Fatima, Portugal, Jul 18, 2018 / 03:00 am (CNA).- While men in the trenches of World War I faced chemical gasses and industrialized weaponry that wrought unprecedented human carnage, an Angel of Peace appeared with a message.
“Do not be afraid. … […]
Birmingham, England, Jul 14, 2018 / 06:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Dr. David Mackereth, a Reformed Baptist who has worked for 26 years at the National Health Service, has said he was denied employment at the Department for Work and Pensions because he would not refer to transgender people using their preferred pronouns.
“I’m not attacking the transgender movement. But, I’m defending my right to freedom of speech, and freedom of belief,” Mackereth told The Sunday Telegraph July 8.
“I don’t believe I should be compelled to use a specific pronoun. I am not setting out to upset anyone. But, if upsetting someone can lead to doctors being sacked then, as a society we have to examine where we are going,” he reflected.
Mackereth, 55, is from Dudley, 10 miles west of Birmingham. He was training to take a job as a disability assessor, but maintained his belief that sex is genetic and biological, and is the basis of gender. Mackereth spent much of his time at the NHS working in Accident and Emergency departments.
His instructor had said reports on those claiming disability must refer to the patient by their gender identity, in accord with the Equality Act 2010, an anti-discrimination law in England, Wales, and Scotland which includes sex, sexual orientation, and gender reassignment among its protected classes.
“I said that I had a problem with this. I believe that gender is defined by biology and genetics. And that as a Christian the Bible teaches us that God made humans male or female. I could have kept my mouth shut. But, it was the right time to raise it,” Mackereth said.
He maintained that he could not in good conscience conform with the policy, and his contract was terminated.
Mackereth said that “Firstly, we are not allowed to say what we believe. Secondly, as my case shows, we are not allowed to think what we believe. Finally, we are not allowed to defend what we believe.”
“By stating … that gender and sex are determined at birth – you can come under ferocious attack.”
Under the Equality Act 2010 “everyone who holds my views can be sacked on the spot,” he stated. “I’m not an isolated case.”
Denver, Colo., Jul 12, 2018 / 03:49 pm (CNA).- On Sunday, France and Croatia will square off on the soccer pitch for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Championship. While most U.S. Catholics are only casual soccer fans, many will join more than 3 billion people … […]
London, England, Jul 12, 2018 / 12:49 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After a decision from the United Kingdom’s High Court, two women are attempting to overturn a ban on prayer and public discussion of abortion near a British abortion clinic.
On July 2, t… […]
Lisbon, Portugal, Jul 12, 2018 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- When the Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children in Fatima in 1917, Portugal had already acclaimed Mary as their reigning Queen for hundreds of years. After the coronation of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception as “Queen of Portugal” by King João IV in 1646, no Portuguese monarch ever wore a crown again.
The history of exceptional Marian devotion near Fatima dates back even further.
Fourteen miles from the Fatima Shrine is the Batalha Monastery, where several dozen Dominican friars were commissioned in 1388 to pray a perpetual rosary in thanksgiving for the Virgin Mary’s protection of Portugal.
The gothic monastery in Batalha was built in dedication to Our Lady of Victory in gratitude for an answered prayer. In 1385 King Joao I made a vow to the Virgin Mary that he would build a great monastery if she would deliver him victory in a battle against the Spanish.
The Dominican community remained in the monastery until 1834, when all religious orders were driven out of Portugal. Today it continues to function as both the local parish and a tourist attraction.
In nearby Alcobaca, a Cistercian monastery has stood in honor of Mary for over 800 years. The king of Portugal endowed the monastery to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in 1153, shortly before the Cistercian founder’s death. The gothic church was completed in 1223.
Benedict XVI has described Saint Bernard of Clairvaux as “a Doctor of Mariology” because “he understood her essential role in the Church, presenting her as the perfect model of the monastic life and of every other form of the Christian life.”
An altarpiece in the Alcobaca Monastery, added in 1705, depicts the death of Saint Bernard under the protection of Mary. The walls in the monastery’s King’s Hall are decorated with 16th century blue and white rococo tile scenes depicting the history of the Cistercian order. An ornate oval baroque reliquary chapel containing 71 terracotta reliquary busts from floor to ceiling can be found in the sacristy. Napoleon’s troops plundered the monastery in 1811, shortly before the Cistercians, like Batalha’s Dominicans, were forced to leave Portugal.
