Sligo, Ireland, May 29, 2018 / 03:15 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As the Republic of Ireland moved to legalize abortion over the weekend, one bishop has said that practicing Catholics who voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment should consider going to confession… […]
Vatican City, May 29, 2018 / 01:33 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A month after the death of UK toddler Alfie Evans, the Vatican’s Bambino Gesu children’s hospital issued a new charter on the “rights of the incurable child,” outlining basic rights for both parents and children.
Among other things, the charter says children with terminal diseases have the right to second opinions and better diagnostic and palliative care, as well as the right to better experimental treatments and to be moved across international borders.
The charter was presented May 29 as part of a seminar course titled “Are there incurable children?” It took place a month after the April 28 death of Alfie Evans, a gravely ill toddler who passed away just before his second birthday after being removed from life support during an intense legal battle over his treatment.
Consisting of 10 articles, the hospital’s new charter draws on previous national and international charters for the rights of hospitalized children, and affirms that proper medical care does not involve just looking for a cure, but also includes palliative care, as well as spiritual and psychological support for the family.
A summary of the charter posted to Bambino Gesu’s website refers to the case of Alfie Evans, as well as that of British infant Charlie Gard, who died at 11 months old in 2017 after a similar legal battle over his treatment and transfer.
Both children suffered from either unidentified or rare degenerative diseases and were denied the right both to further experimental treatment and international transfer, despite the fact that doctors outside of the UK were willing to provide experimental treatments.
In both cases, Bambino Gesu offered to take the children and provide for their palliative care, and in both cases the request to transfer was denied by British courts and hospitals, despite the fact that in Evans’ case, the child was granted Italian citizenship.
Article 5 of the new charter says children “have the right to use experimental diagnostic-therapeutic protocols approved by ethics committees that avail themselves of specific pediatric skills,” and that risk factors must naturally be reduced as much as possible.
The charter notes that in the cases of Evans and Gard, the most controversial point was the decision of hospitals and judges not to authorize the transfer of the children abroad, despite their parents’ wishes.
To this end, it notes in the charter that European citizens have the right to receive care in every country that is part of the European Union, choosing whichever healthcare facility they wish for either planned or unplanned care.
Also highlighted is the child’s right to take advantage of cross-border healthcare. In article 6, the charter stresses that the right of the family to “the choice of a doctor, medical team and healthcare facility of their trust, even if they move to a country other than their own” must be respected by the facility where the child is hospitalized.
In article 7, which touches on palliative care, the charter also emphasizes that whenever possible, the child has the right “to stay in their own home for their health needs, even complex ones.”
Likewise, the child also has a right “to receive adequate pain treatment, both physical and psychological.” Symptoms and suffering, the document says, “must be possibly prevented and always alleviated.”
Palliative care, the charter emphasizes, “must be integrated early in treatment planning as a complement to curative and rehabilitative measures.”
La Paz, Bolivia, May 29, 2018 / 12:25 pm (CNA).- In a statement Tuesday, Bolivian bishop and Cardinal-elect Toribio Ticona strongly denounced rumors that he has a wife and children.
“As a result of the false accusation which is being spread in the media regarding my private life, it is my duty to declare and emphatically make clear that its content does not correspond to the truth,” Bishop Ticona said in a statement released by the Bolivian Bishops’ Conference.
The bishop said he interprets the rumors as an attack not only against himself, but against Pope Francis, who recently chose him to be elevated to the position of cardinal.
“If these accusations persist, I will have no problem filing a libel lawsuit against those promoting or propagating this,” he said.
Ticona said that similar rumors surfaced in 2011, but “ended up being simple calumny.”
“Personally, I am happy that these accusations should come out at this time, in order to definitively close the case,” he added.
Earlier this week, the blog Adelante la Fe reported that “It is a well-known fact that while (Ticona) was serving his office in Corocoro, he was living (as husband and wife) with a lady in Oruro’s chancery. She and her children are proud to be called wife and children of the Patacamaya bishop, as Bishop Toribio Ticona is also known.”
However, in a May 29 article in Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, journalist Franca Giansoldati reported that the Vatican has carried out “deep investigations” of the claims, which found that “nothing is true” regarding the rumors.
The Vatican has not yet responded publicly to the claims.
Earlier this month, Pope Francis announced that he would be holding a June consistory to create 14 new cardinals who express the “universality” of the Church. Francis made particular note of his election of Bishop Ticona along with two other bishops, saying that they “have distinguished themselves for their service to the Church.”
Ticona, 81, is Bishop Emeritus of the Cora Cora Prelature in Bolivia, and has been described as a charismatic figure and an advocate for the poor.
Upon being named a cardinal by Pope Francis, Ticona said it was “a great surprise” and that he thanked God for the honor.
