Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mar 29, 2017 / 08:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Political unrest and uncertainty about the future have grown in the Democratic Republic of Congo, following the Catholic bishops’ withdrawal from mediation talk… […]
Rome, Italy, Mar 29, 2017 / 04:10 pm (CNA).- After what has been a tumultuous few months for the Order of Malta, Grand Chancellor Albrecht von Boeselager has opened up about the process of reform and the work they are currently doing to help migrants, refugees and those displaced by war and poverty.
“This crisis has been a bit challenging for me personally,” Boeselager told CNA March 29. While the order itself undergoes an intense spiritual reform after a recent crisis involving the Vatican shook up their leadership, Boeselager said, “I hope spiritual renewal will come out of it for me too.”
However, despite the difficulties the reformation of the order currently presents, the Grand Chancellor stressed the importance of staying on task, and not letting their humanitarian work, specifically with migrants and refugees, be set aside.
Boeselager spoke to CNA during a sit-down interview just over a month after outlining the order’s priorities following his reinstatement as Grand Chancellor and the resignation of their former Grand Master, Matthew Festing, at the request of Pope Francis.
Tensions in the order initially spiked after Boeselager, whose brother Georg von Boeselager was appointed a member of the Board of Superintendents of the IOR Dec. 15, was ousted from his position as Grand Chancellor in December. That prompted the Holy See to establish an investigative group to look into the circumstances surrounding his dismissal.
A public row between the order and the Holy See ensued, eventually resulting in Festing’s resignation upon the Pope’s request, the reinstatement of Boeselager as Grand Chancellor, and the appointment of a papal delegate to oversee the “spiritual reform” of the order until a new Grand Master is elected during an April 29 convocation.
In his interview with CNA, Boeselager speaks not only of the current state of the reform, but also provides some background on his own history with the order and highlights the important humanitarian work they are doing with migrants and refugees, which forms the backbone of the order’s activities.
Please read below CNA’s full interview with the Grand Chancellor:
One of the main priorities of the order that you outlined in your press conference in January was humanitarian work with migrants and refugees. Can you explain some of the initiatives the order is currently doing with migrants and refugees specifically?
The order is very much involved in the care of migrants and refugees in different parts of the world, in countries from where they come, on their way and in countries where they wish to go to. So we are active in the countries surrounding Syria: Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon, to help refugees from Syria and also, if security allows, displaced people within Syria. We are active in South Sudan, which is in a big crisis at the moment, and in other countries where there are migrants and refugees or problems of displacement of people. Often it’s internally displaced people. In Asia, in Thailand, we care for Rohingya refugees. In almost all the hotspots for migrants and refugees we are active. Here in Italy, our medical personnel serves on the Italian board to provide medical care to those saved in the Mediterranean, and in Austria, Germany, Hungry, France, we care for refugees that arrive in these countries.
Do you see any specific challenge that might arise with the increased migrant flow into Europe?
In fact at the moment, since about 12 months, the flow has reduced very much, so I don’t see at the moment a crisis of numbers in general. In the mid ’90s 0.5 percent of the population in Europe were refugees or asylum seekers and at the moment it’s 0.4 percent, so it’s less than before. I think in Europe it’s more of a crisis of leadership and communication than a crisis of receiving refugees or migrants at the moment. But that does not mean that we are not faced with a great challenge, because Africa is on the move, one can say, and we certainly need a more long-term policy to deal with the challenges which will certainly be coming.
On this point, I wanted to ask about a meeting you had last week on the situation in Libya. What were some of the major points brought up in that discussion?
The political situation in Libya is at the moment again deteriorating, and human trafficking as become a big business in Libya, and all of the parties in Libya, I think, are aware that this is an additional threat to the stability of the country. So on this issue they agree, but they are helpless to deal with it. Many migrants are held in detention centers, which recently someone compared to concentration camps. I’ve never been to one of those camps so I cannot judge by myself, but what we hear from the migrants we serve coming from Libya are terrible stories, so everything that can be done to mitigate the situation should be done. Even if the steps forward are very small, we should not give up and that’s why we try now for the third time to convene a meeting with representatives from Libya and from other international organizations to start discussing what can be done to help. We are at the moment also giving training to the Libyan coast guard. That has been discussed in our ranks for long, because normally we are very hesitant to get directly involved in military or police actions, but giving training to these people who in the future will rescue people from the Mediterranean I think is necessary, and we hope that we can build trust toward the institution in Libya so in the future we may be able to help.
In the communique you guys sent out about the meeting it said some new collaborations were discussed. What would some of these collaborations look like?
We hope that in the not-too-far future security would allow us to go into Libya and to start medical care for migrants in Libya.
Moving to the topic of the spiritual reform the Order is currently undergoing, what would you say is the ultimate goal of this reform in light of everything that has happened?
I think starting with the term ecclesia semper reformanda, we need to start with the person, personal reform and reflection on our way all the time. I think in a bigger time, steps, also institutional reforms, have to be considered. So it’s in this frame of permanent reflection; I think in Lent it’s a good time to reflect on these things. We have to look at the recent crisis, try to access where institutional weaknesses were at the base of the crisis, so it was more personal controversies which caused the crisis, and to see where we can reform the order so that we can go forward with more strength to fulfill our mission. The Holy Father has put a special focus in his letter on the First Class of the order, so those are the members of the order who have professed the three vows. Unfortunately there are only a few in the order – this is a situation we are living with for more than 200 years, so that’s not new for the order. And to see mainly what could be done or what’s necessary to allow more vocations to the First Class.
