Santiago, Chile, Sep 7, 2018 / 07:28 pm (ACI Prensa).- The Chilean Senate has passed a gender identity bill that would allow minors as young as 14 to change their name and gender in the civil registry.
The bill, which passed Sept. 4 by a vote of 26-14… […]
Santiago, Chile, Sep 6, 2018 / 02:07 pm (ACI Prensa).- The Church in Chile’s capital celebrated the National Day of the Migrant September 2 with a Mass of Thanksgiving and a charitable collection for the more than one million displaced people who currently live in the country.
In Santiago, Catholics of more than 20 nationalities gathered at Our Lady of Pompeii parish to celebrate the Eucharist and share their traditions. The parish is locally known as the “Latin American parish” because its members hail from many different Latin American countries.
Auxiliary Bishop Cristián Roncagliolo of Santiago presided over the Mass. He noted that the Church “is a migrant people which traverses the world and announces the Gospel, which constantly calls us to conversion.”
The bishop highlighted that in the midst of different charisms, gifts, nations and rites, “the unity of the Church comes through faith – we’re different but we are members of one and the same faith.”
In his homily, Bishop Roncagliolo encouraged those present to take up the challenge of working for communion, integration and welcome.
“In Chile in recent years, we have taken in a great number of migrants. For us Chileans, this is not just a sociological issue but an issue of charity, to help our brothers from different parts of the world feel at home,” he said.
After Mass, participants enjoyed more than 20 stands with typical food from different countries, cooked by migrants as a way to share their culture and thank the Chileans who have welcomed them.
As part of the observation of the National Day of the Migrant, a collection was held in all dioceses throughout the country, raising money for the Chilean Catholic Migration Institute, which assists migrants, primarily from Venezuela and Haiti.
The fund-raising campaign will last the entire month of September through online donations.
In neighboring Argentina, the Church commemorated the Day of the Migrant and Refugee September 2 with a call to “welcome, protect, assist and integrate those experiencing this situation.”
The Argentine Bishops’ Committee on the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People offered a series of online resources including Pope Francis’ message for the 2017 World Day of Migrants and Refugees, and liturgical suggestions for the day.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Guatemala City, Guatemala, Sep 5, 2018 / 04:36 pm (ACI Prensa).- Thousands of people marched September 2 in defense of life and family in the capital of Guatemala, protesting legislation that would incorporate gender ideology and legal abortion into the country’s laws.
The “Great Guatemala National March for Life and the Family” was organized by the “Let’s Transform Guatemala” (Transformemos Guate) citizens’ movement to promote “full respect for the right to life and the express prohibition of abortion in any of its forms throughout the entire territory of the Republic of Guatemala.”
The organization also called for “maintaining in the law the original design of the family on the legal basis of marriage between one man and one woman to live together, have children, nourish and educate them and help one another.”
Sunday’s march was held in opposition to Bill 5376, which would legalize abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy for victims of rape. However, Let’s Transform Guatemala warned that the legislation treats abortion as the ultimate answer, without providing “a real solution so that violence, sexual exploitation and human trafficking may be eradicated.”
Tens of thousands from across the country attended the march, including Catholic, Evangelical, and Jewish leaders. Representing the Catholic Church was Archbishop Raúl Martínez, apostolic administrator of Santiago de Guatemala.
¡Qué viva Guatemala! ¡La
Familia y la Vida!#ChapinesXLas2Vidas pic.twitter.com/UHY4HPHjDs
— Juan Carlos G. (@JCNavarijo) September 2, 2018
Starting at 2:00 p.m., citizens from all over the country, wearing blue clothing and holding pro-life banners, marched from Plaza Italia down Paseo de la Sexta, arriving at Constitution Plaza where a stage had been set up.
In a September 3 interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency, Aída Lorenzo de Juárez, who leads the archdiocese’s pro-life ministry in Guatemala, said organizers were impressed with the turnout.
“We had only one route into Constitution Plaza which filled up with people, but more people kept coming so that in the end, the first crowd had to overflow into two other parallel routes to make way for a second crowd filling up the plaza because there was no more room left,” Lorenzo said.
