regardless if they are judged to have a right to stay in the U.S., CNN reports. However, there are no special arrangements under the current plan for those who claim asylum when they are detained.

Department of Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen officially enacted a “zero-tolerance” policy on Friday May 3.

Nelsen has said that families are separated only for the children’s safety or when family relationships can’t be proven. Under federal law and court decisions, children must be released from detention quickly. Previously, this meant entire families were released rather than separated.

DHS has already referred over 30,000 illegal entry cases to the Department of Justice, an increase of 61 percent over Fiscal Year 2017.

Feasley said the new policy will not address “the pervasive root causes of migration.” Migrants are fleeing state- or community-sanctioned violence, poverty, lack of educational opportunity, forced recruitment into gangs, and domestic abuse, among other grave problems that compel children and families “to take the enormous risks of migration.”

“These are the factors that must be addressed as we look to repair our broken immigration system,” she said.

Feasley also had particular recommendations for Catholics.

“Catholics should try to remember the human dignity of all families and children who arrive and look to assist these families in productive ways that help them comply with our immigration laws–ensuring that they know their rights and responsibilities in this country,” she said. She suggested helping migrants get legal counsel, accompanying them to legal proceedings, and “welcoming and praying with and for these families in our parishes.”

“As Pope Francis says, they are not a problem or a burden but an opportunity for encounter,” she told CNA.

[…]

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Once on the verge of closing, Italian monastery sees vocation revival

May 10, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Barletta, Italy, May 11, 2018 / 12:16 am (ACI Prensa).- The investiture of Sister Maria Vittoria della Croce last month marked the first ceremony of its kind to be held in the Italian city of Barletta since the 1940s.

“The monastery of San Ruggero [in Barletta] had been reduced to a very few elderly nuns, but three years ago it was re-founded with the arrival of several young sisters, which revitalized it in terms of vocations,” explained Deacon Riccardo Losappio, head of communications for the Archdiocese of Trani-Barletta-Bisceglie.

Losappio told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency, that these new religious, including the current abbess, come from the Santa Maria delle Rose (Saint Mary of the Roses) Benedictine monastery located in the town of Sant’Angelo in Pontano in the Marche region in eastern Italy.

Now, with the admission of Sister Maria Vittoria della Croce, “the Benedictine monastic community of San Ruggero is comprised of six nuns that have made solemn vows, four nuns who have made temporary vows, two novices and one postulant,” he said.

Sister Maria Vittoria della Croce – whose baptismal name is Carmen D’Agostino – is 27 years old.

Her induction ceremony into the San Ruggero Benedictine monastery took place April 27 in the co-cathedral Basilica of Saint Mary Major and was presided by the Archbishop of Trani-Barletta-Bisceglie, Leonardo D’Ascenzo.

The photographs of the event were posted by the archdiocese on its Facebook page, where they reached more than 2 million users and drew more than 11,000 shares, 3,700 “likes” and 650 comments.

Losappio explained that “for Benedictine nuns, presenting oneself dressed as a bride is part of the rite of investiture for the religious.”

“They always enter dressed that way because they are spouses of Christ who are going out to meet him and they become brides to anticipate in time what one day will be in the fullness of God.”

During the investiture ceremony, novices who were previously dressed in a wedding gown “have their hair cut, put on the Benedictine habit and receive the crucifix to indicate their joyful renunciation of all that is vain and ephemeral.”

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During the ceremony, Archbishop D’Ascenzo wished the new religious “the great beauty of this presence of Jesus maturing more and more in you and to express it as a witness to the outside world through the relationship with the Church and with your community. May you have a blessed path to holiness and I hope that you can be ever more beautiful in the sense of this witness to the Church and with your sisters.”

Sister Maria Vittoria della Croce shared her testimony in the archdiocesan newspaper “In Comunione.”

