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Washington D.C., Jan 8, 2018 / 05:10 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Department of Homeland Security announced today that it will terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nearly 200,000 Salvadoran migrants, leaving an open question as to the future for their 192,000 U.S. citizen children.

With the humanitarian migration program now due to expire in September 2019, many TPS Salvadoran families, who have lived in the U.S. for nearly 20 years, will have to decide whether to separate from their U.S. citizen children or bring them to a country where youth face threats of gang-violence and limited opportunities.

U.S. bishops from California and Texas spoke out about the DHS decision. Bishop Joe Vásquez of Austin, Texas, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ migration committee, called the decision “heartbreaking.”

“We believe that God has called us to care for the foreigner and the marginalized: ‘So you too should love the resident alien, for that is what you were in the land of Egypt’ (Deut. 10:19). Our nation must not turn its back on TPS recipients and their families; they too are children of God,” he said in a statement.

Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles called for a permanent path to residency and citizenship for the affected families stating, “In the meantime, the Catholic community will continue to walk with our brothers and sisters from El Salvador, opening our hearts to their families in love and charity and welcoming the gifts they bring to this great nation.”

TPS is a short-term immigration status granted to migrants to the United States who are unable to return safely to their country of origin, due to armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extreme, temporary conditions.

The DHS decision comes after their evaluation that the current conditions in El Salvador have improved since the 2001 earthquake that led the U.S. to grant temporary refuge for the Salvadorans originally. Salvadorans currently represent the largest group of TPS recipients in the U.S.

However, a delegation of U.S. bishops to El Salvador in August examined the situation on the ground and concluded, “the large size of the TPS population and the extreme protection and security issues apparent in El Salvador render the government unable to adequately handle the return of its nationals now.”

Catholic Relief Services also released a statement today strongly condemning the decision stating, “From our experience working with the Catholic Church and other local partners in El Salvador, the Salvadoran government does not have adequate humanitarian capacity to receive, protect, or integrate back into society safely this many people.”

DHS is delaying the termination of TPS status for 18 months with the hope that “the delay will provide time for individuals with TPS to arrange for their departure or to seek an alternative lawful immigration status in the United States, if eligible.”

The delay also allows Congress time to address this situation with a legislative solution for the immigration status of TPS recipients who have lived and worked in the U.S. for many years.

“TPS recipients are an integral part of our communities, churches, and nation,” Bishop Vásquez said in his statement. “Without action by Congress, however, recipients’ lives will be upended and many families will be devastated.”

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Chicago, Ill., Jan 8, 2018 / 04:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Authentic Christian friendship requires intentionality and a willingness to be vulnerable, Fr. Mike Schmitz told attendees at a Catholic leadership conference last week.

“Discipleship must … […]

Chicago, Ill., Jan 8, 2018 / 11:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The love of God the Father is an inexhaustible source of fulfillment for the human heart, Sr. Bethany Madonna of the Sisters of Life said Thursday at a Catholic youth leadership conference in Chicago.

“So many blessings are coming at us at every second of every day,” Sr. Madonna said Jan. 4 to an audience of approximately 8,000, “and the source of each and every one of these blessings is the blessing the Father gives me with himself.”

Sr. Madonna gave one of the keynote speeches on the third day of the Student Leadership Summit, an event hosted biennially by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students which aims to train young people to be effective evangelists. The theme selected for this year’s conference, which ran January 2-6, was “Inspire & Equip.”

Sr. Madonna is vocations director for the Sisters of Life, a New-York based religious order founded in 1991 by the late Cardinal John O’Connor. Much of their ministry centers around aiding pregnant women and providing healing to those who have had abortions.

“Help us to receive the Father’s love anew, more deeply than we’ve ever received it before,” Sr. Madonna prayed at the start of her talk.

Sister Madonna told the story of a couple named Matt and Lucy, friends of the Sisters, who found out shortly before their wedding that Matt had been diagnosed with cancer and had been given a year to live. The two cancelled their honeymoon in order to begin treatments.

Around the end of Matt’s treatments, doctors urged Lucy to abort their newly conceived child, fearing anomalies due to Matt’s chemo.

Instead, Matt and Lucy “began to pray,” trusting in God. In the end, she said, the only anomaly the child was born with was that two fingers were fused to the palm in such a way that his hands formed the sign for “I love you” in sign language.

“It was remedied with a simple surgery, but Matt and Lucy received it as a message from their Father, brought to them through a son, the Gospel in miniature,” Sr. Madonna said.

