Vatican City, Jul 6, 2018 / 05:54 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis called on Catholics to speak out in the face of injustice towards migrants at a Mass commemorating the fifth anniversary of his trip to Lampedusa at St. Peter’s Basilica July 6.
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Vatican City, Jul 6, 2018 / 04:21 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, a seasoned Vatican diplomat who announced Pope Francis’ election to the world in 2013, died Thursday at a hospital in the United States.
According to Italian newspaper Vatican Insider, Tauran, who until his July 5 death served as president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, had traveled to Connecticut for treatment, staying with the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist in the Archdiocese of Hartford.
Despite a progressive decline in his health, Tauran made a lengthy and historic visit to Saudi Arabia in April to advance the Holy See’s relationship with Saudi authorities, and to reinforce dialogue between Christians and Muslims.
Born in Bordeaux, France in 1953, Tauran turned 75 April 3 and has a long track record of diplomatic service in the Vatican.
Ordained a priest in September 1969, the late cardinal held licentiate degrees in philosophy and theology, and he also held a degree in canon law.
After serving as parochial vicar for a period of time after his ordination, Tauran in 1975 entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See when he was named the Vatican’s ambassador to the Dominican Republic.
He was then sent as a papal envoy to Lebanon, and later represented the Holy See at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), participating in multiple conferences throughout the continent.
In 1988 he was named undersecretary for the then-Council for the Public Affairs of the Church – now known as the Section for Relations with States in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State – and in 1991 Pope John Paul II appointed him secretary of the dicastery and made him an archbishop.
In that role, which is equivalent to a Foreign Minister, Tauran led delegations from the Holy See to numerous international conferences.
The cardinal was appointed archivist and librarian for the Vatican in 2003, and in October of that year was given a red hat by Pope John Paul II.
In 2007, he was named by Pope Benedict XVI as president of the council for interreligious dialogue.
Benedict in 2011 named him “cardinal protodeacon,” a role usually given to a senior prelate who is then tasked with announcing the name of a new pope after his election. Tauran held this position when Francis was elected in March 2013, meaning it was his voice that carried the words “habemus papam” to the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims and locals awaiting the announcement in St. Peter’s Square.
After his election, Pope Francis established the Pontifical Referring Commission to the Institute of Religious Works (IOR), also called the “Vatican bank,” to study ways of reforming the institute, and named Tauran a member.
In December 2014 Francis named Tauran as Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, meaning he was the prelate tasked with keeping the Vatican running after the death of a pope.
Several diplomats, priests and fellow prelates have reacted to the cardinal’s death, taking to social media to praise him not only for his kindness and humor, but for his longstanding service to the Church.
In a July 6 tweet, British Ambassador to the Holy See Sally Axworthy said she was sad to hear about Taruan’s death, and said he had shown the embassy “great support” at an event organized in January.
“He was both an intellectual giant and a man of great warmth and humour, who worked tirelessly to build relations with the Muslim world. We will miss him greatly,” she said.
Eduard Habsburg, Hungarian ambassador to the Holy See, also showed his sympathy by retweeting a
“RIP” to Tauran saying he was “a great man of the Church.”
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Vatican Council for Culture, also tweeted a “RIP” for Tauran accompanied by one of the late cardinal’s quotes: “What is threatening us is not the clash of civilizations, but rather the clash of ignorance and radicalism. To know yourself is to recognize yourself.”
Fr. Manuel Dorantes, a Chicago priest and a strategic advisor to the Vatican dicastery for communications, tweeted out a prayer for the prelate, asking: “may the Lord embrace lovingly this kind and gentle man who served the Church so faithfully.”
Vatican City, Jul 6, 2018 / 03:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Carlo Acutis, who died of leukemia at the age of 15, offering his suffering for the pope and for the Church, was among four laypeople whose heroic virtues were recognized by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on Thursday.
Pope Francis authorized the congregation to promulgate the decree July 5, which advances Acutis’ cause and names him Venerable.
Acutis was born in London May 3, 1991, to Italian parents who soon returned to Milan. He was a pious child, attending daily Mass, frequently praying the rosary, and making weekly confessions.
Exceptionally gifted in working with computers, Acutis developed a website which catalogued Eucharistic miracles. This website was the genesis of The Eucharistic Miracles of the World, an international exhibition which highlights such occurrences.
Acutis died of leukemia in Monza, near Milan, Oct. 12, 2006.
Acutis stated that “To always be close to Jesus, that’s my life plan. I’m happy to die because I’ve lived my life without wasting even a minute of it doing things that wouldn’t have pleased God.”
He also said that “our aim has to be the infinite and not the finite. The Infinite is our homeland. We have always been expected in Heaven,” and he called the Eucharist “my highway to heaven.”