So would you say this idea of ecclesia semper reformanda was perhaps what Pope Francis had in mind when he spoke of a specifically “spiritual” reform?
Yes, yes.
What are some of the current steps being taken as this reform takes place?
The next immediate step is to elect a new successor of Fra Matthew in just four weeks, so in a month. So that’s where we concentrate on at the moment, to prepare this election. But we have already started to collect, just to collect from the order, from the membership, where they see a need for reform. We are not yet evaluating them, we are just assembling them and sorting them, and after the election we will first decide how to structure the process, which steps we take to organize the process and then start discussing issues of reform. This will take some time because we have to do it in great transparency, and transparency means communication and time so that nobody can have the impression that something is cooked in a secret kitchen.
Part of what was also mentioned in the Pope’s letter was the need to re-visit specific parts of the order’s constitution. What are the parts that might need to be changed or revised in some way?
It’s a bit early to say exactly what will come out. As the Pope mentioned, specifically the First Class, maybe something needs to be changed there, but that’s something especially the First Class members have to reflect on themselves, that’s not our matter. The recent crisis has shown some weaknesses in the check and balances and the governance, so we have to look at governance issues and I’m pretty sure that we will have to do some reforms in this regard. And maybe we have also to look at issues of training and preparation of members in the different classes, to strengthen their background.
Is there a specific outcome that you in your role as Grand Chancellor are hoping to achieve?
In my role as Grand Chancellor I see my duty to help moderate this process and trying to help to bring peace and unity in the order. So I will at the moment will help so that all these suggestions will be fairly considered and brought together, but not take a special direction, because I think that’s not my role at the moment
Moving forward, what do you see your role as? Could you possibly be elected Grand Master at the Council Complete of State April 29?
That’s fortunately impossible, because I am not a member of the First Class. The Grand Master has to be a member of the professed with solemn vows and the professed members of the order are the members who constitute the order as a religious order, and the head of the order has to be chosen from among them.
So you’ll continue as you are then?
I think this special feature will not change.
I also wanted to ask you some personal questions about your own background. Can you explain a bit of your own story and how you came into contact with the order?
My father and my mother were members of the order. My father in fact started the initiative to bring sick and handicapped to Lourdes after the Second World War. So these annual pilgrimages of my parents were part of our normal family life because it always took some preparation. With four children it took also a special moment we didn’t like so much when our parents went away for 10 days or so. Then I remember the first, most spectacular operation of the order in 1956 during the Hungarian crisis, when the order started to rescue refugees coming from Hungry and the Hungarian-Austrian border. Our dining room and the office of my father were the same room, and my father coordinated the interventions from Germany. So I still remember this as a very specific time in my youth, so the order was part of my youth. After my military service I went for the first time to Lourdes a bit sceptical, like sometimes children are when they are doing something their parents have done all the time. So I was observing a bit, and then (as I was) serving in front of the bath in Lourdes, one of the helpers in the bath came out and said ‘I need help inside’ and just dragged me in without asking. So I came into a cabin where the really severely (sick people) were taken into the bath and there were two Dominican fathers who literally kissed the sore bones of the sick and that really took me. Since then I have gone every year perhaps with one exception.
So you would say this was really the moment that inspired you to make a greater commitment with the Order of Malta?
Yes, absolutely. Lourdes is, I would say, the spiritual heart of the order. If you talk of reform, I think the experience of Lourdes for many members is a real source of renewal. Reform is not a theoretical process. Reform has as a condition personal renewal and reform, and I think Lourdes is the deepest source for us and for me too.
Is there a sense of personal renewal that you are hoping for moving forward?
I think this crisis has been a bit challenging for me personally, and I hope spiritual renewal will come out of it for me, too.
Anian Christoph Wimmer contributed to this report.
San Francisco, Calif., Mar 29, 2017 / 04:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The undercover journalists whose work appeared to implicate Planned Parenthood officials in the illegal sale of unborn baby body parts now face 15 felony charges in California, but one insists the allegations are phony.
David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress characterized the allegations as “bogus charges from Planned Parenthood’s political cronies.”
“The public knows the real criminals are Planned Parenthood and their business partners like StemExpress and DV Biologics – currently being prosecuted in California – who have harvested and sold aborted baby body parts for profit for years in direct violation of state and federal law,” he said March 28.
California Attorney General Xavier Beccerra has charged that Daleiden and his co-investigator Sandra Merritt filmed 14 people without their consent in Los Angeles, Pasadena, San Francisco and El Dorado. The two are also charged with conspiracy to invade privacy.
Beccerra said his office “will not tolerate the criminal recording of confidential conversations.”
“The right to privacy is a cornerstone of California’s Constitution, and a right that is foundational in a free democratic society,” he said Tuesday.
