“Unlike most military histories—which no matter how fascinating are ultimately academic—this [book] offers correctives; it sets the much discussed historical record between these two civilizations straight and, in so doing, demonstrates once and for all […]
London, England, Oct 24, 2018 / 06:00 pm (CNA).- Members of Parliament challenged the UK government to address sexual harassment of women by restricting sexualized media, especially pornography.
In a recent report, the House of Commons’ Women an… […]
New York City, N.Y., Oct 24, 2018 / 05:06 pm (CNA).- Musical inspiration can come from unexpected places – like a Franciscan friar’s struggle to learn Spanish.
The inspiration for the title and theme of “Poco a Poco,” a new CD from the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, came from a friar living in Honduras, who worked at a hospital that serves the poorest of the poor.
Although he was having a hard time learning Spanish, the friar wanted to encourage people as they waited to for medical attention – some of whom had walked for miles to receive care – so he memorized a simple but encouraging phrase in Spanish: “Somos peregrinos caminamos al Señor; poco a poco, vamos al llegar,” which translates to: “We are pilgrims walking to the Lord, little by little, we will arrive.”
“It was just this little way of like encouraging people…little by little, step by step, I can get through another day,” said another Franciscan, Fr. Mark-Mary, CFR, who heard the friar’s phrase for the first time when he was also living and working in Honduras.
“But it ends with this hope of ‘vamos a llegar’, we’re going to make it, our hope is in Christ and we do not hope in vain,” he told CNA.
Fr. Mark-Mary shared the phrase and story with friend and fellow friar Br. Isaiah, CFR, who found that it resonated with him so personally that he chose “Poco a Poco” for the title of his first full-length musical album.
“Every time I heard it I just lit up because there was something about it that just grabbed my heart” Br. Isaiah said in a video about the CD for Ascension Press.
“Little by little, there’s something about that that my heart just says ok yeah, I can handle that…its become a chorus for me when facing life’s difficulties,” he said. “It’s become a rallying phrase for whatever the moment calls for.”
The biblical theme of life as a pilgrimage journeying to the Lord, and with the Lord, is something that permeates the whole CD, Br. Isaiah said in email comments to CNA.
“The Book of Exodus recounts how God led Israel ‘little by little’ through the desert in their pilgrimage to the Promised Land and so He does with us,” he said.
“‘Poco a poco,’ God guides us along our journey, encouraging the heart to set out each day to a land it knows not, by paths it has not known, all with the promised accompaniment of an ever-present and unwearied Love, capable of carrying us beyond the familiar lands of our habits and capacities to frontiers of growth, transformation, and ever-deepening peace as we come to behold the God of love, in the face of Christ Jesus, whose peace (and love for us) ‘passes all understanding,’” he said.
The theme of life as pilgrimage also fits perfectly with the charism of the friars, as stated on their recently-received Pontifical Decree from Rome: “In imitation of St. Francis of Assisi, the friars seek to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, as a prophetic witness that life is a pilgrimage to the Father, of faith, hope and love of God and neighbor, made possible by the Holy Spirit.”
The album is the fruit of prayer and brotherhood, said Fr. Mark-Mary, who is the CD’s executive producer.
“There’s this really popular line from St. Irenaeus, that ‘the glory of God is man fully alive,’ but man fully alive is man in communion,” Fr. Mark-Mary said.
“There’s something about this album that’s the fruit of our Franciscan brotherhood, it’s not the fruit of Brother Isaiah being a superstar, it’s listening to one of our simple, older brother’s prayer and the way he’s speaking to the poor in Honduras, and then sharing that and putting my gifts at the service of Brother Isaiah, and Brother Isaiah receiving that gift,” he said.
“This (album) wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for our Franciscan brotherhood, which we take very seriously, we’re really proud of it,” he said.
Using music as a way to evangelize is deeply embedded in the Franciscan charism, Fr. Mark-Mary noted, and goes all the way back to St. Francis of Assisi, who had a talented musical friend and follower.
“So St. Francis would have him come and play in the market square and he’d get people’s attention, and then the musician would take a break and then they’d preach, so its very much a part of the Franciscan charism,” he said.
