Month: July 2018

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News Briefs

LGBT ‘action plan’ should focus on virtue and chastity, author says

July 3, 2018 CNA Daily News 3

London, England, Jul 3, 2018 / 05:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As the UK plans to ban conversion therapy as a result of a government-sponsored survey of LGBT people, a Catholic author who identifies as having same-sex attraction said families should maintain the right to pursue pastoral responses framed by Church teaching.

In July 2017, the British government of Conservative prime minister Theresa May launched a survey to gather information about the experiences of LBGT people in the UK.

More than 108,000 people participated, and as a result the government issued a 75-point LBGT Action Plan to improve the lives of LGBT people. Through March 2020, GBP 4.5 million ($5.9 million) will be allocated to implement the plan, and additional funding will be sought for future years.

The plan would introduce an official LGBT health adviser, fight discrimination, promote diversity in educational institutions, and improve responses to LGBT-based hate crime.

The government will “consider all legislative and non-legislative options to prohibit promoting, offering or conducting conversion therapy.”

Penny Mordaunt, Minister for Women and Equalities, told BBC Radio 4 July 3 that it is a “very extreme so-called therapy that is there to try and ‘cure’ someone from being gay.”

“That’s very different from psychological services and counselling. It’s pretty unpleasant, some of the results we found, and it shows that there’s more action to do.”

Daniel Mattson, author of Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay, told CNA that “This is having the state step in and interfere in the rights of parents and children to determine their own choice of action in the name of supposedly protecting people from harm.”

“We as Catholics, we have to defend the rights of our families and young people to find the sort of therapy that is going to help them in accordance with the Church’s teaching.”

Mattson is familiar with some of the dangers in trying to change the sexual orientation of an individual. He said there have been “extreme measures” in therapy which exasperate mental health.

“I think there has been some damage in the name of trying to ‘change someone’s sexual orientation,’” he said. “There are some people who say if you have enough faith and you can pray and these thing would be resolved. Well, that’s not healthy and that’s not helpful and it leads to false promises.”

Mattson said the goal of conversion therapy should not be to change a person’s sexual orientation. Rather, he said a proper therapeutic response should be based in chastity and virtue, leading someone to embrace a natural and virtuous view of the person.

“I think what is very helpful is virtue based therapy, chastity based therapy, guided by Catholic anthropology, where a young person comes in to try and help them with their God given identity,” he said. “It would help someone accept their true sexual nature as revealed to them in their body.”

A part of the problem, Mattson said, is that the homosexual debate is split into a false dichotomy: “either affirming someone in this gay identity or else [engaging] in sexual orientation change efforts.”

In response, Catholics should better define homosexuality and conversion therapies, he said, noting that the presence or absence of same-sex attractions should not be the focus, but rather to embrace the whole truth of the human person as seen by the Church.

“This is a question where parents want their son or daughter to know what it means to be fully comfortable in their own sexual identity as a man or women,” he said.

“What the Church is doing is calling men and women and teenagers to live out the Church’s teaching on chastity and the virtues, and our young people need to have the right to be able to have therapy that might help them with that.”

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Judge Amy Barrett criticized for charismatic affiliation- Who are the People of Praise?

July 3, 2018 CNA Daily News 3

Washington D.C., Jul 3, 2018 / 04:45 pm (CNA).- Since the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, reports have circulated that Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a federal judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, is a leading candidate for the country’s high court.

Barrett, a Catholic, was appointed a federal judge in 2017. During and after her confirmation process, questions were raised about her faith, and about her affiliation with a group called the “People of Praise,” a charismatic “covenant community.”

People of Praise has been referred to in the media as a “cult,” criticized for leaders called “heads” and “handmaidens” and for its widely noted “loyalty oaths.”

But what is the “People of Praise?” Is it a cult? CNA spoke with current and former members to find out.

Bishop Peter Smith is a member of the Brotherhood of the People of Praise, an association of priests connected to the group, founded with the support of the late Cardinal Francis George of Chicago. Smith was ordained a bishop on April 29, 2014.

People of Praise was founded in 1971 as part of the “great emergence of lay ministries and lay movements in the Catholic Church,” Smith told CNA.

The group began with 29 members who formed a “covenant”- an agreement, not an oath, to follow common principles, to give five percent of annual income to the group, and to meet regularly for spiritual, social, and service projects.

Covenant communities- Protestant and Catholic- emerged across the country in the 1970s, as a part of the Charismatic Renewal movement in American Christianity.

While most People of Praise members are Catholic, the group is officially ecumenical; people from a variety of Christian denominations can join. Members of the group are free to attend the church of their choosing, including different Catholic parishes, Smith explained.

“We’re a lay movement in the Church,” Smith explained. “There are plenty of these. We continue to try and live out life and our calling as Catholics, as baptized Christians, in this particular way, as other people do in other callings or ways that God may lead them into the Church.”

Cardinal George, who was widely reputed among bishops for orthodoxy, wrote of the group: “In my acquaintance with the People of Praise, I have found men and women dedicated to God and eager to seek and do His divine will. They are shaped by love of Holy Scripture, prayer and community; and the Church’s mission is richer for their presence.”

