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These honeymooners head to World Youth Day

January 26, 2019 CNA Daily News 1

Panama City, Panama, Jan 26, 2019 / 03:12 pm (CNA).- At World Youth Day, there are tens of thousands of pilgrims, thousands of priests and religious sisters, and hundreds of bishops. But there are very few honeymooners. Nadia Giudice and Alberto Celi might, in fact, be the only ones.

The pair got married Dec. 8, 2018, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, and knew immediately they would go World Youth Day Panama 2019 for their honeymoon.

The couple are part of an Argentine delegation to the event. Along with about 2,500 pilgrims from Argentina, they participated in a Mass celebrated Jan. 23 at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Panama City.

She’s 25 and he’s 26, and they met, unsurprisingly, at Church- an event sponsored by the Legion of Mary,  in the Santa Fe province of Argentina.

“We got to know each other, became friends and later got engaged. We were married December 8, Our Lady’s feast day, and this is our honeymoon,” Nadia told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency.

For his part, Albert confessed “never in our lives had we dreamed of this.”

“We couldn’t go to WYD Rio for different reasons and we thought we were never again going to have the possibility. Krakow was completely out of the question but when they told us that it was going to be in Panama we said: it’s now or never,” he explained.

Nadia said they chose this Wold Youth Day because “we could see that by the next time we would probably have children, so it was going to be more complicated for us to think about going as pilgrims, to be walking a ton and all those things.”

“If you really believe God is calling you to marriage, and your courtship was really done in prayer, and you prepared yourself always in prayer, and you believe you found the person, then you have to go all in and trust in God,” Nadia said.

“One of the things that stuck with me at the vocations fair is that it doesn’t matter to what vocation you’re called by God, there’s always going to be difficulties, and by our own means it’s impossible to fulfill it,  but trusting completely in God, in Him we can do everything,” Alberto concluded.

 

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

 

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Youth minister: Pope Francis emphasized prayer in response to sex abuse crisis

January 26, 2019 CNA Daily News 2

Panama City, Panama, Jan 26, 2019 / 03:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A diocesan youth minister who lunched with Pope Francis Saturday said that he spoke about the necessity of prayer in responding to the clerical sex abuse crisis.
 
Brenda Noriega, young adults ministry coordinator for the Diocese of San Bernardino, was among the 10 young people who dined with Pope Francis Jan. 26 at San Jose Major Seminary in Panama City. She spoke about the experience at a World Youth Day press conference.
 
Asked about the pope’s reflections on the abuse crisis in the US, Noriega responded: “The pope said that it’s a horrible crime, and the Church doesn’t support these kind of crimes. He expressed the importance of prayer.”
 
She reflected on the US bishops’ January retreat, directed by the apostolic preacher, saying Pope Francis wanted the Church in the US “to pray, and [that] before making any decision, we need to pray. That’s what he expressed. For me as a youth minister, that means a lot.”
 
“Sometimes we forget about prayer,” Noriega stated, “because we react too easy and too fast, so I think what His Holiness is telling us, to the Church, is to first pray, and build community.”
 
Noriega said the pope also spoke about the importance of ensuring that “all the victims of the sexual crisis are heard, and the Church is committed to support them, that the church is committed to walk with them, as we have done it.”
 
“We as a Church we need to be a pastoral Church,” she said, “so it was important for me to hear from the Holy Father his affirmation about the support of the Church to the victims.”
 
Noriega was selected to attend the luncheon with Pope Francis by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
 
She spoke about the fact that the US representative was not “blonde”, but a Hispanic, born and raised in Mexico.
 
“The new face of the Catholic Church in the US has my face,” Noriega reflected, noting that most young Catholics in the country are Hispanic.
 
“This is the way for the USCCB to say we are … ready to let you be protagonists of Catholicism in the US,” she said.

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The Way of the Cross is solidarity in suffering, Pope Francis says

January 25, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Panama City, Panama, Jan 25, 2019 / 05:28 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- At the Stations of the Cross for World Youth Day on Friday, Pope Francis encouraged the young pilgrims to embrace the cross and to walk with those who are suffering.