Data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit, nonpartisan funding watchdog, appear to show that Beccerra has received several minor donations from Planned Parenthood, totally some $6,000 in the last 20 years.
In the current case, court papers claim the undercover investigators’ surreptitious recording of officials involved in Planned Parenthood and other sections of the abortion industry were illegal. An affidavit filed in San Francisco Superior Court justified the conspiracy charges on the grounds the investigators used pseudonyms, fake California drivers’ licenses, and a front medical research company, Biomax Procurement Services, in order to secure a booth at the National Abortion Federation’s 2014 conference in San Francisco.
Daleiden compared the California charges to Texas charges that had been filed against him and dismissed in June 2016, including a charge he had used a fake California driver’s license to access a Texas Planned Parenthood building.
“They tried the same collusion with corrupt officials in Houston, Texas and failed: both the charges and the district attorney were thrown out,” he said.
The Center for Medical Progress videos gave great momentum to efforts to end state and federal taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, which receives about half a billion dollars in federal funds annually, about 40 percent of its operating budget. While this money is forbidden by law from funding abortions, critics charge that these rules may not always be followed, and that any federal funding frees up other money for abortions.
In January 2017, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives Select Investigative Panel investigating fetal tissue procurement released its report declaring that there are abuses and possible criminal violations in the area. The procurement of fetal tissue for profit is illegal.
Although a dozen states opened investigations into the organizations involved, they did not find legally admissible evidence of wrongdoing.
Backers of Planned Parenthood have charged that the videos were deceptively edited, a charge Daleiden has strongly contested, releasing the full videos to support his claim.
Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Mary Alice Carter said that the California charges show “the only people who broke the law are those behind the fraudulent tapes.” Carter denied that Planned Parenthood has done anything wrong.
Vicki Saporta of the National Abortion Federation charged that the videos resulted in a “flood of hate speech, threats and violence” to abortion providers.
Daleiden, however, defended his work.
“We look forward to showing the entire world what is on our yet-unreleased video tapes of Planned Parenthood’s criminal baby body parts enterprise, in vindication of the First Amendment rights of all,” he said Tuesday.
On March 29, the Center for Medical Progress released its latest video, which involved Dr. DeShawn Taylor, a past medical director of Planned Parenthood who served as an abortion provider at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles.
The video appeared to show Taylor saying her facility’s treatment of babies who show “signs of life” after an abortion depended on “who’s in the room.”
The release of the investigation’s first video took place in July 2015. It and subsequent videos have drawn a massive response from Planned Parenthood and its allies. A 2015 grant listing from the Open Societies Foundation, published after a foundations’ computer system was hacked, found a planned $7-8 million campaign to respond to the videos. The Hewlett Foundation and the Democracy Alliance were named as other partners in the campaign.
Washington D.C., Mar 29, 2017 / 03:40 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A new undercover video shows an Arizona abortion clinic doctor saying her facility’s treatment of babies who show “signs of life” after an abortion depended on “who’s in the room.”
Dr. DeShawn Taylor, who runs an abortion and Ob/Gyn clinic in Phoenix, Ariz. and who was formerly the medical director at Planned Parenthood Arizona, was filmed undercover saying that according to Arizona law “if the fetus comes out with any signs of life” at an abortion clinic, “we’re supposed to transport it … to the hospital.”
However, when asked on camera, if at her clinic “is there any standard procedure for verifying signs of life?”, she didn’t answer with a specific procedure, but rather said: “I mean, the key is you need to pay attention to who’s in the room, right? Because the thing is the law states that you’re not supposed to do any maneuvers after the fact to try to cause demise so it’s really tricky.”
Arizona law mandates that clinics call emergency services if a fetus survives an abortion or has signs of life such as breathing, heartbeat, “umbilical cord pulsation”, or “definite movement of voluntary muscles.”
Additionally, if an abortion is performed after 20 weeks gestation, there must be “at least one person who is trained in neonatal resuscitation … present in the room” to provide emergency care to a “viable fetus.”
The undercover video was filmed by members of the Center for Medical Progress and is the latest in their Human Capital Project, a series of investigative videos on the fetal tissue trade that first aired in 2015.
David Daleiden, the project lead for Center for Medical Progress, was charged with 15 felonies by California Attorney General Xavier Beccera on Tuesday, related to his work on the undercover videos of conversations with Planned Parenthood and tissue procurement officials.
Beccera is a former Democratic member of Congress. He and former state attorney general Kamala Harris – now a U.S. senator – received thousands of dollars from Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice groups in their congressional elections, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Members of the Center for Medical Progress, posing as representatives of a tissue procurement company, approached current and former Planned Parenthood officials at a George Tiller Memorial Networking Reception in October of 2014, and secretly taped their conversations.
One of the former officials was Taylor, who worked at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles and was the medical director at Planned Parenthood Arizona before moving to her own abortion and Ob/Gyn practice in Phoenix, where she was at the time of the conversation.
She said her clinic received abortion referrals from Planned Parenthood, and performed an average of 30 abortions per week.
Posing as representatives of BioMax, CMP asked Dr. Taylor how they could collaborate on the transfer of fetal tissue from abortion clinics in the Phoenix area.