However, even in the cases of great defects at a child’s birth, “the Father is saying, ‘I love you’ even more.”

She highlighted the uniqueness of the Father’s love, saying it makes for a relationship like no other. This love “goes to the extremes, indwelling.” She emphasized that only mortal sin can separate human beings from this love.

“When we sever ourselves like this, he holds onto our blessing, and awaits our return,” she said, referencing the parable of the prodigal son.

She told the story of Dr. Michael Brescia, whom the Sisters of Life honored this year with their annual Cardinal O’Connor award. Brescia developed a treatment for kidney disease  in 1966, paving the way for the development of ongoing dialysis. Brescia was offered $1 billion to keep his discovery a secret for one year while a patent was developed.

She related a conversation Brescia had with his Italian immigrant father at the time. Brescia’s father, she said, was overcome with joy to know that 50,000 lives a year could be saved by his son’s discovery, but was dismayed to hear of the delay Brescia had accepted.

“‘Don’t think of this world,’” she said Brescia’s father urged. “‘You would let 50,000 people die?’”

Brescia published his discovery the next day. Sr. Madonna said that despite the invention now being worth $60 billion, he never gained anything from it financially. However, “he’s the richest man I know,” she said.

“Lasciare,” she said, using the Italian word for “release” or “let go” that Brescia’s father had spoken to him in urging his son to give up the discovery. “We too have to let go of so many things,” she said, “that keep us from the blessing that is ours.”

Referencing the “discernment of spirits” developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, Sr. Madonna said that “so often, we hand desolating thoughts and lies a microphone, and we set them on the stage of our hearts.”

“It’s like, ‘Wow, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard about myself. Say it again, just this time in surround sound,’” she said.

“Let these thoughts be taken captive,” she urged listeners.

She told a story from a sister in Romania who had worked at an understaffed orphanage, where babies had stopped crying because there was no one there to respond.

“There are places in our hearts that have not yet cried out to the Father because of a lack of faith,” she said. “We have a good Father, and he hears you.”

“Tonight, we break the silence,” she said, as FOCUS staff prepared the stage for adoration.

Speaking to CNA after her talk of how she herself first came to deeply encounter this love, Sr. Madonna told a story of time she had spent praying with the book of Genesis.

“I had a powerful meditation with the the Scripture of Jacob and Esau receiving the blessing of their father,” she said. In this story, Jacob dresses as Esau to receive his father’s blessing. “Sometimes, I feel like I have to dress up, or be someone else, or impress, or pretend, so that he can bless me.”

“Something happened in my heart where I realized basically how sorrowful that is, how far that is from what the Father is actually offering me,” Sr. Madonna stated. “Through the prayer, I felt like the Father wanted my empty hands, and wanted my heart as it is.”

Speaking to CNA on the connection between accepting God the Father’s love, the focus of the SLS conference, Sr. Madonna said that this love changes how we view those we encounter.

“Once we’ve received our own lives as a gift, and once we recognize that every human person is made in the image and likeness of God and is a communication of him,” Sr. Madonna told CNA, “when I encounter another person, I recognize that they were brought into being by God all-mighty, and are beloved of him. He loves them. They are communicating something to me that was actually entrusted to them by him and it’s unique.”

“When I know that, and live it, then every person is going to know that they’re special, they’re worthy of my time. I desire to know their hearts and be with them in solidarity.”

“We have to tell people; we have to invite them.”

Speaking to CNA on how this evangelization of the Father’s love relates to the work of the Sisters of Life, Sr. Madonna drew on the Blessed Mother.

“When we receive Jesus, and we allow him to be conceived in our hearts as she did at the Annunciation, and then when we go out, like the Visitation, and we meet these women who are pregnant, we hope that, just like John the Baptist leapt in Elizabeth’s womb, we hope that something would leap in these women, that they would recognize Christ come to them, that they would experience this joy, the Holy Spirit, coming upon them.”

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Washington D.C., Jan 7, 2018 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholics participating in the 45th annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., Jan. 19 will be able to receive a plenary indulgence for doing so, the local Church has announced.

“In virtue of the authority granted by our Holy Father, Pope Francis… a plenary indulgence can be obtained under the usual conditions…by the Christian faithful who are truly penitential and compelled by charity, if they take part in the sacred celebrations, along with the great assembly of people, throughout the whole course of the annual event that is called ‘March for Life,’” announced a Dec. 20 letter from the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Arlington.

