Month: April 2017

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This Chilean home offers hope for children with HIV

April 3, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Santiago, Chile, Apr 3, 2017 / 02:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Fighting the scourge of discrimination that often accompanies HIV, the Santa Clara Foundation in Santiago de Chile has worked since 1994 to ensure that children with the virus experience God’s love and have a better quality of life.

“When you see a child it’s very easy to see the face of Christ in him,” said Sister Nora Valencia of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Jesus, director of the home since 2008. “The child just by himself inspires a lot of tenderness, inspires you to protect him, to love him.”

It is a face “with hope, because we’re…working so that the children live, and live well,” she told CNA.

The children at the home suffer from HIV – or human immunodeficiency virus. Despite common misconceptions, not all people with HIV will go on to develop AIDS – or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, Sister Nora stressed.

Therefore, she clarified, it is incorrect to say that the children at their home have AIDS. “We are always making every effort so they don’t develop AIDS” and if they ever do develop it, that it remains under control.

While there is no cure for HIV, there are treatments that can help “make the lives of these children normal” and slow the progression of the disease, greatly increasing life expectancies, she explained.

The Santa Clara Home is currently caring for 60 families and has three levels of care. The internal system offers care for up to 17 children living at the facility. The intermediate system offers follow up care, as well as psychological and sociological evaluations, for children living at home. The external system offers workshops and food baskets for families who need them.

Thanks to a system of sponsors and volunteers, five legal adoptions of children with HIV have taken place since 2008.

Sister Nora said that working with these children, “your maternal instinct develops 200 percent” and “if the Lord sent him here, it’s so we first instill love and then all the rest.”

She hopes that the children “will be happy” and “tomorrow when they reach adulthood they won’t have to lie about their illness.” She further has hope that society may “accept them the way they are and give them the opportunity that at times wasn’t given to their parents. That no one be discriminated against because of ignorance.”

The Santa Clara Home obtained their own plot of land in Santiago after submitting a project to the Regional Government. They now must raise funds for the construction of a house designed for the children, since the place they are in currently is a former Franciscan convent from 1870 which will likely not withstand another earthquake like the one that occurred in 2010.

 

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Pope: Don’t dwell on suffering, let Jesus heal you

April 2, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Apr 2, 2017 / 04:42 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Sunday, Pope Francis said that each of us carries some kind of tomb inside our heart, whether from sin or suffering, and we can either stay bogged down in misery, focusing only on ourselves, or we can allow Jesus to come into that place and heal it. 

“In front of the big ‘why’ of life we have two paths,” the Pope said April 2, “to stay to watch gloomily the tombs of yesterday and of today, or to bring Jesus to our tombs.”

“Yes, because each of us has a small tomb, some area that is a little bit dead inside the heart: a wound, an injury suffered or done (to us), a bitterness that does not let up, remorse that returns, a sin that you cannot overcome.”

“We identify these today, our little tombs we have inside and invite Jesus there,” he said.

Francis presided over Mass Sunday in the northern Italian town of Carpi, where he was making a day trip.

Often, the Pope said, we can be tempted to hide our weaknesses and sins from God, dwelling on them. “It’s strange, but often we prefer to be alone in the dark caves that we have inside,” he said.

“Instead, invite Jesus; we are tempted to always look to ourselves, brooding and sinking in anguish, licking our wounds, rather than going to him, who says, ‘Come to me you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.’”

Pope Francis reflected on the day’s Gospel which tells the story of Lazarus’ death, the sorrow of Jesus, and the miracle of Lazarus’ raising.

“Even Jesus is shaken by the dramatic mystery of the loss of a loved one,” he said. But in the midst of this suffering, he also shows us how to act. “Despite suffering himself, Jesus was not carried away by anxiety.”

Jesus didn’t try to escape the suffering, but he also didn’t get bogged down in pessimism or gloom, Francis said. Instead, he brings hope, proclaiming: “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believes in me, though he die, shall live.”

“So he says: ‘Take away the stone’ and to Lazarus shouts loudly: ‘Come out!’” This is what Jesus also says to us: “Get up, get up!” the Pope said.