Fewer than 10 miles from Alcobaca is the beachside town of Nazaré, named for a statue of the Virgin Mary brought from Nazareth by a monk in the 8th century, according to the local tradition.
Before Nazaré became a world-famous surfing destination with 80-foot waves, it was a popular medieval pilgrimage site. In 1182, a Portuguese knight was hunting a deer near the coast. When his horse nearly ran over one of Nazaré’s steep cliffs, he called out “Our Lady, Help Me!” and his horse stopped just at the cliff’s precipice next to the small grotto with the Nazareth statue.
In thanksgiving for his life, the knight had a small chapel built around the statue, which went on to receive so many visitors that a larger church dedicated to Our Lady of Nazaré was built near the cliffs by the King of Portugal in 1377 to house the statue and its pilgrims.
Despite the centuries-long tradition of Marian devotion in Portugal, when Our Lady of Fatima appeared in 1917, Catholics were not thriving in the country.
When the monarchy was abolished in 1910, the revolutionaries attempted to root out Catholicism and its Marian queen along with it, seizing all of the Church’s property and assets. A popular illustration of the 1910 revolution includes an image of armed men marching out priests at gunpoint.
Anticlericalism peaked in the years leading up to the Fatima apparitions, causing the pope to speak out about the persecution of the Church under the First Portuguese Republic.
In 1911, Saint Pius X issued an encyclical, Iamdudum, decrying the secularization occuring in Portugal.
“We have seen, arising out of an obstinate determination to secularize every civil organization and to leave no trace of religion in the acts of common life, the deletion of the feast days of the Church from the number of public festivals, the abolition of religious oaths, the hasty establishment of the law of divorce and religious instruction banished from the public schools,” wrote the pope.
St. Pius X’s successor, Benedict XV, would go on to write a letter to his secretary of state for all the world’s bishops on May 5, 1917 asking for prayers to the Virgin Mary for peace amid the ongoing devastation of World War I throughout Europe. In this letter, the pope made permanent an additional title for Mary in the Litany of Loreto: “Regina pacis,” or “Queen of peace.”
When Mary appeared in Portugal as Our Lady of the Rosary nine days later, she instructed, “Pray the Rosary every day, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war.” The Portuguese tradition of the perpetual rosary, dating back more than 500 years, would continue.
Sion, Switzerland, Jul 11, 2018 / 04:32 pm (CNA).- On Wednesday the general chapter of the Society of Saint Pius X, a canonically irregular priestly society, elected Fr. Davide Pagliarani as its superior general.
The July 11 election was made at the Seminary of St. Pius X in Ecône, about 10 miles southwest of Sion, Switzerland. The general chapter is being held through July 21.
Elected as general assistants were Bishop Alfonso Gallareta and Fr. Christian Bouchacourt.
The SSPX was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 to form priests, as a response to what he described as errors that had crept into the Church after the Second Vatican Council.
Its relations with the Holy See became particularly strained in 1988 when Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer consecrated four bishops without the permission of St. John Paul II.
Fr. Pagliarani, 47, succeeds Bishop Bernard Fellay as superior general of the SSPX. He has a mandate of 12 years in his office as superior general.
He was ordained a priest in 1996, and served at chapels in Italy and Singapore before he was appointed superior of the Italian district of the SSPX. He has been rector of Our Lady Co-Redemptrix Seminary in Argentina since 2012.
After accepting his office, Fr. Pagliarani made a profession of faith and took the Anti-Modernist Oath.
The illicit episcopal consecrations made in 1988 resulted in the excommunication of the bishops involved. The excommunications of the surviving bishops were lifted in 2009 by Benedict XVI, and since then negotiations “to rediscover full communion with the Church” have continued between the SSPX and the Vatican.
When he remitted the excommunications, Benedict noted that “doctrinal questions obviously remain and until they are clarified the Society has no canonical status in the Church and its ministers cannot legitimately exercise any ministry.”
The biggest obstacles for the SSPX’s reconciliation have been the statements on religious liberty in Vatican II’s declaration Dignitatis humanae as well as the declaration Nostra aetate, which it claims contradict previous Catholic teaching.
There were indications in recent years of movement towards regularization of the priestly society, which has some 590 priest-members.