The document was signed by Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington and Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, who together encouraged their brother bishops with the hope “that you will share this information with those entrusted to your pastoral care.”

Individuals who wish to obtain the plenary indulgence must engage in the events hosted by the March for Life in Washington, D.C.: the youth rally, Mass at Capital One Area, the adult and family rally at St. Matthews Cathedral, or the Prayer Vigil for Life at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

In addition, the usual conditions for a plenary indulgence must be met: that the individual be in the state of grace by the completion of the acts, have complete detachment from sin, and pray for the Pope’s intentions. The person must also sacramentally confess their sins and receive Communion, up to about twenty days before or after the indulgenced act.

The letter also noted that “the aged, sick and all those who due to grave reason are not able to leave home” are also able to receive the plenary indulgence so long as they “spiritually join themselves to the holy ceremonies, while also having offered prayers and their sufferings or the ailments of their own life to the merciful God.”

An indulgence is the remission of the temporal punishment due to sins which have already been forgiven.

The March for Life, an annual peaceful protest against abortion, has taken place for the past 44 years in the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., to publicly oppose the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which legalized abortion across the country.

The march remains one of the largest political protests in the United States today.

Last year, hundreds of thousands of pro-life individuals were gathered in solidarity and prayer in the fight against abortion. Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the 2017 event, making him the highest ranking White House official to ever speak at the March for Life.  

This year, the theme for the 45th annual March for Life is “Love Saves Lives.”

The March will take place at the National Mall Jan. 19 and include speakers such as Pat Tebow, the mother of professional football and baseball player Tim Tebow. Other keynotes include former NFL player Matt Birk, U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, and Sr. Bethany Madonna of the Sisters of Life.

“May the efforts of all across this great nation to lift up the value and dignity of each life continue to bear fruit,” the letter said, adding, “May we all experience God’s blessings in this noble undertaking.”

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Washington D.C., Jan 7, 2018 / 05:21 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The 2018 National Migration Week observed by the U.S. bishops’ conference will focus on the theme, “Many Journeys, One Family,” highlighting the experience of migrants who are … […]

Chicago, Ill., Jan 6, 2018 / 03:37 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- If young adults proclaim the Gospel with clarity and conviction, they can produce spiritual fruits that can reach billions of people, Curtis Martin of the Fellowship of Catholic University Student… […]

Washington D.C., Jan 6, 2018 / 01:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- While the hustle and bustle of Christmas ends for many people on Dec. 26, throughout Christian history Christmas lasts for twelve days – all the way until Jan. 6.

This feast marking the end of Christmas is called “Epiphany.”

In the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, Epiphany celebrates the revelation that Jesus was the Son of God. It focuses primarily on this revelation to the Three Wise Men, but also in his baptism in the Jordan and at the wedding at Cana.

In the Eastern rites of the Catholic Church, Theophany – as Epiphany is known in the East – commemorates the manifestation of Jesus’ divinity at his Baptism in the River Jordan.

While the traditional date for the feast is Jan. 6, in the United States the celebration of Epiphany is moved to the next Sunday, overlapping with the rest of the Western Church’s celebration of the Baptism of Christ.

However, the meaning of the feast goes deeper than just the bringing of presents or the end of Christmas, says Fr. Hezekias Carnazzo, a Melkite Catholic priest and founding executive director of the Virginia-based Institute of Catholic Culture.

“You can’t understand the Nativity without Theophany; or you can’t understand Nativity without Epiphany.” The revelation of Christ as the Son of God – both as an infant and at his baptism – illuminate the mysteries of the Christmas season, he said.

“Our human nature is blinded because of sin and we’re unable to see as God sees,” he told CNA. “God reveals to us the revelation of what’s going on.”

Origins of Epiphany

While the Western celebration of Epiphany (which comes from Greek, meaning “revelation from above”), and the Eastern celebration of Theophany (meaning “revelation of God”), have developed their own traditions and liturgical significances, these feasts share more than the same day.

“The Feast of Epiphany, or the Feast of Theophany, is a very, very early feast,” said Fr. Carnazzo. “It predates the celebration of Christmas on the 25th.”

In the early Church, Christians, particularly those in the East, celebrated the advent of Christ on Jan. 6 by commemorating Nativity, Visitation of the Magi, Baptism of Christ and the Wedding of Cana all in one feast of the Epiphany. By the fourth century, both Christmas and Epiphany had been set as separate feasts in some dioceses. At the Council of Tours in 567, the Church set both Christmas day and Epiphany as feast days on the Dec. 25 and Jan. 6, respectively, and named the twelve days between the feasts as the Christmas season.

