Month: May 2017

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Don’t let Venezuelans fall into despair, Pope tells bishops

May 8, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, May 8, 2017 / 04:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In response to Venezuela’s violent riots, inflated prices, and political mistrust, Pope Francis urged the country’s bishops to continue promoting a culture of encounter.

“Dear brothers, I wish to encourage you to not allow the beloved children of Venezuela to allow themselves to be overcome by distrust or despair since these are evils that sink into the hearts of people when they do not see future prospects,” Pope Francis said in a May 5 letter to the bishops.

“I am persuaded that Venezuela’s serious problems can be solved if there is the desire to establish bridges, to dialogue seriously and to comply with the agreements that were reached.”

Riots have spiked in Venezuela in recent years, resulting from unemployment, food and medicine shortages, and President Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian policies.

Price controls in 2003 caused inflation rates to sky rocket on basic necessities, baring the access of food and medicines to the people. Poor socialist policies have effected an estimated 160 products, and while they remain affordable on the shelf, they are soon swept off and sold on the black market at a triple digit inflation rate.

Violent riots have fluctuated since the death of the previous president Hugo Chavez in 2013, but gained even more traction after opposition leaders were arrested last year and Maduro’s attempt for more power by dissolving the legislature in March of this year.

Archbishop Ubaldo Santana of Maracaibo spoke gravely on the situation in an interview with Alpha and Omega news weekly earlier this year, calling it a “bloodbath of considerable proportions” fueled by riots and criminally charged activities.

“We’re talking about 30,000 people murdered a year, and if we don’t manage to find peaceful ways to understand each other, that number can increase.”

In the letter, Pope Francis commended the pastors who have shared in the suffering of their flock.

“I also know that you, dear brothers, share the situation of your people, who along with the priests, consecrated women and men and the lay faithful are suffering for the lack of food and medicines, and that some have even endured personal attacks and acts of violent acts in your Churches.”

But hunger and lack of basic necessities has also fueled violence among the people and looting has notably increased. According to The New York Times, shopping carts full of food and other supplies were stripped from supermarkets and liquor stores during riots among poor and working class communities.

Opposition leaders have also struggled with the violent riots, trying to channel the political unrest into peaceful demonstrations, but even the peaceful protests have been greeted by rubber bullets and tear gas.

Archbishop Diego Padrón Sánchez of Cumaná, President of Venzeuala’s bishop conference, said the government “carried out violence with the various persecutions conducted against different opposition leaders” in response to peaceful protests late last year.

Venezuela is noted to be one of the most politically corrupt countries in Latin America, and anger recently arose after the Supreme Court’s attempted to strip legislative power from the National Assembly. The move was identified by the United States and the United Nations as a power grab by Maduro, whose supporters hold seats in most of the court.

However, despite the political unrest the bishops have continuously called for people to avoid “any form of violence, to respect the rights of citizens and to defend and promote human dignity and fundamental rights,” Pope Francis said.  

“I urge you to continue doing everything necessary so that this difficult path may be possible, convinced that the communion among you and your priests will give you the light to find the right path.”

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Satanic attack on relic of Christ found at Spain monastery

May 8, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Madrid, Spain, May 8, 2017 / 03:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Police are investigating a case of vandalism with satanic messages at a Spanish monastery, which took place on a reliquary containing a veil believed to have touched the face of Christ.

The damage was discovered the morning of May 7 at the Monastery of the Holy Face in Alicante when a priest found the number 666 and an upside down cross on the shatter-proof glass that protects the relic of the Holy Face.

Several more upside down crosses on the Stations of the Cross were also discovered.

According to tradition, the Holy Face is the veil with which Veronica wiped the face of Christ during the Passion. The monastery has served as a pilgrimage site the second Sunday after Holy Week since the year 536.

According to El Mundo, security cameras showed the perpetrator to be a young woman, who apparently hid herself inside the church the night of Saturday, May 6. The suspect has already been identified and the police authorities aim to arrest her in the coming hours.

The perpetrator attempted to break the glass that protects the relic with a pointed instrument and scratched the number 666 on it. She also stole a liturgical prayer book and another one where the liturgical acts of the monastery are recorded.

The bishop of the diocese, Jesús Murgui, along with the vicar general visited the monastery after the robbery and met with the community of nuns who keep the Holy Face, who were shocked by the incident. The diocese reported the incident to the police who are currently investigating.

In a statement, the diocese said that it is looking into “increasing or improving” the security measures at the monastery after the acts of vandalism.

The diocese also said that “we are praying to God, Our Lord, for whomever caused this damage” and asked the faithful of Alicante that “the deplorable circumstances not be to the detriment of the love and the devotion that we feel toward this age-old relic of the Holy Face.”

