News Briefs

New York City, N.Y., Jun 30, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA).- With Catholic proposals to literally head for the hills in response to Christianity’s ever-lessening influence in secular culture, the leader of a global ecclesial movement has a provocative statement:

This is actually a great time for the Church.

“As a matter of fact,” says Father Julian Carron, “it is a precious occasion to verify the validity of the Christian proposal.”

Already garnering some notable attention since its release, a new book by Fr. Carron called “Disarming Beauty” takes on the question of the Church’s relevance amid modern society’s most pressing challenges. From terrorism to consumerism, “rights” culture to marriage and family, the book examines the plight of our current world and invites Christians to respond – not from a place of fear, but from the joy of their original encounter with the living person of Christ.

“The fact that the Church is no longer a moral majority is liberating; it allows us to rediscover the heart of the Christian event,” he told CNA. “The Church will survive and thrive only through Her witness.”

Fr. Carron heads Communion and Liberation, which originated in the 1950s with Italian priest Msgr. Luigi Giussani. The international movement focuses on the actualization of man’s faith by living the Christian presence within community.

Please read below for our full interview with Fr. Carron:

Why ‘Disarming Beauty’? What does the title mean to you?

The book speaks of the beauty of Christian faith, of its power and its attraction. When God takes on flesh, He strips Himself of His own power, entering into the history and poverty of the human condition, revealing to everyone the truth of His power. This is how Christianity, the greatest revolution of all time, began. Christ is the exemplar of a way of communicating truth that needs no other means beyond the beauty of truth itself. The book speaks primarily of this beauty, which is not just an aesthetic or sentimental one. Like all beautiful things, Christianity needs no other defense, other then its own beauty, to be communicated. With the expression “disarming beauty” I wanted to say: “We Christians, do we believe in the fascination that the disarming beauty of the faith can exercise?” With the phrase “disarming beauty,” I propose a Christian presence that would be sufficiently attractive so as to make life more interesting for everyone.

What exactly does beauty “disarm” us of? How does it do that?

Beauty disarms us from our narrow way of looking at ourselves and at reality; it opens our minds and our eyes to the totality of reality, of the real. The attractiveness of beauty moves us affectively, so much so that it allows reason to become truly opened to all the factors of reality. We discover this openness in Christ’s gaze on reality; we are surprised by the way Jesus looks at the publicans, at Zacchaeus or Matthew, or at the crowd. How is his gaze different from the one of the Pharisees, which reduces the person to his ability or his ethical performance? Jesus’ gaze at Zacchaeus helps him discover himself, awakening his self-awareness, something none of the Pharisees’ reproaches could do. We can say the same about the Samaritan woman, or the tenth leper. We understand the shock that His presence provoked: “We never saw anything like this.”

What do you perceive as the single greatest threat in modern society?

I think it is feeling adrift, destabilized, alone, and uncertain. Most propose to fight these emotions with walls, or changes in the system at the institutional level (as depicted by T.S. Eliot). Men and women today wait for, perhaps unconsciously, the experience of an encounter with people for whom life is “solid” in the midst of change. What will wake people up today is a human impact, an event that echoes the initial event that occurred when Jesus raised His eyes and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry down. I want to stay at your house today.” I believe that the present era is a great opportunity to witness to the disarming beauty of Christianity, and to verify the fascination of the Christian event, which does not require a context to protect it.

Why is education so important? Why do you say it’s the greatest challenge the Church faces?

We see so many students and teachers passive, skeptical, and even bored. Since we don’t know what to do, we manage the symptoms. Yet, we must face the challenge. The challenge for the educator is to reawaken desire, to experience the restlessness which St. Augustine speaks about. To do so, we must introduce students to a relationship with reality in its totality, with all of its beauty and meaning.

For this reason, it is necessary to put the person at the center, to teach students to look at the world with their own eyes, to think with their own heads, thus developing a critical spirit that makes their “I” more of a protagonist and less a spectator, more a leader and less a follower, more a citizen and less a subject.