Over time, the Western Church separated the remaining feasts into their own celebrations, leaving the celebration of the Epiphany to commemorate primarily the Visitation of the Magi to see the newborn Christ on Jan. 6. Meanwhile, the Eastern Churches’ celebration of Theophany celebrates Christ’s baptism and is one of the holiest feast days of the liturgical calendar.

Roman Traditions

The celebration of the visitation of the Magi – whom the Bible describes as learned wise men from the East – has developed its own distinct traditions throughout the Roman Church.

As part of the liturgy of the Epiphany, it is traditional to proclaim the date of Easter and other moveable feast days to the faithful – formally reminding the Church of the importance of Easter and the resurrection to both the liturgical year and to the faith.

Other cultural traditions have also arisen around the feast. Dr. Matthew Bunson, EWTN Senior Contributor, told CNA about the “rich cultural traditions” in Spain, France, Ireland and elsewhere that form an integral part of the Christmas season for those cultures.

In Italy, La Befana brings sweets and presents to children not on Christmas, but on Epiphany. Children in many parts of Latin America, the Philippines, Portugal, and Spain also receive their presents on “Three Kings Day.”

Meanwhile, in Ireland, Catholics celebrate “Women’s Christmas” – where women rest from housework and cleaning and celebrate together with a special meal. Epiphany in Poland is marked by taking chalk – along with gold, incense and amber – to be blessed at Mass. Back at home, families will inscribe the first part of the year, followed by the letters, “K+M+B+” and then the last numbers of the year on top of every door in the house.

The letters, Bunson explained, stand for the names traditionally given to the wise men – Casper, Melchior and Balthazar – as well as for the Latin phrase “Christus mansionem benedicat,” or, “Christ, bless this house.”

In nearly every part of the world, Catholics celebrate Epiphany with a Kings Cake: a sweet cake that sometimes contains an object like a figurine or a lone nut. In some locations lucky recipient of this prize either gets special treatment for the day, or they must then hold a party at the close of the traditional Epiphany season on Feb. 2.

These celebrations, Bunson said, point to the family-centered nature of the feast day and of its original celebration with the Holy Family. The traditions also point to what is known – and what is still mysterious – about the Magi, who were the first gentiles to encounter Christ. While the Bible remains silent about the wise men’s actual names, as well as how many of them there were, we do know that they were clever, wealthy, and most importantly, brave.

“They were willing to take the risk in order to go searching for the truth, in what they discerned was a monumental event,” he said, adding that the Magi can still be a powerful example.

Lastly, Bunson pointed to the gifts the wise men brought – frankincense, myrrh and gold – as gifts that point not only to Christ’s divinity and his revelation to the Magi as the King of Kings, but also to his crucifixion. In giving herbs traditionally used for burial, these gifts, he said, bring a theological “shadow, a sense of anticipation of what is to come.”

Revelation of God

Fr. Hezekias Carnazzo explained to CNA the significance of the feast of the Theophany – and of Christ’s Baptism more broadly – within the Eastern Catholic churches.

“In our Christian understanding in the East, we are looking at creation through the eyes of God, not so much through the eyes of Man,” Fr. Carnazzo said.  

In the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, he continued, there is special divine significance.

With this feast day, the pastor explained, “God has come to reclaim us for himself.” Because of original sin, he continued, humanity has inherited “a human nature which has been dislocated from its source of life.”

Sin also effected parts of creation such as water have also been separated from their purpose and connection to God’s plan for life, Fr. Carrazzo said, because its original purpose is not just to sustain our bodies, but our souls as well.  

“With the fall, however, it has been dislocated from its source of life, it is under the dominion of death- it doesn’t have eternal life anymore. So God comes to take it to himself.”

“What Jesus did was to take our human nature and do with it what we could not do – which is, to walk it out of death, and that’s exactly what He did with His baptism.” As it is so linked to the destruction of death and reclaiming of life, the Feast of Theophany is also very closely linked to the Crucifixion – an attribute that is reflected in Eastern iconography of both events as well.

The feast of the Theophany celebrates not only Christ’s conquering of sin through baptism, but also God’s revelation of Christ as his Son and the beginning of Christ’s ministry. “The baptism of the Lord, just like the Nativity, is not just a historical event: it’s a revelation,” Fr. Carrazzo said.