Sabotaje con signos satánicos en el monasterio de la Santa Faz https://t.co/otj7Rw3h7x

— INFORMACION.es (@informacion_es) May 8, 2017

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Pope to seminarians: Let Mary help you fall in love with Jesus

May 8, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, May 8, 2017 / 12:05 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis met with priests and seminarians from the Portuguese College in Rome, asking them to allow Mary to bring them closer to Christ – just like she did for the children at Fatima.

“The meeting with Our Lady was for (the shepherd children) a graceful experience that made them fall in love with Jesus,” he said Monday.

“I must wish the same to all of you, dear friends. Above every other goal that has brought you to Rome and keeps you here, there is always this: knowing and loving Christ – As the Apostle Paul would say – trying to conform more and more to him until a total gift of self.”

Pope Francis met with priests, seminarians and religious of the Pontifical Portuguese College of Rome at the Vatican May 8.

During the audience he referenced his imminent pilgrimage to Fatima, Portugal May 12-13 for the 100th anniversary of Our Lady’s appearance to three shepherd children, or “Pastorelli,” Francisco, Jacinta and Lucia.

In their meeting, Francis encouraged the Portuguese priests and seminarians to look to the example of the child visionaries, of which two, Francisco and Jacinta, will be canonized during his trip.

“Concretely you, dear priests, are called to progress, without tire, in your Christian, priestly, pastoral, and cultural formation,” he said.

“Whatever your academic specialty, your first concern always remains to grow on the path of priestly consecration, through the loving experience of God: a close and faithful God, as Blessed Francisco and Jacinta and the Servant of God Lucia felt him.”

In Mary, the children had a “tender and good teacher,” he continued, who introduces them to the “intimate knowledge of Trinitarian love and brings them to taste God as the most beautiful reality of human existence.”

“Today, contemplating their humble and yet glorious lives, we feel enticed to entrust us, too, to the praises of the same Master,” the Pope said.

Christ invites us to look for shelter under the mantle of Mary as well, who takes us by the hand like a mother, teaching us “to grow in the love of Christ and fraternal communion.”

Pope Francis said he was pleased to hear that since 1929, the chapel of the Portuguese College has had an image of Mary hanging near the altar.

“Look at her and let her look at him,” he said, “because she is your Mother and loves you so much. Let yourself be watched by her, to learn to be humble and even more brace in following the Word of God.”

It is a relationship with Our Lady that “helps us to have a good relationship with the Church,” he explained, because “both are Mothers.”

Through Mary, you can receive the embrace of Jesus, her son, he said, and having a strong friendship with Jesus, you can learn to love each person with the measure of the Heart of Christ.

He warned those present that to lack a relationship with Mary is to be like an orphan of the heart. For a priest to forget his Mother, especially in difficult times, is a very grave absence.

Concluding, Francis offered prayers for the community and their families, and asked Our Lady of Fatima to “teach us to believe, worship, hope and love like Blessed Francisco and Jacinta and Servant of God Lucia.”

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Enduring devotion: the Irish immigrant who never forgot Our Lady of Knock

May 7, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

New York City, N.Y., May 7, 2017 / 04:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- “I remember it as well as I do last night.” Those were the words of an aged Irish immigrant named John Curry in 1940s New York, who had seen the apparitions at Knock, Ireland when just a boy.

Now, his remains will be re-interred at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in New York City.

“Like most of the witnesses, John Curry went on to live out his life in a quiet way, never highlighting what he experienced in Knock, unless asked to speak about it,” Father Richard Gibbons, rector of Ireland’s Our Lady of Knock Shrine, told CNA. “This shows a quiet, humble kind of faith which was characteristic of the Irish people.”
 
“He served Mass everyday right up until before his death and had an unwavering devotion to Our Lady and said that she never refused him anything that he asked for,” the priest said.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York will celebrate an 11 a.m. Mass of Thanksgiving May 13, followed by Curry’s reburial on the church’s grounds in Manhattan.

The apparition took place on the evening of Aug. 21, 1879 in the presence of fifteen men, women, and children, mainly from the village of Knock in County Mayo. They ranged in age from 5 to 74 years old.

Some of the witnesses reported figures that appeared to be the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and St. John at the parish church’s gable wall. Amid luminous lights, they saw the figure of a lamb and a cross on an altar.

Curry’s older cousin, Patrick Hill, was at the vision too. He placed the young boy on his shoulders so he could see.

In the pouring rain, the witnesses stayed, praying the rosary.

