San Rafael, Argentina, Jan 12, 2021 / 07:01 pm (CNA).- A group of Catholic women in the Diocese of San Rafael have launched a campaign to adopt the seminarians affected by the closure of the local seminary.
The campaign was launched by the association… […]
Bogotá, Colombia, Jan 12, 2021 / 04:57 pm (CNA).- The Colombian diocese of Santa Marta announced on Tuesday that Bishop Luis Adriano Piedrahita Sandoval, 74, died January 11 of complications from COVID-19.
“With deep sorrow and pain, but with our hope placed in Our Lord Jesus Christ, conqueror of death and sin, we communicate to you that at 5:15 p.m. our bishop, Monsignor Luis Adriano Piedrahita Sandoval, has been called to the House of the Father,” the diocese said in a statement.
The bells of all local churches will toll on Tuesday, the diocese said. Funeral arrangements for the bishop have not yet been announced, but will include stringent social distancing requirements and other safety protocols.
Luz Marina Medina, communication director for the Colombian Bishops Conference, confirmed to ACI Prensa that Piedrahita Sandoval is the first Colombian bishop to die of COVID-19.
“We pray for the repose of his soul, and we also pray for another bishop in very serious condition also in Santa Marta, Bishop emeritus Ugo Puccini,” Medina said.
Bishop Piedrahita Sandoval was born on October 7, 1946 and was ordained a priest on October 29, 1972. In 1999, he became auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Cali, and on August 5, 2014, Pope Francis appointed him Bishop of Santa Marta, on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
After a new spike in COVID-19 cases – with up to 400 deaths per day – many parts of Colombia have returned to lockdowns.
President Iván Duque announced that vaccinations would begin in January, but Minister of Health Fernando Ruiz said on January 10 that “no date is set” because no arrangements have been solidified with vaccine suppliers.
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Jan 11, 2021 / 04:47 pm (CNA).- The Dominican bishops’ conference issued a statement Sunday rejecting a proposal to decriminalize abortion under certain conditions in a newly revised penal code being debated in the Dominican Congress.
“Life is the first civil right that is mentioned in our Constitution in its art. 37, which reads: ‘The right to life is inviolable from conception to death.’ Life is a right prior to all legislation. Without life there are no possibilities to enjoy any other right,” the bishops said in the Jan. 10 statement.
Despite the fact that the nation’s constitution rejects the possibility of legalizing abortion, radical feminist activists have been trying to de facto legalize it via a “decriminalization” using the penal code.
“According to our own Constitution, the State cannot apply the death penalty even to the worst offenders, since it says: ‘The death penalty may not be established, pronounced or applied, in any case.’ So, how to accept that in our country abortion is consecrated, in the so-called three causes, in which innocent creatures are killed, the nasciturus (the unborn child)?” the bishops’ document says.
In December 2020, the president of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, told the left-leaning Spanish newspaper El País that “I disagree, as does the majority of the population, not only in the Dominican Republic but also in the world, with free abortion, but I do think that there must be grounds that allow the interruption of the pregnancy. That has been the official position of our party.”
The Dominican congress, with the president’s support, is debating legalizing abortion in the cases pertaining to “the health of the mother,” rape, and “severe fetal malformation.”
According to the bishops’ conference, “Incorporating abortion into our legislation, in any circumstance, is a flagrant constitutional violation, and a blow to the social and democratic state of law. Approving the so-called three grounds would be a serious violation of the right to life that could only be based on a wrong interpretation of the Constitution.”
“We are shocked to know that in our society there are those who think that sacrificing innocent children under euphemistic names such as ‘a decision about one’s own body,’ ‘women’s empowerment’ or ‘sexual and reproductive rights’ can be seen as part of authentic progress.”
Regarding “therapeutic abortion,” the bishops explain that “Medical ethics indicates that in the case of complications in a pregnancy, efforts should be made to save mother and child and never see the premeditated death of one of them as an easy way out, as established in the official protocols of the Ministry of Public Health, which have been used in public hospitals in our country for many years.”
“Let us promote the approval of a Penal Code in accordance with our Constitution, one that shows to the world that Dominicans love life, and that motherhood is one of the great treasures that the Dominican woman and our Nation have.”
Guanajuato, Mexico, Jan 8, 2021 / 09:45 am (CNA).- The traditional youth pilgrimage to the monument of Christ the King on the “Cerro del Cubilete” (Dice Cup Hill) in Guanajuato, Mexico, will take place virtually Jan. 30 due to the coronavir… […]
Caracas, Venezuela, Jan 8, 2021 / 08:12 am (CNA).- The Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference (CEV) announced Friday morning that the 69-year-old Bishop of Trujillo, Cástor Oswaldo Azuaje, has died of COVID-19.Several priests across the country have died of CO… […]
CNA Staff, Jan 7, 2021 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- The Secretary General of the Mexican Bishops Conference made a call on behalf of the Mexican episcopate for peace to prevail in the United States.