This dynamic is only possible when a teacher is a witness to this relationship with reality, not as one who imposes herself or her way of seeing things upon others, in an authoritarian way, but someone who challenges the other by her own way of living.

What changes must the Church make not only to survive, but thrive in today’s modern culture?

Christians are faced with an unprecedented challenge. Yet, we are not afraid of wide-ranging dialogue, without any privileges. As a matter of fact, it is a precious occasion to verify the validity of the Christian proposal. The fact that the Church is no longer a moral majority is liberating; it allows us to rediscover the heart of the Christian event. The Church will survive and thrive only through Her witness.

Arguably, though, there are a lot of Catholics who do not find it “liberating” that the Church is no longer the moral majority. Many are actually afraid of this phenomenon, and feel as though Catholics either have to isolate from culture or hold even more tightly to the tenets of Christianity as an increasingly extreme counter-witness. What do you say to this?

That the Church is no longer the moral majority is a fact. It’s useless to complain. The fact that many Catholics are afraid of this situation shows the lack of certainty in the unarmed beauty of faith, causing them to either isolate themselves from the culture to ‘preserve’ the faith, or to see their presence in society as a counter-reaction. To describe what kind of presence is needed today, this observation may be useful:

When we have to defend something in the context of a debate, in order to make our response stronger, we almost unconsciously accept the way the other frames the issue. In doing so, we allow our position to be determined by its opposition. It is reactive instead of being an original position, that is, a position that comes from our experience of faith. This leads to further reducing Christianity, or its testimony, to the mere repetition of a doctrine, of some values or ethics. (Disarming Beauty, pp. 70-71).    

Christian faith was born in a pluralistic society in Palestine and spread throughout a multicultural Roman empire. The first Christians based the communication of their faith only in their own witness. Their free and joyful position sprang from the core of their faith, not from fear of the world. “Man today expects, perhaps unconsciously, the experience of an encounter with people for whom the fact of Christ is such a present reality that their life is changed. What will shake up men and women today is a human impact; an event that echoes the initial event, when Jesus raised His eyes and said, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry down. I mean to stay at your house today.’” (Luigi Giussani to the Synod on the Laity, 1987).

You reference the malaise of “lethargy and existential boredom.” How do modern men and women regain a sense of wonder and desire in front of their lives? In your view, what is the first step, and what is Church’s role in this?

The first step is to encounter somebody who reawakens us from our lethargy and boredom. Regardless of the human situation, something unforeseen is always possible, something unexpected, which makes us regain the sense of ourselves. The Church has a unique possibility to offer a big contribution to the modern situation if she rediscovers the real nature of Christianity as an event, an event that reawakens the person, just as we see in the Gospels.

How do you encounter someone who awakens you? Is there a danger of moral subjectivity, here? Does one just follow anything that attracts?   

You can see this when you meet someone who awakens you in your own experience like when you fall in love with someone. You don’t need anybody else assuring you that it is that particular person who has awakened you from your apathy, or your meaningless life. It’s something objective, something that comes out of you. We can use the same method looking at the origin of Christian faith. As then-Cardinal Ratzinger said in 1993: “we can recognize only something that raises a correspondence in us.” Anybody can recognize Christ “because he corresponds to the nature of man…the longing for the infinite which is alive and unquenchable within man.” In the opening lines of Deus Caritas Est, he brought this to everyone’s attention: “Being Christian is not an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person who gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” The person of Jesus is such a great and precious good, as He alone fully corresponds to the human thirst for happiness. And, the exceptional correspondence He brings about in those who meet him makes them capable of being in relationship with reality in an absolutely gratuitous way.

You speak of dialogue in the book a lot. How is this possible and why is it essential?

Dialogue is crucial because it is the possibility for a person to enter into a relationship with the other’s experience. Sharing our own experiences with others, welcoming the experiences of others, is the only way to enrich our life.