It’s also particularly a part of the CFR charism – one of the founding members of the order is the rapping Fr. Stan Fortuna (of ‘Everybody Got 2 Suffer’ fame), and many other musically talented brothers who have joined the order over the years.
The music adds, rather than detracts, from the friars’ primary mission of serving the poor and evangelizing, Fr. Mark-Mary noted.
“I thought it was really beautiful that on the night when (the CD) was released, Br. Isaiah came down to our homeless shelter in the Bronx, and he’s playing music and giving a word to the homeless in the shelter,” he said.
“There’s something beautiful about being able to do this but in a way that doesn’t take us away from our first call.”
Something else that Fr. Mark-Mary said he appreciated about being involved in the project was the opportunity to add something positive to the culture.
“I have a chance to lead the way again with some of the friars’ work with media evangelization,” he said.
“What it comes down to is that we’re in a battle for minds, and so…how can we be speaking goodness into the world? Because so much of the culture these days…its not morally neutral, a lot of the stuff out there, it’s really like poison.”
But it’s not enough to tell people “don’t watch this, don’t listen to that,” Fr. Mark-Mary noted, there has to be something else to take its place.
“The full work is saying – watch this instead, listen to this instead. So we’re trying to do that and finding that music is one way to get into people’s personal cultures, to get on their phones get in their car radios,” he said.
So far the album has been received very well, Fr. Mark-Mary said. It was at one point the fourth best-selling Christian album according to Amazon, and the number 23 best-selling album for all music on Amazon.
The album “Poco a Poco” is available on iTunes and Amazon, and CDs and merchandise can also be ordered through Ascension Press.
One of Fr. Mark-Mary’s favorite parts of the experience has been watching the comments that people have made on a music video for one of the tracks, “Struggler”, produced by Spirit Juice Productions and posted on Ascension Press’ website.
“I think one of my favorite comments has been ‘I regret underestimating this,’” Fr. Mark-Mary said.
He said he has found that people often expect “church stuff” to be mediocre or lower in quality, and he likes breaking those stereotypes.
“I’m very much committed to speaking a message in a way where the means doesn’t undermine what you’re trying to say.”
San Salvador, El Salvador, Oct 24, 2018 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- A court in San Salvador issued an arrest warrant for the man suspected of the March 24, 1980 killing of Saint Oscar Romero, who was canonized this month by Pope Francis.
The suspect is Á… […]
The removal of Bishop Martin Holley from the See of Memphis, Tennessee on Wednesday sets in even higher relief the one thing needful: justice must be seen to be done. But Bishop Holley’s removal, at […]
Vatican City, Oct 24, 2018 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- While European bishops discuss how to bring young people back to the Church at the 2018 Synod of Bishops, one bishop from Cameroon said that he has the opposite problem.
“My churches are all bursting, and I don’t have space to keep the young people,” said Bishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Mamfe said at a Vatican press conference Oct. 24. “And my shortest Mass would be about two and a half hours,” he added.
A study by Pew Research Center in August 2018 found that church attendance and prayer frequency was highest in sub-Saharan Africa and lowest in Western Europe. Four out of five Christians in Cameroon said that they pray everyday.
“People ask me, ‘Why are your churches full?’” the Cameroonian bishop said.
For Bishop Fuanya, it all comes down to family, community, and traditional values.
“Coming from Africa, the family is a very, very strong institution,” Fuanya said. “We come from a culture in which tradition normally is handed from one generation to the other.”
“Our traditional values still equate to the values of the Church, and so we hand over the tradition to our young people undiluted and uncontaminated,” he continued.
When asked about the potential inclusion of so-called “LGBT” language in the synod’s final document, the bishop reiterated that point.
“I wouldn’t vote for any article that has LGBT.” Fuanya said, explained that “99.9 percent” of the young people in his diocese would “stand at my door and say, ‘What’s this?’”
“With matters of doctrine that the church teaches, it is not like in this synod we are trying to invent new teaching … Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life … we cannot be taking positions that contradict the Gospels,” he added.
On that point, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Freising, told the press conference: “Quite honestly I don’t remember that we had discussed this issue in Germany so I can’t acknowledge that there is a specific conversation on this.”