The new nun was born in January 1991 in the Italian town of Melfi and finished her studies in nursing at the University of Foggia in 2014. She grew up in a strong Catholic family belonging to the Neocatechumenal Way and has three siblings.

“When I was 15, my mother went to heaven after a long illness which she endured with faith. It was not easy for me, but I can bear witness that the Lord has always provided for my family and me,” she stated.

“Thinking about my mother made me look to heaven, to paradise. More than having made a choice, I was chosen by him: at a youth encounter, and then also through others, I felt the love of Christ manifested on the cross,” she said.

“I simply accepted this love, this call to fight for the kingdom of heaven, and with the help of the Church to discern this call, I entered the monastery,” she said.

For Sister Maria Vittoria della Croce, this vocational call “opened heaven to me” and she is certain that God “loves me as I am, and I am for him a precious pearl.”
 

 

 

[…]

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Disability groups oppose using botanist’s death to advance assisted suicide agenda

May 10, 2018 CNA Daily News 2

Bern, Switzerland, May 10, 2018 / 05:21 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Botanist and ecologist David Goodall ended his life May 10 in Switzerland by assisted suicide, a procedure which he had long advocated legalizing in his home country of Australia.

Goodall, 104, told journalists that he “looked forward” to ending his life and regretted not having ended it sooner, though he is not terminally ill. He also said he regretted that he had to travel all the way to Switzerland commit suicide.

Australia’s Victoria state has passed an assisted suicide law that will go into effect in 2019, but it only allows for terminally ill patients to end their lives – Goodall would not have qualified under the law.

Critics have said that Goodall’s death was not simply a personal choice, but a political one that could have devastating consequences on vulnerable populations such as the elderly, the poor, and the disabled.

“It was clear he wanted to go out while getting a lot of attention,” said Stephen Drake, a research analyst with the advocacy group Not Dead Yet, a disability rights group which opposes the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia “as deadly forms of discrimination.”

“If someone acts as he does, for people to call it a personal act is a lie; it was a political act,” Drake told CNA.

Only a handful of countries have legalized assisted suicide or euthanasia, including Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. In Switzerland, while assisted suicide is technically not legal, it is allowed under certain circumstances.

In the United States, assisted suicide is currently legal in Colorado, Vermont, Washington, California, Oregon, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia. The State Supreme Court of Montana decriminalized assisted suicide for physicians in 2009.

Currently, most legislation that allows for assisted suicide or euthanasia does so only in the cases of terminally ill patients.

However, Goodall’s case demonstrates that this is only the beginning for assisted suicide advocates, Drake noted.

Terminal illness is “the wedge issue that most people can agree on, that opens the door,” he said.

“Once you open the door, then the campaign becomes to kick it open as far as you can, and it shows that opponents in Australia who’ve been fighting to prevent the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia are right on target when they say that this will begin to expand in very short order,” he added.

“Now the cause will be: why are we preventing poor old people from ending their lives?” he said.

Other vulnerable and undervalued populations, such as the poor and disabled, will be similarly at risk, he noted.

Matt Valliere, executive director of Patients Rights Action Fund, told CNA in e-mail comments that it would “be a mistake” to use Goodall’s death as an example in advocating for legalized assisted suicide.

“We know that legalizing assisted suicide only places the vulnerable at greater risk. Mr. Goodall himself had no terminal illness and yet was given lethal medication,” Valliere said.

“That is why many sick, poor, elderly and persons with disabilities oppose these laws – they will be the first to suffer from them.”

What concerns disability and advocacy groups most about legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia is the potential for coercion and corruption – that suicide will become a “rational choice” for some undervalued populations, and their deaths seen as a duty rather than an unpreventable tragedy, Drake said.

“They will no longer be viewed as preventable tragedies but rational (ways) to end a life of suffering,” he said.

“But if you talk to people with disabilities, the suffering they will cite is not the disability itself, but the barriers and discrimination and open hostility they encounter in the culture they live in.”