When asked about abortion procedures for ensuring intact baby body parts for tissue harvesters, Taylor noted that “part of the issue is, it’s not a matter of how I feel about it coming out intact, but I got to worry about my staff and peoples’ feelings about it coming out looking like a baby.”
She was then asked about using digoxin, a feticide sometimes used to kill the baby before an abortion procedure, which could render the fetal tissue unsuitable for harvesting.
Taylor said, “that really presents an issue because in Arizona, if the fetus comes out with any signs of life, we’re supposed to transport it … to the hospital.” Digoxin, she said, ensures the baby is dead after an abortion procedure.
Taylor was asked if her clinic had a procedure for determining if a baby showed signs of life after an abortion. She replied that “the key is you need to pay attention to who’s in the room, right?”
She continued, explaining the law’s requirements as a reason for why she mostly uses digoxin to ensure the baby is dead in an abortion.
“Because the thing is, the law states that you’re not supposed to do any maneuvers after the fact to try to cause demise so it’s really tricky,” she said, adding that “most of the time we do dig[oxin], and it usually works. And then we don’t have to worry about that because Arizona state law says if there’s signs of life, then we’re supposed to transport them. To the hospital.”
“Yeah, it’s a mess, it’s a mess,” she said.
Daleiden accused Taylor of breaking the law.
“This footage shows a longtime Planned Parenthood abortion doctor willing to sell baby parts for profit, use criminal abortion methods to get more intact body parts, and even cover up infanticide. This doctor was trained by Planned Parenthood’s Senior Director of Medical Services, and encouraged by her to participate in the fetal body parts market.”
Taylor clarified in the video that she no longer worked at Planned Parenthood, but had her own clinic.
“Well I used to work for them [Planned Parenthood Arizona], and then I left them, and so they’re still recovering,” she said to laughter, when asked why she sees referrals from Planned Parenthood.
Also in the video, she expressed her concern when a dead baby is delivered intact after an abortion procedure. “Arizona is so conservative, I just don’t even want to send a full fetus to – for cremation, or any of that,” she said.
Taylor also went into graphic detail on obtaining intact body parts from abortion procedures, especially through induction.
She noted that “we’re going to start the procedure before we get to that point” of where the baby’s head comes out with enough dilation. “So it’s really like, in order to get you an intact calvarium, the patient’s really going to have to go into labor,” she added.
“So, ideally, you know the patient would have dilated in the E-phase enough that it’s all just going to come out,” she said.
She joked about going to the gym to better perform more strenuous late-term abortions.
“Research shows that dig[oxin] doesn’t make the procedure easier in someone who is well-trained, but I have to tell you anecdotally, my biceps appreciate when the dig works,” she said of procedures where digoxin kills the baby in an abortion.
“So I remember when I was a fellow and I was training and I was like ‘oh, I have to hit the gym for this … I need to hit the gym,” she said. When asked “at what age does it start getting really difficult?” she responded “at 20 weeks [gestation].”
Pro-lifers were appalled at the revelations in the video.
It “once again lays bare the inhumanity of abortion,” stated Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List.
“The abortionist may laugh as she describes the force needed to dismember a five-month-old unborn child struggling to survive, but even the staff are not immune to the terrible sight of aborted children and babies possibly born alive and left to die.”
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) argued for a ban on abortions performed after 20 weeks gestation – the late-term abortions described in Taylor’s “gym” comments.
“Science has shown that children as young as 20-weeks-old can feel pain, yet these same children are subjected to horrific abortions, being crushed and dismembered,” he said.
He also insisted on federal legislation protecting infant survivors of abortion.
“Some babies, though miraculously, survive a botched abortion and instead of receiving life-saving care, are left to die on a hospital table. It’s time to pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act and the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. We cannot be a nation that does this to our children,” he said.
Jesús María, Mexico, Mar 29, 2017 / 12:43 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Fr. Felipe Altamirano Carrillo, an indigenous priest who served in the Mexico’s western state of Nayarit, was murdered Sunday while returning from saying Mass in one of the towns in which he served.
Fr. Altamirano Carrillo was killed March 26, apparently the victim of assault during a theft.
“We are seized by the pain of his loss, so premature , and the way it happened,” read a statement of the Territorial Prelature of Jesús María del Nayar, which the priest served.
“Although so far we don’t have the details of this incident, we have been informed that he was returning from celebrating the Sunday Mass in the community of Cofradía, which is part of his parish, accompanied by some other people. He was driving his vehicle and at some point during the trip, they came upon some armed persons, presumably with the intention of assaulting them.”
The prelature said that “it is known that the only person who died was Fr. Felipe, and some of those accompanying him are injured.”
“Our prelature is mourning the loss of a very beloved brother, and we again express our most heartfelt condolences to Father Felipe’s family. May Our Lord Jesus Christ and Our Most Holy Mother console them in this time of sorrow, since we trust that our brother, who has shared the cross of Christ, will now be able to enjoy his glorious resurrection,” it said.
Fr. Altamirano Carrillo, of the Cora people, was born July 23, 1963 in Jesús María. The oldest of eight children, he was ordained a priest in 1989. He was president of the Indigenous Pastoral Ministry of the prelature and at the time of his death he was serving as pastor in Mesa del Nayar, about 15 miles southwest of Jesús María.
