Panama City, Panama, Jan 28, 2019 / 10:22 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The 15th international World Youth Day ended Sunday with a Mass celebrated by Pope Francis attended by hundreds of thousands of young people from around the world.
At the end of the Jan. 2… […]
Aboard the papal plane, Jan 28, 2019 / 07:48 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said Monday that he sensed “inflated expectation” surrounding the Vatican’s February sex abuse summit, and outlined his specific aims for the meeting.
Speaking on the papal flight returning from Panama, the pope said he wanted the world’s bishops to receive a “catechesis” on the suffering of abuse survivors, and understand better the urgent reality of combating sexual abuse. This understanding, he said, would lead into a penitential liturgy during the February meeting.
“There will be testimonies to help to become aware and then a penitential liturgy to ask forgiveness for the whole Church,” Pope Francis told journalists Jan 28.
The pope emphasized the importance of bishops meeting with victims of sex abuse to hear their testimonies directly to understand the lasting effects of sexual abuse.
Pope Francis said that he regularly meets with abuse victims. “I remember one … 40 years without being able to pray. It is terrible, the suffering is terrible,” he said.
Francis also said he sensed many were expecting too much from the three-day meeting being held Feb. 21-24, and that he had a particular vision for what would be achieved: understanding the experience of victims, prayer, and the establishment of “protocols” for handling abuse cases world-wide.
“I permit myself to say that I’ve perceived a bit of an inflated expectation. We need to deflate the expectations to these points that I’m saying,” he said. “Because the problem of abuses will continue. It’s a human problem.”
“We, resolving the problem in the Church, [and] raising awareness, will help to resolve it in society … but first, we must become aware, have the protocols, and move forward,” he said.
Pope Francis said the Vatican invited all of the presidents of the world’s bishops’ conferences and the heads of the Eastern Catholic Churches to attend the February summit because his council of cardinal advisors “felt the responsibility to give a ‘catechesis’… on this problem to the episcopal conferences.”
Victims of clergy sexual abuse and leaders of men’s and women’s religious orders will also be present at the bishops’ summit, which the Vatican has previously clarified will be “an assembly of pastors, not an academic conference.”
On the papal flight, Pope Francis expressed his desire that the heads all of the episcopal conferences leave Rome next month with a common understanding of the “protocols” needed to address sexual abuse in their respective countries.
The pope said that each episcopal conference would make “general programs” detailing the responsibilities of each local Church authority for handling sex abuse cases, but that these must address a common set of responsibilities.
“That they are protocols that are clear. This is the main thing,” he said.
In his interview on the papal flight, Pope Francis also touched on the formation and sex education of young people with regards to Church teaching.
“We need to give an objective sexual education, that is without ideological colonization,” he said. “If you start by giving sexual education full of ideological colonization, you destroy the person.”
The pope warned that it is important which teachers or textbooks are chosen for this task in schools. “There are things that mature and things that do harm,” he said.
“Sex as a gift from God must be taught,” Pope Francis said. “The ideal is to start from home, with the parents.”
Aboard the papal plane, Jan 28, 2019 / 06:35 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said Monday he is opposed to the idea of optional priestly celibacy in the Latin rite, and he would consider it only for very remote places if a serious need existed.
“Pe… […]
Washington D.C., Jan 27, 2019 / 04:14 pm (CNA).- More than 10,000 migrant children still detained by the U.S. government are wrongly being used to lure undocumented family members into a situation where they can be detained, says a Catholic immigrant a… […]
Panama City, Panama, Jan 27, 2019 / 03:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis met with World Youth Day volunteers Sunday, thanking them for their service and reminding them of the importance of preceding their endeavors with prayer.
“Thank you all… […]
Panama City, Panama, Jan 27, 2019 / 09:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On the final day of World Youth Day in Panama, Pope Francis met with the guests of a home for people with AIDS, reflecting on a question Jesus was asked in the Gospels: “Who is my nei… […]
Panama City, Panama, Jan 27, 2019 / 07:49 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Serving God and his mission is not a passing thing, but can and should be pursued in the present, with one’s entire life, Pope Francis said Sunday at the closing Mass for World Youth … […]
Jolo, Philippines, Jan 27, 2019 / 05:51 am (CNA).- At least 20 people were killed and 111 wounded after two bombs exploded minutes apart during Sunday Mass in a Catholic cathedral on the southern Philippine island of Jolo.