The group was tapped to assist with the formation of deacons in at least one diocese, and several members have been ordained deacons.

While Barrett is known for her judicial conservatism, particularly on life issues, the group is not partisan. A person’s political viewpoints do not play a role in membership, Smith told CNA.

“I know for a fact there are both registered Republicans and Democrats as well as independents in the People of Praise,” said Smith.

There are an estimated 2,000 adult members of People of Praise. The organization has priest members in two dioceses, and operates three schools in the United States.

Barrett’s Catholic faith came under scrutiny in 2017, when she was nominated for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. During a confirmation hearing, she was asked by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) if she was an “orthodox Catholic” who believed in the Church’s teachings. Feinstein also said that “the dogma lives loudly” in Barrett- that phrase has become which a rallying cry of sorts among many Catholics. #DogmaLivesLoudly has even become a popular hashtag.

People of Praise has faced criticism, and some former members allege that leaders have exerted undue influence over family decision-making, or pressured the children of members to commit to the group before being able to make that decisions with maturity.

One critic, philosopher Adrian Reimers, has written that the group has made “serious errors” in its theological approach.

Despite the criticisms it has faced, a former member of People of Praise told CNA that “the rank and file People of Praise members are very, very good people, wholeheartedly dedicated to the Lord,” he said.

Bishop Smith rejected the idea that there is anything out of the ordinary or inappropriate about People of Praise. If affiliation with the group were something to be concerned about, he said, he would not have been made a bishop.

“When one becomes a bishop, they check your background out very, very closely,” Smith said. “My People of Praise affiliation was very clear in my consideration for appointment as bishop, so the Holy Father Pope Francis appointed me bishop, knowing full well my involvement with People of Praise.”

“If this was a nefarious group, I certainly wouldn’t be part of it, and I certainly wouldn’t be in the position that I’m in as well.”

While Barrett is reportedly a member of the group, People of Praise does not official disclose information about individual members, and declined CNA’s request for comment. And while women in the group’s leadership were previously referred to as “handmaidens,” the terminology has since shifted and these women are now called “women leaders.”

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Cardinal Brenes: Peace in Nicaragua will come through dialogue, early elections

July 3, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

Rome, Italy, Jul 3, 2018 / 03:07 pm (ACI Prensa).- Cardinal Leopoldo José Brenes Solorzano of Managua believes the two month-long open conflict in Nicaragua will come to an end through genuine dialogue and by listening to the voice of the people, many of whom are calling for early elections.

Protests against president Daniel Ortega have resulted in 309 deaths, according to the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights. The country’s bishops have mediated on-again, off-again peace talks between the government and opposition groups.

Protests began April 18 after Ortega announced social security and pension reforms. The changes were soon abandoned in the face of widespread, vocal opposition, but protests only intensified after more than 40 protestors were killed by security forces initially.

The Church in Nicaragua was quick to acknowledge the protestors’ complaints. Barricades and roadblocks are now found throughout the country, and clashes frequently turn lethal. Bishops and priests across Nicaragua have worked to separate protesters and security forces, and have been threatened and shot.

While in Rome to brief Pope Francis on the situation in Nicaragua and to participate in the June 28 consistory, Cardinal Brenes spoke to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language sister agency, describing the
state of affairs as “very painful.”

“We bishops have said ‘not one more death’, but nevertheless they continue. The prophetic voice of the bishops on many occasions has not been listened to, but we will go on insisting. One death, two deaths, three deaths and already there are more than 300 deaths. I have always said that behind the death of every Nicarguan, the pain affects many more,” he said.

“One day I read a banner that a mother was carrying during a demonstration. It said, ‘giving birth to a child is painful, but losing a child is much more painful.’ When a mother gives birth, she suffers at that time, but when the child is born she is filled with joy. However, when that mother loses a child, especially when he is murdered, that sad expression on her face lasts a lifetime. And it just doesn’t hurt her, but also the siblings, and if he is married, his wife, his children; but it also goes beyond the families, because it affects neighbors and friends.”

The cardinal described the bishops’ relationship with Ortega’s government as “one of pastors with president to whom we have said we are not enemies, and we don’t want them to see us as enemies.”

“As pastors we are supporting a common cause. As pastors we don’t want to form a political party; no one aspires to be president of the country or have a position in the government. We agreed to be part of the national dialogue as mediators and witnesses, and if tomorrow this gets resolved, we’ll be happy.”

The Church’s mediation of dialogue between the government and the opposition is “a service which we want to offer for the governability and democratization of our country,” he said.

Cardinal Brenes added that “we have felt the confidence of the people in the bishops’ conference” and  noted, “there’s no bishop in particular who is setting the guidelines. Perhaps at some point they will want to make some bishop stand out, but in reality it’s the entire bishops’ conference. What’s important is to see a bishops’ conference that is very united.”

The cardinal believes the resolution of the conflict is going to take  “both the civic alliance and the delegates from the government  learning to dialogue, because with shouts, complaints, and insults, nothing gets done.”

