Irondale, Ala., Nov 8, 2017 / 09:39 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The National Catholic Register is turning 90 this year, an anniversary its editor-in-chief sees as a blessing, and an opportunity to move forward in service to the Church.
“The Register&rs… […]
Vatican City, Nov 8, 2017 / 04:35 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday a fiery Pope Francis chastised those who spend Mass talking to others, looking at their phone or even taking pictures during papal liturgies, saying these are distractions that take focus away from the “heart of the Church,” which is the Eucharist.
“The Mass is not a show: it is to go to meet the passion and resurrection of the Lord,” the Pope said Nov. 8. “The Lord is here with us, present. Many times we go there, we look at things and chat among ourselves while the priest celebrates the Eucharist… But it is the Lord!”
In particular, Francis condemned the use of cell phones to take photos at papal Masses. At one point during the Mass the priest says, “we lift up our hearts,” he said. “He does not say, ‘We lift up our phones to take photographs!’”
“It’s a bad thing! And I tell you that it gives me so much sadness when I celebrate here in the Piazza or Basilica and I see so many raised cellphones, not just of the faithful, even of some priests and even bishops.”
“But think: when you go to Mass, the Lord is there! And you’re distracted. (But) it is the Lord!”
During the general audience, Pope Francis said the Eucharist would be the new focus of his weekly catechesis for the year, because “it is fundamental for us Christians to understand well the value and meaning of the Holy Mass to live more and more fully our relationship with God.”
In the Eucharist we rediscover, through our senses, what is essential, he said. Just as the Apostle Thomas asked to see and touch the wounds of Jesus after his resurrection, we need the same thing: “to see him and touch him to be able to recognize him.”
In this way, the Sacraments meet this very “human need” of ours, he said. And in the Eucharist, in particular, we find a privileged way to meet God and his love.
The Second Vatican Council was inspired by the desire to help Christians understand the beauty of the encounter in the Eucharist even better, he continued. This is why “it was necessary first to implement, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, an adequate renewal of the liturgy.”
A central theme emphasized at Vatican II was the liturgical formation of the faithful, which Francis said is also the aim of the series of catechesis he began today: to help people “grow in the knowledge of this great gift God has given us in the Eucharist.”
As a side note, Francis asked if people had noticed the chaotic way children make the sign of cross at Mass, moving their hand all over their chest, and asked people to teach children to make the sign of the cross well.
“We need to teach children to do the sign of the cross well,” he said, noting that this is how Mass begins, because just as Mass begins this way, “so life begins, so the day begins.”
Concluding his reflection on the Mass and the Eucharist, Pope Francis said that he hopes that through these brief weekly lessons everyone will rediscover the beauty “hidden in the Eucharistic celebration, and which, when revealed, gives a full meaning to the life of everyone.”
Manila, Philippines, Nov 7, 2017 / 08:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In the Philippines media scene, a far-reaching Catholic radio network has been building communities and changing lives for decades.
“We cater to the needs of the local communities but… […]
Washington D.C., Nov 7, 2017 / 05:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As the first World Day of the Poor approaches on Nov. 19, Catholics in the U.S. aim to amplify their outreach and their prayers for those in poverty.
One prayer for the day, prepared by Catholi… […]
Washington D.C., Nov 7, 2017 / 04:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In response to mass shootings in Las Vegas, Nevada and the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Spring, Texas, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has encouraged public debate on gun … […]
South Bend, Ind., Nov 7, 2017 / 04:28 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A little more than a week after announcing it would end birth control coverage for employees and students, the University of Notre Dame said Tuesday that its insurance provider will continue contraceptive coverage, albeit not funded by the university.
“Notre Dame, as a Catholic institution, follows Catholic teaching about the use of contraceptives and engaged in the recent lawsuit to protect its freedom to act in accord with its principles,” read a Nov. 7 email sent to university employees.
“Recognizing, however, the plurality of religious and other convictions among its employees, it will not interfere with the provision of contraceptives that will be administered and funded independently of the University.”