Cardinal José Francisco Robles Ortega of Guadalajara, president of the Mexican bishops conference, issued a statement March 27 asking God for the eternal rest of Fr. Altamirano Carrillo, and that “the Lord may grant his relatives and friends the strength, the hope, and the consolation of the faith.”
“The Mexican Bishops’ Conference expresses its condolences and joins in prayer with Bishop José de Jesús González Hernández, O.F.M., the clergy, those in consecrated life, and the lay faithful of the Nayar prelature, the parents and relatives of Fr. Felipe Altamirano Carillo.
Cardinal Robles stated that “in these times in which a Catholic priest is again struck by crime, we turn our gaze to the Risen Christ who confers on us the strength to fight to build a world that is reconciled, and at peace, is just and fraternal.”
“Death is not the end of the message of love brought to us by Our Savior, but life to the fullest. With his priesthood, Father Felipe embodied these certainties which faith give us,” the cardinal wrote.
Fr. Altamirano Carrillo is the second priest to have been murdered in Mexico in 2017.
Fr. Joaquín Hernández Sifuentes of the Diocese of Saltillo, in northern Mexico, was killed in January, also seemingly while being robbed.
Drug trafficking has led to increased murder and kidnapping in Mexico, with priests not unaffected. In recent years, 17 priests in the country have been murdered.
Phoenix, Ariz., Mar 29, 2017 / 11:01 am (National Catholic Register).- When a Phoenix mother lost her eyesight due to a rare medical condition, she feared she would never be able to see her four children again. But then St. Charbel came to her aid.
Dafne Gutierrez suffered from benign intracranial hypertension (BIH), a condition that causes increased pressure in the brain. In 2012, the increased pressure caused her to lose vision in her right eye. Three years later, in November 2015, the Catholic mother lost sight in her left eye, as well.
Phoenix’s local CBS affiliate, KPHO, quoted Gutierrez’s plea to God:
“For me, I was like, ‘Please God, let me see those faces again. Let me be their mother again.’ Because I feel like [my kids] were watching me, taking care of me 24/7.”
Phoenix Mother: St. Charbel Cured My Blindness https://t.co/J9FXeruQUR
— N. Catholic Register (@NCRegister) March 25, 2017
For more than a year, Gutierrez struggled to adjust to her disability, which now included occasional seizures, as well as blindness. Then, in January 2016, when Phoenix’s St. Joseph Maronite Church announced that the relics of St. Charbel Makhlouf (also spelled “Sharbel”) would be visiting the church, Gutierrez’s sister encouraged her to visit and to pray for the saint’s intercession.
Although she is not a member of the Maronite rite, Gutierrez visited the church Jan. 16, prayed before the relics, went to confession and was blessed with holy oil by the pastor, Father Wissam Akiki. Gutierrez recalled that, immediately afterward, her body felt “different.”
The following morning, she rose and returned to the church for Sunday Mass. Again, she experienced a different sensation.
And early in the morning Jan. 18, Gutierrez awoke with a searing pain in her eyes. She remembers how much they burned. And when her husband turned on the lights, she said the brightness hurt her eyes. She claimed, at 4 a.m., that she could see shadows; but her husband insisted that was impossible because she was blind. He later described what he called “an odor of burned meat” coming from her nostrils.
According to The Maronite Voice, the newsletter of the Maronite Eparchies of the U.S., “That morning she called her ophthalmologist, and she was evaluated the next day. Her exam showed that she was still legally blind, with abnormal optic nerves. Two days later, she saw a different ophthalmologist, and her vision was a perfect 20/20, with completely normal optic nerves. Subsequently, she saw her original ophthalmologist one week later, and her vision was documented to be normal, with completely normal exam.”
No Medical Explanation
Dr. Anne Borik, a board-certified internal medicine physician who later testified regarding Gutierrez’s healing, was called in by the Church to review the case. Earlier this month, Borik – a member of St. Timothy’s Roman Catholic parish nearby, but who attends St. Joseph Maronite frequently – talked by phone with the Register about her findings. She explained that the brain condition Gutierrez suffered from causes the optic nerve to constrict. Once the optic disc – the spot at which the optic nerve enters the eyeball – is damaged, it’s too late to fix. Because, when the pressure in the brain reaches high levels, as it did in Gutierrez’s case, the optic nerves become strangulated.
“Unfortunately, once the blindness occurs,” said Borik, “it’s irreversible.”
Images of Gutierrez’s optic disc revealed significant damage: “We have pictures,” said Borik, “to confirm that the optic disc was chronically atrophied. There was significant swelling, or papilledema.”
But after Gutierrez’s vision returned, Borik reported, there was no evidence of the aberrations that were evident on earlier images. “In the post-healing pictures,” Borik said, “her optic disc is back to normal. Her vision is completely restored. She has no more seizures. That is why I, as a medical doctor, have no explanation.”
A medical committee, led by Borik, undertook a thorough review of Gutierrez’s medical records, as well as repeated examinations. The committee wrote, “After a thorough physical exam, extensive literature search and review of all medical records, we have no medical explanation and therefore believe this to be a miraculous healing through the intercession of St. Charbel.”