Ticona was born to a poor Bolivian family in 1937, and worked as a shoe shiner, newspaper vendor and a mayor. Influenced heavily by the Belgian priests at his home parish, Ticona entered San Cristóbal seminary in 1960 and on January 29, 1967 was ordained a priest.
He was named Auxiliary Bishop of Potosí in 1986, and in 1992 was made the Prelature of Cora Cora in La Paz.
After learning of his election as a cardinal, the Bolivian Bishops’ Conference said that “Bishop Toribio embodies the vocation of a humble priest who serves. Our Church joins in giving thanks to the Lord for this gift.”
Vatican City, May 29, 2018 / 10:35 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In September Pope Francis will visit the neighborhood and parish connected with a Sicilian priest killed by the Mafia in 1993, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the death of the “First Martyr of the Mafia.”
After quietly fighting the Mafia through the education of young people, Bl. Giuseppe “Pino” Puglisi was assassinated by hitmen on Sept. 15, 1993, his 53rd birthday.
Pope Francis will fly Sept. 15 to Piazza Armerina where he will greet authorities and the local bishop and meet with the faithful.
Transferring to Palermo by helicopter, he will celebrate Mass in memory of Puglisi and visit the Mission of Hope and Charity to eat lunch with guests of the mission and a group of prisoners and immigrants.
Francis will also make private stops at Bl. Puglisi’s home and parish, San Gaetano, in the Brancaccio neighborhood of Palermo. He will then meet with priests, religious, and seminarians and later with youth, before returning to Rome.
Puglisi was born Sept. 15, 1937 to a modest, working-class family in Palermo. He entered the seminary at the age of 16 and was ordained a priest in 1960 at the age of 22.
Throughout his priesthood, he was known for being outspoken against injustices – including communism, the Mafia, and problems within the Church.
He was also passionately involved in youth ministry and in promoting vocations. In 1990, Puglisi was transferred to the parish of San Gaetano, in a mob-ridden neighborhood. His approach was the same: to win over the youth and be a pastor to his flock.
“Father Puglisi was not a typical anti-Mafia priest. He did not organize rallies or make public condemnation of Mafia,” Archbishop Michele Pennisi of Monreale told the National Catholic Register in 2013. “[The] Mafia does not see that kind of priest as dangerous.”
Puglisi was considered more dangerous “because he educated young people,” Archbishop Pennisi said. He would convince youth not to steal or quit school, and encouraged them away from the Mafia, who would often use children to help them traffic drugs and other illicit materials.
Puglisi preached against the Mafia, ignored their threats, banned them from leading religious processions and even stealthily gave clues to the authorities about their latest activities in his homilies. Consequently, his life was threatened by the mob numerous times, unbeknownst even to those closest to him until after his death.
He would also urge parishioners to give the police leads on the Mafia’s criminal activity, his frequent catchphrase: “And what if somebody did something?”
On September 15, 1993, having received numerous warnings and death threats, Fr. Puglisi was shot in the neck at point-blank range by hitmen under the direction of local Mafia bosses, Filippo and Giuseppe Graviano.
Although he was taken to the hospital, Puglisi was unable to be revived and died of his injuries.
“This is a Mafia crime,” Lorenzo Matassa, an investigating magistrate with broad anti-Mafia experience, told the New York Times in 1993. “Cosa Nostra could not stand that priest’s teaching the kids in the neighborhood about an anti-Mafia culture.”
One of Puglisi’s hitmen, Salvatore Grigoli, later confessed, revealing that the martyr’s final words were “I’ve been expecting you.”
His martyrdom further galvanized the Catholic Church in Sicily to act and speak out against the mob and five years after his death four Mafia members received life sentences for their involvement in the murder.
Declared a martyr by Benedict XVI in 2012 and beatified in 2013, he is buried in the cemetery of Sant’Orsola in Palermo.
Pope Francis spoke about Puglisi the day after his beatification during his Angelus address, calling him a “martyr” and an “exemplary priest.”
By teaching boys about the Gospel of Christ, Puglisi saved them from the “criminal underworld,” which retaliated by killing him, Francis said. Though in fact, it was Puglisi “who won, with the Risen Christ.”
Francis criticized the Mafia for its exploitation of men, women, and children through prostitution, social pressure, and forced jobs. “Let us pray to the Lord to convert the heart of these people,” he said. “They cannot do this! They cannot make slaves of us, brothers and sisters!”
“We must pray that these members of the Mafia be converted to God and let us praise God for the luminous witness borne by Fr. Giuseppe Puglisi.”
Vatican City, May 28, 2018 / 10:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Ideologies which do not acknowledge and uphold the dignity of human life must be resisted and the Catholic Church’s teaching on life affirmed, Pope Francis told a group of Catholic doctors Monday.
