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Indian bishop charged with rape faces allegation from second nun

February 25, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

Kottayam, India, Feb 25, 2020 / 10:48 am (CNA).- It has emerged that a second nun of the Missionaries of Jesus has accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jullundur of sexual harassment. The bishop has been charged with raping a nun repeatedly over the course of two years, allegations he denies.

The first nun, who is a member of the Missionaries of Jesus, has said that Bishop Mulakkal, 55, raped her during his May 2014 visit to her convent in Kuravilangad, in Kerala. In a 72-page complaint to police, filed in June 2018, she alleged that the bishop sexually abused her more than a dozen times over two years.

The Missionaries of Jesus is based in the Diocese of Jullundur, and Bishop Mulakkal is its patron.

Bishop Mulakkal was arrested in September 2018 amid protests calling for a police investigation of the allegation. He was subsequently released on bail, and he has maintained his innocence.

According to The New Indian Express, a witness in the case against the bishop told investigators Sept. 9, 2018 that from 2015 to 2017 she participated in sexual video chats with the bishop, having been pressured by him, and that he groped and kissed her April 30, 2017, at a convent in Kannur.

This second alleged victim did not wish to press charges, but there are calls for police in Kerala to bring a suo motu case against Bishop Mulakkal.

A preliminary hearing was held in Bishop Mulakkal’s case Feb. 22, where his lawyers asked that the charges be dismissed. The defense said that the leak of witness statements to the media demonstrated a collusion between prosecutors and the press, and that the bishop could not have a fair trial. The bishop’s counsel have also argued that his accuser bears a grudge against him.

The Times of India reported that the court adjourned the case to Feb. 29.

The nun who initially accused Bishop Mulakkal of rape has complained against him to the Kerala women’s commission, saying he his harrassing her and others through social media videos.

In August 2019 a nun representing the alleged victim accused the defense of evidence tampering in the case and demanded that the real evidence be presented.

The bishop has claimed the allegations were made in retaliation against him because he has acted against the nun’s sexual misconduct. He said the nun was alleged to be having an affair with her cousin’s husband.

The bishop was charged in April 2019 with rape, unnatural sex, wrongful confinement, and criminal intimidation. He faces imprisonment of 10 years to life if found guilty.

He was temporarily removed from the administration of his diocese shortly before his arrest.

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Filipino archbishop requests abstinence from applause during Mass

February 24, 2020 CNA Daily News 2

Dagupan, Philippines, Feb 24, 2020 / 04:41 pm (CNA).- In a pastoral letter anticipating the beginning of Lent on Wednesday, Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan has asked that the faithful not clap in church, either during or after Mass.

“The season of Lent has a somber purple color. It has a sober and calm aura. The altar decors are restrained. The musical instruments are subdued. We fast from pleasure and restrain our appetite,” the archbishop wrote in his pastoral letter.

“Let us add more abstinence to this sober season,” he exhorted. “Let us abstain from applause in Church. May this abstinence from clapping flow over into the other days of the year. That in all things, God alone and Him only may be glorified!”

Archbishop Villegas noted that Ash Wednesday is “a good occasion to reflect on the value and importance of sobriety, silence and self-restraint in the pursuit of holiness of life.”

Setting aside clapping at a Mass of ordination to signify consent to the calling, which is directed to God, he suggested that “this is not the case with many of our applauses in the church.”

He said applause is a product of boredom during Mass, noting that it reduces the liturgy to a source of entertainment rather than a spiritual encounter with Christ.

“Is not this boredom coming from a misunderstood sense of worship and prayer? The community of prayer becomes just an audience in need of entertainment; liturgical ministers become performers; and preachers become erudite toastmasters. It should not be so.”

The archbishop cited the words of two popes on applause during the liturgy.

According to a story that seems to originate in the biography by F. A. Forbes, first published in 1918, St. Pius X disallowed applause at St. Peter’s, which had become customary at papal services, saying, “It is not fitting that the servant should be applauded in his Master’s house.”

Archbishop Villegas also cited the words of Benedict XVI, who wrote in The Spirit of the Liturgy that “Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and replaced by a kind of religious entertainment.”

The archbishop said that while ovation does signify a sense of gratitude and recognition of a job well done, it is often ordered to the actions of priests or parishioners. The Mass should be directed at God alone, he said.

