Washington D.C., Jan 9, 2018 / 12:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Forty-five years after the Supreme Court ruling that mandated legal abortion nationwide, hundreds of thousands are expected to attend rallies supporting the dignity of life, from conception to n… […]
Chicago, Ill., Jan 8, 2018 / 06:52 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Fellowship of Catholic University Students wrapped up a record-setting Student Leadership Summit on Saturday following a week of keynote addresses, training, and prayer.
“Just being her… […]
Washington D.C., Jan 8, 2018 / 05:10 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Department of Homeland Security announced today that it will terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nearly 200,000 Salvadoran migrants, leaving an open question as to the future for their 192,000 U.S. citizen children.
With the humanitarian migration program now due to expire in September 2019, many TPS Salvadoran families, who have lived in the U.S. for nearly 20 years, will have to decide whether to separate from their U.S. citizen children or bring them to a country where youth face threats of gang-violence and limited opportunities.
U.S. bishops from California and Texas spoke out about the DHS decision. Bishop Joe Vásquez of Austin, Texas, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ migration committee, called the decision “heartbreaking.”
“We believe that God has called us to care for the foreigner and the marginalized: ‘So you too should love the resident alien, for that is what you were in the land of Egypt’ (Deut. 10:19). Our nation must not turn its back on TPS recipients and their families; they too are children of God,” he said in a statement.
Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles called for a permanent path to residency and citizenship for the affected families stating, “In the meantime, the Catholic community will continue to walk with our brothers and sisters from El Salvador, opening our hearts to their families in love and charity and welcoming the gifts they bring to this great nation.”
TPS is a short-term immigration status granted to migrants to the United States who are unable to return safely to their country of origin, due to armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extreme, temporary conditions.
The DHS decision comes after their evaluation that the current conditions in El Salvador have improved since the 2001 earthquake that led the U.S. to grant temporary refuge for the Salvadorans originally. Salvadorans currently represent the largest group of TPS recipients in the U.S.
However, a delegation of U.S. bishops to El Salvador in August examined the situation on the ground and concluded, “the large size of the TPS population and the extreme protection and security issues apparent in El Salvador render the government unable to adequately handle the return of its nationals now.”
Catholic Relief Services also released a statement today strongly condemning the decision stating, “From our experience working with the Catholic Church and other local partners in El Salvador, the Salvadoran government does not have adequate humanitarian capacity to receive, protect, or integrate back into society safely this many people.”
DHS is delaying the termination of TPS status for 18 months with the hope that “the delay will provide time for individuals with TPS to arrange for their departure or to seek an alternative lawful immigration status in the United States, if eligible.”
The delay also allows Congress time to address this situation with a legislative solution for the immigration status of TPS recipients who have lived and worked in the U.S. for many years.
“TPS recipients are an integral part of our communities, churches, and nation,” Bishop Vásquez said in his statement. “Without action by Congress, however, recipients’ lives will be upended and many families will be devastated.”
While built by Evangelicals, there is much at the Museum to appeal to a Catholic Christian sensibility, even there are several things that could annoy […]
Sydney, Australia, Jan 8, 2018 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- The legal case against Cardinal George Pell of Australia has taken an unexpected turn, after the death of Damian Dignan, who accused Pell of committing acts of sexual abuse.
Dignan died of leukemia las… […]
Chicago, Ill., Jan 8, 2018 / 04:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Authentic Christian friendship requires intentionality and a willingness to be vulnerable, Fr. Mike Schmitz told attendees at a Catholic leadership conference last week.
“Discipleship must … […]
Chicago, Ill., Jan 8, 2018 / 11:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The love of God the Father is an inexhaustible source of fulfillment for the human heart, Sr. Bethany Madonna of the Sisters of Life said Thursday at a Catholic youth leadership conference in Chicago.
“So many blessings are coming at us at every second of every day,” Sr. Madonna said Jan. 4 to an audience of approximately 8,000, “and the source of each and every one of these blessings is the blessing the Father gives me with himself.”
Sr. Madonna gave one of the keynote speeches on the third day of the Student Leadership Summit, an event hosted biennially by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students which aims to train young people to be effective evangelists. The theme selected for this year’s conference, which ran January 2-6, was “Inspire & Equip.”
Sr. Madonna is vocations director for the Sisters of Life, a New-York based religious order founded in 1991 by the late Cardinal John O’Connor. Much of their ministry centers around aiding pregnant women and providing healing to those who have had abortions.