In a tweet from his official account, Bishop Alfonso Miranda Guardiola said that the Mexican bishops “regret the events and the deaths occurred at the United States Capitol,” and added that “democracy and the rule of law need to prevail over the acts of violence.”
“To the dead and infected by the pandemic, let’s not add more victims of riots, insurrections and wars,” he said.
Mexican media has been heavily covering the events at the US Capitol and the rocky transition of power from President Donald Trump to President-elect Joe Biden. With a heavy dependency on the U.S. economy and international politics, events in America have become regular top news in the country for the last two months.
https://twitter.com/monsalfonso/status/1347040096990720000
CNA Staff, Jan 6, 2021 / 09:09 pm (CNA).- In a New Year’s message posted on the Archdiocese of Caracas website, Archbishop Emeritus Jorge Urosa Savino said that despite the chaotic situation in Venezuela, Catholics can still hope for a Happy 2021, but that the country urgently needs a change of government.
“Can we wish a ‘happy new year’ in the midst of so many calamities? Well yes, despite everything. Because we know that even in the midst of the pandemic, of economic, social and political problems, in the midst of negative personal circumstances that some of us may suffer, God is with us,” wrote the cardinal in his Jan. 4 message.
Inflation in Venezuela surpassed 10 million percent in 2020, and many Venezuelans’ monthly salaries cannot cover the cost of a gallon of milk. More than 3 million Venezuelans have left the country in the last three years, many of them on foot.
“The political, economic and social situation continues to be very bad, with runaway inflation and extremely high devaluation, which make us all increasingly poor. The outlook is bleak, because this government has not been able to solve the problems of ordinary administration, nor guarantee the fundamental rights of the people, especially to life, food, health, and transportation,” Cardinal Urosa wrote.
However, he stressed that “happiness does not come from material things but, above all, from the goodness and mercy of God our heavenly Father, who is the source of happiness.”
He invited Christians to remember, particularly in the Christmas season, that Christ’s incarnation and birth mean that God is truly with us.
“[A]nd so we can have confidence and hope even in the midst of the worst circumstances.”
The archbishop emeritus recalled that since January 2019, the bishops of Venezuela “have expressed the need for a change of government, since the current one cannot deal with the country’s problems.”
“We will meet soon to study the situation, establish our position and give general guidelines in this regard,” he said. “Especially when recently, UN agencies and the International Criminal Court have made very serious accusations of human rights violations by this government.”
The Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference will gather in plenary assembly from January 7-11 to discuss the current political situation and to plan for a National Pastoral Assembly in 2021.
Corrientes, Argentina, Jan 6, 2021 / 04:27 pm (CNA).- Fr. James Flores Álvarez, rector of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in the Archdiocese of Corrientes, died Tuesday of COVID-19.
The Peruvian priest had arrived in Corrientes in early 2018, several months after the seminary opened in the archdiocese in northern Argentina.
Fr. Flores was diagnosed with COVID in late December and was responding well to treatment in the local field hospital, but died suddenly Jan. 5.
“It is with deep sadness that we report the Easter of Father James Adam Flores Álvarez. He left today for the Father’s house, after several days of hospitalization in the Field Hospital”, Archbishop Andres Stanovnik of Corrientes said during the funeral Mass Jan. 6.
“We thank God for having sent you among us, even for a short time. Now we say goodbye to you and we hope that you meet in Heaven with your father and mother and so many brothers who accompanied you in your priestly life.”
“May the blessed Mother of the Redeemer take you by the hand so that you confidently cross to the new life” the archbishop concluded.
Mexico City, Mexico, Jan 6, 2021 / 03:11 pm (CNA).- Several bakeries in Mexico decided to replace the Christ child with Baby Yoda in king cakes for Epiphany, causing controversy.
King cake, or rosca de reyes, is a crown-shaped sweet bread traditionally eaten in Mexico and other countries on Epiphany.
Inside the bread a small figurine of the Christ child is placed, which some businesses have replaced with a figurine of “Grogu,” also known as “Baby Yoda”.
In a video shared with CNA’s sister agency, ACI Prensa, Father José de Jesús Aguilar, deputy director of Radio and Television of the Archdiocese of Mexico, recalled that the tradition of “hiding” the Christ child in the king cake “reminds us that the Christ Child was hidden from Herod’s sight so that he could not murder him.”
“For this reason it is customary to find the hidden figurine of the Child Jesus and it can only be found by those who have a good heart and who want to follow the light that the Magi followed,” he explained.
“I respect all the opportunities, all the creativity that merchants and pastry chefs can have, but I would say that this could be used at another time, such as for Children’s Day or birthdays,” he observed.