“Clapping can be shallow and cheap,” he said, adding that while applause for benefactors is justified as  an inspiration to greater generosity, “We need to inspire our benefactors to seek treasures that ‘moth cannot decay destroy, and thieves cannot break in and steal‘.”

He noted also that “it can even brood unpleasant competition, jealousy and resentment because somebody received less applause than the others.”

And rather than applauding for ministery well done by the choir or servers, “let us lead our people to aim to decrease so that the Lord may increase,” he exhorted.

“In public prayers and liturgy, self-consciousness must bow down to God- consciousness. We are a Church called together by God not a self-organized mutual admiration club.”

He urged ministers to resist applause for their works: “Resist the ego booster and aim for greater things. Be an arrow pointing to God.”

The archbishop encouraged relatively shorter homilies, saying that applause shouldn’t be used to keep parishioners “alert and awake.” “A well prepared, brief, inspired and inspiring homily has a longer lifespan than intermittent clapping as you preach.”

He also urged that priests not acknowledge persons or groups for their work or donations at the post-communion: “You must do this appreciation outside the Mass, by sending a greeting card, sending a text message or even visiting them in person. Be God centered and to Him alone be the glory.”

Archbishop Villegas also stressed the Mass’ dual nature as both joyful and sorrowful: “The Eucharist is a happy feast AND a memorial of Calvary. Who would have clapped at Calvary? Would the Blessed Mother and John the Beloved have clapped? The breaking of the Bread is a commemoration of the violent death that the Lord went through. Who claps while others are in pain? It is pain with love; yes, but it still pain.”

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Mass formally opens beatification cause of Eileen O’Connor, laywoman and mystic

February 20, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

Sydney, Australia, Feb 20, 2020 / 05:15 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Anthony Fisher, O.P., of Sydney said Mass Thursday to open formally the cause of beatification of Eileen O’Connor, the foundress of Our Lady’s Nurses of the Poor, who died at a young age.

Born in Melbourne in 1892, Eileen suffered an injury at the age of three that would leave her paralyzed for some years and then confined to a wheelchair and in pain for the rest of her life. Together with Fr. Edward McGrath, she founded a ministry to serve the poor in their own homes in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She died at the age of 28, in 1921.

“I think the youth of Eileen focuses attention far more on the brief period of her activity,” Fr. Anthony Robbie, a priest of the Archdiocese of Sydney and postulator of O’Connor’s cause, told CNA Feb. 20.

“We’re focused much more intently on the particular luminosity of the character that the Servant of God shows under stressful circumstances, perhaps brought on above all by the physical frailties that she suffered during her life. And she’s a hidden soul in many ways, again imposed by her illness.”

O’Connor “was a humble soul deeply in love with God, and so her writings, which take the form mostly of letters and spiritual conferences she gave to her companions in the little work of Our Lady’s Nurses of the Poor, are very uplifting and beautiful expressions of affection and attachment to God, and the motivation of charity, which inspired all of the great works that she accomplished,” the priest reflected.

Her witness of sanctity comes “above all from the effect she had on the people around her,” he said.

“They were absolutely devoted to her, they called her ‘the little mother’, and they loved her … And that degree of affection in which she was held never diminished over the years, not just by women who joined the community, but others who saw her example were just amazed and delighted.”

O’Connor and McGrath founded Our Lady’s Nurses of the Poor in 1913 to care for the poor and sick.

Today, Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor continue their ministry in Sydney, Newcastle, and Macquarie Fields.

“In Eileen’s day they were laywomen; later on, they formed themselves into a religious community of sisters under vows, and they’re still religious sisters today,” Fr. Robbie explained.

“It’s always been small; it was never above 30 people, it now hovers around 10 members. It’s a very small but very good group of devoted women,” he added.

More than 1,000 people assisted at a Feb. 20 Votive Mass of Our Lady at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney formally to launch the cause for O’Connor’s beatification.

During his homily, Archbishop Fisher called O’Connor a “faithful lay-woman, mystic and foundress, renowned for works of mercy, whom we hope one day to call Australia’s second saint!”

“An unwavering devotee of the Blessed Virgin, she experienced a visitation from her and agreed to offer up her suffering for Our Lady’s work,” the archbishop stated.

He added that when O’Connor’s body was translated to a convent in Coogee 16 years after her death, it was found to be incorrupt, and pilgrims continue to visit her tomb.

