Europe

Rome, Italy, Dec 22, 2017 / 03:25 am (CNA).- Archbishop Erio Castellucci has a response to those who think the devil is not real: “they’re mistaken.”

“All you have to do is witness an exorcism to understand that evil is a speci… […]

Dublin, Ireland, Dec 21, 2017 / 07:01 pm (CNA).- The Celtic cross has been recognized as an emblem of Irish Christianity for centuries.

Today, the symbol is visible from thousands of feet in the air, greeting passengers who fly into the City of Derry … […]

Madrid, Spain, Dec 21, 2017 / 12:16 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- While Reconciliation is intended to allow Christ’s victory to overcome sin in our lives, what happens when shame over one’s sins is so great that it keeps people away from the sacrament?

The famous Spanish theologian Father José Antonio Fortea discussed this phenomenon, and practical solutions to it, in a blog post.

Normally, a sense of Christ’s mercy should be enough to help people overcome their shame and go to Confession, in order to receive forgiveness and healing.

However, in some cases, Fr. Fortea acknowledged, people are overwhelmed by their sins, and this shame becomes “a wall” keeping them away from Reconciliation.

“They would rather make a 100-mile pilgrimage than have to confess face-to-face certain things they did that are terribly and frightfully humiliating to them,” he said, reflecting on the torment that faces some penitents who struggle approaching the sacrament.

The Spanish priest first pointed out the importance of priests offering fatherly compassion on those who have “these burdens on their consciences.”

He also noted the importance of ensuring truly anonymous confessions. In each city, he said, “there ought to be at least one confessional where instead of a grill, there is a metal sheet with small holes, making it totally impossible to see the person making their confession.”

The person confessing should not be visible to the priest as they approach or leave, he continued. If there is a window on the priest’s door, it should not be transparent.

“With these measures, the vast majority of the faithful can resolve the problem of shame,” Fr. Fortea said.

But for those “truly very rare” cases where shame is still a major obstacle, even with anonymous confessionals, additional steps can be taken.

In these instances of extreme shame, the person can “make an anonymous phone call to a priest in the city and tell him about this problem.” Confession itself cannot take place over the phone, but “in many cases, the phone conversation will be enough so the penitent can get up his confidence and can approach the kind of above-mentioned confessional.”

If the penitent still finds that the shame of mentioning his sins is too great to bear, he can arrange for a written confession with the priest.

Fr. Fortea said that in several of the confessionals in his city of Alcalá de Henares, Spain, “it’s possible for the penitent to move the screen slightly, just a fraction of an inch, and slip in a piece of paper.”

He offered guidelines for such written confessions: they should generally not be longer than one page, sins should be written “in a clear and concise manner,” or if possible, should be typed for clarity in reading.

“The priest will give his counsel, the penance and absolution without needing to bring up any questions for the penitent. In this case asking questions would be counterproductive,” he reflected.

While the general rule is that confession should be vocal, it can be done through writing in some cases, the priest said. He noted that those who are deaf or mute have always been permitted to make written confessions.

And in the case of insurmountable shame, this would also be licit, he said. “A psychological inability can be just as real as a physical one.”

This article was originally published on CNA Aug. 18, 2016.

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Madrid, Spain, Dec 19, 2017 / 12:26 pm (CNA).- In the Catholic Church, the spoken language is central to the liturgy: we recite the Nicene Creed as one, we praise the Lord with the Gloria that we sing, and we bow our heads to hear the blessing we recei… […]

Stockholm, Sweden, Dec 15, 2017 / 10:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Multiple attacks against the Jewish community in Sweden have sparked outcry from leaders who have spoken out against the violence. The Bishop of Stockholm sent a personal letter to an affected community expressing his solidarity with them.

“It’s with deep sorrow that I have heard about the detestable attack on your parish. I just want to express my sympathy in this difficult situation. I pray that God will help and protect all of you,” read the note sent by Cardinal Anders Arborelius to a Jewish community which was attacked recently.

Over the weekend, bottle bombs had been thrown at a chapel on the grounds of a Jewish cemetery in Malmo, the country’s third largest city. This was the second time in recent years that the Jewish chapel had been attacked, following an arson attempt in 2009.

Additionally, a group of men attacked a synagogue in Gothenburg with firebombs last week. Three men were arrested on suspicion of attempted arson.