Unexpected Healing Strengthens Faith
Borik is enthusiastic about the healing, telling the National Catholic Register, “It has changed my practice! It has changed how I relate to patients. Now,” she said, referring to her relationship with those entrusted to her care, “prayer is such an important part of what we do.”
Father Wissam Akiki, pastor of St. Joseph Maronite Church, had a devotion to St. Charbel, and he installed a large picture of the saint in the parish shortly after his arrival in 2014. Then, in 2016, he arranged to bring St. Charbel’s relics to his parish as part of a U.S. tour.
Father Akiki remembers when Gutierrez showed up to venerate the relics. Father Akiki approached her. “I heard her confession,” he told the National Catholic Register. “We prayed together, and I said to her daughter, ‘Take care of your mom, and your mom is going to see you soon.’ Then, in only three days, she called the church to report that she could see.”
Father Akiki acknowledged that Gutierrez’s healing has strengthened the faith and changed the face of St. Joseph Maronite Church. “People are coming here to pray, traveling from Germany, Bolivia, Canada, Australia, Jerusalem.”
Following the healing, Father Akiki planned to erect a shrine to St. Charbel at his parish, with a two-ton sculpture of the saint cut from a single stone and imported from Lebanon. The shrine will be open seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Father Akiki expected that the dedication of the shrine March 26 would draw crowds, including Maronite Bishop A. Elias Zaidan, Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted and many local dignitaries.
Bishop Zaidan attributed Gutierrez’s recovery to the intercession of St. Charbel. “May this healing of the sight of Dafne,” he wrote in The Maronite Voice, “be an inspiration for all of us to seek the spiritual sight, in order to recognize the will of God in our lives and to act accordingly.”
Cristofer Pereyra, director of the Hispanic Office of the Phoenix Diocese, told Fox News that Bishop Olmsted spoke with the doctors and reviewed the case. “The bishop wanted to make sure there was no scientific explanation for the miraculous recovery of Dafne’s sight,” Pereyra reported.
The greatest change, of course, has been for Gutierrez and her children. Since her eyesight was restored, Dafne’s life has changed dramatically: She can once again check her children’s homework, watch them at play with friends, and manage her household chores without extra assistance.
Her prayer was answered.
Who Was St. Charbel?
Born Youssef Antoun Makhlouf in the high mountains of northern Lebanon in 1828, St. Charbel (also spelled Sharbel) was the youngest of five children in a poor but religious family. His baptismal name was Joseph; only when he entered a monastery at the age of 23 was he given the name Charbel, after an early martyr. He studied in seminary and was ordained a priest in 1858. For 16 years, Father Charbel lived with his brother priests; theirs was a communal life of prayer and devotion to God.
In 1875, Father Charbel was granted permission to live a hermit’s life. In his rugged cabin, for the next 23 years, he practiced mortification and sacrifice – often wearing a hair shirt, sleeping on the ground, and eating only one meal a day. The Eucharist was the focus of his life. The holy priest celebrated daily Mass at 11 a.m., spending the morning in preparation and the rest of the day in thanksgiving.
Father Charbel was 70 years old when he suffered a seizure while celebrating Mass. A priest assisting him was forced to pry the Eucharist out of his rigid hands. He never regained consciousness; and eight days later, on Christmas Eve in 1898, Father Charbel died. His body was interred in the ground without a coffin and without embalming, according to the monks’ custom, dressed in the full habit of the order.
For the next 45 nights, a most unusual event occurred: According to many local townspeople, an extraordinarily bright light appeared above his tomb, lighting the night sky. Finally, after the mysterious light persisted, officials at the monastery petitioned the ecclesiastical authorities for permission to exhume Charbel’s body. When the grave was opened four months after Charbel’s death, his body was found to be incorrupt. Twenty-eight years after his death, in 1928, and again in 1950, the grave was reopened, and his body was also found to be without decay.
Numerous medical researchers were permitted to examine the remains, and all confirmed that the saint’s body was preserved from decay. For 67 years, the body remained intact, even when left outdoors unprotected for an entire summer – although it consistently gave off a liquid that had the odor of blood. Finally, though, Charbel’s body followed the natural course. When the tomb was again opened at the time of his beatification in 1965, it was found to be decayed, except for the skeleton, which was deep red in color.
The inexplicable restoration of Dafne Gutierrez’s eyesight is not the first healing credited to St. Charbel. Dr. Anne Borik reported that there have been hundreds – perhaps thousands – of miracles attributed to the saint.
Pope Francis is said to have a deep devotion to St. Charbel. Last Christmas, Borik reported, the Holy Father asked to have a relic of St. Charbel sewn into the hem of his vestments.
This story was originally published at the National Catholic Register.
Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 29, 2017 / 09:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archdiocese of Mexico said in a Sunday editorial that Mexican businessmen who would participate in the construction of a border wall with the United States are as traitors to their country.
In the March 26 editorial “Betrayal of the Homeland” in Desde la Fe, the archdiocese stated that “any business with intentions of investing in the wall of the fanatic Trump would be immoral, but above all, its shareholders and owners ought to be considered traitors to the homeland.”