Because of the continual devotion to O’Connor, in 1962 the then-Archbishop of Sydney approved a prayer for her beatification, and in 1990 a preliminary investigation of her merits was permitted.

In 2018, the bishops of the province unanimously voted to initiate her cause, and the Holy See granted her the title Servant of God in confirmation of the work thus far.

“The time is now ripe for a more thorough examination of her cause, to pray that there may be many miracles to credit to that cause, and to hope that the Church may eventually raise her to the altars,” Archbishop Fisher said.

He noted that “for a century now the Catholic faithful have kept alive the memory of the Little Mother, cherishing the woman, her character and wisdom, her foundation and apostolates … And for a century now believers have received many answers to prayers to and through Eileen.”

“Popular devotion to her even in her life-time has not diminished since her death, even in a culture increasingly deaf to the supernatural and disrespectful to the handicapped.”

Fr. Robbie explained that at this point in the cause, “the process involves a forensic examination of her life, to find the presence of what we call heroic virtue in the Servant of God. If the panel of historians produce sufficient information in that regard, and the Roman authorities are satisfied by it all, then they accept this cause, [and] declare her venerable.”

Archbishop Fisher preached that “She certainly seems to have done ordinary things in an extraordinary way and extraordinary things ordinarily, like so many saints. Frail, crippled and in pain, she reached out to others and was tireless in their service. She gave her all to God, her sisters, the sick poor. Amidst all her troubles, she was united to Christ and Mary, drawing strength and inspiration from them.”

Fr. Robbie emphasized that should she be declared venerable, “at that point we will start investigating the existence of miracles” worked through her intercession, “and the nature of the miracles.”

“The main focus of this investigation is into the virtues of her life,” he added. “The saints are there both to provide example and intercession.”

Michelle Climpson is a young Sydney woman devoted to O’Connor, who credits that devotion to helping her through a grave illness.

She told CNA that in June 2016, when going to donate blood she discovered that her hemoglobin was “very low.”

Sent to the hospital to have the matter examined, it was found she had a form of leukemia and would need a bone marrow transplant.

“Hearing that news … was very scary. And my mum is actually the one who introduced me to Eileen O’Connor. We started to go see her in Coogee and went to a few Masses where she lays,” Climpson said.

“Pretty much just from the first time I was there I wrote … for her to help me be cured, and every time I had a massive treatment … I just took all of my prayers to her, and I continually prayed to her every time it got a bit rough.”

Climpson said, “I just put all of my attention into praying to her. And so now I am in remission, and in June it will be four years since I was diagnosed.”

She added that “I’ve always prayed, and I have always gone to Church, but I think this has definitely heightened it … I always ask for Eileen’s help all the time now, it really has increased my faith.”

“It definitely helped me to get through to the other side, now I’m living a normal life, I got married, and I think my faith really helped me get to this point, and I’m very, very, very grateful.”

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Head of Australian bishops’ conference in Rome ahead of plenary council

February 20, 2020 CNA Daily News 2

Brisbane, Australia, Feb 20, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, president of the Australian bishops’ conference, is in Rome for high-level discussions ahead of the Church in Australia’s first plenary council since Vatican II, set to begin in October.

According to The Catholic Leader, during his two-week trip to Rome, Coleridge will meet with senior curial figures and Pope Francis to discuss the plenary council, its key themes, and its organizing principles.

The council, to be held in Adelaide in October, is part of the Church in Australia’s response to the sexual abuse crisis, as well as a number of other issues, including efforts by local governments to pass laws encroaching on religious freedom and the seal of confession. 

Although there will be lay participation in the council sessions, only the bishops will vote on binding resolutions, which will be sent to the Vatican for approval. 

In Rome, Coleridge also reportedly plans to discuss the Vatican’s response to the Australian Royal Commission’s recommendations on the protection of minors, the seal of confession, and the case of imprisoned Cardinal George Pell.

A law passed in the state of Victoria in 2019 requires clergy to report suspected child abuse to the authorities, even if it was revealed in the confessional— requiring priests to break the sacramental of seal. The state’s premier, Daniel Andrews, said he hoped the legislation would “send a message” to the Church on child sex abuse. A national standard for mandatory reporting by clergy is also being considered.