Hundreds of protestors gathered in Malmo last week, publicly shouting for violence against the Jewish community, saying, “we want our freedom back, and we will shoot the Jews,” according to the local public radio station. The next day, protestors also publicly burned an Israeli flag in Stockholm.

While there were no reported injuries or damages sustained by the recent anti-Semitic attacks, Malmo’s Jewish community sees the recent events as “extremely serious.”

“We strongly emphasize that we can never accept being subjected to threats and attacks,” the Jewish assembly said, according to the Times of Israel.

The attacks came ahead of the Jewish celebration of Hannukah, which began the evening of Dec. 12 and lasts through Dec. 20, and in the wake of U.S. President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

“There is no place for anti-Semitism in Swedish society,” said the country’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven in a recent statement, according to the Times of Israel.

Sweden’s Interior Minister for Justice Morgan Johansson noted the increased security around Jewish buildings in the country and said that they have a strong relationship with the police, who have been patrolling for anti-Semitic activity.

“It is always possible to do more,” Johansson said, according to the Local.

“But we have a high level of alert and have allocated more money to the police and security services. We have given them better resources to gain more control over groups that can present a threat.”

Antje Jackelen, the Lutheran Archbishop of Uppsala, said that “I would like to assure you of the solidarity of the Swedish church in the fight against anti-Semitism and violence in the name of religion,” the Local reported.

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Rome, Italy, Dec 14, 2017 / 12:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and longtime pro-life advocate, has it in her blood to fight for the causes she believes in, one of which is to promote “civil rights” for the unborn.

King, 66, grew up in the heat of the civil rights battle led by her uncle, and surrounded by the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

Eager to stand for a cause she believed would liberate women, she joined the budding “pro-choice” movement at a young age.

But after experiencing the crushing physical and emotional effects of two abortions, and receiving what she believes was a prophetic intervention from her grandfather, Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., she had a change of heart. She became pro-life and committed herself to carrying forward what she feels is a mission to defend the rights of the unborn.

King spoke to a small group of journalists, including CNA, after arriving in Rome for a Dec. 11-13 conference organized by the Forum of Catholic-inspired NGOs, titled “Promoters of Humanity in a Transforming World.”

The event drew a swath of representatives from various NGOs around the world, including non-Catholics, to discuss how Catholic-inspired organizations can help safeguard core Christian values and ensure that a proper integral human development is achieved in the context of a rapidly changing global society.

King was present on behalf of her project “Civil Rights for the Unborn,” which she directs in partnership with Priests for Life. She is also in charge of Priests for Life’s African-American outreach branch, and is involved with various other pro-life entities, including Rachel’s Vineyard.

On the last day of the gathering, King had the chance to meet Pope Francis, who often cites her uncle in his speeches.

She told CNA that she was honored to meet the Pope, and when she told him that she was related to Martin Luther King Jr., his face lit up and “he seemed very happy.”

She was also moved by the fact that Pope Francis asked her to pray for him, saying it was “a delightful moment,” and that she was “very blessed to of course do that. I do pray for him and for all who are in authority, that we can live a peaceful life.”

Although King is Protestant, she is a firm believer in working with the Catholic Church, which she sees as a “natural ally.” She said that she is inspired by the Pope’s spontaneous spirit, engagement with everyone he meets, and defense of life at all stages.

Francis, she said, “doesn’t take one issue and make that his issue, he seems to be able to connect it and see that it all belongs together…I appreciate his work.”

“The Catholics were very supportive of the civil rights movement (of the) 20th century,” she said, adding that her uncle and father both “worked very closely with the Catholic community.”

When it comes to her own advocacy, life issues have always hit home for King, whose parents in 1950 became pregnant with her before they were married.

At the time, The Negro Project launched by Margaret Sanger in 1939 was continuing to gain steam. Among other things, the project worked to promote contraception and abortion in the black community.

King said her parents had considered getting an abortion until her grandfather, Martin Luther King Sr., “prophetically” intervened. Though they didn’t have ultrasound machines at the time, King said her grandfather had strongly rejected the claim that the fetus was “just a lump of flesh.” He said that the baby was a granddaughter whom he had seen in a dream three years prior.

After hearing Martin Luther King Sr. describe how his granddaughter would look, Alveda King’s parents decided against the abortion and she was born in 1951.