Studies have shown that the majority of patients who request assisted suicide will withdraw that request when they are treated for depression. There have also been several cases of botched deaths in Oregon, in which a patient’s doctor was not present during the assisted suicide. Oregon has seen many abuses since since its legalization of assisted suicide, such as cases of pills changing hands, either intentionally or unknowingly, with lethal results.

Another concern is that suicide for vulnerable populations will be seen as a smart economic choice, Drake said.

Derek Humphry, founder of the Hemlock Society (now two organizations – Compassion and Choices, and Final Exit Network), wrote in 2000 about the “unspoken argument” for assisted suicide – that it would be cheaper to let the elderly and disabled die than to keep them alive.

“As technology advances, as medical costs skyrocket out of control, as chronic diseases predominate, as the projected rate of the eighty-five-and-older population accelerates, as managed care seeks to cut costs and as Medicare is predicted to go bankrupt by 2007, the impetus of cost containment provide impetus, whether openly acknowledged or not, for the practicalities of an assisted death,” Humphry wrote in his book Freedom to Die: people, politics, and the right-to-die movement.

Drake noted: “It’s one thing for me to say that, it’s another thing for Derek Humphry, who embodies the assisted suicide movement, to say it.”

Drake said that advocates for assisted suicide “either discount those concerns or frankly they don’t care, they figure the people who might be hurt by this won’t be them, and I think that’s what it boils down to.”

[…]

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Taiwan’s bishops gather at the Vatican for first time in 10 years

May 10, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, May 10, 2018 / 10:29 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The bishops of the Republic of China, also known as Taiwan, arrived in Rome earlier this week ahead of meetings with the pope and other Vatican officials – the first such visit in 10 years, and their first meeting with Francis since his election.

The delegation of seven bishops will meet with the pope next week for an ad limina visit – a customary meeting for diocesan bishops to give an update on the state of their dioceses – which typically takes place every five years.

The bishops of Taiwan last made an ad limina visit in December 2008 with Benedict XVI.

The bishops have brought two gifts for the pope: a painting by Giuseppe Castiglione, an Italian missionary to China who served as a painter in the court of three emperors in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and a painting titled “Merciful Sun Shines on Taiwan,” by Tawanese artist Chia Shen-chen.

Before leaving for Rome, the bishops met with Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, and with Vice President Chen Chien-jen – a devout Catholic who visited the Vatican for the canonization of St. Teresa of Calcutta in 2016 – who held a farewell dinner to express the government’s respect for the Church and the importance of Vatican-Taiwan relations.

The ad limina visit comes during a time of increased pressure from mainland China on Taiwan.

The Holy See has recognized the Republic of China since 1942, and does not have diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, which consolidated control of the mainland at the conclusion of a civil war in 1949.

The People’s Republic insists that Taiwan is a rebel province, and place heavy pressure on countries not to recognize the island as a sovereign state. The Holy See is among the most prominent sovereign entities to do so.

Vatican journalist Francis Rocca reports in the Wall Street Journal that recent negotiations between the Holy See and mainland China may have stalled as the government has cracked down more severely on religious institutions, starting with the implementation of new regulations in February.

The Holy See has been in negotiations with the communist Chinese government in recent months that could eventually lead to Vatican recognition of seven illicitly ordained bishops aligned with Beijing, but which could end up sidelining the Church in Taiwan if an agreement leads to diplomatic ties being formed between the Holy See and Beijing.

Archbishop John Hung Shan-chuan of Taipei, speaking to Reuters in March, said the Church in Taiwan did not anticipate that the Holy See and mainland China would establish diplomatic relations, because to do so requires sharing “common values with each other.”

“The values the Vatican holds are different from those of the Chinese Communist Party. Building ties with the Vatican requires values including freedom and democracy,” Archbishop Hung said.

Taiwan has fewer than 300,000 Catholics – two percent of the population – and seven dioceses. There are seven active bishops, and six who are retired.