When the Church launched an official inquiry in October 1879, young John Curry’s testimony was among the fifteen official witness testimonies. His first account is brief.

“The child says he saw images, beautiful images, the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph,” said the document, posted on the Knock shrine’s website. “He could state no more than that he saw the fine images and the light, and heard the people talk of them, and went upon the wall to see the nice things and the lights.”

Years later, in a 1936 letter to Fr. Dan Corcoran, who was then curate of Knock Parish, Curry said of the event: “I remember it as well as I do last night.”

Curry reaffirmed his testimony before a second Church inquiry held in New York in 1937. He described the figures:

“It appeared to me that they were alive, but they didn’t speak. One of the women there, Bridget Trench, kissed the Blessed Virgin’s feet and tried to put her arms around the feet but there was nothing there but the picture. I saw her do that. The figures were life-size and I will remember them till I go to my grave.”

Fr. Gibbons said the apparition took place at a troubled time for Ireland. Land reform efforts had provoked heated controversy and even violence, while scattered famines recalled the fearful times of Ireland’s Great Hunger.

This is the background of the traditional prayer: “Our Lady of Knock, Queen of Ireland, you gave hope to your people in a time of distress and comforted them in sorrow.”

“Our Lady of Knock was, and continues to be an icon of hope, forgiveness and compassion for all,” Fr. Gibbons said, calling the reburial “a wonderful opportunity” to recognize Curry.

“He, like many others at the time, was forced to emigrate in search of work and was unable to travel home again.”

Curry had emigrated to New York in 1897 at the age of 25, then was in London in 1900 before returning to the U.S. in 1911. He worked as railway laborer near Milwaukee, then moved to New York in the 1920s and worked an attendant at the City Hospital on what is now New York’s Roosevelt Island.

He never married.

When his health began to decline, he moved to live with the Little Sisters of the Poor on Long Island.

Not until shortly before the second inquiry began did he tell the sisters that he was one of the witnesses to the apparition at Knock.

Late in life, Curry would recount the stories of the apparition and of serving Mass for Archdeacon Bartholomew Cavanaugh, the parish priest of Knock. Just before the apparition began, the priest had completed a series one hundred Masses for the souls in Purgatory whom the Virgin Mary wished to be released.

Curry died in the care of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Manhattan in 1943, aged 69. He was buried in an unmarked grave at Pine Lawn Cemetery in Long Island. Curry’s cousin, Patrick Hill, passed away in Boston in 1927 at the age of 60.

The modern-day rector of the shrine, Fr. Gibbons, spoke about Curry’s unmarked grave to Cardinal Dolan when the cardinal led a 2015 pilgrimage to Knock.

Initially, he asked the cardinal to help bless the grave when a gravestone was provided.  The cardinal then offered to bring Curry’s remains to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. When this proved impossible, the grounds of the historic cathedral was chosen.

Fr. Gibbons said Knock is extremely grateful to the cardinal for his support and encouragement. In an unusual reversal, 130 pilgrims will be flying from Knock to New York City. Their numbers include some of Curry’s relatives.

Tom Beirne, a New York resident who is co-chairing the reburial committee, told CNA the reburial means that Curry “will finally get the recognition that he so greatly deserves at this point.”

He suggested that the reburial and focus on Our Lady of Knock would increase Marian devotion, combined with the centenary of the Marian apparition known as Our Lady of Fatima.

Beirne said Our Lady of Knock has continuing significance to Irish-Americans. He pointed to the St. Patrick’s Day Mass with Cardinal Dolan at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, when the singer Cathy Maguire sang “an amazing rendition” of  Dana Rosemary Scallon’s song “Our Lady of Knock”, which went viral on the internet.

Beirne said that St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral is “hugely significant” to the Irish community and the Irish-American Catholic fraternity the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which is assisting in the reburial.

“Archbishop John Hughes, ‘Dagger Hughes.’ called on the Ancient Order of Hibernians to physically defend St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral on a couple of occasions against the planned destruction by Nativists and the ‘Know Nothings’,” he said.

The group and its counterpart, the Ladies’ Ancient Order of Hibernians, host an annual pilgrimage to the Our Lady of Knock Shrine in East Durham, New York.

Today, Knock is the National Marian Shrine of Ireland and hosts the largest pilgrimage in the country. The shrine is surrounded by gardens with five churches.

“Pilgrims often comment on the great sense of peace that they experience here,” Fr. Gibbons said.

The National Novena to Our Lady of Knock takes place Aug. 14-22 every year, bringing guest speakers, workshops for pilgrims, and a candlelight rosary procession around the shrine grounds each evening.

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