In March 2017, Pope Francis gave diocesan bishops or other local ordinaries the authorization to grant priests of the SSPX the ability to celebrate licitly and validly the marriages of the faithful who follow the Society’s pastoral activity.
Archbishop Guido Pozzo, secretary for the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, spoke about interactions with the SSPX in an April 2016 interview with La Croix. The archbishop, whose commission is responsible for discussions with the SSPX, said that discussions over the last few years have led to “an important clarification” that the Second Vatican Council “can be adequately understood only in the context of the full Tradition of the Church and her constant Magisterium.”
And in September 2015, the Pope announced that the faithful would be able to validly and licitly receive absolution from priests of the SSPX during the Jubilee Year of Mercy. This ability was later extended indefinitely by Francis in his apostolic letter Misericordia et misera, published Nov. 20, 2016.
Zagreb, Croatia, Jul 11, 2018 / 02:34 pm (CNA).- On Sunday, Croatia’s soccer team will play France in the championship game of the 2018 World Cup, after running victoriously through a string of soccer powerhouses in the tournament.
Here’s … […]
Glasgow, Scotland, Jul 11, 2018 / 12:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After a priest was spat at, verbally abused, and lunged at with a pole while an “Orange walk” passed by his parish in Glasgow Saturday, there have been widespread calls to regulate further or to ban outright the Protestant processions.
“Canon Tom White was meeting and greeting parishioners” following the anticipated Mass at St. Alphonsus parish in Glasgow July 7, according to a Facebook post by the Archdiocese of Glasgow.
“An Orange march approached. Police – who had been guarding the church – were called away to deal with another nearby incident … Canon White and parishioners were subjected to vile abuse … ‘Fenian bastard’ being the most typical.”
The archdiocese reported that “Spittle landed on the back of [Canon White’s] head. He wiped it away. Another mouthful of thick spittle was spat into his eye socket. Again he wiped it away leaving his hand full of the vile liquid. He was then further insulted and lunged at by a man carrying a pole before police arrived to restore some kind of order.”
The Glasgow archdiocese asked Police Scotland and Glasgow City Council “What kind of society is it that allows ministers of religion and church goers to be intimidated and attacked by a group which has a long history of fomenting fear and anxiety on city streets?”, and “Why is the Orange Order still allowed to schedule its intimidating parades on streets containing Catholic Churches at times when people are trying to get in and out for Mass?”
Orange walks are organized by the Protestant fraternal group the Orange Order, largely in Northern Ireland and Scotland, to commemorate the defeat of James II by William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
James had been deposed as king of England, Ireland, and Scotland in a 1688 revolution by the Parliament of England after he had expanded toleration of Catholics and Protestant nonconformists in the officially Protestant kingdoms.
According to the Scottish Sun, Glasgow’s Orange walk included thousands of marchers, and four arrests were made in connection with the demonstration, though none were related to the attack on Canon White.
Scotland has experienced significant sectarian division since the Scottish Reformation of the 16th century, which led to the formation of the Church of Scotland, an ecclesial community in the Calvinist and Presbyterian tradition which is the country’s largest religious community.
Sectarianism and and crimes motivated by anti-Catholicism have been on the rise in Scotland in recent years.
Police Scotland are investigating the assault on Canon White as a hate crime. A spokeswoman said that “Whilst the parade was passing the church at the time, any involvement, if at all, by someone from the Orange Walk, is still to be established.”
The Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland has denied any involvement in the assault.
“We understand that abusive comments were directed at a local Priest from a group of young men who were not part of the parade,” read a statement from the fraternal order. “We can confirm that no members of the parade were involved in this or any of the reported incidents. The Orange Order is founded on the principle of religious liberty and respect for people of all faiths. We totally condemn the bigoted actions of those involved and hope that they are dealt with to the full extent of the law.”
St. Alphonsus parish, along with nearby St. Mary’s parish, have issued a statement which welcomed the Orange Order’s condemnation of the assault, while adding that “we are distressed and deeply saddened that, in the 21st century, we are unable to exercise our human rights of freedom of association, freedom of assembly and the right to celebrate our faith free from intimidation and violence.”
They asked the Scottish Parliament “to ensure all those exercising their right to religious freedom will be protected by the appropriate statutory authorities.”
A petition calling on the Glasgow City Council to end the Orange walks has garnered more than 70,000 signatures.
The petition at change.org said that now “is the time to have a real debate on how we can stop this outdated and repressive display … They have a long history of spreading anxiety and fear amongst everyday Glaswegians.”
