Rome Newsroom, Jul 14, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- As global coronavirus cases have surpassed 13 million, Lourdes is offering a digital pilgrimage this week to pray for the sick on the anniversary of its final Marian apparition.
The Marian shrine will liv… […]
CNA Staff, Jul 14, 2020 / 12:32 am (CNA).- Caritas Spain has announced that it will donate more than 23,000 euros – about $26,000 – to Caritas in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to fight a new outbreak of Ebola in the country.
T… […]
CNA Staff, Jul 13, 2020 / 07:19 pm (CNA).- For the upcoming anniversary of the detonation of two atomic bombs on Japan, the US bishops have encouraged Catholics to pray for peace alongside the Church in Japan.
Issued by the USCCB’s Committee for International Justice and Peace, a statement was released July 13, a few weeks ahead of the 75th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“August 6 and 9 mark the 75th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the first, and one hopes the last, times that atomic weapons are employed in war,” the bishops said.
“The 21st century continues to witness geopolitical conflicts with state and non-state actors, increasingly sophisticated weapons, and the erosion of international arms control frameworks. The bishops of the United States steadfastly renew the urgent call to make progress on the disarmament of nuclear weapons.”
Since St. John Paul II visited Japan in 1981, the Catholic Church in Japan has observed Ten Days of Prayer for Peace beginning Aug. 6. For the 75th anniversary, the USCCB has encouraged Catholics in the United States to join Japan in prayer by offering intentions of peace at Mass Aug. 9.
“The Church in the U.S. proclaims her clarion call and humble prayer for peace in our world which is God’s gift through the salvific sacrifice of Christ Jesus,” they said.
The only wartime use of nuclear weapons took place in 1945’s Aug. 6 attack on Hiroshima and Aug. 9 attack on Nagasaki by the United States.
The Hiroshima attack killed around 80,000 people instantly and may have caused about 130,000 deaths, mostly civilians. The attack on Nagasaki instantly killed about 40,000, and destroyed a third of the city.
Pope Francis visited Nagasaki and Hiroshima in November 2019. There, he spoke against nuclear arms and promoted international harmony, noting that peace will not be ensured by a threat of nuclear war.
“A world of peace, free from nuclear weapons, is the aspiration of millions of men and women everywhere,” he said. “Our response to the threat of nuclear weapons must be joint and concerted, inspired by the arduous yet constant effort to build mutual trust and thus surmount the current climate of distrust.”
In February, Pope Francis once again spoke against nuclear arms and the Committee of International Justice and Peace reemphasized the Pope’s position. They said fear is not a stable enough platform to sustain peace.
“Recently, we, the bishops of the USCCB’s Committee on International Justice and Peace re-affirmed the Holy Father’s call to ‘renewed effort to bring about a world of peace and justice that is not based upon fear or the threat of nuclear annihilation but justice and human solidarity.’”
“Fear, distrust, and conflict must be supplanted by our joint commitment, by faith and in prayer, that peace and justice reign now and forever.”
CNA Staff, Jul 13, 2020 / 02:35 pm (CNA).-
A federal court on Monday ordered a delay of the first scheduled federal execution in 17 years, along with other executions scheduled for this week, saying that the drug with which the federal court pl… […]
CNA Staff, Jul 13, 2020 / 02:10 pm (CNA).- The Chinese government announced sanctions Monday against the U. S. ambassador for religious liberty as well as lawmakers who have repeatedly spoken out against the oppression of China’s Uyghur populatio… […]
CNA Staff, Jul 13, 2020 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- The revocation of restrictions on payday lenders by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau exposes poor and vulnerable persons to ‘predatory and abusive lending practices’, the US bishops’ conference said last week.
On July 7 the CFPB removed requirements that lenders ensure borrowers can repay a loan before issuing it, and limited how many successive loans could be taken out by a borrower.
“The USCCB has long advocated for a strong Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule to prevent payday loan abuses to protect poor and vulnerable people. I am deeply disappointed by their final rule that strips away even the basic requirement that loans be made only when people can afford them, setting up workers and families to fail,” Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, chair of the US bishops’ domestic justice committee said July 10.
He called payday lending “modern day usury,” saying the loans “are structured in a way that makes it nearly impossible for borrowers to repay in the short timeframe, often with triple-digit interest rates. The practice exploits the financial distress of vulnerable people and communities for the sake of profit, contributing to an economy of exclusion.”
Archbishop Coakley commented that the coronavirus crisis has heightened the importance of “economic protections and just lending practices.”
