News Briefs

In Ukraine, Cardinal Sandri says there’s hope for the future

July 13, 2017 CNA Daily News 1

Kyiv, Ukraine, Jul 13, 2017 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Shortly after Pope Francis donated money to help those suffering from Ukraine’s ongoing conflict, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri arrived in the country, saying that while pained, he sees hope for the future.

In comments to local Catholic media after landing in Ukraine July 11, Cardinal Sandri recalled that when he made his first trip to the country several years ago, it was because “in this land was born and is growing, a great hope, a great vision of the future for this Christian country.”

“Today, unfortunately, I also bring pain for a country that ought to be the vanguard of peace in the life of Europe, but which instead is suffering, in all of it’s inhabitants, many deprivations and many victims of this situation,” he said, referring to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine’s eastern region.

Because of this, he said, “I also come with a desire for hope for life and a great future of this beloved country.”

Cardinal Sandri, Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Oriental Churches, is currently on an official July 11-17 visit to Ukraine to participate in the national Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Zarvanytsia.

He offered his comments to Zhyve TV, which is the Catholic TV Station of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, after his arrival.

His visit falls in the midst of ongoing upheaval in the country, largely the result of political instability and tensions surrounding the Russian invasion of their eastern region in 2014, which prompted a conflict that has endured three years, claimed thousands of lives and displaced millions of others.

Conflict erupted in Ukraine in November 2013, when the former government refused to sign the Association Agreement with the European Union, leading to months of violent protests.

Tensions deepened in February 2014, when the country’s former president was ousted following the protests, and a new government appointed. In March of that year, Ukraine’s eastern peninsula of Crimea was annexed by Russia and pro-Russian separatist rebels have since taken control of eastern portions of Ukraine, around Donetsk and Luhansk.

Fighting continues, with more casualties reported daily. More than 10,000 people, including civilians, have died in the fighting between Ukraine’s military and pro-Russian separatists. Roughly two million others have been forced to flee due to violence and a lack of basic humanitarian necessities, and those who remain lack access to food, heating and medical supplies.

Last April Pope Francis announced that he would be taking up a special collection in all European churches in order to provide relief from those who are still suffering. In December 2016, the Pope made an initial donation of 6 million euros from the funds collected, asking that it be distributed to different charitable projects.

In his comments to Zhyve TV, Cardinal Sandri said it was “an immense joy” for him to be back in the country after three previous visits, including one with St. John Paul II.

“I come particularly because I was invited to the celebration of the Madonna of Zarvanytsia, so I come to bring to her, the Queen of Ukraine, all the veneration we have for her in the Roman Church, but which we know summarizes the Marian identity of the Ukrainian people,” he said.

The cardinal also offered to Archbishsop Shevchuk and all bishops and faithful in Ukraine, “the greeting, blessing and closeness of the Pope, Francis.”

After his arrival, Sandri traveled to the capital city of Kyiv alongside the Vatican’s nuncio to Ukraine, Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, and Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Major Archbishop of the Greek-Catholic Church in Ukraine.

While there, he had a moment of silent prayer in front of the Cross of Maiden Square, where he laid flowers in honor of those who lost their lives during the bloody riots of 2014.

From there, he visited the Museum of the Holodomor, making a symbolic gesture in memory of the more than 100 victims.

On Wednesday, July 12, which marks the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul on the Giulian calendar, he will participate in the Pontifical Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral of the Resurrection, offering the homily. After, he is expected to pray at the tomb of Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, Marjor Archbishop Emeritus of Kyiv-Halych and former head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, who died May 31.

Later, the cardinal will hold a meeting with seminarians before leaving for the central-eastern city of Kharkiv, where he will visit the local Caritas.

The next day, July 13, Cardinal Sandri will take part in the Divine Liturgy at the cathedral of the Exharkate of Kharkiv before heading to lunch with priests and various other guests.

He is then expected to meet with the Bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Nicodemus. In the afternoon he will travel roughly 124 miles to Kramatorsk, where on Friday morning he will celebrate Mass and meet with the local bishops and priests of Donesk.

After paying a visit to the local Caritas and a community center, Sandri is scheduled to stop in the town of Sloviansk, where he will meet with several individuals who have been internally displaced by the conflict.

On Saturday, July 15, the cardinal will hold a meeting with the Greek-Catholic Metropolitan Bishop Volodymr Viytyshyn before joining the annual pilgrimage to the Shrine of Zarvanytsia.

