Rome, Italy, May 14, 2018 / 03:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis said Monday he is worried that youth are too enmeshed in a virtual world of cell phones and other technology, separated, in particular, from the real human contact experienced by perfo… […]
Muenster, Germany, May 14, 2018 / 02:28 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The unresolved debate over a proposal to allow Protestant spouses of Catholics to receive communion in German dioceses under some limited circumstances has gathered steam after the country’s president waded into the debate at the major national Catholic conference in the town of Münster.
The planned proposal has been championed by Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, president of the German bishops’ conference, who announced in February that the conference would publish a pastoral handout for married couples that allows Protestant spouses of Catholics “in individual cases” and “under certain conditions” to receive Holy Communion, provided they “affirm the Catholic faith in the Eucharist”.
Subsequently, seven German bishops, led by Cardinal Rainer Woelki of Cologne, ask the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for clarification, asking whether the question of Holy Communion for Protestant spouses in interdenominational marriages can be decided on the level of a national bishops’ conference, or if rather, “a decision of the Universal Church” is required in the matter.
Speaking in an interview with EWTN this week, Cardinal Woelki reaffirmed his position, calling for all parties to “consider and recognize that the Eucharist is ordered to the unity of the creed”.
The Katholikentag event drew several tens of thousands of Catholics from German-speaking Europe to Münster May 9-11, and saw not only politicians and Cardinals Marx and Woelki restating and clarifying their respective positions, but provided a stage to Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, saying, in the keynote speech that opened the event: “Let us seek ways of expressing the common Christian faith by sharing in the Last Supper and Communion. I am sure: Thousands of Christians in interdenominational marriages are hoping for this”.
Similarly, Cardinal Marx stated that he hoped there soon would be a solution to the Communion debate, declaring May 9: “When someone is hungry and has faith, they must have access to the Eucharist. That must be our passion, and I will not let up on this.”
A peculiarly polemical form of this “hunger” caused something of a public scandal shortly after, when an official panel discussion played host to one celebrity’s demand to be “handed that wafer [the Most Blessed Sacrament]” since he pays for it with his Church tax.
Speaking on stage with Cardinal Woelki, the comedian and TV personality Eckart von Hirschhausen sharply criticised the Catholic Church’s teaching – to applause from the predominantly Catholic audience – saying, “I don’t see the point of a public debate about wafers” since climate change, on his view, was a “far more serious” issue.
Since he, as a Protestant spouse to a Catholic, pays Church tax and thus considered himself “a major sponsor”, the Church had “better happily hand out a wafer for it, or give me back my money!”, demanded von Hirschhausen, to an applauding crowd.
The crowd’s mood notwithstanding, Cardinal Woelki politely but firmly disagreed. “As a Catholic, I would never speak of a wafer. Using this concept alone demonstrates that we have a very different understanding” of what the Archbishop of Cologne then reminded the audience “is the Most Blessed Sacrament”, in which “Catholics encounter Christ Himself”.
With CNA’s German edition, CNA Deutsch, covering the diatribe, Catholics on social media quickly reacted with outrage to Hirschhausen’s pronouncements, triggering an apology on the following day, which in turn was widely discussed.
In an interview with EWTN’s German edition, Cardinal Woelki noted “he ecclesiological import of the Eucharist: “The Eucharist constitutes the ecclesial community of the Church. The Eucharist and the Church’s community are very, very close to one another.”
“Now, of course I understand that this constitutes a certain challenge, and that people may experience it as a form of suffering, in particular in the case of interdenominational marriages, that they may not be able to receive the Eucharist together.”
At the same time, the Archbishop of Cologne said, “it is of vital importance for us to recognize that whoever says ‘yes’ to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, acknowledging that Christ is indeed really present, thereby naturally also says ‘yes’ to the Papacy, and the hierarchical structure of the Church, and the veneration of the saints and much, much more”.
Any solution found in Germany could also not constitute some form of exceptionalism, but would have to be fully compatible with the universal Church, Woelki told EWTN’s Christina Link-Blumrath, again making an ecclesiological point: “As the Catholic Church, we also have to point out that we are a part and parcel of the universal Church. There can be no German exceptionalism.”
Just before these latest developments, on May 3, seven German bishops attended an inconclusive meeting at the Vatican to discuss prospective guidelines allowing non-Catholic spouses of Catholics to receive the Eucharist in certain “limited circumstances”, with the Vatican sending the Germans back, saying Pope Francis wants the bishops to come to an agreement among themselves.
Rudolf Gehrig contributed to this report.
Dublin, Ireland, May 11, 2018 / 09:49 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Internet giant Google has decided to bar all ads related to a fast-approaching referendum on legalizing abortion in Ireland. The decision drew much fire from pro-life critics, and some observer… […]
Lublin, Poland, May 11, 2018 / 10:36 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archdiocese of Lublin has launched a campaign urging Catholics to take to social media in defense of the unborn, using selfies as a way to voice gratitude for one’s life and the right to be born.