Coleridge will also discuss Cardinal Pell, the former Vatican prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, who is now in prison near Melbourne following his conviction by a Victoria court in December, 2018.

Pell was convicted on five charges of child sexual abuse and sentenced to six years in prison, of which he must serve three years and eight months before being eligible for parole. Currently in a maximum-security prison, Pell has appealed his conviction to Australia’s High Court, which will hear the case on March 11 and 12.

As Coleridge traveled to Rome, another Australian bishop emphasized the importance of a valid ecclesiology, Catholic language, and clear expression of Church teaching during the upcoming plenary council.

Bishop Richard Umbers, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Sydney, said this week at the University of Notre Dame in Sydney that there must be a proper understanding of the hierarchical structure of the Church, and respect for Church teaching, during the council assembly.

Ecclesiology, he said, “is going to be one of the key areas of conflict in the plenary [and] I have been very vocal in asking for explicit ecclesiology,” as reported by The Catholic Weekly.

Umbers went on to say that “we need to use a language that is Catholic” when discussing issues at the council.

“Not all the ideas that circulate among the people of God are compatible with the faith,” he said, noting that “it needs to be said that we are not going to redefine sin. We are not going to change the sacrament of Holy Orders and neither do we have the power to do so.”

The plenary council was preceded by a “listening and dialogue phase” where the lay faithful submitted suggested topics on what is asked of the Church in Australia, and the future of the Church.

According to the final report on the listening phase, “strongly discussed topics included the rule of celibacy for priests, the ordination of women and the inclusion of divorced and remarried Catholics.”

The desire for “greater listening” and lay involvement in the Church, as well as better evangelization was also present in the submitted answers, the report said.

The Australian bishops’ close collaboration with Rome stands in contrast to the so-called synodal process underway in Germany.

Last October, the German bishops’ conference voted to begin a “binding synodal process” to consider the Church’s teaching on sexual morality, clerical celibacy, and the power and authority of the clergy.

The synodal assembly includes priests, deacons, religious, pastoral workers and other lay Catholic groups. Unlike Australia, each member can vote on resolutions, with the votes of laypeople carrying equal weight with those of bishops.

In September, the Vatican issued a canonical critique of the German synodal plans, concluding that they are “not ecclesiologically valid.”

In a September letter to Cardinal Reinhard Marx, head of the German bishops’ conference, the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops—Cardinal Marc Ouellet— presented an assessment by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts which said the German plans were outside of the Church’s recognized structures. The process, the Vatican said, must conform to principles outlined by Pope Francis in June, in which the pope outlined the principles of authentic synodality.

In his letter to German Catholics, Francis said that “Every time the ecclesial community has tried to resolve its problems alone, trusting and focusing exclusively on its forces or its methods, its intelligence, its will or prestige, it ended up increasing and perpetuating the evils it tried to solve.” 

The Vatican legal assessment of the German plans determined that the synodal assembly was actually better described as a particular council, similar to the Australian plans, but lacking the necessary cooperation with Rome.

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Australia’s disability inquiry told of mistreatment of people with Down syndrome

February 19, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

Sydney, Australia, Feb 19, 2020 / 04:58 pm (CNA).- Parents of persons with Down syndrome are pressed to procure abortion, and their healthcare is negatively affected throughout their life, Australia’s disability royal commission has heard.

The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability began a hearing in Sydney Feb. 18. The two week hearing will listen to persons with cognitive disability and their loved ones, medical professionals, and advocacy groups about their experience with the health system in Australia.

Toni Mitchell told the commission Feb. 19 that when an ultrasound showed that her son, Joshua, would likely have Down syndrome and had a heart condition and was likely to miscarry, a doctor told her, “here’s your appointment for a termination”, handing her a piece of paper.

“In that moment they completely disallowed his life. They said he wasn’t worth living,” she reflected.

Joshua is now 19. He has Down syndrome, autism, and Hirschsprung’s disease.

Toni told the commission that she tossed the paper indicating the abortion appointment, and, “that was the moment I had to start justifying my son’s right to live and to be treated and I had to start justifying his value to be alive … They kept just judging us based on my decision to give him a chance at life.”

The commission’s chair, Ronald Sackville, told the inquiry during his Feb. 18 opening address that the consequences of poor healthcare for those with disabilities are “as disturbing as they are profound,” and that “they should shock the conscience of all Australians.”