Bishop Bosco Lin Chi-nan of Tainan and Archbishop Hung are both close to turning 75, when they will be required to submit their retirement, potentially opening up two sees to new bishop appointments if Pope Francis accepts their resignations.

[…]

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Pope tells lay movements to be bold, persevere in living the Gospel

May 10, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, May 10, 2018 / 05:17 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis Thursday paid a visit to two small Catholic communes in central Italy dedicated to living solidarity and promoting ecumenical unity, telling members that their “prophetic” way of living the Gospel must continue with boldness and perseverance.

Speaking to members of the Nomadelfia community and commune, the pope said theirs is “a prophetic reality that proposes the creation of a new civilization, implementing the Gospel as a form of a good and beautiful life.”

Similarly, he told members of the Focolare Movement, which has a Marian spirituality and places an emphasis on ecumenism, that their community is “an illustration of the mission of the Church today, as traced by the Second Vatican Council.”

He told members they should not stay locked inside, but must “go out, to encounter, to take care of, to throw the leaven of the Gospel in the pasta of society, above all where there is most need, where the Gospel is awaited and invoked: in poverty, in suffering, in trials, in the search and in doubt.”

He said “frankness” and “perseverance” – in Greek “parresia” and “hypomone” – were two keywords members should to keep in mind going forward.

Parresia, or frankness, he said, speaks of the “courage and sincerity in bearing witness to the truth” that a disciple of Jesus needs to have, even in prayer.

“Prayer must have frankness, to say things face-to-face,” he said, and, pointing to how Abraham bartered with God to continue lowering the number of righteous people needed to save Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction, told members to “fight with God in prayer.”

Perseverance, he said, means learning to move beyond the difficult situations that life presents and not get bogged down by challenges.

“This term expresses the constancy and firmness in carrying forward the choice of God and of new life in Christ. It means keeping this choice firm, even at the cost of difficulty and opposition, knowing that this constancy, this firmness and this patience produce hope, and hope does not disappoint,” he said.

Referring to the image of the “Maria Theotokos” housed in a shrine in Loppiano, which is the epicenter of the Focolare Movement, the pope noted that “the first disciple of Jesus was his mother,” and told members, most of whom are laypeople, not to forget that “Mary was a laywoman.”

Pope Francis met briefly with members of the Nomadelfia and Focolare communities during a May 10 half-day trip to Grosetto and Loppiano, where each of the movements operate.

Nomadelfia – which in Greek means ‘where brotherhood is law’ – is a small community and commune within the Tuscan city of Grosseto consisting of practicing Catholics seeking to live a life inspired by the events in the biblical book of the Acts of the Apostles.

The community was founded by Fr. Zeno Saltini, who after his ordination to the priesthood in 1931, spiritually adopted as his “son” a 17-year-old boy who had recently left prison.

Saltini continued to welcome more and more troubled and abandoned youth. Eventually, as more young people knocked on his door, the community grew and laywomen came as “mothers” to care for the youth who arrived. Soon couples also began to arrive who welcomed the children and raised them as a family.

The first commune of Nomadelfia was located on the grounds of a former concentration camp in Fossoli following the German occupation of Italy during the Second World War, before later transferring to Grosseto.

There is no private property in the commune; everything is shared, and children who come are required to attend school until the age of 18. Today there are some 5,000 youth who have been welcomed into the Grosseto commune. Many of the couples in the community have welcomed children and youth as foster-parents.

The last pope to visit Nomadelfia was St. John Paul II in 1989, just eight years after Fr. Saltini’s death in 1981.

After arriving around 8a.m. May 10, Pope Francis was welcomed by Saltini’s successor, Don Ferdinando Neri, and the president of the community, Francesco Matterazzo.

He visited the commune’s cemetery and led the community in a prayer at Saltini’s tomb, leaving a stone with his name on it, as other inhabitants of Nomadelfia have done, before visiting the tombs of the first members of the community.