“Guatemala made history. The plaza has never been filled up like that before. The people of Guatemala joined the cause, very peaceful, filled with love and joy. It was really a civic festival,” she said.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”es” dir=”ltr”>Guatemala esta presente!! Para <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/tranformemosguate?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#tranformemosguate</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Chapinesxlas2vidas?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Chapinesxlas2vidas</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/OlaCelesteLatinoamerica?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#OlaCelesteLatinoamerica</a> <a href=”https://t.co/Pa8ZwZR71z”>pic.twitter.com/Pa8ZwZR71z</a></p>— Transformemosguate (@Transformemosg1) <a href=”https://twitter.com/Transformemosg1/status/1036356742953791488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>September 2, 2018</a></blockquote>
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This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sep 2, 2018 / 04:22 am (ACI Prensa).- A new crisis pregnancy center in Buenos Aires will welcome women facing difficult pregnancies, offering resources, counseling, and medical support.
The “Home of the Motherly Embrace” is being opened in response to a July proposal by a group of priests who work in the poorest areas of the cities. The goal is to meet the needs of pregnant women living in shanty towns without basic utilities such as electricity or running water.
Creators of the home hope to show the Church’s committed response to defend both the mother and the unborn child. They hope to open up additional homes in the future.
The Home of the Motherly Embrace is located in the former catechetical center of the Sacred Heart of Jesus parish and in the Don Orione Neighborhood. It will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and will be served by volunteers, who will welcome women in crisis pregnancies as well as those who have had an abortion.
Women will be offered food, healthcare, psychological support, legal aid, and counseling during their pregnancy and their babies’ first years, up to the start of early childhood education.
The home will also seek to facilitate access to government maternity policies and programs and if needed, the process of adoption through the legal system.
The plan for the crisis pregnancy center arose amid a legislative push to legalize on-demand abortion up to 14 weeks gestation, and through the ninth month of pregnancy on the grounds of rape, if doctors deem the mother’s life or health to be endangered, or if the baby receives a diagnosis of non-viability.
Although the bill was ultimately rejected by the nation’s senate, the fierce debate surrounding it divided Argentinian society and highlighted the need to offer additional resources to women facing difficult pregnancies.
An Aug. 27 Mass was celebrated to inaugurate the Home of the Motherly Embrace. Auxiliary Bishop Gustavo Carrara of Buenos Aires presided over the Mass. The homily was given by Fr. Hernán Martin, the pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus parish, where the women’s center is located.
Fr. Martin stressed that in times of division, “we want to bring people together” to “contribute our grain of sand, and sow a seed of hope for the love we have for God and his plan.”
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Caracas, Venezuela, Aug 30, 2018 / 12:05 am (ACI Prensa).- As the plight of Venezuelans worsens, and neighboring countries crack down on those trying to flee, Catholic leaders in the region are calling for solidarity and aid.
“The massive emigra… […]
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Aug 28, 2018 / 03:06 pm (ACI Prensa).- The recent wedding of a young Brazilian woman with terminal cancer was a powerful witness to the sacrifice and permanence of marriage, said the priest who celebrated the sacrament for the couple.
Fr. Mario Silva celebrated the wedding of a young couple, Jessica and Fernando, in the chapel at the Napoleão Laureano Hospital in the Brazilian state of Paraíba Aug. 20.
Silva told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency, that the couple had been civilly married in 2012 and had a three-year-old child.
Jessica, who is now 27, has been fighting a very aggressive form of bone cancer since 2016 and had been hospitalized when the priest was called to administer the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.
“That night, she was in a lot of pain, and when I finished administering the sacrament to her, I asked her… if I could do anything else, and she told me she wanted to get married,” Silva said.
“She told me she had a great desire to receive the blessing of God and she knew that was missing. That would be a great healing and grace in her life. She did not want to die without receiving the blessing of marriage, because both were Catholics and had the dream of getting married in order to have a sacramental life,” he explained.
“I called her family and they gave me the husband’s telephone number. I asked him if he were interested in getting married. I began to visit the hospital more often and to go through with the process of determining whether they could enter into marriage or not,” he related.
Fr. Silva obtained the authorization of the Archdiocese of Paraíba to celebrate the wedding in the hospital and processed the couple’s corresponding papers. He interviewed the couple to ensure that they were certain in their choice and that there were no impediments or grounds for nullity.
He also discussed the nature of sacramental marriage with them.
“I emphasized that this was not simply a social event that lasts a night and then people need another one. I told them that marriage is something that they were administering, that they were giving themselves one to another and that I was just an assistant,” he recounted.
“I explained to them about love, fidelity, joy and sadness in sickness and in health. At that moment I turned to speak to the groom: Fernando, you are aware you are marrying Jessica in a very difficult moment in her life. If your love is capable of enduring these difficulties, you will be able to give her a definitive and free ‘yes’.”