That night, as part of the pilgrimage, Sandri will lead a special meeting with young people before leading a reflection at the close of the procession of candles.

Cardinal Sandri will then preside over Mass Sunday before traveling to Lviv, where he is scheduled to visit the Greek-Catholic Cathedral Saint George and pray at the tombs of Metropolitan Bishop Andrey Sheptytsky and of Cardinal Joseph Slipyj, heads and fathers of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church for a large portion of the 20th century.

He will then hold a brief meeting with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Lviv, Mieczys?aw Mokrzycki, before heading back to Rome.

According to the website of the apostolic nunciature in Ukraine, Pope Francis has, through Cardinal Sandri, offered all Catholic and Orthodox faithful in Ukraine, his personal greeting and blessing.

The Pope also expressed his “affection and closeness to the population for the sufferings and deprivations they have and are enduring during the well known conflict,” and encouraged those working for peace and reconciliation, as well as those engaged in assisting the displaced.

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Why this Catholic takes issue with ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ labels

July 13, 2017 CNA Daily News 4

Denver, Colo., Jul 13, 2017 / 03:01 am (CNA).- Chastity actually means fulfillment, not suffering – and labeling people in terms of their sexual inclinations or attractions first is ultimately a reduction of their human dignity.

These ideas form the basis of a provocative new book by Daniel Mattson, a Catholic who finds identifying as “gay” unhelpful in the dialogue on the issue, and who also believes that living the Church’s teaching on sexuality leads to the most profound experience of peace and freedom.  

“The Church must truly have a missionary zeal in proclaiming chastity as an invitation to a more fulfilling life for all men and women,” Mattson told CNA.

He said that Catholics need to reach out “to those who identify as LGBT to truly ‘come out,’ and let the masks of the world’s sexual identity labels fall from them, and see themselves as God sees them: solely as men and women, beloved children of God.”

“The dividing line of human sexuality is not between gay and straight, but rather between male and female, as we see in the Creation account of Genesis,” said Mattson.

In his new book, “Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay,” Mattson delves into the story of his upbringing: how he was raised in a Christian family, his experience of sexual confusion and social rejection in his early childhood, an addiction to pornography and an anger towards God. Living out his same-sex desires later in his life only made him more unhappy and lonely, and it wasn’t until he turned to the Church that he found true fulfillment.

Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles has called Mattson’s book “powerful” and Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments, said Mattson’s voice is one “seldom heard” in discussions surrounding same-sex attraction.  

Mattson said a major reason why he wrote the book was to take on the notion of people identifying themselves first in terms of straight or gay. When Mother Teresa was asked about “homosexuals” in an interview, he said she refused to refer to anyone with same-sex attraction as anything else but “a child of God.”

“Even though men and women may be living outside of God’s plan for them, their dignity as children of God calls them to love others as Christ loved us,” Mattson said. “As a Christian, that means sex must always be reserved for use only in true marriage, which is always open to life. The Church needs to have enough confidence in Her beautiful vision of human sexuality to help people believe God says no to sex outside of marriage because He loves us.”

In the book, he describes how he can trace the contours of his life that lead to his same-sex attractions, which contrasts with the assumption that homosexuality is innate.

But while understanding where his same-sex attractions came from was helpful for Daniel, he says it’s not necessary for everyone. Though the Church teaches in the Catechism that homosexuality has a “psychological genesis,” how same-sex attractions come into a person’s life is a minor question. The Church, Mattson says, is “more concerned about providing a path to a fulfilling life in the future.”

In his interview with CNA, Mattson emphasized that his adherence to the Catholic view on human sexuality isn’t rooted in moralism or a suppression of desire.

“The biggest reason I have embraced the Church’s teaching as good, true and beautiful is because following the world’s vision of happiness in the realm of human sexuality brought far more suffering into my life,” he said. Today, he finds in the Church’s vision of human sexuality true happiness and liberation.

“The Church recognizes that there is a ‘theology of the body,’ and our bodily reality as male and female points to the path of both what is normal and healthy in human sexuality, as well as to what is moral.”

In his book, Mattson references the self-identified lesbian feminist and scholar Camille Paglia, who agrees that same-sex attraction is not of the norm, but as a self-labeled pagan, says that the fulfillment of man comes with conquering what she sees as the confines of nature. Mattson disagrees with her view of morality, but he finds her acknowledgment of the true nature of sexuality refreshing.