Freedom in dialogue comes from the esteem one has for the experience of the other. This esteem permits one to enter into relationship with the richness of the experience of another person – in order to enrich one’s own perspective. We can say with Terence: “Nothing human is foreign to us.” And when one has this certainty, he or she has no problem entering into a dialogue.

Why is it important for Christians to defend religious freedom?

Because of the relationship between truth and freedom. The Second Vatican Council enables us see that there is no other way to communicate truth than through freedom. Reason is the nature of truth, and truth needs only its own beauty to communicate itself. “The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth.”

Christian faith requires the use of reason and freedom. Without these two, Christianity isn’t the least bit interesting. Today, therefore, only in a free environment will Christian faith be able to interest people, because for modern men and women (and in this the Enlightenment has played a foundational role), there is no greater good than freedom. No one today would think of proposing or imposing something that goes against freedom.

With the collapse of what was at one time evident (family, marriage, work, relative peace in our cities), where do we begin again?

The same way they did 2000 years ago, with a witness. Jesus introduced such a newness in history that people who met Him remained speechless, even to the point to saying: “We have never have seen anything like it.” There is no way to challenge human reason and freedom other then a life – the more fascinating life of a witness. People need to see and touch again, in a tangible way, the values that today are in crisis.

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Atlanta, Ga., Jun 30, 2017 / 12:14 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A new book by entrepreneur and philanthropist Frank J. Hanna goes beyond the cliché advice often offered to college students, in an effort to help them focus on the things that really matter for true success in life.  

Hanna, the CEO of Hanna Capital, is the author of the newly-released book, “A Graduate’s Guide to Life: Three Things They Don’t Teach You in College That Could Make All the Difference.”

In addition to his success as a merchant banker, Hanna is known for his philanthropy, particularly his commitment to Catholic education and evangelization. He is an EWTN board member. CNA is part of the EWTN family.

Amazon describes the newly-released book by saying, “The college years are often referred to as the best years of your life. Author Frank J. Hanna believes your best years are still ahead of you, but only if you have a strategy for living that goes beyond what you learned in school.”

“According to Hanna, wealth and success are not what you think. Drawing on a lifetime of business experience, he proposes a radically different approach. He shows that wealth is not merely money, competition has a higher purpose than simply getting ahead, and a life of happiness is simpler to attain than we imagine.”

CNA interviewed Hanna about his new book, his inspiration in writing it, and the advice he would offer college students today. The text of the interview is below:

You state in your book to young college students that “I want to change how you think about your future.” Why?

Unfortunately, we now live in a world of immediacy. This means that much of the advice we give to young people is catchy, and fits into a tweet or Facebook post, but at best it is often shallow, and at its worst, it is often wrong. Most college students have been filled with this kind of thinking for most of their lives, and so they are not thinking about their future in the manner most likely to lead to success.

You have a problem with the usual comment that college will be “the best years of your life”…

This is one of the clichés that happens to be bad advice. We want to encourage young people, as they head off to college; however, when we tell them that the next four years are going to be the best four years of their lives, we send two faulty messages. First, we imply that after college, the next fifty years are all downhill. And secondly, we put pressure on them while they are in college to try to live in a risky, extraordinary fashion – if these are the best four years of their lives, shouldn’t they be doing extraordinary things every day? This sort of adrenaline-seeking FOMO approach to life is not the way to happiness.

Why did you feel the need to describe human competition as opposed to animal competition?

All mammals compete for food, water, and mates. Humans do too. But if humans do not infuse their competition with love and prudence, they act like animals. If they compete like humans, they can bring out the best in one another.  

How are hope and meaningful community connected to wealth in life?

For many years, I have studied wealth in business, and happiness trends among really wealthy people. I found that the common denominator for wealth in business was hopefulness in the future, and I found that the common denominator for happiness among rich people was not how much money they had, but whether they had good relationships with others, and hopefulness about the future of those relationships. I dive into more of the background of this issue in the book, and how to develop these sources of wealth, but these are the factors that the data shows produce well-being, which is actually the essence of wealth.