The email explained that the university’s insurance provider, Meritain Health/OptumRx, has said “that they will now continue to provide contraceptives to plan members at no charge.” The university had believed the provider “would discontinue no cost coverage for contraceptives for employees at the end of the year.”
A similar provision will be made for students seeking contraception coverage.
Notre Dame had stated late in October that birth control would no longer be covered, making use of recently-added religious exemptions to the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act which were announced by the Department of Health and Human Services Oct. 6.
Previously, the Catholic university was one of several organizations that sued the government over the federal contraceptive mandate, which required most organizations to provide birth control coverage either directly or through a third party service.
As a Catholic institution, Notre Dame objected to this mandate on the grounds that all forms of contraception are against Catholic moral teaching. The university, along with dozens of other Catholic institutions, argued in the lawsuit that the third party option would still make them cooperate in an act to which they were morally opposed.
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the new religious exemptions.
Washington D.C., Nov 7, 2017 / 12:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The author of the first federal adoption tax credit has spoken out against the proposed removal of the credit in the GOP tax reform bill introduced in Congress last week.
“The ta… […]
Vatican City, Nov 7, 2017 / 11:52 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican is preparing for a conference on nuclear disarmament this week in the wake of an international effort to ban nuclear weapons.
Hosted by the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, the Nov. 10-11 conference will explore solutions and prospects for a world free of nuclear weapons and integral disarmament, in cohesion with Pope Francis’ emphasis on promoting peace.
In a Nov. 7 Vatican communique Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect of the dicastery, said the event “responds to the priorities of Pope Francis to take action for world peace and to use the resources of creation for a sustainable development and to improve the quality of life for all, individuals and countries, without discrimination.”
At the International Atomic Energy Agency conference in Vienna in September, department secretary Msgr. Bruno Marie Duffé also emphasized the importance of the “moral responsibility of the States” and the challenge of a “common strategy of dialogue” invoked by Pope Francis.
The international symposium represents “the first global gathering on Atomic Disarmament” after the approval of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was passed in New York July 7.
Until the treaty, nuclear weapons were the only weapons of mass destruction not explicitly banned by any international document.
The treaty passed with 122 votes in favor and one abstention, Singapore. However, 69 countries – all the nuclear weapon states and NATO members except the Netherlands – did not take part in the vote.
One of the conference’s speakers Saturday will be Masako Wada, one of the last survivors of the Hiroshima nuclear attack and an assistant secretary general of Nihon Hidankyo, a confederation of nuclear weapons and experiments victims.
Other attendees include 11 Nobel Peace Laureates, representatives from the United Nations and NATO, diplomats from Russia, the United States, South Korea, and Iran, experts on armaments and weapons and leaders from foundations engaged in the topic.
There will also be representatives of bishops’ conferences and other Christian organizations and a delegation of professors and students from US and Russian universities.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, as well as the leadership of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, will deliver speeches on behalf of the Holy See; Pope Francis will meet with participants and give an address Nov. 10.
The conference builds on a conference held in New York in March to negotiate the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty.
Pope Francis sent a message to that conference saying the doctrine of nuclear deterrence has become ineffective against 21st century threats like terrorism, asymmetrical conflicts, environmental problems, and poverty.
These threats, the Pope stressed, are “even greater when we consider the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences that would follow from any use of nuclear weapons, with devastating, indiscriminate and uncontainable effects, over time and space.”
Vatican City, Nov 7, 2017 / 07:16 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Tuesday the Vatican announced Pope Francis’ appointment of two lay women – experts in bioethics and canon law – as the first two under-secretaries of the mega-dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.
The appointment of Dr. Gabriella Gambino for the section on life and Dr. Linda Ghisoni for the section on laity was announced in a Nov. 7 Vatican communique, bringing the leadership of the dicastery more clearly into shape after it’s establishment in 2016.
The Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life officially began its work Sept. 1, 2016, replacing the former Pontifical Council for the Laity and Pontifical Council for the Family, which were dissolved.