Abbot Michelangelo Tiribilli, the then-Abbot of the Territorial Abbey of Montel Oliveto Maggiore, wrote in the foreword to a biography of Acutis that “By looking at this adolescent as one of them and as someone who was captivated by the love of Christ, which enabled him to experience pure joy, [today’s adolescents] will be in contact with an experience of life that doesn’t take anything away from the richness of their teenage years, but which actually makes them more valuable.”
Dublin, Ireland, Jul 5, 2018 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- The Vatican official leading the Church’s office for laity, family, and life has said that priests do not have the credibility or experience to prepare couples for marriage. The official made simila… […]
Vatican City, Jul 5, 2018 / 11:50 am (CNA).- Most mayors do not live in unheated monastic cells, deliver candy from Orthodox patriarchs to the pope, or become ambassadors for international peace.
Giorgio La Pira was not like most mayors.
The cause fo… […]
Vatican City, Jul 5, 2018 / 04:35 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After the Vatican’s former communications head stepped down in the fallout of a major fake-news scandal, Pope Francis has tapped layman Paolo Ruffini for the job, pulling him from a post with the Italian bishops conference.
Ruffini, born in Palermo in 1956, has until now worked as the director of TV2000, the official television channel for the Italian bishops, and will be responsible for continuing the pope’s overhaul of Vatican communications.
He graduated with a law degree from Rome’s Sapienza University, and has been a professional journalist since 1979. He has been married for roughly 32 years and has worked for various publications, including “Il Mattino” of Naples; “Il Messaggero” in Rome; the radio and television sections for Italian broadcaster “Rai,” among others.
In addition to his hefty background in radio, print and television communications, Ruffini has also received several prizes for journalism and has participated in study conferences about the role Christians play in information, communications ethics and new media.
The July 5 announcement of Ruffini’s appointment comes after the recent decision by Pope Francis to change the Vatican’s communications office from a “secretariat” to a “dicastery,” the general word used for the Vatican’s various offices and departments, which was seen by some as a downgrade.
Ruffini will take over for Msgr. Lucio Ruiz, who has served as an interim leader for the communications office since March, when the former prefect, Msgr. Dario Vigano, stepped down following what has been dubbed the “Lettergate” scandal.
The fiasco took place after the March launch of the 11-book series “The Theology of Pope Francis,” published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the Vatican publishing house overseen by the Vatican’s communications department.
A letter from Benedict XVI praising Francis’ theological and philosophical formation was read aloud at the event, however, the secretariat later admitted to tampering with an image of the letter that was sent to media, blurring out lines in which Benedict said that he had not read the full series, and did not plan to do so, and therefore was not able to offer an in-depth analysis of the text.
Days later, it was revealed that further paragraphs had been left out in which Benedict questioned the inclusion in the series of a theologian known for his “anti-papal initiatives.”
After receiving pressure from the media, the secretariat published the full letter March 17, which they said was confidential and never intended to be published in its entirety.
Following Vigano’s resignation, Pope Francis named Ruiz, former secretary of the department, as an interim prefect, but asked Vigano to stay on in an advisory role, which he is expected to keep when Ruffini steps in.
In a recent interview with Reuters news agency, Pope Francis said he had initially offered the job as his communications chief to a woman, but she had declined due to previous commitments.
Vatican City, Jul 4, 2018 / 10:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Almost 50 years after the Church published the new Rite of Consecrated Virginity, the Vatican has issued an instruction on the state of life, its discipline, and the responsibilities of diocesan bi… […]
Vatican City, Jul 4, 2018 / 08:24 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Since 2014 international charity organization Aid to the Church in Need has spent some 40 million euros [$46.6 million] funding relief and reconstruction efforts in Iraq, with the majority of support going toward basic needs such as housing.
However, according to Thomas Heine-Geldem, executive president of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), now that the international community chipping in to rebuild Christian villages destroyed when ISIS took over the Nineveh Plains in 2014, the organization’s primary focus will shift from funding basic reconstruction to restoring religious structures such as churches and monasteries, many of which were desecrated and burned under ISIS rule.
With nations such as Hungary, which has long supported for reconstruction efforts in Iraq, and the United States offering financial help, ACN can take a step back and focus on their “pastoral vocation,” Heine-Geldem said, noting how ACN was founded as a means of providing both spiritual and material help to Christians who are persecuted or living in poverty.
The next stage in the rebuilding process in Iraq, then, will center “on the renovation of destroyed churches, there are many, destroyed seminaries and destroyed monasteries. That’s back to our original vocation,” Heine-Geldem said.
In June the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) pledged to give some $10 million to two aid organizations working in Iraq, one of which is Catholic Relief Services, and an additional $25 million will be given later to support “persecuted communities” in Iraq, specifically Christians returning to the Nineveh Plains and Yazidis in Sinjar.