“We must work to ensure that those facing financial hardship are met with economic policies that promote the dignity of the human person and the pursuit of the common good. We encourage the U.S. Congress to take up measures to protect consumers and restrain predatory lending,” he concluded.
The payday lending industry lobbied for the rules to be rescinded; the CFPB has found that the industry collects between $7.3 and $7.7 billion dollars annually from the practices that would have been barred.
The CFPB has said that the “legal and evidentiary bases” for the rules, which had been announced in 2017, were “insufficient.” According to the bureau, the rescission “will help to ensure the continued availability of small dollar lending products for consumers who demand them.”
Kathy Kraninger, director of the CFPB, said July 7 that “our actions today ensure that consumers have access to credit from a competitive marketplace, have the best information to make informed financial decisions, and retain key protections without hindering that access.”
According to Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI), 12 million Americans take out payday loans per year, at an average interest rate of 391 percent.
Grothman is consponsor of the the Veterans and Consumers Fair Credit Act of 2019, a bill that would limit the interest rate on payday and car title loans. The bill would expand the 2006 Military Lending Act rate cap – which only covers active military members and their families – to all consumers. It would cap all payday and car-title loans at a maximum of a 36% APR interest rate.
Several states have already capped the interest rate at 36% or lower.
The Church has consistently taught that usury is evil, including in numerous ecumenical councils.
In Vix pervenit, his 1745 encyclical on usury and other dishonest profit, Benedict XIV taught that a loan contract demands “that one return to another only as much as he has received. The sin rests on the fact that sometimes the creditor desires more than he has given. Therefore he contends some gain is owed him beyond that which he loaned, but any gain which exceeds the amount he gave is illicit and usurious.”
In his General Audience address of Feb. 10, 2016, Pope Francis taught that “Scripture persistently exhorts a generous response to requests for loans, without making petty calculations and without demanding impossible interest rates,” citing Leviticus.
“This lesson is always timely,” he said. “How many families there are on the street, victims of profiteering … It is a grave sin, usury is a sin that cries out in the presence of God.”
Rome, Italy, Jul 13, 2020 / 10:37 am (CNA).- According to Italy’s national statistics institute, the country is likely to see a significant decline in the number of babies born in the period following the COVID-19 pandemic.
In their 2020 annual … […]
Rome Newsroom, Jul 13, 2020 / 08:30 am (CNA).- Mafia loan sharks have exploited the economic downturn creating a hidden “new slavery” of usury within communities, an Italian bishop said Sunday.
Bishop Giovanni D’Alise of the southern Diocese of Caserta issued the warning following reports that some parents had been forced to send their children to work off family debts to local mobsters.
“I tell my communities and priests and all those in Caserta who have business dealings, to all the baptized who work more actively for the common good, to keep their eyes open,” D’Alise told the Italian newspaper Avvernire on July 12.
Organized crime, especially loan sharking, has been on the rise following the economic shutdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic. With many businesses and industries closed for weeks or months in some areas, local mob figures were often used as lenders of last resort for struggling families.
The bishop, whose diocese is in the Campania region of Naples, said that “under our eyes unthinkable things are happening.”
D’Alise’s comments were based on a report from Caserta’s Chamber of Commerce, which found that loan sharks were demanding children to be sent to work to pay off their parents’ debt as Italy’s economy worsens as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
“If there are sons or daughters of a working age, legally, adults or minors, the loan shark asks the father to use them in a firm close to him, but which cannot be traced back to him,” Tommaso De Simone, the Caserta Chamber of Commerce president told Avvenire July 10.
Usury in southern Italy has grown “exponentially” in recent months due to the country’s lockdown, according to De Simone.
The Catholic Church has frequently condemned the practice of usury, or the loaning of money while charging unreasonable rates of interest.
“It’s a serious sin, because you make money by taking advantage of other people’s needs. This is anti-human and anti-Christian,” Bishop D’Alise said.
In this case, Italian media reports that the loan sharks are linked to the Camorra, a mafia group based in Naples.
“Now I have the impression that a new slavery is emerging. Just as the Camorra crept in and hid among us, so did the usury,” the bishop said.
“Many workers are increasingly exploited; we even go now to sons and daughters. Boys who are sent to work instead of adults, to pay off the debts incurred by parents,” he said.
The Archbishop of Naples Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe called the Neapolitan Camorra mafia “another possible epidemic” in a homily during a livestreamed Mass in May.
“There are those who are good at making a fortune in times of epidemic. … Let’s move, intervene immediately, because the underworld is faster than our bureaucracy. The Camorra does not wait. It is up to us to get rid of all [criminal] organizations. We must overcome and affirm the right to hope,” Cardinal Sepe said May 2.
