Miami, Fla., Jan 30, 2018 / 12:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The future of tens of thousands of Haitian migrants is unclear, after the Trump administration decided not to extend legal protections for them.
While the National Association for the Advanc… […]
Vatican City, Jan 30, 2018 / 07:25 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After recently affirming his support for a Chilean bishop accused of covering up sexual abuse, Pope Francis has named a delegate to examine information that, the Vatican said, has since been brought forward.
According to a Jan. 30 Vatican statement, “following some information recently received regarding the case of Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid,” the Pope has asked Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna of Malta to travel to Santiago “to listen to those who have expressed the desire to submit items in their possession.”
In addition to overseeing the Diocese of Malta, Scicluna in 2015 was named by the Pope to oversee the doctrinal team charged with handling appeals filed by clergy accused of abuse in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Scicluna served as the congregation’s Promoter of Justice for 17 years, beginning in 1995. He is widely regarded for his expertise in the canonical norms governing allegations of sexual abuse.
The Pope’s decision to send Scicluna to Santiago follows comes after fresh controversy on the appointment arose during Pope Francis’ Jan. 15-18 visit to Chile.
Francis named Barros as head of the Osorno diocese in Chile in 2015. The move continues to draw harsh criticism from activists and abuse victims who accuse the bishop of covering up the crimes of his longtime friend, Father Fernando Karadima.
Karadima, who once led a lay movement from his parish in El Bosque, was convicted of sexually abusing minors in a 2011 Vatican trial, and at the age of 84, he was sentenced to a life of prayer and solitude.
Barros has repeatedly insisted that he knew nothing of the abuse, and Pope Francis has backed him, naming him head of the Diocese of Osorno in southern Chile in 2015.
The decision set off a wave of objections and calls for his resignation from several priests. Dozens of protesters, including non-Catholics, attempted to disrupt his March 21, 2015 installation Mass at the Osorno cathedral. However, Francis has insisted on keeping Barros in his post.
On his last day in Chile, before heading to Peru, the Pope responded to a Chilean journalist who asked about the Barros issue, saying “the day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, I’ll speak. There is not one shred of proof against him. It’s all calumny. Is that clear?”
The comment was met with uproar from Barros’ critics, several of whom are victims of Karadima’s abuse. It also prompted Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, one of the Pope’s nine cardinal advisors and head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, to release a statement saying the words were painful to victims.
When asked about it by reporters on his Jan. 21 flight back to Rome, Pope Francis apologized, saying “the word ‘proof’ was not the best in order to draw near to a suffering heart.”
He asked for forgiveness from victims he may have wounded, saying any unintentional harm he may have caused “horrified” him, especially after having met with victims in Chile and in other trips, such as his visit to Philadelphia in 2015.
“I know how much they suffer, to feel that the Pope says in their face ‘bring me a letter, proof,’ it’s a slap,” he said.
Francis also said he is aware that victims may not have brought evidence forward either because it is not available, or because they are perhaps frightened or ashamed.
He insisted that Barros’ case “was studied, it was re-studied, and there is no evidence…That is what I wanted to say. I have no evidence to condemn him. And if I condemn him without evidence or without moral certainty, I would commit the crime of a bad judge.”
“If a person comes and gives me evidence,” he said, “I am the first to listen to him. We should be just.”
Vatican City, Jan 30, 2018 / 07:17 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Tuesday the spokesperson for the Pope, Greg Burke, sent a statement asserting that Pope Francis is well-informed on the situation of the Catholic Church in China, and that it is “regretta… […]
Washington D.C., Jan 30, 2018 / 02:51 am (CNA).- A digital catechetical program for children as young as five aims to equip early learners with Thomistic principles that will help them understand and defend their faith as they grow.
“I think in … […]
Caracas, Venezuela, Jan 29, 2018 / 04:34 pm (ACI Prensa).- Archbishop Diego Padrón of Cumaná, former president of the Venezuelan bishops’ conference, denounced plans to advance presidential elections in the country by more than seven months.
“In any country in the world, democracy operates with clarity, with transparency. Instead, [this] is a midnight ambush,” the archbishop told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language sister agency, Jan 24.
The country’s National Constituent Assembly issued a decree on Jan. 23 to move up the elections that are usually held in December to no later than April 30, a measure that was “approved by acclamation” according to Delcy Rodriguez, the president of the assembly.
The Archbishop of Cumaná said that “as a Venezuelan, it is my opinion that moving up the date for elections has no legal basis.”
He added that the National Constituent Assembly “is very discredited because it is fraudulent in its origin and how it is run.”
Venezuela is currently in the midst of a severe economic crisis, with hyperinflation and chronic shortages of food and medicine.
The country’s socialist government is widely blamed for the crisis. Since 2003, price controls on some 160 products, including cooking oil, soap and flour, have meant that while the items are affordable, they fly off store shelves only to be resold on the black market at much higher rates. The International Monetary Fund has forecasted an inflation rate of 2,300 percent in Venezuela in 2018.
Socialist President Nicolas Maduro is due to run for re-election this year, as his term ends in 2019.
Last July, contested elections led to the formation of a National Constituent Assembly, which has superseded the authority of the National Assembly, Venezuela’s opposition-controlled legislature.
Mass protests against the Constituent Assembly were held, in which more than 120 people were killed by security forces.
Following the decree from the National Constituent Assembly, President Maduro asked the Board of Elections to set the closest day possible for voting, saying, “We’re going to get this over with as soon as possible.”
Maduro also said that the elections will be held with or without the opposition.
According to the BBC, it is unknown whether any opposition candidate will run since the main leaders, Henrique Capriles and Leopoldo Lopez, have been disqualified from running for office.