“At least she’s honest about the fact that everyone’s sexuality is truly ordered toward procreation.” Mattson said.

But what Paglia’s view of sexual liberation ignores, Mattson argues, is that “there is far more pain and suffering in the lives of those who live outside of God’s design and ordering for human sexuality than those who choose to live within it.”  

He also noted that self-denial is an essential part of chastity, which everyone – not just people with same-sex attraction – are called to. For example, single men and women attracted to the opposite sex “are taught by the virtue of chastity to refrain from any sexual activity, too, and though this can be challenging, there is less suffering – and even more importantly, more peace – in one’s life when one follows the path set before us by God than if we go our own way.”

It’s not an issue of who suffers more but rather a shared connection of “the common human experience of suffering,” which stems from “rejection from other people, dashed hopes and dreams, heartbreak and loneliness.”

Mattson said that one reason he wrote his book is to help pave a path forward for those who have suffered from heartbreak and loss in their own relationships.

These sufferings, Mattson said, are universal to the human experience and not something particular to people with same-sex attraction. He referenced Cardinal Ratzinger’s 1986 “Letter on the Pastoral Care of the Homosexual Person,” which helped him refrain from self-pity and “thinking that somehow my various forms of suffering associated with living out a single and celibate life are more challenging than anyone else’s challenges.”

Through his book, Mattson says he wants to help the Church to, as he puts it, “reclaim sexual reality” and to help the Church and the world move beyond a view of the person which is ultimately “based on a reductionist label of sexual identity rooted in one’s sexual attractions and feelings.”

“In the eyes of the Church, there is no ‘us’ and ‘them,’ there is just us, and this is one of the great gifts of the Church.”

Mattson also offered a key distinction between Catholics being welcoming and shifting on magisterial teaching. He said that often the homosexual community has viewed the Church as ostracizing “for the reason that the Church won’t affirm them in their chosen way of living their lives.”

“The Church must be as welcoming and as loving as possible, but we cannot be more welcoming or loving than Jesus was who does not condemn us for our sins, but always calls us to go and sin no more.”

This call to change one’s moral life can be challenging, but it’s a calling which invites people to conversion and “is a sign of true love and compassion.”

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These youth feed 2000 homeless people every night in Uruguay

July 12, 2017 CNA Daily News 2

Montevideo, Uruguay, Jul 13, 2017 / 12:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- For many people, a warm meal is a way to come together, celebrate, and spend time with friends and family. For homeless people living on the streets of Montevideo, Uruguay, it’s an experience that’s rare. But about 500 young people in the city are working to change that.

Every night, especially in wintertime, around 16 groups coming from universities, parishes, and movements in the archdiocese go out to distribute more than 1900 meals to the city’s homeless residents.

The volunteers get together in late afternoon to cook, using donations from parishioners, businesses and the young people themselves. When night comes with its low temperatures, they set out to meet the most needy.

One of these groups is the Luceros Movement, made up of more than 100 volunteers who gather Mondays and Wednesdays at the Virgin of Carmen and Saint Therese Parish to prepare more than 100 meals.

This group came about after a pilgrimage to the Virgin of Salta, eight years ago.

After returning from the pilgrimage, the young participants formed a growing prayer group, and started to “make chocolate milk and some sandwiches to hand out to the people on the street,” Juan José Malvárez told the Catholic Church’s TV channel (ICM) in Montevideo.

“It’s common, if you live in Montevideo, that when you leave your house, on your block or the next, there’s somebody sleeping or living on the street. It’s shocking,” explained Felipe Silva.

“The food is really just a means, it’s a vehicle,” Silva said. “It’s important to fill the belly, but a lot more important to fill the hearts of these people.”

The name “Luceros,” which means “bright stars,” came out of the experience in Salta.

“It’s to be a light in the night, to not hold back the lamp so it can be raised high, to shine down light. It’s to be little lights that illuminate the darkness,” Silva said. The Virgin of Salta speaks about this a little: “you will soon see how you will be transformed into little lights that will illuminate,” he noted.

The spirituality which they have maintained over the years leads the volunteers to pray a Rosary under the title of the Immaculate Mother of the Divine Eucharistic Heart of Jesus before heading out.

