Vatican City, Aug 25, 2017 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis on Thursday sent a video message to youth in a prison in Argentina who are part of a program helping them attend university while in jail, praising the program and speaking words of e… […]
Montreal, Canada, Aug 25, 2017 / 03:25 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Claude Paradis was impoverished and homeless, living on the streets of Montreal, Canada. He struggled with addiction to both alcohol and drugs, with a future so bleak, he considered ending his own life.
He did not end his life, however, and today he is a priest who dedicates his time to serving the physical and spiritual needs of those trapped in poverty, prison and prostitution.
“The street brought me to the Church and the Church in the end brought me back to the street,” the priest told the Journal Metro.
Last December, as a sign of his closeness and solidarity with the homeless, Fr. Paradis decided to sleep on the street for the whole month, to care for the homeless people there with solidarity and charity.
His hope was that he could accompany people in a difficult situation while also making the citizens of Montreal aware of the harsh reality faced by those living on the street.
Fr. Paradi founded an institution called Notre-Dame-de-la-rue (Our Lady of the Street). Each night, he goes out to bring food and shelter to those living on the streets. He also administers the sacraments, celebrates the Eucharist and even presides at funerals.
The priest is accompanied by one of his co-workers, Kevin Cardin, who also was addicted to drugs, but found help, changed his life and now has a family.
Notre-Dame-de-la-rue has the support of the Archbishop Christian Lépine of Montreal, who has described the initiative as “a presence of the Church to give encouragement.” It also has the support of the city.
“Our mission is especially to give encouragement. Unlike the shelters, we go out to the people, a bit like a door-to-door service. We talk to them, sometimes we pray together before they go back to face the harshness of the street.”
Fr. Paradis knows how hard life on the street is. After growing up in the Gaspé region and working in Cowansville as a nurse, he came to Montreal 25 years ago.
However, he was unable to find a job. “Isolation and despair took hold of me,” he said.
Living on the street, he thought about committing suicide. “I started doing cocaine and then crack,” he recalled.
In a letter posted on the website of La Victoire de l’Amour (the Victory of Love), Fr. Paradis tells how he met the Lord.
“I had the privilege of meeting God just at the moment I was doubting Him. On a little back street in Montreal, abandoned by people, there was nobody there. Passing by the old church, impelled by I don’t know what instinct, I turned back in there.”
At that moment, he had a deep and intense encounter with God. He realized he did not want to die, but rather wanted to become “a man of the Church.”
Fr. Paradis went on to fight his addictions and now ministers to many people who face the same challenges he struggled with years ago.
The 57-year-old priest has dedicated the rest of his life to serving the poor, saying “on the street is where I want to be, until I die.”
This article was originally published on CNA Jan. 17, 2017.
Rome, Italy, Aug 25, 2017 / 12:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An Australian priest has called the Royal Commission’s recent proposal to enforce law requiring that clergy face criminal charges if they do not disclose details of sexual abuse revealed in the confessional a breach of religious tolerance.
Fr. Kelvin Lovegrove, Episcopal Vicar for Clergy in the Archdiocese of Sydney, told CNA Aug. 24 that he was “surprised” by the suggestion made by the Royal Commission that priests be forced “to break the law in regard to the Seal of Confession.”
“Australia is religiously tolerant country, and many people have emigrated to Australia from other countries so that they can freely practice their faith,” he said, calling the proposal “an intrusion by the Government into the realm of the spiritual relationship between priest and penitent, which up until has been sacrosanct.”
He said the proposal is out of step with expectations for others who maintain similar confidential relationships, noting that “other professionals such as psychologists, lawyers and journalists are not required to break confidences in regard to confidential information between them and their clients.”
Fr. Lovegrove’s comments come less than two weeks after Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, established in 2013, on Aug. 14 released a sweeping 85 proposed changes to the country’s criminal justice system.
In addition to several other suggestions for abuse prevention, the commissiona recommended that the failure to report sexual abuse, even in religious confessions, be made “a criminal offense.”
“Clergy should not be able to refuse to report because the information was received during confession,” the report said, adding that if persons in institutions are aware of possible child abuse or suspect it, they ought to report it right away.
The commission cited cases brought before them in which perpetrators who had confessed the sexual abuse of children to a priest then “went on to re-offend and seek forgiveness.”