Rebecca Kelly, whose son Ryan has Down syndrome, said that in the model of Australia’s health system “if you can’t cure it … then you eradicate it.”

“If you think that person’s life is a tragedy and that they suffer from this condition then you start to believe that it’s an act of kindness or that it’s a responsible act to do all you can to prevent that birth, and that becomes quite coercive,” she stated.

She added that the problems don’t end with pressure to procure abortion.

“If you have a doctor (who) thinks that possibly your life’s going to be a little bit better if your child doesn’t make it because they’re taking that burden away from you, that has horrible implications for the level of care that you don’t get.”

The disability royal commission was established in April 2019. It is to provide an interim report by October, and a final report by April 2022.

Such inquiries are provided for under the Royal Commissions Act 1902. They serve as independent public inquiries, initiated by the government, and can make recommendations on reforms to policy or legislation.

A 2013-17 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse urged a program to compensate the victims of institutional child sex abuse, which the Church in Australia established in July 2018.

It also proposed that priests be legally obligated to disclose sexual abuse sins which have been admitted in the confessional, or face criminal charges.

The Australian bishops’ conference responded positively to nearly all the sex abuse royal commission’s recommendations, but has defended the sanctity of the confessional seal.

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Indian bishops’ conference reelects Cardinal Gracias

February 19, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

Mumbai, India, Feb 19, 2020 / 09:30 am (CNA).- The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India has reelected Cardinal Oswald Gracias, the archbishop of Bombay, as president of the conference for a second term. The election was held on February 17. 

Gracias turned 75 in December. In accord with canon law, he has already submitted his resignation to the pope, but is expected to continue as Archbishop of Bombay for the foreseeable future.

The cardinal is also one of the members of the Council of Cardinal Advisers– known as the “C6”–a group of six cardinals who advise Pope Francis on the governance of the universal Church and on the preparation of a new governing constitution for the Roman Curia. 

On the same day that Gracias was re-elected by the Indian bishops, the C6 held its first meeting of 2020 with a three-day session in Rome from Feb. 17-19. 

Gracias will begin his new two-year term leading the Indian bishops’ conference at a time when the persecution of Christians in the country has increased. In October 2019, Bishop Kishore Kumar Kujur of Rourkela, speaking to Aid to the Church in Need, said that India’s Christians “are living mostly in fear at the present–much more in the north, where they are a minority.” 

“There is a fear about how the government will react now the right wing has taken over. We have apprehensions it will not go well for the Christians,” said Kujur. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is widely perceived as favorable to the Hindu nationalist movement and, since his election in 2014, there have been more frequent reports of violence and persecution against Christians. 

India was scheduled to host the 2021 Asian Youth Day celebration for young Catholics of the continent, but pulled out of the commitment last month, in part due to fears of governmental hostility to the event. 

“Our country was given the responsibility of hosting Asian Youth Day … After consultations with higher authorities, it was decided that it was better to call off the event as the present scenario does not allow us to hold the program,” Bishop Nazarene Soosai of Kottar, head of the Indian bishops’ youth commission, told ucanews Jan. 6.

“We had hoped that there would be a change of government in 2019, but that did not happen and the present situation does not look good either,” added Soosai. 

India previously hosted Asian Youth Day in 2003.

Modi’s political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, came to power in 2014, and gained seats in the 2019 election. 

According to the 2019 report from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, “religious freedom conditions in India continued a downward trend” in 2018.

The commission said India’s “history of religious freedom has come under attack in recent years with the growth of exclusionary extremist narratives—including, at times, the government’s allowance and encouragement of mob violence against religious minorities—that have facilitated an egregious and ongoing campaign of violence, intimidation, and harassment against non-Hindu and lower-caste Hindu minorities. Both public and private actors have engaged in this campaign.”

Gracias’ reelection as head of the bishops’ conference, despite his being past the normal retirement age for a bishop, comes just weeks after the announcement by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, another member of the Council of Cardinal Advisers, that he will step down as head of his own bishops’ conference, in part because of his age. 

On Feb. 11, Cardinal Marx said he would not seek reelection as head of the German bishops’ conference. He said he wants to spend more time in his Archdiocese of Münich-Freising and to allow “a younger generation” to lead the Church in Germany. Marx is 66 years old.

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