Francis then made his way to the chapel of the main house of the community, where he entrusted two children into the care of two separate families, after which he met with the wider community.

In his speech, Pope Francis pointed to the meaning of their name, Nomadelfia, saying the “law of brotherhood” they live was the life-goal of their founder.

Saltini, he said, understood when he saw abandoned and suffering youth that “the only language they understood was that of love.”

Because of this, the priest was able to identify a unique type of society “where there is no space for isolation or solitude, but the principle collaboration between different families is in force, where the members recognize their brothers in faith.”

Francis also pointed to the care shown toward the elderly in the commune, who even when in poor health are not abandoned, but are supported by the entire community.

“Continue on this path, incarnating the model of fraternal love through visible works and signs in the many contexts where evangelical charity calls you,” the pope said, telling members that when faced with a world that is often hostile to Christ and his Church, “do not hesitate in responding to the joyful and serene witness of your lives, inspired by the Gospel.”

After his brief visit to Nomadelfia, Pope Francis made another short stop in Loppiano, heart of the Focolare Movement launched by Chiara Lubich in 1943 as a means of spiritual and social renewal.

The movement, which places an emphasis on universal brotherhood and ecumenical unity, and promotes a Marian spirituality, is currently present in 182 countries around the world.

Although the movement was established by a Catholic, it embraces and welcomes members of other religions who do not necessarily share Catholic beliefs. Focolare has around two million Catholic members as well as thousands of members from other Christian churches and religious traditions, including Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus.

After arriving to Loppiano, the pope immediately went to the shrine of “Maria Theotokos,” where he sat in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and prayed in front of the image of the Mary the “Theotokos” – the “God-bearer” or “Mother of God” in Greek.

In an audience with members of the movement in the sanctuary’s churchyard, the pope responded to three questions on how to live a life of true charity amid modern challenges; how academic and formational entities can grow and build new forms of leadership in society, and what the mission of Focolare is in the New Evangelization.

Speaking of frankness and perseverance, Pope Francis said these qualities mean “to have a heart turned toward God, believing in his love so that his love casts out every false fear, every temptation of hiding oneself in a quiet life, in respectability or even in a subtle hypocrisy.”

“One must ask the Holy Spirit for frankness – always united to respect and tenderness – in bearing witness to the great and beautiful works that God has done in us and in our midst,” he said, and encouraged members to be honest and sincere in their relationships, but to avoid sowing discord and murmuring through gossip.

As he often has in the past, Francis called a gossiper a “terrorist” who “destroys the community, destroys the Church, and also destroys oneself.”

He also stressed the need to persevere amid modern challenges, saying perseverance is a sign of God’s love. “which precedes us and renders us capable of living with tenacity, serenity and positivity,” as well as a sense of humor, “even in the most difficult moments.”

In order for the community to go forward, it also needs memory, he said, because it “allows you to go forward and bear fruit. If you don’t have memory, the tree won’t bear fruit because it doesn’t have roots.”

Speaking of the numerous centers for education and formation run by the movement, the pope urged them to give the entities “a new momentum, opening them to even more vast horizons and projecting them to the frontiers.”

A special emphasis, he said, should be placed on the courses that connect children, older youth, families and people from different vocations.

In terms of the movement’s role in the New Evangelization, Pope Francis said that at 50 years old, the life of the Loppiano community is just beginning in terms of their service in announcing the Gospel, which requires “humility, openness, synergy and the ability to risk.”

“We need men and women – young people, families, persons from all vocations and professions – to trace new paths to follow together,” he said.

Francis then said the big challenge in this regard is to have a “faithful creativity,” which means being faithful to their charism while also being open to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, courageously interpreting new paths forward.

Discernment is necessary for this “faithful creativity” to be successful, he said, adding that :we are all called to be artisans of communitarian discernment. This is the path so that also Loppiano can discover and follow, step by step, but path of God in service to the Church and to society.”

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