Christ “walks and suffers in all those faces hurt by the complacent and anesthetizing indifference of our society that consumes and is consumed, that ignores and is ignorant, blind to the pain of our brothers and sisters,” he said Jan. 25 at Panama City’s Campo Santa Maria la Antigua. The city is hosting World Youth Day Jan. 22-27.

The Pope said the Way of the Cross is the path of love, and contrasted it to the common routes of indifference and complacency. He said it is easier to ignore the vulnerable and even add to their inflictions.

“All too often, we have ended up going along with the crowd, and this has paralyzed us,” he said. “We have looked away in order not to see; we have taken refuge in noise in order not to hear; we have covered our mouths in order not to cry out.”

“The temptation is always the same. It is easier and ‘it pays’ to be friends in triumphs and in glory, in success and applause; it is easier to be around someone who is considered popular and a winner. How easy it is to fall into a culture of bullying, harassment and intimidation.”

This is the opposite of how Christ interacts with humanity, said Pope Francis, noting that at Calvary he united himself with all who suffer.

Christ’s Way of the Cross continues today, the pope said, “in the muffled cry of children kept from being born and of so many others denied the right to a childhood, a family, an education.”

It continues also in “women who are mistreated, exploited and abandoned,” in young people who “lack education and dignified work,” and in those ensnared by exploitation and criminal activity.”

“Your Son’s way of the cross continues in all those young people and families who, caught up in a spiral of death as a result of drugs, alcohol, prostitution and human trafficking, are deprived not only of a future but also of a present. Just as they divided your garments, Lord, their dignity is divided and mistreated,” he said.

He further added that Christ’s cross also continues in the abuse of nature: “profoundly wounded by the pollution of her skies, the barrenness of her fields, the contamination of her waters, trampled underfoot by disregard and a fury of consumption beyond all reason.”

The Pope then raised the question: how should Christians respond to these sufferings?

He said Catholics must replicate the response of the Virgin Mother, who stood with conviction beneath her son at the cross, sharing in the suffering of Christ but not being overwhelmed by it.

“From her let us learn how to stand beneath the cross with her same determination and courage, without evasions or illusions. She accompanied the suffering of her Son, your Son; she supported him by her gaze and protected him with her heart,” he said.

He said that as Mary responded to God with a “yes,” the Catholic Church should replicate this obedience to those in need. He said that in Mary, the Christian is able to say “yes” to the immigrant, the family, and the homeless.

“Like Mary, we want to be a Church that fosters a culture that welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates; that does not stigmatize, much less indulge in a senseless and irresponsible condemnation of every immigrant as a threat to society,” Pope Francis said.

“From her we want to learn to stand beneath the cross, not with hearts tightly shut, but with hearts that can accompany, that feel tenderness and devotion, that show mercy and treat others with respect, sensitivity and understanding.”

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English-language World Youth Day event draws diverse crowd

January 25, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Panama City, Panama, Jan 25, 2019 / 03:19 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The 15th International World Youth Day is underway in Panama City, with large contingents of Spanish-speaking pilgrims from countries such as Mexico, Colombia, and, of course, Panama, dominating most events with a joyful exuberance.

For those pilgrims who do not primarily speak Spanish, there are catechesis sessions and special events taking place throughout the city held in other languages.

An event for English-speaking pilgrims, “Fiat,” took place Jan. 23 at Figali Convention Center, sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), and the Knights of Columbus. Speakers included FOCUS founder Curtis Martin, Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron of Los Angeles, and Sister Bethany Madonna of the Sisters of Life.

In addition to American pilgrims from almost every state, the event attracted many Asian, British, Australian, Indian, and Brazilian young people.

One group of 77 young people from the United States came to Panama from Alaska, representing the three Alaskan dioceses of Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau. Fairbanks is the northernmost diocese in the United States, covering a vast, sparsely populated area of the state.

Theresa Austin, chaperone for the Alaskan group, told CNA that leaving the Alaskan winter for Central American summer was quite a change for the young pilgrims, and that it was difficult to prepare for the physical challenges of being a pilgrim at World Youth Day. Temperatures have stayed around 90 degrees Fahrenheit all week in Panama City, and the Alaskan group, lacking a bus for transport, has been walking 8-9 miles a day.

