London, England, Mar 4, 2020 / 03:01 am (CNA).- For years, the dramatic paintings of Artemisia Gentileschi, a Catholic artist of the Counter-Reformation, were misattributed to male artists – most often her father, Orazio, who was also a painter.
… […]
Moscow, Russia, Mar 3, 2020 / 08:01 pm (CNA).- A definition of marriage as between a man and a woman are among several amendments to the Russian constitution proposed by president Vladimir Putin.
The State Duma, Russia’s lower parliamentary house, approved the constitutional reform bill in January. Putin’s amendments will be included in a second reading next week.
A public vote on the constitutional amendments will take place April 22, but will first have to undergo approval from the Constitutional Court.
Neither same-sex marriage nor civil unions are legal in Russia.
Two weeks ago, Putin spoke on same-sex marriage, saying Russia would not legalize the practice while he is in power.
“As far as ‘parent number 1’ and ‘parent number 2’ goes, I’ve already spoken publicly about this and I’ll repeat it again: As long as I’m president this will not happen. There will be dad and mum,” Putin said.
Critics charge that the changes to the constitution are a means for Putin to maintain power, whose fourth term as president ends in 2024.
Other proposed amendments would include a reference Russians’ “faith in God”, and one on “historical truth” that would preserve “the great achievement of the people in their defence of the Fatherland”.
The historical truth amendment would emphasize the Soviet Union’s role in World War II, during which some 27 million Soviets lost their lives fighting Nazi Germany.
Another amendment would forbid the turning over of any Russian territory, which could strengthen Russia’s claims to Crimea, a Ukrainian region it annexed in 2014, and to the Kuril Islands, an archipelago it administers but some of which is claimed by Japan.
Mainz, Germany, Mar 3, 2020 / 10:30 am (CNA).- The German bishops’ conference has elected Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg as its new chairman. Bätzing replaces the outgoing chairman, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Münich and Freising, and will lead the conference for a six year term.
The election of Bishop Bätzing was confirmed Tuesday, following a vote by the German bishops at their spring assembly, which is currently underway in Mainz. CNA Duetsch reported March 3 that, after no candidate received the necessary two-thirds majority during the first two rounds of voting, Bätzing was elected on the third ballot with a simple majority of votes cast.
The bishop used his first press appearance as chairman to reaffirm the conference’s support for the ongoing “synodal way” being conducted in partnership with the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK).
“At the center of our considerations is the ‘Synodal Way.’ I fully support that,” Bätzing said Tuesday.
The so-called binding synodal process formally opened during the first week of Advent, 2019, but the first meeting of the synodal assembly was convened in January. The assembly’s working groups will offer proposed changes to various aspects of Church teaching and discipline, including on women’s ordination, clerical celibacy, and human sexuality.
The 58 year-old Bätzing was consecrated bishop by Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki on September 13, 2016.
Bätzing was asked Tuesday if some of the stated aims of the synodal process, in particular women’s ordination, had not been effectively ruled out by Pope Francis in his recent apostolic exhortation following the synod on the Amazon.
“On the contrary,” Bätzing said. The bishop explained that from his view the pope “did not take a position” on a number of questions posed in the final synodal document on the Amazon, and did not rule out any eventual conclusions of the German process.
Last year, Pope Francis wrote a letter to the whole Church in Germany, warning against allowing the Church conform to modern secular morals and thought. Pope Francis cautioned against “a new Pelagianism” which seeks “to tidy up and tune the life of the Church, adapting it to the present logic.”
The result of such errors, Francis said, would be a “well organized and even ‘modernized’ ecclesiastical body, but without soul and evangelical novelty.”
Vatican officials subsequently informed the German bishops’ conference that the synodal plans were “not ecclesiologically valid,” and called for them to be substantially revised.
As conference chairman, Bishop Bätzing will now co-chair the synodal assembly, along with the ZdK leadership.
Last month, Bätzing was elected to co-chair the synodal working group on “Life in Successful Relationships – Love Live in Sexuality and Partnership,” together with Birgit Mock, the ZdK spokeswoman on family policy.
The ZdK has called for a total revision of Church teaching on homosexuality and for the blessing of same-sex relationships in churches.
In September, 2019, Bishop Bätzing co-chaired an ecumenical working group of Catholic and Protestant theologians which produced a document, titled “Together at the Lord’s Table,” which concluded that “mutual participation in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper / Eucharist is theologically justified.”
At the time of the document’s release, Bätzing noted that he had joined the group late in the process and initially asked himself “whether [he] can agree to this or not.”