So far, structures being built or restored as part of this “pastoral vocation” include a pastoral center in the village of Kirkuk; a church in each of the villages of Teleskuf, Qaraqosh and Bartella; three convents for Dominican sisters serving in Bartella and Qaraqosh; and the Holy Family orphanage in Qaraqosh.
Representatives from ACN will be making visits to both Iraq and Syria within the next few months to determine what the needs are and to discuss with local ecclesial leaders which structures should be taken up next.
Heine-Geldem was present alongside other ACN representatives, including Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, major penitentiary of the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary and president of ACN international, at the July 4 presentation of the organization’s annual activity report for 2017.
According to the numbers in the report, last year ACN spent the majority of funds on projects in mission territories, supporting some 5,357 projects in 149 countries. The rest went toward administrative costs, advertising and fundraising.
The organization, which has offices in 23 countries around the world, had around 368,000 benefactors in 2017, with a large portion of funding also coming from Catholics who donated in exchange for a Mass intention for themselves or a loved one.
In total, ACN gave around 84.6 million euro [$98.5 million] in 2017 to support their mission projects, most of which are in Africa, followed by Asia, Latin America, Eastern and Central Europe, and the Middle East.
In terms of where most of the money is spent, Africa again took the lead, followed by the Middle East, which Heine-Geldem said was the result of a concrete decision by ACN to provide “exceptional” support to the region to help Christians stay.
“If Christians are not helped to stay there, they will be forced to leave,” he said, adding that “if we don’t have Christians in the Middle East, there is no need to help the pastoral work.”
Most of ACN’s funding in Iraq is going toward their Nineveh Plains Reconstruction Project, and providing spiritual support through Masses, formation and catechesis, as well as food and transport.
The reconstruction project, Heine-Geldem said, has also helped bring different Christian rites in Iraq together and has allowed them to interact in a way that was not typical in the past.
“We have created a platform,” he said, noting that the committee for the project is composed of leaders from the Syriac Catholic Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Syrian Orthodox Church.
“This is very, very important, because in addition to all these struggles, these tragedies, all this ethnic and religious persecution, we have still found a lack of experience in cooperation among Christians in the Middle East,” he said, noting that the committee as a body evaluates the needs and decides which villages or churches to focus on next.
In Syria, which is second on the list of Middle Eastern aid recipients for ACN, most of the funding still comes in the form of basic humanitarian aid since the country is still at war.
“We still have war, we still have uncertainty, and people still need emergency help in order enable Christians there to remain or to entice them to return,” Heine-Geldem said, reiterating that the organization’s main priority is to help Christians stay in their home country.
“This is not a political statement about immigration, but it is our vocation to do that,” he said, explaining that from even from a geopolitical view, they don’t want the area to become “totally Christian free.”
“Christians are a good backbone of society,” he said, noting that many Muslims have told him Christians are needed in the Middle East, because they form the majority of the middle class, and are educated.
In terms of 2018, Heine-Geldem said Syria and Iraq will continue to be a priority, as will the religious freedom report ACN publishes annually, which will be released in November.
Additionally, India will also be a key focus, with particular attention for Catholics who are members of the “Dalit” class, which is the lowest in the caste and whose members are considered “untouchable” and less than human.
These people are “oppressed and neglected by the system,” and they also face increasing religious persecution from the amplified presence of Hindu extremists, Heine-Geldem said, noting that ACN recently launched a campaign to “open the eyes” of the world to what is happening on the ground.
“From what I’ve seen, they really deserve our help. It is a very serious situation.”
Vatican City, Jul 3, 2018 / 11:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his latest prayer video, Pope Francis asked Catholics to dedicate the month of July to giving a spiritual gift to their pastors by praying for them, especially the priests who are tired or lonely.
“The tiredness of priests…Do you know how often I think about it?”
This is the opening line of Pope Francis’ newest prayer video, published July 3 and dedicated to his intention for the month.
As the video flashes scenes of priests working in difficult situations, including war and disaster relief, Francis speaks in his native Spanish, saying, “priests, with their virtues and defects, work in many different areas.”
“Working on so many active fronts, they cannot remain inactive after a disappointment,” the pope said. And when these moments come along, it is good for a pastor to remember “that the people love their priests, need them, and trust in them.”
The video then displays scenes of priests administering the sacraments, visiting the sick, and speaking with parishioners.
After being given a flower by an elderly woman, the priest featured in the video puts it in a vase inside of his parish and prays as members of his congregation bring more flowers to add to the bouquet.
Francis closes the video asking Catholics to join him in praying “that priests, who experience fatigue and loneliness in their pastoral work, may find help and comfort in their intimacy with the Lord and in their friendship with their brother priests.”
Pope Francis has often spoken of the need for consecrated persons to care for their vocation both spiritually and temporally, especially when he is meeting with priests and religious during international trips.