The Neapolitan mafia has been known to take advantage of an economic downturn by lending their money — earned by illicit means, like drug trafficking — to businesses who cannot pay the money back.
“When the money cannot be returned, the Camorra takes advantage of that. Because of the money the Camorra can acquire management of the business. From that moment on, the Camorra will use that company as a conduit to launder its own illicit money,” Naples police officer Alfredo Fabbrocini told EuroNews July 10.
De Simone said that loan sharks often have “the face of a friend, a benefactor, who helps you when everyone else has abandoned you. That gives you money right away, when you need it.”
“As long as you have properties, the usurer lends you money. Loans that can hardly be repaid: not so much and not only for the obviously very high interest, but because when, as in the quarantine, there is no economic income, the further loan you need to eat on one side and to pay the installments of the debt on the other,” he explained.
“Children often pay for their families. I have no names to indicate, but from the stories of many economic operators, disgusted by what is happening,” he said.
For Bishop D’Alise, the root of the problem of usury is a failure to uphold human dignity. Because of this, the Italian bishop likened it to the issue of racism in the United States.
“In both cases a person is worthless,” he said. “I still have before me the image of the policeman holding George Floyd with his knee. It crushed him, not only physically.”
He said that the Church’s response needs to be “effective solidarity” that can recognize this dignity and support those most in need.
“What is required of the Church is a strong exercise of solidarity, each for what he can, but that is a sensitive and effective solidarity. Often we do not realize how much goodness, but also how much evil there is between us. And kids cannot pay the price,” he said.
Denver Newsroom, Jul 12, 2020 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- The fourth annual Quincy pilgrimage honoring Venerable Augustus Tolton, the first African-American priest, took place Thursday with the intention of overcoming racism.
Fr. Daren Zehnle, the founder of the Quincy pilgrimage and pastor of St. Augustine parish in Ashland, Ill., said Tolton pastored beyond racial barriers.
“He saw the dignity of people made in the image and likeness of God. That was a turning point for what he did. That is one of our goals – to help people rediscover that basic approach to other people is to see in them Christ the Lord and to try to minister to Jesus in that other person as best as we can,” Zehnle told CNA.
July 9 marked the 123rd anniversary of Tolton’s death. The mile-long pilgrimage in Quincy, Ill., began outside of St. Peter Catholic school and ended with a series of prayers at Tolton’s grave at St. Peter Catholic Cemetery. The pilgrimage is meant to spread the knowledge of Venerable Tolton and to pray for the advancement of his cause for canonization.
Fr. Zehnle said the death of George Floyd had a profound impact on him. In response, he prayed at Tolton’s grave during the protests. He then decided for this year’s pilgrimage to place an emphasis on overcoming racism.
“I knew as soon as that happened that I need to go pray at Father Tolton’s grave… We need Father Tolton’s help with this one. [Then] maybe a week or so later, I wrote a prayer asking God to help us overcome racism through Father Tolton’s intercession,” he said.
Fr. Zehnle first began the pilgrimage four years ago after he returned from his studies in Rome and entered parish life in Quincy. His arrival coincided with the 130th anniversary of Tolton’s return from Rome to Quincy, and he decided to host a pilgrimage to celebrate the holy man’s life. As parishioners enjoyed the pilgrimage, Fr. Zehnle decided to continue the event on the anniversary of Tolton’s death.
“I think anyone who comes into contact with Tolton’s story, you don’t have to read a lot about him before suddenly there’s something about his life, but just sort of grabs you and brings you into it,” he said.
Around 30 people attended the event for the first two years, but in the third year, shortly after Tolton was declared Venerable, 150 people attended the event. This year, 145 people prayed at Tolton’s grave.
Fr. Zehnle said a majority of the pilgrimage attendees have a standing devotion to Tolton. He said the holy man had a profound impact on Quincy and is remembered as a person dedicated to human dignity. He said that when parishes were divided on ethnic lines, the priest welcomed all people to Mass regardless of their ethnicity.
“He never shied away from ministry to people, without any consideration for what this color of their skin was. He served people because he was Catholic because they came to him needing help and whatever form that was. It’s an honest approach to life,” he said.
Fr. Tolton was born a slave in Missouri April 1, 1854 to Catholic parents, Peter Paul and Martha Jane.
Peter Paul escaped shortly after the beginning of the Civil War and joined the Union army, dying shortly thereafter. Martha Jane then escaped to Illinois in 1862 with Augustus and his siblings, Charley and Anne.