“The Church is for life, and her concern is that nothing is against life in the reality of a concrete existence, however weak or defenseless, even if not developed or not advanced,” the pope said May 28 in the Vatican’s papal hall.
He noted the “hardships and difficulties” physicians may face when they are faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church, particularly when they promote and defend human life “from its conception to its natural end.”
Doctors “are called to affirm the centrality of the patient as a person and his dignity with his inalienable rights, primarily the right to life,” he said.
“The tendency to debase the sick man as a machine to be repaired, without respect for moral principles, and to exploit the weakest by discarding what does not correspond to the ideology of efficiency and profit must be resisted.”
Pope Francis spoke with members of the International Federation of Associations of Catholic Physicians ahead of a congress on the theme of “Holiness of life and the medical profession, from Humanae vitae to Laudato si’” in Zagreb, Croatia May 30-June 2.
Addressing the group, he praised the fidelity of their associations to the directives of the Magisterium and encouraged them to “continue with serenity and determination on this path.”
To be a Catholic doctor means to feel driven by “faith and from communion with the Church” to grow in Christian and professional formation and to know the laws of nature in order “to better serve life,” he said, stressing that the participation of Catholic physicians in the life and mission of the Church is “so necessary.”
Francis noted that the health and medical fields are a part of the advance of the “technocratic cultural paradigm,” which adores human power without limits and makes everything irrelevant if it does not serve a person’s own interests.
“Be more and more aware that today it is necessary and urgent that the action of the Catholic physician presents itself with an unmistakable clarity on the level of personal and associative testimony,” he urged.
He also encouraged working together with professionals of other religious convictions who also recognize the dignity of the human person, and with priests and religious who work in the healthcare field.
Continue the journey “with joy and generosity,” he said, “in collaboration with all the people and institutions that share the love of life and endeavor to serve it in its dignity and sacredness.”
Vatican City, May 28, 2018 / 07:17 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Every Christian is called to be a missionary through prayer, working in collaboration with the Holy Spirit, who gives prayer efficacy, Pope Francis said in a video message to the Pontifical Missio… […]
Washington D.C., May 27, 2018 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As the opioid crisis has left nearly half a million children in need of homes, Catholic leaders are calling their families and parishes to a work of mercy that is both pro-life and fruitful: supporting vulnerable children in foster care.
“Foster care and adoption is another way that God is calling couples to be open to life, and not just infertile couples, but couples that have biological children who can welcome another child into their family,” said Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas at an event on foster care after the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.
Kathryn Jean Lopez, who hosted the May 24 event titled “Fostering A Culture of Hope,” told CNA she hopes it will get more Catholics around the country talking about foster care at a time when the opioid crisis has made it more urgent.
“It is key to our identity. We are adopted daughters and sons of the Father, and we shouldn’t have orphans in our midst,” said Lopez, who has written about pro-life issues for the National Review for two decades.
From 2000 to 2012, the number of babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, the withdrawal infants experience after their pregnant mothers’ drug use, increased by 383 percent, according the White House Associate Director of Drug Control Policy Charmaine Yoest, who also spoke at the National Review Institute event.
“I want the pro-life community to acknowledge more what is going on with the foster care crisis in this country. I feel very strongly that in a lot of ways it is connected to our desire to eradicate abortion,” said Lisa Ann Wheeler, the president of Carmel Communications. Wheeler has had five children, and has fostered 15.
For Sarah Zagorski, the connection between foster care and pro-life work is very clear.
“My mother consulted with an abortionist for my delivery,” said Zagorski. “She was a Hispanic woman, very vulnerable woman, who already had seven kids in and out of foster care. They were already experiencing abuse, neglect, you name it.”
After her mother chose life, Sarah said that “life got very complicated very quickly because I entered a family environment that was unstable.”
“Foster care saved my life, just like the choice that my birth mother made saved my life,” said Zagorski.
When Catholic couples adopt or foster a child, they are living out the Gospel call for a “radical welcoming of the stranger, the orphan,” shared Elizabeth Kirk, the keynote speaker at “Fostering a Culture of Hope.”
“Pope Francis stated … that the choice of adoption and foster care expresses a particular kind of fruitfulness in the marriage experience,” continued Kirk. “Pope Francis urged even those with biological children to find other expressions of fruitfulness that in some way prolong the love that sustains them. Christian marriages, he says, are fruitful by their witness.”
“Now is an important moment for the Catholic Church to step forward and really embrace fostering,” explained Kathleen Domingo, who led a foster care initiative in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles after Catholic Charities was driven out of foster care and adoption in California due to a lack of conscience protection laws.
“Fostering is definitely a work of mercy,” said Domingo, “and works of mercy are transformative.”