During the homily, the priest spoke “about how people have little hope for Christian marriages” and that celebrating the wedding of Jessica and Fernando was a light for the whole hospital. “I think that that was what created such a stir, besides that the bride and groom had a beautiful appearance,” the priest said.
While Jessica rarely smiled while in the hospital, Silva said, “On the day of the wedding, she was smiling and spoke with great ease which was unusual. You could see that she was very renewed.” He said the bride told her that the sacramental wedding “was like starting over or being reborn.”
“Her husband takes very good care of her and wants to accompany her every day. He left his job and everything to take care of her. He gave witness to permanence and the Catholic marriage was a concrete realization of that,” the priest emphasized.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Morelia, Mexico, Aug 27, 2018 / 03:20 pm (ACI Prensa).- The Archdiocese of Morelia confirmed Saturday that the corpse of Fr. Miguel Gerardo Flores, who had disappeared for a week, had been discovered.
The Morelia archdiocese said Aug. 25 that the body of Fr. Flores, of the Missionaries of the Holy Family, was found in Nueva Italia, 100 miles southwest of Morelia in Mexico’s Michoacan state.
The clerics of the archdiocese “join together in their sorrow and express our condolences to the Missionaries of the Holy Family,” according to the statement.
“May Our Lady of Health intercede for our brother priest, console his mom, siblings, friends and the entire Missionaries of the Holy Family community,” the archdiocese stated.
“Let us continue to pray for the grave situation of violence in our towns. May she help us to imitate her Son, who calls us to live in his peace.”
Fr. Flores was born in Sombrerete in the state of Zacatecas, and was ordained a priest in 2007.
The Archdiocese of Morelia informed that Fr. Flores, who was 39, was born in Sombrerete in the Mexican state of Zacatecas and was ordained a priest in 2007.
He was serving as parochial vicar at St. Catherine of Alexandria parish in Jucutacato, about 70 miles southwest of Morelia.
Fr. Flores was last seen Aug. 18 in Uruapan, of which Jucutacato is a suburb.
At least four priests have been murdered in Mexico this year.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Mexico City, Mexico, Aug 26, 2018 / 04:51 am (ACI Prensa).- Two seminarians in Mexico have launched a project on Facebook to offer evangelization and pastoral ministry tools for the deaf.
The initiative is called EvangeLíSaMe (EvangelizeMe) and was created by seminarians Juan Gómez, age 28, and Edwyn Alvarado, age 25, two months ago.
The capitalized letters in the title stand for “Mexican Sign Language,” Gomez told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency. He explained that the goal is to create “an online place for evangelization in Mexican sign language and for the human development of deaf people.”
On the EvangeLíSaMe Facebook page, Gomez and Alvarado share two minute videos each week, offering catechesis or a reflection in Mexican sign language.
They are also putting together a catechesis photo manual “that could be used in parish centers where there are deaf children who want to make their First Communion.”
The seminarians got to know each other through social media, as they both worked in deaf ministry in their respective dioceses.
Gomez has been working in deaf ministry in the Diocese of Irapuato for a year and received training at San Juan de los Lagos in 2013. Alvarado, who is preparing to be a priest in the Missionaries of Saint Charbel order, has been doing work with the deaf for four years.
Gomez said he felt motivated to learn sign language because during his formation period, “they sent me out on mission to a home for people with disabilities, and it was there I got to know about this reality. I saw that [those who were deaf] had many limitations because there were very few people who could communicate with them.”
He said the Facebook initiative originated when the two seminarians “saw the need for sign language interpreters to bring God’s message in the different dioceses in Mexico.” In some areas of the country, there are few resources for deaf people seeking to grow deeper in their faith.
With EvangeLíSaMe, they hope to “eliminate the barriers to communication, so more deaf people may know God.” They also hope that people in other Mexican dioceses will join the project.
Alvarado is scheduled to be ordained a priest in 2020 while Gomez has already completed his formation and is awaiting the date for his priestly ordination.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Aug 25, 2018 / 06:01 am (ACI Prensa).- An archdiocese in the Dominican Republic is organizing a pro-life demonstration next month in front of the Palace of Congress in the capital.
Archbishop Francisco Ozoria Acosta of Santo Domingo said the aim of the Sept. 9 demonstration is “to express publicly our support of what is established in our Constitution regarding the right to life from conception to natural death, as the Church teaches us.”
In May 2017, the Senate rejected a series of recommendations by the government to decriminalize abortion in the country.