Capriles was banned from running for office for 15 years by the Comptroller General’s Office for alleged irregularities in the state of Miranda where he was governor, the Associated Press reported last April.
In September 2015, El Confidencial news reported that Lopez was sentenced to 14 years in military prison for allegedly inciting violence at an anti-government demonstration the previous year.
Moving up the date of the election has been rejected by the Venezuelan opposition and the “Lima Group,” a coalition which is comprised of representatives from 14 countries of the Americas.
Chilean Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz read a statement on the matter emphasizing that “this decision makes it impossible to hold democratic, transparent and credible presidential elections.”
The text of the statement was approved by delegates from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Santa Lucía.
“We demand that the presidential elections be held with enough time to properly prepare for participation by all Venezuelan political actors and with all the corresponding guarantees,” the text adds.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Washington D.C., Jan 29, 2018 / 04:30 pm (CNA).- A procedural vote on a Senate bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks failed on the evening of Jan. 29, after more than three hours of debate. The cloture motion, which would have prevented a filibuster on … […]
Vatican City, Jan 29, 2018 / 03:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A recent trip to Lithuania, taken by Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s “minister for foreign affairs”, has raised expectations for the possibility of a papal trip … […]
The Hong Kong cardinal is among the critics of a reported effort to normalize relations between the Catholic Church and China’s government. […]
Chicago, Ill., Jan 29, 2018 / 11:59 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Occasionally, the liturgical calendar has a curious intersection with secular holidays.
This year, Ash Wednesday—which begins the penitential season of Lent with a day of fasting, abs… […]
Vatican City, Jan 29, 2018 / 11:30 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a speech to the Roman Rota Monday, Pope Francis said there is a need to develop better means of forming the consciences of the faithful in the Church, especially those preparing for marriage and family life.
“How precious and urgent is the pastoral activity of the entire Church for the recovery, safeguarding and protection of Christian conscience, illuminated by Gospel values!” the Pope said Jan. 29.
This “long and difficult task” requires bishops and priests to work untiringly “to enlighten, defend and sustain the Christian conscience of our people,” the Pope said.
The Pope explained that conscience “assumes a decisive role” in choices that couples must make to “welcome and build their conjugal union and family according to God’s design.”
Pope Francis spoke during his annual audience with members of the Roman Rota, at the inauguration of the court’s judicial year. The Roman Rota is one of the three courts of the Holy See, the other two being the Apostolic Penitentiary and the Apostolic Signatura.
The Rota is the Vatican’s court of higher instance, usually at the appellate stage, charged by its governing document, Pastor bonus, with “safeguarding rights within the Church; it fosters unity of jurisprudence, and, by virtue of its own decisions, provides assistance to lower tribunals.”
Among the Rota’s primary responsibilities is to consider appeals in marriage nullity, or annulment, cases. The nullity process was streamlined by Pope Francis in December 2015, strengthening the role of local bishops and cutting the requirement that initial affirmative judgments be reviewed by a higher court.
In his speech, the Pope said the activity of the Rota is expressed “as a ministry of the ‘peace of consciousness’ and requires being exercised with the ‘whole conscience.’”
The Pope told Rotal auditors, or judges, that “you place yourselves, in a certain sense, as experts on the conscience of Christian faithful,” he said, adding that judges are constantly required to ask for divine help in order to “carry out with humility and measure the serious task entrusted to you by the Church.”
He said conscience was an important theme during the 2014-2015 Synod of Bishops on the Family and the 2015 post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
The synods, he said, placed a strong emphasis on the relationship between the “’regula fidei,’ (rule of faith), which is the fidelity of the Church to the untouchable teaching on marriage” and the Eucharist, as well as the “urgent attention of the Church itself to the psychological and religious processes of all people called to the choice of marriage and family.”
The synods and Amoris Laetitia also emphasized the “urgent need” for pastors of the Church to listen to the “requests and expectations of those faithful who have rendered their own consciences mute and absent for many years,” but who through grace have come back to the Church to “have peace in their conscience,” he said.
Francis then referred to the suggestions he gave in Amoris Laetitia for marriage preparation, which include a longer process, with the involvement of more couples.
Careful preparation and “a continuous experience of faith, hope and charity is needed now more than ever so that young people may decide, with a secure and serene conscience, that conjugal union open to the gift of children is a great joy for God, for the Church and for humanity,” he said.
While this task is primarily the concern of pastors, Francis stressed that the care of consciences “cannot be the exclusive commitment of pastors.” Rather, “with responsibility and in different ways, it is the mission of all, ministers and baptized faithful.”
Marriage and family, he said, “are the future of the Church and of society.” Because of this, he said it’s necessary to have a “permanent catechumenate” so that the consciences of those who have been baptized are constantly open to the Holy Spirit.
“The sacramental intention is never the fruit of an automatism, but always of a conscience illuminated by faith, as the result of a combination between human and divine,” he said, explaining that in this sense, “the spousal union can be said to be true only if the human intention of the spouses is oriented to what Christ and the Church want.”
In order to help future spouses, the Church needs the contribution of bishops and priests, and also of other people involved in pastoral care, such as religious and lay faithful “who are jointly responsible in the mission of the Church.”
Pope Francis closed his speech cautioning members of the Rota not to allow their work in the exercise of justice to be reduced “to a mere bureaucratic task.”
“If the ecclesial tribunals were to fall into this temptation, it would betray Christian conscience,” he said.
“We must prevent the conscience of the faithful in difficulty as regards their marriage from closing to the path of grace,” he said, adding that this can be accomplished through pastoral accompaniment, the discernment of conscience and the work of the Church’s tribunals.
“This work must be carried out in wisdom and in the search for the truth,” he said. “Only in this way can the declaration of nullity produce a liberation of consciences.”
© Catholic World Report