“This is not a synod on sexuality. It is a synod on the young,” Marx added.
Fuanya suggested that two of the key ways in which the faith and teaching of the Church is handed over to younger generations are through the family and community. In these, he said, the African Church was setting an example.
“Church as community. Church as family is very strong for us,” said the bishop. A strong sense of community in the Church is something “very important that Europe can learn from Africa,” Fuanya said.
In Africa, “there’s still a lot of things we do as community. That is the difference. What we are trying to do in these small Christian communities is to fight the increeping of individualism,” he added.
There are significant demographic differences in family size in Europe and Africa.
A 2010 USAID report on the number of children desired by people in various parts of the world, showed that the desired number of children is highest among people in western and middle Africa, ranging from 4.8 in Ghana to 9.1 in Niger and 9.2 in Chad, with an average of 6.1 children for the region.
In the European Union, 47 percent of households with any children only have one child, only thirteen percent have three or more children, according to 2017 data.
While the differences between Europe and Africa could provide helpful lessons, Fuanya noted that the synod was about seeking a universal perspective.
“It is not like Africa has come to help Europe solve their youth problem, it is the Church that has come together to see how to solve the problem of the youth,” Fuanya said.
“When we are looking at things in the synod, we are not solving problems of particular continents or particular local churches. We are looking at the Church from a global point of view.”
“We reflect on the empty churches, but at the same time we reflect on the poverty situation. We reflection on migration. We reflect on all those things that show the Church from a holistic point of view,” Fuanya said.
For Cardinal Marx, one global issue that needs to be addressed is the sexual abuse crisis.
“The discussion on sexual abuses in the past few months … drew global attention. I believe it is an important global matter that needs to be discussed,” Marx said in German.
“It is the Church that needs to change … the youth have said this,” he continued. “We need to do this together in the theme of accompaniment.”
Vatican City, Oct 24, 2018 / 11:00 am (CNA).- The synod of bishops on young people, the faith, and vocational discernment is being held at the Vatican Oct. 3-28.
CNA plans to provide a brief regular summary of the sessions, provided by the synodal fathers from Poland.
Please find below the Polish fathers’ summary of the Oct. 24 session:
The morning session on October 24th began with the organization of the bishops’ pilgrimage ad Petri Sedem, which will take place tomorrow morning. The second topic was the draft of the Letter of Synod Fathers to the Youth of the World. Thirdly, the rules for the election of the members of the Council’s Secretariat, 21 from each continent, were discussed.
“Ordinaries and prelates with the same rights as ordinaires may be elected members of the Council’s Secretariat, whereas the auxiliary bishops may only make vote but not be elected. The Council’s Secretariat meets once or twice a year to prepare a prolongation of the text that the Holy Father will probably publish as an apostolic exhortation,” said Archbishop Stanisław Gadecki, President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference.
During the deliberations, further amendments to the final document were submitted.
“The opinion prevails that the text of the final document is much better than the instrumentum laboris. The fact of reading the two documents together was also questioned. The additions to the final text concerned, among other things, catechesis, some attention was also devoted to catechists,” said Archbishop Gądecki.
Many spoke out evoking the spirituality of the young; there were practical tips, such as the creation of a breviary intended only for young people.
“There was also an interesting theological intervention which noted that accompaniment is not a pedagogical strategy, but a theological fact that stems from the Incarnation. Jesus becomes a man’s, a Christian’s companion on his path, firstly by accepting the human body and the fate of man,” the Polish episcopate’s president reported.
It was also pointed out that part of the crisis among young people is caused by social and political conditions, and that it is not only the fault of the Church.
Denver, Colo., Oct 24, 2018 / 10:08 am (CNA).- People who have had only one lifetime sexual partner have happier marriages than people with two or more lifetime partners, according to a new report from the Institute for Family Studies.
The study’s author, Dr. Nicholas Wolfinger of the University of Utah, found that women who have been sexually intimate only with their spouses are most likely to report having “very happy” marriages, at 65 percent. Among women with between six and ten lifetime sexual partners, only 52% reported being “very happy” in their marriage, the lowest in the study.
Among men, 71% with one partner reported being very happy with their marriage, according the study. For men who report two or more sexual partners, the number drops to 65 percent.