“In following Jesus we learn not to tie our lives close to the problems that tangle: there will always be problems always, and, when we solve one, promptly another one arrives,” he pointed out.

What we can do, however, is tie ourselves to the one thing that is stable and unchanging – Jesus, he continued. “With him joy dwells in the heart, hope is reborn, pain is transformed into peace, fear into confidence, proof of the gift of love.”

We have to decide which path to take, he said: “the side of the tomb or the side of Jesus.” It doesn’t matter how heavy our past sins, shame or hurt may be, with Christ’s grace, we can roll away the stone that is keeping him from our hearts.

“This is a favorable time to remove our sin, our attachment to worldly vanity, the pride that stops us the soul,” he said.

“Visited and freed by Jesus, we ask for the grace to be witnesses of life in this world that is thirsty, witnesses that arouse and raise the hope of God in hearts weary and weighed down by sadness.”

He concluded: “Our announcement is the joy of the living Lord, who still says, as in Ezekiel: ‘Behold, I will open your graves, I will make you get up out of your graves, O my people.’”

Immediately following Mass, Pope Francis led pilgrims in the Angelus, praying for people in the region of Kasai in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he said there continue to be reports of deadly armed clashes.

The violence has also caused displacement and affected people and property, he said, including causing damage to schools, hospitals and churches.

“I assure you of my closeness to this nation and urge you all to pray for peace so that the hearts of the architects of such crimes do not remain slaves of hatred and violence, which always…destroys.”

The Pope also said he is following what is happening in the countries of Venezuela and Paraguay. “I pray for those people, so dear to me, and I urge everyone to persevere tirelessly, avoiding any violence and in the search for political solutions.”

Francis concluded by thanking everyone for being there at Mass, especially the sick and the suffering who were present, as well as those who helped with the Mass. He also blessed four stones which will be used to form cornerstones of four new diocesan buildings being erected.

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Pope Francis says Catholic shrines are a key place for evangelization

April 2, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Apr 2, 2017 / 01:24 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Saturday, Pope Francis moved the responsibility for Catholic shrines to be under the Congregation for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, stating that shrines, as sacred places, are especially suitable to conversion and the strengthening of faith.

April 1 the Pope issued the edict – called a motu proprio – formally moving the competency of shrines from the Congregation for Clergy to the Vatican department on the New Evangelization.

“The large influx of pilgrims, the humble and simple prayer of God’s people alternating in the liturgical celebrations, the fulfillment of so many graces that many believers certify that they have received and the natural beauty of these places allow you to see how the shrines…express an irreplaceable opportunity for evangelization in our time,” Francis states in the letter.

According to the document, titled “Ecclesia in Sanctuarium,” the tasks of the congregation will include: the establishment of new national and international shrines, studying and implementing measures for promoting their role in evangelization, and promoting systematic pastoral care of the shrines and specific training for those who operate them.

They will also be in charge of the promotion of national and international meetings to promote communal pastoral renewal and pilgrimages to various shrines, spiritual guidance for pilgrims, and “cultural and artistic enhancement of the Shrines according to the via pulchritudinis (way of beauty) as a particular mode of evangelization of the Church,” Pope Francis said.

Shrines and other places of pilgrimage “despite the crisis of faith that invests the contemporary world, are still perceived as sacred spaces to which pilgrims go to find a moment of rest, silence and contemplation in the often hectic life of today,” the letter continues.

“A hidden desire creates for many a nostalgia for God; and shrines can be a real refuge to rediscover themselves and regain the necessary strength for their conversion.”

People have made pilgrimages to holy sites since the first century, the Pope said, and even today, in every part of the world, they remain “a distinctive sign of the simple and humble faith of believers.”

The shrine is a “sacred place,” where the celebration of the sacraments, especially Reconciliation and the Eucharist, as well as the witness of charity, “express the great commitment of the Church for evangelization; and therefore it stands as a genuine place of evangelization…” he stated.

The proclamation, which was signed by Pope Francis on Feb. 11, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, goes into effect 15 days from its publication.