United States president Donald Trump had Jan. 25 ordered a wall to be built on the U.S.-Mexico border. An estimated 650 miles of the 1,900 mile-long U.S.-Mexico border have a wall constructed currently. The president has indicated his intention that Mexico will pay for the wall’s construction.
The Mexico City archdiocese wrote that “as the months go by, the immigration policies of Donald Trump are coming up against reality. Demagoguery during the campaign was easy, but actions in practice, turn out to be difficult in face of notable opposition from civil society, churches, and activists, who are confronting an erratic government whose promises cannot be so easily implemented.”
“Trump set aside $2 billion for construction of the wall, which must join together solid construction and a soft aesthetic appearance in order to hide, beneath the paint and the lights, hatred, suppression, and division,” the editorial stated.
For the archdiocese, “what is deplorable is that on this side of the border there would be Mexicans ready to collaborate on a fanatical project which annihilates the good relationship and concord of two nations which share a common border.”
“It’s not just two or three but more than 500 companies that are looking for good profits. For them the end justifies the means,” they criticized, and deplored “the timidity of the Mexican government’s economic authorities, who have not stood up to these businessmen.”
For the Archdiocese of Mexico, those who claim that building the wall is “an inalienable right” of the United States “are those same myopic people who fail to see that the wall is an outright threat which violates relations and social peace.”
“Let us remember that in the name of ideology, nations and entire continents were divided, plunging millions into uncertainty. The only overriding voice was that of weapons, shooting, repression and the legal murder of anyone who dared to cross a border in search of freedom.”
The editorial said that the Mexican businesses which join Trump’s project will feed “all those forms of discrimination that throughout history have subjugated millions of human beings. In practice, joining a projecting which is a grave affront to dignity is to shoot yourself in the foot.”
“The wall represents the predominance of a country that considers itself good, with the manifest destiny to overwhelm a nationality which it has considered to be perverted and corrupt: Mexico.”
Washington D.C., Mar 29, 2017 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Supreme Court case about pension plans of religious hospitals could decide something much bigger – whether religious groups are legally part of churches.
“There’s really a big problem if you decide ‘church’ is sort of narrowly ‘worship’,” said Eric Rassbach, deputy general counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
“That’s really something that a church should be deciding, whether they just worship or whether they go out and serve other people outside of the four walls of the sanctuary,” Rassbach told CNA.
The Supreme Court on Monday heard oral arguments in Advocate Health Care Network v. Stapleton, a consolidation of three cases involving the pension plans of religious hospitals like Advocate and St. Peter’s HealthCare System in New Jersey.
The employers are looking to move the plans, regulated like other plans of for-profit corporations, into a religious category exempt from some of those regulations.
The law in question, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, regulates pension plans of for-profit corporations, requiring the employers to hold an additional amount of funds in reserve. Setting up these reserves could be cost-prohibitive especially for community hospitals, some of whom “are not going to be able to do that,” Rassbach said.
“If Advocate and hundreds of other religious hospitals around the country were forced to follow for-profit rules, money currently used to serve the poor and inner city communities would be lost and many would be forced to shut down,” the Becket Fund argued.
Congress has recognized a religious exemption for pension plans of churches, and entities like St. Peter’s Hospital in New Jersey applied for this exemption after operating their pension plans according to the federal regulations for years. The plaintiffs bringing the suit, employees of the health care networks, claim their pension plan agreements are being unfairly altered.
The religious exemption applies to plans “established” and “maintained” by churches. In the case of St. Peter’s HealthCare, decided by the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the court ruled that since the Catholic Church (through a diocese or parish) did not “establish” the pension plans, they were not eligible for the ERISA religious exemption, even if a “church agency” like a religious order set up the plan.
St. Peter’s is a non-profit health care system sponsored by the Diocese of Metuchen. The court conceded that it has Catholic ties, like daily Mass offered at the hospital, Catholic devotionals present there, and many board members who are appointed by the local bishop.
“But can a church agency, in addition to maintaining an exempt church plan, also establish such a plan? The District Court concluded that it cannot. We agree,” the appeals court decided.
It also conceded that for years, plans set up by “church agencies” were recognized by the courts as religiously exempt: “In the decades following the current church plan definition’s enactment in 1980, various courts have assumed that entities that are not themselves churches, but have sufficiently strong ties to churches, can establish exempt church plans.”
“However,” the court added, “a new wave of litigation, of which this case is a part, has sprung up in the past few years and has presented an argument not previously considered by courts – that the actual words of the church plan definition preclude this result.” New lawsuits are shedding light on the “plain text” of ERISA that churches and only churches can set up pension plans that meet the religious exemption, the court said.
There are around 100 similar lawsuits involving religious hospitals – many of which are Catholic, Rassbach noted. New litigation is “taking from the poor to give to the rich class-action lawyers,” he argued.
Not only did the courts recognize that these religious entities were eligible for the pension exemption, but the IRS did as well, he maintained.
This question was raised in Monday’s oral arguments, where Justice Stephen Breyer pressed James Feldman, representing the respondents suing the health care networks, on whether orders like the Little Sisters of the Poor should be recognized as part of churches.
Justice Breyer asked “if it’s a legitimate organization like, let’s say the Little Sisters of the Poor, really affiliated with the church,” if they would be recognized as part of a church.