“When we take a selfie we show ourselves, but in this case, we give a sign that we are committed to defending life and the family,” Archbishop Stanislaw Budzik of Lublin said in a May 10 statement coinciding with the launch of the campaign.
“We want to show gratitude to God for the gift of life, to our parents for letting us come to this beautiful world and to all those who defend life, who speak with joy and gratitude about life,” he said, adding that “it is worth devoting all our strength” to defending life and family.
The campaign, titled “Selfie for Life,” was launched by the Lublin archdiocese ahead of Poland’s national March for Life and Family June 10, and is intended to rally a worldwide defense of life and marriage. Marches will take place in 160 cities throughout Poland.
Participants are asked to take a selfie either alone or with a group, and post it to their social media accounts with the hashtag “#DziekujeZeZyje”, roughly translating as “Thankful for my life.”
Archbishop Budzik kicked off the campaign himself May 10 by posting a selfie on Twitter with the hashtag.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”pl” dir=”ltr”>Zapraszam i zachęcam do akcji "Selfie dla życia" <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/dzi%C4%99kuj%C4%99%C5%BCe%C5%BCyj%C4%99?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#dziękujężeżyję</a> . <a href=”https://t.co/EacqgeYArI”>pic.twitter.com/EacqgeYArI</a></p>— Stanisław Budzik (@StanislawBudzik) <a href=”https://twitter.com/StanislawBudzik/status/994510485755179008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>May 10, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Each photo published with the hashtag will draw a donation of one Polish zloty (USD 0.28) to a fund called “It’s good that you’re alive.”
At the end of the campaign, which will close with the June 10 march, a virtual heart will be created from all the photos published with the hashtag.
Fr. Pawel Rytel-Andrianik, spokesman for the Polish bishops’ conference, said, “we use selfies to promote ourselves, while in this case it’s about to promote the essential values” of marriage, family and the right to life, and that “everyone is invited to take part.”
Barletta, Italy, May 11, 2018 / 12:16 am (ACI Prensa).- The investiture of Sister Maria Vittoria della Croce last month marked the first ceremony of its kind to be held in the Italian city of Barletta since the 1940s.
“The monastery of San Ruggero [in Barletta] had been reduced to a very few elderly nuns, but three years ago it was re-founded with the arrival of several young sisters, which revitalized it in terms of vocations,” explained Deacon Riccardo Losappio, head of communications for the Archdiocese of Trani-Barletta-Bisceglie.
Losappio told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister agency, that these new religious, including the current abbess, come from the Santa Maria delle Rose (Saint Mary of the Roses) Benedictine monastery located in the town of Sant’Angelo in Pontano in the Marche region in eastern Italy.
Now, with the admission of Sister Maria Vittoria della Croce, “the Benedictine monastic community of San Ruggero is comprised of six nuns that have made solemn vows, four nuns who have made temporary vows, two novices and one postulant,” he said.
Sister Maria Vittoria della Croce – whose baptismal name is Carmen D’Agostino – is 27 years old.
Her induction ceremony into the San Ruggero Benedictine monastery took place April 27 in the co-cathedral Basilica of Saint Mary Major and was presided by the Archbishop of Trani-Barletta-Bisceglie, Leonardo D’Ascenzo.
The photographs of the event were posted by the archdiocese on its Facebook page, where they reached more than 2 million users and drew more than 11,000 shares, 3,700 “likes” and 650 comments.
Losappio explained that “for Benedictine nuns, presenting oneself dressed as a bride is part of the rite of investiture for the religious.”
“They always enter dressed that way because they are spouses of Christ who are going out to meet him and they become brides to anticipate in time what one day will be in the fullness of God.”
During the investiture ceremony, novices who were previously dressed in a wedding gown “have their hair cut, put on the Benedictine habit and receive the crucifix to indicate their joyful renunciation of all that is vain and ephemeral.”
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During the ceremony, Archbishop D’Ascenzo wished the new religious “the great beauty of this presence of Jesus maturing more and more in you and to express it as a witness to the outside world through the relationship with the Church and with your community. May you have a blessed path to holiness and I hope that you can be ever more beautiful in the sense of this witness to the Church and with your sisters.”
Sister Maria Vittoria della Croce shared her testimony in the archdiocesan newspaper “In Comunione.”
The new nun was born in January 1991 in the Italian town of Melfi and finished her studies in nursing at the University of Foggia in 2014. She grew up in a strong Catholic family belonging to the Neocatechumenal Way and has three siblings.
“When I was 15, my mother went to heaven after a long illness which she endured with faith. It was not easy for me, but I can bear witness that the Lord has always provided for my family and me,” she stated.