“There is no room in our society for this type of bigotry and division. Sign the petition and call time on the Orange Order marching on our streets!”
A variety of Scottish politicians have condemned the assault on Canon White.
Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party, tweeted that “behaviour like this – hate crime of and kind – is simply unacceptable, and we will always sonider what more we must do to eradicate it.”
Annie Wells, Member of Scottish Parliament for Glasgow and a member of the Scottish Conservative Party, said that “This was a shocking attack against a respected member of the local community. Police Scotland must move quickly to identify those involved and bring charges.”
Monica Lennon, an MSP of the Scottish Labour Party, lamented that “Anti-Catholic hate crime remains prevalent in Scotland, accounting for 57% of religiously aggravated charges in 2016-17 … Scotland must do better.”
And Caron Lindsay, equalities spokeswoman for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, said, “No-one in Scotland should feel threatened or intimidated as they go about their daily business.”
An April poll of Catholics in Scotland found that 20 percent reported personally experiencing abuse of prejudice toward their faith; and a government report on religiously-motivated crime in 2016 and 2017 found a concentration of incidents in Glasgow.
San Sebastian, Spain, Jul 8, 2018 / 04:33 pm (ACI Prensa).- Fr. Juan Pablo Aroztegi became the youngest priest in the diocese of San Sebastian, Spain, when he was ordained last weekend by Bishop José Ignacio Munilla at Good Shepherd Cathedral.
According to reports in various local media, Aroztegi, age 35, began to discern his vocation after an agnostic friend asked him why he was a Christian.
Until then, he had not questioned why he was following Jesus Christ, nor what he wanted to do with his life. He was working as an industrial engineer at a software company in Pamplona at that time, but after a profound reflection, he decided to join the seminary.
He described the decision to enter the seminary as one of the “greatest moments of freedom” in his life. When he told the agnostic friend who had questioned him that he was becoming a seminarian, the friend replied that he has been expecting it.
“Your friends know you and can intuit your decisions. It’s ironic that an agnostic friend made me question my Christian life and my vocation,” Aroztegi said.
While the majority of his friends are non-believers, the new priest said that they have respect for his faith and his decision. Some of them attended his ordination Mass last Sunday.
“The conversations I had with some of them to tell them of my decision was one of the most beautiful moments of my life. I felt free and I was open about who I am. We spoke about important issues we had never dealt with before,” he recalled.
His family was also surprised when he announced his decision to pursue the priesthood, although he had always lived his faith “in a very natural way.”
Fr. Aroztegi said that he always went to Mass with his family on Sundays, but had never imagined that he would become a priest, instead assuming that he would marry and have a family.
“[Priesthood] didn’t even cross my mind,” he told Diaro Vasco. “Certainly the best things that have happened to me in life have been unexpected.”
“In that sense I am in expectation of everything that awaits me in priestly life. I sincerely hope for an intense and exciting life, with good moments, and others with the cross and suffering as in any other path in life.”
Looking to the future, Aroztegi said he would like to follow the example of some priests who have been important in his life.
“I admire the priests who aren’t looking for success or applause, but help whoever needs it without anyone knowing about it. I am drawn to the priest who is humble in every sense, the one who sees himself as just another Christian, a disciple of Jesus who is on his way just like anybody else. The priest who is a man of God, prays for his people and seeks nothing more than the things of God. And above all I am drawn to the priest who creates unity, who knows how to be with others,” he said.
He also explained that one of the challenges of a priest is “to form Christian communities where one can live the greatness of life in Christ,” and so he encourages “going to the essential, to what’s important in life, to love and be loved,” and said that if Christianity is lived with authenticity, it is “truly attractive.”
Aroztegi told Diaro Vasco news that in the days leading up to his July 2 ordination, he was “calm and excited” because “what at the beginning was like a flame of fire within me, small but which I could not doubt, during those years was getting stronger.”
“I arrived at [the ordination] peaceful because I felt very free. And at the same time, the emotion is great. I am excited about everything it means, and because I will be able to give myself totally to that which I feel called.”
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Washington D.C., Jul 6, 2018 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- As a passionate soccer fan, Jennifer Bryson has been faithfully watching every game she can during the 2018 FIFA World Cup. But as a religious freedom expert, she’s found herself wondering how, and … […]
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