Another group, “Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s Kettles,” hails from Mary Queen of Peace Parish. It came about after some of their members decided to continue the works of service they had been performing in preparation for the Sacrament of Confirmation.

Their group goes out on Wednesdays and Saturdays, despite the cold and rain, to carry out this apostolate. Agustin Yurdan told ICM that everyone works together to prepare the food. Some peel and chop the vegetables, while others stir the stew in the kettles.

“We try to be there as much as the people want us to be. Sometimes they need to talk for an hour, and we stay there for an hour. Other times, they grab the warm plate and take off,” he explained.

Gabriel Muscarelli from the Sembradores (Sowers) group, told ICM that their apostolate began 16 years ago as a family initiative. They began with 30 meals and now they distribute around 200, in addition to clothing, personal hygiene products, lightweight material for shelters, and sacramental preparation aids.

“We go out with physical food which is necessary. But it’s much more necessary to bring that hope which is Christ risen in our lives,” Muscarelli said. “And that is what motivates you to face the entire reality of human existence.”

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Art experts solve Renaissance mystery in papal palace

July 12, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Jul 12, 2017 / 04:58 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Two works painted by Renaissance master Raphael have been newly identified after art experts restored famous frescoes in the Apostolic Palace of Vatican City.

Arnold Nesselrath, an art historian who heads technical and scientific research at the Vatican Museums, told the Italian newspaper La Stampa that 16th century sources had offered clues. These sources said that Raphael had indeed painted two figures in the Apostolic Palace’s Hall of Constantine as tests of his oil technique.

In Nesselrath’s words, these figures were described as being “of a much higher quality than the ones around them.”

The exact identity of these figures was forgotten until the 21st century.

In an art restoration process that began in 2015, experts cleaned the works and removed the effects of centuries of previous restoration work.

They discovered that Raphael himself had painted two figures of women who serve as allegories for the virtues of Friendship and Justice. Only the art restoration made apparent Raphael’s oil technique.

The Hall of Constantine was intended to serve as a reception room in the Apostolic Palace of Vatican City. It depicts the life of the Constantine the Great, the first Roman emperor to seek baptism. The four frescoes depict The Vision of the Cross, the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, the Baptism of Constantine, and the Donation of Constantine.

The Vision of the Cross fresco depicts a key event said to have been a step towards Constantine’s conversion to Christianity during his battles to become emperor. The fresco depicts the emperor in a military camp looking towards giant cross in the sky that is surrounded by Greek words saying, “In this sign, conquer.”

At one side of this fresco, a woman labeled as Friendship wears a blue gown. She is seated to the left of St. Clement I, a first century Pope, the art blog Hyperallergic reports.

Another figure believed to be painted by Raphael is on the far right side of the fresco depicting Constantine’s battle at the Milvian bridge with his brother-in-law Maxentius, a rival imperial claimant. This woman’s image is labeled as Justice and bears a set of scales, at which she is staring.

Raphael, working under a commission from Julius II, had sketched plans for the Hall of Constantine before his death in 1520. The frescos’ completion was left to his students.

“They continued in the traditional method and have left only these two figures, autographs of the master,” Nesselrath told La Stampa.

Three other rooms in the Apostolic Palace feature Raphael’s work, including his famous depiction of the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle in his work “School of Athens.” Known as the “Raphael Rooms,” the frescoes can be seen by visitors to the Vatican Museums.

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Pope calls catechists to be joyful, creative witnesses of Christ

July 12, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Jul 12, 2017 / 02:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In a message sent to catechists from all over the world, Pope Francis stressed the need to not only make Christ the center of their lives, but to be creative and adaptable in finding ways to reach the people in their area.

“The catechist is creative; they search for different means and forms of announcing Christ,” the Pope said in his July 12 message.

Believing in Jesus is “beautiful,” he said, because Jesus is the way, truth and life “who fills our existence with joy and gladness.”

“This quest to make Jesus known as supreme beauty leads us to find new signs and ways of transmitting the faith,” he said, noting that while the means might be different, what’s important is to imitate “the style of Jesus, who adapted to the people he had before him in order to make them close to the love of God.”

To change and adapt oneself in order to make the message closer to the people is necessary, he said, but stressed that at the same time, the message being transmitted is “always the same, because God doesn’t change, but renews all things in him.”