“[The temperature] was in the single digits when we left [Alaska],” she said.

“In the middle of winter, it’s very difficult to get the kids trained up. Especially for the heat.”

The Alaskan students cited the physical challenges of being a pilgrim, but several said being from such an outdoors-focused state has helped.

“Being from Alaska, you get a lot of opportunities to do outdoor stuff like that, and so I’m a bit more used to walking around a lot because we literally walk everywhere,” Antonia Duran, 18, told CNA.

Austin said the Alaskan pilgrims were in Costa Rica the week before World Youth Day, participating in a short mission and service trip, before embarking on a 25-hour bus ride to Panama City. She said the mission trip was a wonderful opportunity for the pilgrims to get to know each other before WYD.

Many of the other pilgrims in attendance bonded over their common knowledge of English, even if they came from different countries. A group of four pilgrims, all of whom were originally from Vietnam, met and became friends at World Youth Day and attended the Fiat event. Nearly all are expats: Two now live in France, while another now lives in Australia and hopes soon to be ordained a priest after studying for nearly eight years.

“We had a very surprising meeting,” Francisco Ndoc, a Vietnamese pilgrim, told CNA.

“Some Vietnamese from France, one from Australia, and myself, from Vietnam,” he said.

Anthony Diep, a Vietnamese seminarian who now lives in Australia, just finished his pastoral year and has about two years remaining before becoming a priest. He said he faced many challenges to his faith when he lived in Vietnam, including occasional harassment by the police.

“Today, a lot of people have inspired me greatly because they share in the experience of encountering Christ, so that inspires me,” Diep told CNA.

The event included addresses from several U.S. bishops, including Bishop Edward Burns of Dallas and Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport. In his speech Caggiano did not shy away from speaking about the sexual abuse crisis and a need for reform for the Church, telling young people that they will be the ones responsible for helping to purify the Church going forward.

“I think it’s a twofold message: first to be encouraged in their own pursuit of holiness, that the families of those around them should not deter them from asking what He wants me to do,” Caggiano told CNA after the event.

“And the second is to be encouraged by all these young people that feel the same way…The Church needs to be in some ways purified and renewed, but they are going to be at the front lines of doing that. They just need to be mentored and guided. And that’s what we’re here to do.”

“What I’m hoping is that this will be a celebration of joy,” the bishop said.

“Joy is that sense that God will take care of us even when we’re troubled, even when we’re tempted to be discouraged and even to despair. We can’t do that; that’s not an option for a believer…My pilgrims, they leave school, they sacrifice to come here- this is not a nonchalant decision, it really takes a lot of effort and a lot of commitment. So my hope is that they realize that if they can do this small thing, then they can do a big thing, which is to accept the invitation to live a real life of holiness.”

Sister Bethany Madonna of the Sisters of Life told CNA that the conversations she’s had with young people so far have been very encouraging.

“The conversations I’ve had so far have been so beautiful, because the young people from every country that I’ve encountered – Malaysia, Uruguay, here in Panama itself, and also in the United States, Australia – the ends of the earth are coming,” she said.

She said she recently fielded questions from two young female pilgrims who were asking for advice on how to make a good confession: “These questions of the heart of: Who am I? Who is the Lord? How do I go deeper in my relationship with Him?”

She said for those youth who were not able to attend World Youth Day, they can still pray to unite their heart to the graces being poured out in Panama.

“I can trust that the grace to say yes, to persevere, will be there because [God is] faithful,” she said.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston was also in attendance. He told CNA that in his experience, World Youth Day is a great source of vocations for the Church.

“Something like 40 percent of our seminarians in the United States were ‘made’ in World Youth Day,” he said.

“That just speaks volumes on the spiritual impact that this experience has on people’s lives.”

He also noted that many of the young people at this World Youth Day may not have been able to come had it not been held in Panama.

“I’m delighted that so many kids from Central America who wouldn’t have the possibility of going to another part of the world are able to come here and experience the great grace of seeing the universality of the Church,” O’Malley said.

“We are a Church of over a billion Catholics, coming in every size, shape, and color, speaking every language imaginable, all part of the same family. Celebrating the sacraments…uniting in the Eucharist.”

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