His specific concern for priests who feel weary on the job goes back to the beginning of his pontificate, and is an issue he has brought up on multiple occasions.
In his homily for the chrism Mass during Holy Week in 2015, the pope spoke to priests directly about getting worn out, saying: “the tiredness of priests! Do you know how often I think about this weariness which all of you experience?”
“I think about it and I pray about it, often, especially when I am tired myself,” he said, and admitted that he prays for every priest and their ministry, especially those who serve “in lonely and dangerous places.”
The tiredness of a holy priest who gives his life in service, Francis said during the Mass, “is like incense which silently rises up to heaven. Our weariness goes straight to the heart of the Father.”
Francis’ prayer intention for priests is part of the monthly “Pope Video” initiative, which is a project of the Jesuit-run global prayer network Apostleship of Prayer.
The Apostleship of Prayer, which produces videos on the pope’s monthly prayer intentions, was founded by Jesuit seminarians in France in 1884 to encourage Christians to serve God and others through prayer, particularly for the needs of the Church.
Since the late 1800s, the organization has received a monthly, universal intention from the pope. In 1929, an additional, missionary intention was added.
However, as of last year, rather than including a missionary intention, Pope Francis opted to have only one prepared prayer intention – the universal intention featured in the prayer video – and will add a second intention for an urgent or immediate need should one arise.
The videos are filmed in collaboration with the Vatican Television Center and mark the first time the Roman Pontiff’s monthly prayer intentions have been featured on video.
Vatican City, Jul 3, 2018 / 10:20 am (CNA/EWTN News).- For two cardinals helping to organize Pope Francis’ upcoming trip to Bari, the event is a chance to highlight not only the historic religious presence of Christianity in the Middle East, but also the social contribution the various rites and churches bring to the region.
“Christians are an essential element of balance” for the Middle East “not only for religious reasons, but also for political and social reasons,” Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said July 3.
Quoting Benedict XVI’s 2012 apostolic exhortation on the Church in the Middle East, Ecclesia in Medio Oriente, Koch said that “a Middle East without Christians, or with only a few Christians, would no longer be the Middle East, since Christians, together with other believers, are part of the distinctive identity of the region.”
However, he stressed that getting Christians to stay after having their lives uprooted and, in many cases, torn apart, will only happen “if peace is re-established.”
This peace largely depends on the political climate, he said, adding that “this is why, since the beginning of the crisis, the Catholic Church has tirelessly called for the restoration of peace, above all through the search for a political solution.”
Koch spoke to the press alongside Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, at a briefing on Pope Francis’ July 7 trip to Bari for an ecumenical gathering aimed at promoting peace in the Middle East.
Located in the southern Italian region of Puglia, Bari is known as the “porta d’Oriente,” or the “Eastern Gate,” because of its connection to both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches through the relics of St. Nicholas.
The ecumenical gathering will include leaders of Eastern Catholic Churches and Orthodox Churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, as well as ecclesial communities.
Eastern Catholic Churches present will include the Coptic Catholic Church, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Maronite Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, and the Armenian Catholic Church.
Among the Eastern Orthodox participating are Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople and Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, who will attend on behalf of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill.
From the Oriental Orthodox Churches there are Tawadros II, Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria, as well as representatives of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Syriac Orthodox Church.
There will also be representatives from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, and from the Middle East Council of Churches.
Sandri said the gathering came about as the result of requests from several patriarchs and heads of Churches in the Middle East.
The trip, he said, is an illustration the pope’s attention to the Eastern Catholic community in the Middle East and the well-being of Orthodox Churches in the region, and his relationship with heads of Orthodox Churches, as well as his concern for the Muslim community and for regional minorities.
Bari, Sandri said, will be “an appeal to prayer,” but also an appeal for unity in prayer, which is the only thing that “can change hearts.”
But in addition to joint prayers, participants will also have a collective discussion, which will be opened by Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and which will take place behind closed doors.
Sandri said there is no plan to release a joint statement after the meeting, but that some highlights might be provided.
Koch stressed the importance of interreligious dialogue for the peace process in the Middle East, and urged greater protection for minorities in the law.
“The primacy of law, including respect for religious freedom and equality before the law, based on the principle of citizenship regardless of ethnic origin or religion, has been repeatedly emphasized by the Catholic Church as a fundamental principle for the realization and for the maintenance of a peaceful and fruitful coexistence among the various communities of the Middle East,” he said.
Dialogue, he said, quoting a letter from Pope Francis to Christians in the Middle East, “is all the more necessary when the situation is more difficult.”
“There is no other path. Dialogue based on an attitude of openness, in truth and in love, is also the best antidote for the temptation of religious fundamentalism, which is a threat for believers of all religions.”
© Catholic World Report