Pope Francis said that in the quest of making Jesus known to the world, “we must not be afraid because he precedes us in this task. He is already in the man of today, and there awaits us.”

The Pope sent his message to participants in the First International Symposium on Catechesis, which is taking place July 11-14 in Buenos Aires.

The event is being offered through the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina (UCA), and is organized by the Episcopal Commission for Catechesis and Biblical Pastoral Care.

Pope Francis opened his message, sent in Spanish, by referencing a quote from his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi.

He noted that at a certain point, when one of St. Francis’ followers asked to be taught how to preach, the saint responded by saying: “Brother, when we visit the sick, help children and give to the poor, we are already preaching.”

“In this beautiful lesson is enclosed the vocation and task of the catechist,” he said, explaining that catechesis is not simply a job or a task external to the person of the catechist.

Rather, “their whole life revolves around this mission,” he said, noting that to be a catechist is “a vocation of service in the Church, which is received as a gift on the part of the Lord and must in turn be transmitted.”

To do this, one must return to the first encounter with Christ that changed their life. This moment, Francis said, is “the fundamental announcement that must resonate again and again in the life of the Christian, and even more in the one who is called to announce and teach the faith.”

The Pope then pointed to the importance of respecting popular piety in the people, saying it’s important to “care for the potential of piety and love that popular religiosity holds so that they transmit not only the contents off the faith, but a true school of faith is created which cultivates the gift of the faith that has been received.”

A catechist is also someone who journeys both from and with Christ, he said. “They are not a person who starts from their own ideas and preferences, but who allows themselves to look to him, to this gaze that makes their heart burn.”

The more that Jesus is the center of our lives, the more he teaches us to go out of ourselves, Francis said, adding that we are then “decentralized” and able to be close to others.

“This dynamism of love is like the movement of the heart,” and Jesus himself gives us an example of how to live this when he retreats to pray, and then “immediately goes to the encounter of those who are hungry and thirsty for God in order to heal and save them.”

“From here arises the importance of the ‘mystagogical’ catechesis, which is the constant encounter with the Word and with the sacraments, and not something merely occasional prior to the celebration of the sacraments of Christian initiation,” he said.

Pope Francis closes his speech by thanking catechists for their work, “above all because you walk with the People of God,” and encouraged them “to be joyful messengers, guardians of the good and the beauty that shines forth in the faithful life of the missionary disciple.”

 

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Cardinal Muller refutes claims about conversation with Pope

July 12, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Jul 12, 2017 / 09:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Gerhard Müller has strenuously denied media reports alleging Pope Francis asked the German prelate five pointed questions before informing him that his term as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was not being renewed.

The claims have been widely reported on social media.

Citing an unnamed German source, who in turn claims to have received the information from another person, the US-based news site One Peter Five and Italian Vaticanista Marco Tosatti have reported that Pope Francis, when meeting Cardinal Müller June 30, allegedly asked the then-prefect five questions about his views on a range of topics, including the introduction of a female diaconate and priesthood, the abolition of clerical continence, his stance regarding Amoris laetitia, and his stance on Francis sacking three members of staff in the congregation.

According to these reports, after hearing the German cardinal’s answers, Francis then informed him his mandate was ending and left the room, leaving behind a patiently waiting Cardinal Müller, who was expecting the Holy Father to be retrieving a token of gratitude, until an embarrassed Archbishop Georg Gänswein, prefect of the Papal Household, told the stumped cardinal that the meeting was in fact over.

Now Cardinal Müller has told Vaticanista Guido Horst that none of these claims are true. Writing in a guest editorial published at CNA Deutsch, Horst describes personally meeting the German clergyman the morning of July 11 in Rome.

The journalist, chief correspondent of the “Tagespost” newspaper, describes showing a surprised cardinal a printout of the reports: Müller himself had not seen the reporting on the Internet (his secretary, who provides the 69-year-old with online access, is on leave).

The cardinal was “flabbergasted to read this description of his meeting with the Pope”, Horst writes, quoting Cardinal Müller as stating: “This is incorrect”.

In fact, the whole meeting had run very differently Cardinal Müller asserted, and the claims made by the “anonymous German source” were quite false.

The comments echo a brief email sent by the Director of the Holy See Press Office, to both One Peter Five and Marco Tosatti yesterday. In it, Burke states that the claimed “reconstruction is totally false” and requests that the story be updated.

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