Therefore, while it recognized the importance of Confession to the Catholic Church, “the report recommends there be no exemption, excuse, protection or privilege from the offense granted to clergy for failing to report information disclosed in connection with a religious confession.”
According to the Church’s canon law, “the sacramental seal is inviolable. Therefore, it is absolutely wrong for a confessor in any way to betray the penitent, for any reason whatsoever, whether by word or in any other manner.”
A priest who directly violates the “Seal of Confession” incurs a “latae senentiae” excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See, which can only be lifted by the Pope himself.
Despite hearing the testimony of several bishops during their investigative phase, who pledged full cooperation with civil authorities, but drew a line when it came to the confessional, the commission insisted on the proposal to break the seal anyway.
In his comments, Fr. Lovegrove noted that “few perpetrators confess such a sin or crime as pedophilia.”
However, if the commission’s suggestion is adopted as law, priests who do hear such confessions are still “bound by the Seal of the Confessional,” he said, “and if the law were enacted, then yes they would face criminal prosecution.”
As it stands, the pastoral approach between a priest and penitent is for the priest to meet the penitent, whether perpetrator or victim, outside of the confessional, in order to “look at ways in which they might approach the civil authorities and resolve the dilemma in that way,” Fr. Lovegrove said.
Until now there has been no concrete advice from the bishops on how to respond to the proposal, he said, but explained that they are discussing the matter, “and will advise clergy as to the most appropriate course of action to take in regard to upholding the seal of confession.”
The priest stressed that in Australia, the Church and State have always maintained “a fairly amicable relationship” on topics related to religious freedom, and that as far as possible, both parties would seek to continue this relationship.
“Hopefully, there will be an agreeable outcome to this dilemma,” he said, noting that Church officials have already apologized publicly for sexual abuse within the Church, which continues to support the victims and their families.
“The Church has always sought to co-operate in any way with the civil authorities, especially regarding this situation,” he said. “It would be my hope that continuing dialogue between the Church and State may be able to resolve the proposed law in a way which respects the work of the Church in society.”
The Church, he said, “has been at the forefront of education, health care and social work in Australia,” and it would be “in the best interest of all to try and continue to work together for the betterment of all Australians.”
Washington D.C., Aug 24, 2017 / 10:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Parochial schools are better at their task than public schools, say respondents to a survey of Americans’ attitudes towards varieties of schooling.
“Americans as a whole bel… […]
Madison, Wis., Aug 24, 2017 / 05:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Christian photographer who declines clients because she does not believe in same-sex marriage cannot be sued under certain anti-discrimination laws on the ground she does not run a storefront, … […]
Atlanta, Ga., Aug 24, 2017 / 04:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archbishop of Atlanta said this week that racism must be solved through encounter, and stressed that ignorance is the fuel to bigotry and hate speech, which he likened to a type of pornography.
“Such harsh and insulting language has too often given rise to acts of violence that destroy any sense of civility and public decorum. We should call such speech what it is: pornographic violence,” said the Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory in an interview with the Georgia Bulletin.
“We need more opportunities to encounter one another, and thus our metropolitan community provides a unique environment to counter the ignorance that fuels and too often ignites racism and violence.”
He expressed gratitude for the many religious leaders who have fought for civil rights and desegregation, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Archbishop Paul Hallinan, and Rabbi Jacob Rothschild.
“These remarkable personalities offered opportunities for people to meet one another as persons of dignity and this has helped immensely,” said Archbishop Gregory, noting, however, that he is not blind to areas in need of improvement, even within his own diocese.
The archbishop’s interview comes following the white nationalist “Unite the Right” rallies in Charlottesville, Va. on August 11-12, which drew members of neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan groups, as well as other white supremacists.
Organizers said the event was to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, but attendees also chanted racist messages.
On Saturday, a 20-year-old man from Ohio drove a car into the counter-protest which featured a diverse array of groups including religious leaders, Black Lives Matter, and the anarchist group Antifa. One woman was killed and 19 people were injured in the incident. The driver was charged with second-degree murder.
The U.S. bishops have condemned the violence and announced the creation of a new Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism to focus on galvanizing the Church and society to fight the evil of racism and minister to its victims.
Archbishop Gregory identified the racial violence in recent events as part of a “’post-polite’ world where rude and offensive language – that too frequently has led to brutal behavior – has been given free rein.”