To mark the day, Eastern Catholics begin celebrations with Divine Liturgy at the Church, which includes a blessing of the waters in the baptistry. After the water is blessed, the faithful drink the water, and bring bottles of water to bring back to their homes for use and not only physical but spiritual healing, he explained. Many parishes hold feasts after Liturgy is over. In many Middle Eastern cultures, people also fry and eat awamat – dough that is fried until it floats, and then is covered in honey.

During the Theophany season, priests also try to visit each home in the parish to bless the house with Holy Water that was blessed at Theophany. Fr. Carrazzo invited all Roman Catholics to come and become familiar, “to be part of a family” and join in celebrating Eastern Catholic traditions.

This article was originally published on CNA Jan. 6, 2017.

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Los Angeles, Calif., Jan 6, 2018 / 04:08 am (ACI Prensa).- Shortly before midnight on New Year’s Eve, Fr. Gergorio Hidalgo went to a hospital to give Communion to a patient. But a “mistake” in room numbers allowed him to administer th… […]

Chicago, Ill., Jan 5, 2018 / 06:45 pm (CNA).- Record-breaking cold temperatures and snowfall in the eastern United States this week have delayed flights, cancelled school, and closed workplaces.

For some Americans, however, severely cold weather is mo… […]

Baltimore, Md., Jan 5, 2018 / 04:56 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An appellate court struck down a Baltimore city ordinance Friday, ruling that the city’s pro-life pregnancy centers would not be forced to display in their waiting areas information relating to abortion services.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ Jan. 5 decision, a victory for Baltimore’s pregnancy centers, was a unanimous 3-0.

Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns, Inc., a pro-life pregnancy center in Baltimore, along with the Archdiocese of Baltimore and St. Brigid’s Roman Catholic Congregation, Inc., sued the city of Baltimore in March 2010 after a city ordinance was passed the previous year which required it and other organizations promoting alternatives to abortion to post signs in their waiting room saying that they do not perform abortions and will not refer patients out for an abortion.

The ordinance only applied to “limited-service pregnancy center(s)” that do not provide abortion or birth control.

Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns said that they should not be forced to post this information as it ran contrary to the center’s mission. The center operates in space owned by a Catholic church, and provides pregnant women with counseling, sonograms, pregnancy tests, prenatal vitamins, diapers, and other needs completely free of charge.

The mayor of Baltimore and the City Council were joined in the suit by a variety of pro-abortion groups, including NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood of Maryland, and the Maryland Abortion Fund. The city argued that the ordinance was lawful due to the center’s “deceptive advertising” and the various health risks from delaying an abortion.

Previously, the center had run advertisements on Baltimore busses about its free pregnancy tests, counseling, and alternatives to abortion, but did not mention that it is a center religiously opposed to abortion.

In October 2016 the district court ruled in favor of Greater Baltimore Center for Pregnancy Concerns, Inc., but the ruling was appealed and sent to the 4th Circuit.

In the appellate court’s opinion, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson said that the City of Baltimore could not provide a single example of someone who entered the Greater Baltimore Center thinking that she could obtain an abortion or abortion referral, and that the center had a history of “affirmative advocacy of abortion alternatives.”

Wilkinson said the city ordinance was “neither viewpoint nor content neutral,” as it was aimed specifically at clinics that do not provide abortion services.

“We do not begrudge the City its viewpoint. But neither may the City disfavor only those who disagree,” wrote Wilkinson.

On the city’s defense of the ordinance combating “deceptive advertising,” he also said the ordinance was “overinclusive” as it applied to all pro-life pregnancy centers, regardless if they do any sort of advertising whatsoever.

Wilkinson wrote that it was the “compelled speech” mandated by the signage that violated the First Amendment, and that while the City of Baltimore may view abortion as acceptable, the Greater Baltimore Center did not, and that it indeed is “antithetical” to its mission to do so.

“At bottom, the disclaimer portrays abortion as one among a menu of morally equivalent choices,” said Wilkinson. “While that may be the City’s view, it is not the Center’s. The message conveyed is antithetical to the very moral, religious, and ideological reasons the Center exists. Its avowed mission is to “provid[e] alternatives to abortion.”

This, said Wilkinson, is where the City of Baltimore violated the First Amendment.

“But, at least in this case […], it is not too much to ask that they lay down the arms of compelled speech and wield only the tools of persuasion. The First Amendment requires it.”

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