But this July, hundreds of activists turned out in Santo Domingo for a march to support the legalization of abortion in cases of rape, incest, or fatal fetal deformity, Hoy Digital reported.
And Rubén Maldonado, president of the Chamber of Deputies and a member of the Dominican Liberation Pary, has introduced a bill decriminalizing abortion.
Fr. Catalino Tejada Ramírez told El Caribe July 30 that decriminalization of abortion would lead the Dominican Republic toward a culture of dehumanization.
“We would be disrespecting the right to life of the most defenseless and vulnerable. We would be once again mocking our Constitution and we would become a nation invaded by the colonization of the culture of death and we could no longer speak of God, country and freedom as our founding fathers dreamed of.”
If abortion is approved, “we’re destroying the person, we’re taking destructive models they’ve taken in other countries and the sole result we will have is the destruction of the family, and with it, the destruction of society,” Fr. Ramirez stated.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Maracaibo, Venezuela, Aug 22, 2018 / 12:23 am (ACI Prensa).- When Juan Pablo Hernandez returns to his home in the Archdiocese of Maracaibo, Venezuela next year, he will face a country suffering from a years-long economic crisis. But the 23-year-old seminarian is not afraid.
“I’m happy to go back home and to be able to help the people,” said Hernandez, who is currently studying in Spain.
“Giving them hope is essential. I want to bring them the joy and hope of Jesus Christ so that they can keep their heads above water,” he told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency.
Venezuela is in the midst of an ongoing economic crisis, as poor economic policies, including strict price controls, coupled with high inflation rates, have resulted in a severe lack of basic necessities such as toilet paper, milk, flour, diapers and medicines.
Added to shortages in food, healthcare supplies, and public services such as water and electricity are problems with personal safety, employment, the circulation and sale of cash, and insufficient public transport.
The city of Maracaibo, where Hernandez is from, has seen power outages lasting nearly three days, leaving food to spoil and the elderly to suffer in the summer heat.
The economic crisis has led 1.2 million refugees to flee Venezuela in the past two years, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
“The Church is suffering from this whole precarious situation right along with the people of Venezuela,” Hernandez said. “The government is asphyxiating us bit-by-bit, they want the people to lose hope and settle for the destitution they are given.”
But despite the devastating situation, “trust in God and in the Church has grown” throughout the country, he said.
Many people who did not formerly attend Mass are now “looking for God in the midst of the precariousness,” he said, and to these people, “the Church always extends a hand.”
Additionally, the lack of material goods “brings out people’s generosity, and groups are formed to help children and the sick.”
Something very common is the “mercy cooking pot” which is organized in the parishes where “people bring what they have – not what’s left over, because no one has any food left over – and with what there is, they cook it up and distribute some 300 servings,” Hernandez said.
It was precisely the desire “to be close to God and to help the people” that drew the seminarian to consider a vocation to the priesthood.
Hernandez said he first heard a call to the priesthood at a friend’s ordination Mass. At the time, he was 19 years old.
“During the celebration of the ordination…I felt something burning inside and that thing stayed with me. I was truly amazed that there are those who are capable of leaving everything to give themselves to God,” he said.
“I didn’t understand what was in the hearts of these people that were leaving everything and answering ‘Here I am Lord, your will be done’,” he recalled.
Although the experience was powerful, Hernandez did not initially consider pursuing the same path for himself. At the time, he had a girlfriend and was studying electrical engineering.
“I didn’t want to leave everything for something I would have no control over,” he said.
But a few years later, Hernandez could not shake the feeling “that there was something more I was missing, something greater.”
One day during Mass at his local parish, the priest asked if someone could assist as an altar server. Although Hernandez was above the typical age of altar servers, he volunteered.
“I saw that it was my opportunity to be close to everything that so much drew my attention a few years prior,” he said. “To be so close to the altar, the consecration, the Lord…All that stirred up in me what I had experienced at the ordination of my friend.”
From then on, he became more deeply involved in the parish – teaching catechism, organizing retreats, and joining the pastor in visits to the sick.
“I became impassioned with the priestly life, with being close to God in order to help people…it was a great joy,” he said.
“It wasn’t a commitment or a burden, it was something that came from within and made me very happy.”
It has now been seven years since Hernandez decided to become a priest. He is currently taking his final course of Ecclesiastical Studies at the University of Navarre in Spain. Looking back at the past seven years – and ahead to a priestly vocation – he has no regrets.
“I don’t know how the Lord does it, but every year surprises me more, and always with something better,” he said. “If I had not responded to his call, I wouldn’t be as happy as I am now.”
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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