Likening certain types of illegal pornographic material to hate speech, he said individuals and organizations must take a stand against such violent speech, and he drew special attention to “civil discourse.”
Archbishop Gregory pointed to some of the multicultural festivals which parishes throughout his archdiocese have hosted. When good food, family, music, and dance come together, he said, there is a universal love which not only exposes the uniqueness of individuals and cultures, but also our “similar dreams, needs and fears.”
“We really are the same,” he said, stressing that ignorance of each other is the oxygen which allows racism to thrive.
“Wherever people are disconnected from one another, there is the possibility that they will begin to develop misconceptions about one another – flawed fantasies that have no bearing in reality.”
He added that the archdiocese is proud of its steps toward better interracial and interreligious relations, mentioning events with their Jewish brothers and sisters, as well as how the Chancery staff deals with diversity issues.
Still, the archbishop continued, there is room for improvement.
Specifically, he mentioned the 1979 “Brothers and Sisters to Us,” a document written by United States Conference of Catholic Bishops highlighting the evils of racism. Currently under revision, the archbishop said the document will be broadened to focus on additional communities “who find themselves demeaningly labeled as ‘other’” in order to denounce this exclusion as well.
Archbishop Gregory lamented the stories he has heard of people ostracized in his parishes for the color of their skin, their religion, or their struggle with same-sex attraction, and he expressed a particular concern about the xenophobia that sometimes accompanies discussion on immigration.
Poor treatment of U.S. immigrants is no different than other forms of racism, he said. Self-entitlement or fear of losing one’s privilege may be reasons for this behavior, he said, but America was founded as a “nation comprised of people who mostly have come here from other places” and cultures, who have struggled to establish themselves.
He called it “especially concerning when this despicable behavior comes from fellow Catholics who should well remember how we Catholics were victimized in the recent past, simply because we were Catholic.”
Washington D.C., Aug 24, 2017 / 04:23 pm (CNA).- Lawyers for the Little Sisters of the Poor said it’s time for the Trump administration to admit that the Obama-era contraception mandate is unconstitutional and provide the sisters relief.
“… […]
Vatican City, Aug 24, 2017 / 12:49 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On Thursday Pope Francis told a group of Italian liturgists that while the process of implementing the liturgical reform following Vatican II has been a long and at times bumpy task, the reform is “irreversible.”
“After this magisterium, after this long journey we can affirm with certainty and with magisterial authority that the liturgical reform is irreversible,” the Pope said Aug. 24 at the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall to participants in the Italian National Liturgical Week.
The week, which this year is exploring the theme “A living liturgy for a living Church”, is organized by the Center for Liturgical Action.
Pope Francis noted that the center has existed for 70 years, and recalled the history of the 20th century liturgical movement, saying that “in the history of the liturgy, events have occurred which are substantial and not superficial.”
“There are two directly related events, the Council and the reform, which did not blossom suddenly, but after long preparation,” Francis said.
He referenced steps taken both by St. Pius X, who aimed to restore Gregorian chant with his 1903 motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini and who formed a commission on liturgical renewal ten years later; and by Venerable Pius XII, who introduced a revised psalter, attenuated the Eucharistic fast, allowed some use of the vernacular in ritual, and reformed Holy Week.
Francis also referred to Ven. Pius XII’s 1947 encyclical on the sacred liturgy, Mediator Dei. In that document the late Pope had said, among other things, that “one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive tableform” and that the assertion that priests cannot offer Mass at different altars at the same time is among “certain exaggerations and over-statements which are not in agreement with the true teaching of the Church.”
These culminated, Francis argued, in Vatican II’s constitution on the sacred liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, “whose lines of general reform respond to real needs and to the concrete hope of a renewal; it desired a living liturgy for a Church completely vivified by the mysteries celebrated.”
He asserted that the direction traced by the Second Vatican Council “took form according to the principle of respect for sound tradition and legitimate progress in the liturgical books promulgated by Blessed Paul VI.”
The application of these changes is a lengthy process and is still ongoing, he said, noting that this is in part because “it is not enough to reform the liturgical books; the mentality of the people must be reformed as well.”
The reformation of liturgical texts “introduced a process that demands time, faithful reception, practical obedience, and wise implementation” not only from ordained ministers, but from all who participate in the liturgy, he said. “In truth, we know, the liturgical education of pastors and the faithful is a challenge to be faced ever anew.”