“But I have to say, the theological justification in this basic paper is so clear to me that I did not want to and could not escape.”
In the Catholic Church, only baptized Catholics in a state of grace are permitted to receive Communion. The Code of Canon Law outlines very narrow circumstances in which non-Catholics may be admitted to Communion. While bishops in several northern European countries have repeatedly called for Eucharistic intercommunion, this has been rejected by Rome.
Acknowledging this at the time of the report’s release, Bätzing said that his own certainty on the issue did not mean he was free to alter sacramental discipline.
“However, this does not mean that I am a bishop alone, but the theological discussion must now be raised to the level of a teaching reception, i.e. an acceptance by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. And this process is pending,” he said.
Paris, France, Mar 2, 2020 / 01:29 pm (CNA).- A priest has been hospitalized in Paris after testing positive for the Covid-19 coronavirus Feb. 28.
Fr. Alexandre Comte, 43, had recently returned from Italy, where there are currently over 1,800 register… […]
Vatican City, Mar 2, 2020 / 09:30 am (CNA).- The Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome on Monday cleared a Scottish bishop of plagiarism in his 2003 doctoral dissertation.
The announcement Monday concluded an investigation begun by the university in… […]
Rome, Italy, Mar 1, 2020 / 07:03 pm (CNA).- Several Catholic colleges and universities with study abroad programs in Italy have ended the semester early and are sending students back to the United States amid the coronavirus outbreak.
One of these schools is The University of Notre Dame, which announced Friday it had canceled the remainder of its Rome Global Gateway program and was flying the 106 students back to the U.S. as soon as possible.
The university also asked students to self-quarantine at home for 14 days, and to receive a doctor’s clearance, following their re-entry to the U.S.
Christendom College, based in Front Royal, Va., decided Feb. 29 to suspend its Rome-based study abroad program beginning March 6.
Amanda Graf, director of the school’s program in Rome, wrote that the “decision was not made lightly, and it breaks our hearts that the students will not be able to experience the entire Rome semester.”
“Ultimately it is our care and concern for the students that motivates us to make this decision.”
She said while the students were likely not at a high risk for infection or physical harm, “the safety and quality of life concerns are too great to risk the variables that would come should the city in fact experience a viral outbreak.”
Indiana-based St. Mary’s College has also suspended its Rome program.
Benedictine College, which has a study abroad program in Florence, last week gave students the choice between staying or returning to the U.S. early. Reportedly 14 of the 52 students decided to leave Italy and continue their courses online, according to KQ2.com.
The University of Dallas, whose Italy campus is about 13 miles southeast of Rome, has not yet made the decision to cancel the semester.
The school has around eight students taking extra precautionary measures after they traveled to Milan, one of the cities in the area most affected by the virus.
According to the university’s news website, the students are required to wear masks on campus, eat meals separately, and to sleep in an area apart from the other students.
The university’s president, Thomas S. Hibbs, said the university is monitoring the coronavirus situation.
Late last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised the travel warning for Italy to a level three, advising people to avoid non-essential travel to the country due to the spread of Covid-19.
According to Italian health authorities Italy had counted 1,577 cases of the novel coronavirus, mostly in the northern regions of Veneto and Liguria. There have been 13 cases registered in Tuscany, where Florence is located, and six in Rome’s region of Lazio.
Nearly 800 of the people with novel coronavirus are being treated at home, while 140 are in intensive care. Thirty-four people have died from the virus in Italy.
Covid-19 is a new strain of coronavirus, which can cause fever, cough, and difficulty breathing. In some cases, it can lead to pneumonia, kidney failure, and severe acute respiratory syndrome.
Novel coronavirus, or Covid-19, originated in the Hubei province of China.
Rome, Italy, Feb 29, 2020 / 03:44 pm (CNA).- Following the conclusion of the Legionaries of Christ’s general chapter, the religious order’s new leader has vowed to instill ideals for protection and transparency in the face of the sexual abu… […]
Wloclawek, Poland, Feb 27, 2020 / 07:00 pm (CNA).- A retired archbishop who accused Pope Francis of heresy has been ordered to cease celebrating Mass in public.
Archbishop Jan Paweł Lenga, the 69-year-old former Archbishop of Karaganda in Kazakhstan, has also been forbidden to preach at Masses or speak to the media.
The sanctions were imposed by the Diocese of Włocławek in central Poland, where the archbishop retired after serving in Kazakhstan.
Archbishop Lenga immediately defied the ruling by giving an interview to WRealu24.tv, in which he insisted that he would continue to speak out.