After the initial blast inside the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Jan. 27, which destroyed the wooden pews and glass windows, Mass-goers were rushing to get outside when a second bomb detonated near the cathedral’s entrance, the Associated Press reported.
Police and army troops stationed outside the cathedral were also caught in the second blast when trying to enter the cathedral.
According to police, at least 15 civilians and 5 soldiers were killed in the explosions. Among the wounded there were at least 90 civilians, 17 soldiers, two police officers, and two coast guards. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Philippines bishops’ conference condemned the attack as an “act of terrorism.”
“We condole with the families of the several soldiers and civilians who were killed by the explosions. We also express our sympathies with those who were wounded and extend our solidarity with the rest of the church-goers inside the Cathedral and the rest of the church community in the Apostolic Vicariate of Jolo,” they said Jan. 27.
The bishops also noted the recent creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARRM), which was created with the hope of ending a nearly five-decade long separtist rebellion in the southern Philppines.
The new autonomous region was endorsed by most Muslims in the majority Catholic nation, though it was rejected by Muslim voters in the Sulu province, where Jolo is located.
“As we begin a new phase in the peace process … we ask our Christian brethren to join hands with all peace-loving Muslim and Indigenous People communities in the advocacy against violent extremism,” the bishops said.
Jolo island has a population of more than 700,000. The island’s Catholics, estimated in 2014 to be around 31,000, mostly live in the capital of Jolo.
The country’s defense secretary, Delfin Lorenzana, said in a statement Sunday that he has directed troops “to heighten their alert level, secure all places of worships and public places at once, and initiate pro-active security measures to thwart hostile plans.”
There has long been a presence of Muslim Abu Sayyaf militants on Jolo island. The group is defined as a terrorist organization by the United States and the Philippines due to years of kidnappings, beheadings, and bombings.
A statement from the office of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte Jan. 27 said, “We will pursue to the ends of the earth the ruthless perpetrators behind this dastardly crime until every killer is brought to justice and put behind bars. The law will give them no mercy.”
Panama City, Panama, Jan 26, 2019 / 05:43 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Reflecting on the Blessed Virgin Mary’s fiat, Pope Francis encouraged World Youth Day participants Saturday night to say yes to God’s grace in their lives.
“In a few mome… […]
Panama City, Panama, Jan 26, 2019 / 03:12 pm (CNA).- At World Youth Day, there are tens of thousands of pilgrims, thousands of priests and religious sisters, and hundreds of bishops. But there are very few honeymooners. Nadia Giudice and Alberto Celi might, in fact, be the only ones.
The pair got married Dec. 8, 2018, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, and knew immediately they would go World Youth Day Panama 2019 for their honeymoon.
The couple are part of an Argentine delegation to the event. Along with about 2,500 pilgrims from Argentina, they participated in a Mass celebrated Jan. 23 at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Panama City.
She’s 25 and he’s 26, and they met, unsurprisingly, at Church- an event sponsored by the Legion of Mary, in the Santa Fe province of Argentina.
“We got to know each other, became friends and later got engaged. We were married December 8, Our Lady’s feast day, and this is our honeymoon,” Nadia told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency.
For his part, Albert confessed “never in our lives had we dreamed of this.”
“We couldn’t go to WYD Rio for different reasons and we thought we were never again going to have the possibility. Krakow was completely out of the question but when they told us that it was going to be in Panama we said: it’s now or never,” he explained.
Nadia said they chose this Wold Youth Day because “we could see that by the next time we would probably have children, so it was going to be more complicated for us to think about going as pilgrims, to be walking a ton and all those things.”
“If you really believe God is calling you to marriage, and your courtship was really done in prayer, and you prepared yourself always in prayer, and you believe you found the person, then you have to go all in and trust in God,” Nadia said.
“One of the things that stuck with me at the vocations fair is that it doesn’t matter to what vocation you’re called by God, there’s always going to be difficulties, and by our own means it’s impossible to fulfill it, but trusting completely in God, in Him we can do everything,” Alberto concluded.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
© Catholic World Report