“Catholics, Christians, should continue to value this tradition, because if not, after a while what seems important is not meeting the Christ child, the child Jesus, remembering and appreciating the story of the Gospel, but simply having fun, eating the bread and finding your favorite character within it,” he said.
For this reason, continued Fr. Aguilar, “I invite you to value, take care of and continue with this tradition that the Child Jesus appears within the Three Kings Bread.”
Father Luis Fernando Valdés, doctor in theology at the University of Navarra, expressed that he was “convinced that the people who put Baby Yoda in the Three Kings Bread do not do it with malice or with the intention to bother Catholics.”
What is more noticeable, he pointed out, is that people “no longer identify the Christian sign, which is that we celebrate the child who appears on Epiphany, that is, it is God who becomes visible in Jesus and that is what the Magi, who were not Jewish, discover.”
“When this Catholic, religious context is not in view but only the gastronomic tradition then it sounds even nice to put a baby Jesus or a Yoda or a ‘something’, because the religious element is no longer being taken into account but only the element of surprise and culinary tradition,” he said.
Business decisions like this one, he continued, are “an invitation to the apostolate or for ourselves to rediscover the signs and help others to discover them” and are “an occasion for good catechesis.”
Father Mario Arroyo, doctor of philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, said that when faced with this type of business decision, “the truth is that you no longer know whether to laugh or cry.”
“I don’t think that it is something against Christianity or something against faith, or that it is not done with the intention of persecuting religion. It is simply a symptom of the degree of secularization of society, we are returning to a new paganism,” he said.
“It is an opportunity to take responsibility: just as the first Christians had to evangelize a pagan world, now Christians today have the wonderful task of launching ourselves confidently into the evangelization of a neo-pagan world,” he said.
Edmonton, Canada, Jan 4, 2021 / 04:14 pm (CNA).- A 25-year-old man who late last year interrupted a Mass in Canada by exposing himself as part of a “prank video” has been charged with a hate crime and banned from all diocesan property.
The incident happened during Mass Dec. 13, 2020 at Santa Maria Goretti, a predominantly Italian parish in Edmonton, Alberta.
Father George Puramadathil, the parish’s pastor, told CNA that he was celebrating the Mass when a young man approached the ambo and, speaking in Italian, “requested five minutes” with the priest.
Father Puramadathil said he assumed the young man was a member of the parish youth group, or in any case someone in need of help.
“I thought, ok, let him talk,” Puramadathil recalled thinking at first, but the young man switched to English and began shouting “very vulgar terms.” He then took out a bottle of wine from his pocket and began to open it, the priest recalled.
When Puramadathil approached the man and asked him to leave, the man descended from the ambo and “lowered his pants in front of the people” before running from the church and escaping over a fence.
Puramadathil reported the incident to the Archdiocese of Edmonton and to the police, and later learned that the suspect was wearing a camera and had posted a recording of the incident online. The video has since been removed.
Puramadathil said he believes the man had associates who picked him up in a car after he jumped the fence. He also later learned that the young man had several associates in the sanctuary who also were taking videos of the incident, and had registered to attend the Mass using false names.
The archdiocese announced Jan. 3 that the suspect had been charged, and that local police had banned him from entering Santa Maria Goretti church. In addition, the archdiocese has served the suspect a notice banning him from all diocesan property.
“The fact that one of the charges – mischief to religious property – is considered a hate crime, shows the seriousness of the incident. This kind of action cannot, and will not, be tolerated,” the archdiocese said in a statement.
Both the police and the archdiocese have declined to name the suspect publicly.
Several family members of the alleged conspirators have since telephoned Father Puramadathil to apologize for the prank, he said. The suspect’s family is registered at the parish, and the suspect was once an altar server at the church, the priest noted.
Archbishop Richard Smith of Edmonton celebrated Mass at the parish Dec. 20, meeting with parishioners and blessing the ambo where the incident occurred.
“Restoration and healing are needed, and so we turn to our loving God. God undoes by His blessing the harm done by evil acts,” Archbishop Smith told the congregation as quoted by Grandin Media.
“As I do, let us together implore God from our hearts for the grace of purification.”
The parish has reviewed its security since the incident and will place more volunteers and ushers at the back of the church, but the doors will remain unlocked during Mass, Grandin Media reported. Local police report there were at least 37 hate-related charges laid in Edmonton in 2020.
The incident in Alberta caps a year of apparent hate crimes directed against Catholic churches over the border in the United States, and around the world.
Across the US, churches and Catholic statues have been vandalized. Several incidents have involved statues of St. Junipero Serra, a founder of the mission system in what is now California.
Abroad, a recent report chronicled more than 500 hate crimes against Christians in Europe in 2019, included attacks against Catholic priests, arson attacks on Catholic churches, the destruction of images of the Virgin Mary, vandalism of a pregnancy counseling center, and the theft of consecrated Eucharistic hosts from tabernacles.
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