“We have now entered into that process, but the first few days were really intense, and we had to call for a truce, and say: ‘let’s think this through.’  But then they began to talk again.”

“We are organizing small working groups, in which there are usually six members from the government and another six from the alliance, and in another working group three and three, with their respective advisers, and a coordinator who represents us bishops,” Cardinal Brenes said, explaining the current configuration of the talks.

“The primary thing is to begin to learn how to speak and to have as a common goal the good of the country leading to its democratization. The people are calling for early elections and we as a bishops’ conference have taken up that sentiment of the people and have presented the project, that route to take, to the president of the government. Everything is in his hands,” he stated.

The Church in Nicaragua “is an institution the people trust,” he said, “and that is a challenge for us, because it means we are answerable to that trust.”

Cardinal Brenes emphasized the importance of well-formed youth, citing their role in standing up to Ortega’s government.

“This entire situation we’re going through broke out because of them, because it was from that social commitment which they have that they began the protests, which then spread throughout the country,” he explained.

“We also have a great challenge: How to form young people so that come tomorrow, we don’t fall back into the same errors of today. They are the ones who have in their hands the destiny of Nicaragua” and therefore it is important to ask ourselves “how to make a better Nicaragua.”

Anti-government protesters have been attacked by “combined forces” made up of regular police, riot police, paramilitaries, and pro-government vigilantes.

The Nicaraguan government has suggested that protestors are killing their own supporters so as to destabilize Ortega’s administration.

The pension reforms which triggered the unrest were modest, but protests quickly turned to Ortega’s authoritarian bent.

Ortega has been president of Nicaragua since 2007, and oversaw the abolition of presidential term limits in 2014.

He has shown resistance to calls for elections, which are not scheduled until 2021, to be held early.

Ortega was a leader in the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which had ousted the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and fought US-backed right-wing counterrevolutionaries during the 1980s. Ortega was also leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990.

 

 

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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News Briefs

Pope Francis asks Catholics to pray for their priests in July

July 3, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

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.

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Christians an ‘essential element of balance’ in the Middle East

July 3, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

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.”

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Pope Francis names three new auxiliary bishops for Chicago

July 3, 2018 CNA Daily News 2

Vatican City, Jul 3, 2018 / 04:51 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican announced Tuesday that Pope Francis has named three new auxiliary bishops for the Archdiocese of Chicago, appointing Fr. Ronald Hicks, Fr. Robert G. Casey and Fr. Mark Bartosic to the positions.

The July 3 announcement of the priests’ appointments coincided with the news that two of Chicago’s six current auxiliary bishops, George Rassas and Francis Kane, would be retiring. With Hicks, Casey and Bartosic, there will now be seven auxiliaries serving in the archdiocese.

Born in Chicago in 1967, Hicks has until now served as the archdiocese’s vicar general.

In 1985 he graduated from Quigley Seminary South, and obtained a bachelor’s degree in philosophy four years later from the University of Chicago. He also has a master of divinity degree and a doctor of ministry degree from the University of St. Mary of the the Lake in Mundelein.

Hicks was ordained a priest in 1994 for the Archdiocese of Chicago, after which he served in various pastoral roles throughout the diocese.

After a stint as dean of formation at St. Joseph College Seminary from 1999-2005, the bishop-elect received permission from his then-archbishop, the late Cardinal Francis George, to move to El Salvador, where he served a 5-year term as regional director of the Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos home for orphaned and abandoned children.

From 2010-2014 he served as dean of formation at Mundelein Seminary, while also helping with weekend Masses at St. Jerome Parish in Rogers Park. He was named vicar general for the archdiocese by the current archbishop, Cardinal Blase Cupich in 2015.

Casey, also a Chicago native, was born Sept. 23, 1967, and is currently serving as pastor of St. Bede the Venerable Church in Chicago.

After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in English from Niles College of Loyola University Chicago in 1989, Casey went on to pursue a master of divinity, which he received from the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein in 1994.

The bishop-elect was ordained a priest in 1994, after which he served as associate pastor of St. Ita parish in Edgewater until his 1998 appointment by Cardinal George as the part-time, associate director of Casa Jesus. In 1999, he was named the organization’s full-time director.

After a 40-day pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain in 2003, Casey began serving as pastor of Our Lady of Tepeyac in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago. In 2008, he co-founded the Taller de José ministry, which is sponsored by the Congregation of St. Joseph and provides accompaniment to those in need.

Casey then served in a number of other pastoral roles before being named to the Placement Board of the archdiocese, a role in which he helps assign priests to parishes.

The only non-Chicago native of the new appointments, Bartosic was born in Neehah, Wis., in 1961, and is currently serving as pastor of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Chicago and as director and chaplain of the Kolbe House, Cook County Jail.

Raised in Ashland, Ohio, Bartosic obtained a bachelor’s degree in theater from Ashland University in 1983, and went on to earn a both a master of divinity degree and a licentiate degree in sacred theology from the University of St. Mary of the Lake.

He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in 1994, and has served in several pastoral roles since, including his position as chaplain of the Kolbe House jail ministry.

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