The department is responsible for projects relating to the apostolate of laity, families, and the institution of marriage, within the Church, and is responsible for the organization of events such as the World Meeting of Families, which will take place in Dublin in August 2018.
Both Gambino and Ghisoni join dicastery secretary Fr. Alexandre Awi Mello and prefect Cardinal Kevin Farrell, in leading the department. However, the appointment of a third under-secretary for the section on family is still forthcoming.
Gambino, 49, is currently a professor at the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences, is a professor of bioethics at the Faculty of Philosophy, and a researcher and associate professor in the philosophy of law at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata.”
Originally from Milan, she holds a doctorate in bioethics from the Institute of Bioethics at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome.
From 2001-2007, she taught and did research at the Institute of the Methodology of Social Sciences of the LUISS-Guido Carli University in Rome, and in 2002 was appointed scientific expert of the National Committee for Bioethics at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.
Gambino collaborated with the former Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical Academy for Life from 2013-2016.
She is married with five children, and has written numerous publications on the themes of life, family and marriage. In addition to Italian, she speaks five other languages.
Dr. Linda Ghisoni, 52, works as a judge at the First Instance Court of the Vicariate of Rome, as a professor of canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and as a professor of law at Roma Tre University.
She is from the town of Cortemaggiore in the north of Italy and studied philosophy and theology at the Eberhard-Karls-University in Tübingen, Germany.
In 1999 she received a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University, and in 2002 she received the diploma of Rotary Attorney at the Studium rotale of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota.
Since 1997 Ghisoni has held various positions at the Tribunals of First Instance and Appeal of the Vicariate of Rome, including Notary, Defender of the Bond, Auditor and Judge.
She has also served as Judicial Counselor at the Tribunal of the Roman Rota from 2002-2009, and Commissioner of the Congregation for the Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments for the Defense of the marital bond in causes for the dissolution of the marriage “ratum sed non consummatum” (ratified but not consummated).
Since November 2011, she has also worked at the Tribunal of the Roman Rota. From 2013-2016, she collaborated with the former Pontifical Council for the Laity in the field of specialist laity studies in the Church. She is married and has two daughters.
Vatican City, Nov 7, 2017 / 06:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Tuesday Pope Francis voiced his sorrow after 26 people were killed at a Baptist Church in Texas over the weekend, offering his support and praying that such acts of meaningless violence would come to an end.
In a Nov. 7 telegram signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Pope Francis said he was “deeply grieved by news of the loss of life and grave injuries” caused in Sunday’s shooting at a Baptist church in Texas.
Francis condemned the “senseless violence” and offered his “heartfelt condolences” to the families of the victims and wounded, members of the congregation and the local community.
He closed the letter, addressed to Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller, Archbishop of San Antonio, by praying that the Lord would “console all who mourn and to grant them the spiritual strength that triumphs over violence and hatred by the power of forgiveness, hope and reconciling love.”
The Pope’s telegram comes just two days after at least 26 people were killed when a gunman opened fire at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Sutherland Springs is a small town located about 35 miles southeast of San Antonio.
At least 20 others were taken to the hospital after the shooting, which police believe was motivated by a domestic dispute.
After the shooting, the gunman fled the scene, and was later found dead in his car by police. The shooting marked the latest in a series of similar incidents throughout the United States in recent months, and is the deadliest on record in the State of Texas.
In a message after the event, Archbishop Garcia-Siller offered his condolences and support, saying “We need prayers! The families affected in the shooting this morning at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs need prayers.”
“The evil perpetrated on these who were gathered to worship God on the Lord’s Day – especially children and the elderly – makes no sense and will never be fully understood,” he said, adding that there are no adequate words for the “disbelief and shock” produced by the deadly affair.
“There can be no explanation or motive for such a scene of horror at a small country church for families gathered to praise Jesus Christ,” he said, adding that “these Baptist brethren are our family, friends and neighbors who live among us in the archdiocese … We are committed to work in unity with all our brothers and sisters to build peace in our communities; to connect in a more direct and substantial way. The Catholic Church in Texas and across the United States is with you.”
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