The U.S. bishops’ conference and religious freedom legal groups like the Becket Fund and Alliance Defending Freedom have sided with the health care networks in the case, saying that it is a religious freedom issue.
In their amicus brief siding with the St. Peter’s HealthCare and Dignity Health, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops argued that while Catholic health care providers may not be officially part of a church or parish structure, their plans should meet the religious exemptions under ERISA.
“Indeed, charity has always been a core component of the Catholic Church’s activities, ‘as essential to her as the ministry of the sacraments and preaching of the Gospel’,” the USCCB said, quoting Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical “Deus Caritas Est.”
This charity is lived out “through myriad Catholic ministries” like health care providers, they added, which should be treated as part of the Church.
And these charities may or may not be directly affiliated with Catholic dioceses and parishes or with the Holy See, they continued, “yet, as a matter of Catholic theology, the various ministries that the Church recognizes as Catholic ministries are all part of the Church” even though “they may be (and often are) civilly, structurally, and financially independent entities.”
These employers must be given a religious exemption, the bishops’ conference added, saying that “long before” the ERISA regulations were enacted for pension plans, “Catholic charitable organizations provided their workers with generous benefits.”
“In recognition of that reality (which is not unique to the Catholic Church), and to avoid imposing potentially crushing new obligations on such organizations, Congress has long exempted the benefit plans of church-affiliated organizations from the sometimes burdensome requirements of ERISA,” they continued.
And the Court must recognize this, they concluded, or this could bring about more problems in determining which religious groups are treated as part of a church.
Vatican City, Mar 29, 2017 / 04:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- With the battle for major ISIS strongholds heating up in Iraq, Pope Francis has voiced his closeness to the country, praying for the safety of people on the ground, particularly civilians caught in the crosshairs of the fighting.
“My thoughts go out to civilians trapped in the western districts of Mosul and displaced because of the war, to whom I feel united in suffering, through prayer and spiritual closeness,” he said during his March 29 general audience.
“While expressing deep sorrow for the victims of the bloody conflict, I renew to all the call to engage with every effort in the protection of civilians as an imperative and urgent requirement.”
During the audience, which took place in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope greeted a delegation of Iraqi Superintendents representing various religious groups accompanied by the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran.
“The richness of the beloved Iraqi nation lies in this mosaic which is unity in diversity, strength in union, prosperity in harmony,” he said, encouraging them to go forward on this same path.
Francis also asked for prayers for Iraq that they might find reconciliation and harmony and “peace, unity and prosperity” among their different ethnic and religious groups.
His appeal followed a sharp rise this week in the number of reported civilian deaths in U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria as ground forces backed by the strikes are closing in on two of the Islamic State’s main urban strongholds: Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.
According to the Washington Post, the reports have fueled accusations that the U.S. and its partners may not be acting with sufficient regard for the safety of civilians.
During his main address to pilgrims, Pope Francis continued his catechesis on the theme of hope, drawing attention to the close connection that exists between the virtue of hope and the virtue of faith.
“Great hope is rooted in faith, and as such is able to go beyond all hope,” he said, “because it is not based on our word, but the Word of God…When God promises, he accomplishes what he promises.”
“I’d like to ask you a question,” the Pope said. “We, all of us, are we convinced of this? Do we believe that God loves us and that everything he has promised us will be brought to fruition?”
All we have to do is have an open heart, and God will teach us how to hope and will do “miraculous things.” The only price, he said, is to “open our hearts to faith and he will do the rest.”
To illustrate the point, Pope Francis drew on the Old Testament story of Abraham and his wife Sarah, quoting the words of St. Paul in the Letter to Romans, that Abraham “believed, hoping against hope.”
Despite the advanced age of he and his wife Sarah, Abraham, “did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body as dead (he was almost a hundred years old) and the dead womb of Sarah,” who was barren.
We are also called to live this experience and example of faith, Francis said, adding that Abraham, “who, even before the evidence of a reality that seems destined for death, trusts in God, ‘fully convinced that what he had promised he was also able to bring to completion.’”
Francis said this is a “paradox,” yet at the same time is the strongest element of our hope. A hope, he said, which is “founded on a promise which from the human point of view seems uncertain and unpredictable, but which does not fail even in the face of death.”
“The God who reveals himself to Abraham is the God who saves, the God who has come out of desperation and death, a God who calls to life,” he said. “In the story of Abraham all becomes a hymn to God who frees and regenerates.”
And we recognize and celebrate the fulfillment of God’s promises in the mystery of Christ’s Resurrection at Easter, he explained.
Hope, then, is not something we can possess based on “human reassurance,” but “it occurs where there is no hope, where there’s nothing left to hope for, just as it did for Abraham, in front of his imminent death and sterility of his wife Sarah.”
“Dear brothers and sisters, today we ask the Lord for the grace to remain founded not so much on our safety, on our own strength, but on the hope drawn by the promise of God, like true children of Abraham,” he concluded.
Philadelphia, Pa., Mar 29, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has announced a new initiative on marriage and family life: a three-year course which will be offered to both the clergy and lay people throughout its parishes… […]
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