Could you comment on the current education system and why it inspired you to write this book?

I think our current education system, especially higher education, does a pretty good job of transmitting information. College and high school graduates today have more information than their parents or grandparents had. However, our colleges sometimes mistake information for knowledge, and so students may not have as much knowledge as they ought. Moving even beyond knowledge, it is wisdom that leads to human flourishing. But because wisdom is so often tied to questions related to transcendence, many of our colleges not only fail to impart wisdom – some of them even deny its existence, for to acknowledge wisdom is to acknowledge truth, and in a culture of relativism, many do not want to, or are afraid to, acknowledge absolute truth.  

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Gallup, N.M., Jun 29, 2017 / 02:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Diocese of Gallup, New Mexico added three names earlier this year to its list of workers against whom there are credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor, as part of the diocesan commitment to transparency and youth protection.

The local Church is also holding healing services in many of its parishes across New Mexico and Arizona, in which Bishop James Wall listens to and prays with any who wish to do so, as they seek healing from sexual abuse.

The three new names on the list of credibly accused are Brother Mark Schornack, OFM, who served at parishes in the Gallup diocese between 1952 and 1984, and who is now deceased; Fr. Ephraim Beltramea, OFM, who served at St. Francis parish in Gallup from 1970 to 1973; and Fr. Diego Mazon, OFM, who served in parishes of the diocese between 1977 and 2003.

Emails sent by CNA to representatives of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Province of the Order of Friars Minor inquiring about Fr. Beltramea and Fr. Mazon were not acknowledged.

Bishop Wall spoke to CNA recently about the Diocese of Gallup’s efforts at child protection, the need to find healing, and the central role that transparency plays in the life of the Church.

“We use transparency so much as a buzzword,” he reflected. “I think transparency’s important because all things must be brought into the light; things shouldn’t remain in the darkness.”

“In the past I think we’ve learned from some our mistakes, and some of that had to do with shielding those who committed abuses, or sometimes maybe turning a blind eye, or allowing people to remain in ministry – and I don’t think that’s a good practice, because that doesn’t really protect young people, vulnerable adults. It doesn’t allow for them to have a safe place to encounter the living Christ.”

Transparency means “showing our policies, our procedures, what we’re doing,” he said, so that “everything is brought into the light, so there’s nothing that’s hidden.”

April’s inclusion of three new names brings the list of those who have worked in the Gallup diocese who have been deemed by the diocese to have credible accusations of sexual abuse of a minor against them to a total of 34.

Most of them (21) were diocesan priests. Another 11 were priests or brothers of religious communities, including the Order of Friars Minor, the Claretians, the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, and the Crosier Fathers. There was also one seminarian and one lay CCD teacher.

Some two-thirds of the credibly accused (22) are deceased.

Bishop Wall explained that when the diocese receives an allegation of sex abuse of a minor, it undertakes an investigation, or has an outside investigator look into it. The investigator brings its findings to a review board, which makes recommendations to the diocese.

“Through that process, if we discover that the allegation is credible, then we will post that name on the diocesan website, as well as let the parishes where this person has served know.”

He added that the investigation is done because “we always have to make sure that we’re protecting everyone’s rights involved in this, being sensitive to everyone: the person bringing the accusation forward, as well as the accused,” noting that “the legal system is innocent until proven guilty.”

If the credibly accused person is a cleric, “immediately their faculties are withdrawn and they’re informed that they are not to function or present themselves as a cleric in the Church.”

The bishop added that their case can be sent to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where they can be assessed various penalties, such as dismissal from the clerical state.

When the credibly accused person is a member of a religious community, “the expectation is that (their community) take the lead,” Bishop Wall explained, though the diocese does work closely with the religious community throughout the process.