Fr Artur Niemira, chancellor of Włocławek diocese, told the Polish Catholic news agency KAI that local Bishop Wiesław Mering had decided to impose the disciplinary measures in order to prevent the spread of scandal among the faithful.
KAI said the archbishop had refused to mention Pope Francis’s name when celebrating Masses. It added that the measures would remain in effect until the Holy See issues a judgment on the case.
The archbishop has repeatedly criticised Pope Francis. Last year the Polish journal Więź reported that he had called Francis a “usurper and heretic.”
Więź said the archbishop had given a book-length interview to the author Stanisław Krajski. The journal quoted the archbishop as saying: “Bergoglio preaches untruth, preaches sin, and does not preach a tradition that lasted so many years, 2,000 years… He proclaims the truth of this world and this is the truth of the devil.”
In January, the archbishop appeared on the Polish television show Warto rozmawiać, prompting criticism from the Polish bishops’ conference. The bishops’ spokesman Fr. Paweł Rytel-Andrianik noted that the archbishop is not a member of the Polish bishops’ conference.
“Therefore the statements of Archbishop Lenga cannot be identified in any way with the Polish episcopal conference,” he said. “They cannot be treated as positions of Polish bishops.”
In June 2019, Archbishop Lenga was among of the signatories of the 40-point “Declaration of Truths.”
The declaration claimed to address “the most common errors in the life of the Church of our time,” reaffirming Church teaching on topics such as the Eucharist, marriage and clerical celibacy.
Jan Paweł Lenga was born in present-day Ukraine in 1950. He was ordained secretly in 1980 due to Soviet persecution of the Catholic Church. A member of the Marian Fathers, he was appointed apostolic administrator of Kazakhstan in 1991, the year that Kazakhstan became the last Soviet republic to declare independence.
He was appointed to Karaganda in 1998, where he remained until 2011, when Pope Benedict XVI accepted his resignation under canon 401 § 2 of the Code of Canon Law, which states that diocesan bishops may resign “because of ill health or some other grave cause”.
Archbishop Lenga retired to a community of Marian Fathers in Licheń Stary, a village that is home to Poland’s largest church, in the Diocese of Włocławek.
Fr Niemira, chancellor of Włocławek diocese, said the bishop had imposed the measures on Archbishop Lenga in accordance with canons 392 and 763 of the Code of Canon Law.
Canon 392 states that, in order to protect Church unity, “a bishop is bound to promote the common discipline of the whole Church and therefore to urge the observance of all ecclesiastical laws”. Canon 763 says that bishops have the right to preach everywhere unless forbidden to do so by a local bishop.
Belfast, Northern Ireland, Feb 27, 2020 / 04:59 pm (CNA).- While Northern Ireland has long faced religious disputes, an ecumenical celebration of Ash Wednesday was held at a Catholic church in Belfast this year, in which Presbyterian, Anglican, and Methodist ministers participated.
Ken Newell, a former Presbyterian Moderator; Elizabeth Hanna, a retired Church of Ireland minister; and Robin Waugh, a Methodist minister, all received ashes at the Feb. 26 service at St. Mary’s Church.
Fr. Tim Bartlett led the service. Afterwards, he said it was a “deeply moving” experience.
Fr. Martin Magill, pastor of St. John’s parish, helped to organize the event.
Ahead of time, he said that “In this inclusive service, people from all backgrounds will be offered the ashes, but no one will be pressured to take them.”
“In other parts of the world Christians come together every year to mark Ash Wednesday in this way, so in many other places what we are marking together tomorrow would be a common practice.”
Hanna commented, “I thoroughly enjoyed being here, and history has been made. It was great being a part of it.”
Newell noted his joy in participating “in this special service” and emphasized the value of Lent.
He stressed the symbolic value of this event in bringing people together. He said it is also an opportunity to make “space for God,” according to the Belfast Telegraph.
“This will be a symbolic service of healing and reconciliation, of togetherness and not of division,” he said. “It is another opportunity for the churches to walk side by side, and to move on towards a better future for everyone.”
Religious disputes have long been part of the history of Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom and has been predominantly Protestant, while the majority-Catholic Republic of Ireland declared its independence in 1916.
The region has had ongoing religiously and politically based conflicts, most notably “the Troubles”, which included violent clashes that lasted from the late 1960s until 1998, when the Good Friday Agreement was struck.
Since 1998, there has been only sporadic sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, though there have been several incidents in recent years.
Bonn, Germany, Feb 26, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- The secretary of the German bishops’ conference has announced that he will step down from his position ahead of the group’s next general assembly in early March. Fr. Hans Langendörfer,&nbs… […]
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