Also April 1, the Vatican announced the Pope’s appointment of 11 new members to the Congregation for Clergy, including Fr. Hans Zollner SJ, who heads the Center for Child Protection (CCP) at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is also a member of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

Francis’ appointment of Fr. Zollner to the Congregation for Clergy reinforces his strong commitment to fight abuse, especially at the level of priestly formation.

The other nominations to the department include seven priests, one archbishop and two lay professors.

Their names are: Archbishop Erio Castellucci, Arcchbishop of Modena-Nonantola; Fr. Maurice Monier, Pro-Dean of the Roman Rota; Msgr. Vito Angelo Todisco, Prelate Auditor of the Roman Rota; Fr. Bruno Esposito, O.P., professor at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas; Fr. George Augustin, S.A.C., dogmatic theologian; Fr. Ennio Apeciti, Rector of the Pontifical Lombard Seminary; Fr. Janusz Kowal, S.I., professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University; Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik, S.I., consultor of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization; Professor Luigi Janiri, specializing in psychiatry and psychopathology at the University of the Sacred Heart; Professor Paolo Papanti-Pelletier, judge of the Court of Vatican City State.

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In Europe, Catholics and feminists unite against surrogacy

April 1, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Rome, Italy, Apr 1, 2017 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Reproductive issues often leave Catholics and secular feminists at odds, but a recent anti-surrogacy conference in Rome has created an unusual camaraderie between the two.

“Se Non Ora Quando,” a feminist group known for its left-wing views, called surrogacy “incompatible with human rights and with the dignity of women,” according to the Atlantic.

The conference met last Thursday at a lower House of Parliament in Rome. Women intellectuals, doctors, and scholars from all over the world, pleaded with the United Nations to ban European citizens from traveling abroad to procure surrogate mothers.

Surrogacy is when a woman carries a baby to term for a third party, often involving payment. The pregnancy is achieved by in-vitro fertilization, in which an egg is fertilized in a lab then placed into the woman’s womb.

While the practice is legal in Canada and most of the United States, regulations vary depending on the state. Surrogacy is banned, however, in almost all of Western Europe, including France, Spain, Sweden, Germany, and Italy. Some countries, such as England, do not enforce surrogate contracts and women are not required by law to give up the baby they bore for a third party.

The Catholic Church opposed surrogacy in Donum Vitae, a document on biomedical issues written in 1987.

“Surrogate motherhood represents an objective failure to meet the obligations of maternal love,” the document reads. It further called the practice a “detriment” to the family and the dignity of the person by divorcing “physical, psychological and moral elements which constitute those families.”

In recent years, left-wing feminists have actively opposed surrogacy in countries like Spain and France, claiming it as an attack against women’s dignity, especially as an injustice to the poor. They have compared surrogacy to prostitution, and the expressed their concern for its promotion of human trafficking.  

“The state of necessity of women who turn to renting their womb, for a price, is not unlike sexual exploitation,” said the Spain-based Feminist Party, who protested a local surrogacy fair in 2016.

The United Nations’ parliament condemned surrogacy in 2015, labeling it as a practice which “undermines the human dignity of the woman since her body and its reproductive functions are used as a commodity.” World leaders have also identified a high of surrogate mothers are poor women in third world countries.

Sheela Saravanan gave her testimony to the “Se Non Ora Quando” conference last week, detailing the struggle women are faced with in India.

“Our surrogate mothers are stressed physically and mentally even if they receive money,” and they experience “poverty, illiteracy, submissiveness,” Saravanan said, according to the Italian bishops’ newspaper Avvenire.  

She also explained that these “mothers who do not claim rights” are subject to abortions if the baby is disabled.

Many feminists have expressed concern that surrogacy not only coerces impoverished women, but has unhealthy side effects. The psychologist Fabio Castriota, told the conference that birth and motherhood are inseparable, and that a “separation trauma” leaves an impression on both the baby and the woman.

“Se Non Ora Quando,” means “If not now, when?” The group emerged in response to what they view as the sexist treatment of women in the media. They are especially known for organizing the 2011 rally against then-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who faced accusations of sleeping with an underage woman.

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