The Gallup diocese’s list of credibly accused was first made in December 2014, and its recent update reflects the fact that “sometimes we don’t have enough information on a particular case; we might not have enough information to investigate it, and then deem it credible.”

“If at a later date more information does come to us, so that we are able to investigate it, and then we are able to deem it credible, then we immediately put it on our list of credibly accused,” the bishop said. “So it all has to deal with the information that we have.”

The diocese’s list reflects any local Church workers who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor, whether while they were in ministry in Gallup or in another diocese. It also shows when and where they ministered within the diocese, whether or not the alleged abuse was carried out at those times and places.

Those who have been credibly accused were in ministry between the 1930s and the 2010s. There was a sharp rise of those in ministry in the 1950s, with a peak in the 1960s. Many of the credibly accused were also in ministry in the 1970s and ’80s. The numbers fell in the 1990s and 2000s.

There was a sole case since Bishop Wall was named Bishop of Gallup in 2009: Fr. Timothy Conlon, a member of the Crosier Fathers. He served in two Arizona parishes from 2011 to 2013 before the diocese was informed by his religious community of an allegation of sexual abuse against him.

The bishop said the Church is now “really in the forefront of making sure that we provide a safe environment for our young people, and vulnerable adults as well,” with its screening of potential ministers leadings its efforts.

He cited the use of psychological screening and testing, and the fact that “our interview process is much, much more extensive than it was” in past times. Moreover, the Gallup diocese trains its volunteers, employees, students and clerics in child safety, and has a mandatory background check.

“We try to put in as many safety procedures as possible,” he said.

Reflecting on the spike of credibly accused clerics in the 1950s and ’60s, Bishop Wall said that while there were a number of contributing factors, he believes that chief among them was the sexual revolution and “the groundwork [which] was already being laid prior to that.”

“But then again, these were bad people who did bad things to people; and these people should never have been placed in the positions to violate the trust, to violate these young people.”

In response to the crisis of sexual abuse, the Diocese of Gallup has also held healing services in parishes across its territory, in which Bishop Wall listens to and prays with survivors of sexual abuse, regardless of who their abuser was.

“It provides an opportunity not only to come together to pray, to pray for healing, but also gives an opportunity for anyone, and I stress that – anyone – who is a survivor of sexual abuse to meet with me,” the bishop explained.

“So we could have someone who is a survivor of sexual abuse by a worker of the Church, or someone who’s a survivor of sexual abuse not by a worker of the Church, it could be family or friends, whatever the case might be … that’s what the Church is about, it’s what our ministry is about: offering the healing of Christ, so we provide that opportunity as well.”

Communities across the diocese have responded differently to the healing services, which began in November 2016.

In some places, Bishop Wall said, there is “a pretty good sized group that comes, and people who will want to meet with me individually afterwards; some people will bring family members in with them, they feel a little more comfortable, and some people just come to pray – you don’t have to be a survivor of sexual abuse to come and pray.”

Healing services are scheduled at different communities in the diocese through March 2018.

While acknowledging that “it is difficult,” Bishop Wall also affirmed that “I think it’s necessary, and it’s a good thing, to allow people to come and sit and talk, and kind of, really unload their burden. Especially for someone who was abused by a worker of the Church, I think it’s important for the bishop, who’s the shepherd of the diocese, to sit with the person, to talk with the person, pray with them, apologize. I think that’s one of the most important things were able to do in this.”

“These healing services, difficult though they are, provide a great opportunity for survivors of sexual abuse, whether at the hands of workers of the Church or someone else … to come before the Lord and find healing in the Lord,” the bishop concluded.

Survivors of sexual abuse are also afforded an opportunity “to pray, too, and also I think to realize they’re not alone, because I think many times if someone is a survivor of sexual abuse, sometimes they feel like they’re alone. And I think coming together with others, and the Church welcoming and inviting them to come together, it lets them feel that they’re not alone, they’re not isolated, there are people that are there for them, the Church is there for them.”
 

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