“Thinking about my mother made me look to heaven, to paradise. More than having made a choice, I was chosen by him: at a youth encounter, and then also through others, I felt the love of Christ manifested on the cross,” she said.
“I simply accepted this love, this call to fight for the kingdom of heaven, and with the help of the Church to discern this call, I entered the monastery,” she said.
For Sister Maria Vittoria della Croce, this vocational call “opened heaven to me” and she is certain that God “loves me as I am, and I am for him a precious pearl.”
Bern, Switzerland, May 10, 2018 / 05:21 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Botanist and ecologist David Goodall ended his life May 10 in Switzerland by assisted suicide, a procedure which he had long advocated legalizing in his home country of Australia.
Goodall, 104, told journalists that he “looked forward” to ending his life and regretted not having ended it sooner, though he is not terminally ill. He also said he regretted that he had to travel all the way to Switzerland commit suicide.
Australia’s Victoria state has passed an assisted suicide law that will go into effect in 2019, but it only allows for terminally ill patients to end their lives – Goodall would not have qualified under the law.
Critics have said that Goodall’s death was not simply a personal choice, but a political one that could have devastating consequences on vulnerable populations such as the elderly, the poor, and the disabled.
“It was clear he wanted to go out while getting a lot of attention,” said Stephen Drake, a research analyst with the advocacy group Not Dead Yet, a disability rights group which opposes the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia “as deadly forms of discrimination.”
“If someone acts as he does, for people to call it a personal act is a lie; it was a political act,” Drake told CNA.
Only a handful of countries have legalized assisted suicide or euthanasia, including Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. In Switzerland, while assisted suicide is technically not legal, it is allowed under certain circumstances.
In the United States, assisted suicide is currently legal in Colorado, Vermont, Washington, California, Oregon, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia. The State Supreme Court of Montana decriminalized assisted suicide for physicians in 2009.
Currently, most legislation that allows for assisted suicide or euthanasia does so only in the cases of terminally ill patients.
However, Goodall’s case demonstrates that this is only the beginning for assisted suicide advocates, Drake noted.
Terminal illness is “the wedge issue that most people can agree on, that opens the door,” he said.
“Once you open the door, then the campaign becomes to kick it open as far as you can, and it shows that opponents in Australia who’ve been fighting to prevent the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia are right on target when they say that this will begin to expand in very short order,” he added.
“Now the cause will be: why are we preventing poor old people from ending their lives?” he said.
Other vulnerable and undervalued populations, such as the poor and disabled, will be similarly at risk, he noted.
Matt Valliere, executive director of Patients Rights Action Fund, told CNA in e-mail comments that it would “be a mistake” to use Goodall’s death as an example in advocating for legalized assisted suicide.
“We know that legalizing assisted suicide only places the vulnerable at greater risk. Mr. Goodall himself had no terminal illness and yet was given lethal medication,” Valliere said.
“That is why many sick, poor, elderly and persons with disabilities oppose these laws – they will be the first to suffer from them.”
What concerns disability and advocacy groups most about legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia is the potential for coercion and corruption – that suicide will become a “rational choice” for some undervalued populations, and their deaths seen as a duty rather than an unpreventable tragedy, Drake said.
“They will no longer be viewed as preventable tragedies but rational (ways) to end a life of suffering,” he said.
“But if you talk to people with disabilities, the suffering they will cite is not the disability itself, but the barriers and discrimination and open hostility they encounter in the culture they live in.”
Studies have shown that the majority of patients who request assisted suicide will withdraw that request when they are treated for depression. There have also been several cases of botched deaths in Oregon, in which a patient’s doctor was not present during the assisted suicide. Oregon has seen many abuses since since its legalization of assisted suicide, such as cases of pills changing hands, either intentionally or unknowingly, with lethal results.
Another concern is that suicide for vulnerable populations will be seen as a smart economic choice, Drake said.
Derek Humphry, founder of the Hemlock Society (now two organizations – Compassion and Choices, and Final Exit Network), wrote in 2000 about the “unspoken argument” for assisted suicide – that it would be cheaper to let the elderly and disabled die than to keep them alive.
“As technology advances, as medical costs skyrocket out of control, as chronic diseases predominate, as the projected rate of the eighty-five-and-older population accelerates, as managed care seeks to cut costs and as Medicare is predicted to go bankrupt by 2007, the impetus of cost containment provide impetus, whether openly acknowledged or not, for the practicalities of an assisted death,” Humphry wrote in his book Freedom to Die: people, politics, and the right-to-die movement.
Drake noted: “It’s one thing for me to say that, it’s another thing for Derek Humphry, who embodies the assisted suicide movement, to say it.”
Drake said that advocates for assisted suicide “either discount those concerns or frankly they don’t care, they figure the people who might be hurt by this won’t be them, and I think that’s what it boils down to.”