Seeming to acknowledge the varied reception of the liturgical reforms which followed Vatican II, he quoted from a 1977 address of Bl. Paul VI to a consistory of cardinals declaring that “The time has now come definitely to leave aside divisive ferments.”
“And today, there is still work to do in this direction, in particular rediscovering the reasons for the decisions made with the liturgical reform, overcoming unfounded and superficial readings, partial receptions, and practices that disfigure it,” he declared.
“It is not a matter of rethinking the reform by reviewing its choices, but of knowing better the underlying reasons, even through historical documentation, of internalizing its inspirational principles and of observing the discipline that governs it.”
This comes as Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, has in recent years called a “reform of the reform” a “spiritual necessity”, saying its possibility or desirability cannot be dismissed and that “that there has been an increasing amount of critical study by faithful sons and daughters of the Church asking whether what was in fact produced truly implemented the aims of [Sacrosanctum Concilium], or whether in reality they went beyond them.”
Having iterated the irreversibility of the liturgical reform, Pope Francis then turned to the theme of the liturgical week, “ A living liturgy for a living Church”.
The Church sought a liturgy that was “alive” and helped the Church to become “fully enlivened by the celebrated mysteries,” he said.
Quoting Sacrosanctum Concilium, he said faithful shouldn’t go to the liturgy “as strangers or silent spectators; on the contrary, through a good understanding of the rites and prayers they should take part in the sacred action conscious of what they are doing, with devotion and full collaboration.”
Pope Francis then outlined three key points to living the liturgy, which he said is centered on Christ, involves the entire people of God, and serves as a school of Christian life.
The liturgy “is alive” thanks to the sacrifice of Christ, who through his death and resurrection gave us new life, the Pope said, explaining that without “the real presence of the mystery of Christ, there is no liturgical vitality.”
“As without a heartbeat there is no human life, so without the beating heart of Christ no liturgical action exists,” he said.
Going on, Francis said the liturgy is also a source of life “for the entire people of the Church,” and because of this, her nature is in fact “popular” and not “clerical,” since it’s ultimately an action “for the people, but also by the people.”
Even in her many liturgical prayers the Church recalls that the liturgy itself is an action of God for the good of the people, but it’s also an action from the people, “who listen to God” and praise him through the various signs they perform.
The Church, he said, gathers together all those whose heart is open to hearing the Gospel, including “the small and the great, the rich and the poor, children and elderly, healthy and sick, the just and sinners.” Thus, in Christ the liturgical assembly surpasses “every boundary of age, race, language and nation.”
In fact, the Pope said the “popular” scope of the liturgy “reminds us that it is inclusive and not exclusive, advocating communion with all but without being homologous.”
Finally, Francis said the liturgy serves as a “school of Christian life,” which initiates a process of “transforming the way of thinking and acting, and not filling a bag of it’s own ideas about God.”
“The liturgy is life and not an idea to understand,” he said. Nor is it “a doctrine to understand or a rite to complete.”
“It’s naturally also this but in another way, it’s essentially different: it’s a source of life and light for our journey of faith.”
Pope Francis closed his address by telling attendees that the Church is only truly alive if she “brings life, is mother and is missionary, going out to meet the other, urging to service without pursuing worldly powers that make it sterile.”
He also noted that the “richness” of the liturgy extends beyond the Roman Rite, and pointed to the liturgical “harmony” the Catholic Church shares with Eastern rites.
“The harmony of the ritual traditions, from East to West, by the breath of the same Spirit gives voice to the one prayer for Christ, with Christ and in Christ, for the glory of the Father and for the salvation of the world,” he said.
Francis closes his speech noting that in the effort to promote liturgical reform, “fatigue is not lacking, but neither is joy!” and asked participants to help not only pastors, but all who participate in the liturgy, “to cooperate so that the liturgy is the source and culmination of the vitality of the Church.”
Elise Harris contributed to this report.
Santiago, Chile, Aug 24, 2017 / 11:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A religious congregation voiced sorrow and called for greater respect for faith after the iconic Church of National Gratitude in Santiago de Chile was hit with a firebomb attack by young people… […]
Jefferson City, Mo., Aug 24, 2017 / 06:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A governor’s decision to stay the imminent execution of a death row inmate following claims of new evidence has drawn praise from the Missouri Catholic Conference.
“Mr. William… […]
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