Augustus went to Rome in 1880 to attend a seminary of the Congregation for Propagation of the Faith. He was ordained a priest in the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran on Holy Saturday 1886, and was sent back to serve in Illinois in the Diocese of Alton. He worked at a parish in Quincy, but met with opposition from a white priest, and in 1889 secured permission to transfer to the Archdiocese of Chicago.
In Chicago he founded a black parish, Saint Monica’s. He died July 9, 1897 from heat stroke and heart failure, at the age of 43.
The Chicago archdiocese opened Fr. Tolton’s cause for canonization in 2010. In June 2019 he was declared Venerable, an acknowledgement that he lived a life of heroic virtue.
CNA Staff, Jul 12, 2020 / 01:01 pm (CNA).-
Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez has called for Catholics to find hope and a renewed sense of mission amid a “season of sickness and death.” Gomez preached a Sunday morning homily at the Chapel of the Annunciation, on the grounds of the historic San Gabriel Mission Church which was severely damaged by a fire early Saturday morning.
“Yesterday’s fire was heartbreaking. Let’s thank God that nobody got hurt. I thank God this morning, too, for this opportunity to pray with you and to mourn with you,” Gomez said in his July 12 homily.
“In this long season of sickness and death since the coming of the coronavirus, this is one more trial, one more test. We ask the Lord to grant us comfort and consolation. We ask him to strengthen and increase our faith.”
The fire at St. Gabriel is being investigated by local and federal authorities, who have yet to determine the cause of a July 11 fire that destroyed the 249-year-old church’s roof and much of the historic church building. Because the mission church was under renovation, many of its historic and devotional objects had been removed, and were not inside when the building burned.
“The Lord is all mercy and love and tenderness toward us, and we know that he will wipe away every tear from our eyes, that he will turn our mourning into joy. We know this. We believe in his promises,” Gomez said.
“But right now, in this moment, we are sad for what we have lost.”
The San Gabriel fire is one of several fires and acts of vandalism at churches across the country this weekend. On Friday, a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary was vandalized in Queens, New York. Another statue of Mary was set on fire early Sunday morning outside a Boston parish. Police are investigating both incidents.
On Saturday, in Florida, a man drove a minivan into the front of Queen of Peace Catholic church in Ocala, poured gasoline in the foyer and set fire to the building while parishioners inside prepared for morning Mass. Stephen Anthony Shields, 24, was later arrested and charged with attempted murder, arson, burglary, and evading arrest. According to local media, Shields told police he has been diagnosed with schizophrenia but is not currently taking prescribed medication.
The fire also comes after numerous statues of St. Junipero Serra have been torn down in California: at the state capitol in Sacramento, in Los Angeles, and in San Francisco, while protestors have called for similar statues to be moved or torn down in other cities. While Serra, a Franciscan missionary priest, is regarded as a founder of California and an evangelist to indigenous people, some critics say he was complicit in human rights abuses in the eighteenth century. His supporters say Serra defended the rights and dignity of native people.
Gomez said that the fire at San Gabriel was especially painful as “this destruction comes as we are getting ready to celebrate the 250th anniversary of this great mission.”
“But this fire changes nothing,” said the archbishop. “Mission San Gabriel will always be the spiritual heart of the Church in Los Angeles, the place from which the Gospel still goes forth.”
“You trace your roots all the way back to the beginnings of the Christian faith in California, before the founding of the United States. In fact, you are one of the few Catholic communities in this continent that can claim to be founded by a saint.”
As he prayed to St. Serra Saturday night, Gomez said, he recalled that the saint also “knew sufferings every day in his service to the Gospel.”
“I thought, ‘what would St. Junípero tell us this morning?’ And I remembered his beautiful little prayer: ‘Let us bear every hardship for the love of You and the salvation of souls. In our trials, may we know that we are loved as Your own children.’ Let’s make that our prayer this morning, my brothers and sisters.”
Noting the words of St. Paul in the readings of Mass, in which the apostle says “the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us,” Gomez said the readings of the day were a call to faith, hope, and action.
“He made us for glory — not for pain, not for sorrow!” Gomez said.
“We can’t give in to this sadness. We need to make this a moment for purification and renewal of our mission — renewal of the Mission of San Gabriel and renewal of the mission that is each one of our lives.”
“St. Junípero and the first Franciscan missionaries answered the Lord’s call and sacrificed everything to bring his Word to this land,” said Gomez. “Now it is our turn to make sure his Word is proclaimed to the next generation. We can’t harden our hearts or become distracted by the anxieties and temptations of the world.”
“St. Junípero would tell us today: “Siempre Adelante!” Always Forward, and don’t look back.”
© Catholic World Report