“Having families in your parish involved in fostering with the rest of the parish coming around them to surround them and support them, can be that transformative element that can help our parishes to overcome polarization,” she said.
There is a lot of untapped potential in our Catholic communities, according to Domingo, who together with Archbishop Jose Gomez launched a campaign to raise awareness of foster care needs in the Los Angeles archdiocese last October.
They organized presentations at just 15 parishes in the archdiocese, and “the response was overwhelming,” said Domingo.
“We had over 300 families in just 15 parishes come forward to register to get trained as foster families,” she continued.
Even if someone is not called to foster or adopt a child, there are many things that Catholics can do to support these children.
“You can do anything from cooking a meal to providing transportation or even taking some of those children into your home. You can serve as a mentor. You can work and find ways to get your church involved,” suggested Natalie Goodnow, a research fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
One concrete way anyone can help is through respite care, recommends Goodnow. Respite care involves watching a foster family’s kids for a couple days to a week, allowing the foster parents to have a break.
People can also volunteer as “court appointed special advocates,” or CASA for short. Through CASA, a person is matched with a foster child’s case, and advocates for the child throughout the duration of their time in the child welfare system. Goodnow pointed out that there is no legal experience required to participate.
Another organization Goodnow recommends is “Safe Families for Children”, which supports struggling families at risk of being separated through foster care.
Tutoring and mentoring a teen in foster care can also make a transformative impact, said Goodnow, who continued:
“There is tremendous potential for the faith community to do even more. I don’t think that we have fully tapped into what this community is capable of.”
Vatican City, May 27, 2018 / 05:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis marked the feast of the Holy Trinity stressing the personal love and interest God has in each one of his children, saying the Lord is not ever far away, but is an attentive and loving Father to all.
“God does not want so much to reveal to us that he exists, but rather that he is the ‘God with us,’ that he loves us, is interested in our personal story and cares for each person, from the smallest to the greatest,” the pope said May 27.
Even though God is in heaven, he is also on earth, Francis said, adding that because of this, “we don’t believe in a distant, indifferent entity.”
“On the contrary, in the love that created the universe and generated a people, became flesh, died and rose for us, and as the Holy Spirit transforms everything and brings it to fullness.”
Pope Francis spoke to the nearly 25,000 pilgrims present in St. Peter’s Square for his Sunday Angelus address. In his speech, he focused on the day’s feast of the Holy Trinity, and the readings from the Book of Romans, as well as the Gospel reading from Matthew.
The feast of the Trinity, Francis said, is not only an invitation to contemplate and praise Jesus Christ, but it is also an opportunity to celebrate “with ever-new wonder the God of love, who freely offers his life to us and asks us to spread it in the world.”
He then turned to the second reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans, in which the apostle speaks of how Christians are sons of God, and are able call him “abba,” meaning “father.”
St. Paul, the pope said, experienced first-hand the deep transformation of the God of love, who allows us to not only call him “Father,” but more personally, “dad,” and who gives us the ability to call on him “with the total confidence of a child who abandons themselves in the arms of the one who gave them live.”
Through his action in each person, the Holy Spirit “makes it so that Jesus Christ is not reduced to a person of the past, but that we feel close to him, our contemporary, and that we experience the joy of being beloved children of God,” Francis said.
He noted that Christians are not alone, he said, because the Holy Spirit was sent to guide and accompany them.
And thanks to both the presence of the Spirit and the strength he offers, “we can realize with serenity the mission that he entrusted to us: to announce and bear witness to his Gospel to everyone and so dilate communion with him and the joy that comes from it.”
Pope Francis closed his address saying the feast of the Holy Trinity “makes us contemplate the mystery of a God who incessantly creates, redeems and sanctifies, always with love and for love, and to every creature that welcomes him, he gives the gift of reflecting a ray of his beauty, goodness and truth.”
He prayed that Mary would help each person to “fulfill with joy the mission of bearing witness to the world, thirsty for love, that the meaning of life is precisely infinite love, the concrete love of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
After leading pilgrims in praying the traditional Marian prayer, Francis voiced gratitude for the recent beatification of Sister Leonella Sborbati, a nun with the Consolata Missionaries who was killed in Somalia in 2006.
He asked pilgrims to join him in praying for Africa, “so that there is peace there,” and led faithful in praying a Hail Mary for the continent.
Washington D.C., May 27, 2018 / 04:43 am (CNA).- Americans’ belief in a duty to accept refugees has dipped, according to a survey showing that white Evangelicals are among the least favorable to refugees.
While 50 percent of Catholics said they … […]
Wilmington, Del., May 26, 2018 / 04:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In his 1988 letter to the Director of the Vatican Observatory, Pope John Paul II called scientists who are members of the Church to “serve as a key resource” by providing a “… […]
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