Dublin, Ireland, May 10, 2018 / 03:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Ireland’s upcoming vote on whether to legalize abortion is “a vital issue of life or death” that threatens to change the country forever, Bishop Fintan Monahan of Killaloe tol… […]
London, England, May 8, 2018 / 03:16 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Scottish bishop addressed the March for Life UK on Saturday, challenging pro-lifers to be courageous in sharing their witness.
“We will win this battle by truth, but we will win it even more by courage,” Bishop John Keenan of Paisley said May 5, the Catholic Herald reported.
“You have no idea of the galvanising effect your courage will have if you stand up before the British media courageously, even under attack, and be pro-life. You’re setting the seeds of the next generation.”
Thousands of pro-lifers marched about a half mile from Trafalgar Square in downtown London to Parliament Square for the march. It was the first time that the March for Life UK had been held in London; previously, it had been hosted in Birmingham.
The march was also attended by Bishop John Wilson, an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Westminster.
In preparation for the March, an all night prayer vigil was held at St. Dominic’s Church – The Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary. Mass at Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church then kicked off the event on the following morning.
Attendees then listened to keynote speakers Rachel Mackenzie of Rachel’s Vineyard and Clare McCullough, a founder of the Good Counsel Network, who denounced the imposition of a protection order around a London abortion clinic last month.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Thank you to all the priests and religious that came today to March for Life <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/LifeDeservesLove?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#LifeDeservesLove</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/LifeFest18?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#LifeFest18</a> <a href=”https://t.co/CTHlkFQQFB”>pic.twitter.com/CTHlkFQQFB</a></p>— March4LifeUK (@March4LifeUK) <a href=”https://twitter.com/March4LifeUK/status/992911268943138817?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>May 5, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Afterwards, a festival for life took place in De Vere Connaught Room, where workshops, children’s activities, and other Christian services were made available. Bishop John Wilson, an auxiliary of Westminster, gave the opening address and was followed by speakers like American singer Joy Villa, Bishop Keenan, and CEO of N-Gage, Christie Spurling.
At the workshops, pro-lifers could learn apologetic tips to better encounter the current culture. The topics included “how to reach out to pregnant women before the abortion industry does” and “changing the culture one conversion at a time.”
A closing prayer vigil was led by Michael Nazir-Ali, an Anglican bishop.
The March for Like UK is held in the spring to commemorate the April 27, 1968 coming into force of the Abortion Act 1967, which legalized abortion in England, Wales, and Scotland.
Rome, Italy, May 6, 2018 / 04:12 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Love is not empty words or what is depicted in romantic films – it is action and service toward others, Pope Francis said in a homily at a Roman parish Sunday.
“Love is not what they sa… […]
London, England, May 6, 2018 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- London waste company discovers relic of St Clement in the trash
You know the old saying – one person’s trash is another person’s 2,000 year-old sacred bone fragment of an early pope.
An environmental waste company in London had a surprise discovery last week when they uncovered a reliquary in the garbage containing a bone of St. Clement, a Church Father and the fourth Pope.
The company, which posted about the discovery on their website April 25, said they could not pinpoint the exact location that the relic had come from, but they do know that it was collected in the garbage somewhere in central London.
“You can imagine our amazement when we realised our clearance teams had found bone belonging to a Pope – it’s not something you expect to see, even in our line of work,” James Rubin, owner of Enviro Waste, said in a statement on the company’s website.
“We often come across some weird and wonderful things on clearances, but we were definitely not expecting to find a bone fragment of an apostle,” he added.
St. Clement was a first-century Christian thought to have been a disciple of Sts. Peter and Paul.
It is believed that St. Clement converted from Judaism to Catholicism, and may have shared in some of the missionary journeys of St. Peter or St. Paul, and assisted them in running the Church at the local level.
Around the year 90, he was raised to the position of Pope, following Peter, Linus and Cletus. His writings reveal much about the early Church, but little about his own life.
According to one account, he died in exile during the reign of the Emperor Trajan, who purportedly banished Clement to Crimea and had him killed in retaliation for evangelizing the local people, around the year 100. He is among the saints mentioned in the Roman Canon.
In 868, the Greek missionary St. Cyril claimed to have recovered St. Clement’s bones.
So far, no one has reached out to claim the relic, Rubin told the Huffington Post. He added that he is seeking the help of a U.K. laboratory to have the relic carbon dated to test its authenticity. The bone fragment is encased in a wax-sealed case and includes an inscription that it is “from the bones of St. Clement, Pope and Martyr.”
On their website, Enviro Waste has set up an electronic suggestion box, asking the public where the final resting place of the relic should be.
“We know this is an important piece of history and are keen to find the most appropriate place for its final resting place, which is why we’re asking for help from members of the public,” Rubin said.
So far, suggestions have included the British Museum or the Church of St. Clement in Rome.
© Catholic World Report