In addition, 40% of the study’s respondents reported having had only one or zero sexual partners before getting married. Wolfinger pointed out that the rate among younger Americans, who have married since 2000, is closer to 27 percent. The median American woman born in the 1980s has had three sex partners in her lifetime, and the median man six; just five percent of all women marrying in the 2010s were virgins.
“The surprisingly large number of Americans reporting one lifetime sex partner have the happiest marriages,” the study reads. “Past one partner, it doesn’t make as much of a difference. The overall disparity isn’t huge, but neither is it trivial.”
The study controlled for the religiosity of its subjects, which Wolfinger said has been shown by other studies to be a major factor in happy marriages, but not the only explanation. He said the data he has is not conclusive on this point.
“Coming into this beforehand, I would have expected religion to be one reason why people who don’t have a lot of sex partners would have happier marriages,” Wolfinger told CNA.
“Church attendance, in itself, produces happier marriages…but be that as it may, controlling for [denomination and church attendance] did not substantially affect the relationship between how many premarital sex partners you have and whether you’re in a very happy marriage.”
What this means, Wolfinger clarified, is that people are more likely to have a happy marriage if they have fewer premarital sexual partners whether they are religious or not.
One major factor affecting this result, he said, is the fact that premarital sex can often result in children born out of wedlock, which unfortunately tend to strain future relationships. Moreover, people who have had previous sexual partners before marriage may later compare their spouse to those previous partners, leading to a decline in the happiness of their marriage.
In a similar 2016 study, Wolfinger examined the divorce rate in relation to the number of sexual partners a woman has had in her lifetime. He found that survey respondents who had not had sexual partners before marriage had the lowest divorce rates, and those with ten or more partners in their lifetime were the most likely to spit up, with a 30% chance of divorce in the first 5 years of marriage.
Of those women who married in the 2000s without having first had sex, nearly 70% reported regularly attending some kind of church services, while less than 30% of women with ten or more partners were churchgoers.
“Everything should be on the table”
Father Brian O’Brien, a priest of the Diocese of Tulsa in Oklahoma, told CNA that the statistics presented in the IFS study are confirmed by his experience working in marriage preparation for 11 years. He said he often presents statistics to the couples he counsels, to try to help explain how premarital cohabitation and premarital sex can negatively affect the happiness of their marriage.
“Ultimately it comes down to: we’re not meant to be used,” O’Brien told CNA.
“I think what happens in a lot of cases is [people think]: ‘I’ll just sleep with a whole bunch of people, and maybe one of them will work out.’ And that’s exactly what happens in the movies…but the idea that you can just use somebody and move on as if that didn’t happen, I think is where the unhappiness sets in.”
People will remember the sexual partners that they had “along the way,” because sex bonds people together, he said. A bond with a person who is no longer in a person’s life will remain with them even if they start a new relationship, leaving a “lingering guilt,” “unresolved issues,” and “baggage” that makes new relationships that much more difficult.
“Marriage is hard enough, and it’s even harder if you’re bringing in a bunch of baggage,” he said. “For couples that are going to enter into a marriage covenant, everything should be on the table.”
O’Brien said that the broader trend in society of couples coming into marriage with multiple sexual partners, as evidenced by statistics cited in the IFS study, has also manifested itself among the couples he counsels.
“I go into [marriage prep] assuming, until I talk to them, that the couple is probably living together, and I assume that they are sexually active,” O’Brien said.
“I tell [couples] that I want their marriage to be as happy and holy as possible, and your marriage will be happier and holier if you abstain from sex and if you don’t live together.”
O’Brien said he thinks most couples who are living together know what they’re doing is wrong, especially when it comes to being sexually active. He said he suspects that there are many couples that don’t see anything wrong with cohabitation before marriage, viewing the move primarily as an economic decision.
“It’s not that they’re sort of ‘trying each other out,’ it’s that ‘we don’t want to pay two rents,'” O’Brien explained. “So I think in that way they’re not really flaunting Church teaching, they’re trying to make good economic decisions.”
He said he takes a pastoral approach to the couple’s situation, affirming them in their good decisions and “meeting them where they are.”