Despite hearing this story many times in her youth, King took a different path after her father and uncle died. She had been married, divorced, and no longer had the support system she once did, so when the pro-choice women’s movement began to grow, “I joined it because I’m a freedom fighter.”

However, she said, following the birth of her first child, she was coerced into having two abortions. When she became pregnant again, and was planning to have another abortion, her grandfather gave her the same message he had given her mother: “That’s not a lump of flesh, that’s my great-grandchild.”

She decided to keep the baby. Seeing her baby’s heartbeat on the sonogram confirmed that decision.

“I heard with new ears,” she said, explaining that her uncle’s words, “injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere,” began to take on a new meaning in her mind.

“He also said the Negro cannot win if he’s willing to sacrifice the future of his children for immediate comfort and safety,” she said, and recounted how, after being “born again” in 1983, she immediately began advocating for life.

In addition to her famous family ties, King had a career in law, was a college professor and served in the Georgia State House of Representatives. In law classes she taught, King said she would bring up the abortion issue and make the argument that “a woman has the right to choose what she does with her body, but the baby’s not her body. Where’s the lawyer for the baby?”

“It began to rock everything,” she said, explaining that she began to face resistance from Sanger’s Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau, which had been re-named as “Planned Parenthood.” The organization objected to her pro-life views, arguing that her uncle had received the group’s “Maggie Award” in 1966.

However, King said that Martin Luther King Jr. had never supported the organization’s agenda. He declined to attend the award ceremony, she noted. It was his wife and secretary – both of whom were more sympathetic to the cause at the time – who attended and wrote a thank you note to the group instead.

“Martin Luther King Jr. never accepted the agenda of Planned Parenthood,” Alveda King said. “They lie. They lie today. They put their abortion mills on or near streets that are named after Martin Luther King, and they want to attach that to the civil rights movement of the 20th century, (but) it doesn’t belong.”

Part of why the Negro Project grew as fast as it did, she said, is that it funded scholarships and grants for the black community that were tied to support for the abortion movement.

Additionally, the organization promoted abstinence, while also handing out condoms and advertising abortions, she said.

“If you tell a kid…yeah, be abstinent, but let’s give you Cosmo magazine with teens having sex and let’s give you free condoms, then they knew they were going to get all those abortions,” she said.

“So that’s how you ended up with a whole culture of abortion-minded people. It was slick, very slick. Evil.”

She added that the target group was initially the black community, “then it became the Latinos and then…the Caucasians with the money became a big target because they could pay.”

King said that if her uncle were alive today, she has no doubt that he would be adamantly pro-life. And while she works most directly with the African-American community in the United States, “its not just a black and white issue, its a human issue.”

“With one blood God made all people. Regardless of our color…we all bleed red,” she said. “So where’s the lawyer for the little ones, where’s the lawyer for the sick or the elderly?”

Looking ahead, King is encouraged by the millennial generation, whom she sees as being able to speak to modern society in a direct, passionate, and fresh way.

“The millennials get it,” she said, adding that “the (pro-life) fight has had a shot in the arm (from) millennials.”

She also noted the importance of fertility awareness and care for post-abortive women, two issues that she would like to see receiving more attention.

Several movie stars from her youth “went to their death” with the regret of abortion, she said, giving the example of singer Kenny Rogers, whose music voices regret over an abortion he and a former girlfriend decided to have.

Despite obstacles, King is hopeful that the level of awareness and resistance in the United States could indicate a turning point on the issue of abortion.

“Do I believe there’s going to be an end to the barbaric practices of killing our weakest, which are the babies and the sick, elderly and poor? I do,” she said, pointing to the March for Life events held across the globe, often filled with young people.

These events show the strength of the pro-life community, she said. “The world is taking note.”

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London, England, Dec 12, 2017 / 12:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A new effort in the UK has garnered the support of some of Britain’s maternity doctors who are recommending that women should be allowed to take abortion pills at home.

But some critics … […]

Dublin, Ireland, Dec 11, 2017 / 05:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Amnesty International is in no position to oppose an Irish law against foreign political funding now that it is under scrutiny for taking money from U.S. financier George Soros’ Open Soci… […]

Narni, Italy, Dec 7, 2017 / 03:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The magical realm of Narnia is the setting of C. S. Lewis’ beloved children’s book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. There, four children discover a land of talking animals, mytholo… […]