“If they’re not living together, and they’re not sexually active, it’s my chance to say: “Awesome! Great job!” and to really affirm them in those decisions,” he said.
He said generally in the second or third marriage prep meeting, he’ll ask some basic information such as the couple’s home address. If the couple is already living together, they will often admit it at that point, if reluctantly.
“They’ll look at each other like: ‘Oh no. Should we give him the same address?’ And as soon as they do that, I’ll ask ‘So do you guys live at the same place?’ And they have this guilty look on their face, and they’ll say yes,” O’Brien said.
“And I’ll say: ‘Ok, I’m not yelling at you, but obviously you guys feel bad about it.’ So then we’ll kind of take that and discuss it as we go.”
O’Brien said despite popular opinion that may suggest that fewer people are seeking marriage in the Catholic Church, he and his fellow priests in Oklahoma are engaged in marriage prep and presiding at weddings “all the time.”
“I’m not ready to throw in the towel on the young people of the Church,” he said. “Because I think there really is a desire to have God as part of their marriage, and they’re not finding that in other places.”
Father Zach Swantek, a chaplain at Seton Hall University, offered his thoughts about his experience with modern marriage prep in an email to CNA.
“Often priests are afraid to discuss issues such as pre-marital sex, chastity, cohabitation, contraception and even participation in the Church with [couples], for fear that they will be offended or scared off,” Swantek wrote.
“On the other hand, some priests boast about how they refuse to marry couples that fail to live in strict adherence to the teachings of the Church, yet do not help these couples to understand and live these teachings,” he added.
“Marriage preparation must be viewed as an opportunity to accompany the couple, gradually leading them to the fullness of truth about faith, sacraments and marriage. This requires patience and work, but it is well worth the effort.”
Vatican City, Oct 24, 2018 / 04:31 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis Wednesday removed Bishop Martin D. Holley from the pastoral government of the Diocese of Memphis and appointed Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville to oversee the diocese until further notice.
The Vatican announced Oct. 24 that Pope Francis “has relieved” Bishop Holley “from the pastoral government of the diocese of Memphis” and appointed Archbishop Kurtz temporary apostolic administrator “ad nutum Sanctae Sedis,” meaning “at the disposition of the Holy See.”
The removal follows a Vatican investigation into the Diocese of Memphis in June to address concerns about major changes Bishop Holley, 63, had made. Among these was the reassignment of up to two-thirds of the 60 active priests in the diocese, according to local media reports.
The apostolic visitation, as it is called, was carried out by Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta and Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul-Minneapolis. They spent three days “fact-finding” in the diocese, including conducting interviews with Memphis-area clergy and laypeople, according to Memphis newspaper The Commercial Appeal.
The outcome of the apostolic visitation has not been made public.
In a letter to his priests in June, reported on by The Commercial Appeal, Holley said: “Many of you may have read, seen or heard news this week that an apostolic visitation was made to our diocese.”
“We are respectful of the confidentiality of the Apostolic Nunciature’s process and are thankful that some of you were invited to participate in that process,” he said.
Holley was installed as bishop of Memphis Oct. 19, 2016, after serving as auxiliary bishop of Washington, D.C. for 12 years.
In July, he was one of three Tennessee bishops who issued a letter to the state’s governor encouraging him to halt the then-pending execution of Billy Irick, who died by lethal injection August 9.
The bishops emphasized the value of all human life, even that of those convicted of horrendous crimes, offering themselves a resource to the governor for any questions regarding Catholic teaching on the subject.
While in Washington, Bishop Holley had served on multiple committees for Cultural Diversity, as well as subcommittees for Africa; African-American Catholics; Laity, Women, Children and Youth; and Migration.
He had also been a member of the International Catholic Foundation for the Service of Deaf People and been on a number of committees for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, including the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth; Pro-Life Activities; and the Subcommittee for Hispanic Affairs.
Holley was born Dec. 31, 1954, in Pensacola, Fl., and ordained a priest for the diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee in 1987.
Vatican City, Oct 24, 2018 / 03:57 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his general audience Wednesday, Pope Francis said that engaged couples require “careful preparation” for the lifelong fidelity that marriage requires.
“One cannot say marriag… […]
© Catholic World Report