“Help us to receive the Father’s love anew, more deeply than we’ve ever received it before,” Sr. Madonna prayed at the start of her talk.
Sister Madonna told the story of a couple named Matt and Lucy, friends of the Sisters, who found out shortly before their wedding that Matt had been diagnosed with cancer and had been given a year to live. The two cancelled their honeymoon in order to begin treatments.
Around the end of Matt’s treatments, doctors urged Lucy to abort their newly conceived child, fearing anomalies due to Matt’s chemo.
Instead, Matt and Lucy “began to pray,” trusting in God. In the end, she said, the only anomaly the child was born with was that two fingers were fused to the palm in such a way that his hands formed the sign for “I love you” in sign language.
“It was remedied with a simple surgery, but Matt and Lucy received it as a message from their Father, brought to them through a son, the Gospel in miniature,” Sr. Madonna said.
However, even in the cases of great defects at a child’s birth, “the Father is saying, ‘I love you’ even more.”
She highlighted the uniqueness of the Father’s love, saying it makes for a relationship like no other. This love “goes to the extremes, indwelling.” She emphasized that only mortal sin can separate human beings from this love.
“When we sever ourselves like this, he holds onto our blessing, and awaits our return,” she said, referencing the parable of the prodigal son.
She told the story of Dr. Michael Brescia, whom the Sisters of Life honored this year with their annual Cardinal O’Connor award. Brescia developed a treatment for kidney disease in 1966, paving the way for the development of ongoing dialysis. Brescia was offered $1 billion to keep his discovery a secret for one year while a patent was developed.
She related a conversation Brescia had with his Italian immigrant father at the time. Brescia’s father, she said, was overcome with joy to know that 50,000 lives a year could be saved by his son’s discovery, but was dismayed to hear of the delay Brescia had accepted.
“‘Don’t think of this world,’” she said Brescia’s father urged. “‘You would let 50,000 people die?’”
Brescia published his discovery the next day. Sr. Madonna said that despite the invention now being worth $60 billion, he never gained anything from it financially. However, “he’s the richest man I know,” she said.
“Lasciare,” she said, using the Italian word for “release” or “let go” that Brescia’s father had spoken to him in urging his son to give up the discovery. “We too have to let go of so many things,” she said, “that keep us from the blessing that is ours.”
Referencing the “discernment of spirits” developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, Sr. Madonna said that “so often, we hand desolating thoughts and lies a microphone, and we set them on the stage of our hearts.”
“It’s like, ‘Wow, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard about myself. Say it again, just this time in surround sound,’” she said.
“Let these thoughts be taken captive,” she urged listeners.
She told a story from a sister in Romania who had worked at an understaffed orphanage, where babies had stopped crying because there was no one there to respond.
“There are places in our hearts that have not yet cried out to the Father because of a lack of faith,” she said. “We have a good Father, and he hears you.”
“Tonight, we break the silence,” she said, as FOCUS staff prepared the stage for adoration.
Speaking to CNA after her talk of how she herself first came to deeply encounter this love, Sr. Madonna told a story of time she had spent praying with the book of Genesis.
“I had a powerful meditation with the the Scripture of Jacob and Esau receiving the blessing of their father,” she said. In this story, Jacob dresses as Esau to receive his father’s blessing. “Sometimes, I feel like I have to dress up, or be someone else, or impress, or pretend, so that he can bless me.”
“Something happened in my heart where I realized basically how sorrowful that is, how far that is from what the Father is actually offering me,” Sr. Madonna stated. “Through the prayer, I felt like the Father wanted my empty hands, and wanted my heart as it is.”
Speaking to CNA on the connection between accepting God the Father’s love, the focus of the SLS conference, Sr. Madonna said that this love changes how we view those we encounter.
“Once we’ve received our own lives as a gift, and once we recognize that every human person is made in the image and likeness of God and is a communication of him,” Sr. Madonna told CNA, “when I encounter another person, I recognize that they were brought into being by God all-mighty, and are beloved of him. He loves them. They are communicating something to me that was actually entrusted to them by him and it’s unique.”
“When I know that, and live it, then every person is going to know that they’re special, they’re worthy of my time. I desire to know their hearts and be with them in solidarity.”
“We have to tell people; we have to invite them.”
Speaking to CNA on how this evangelization of the Father’s love relates to the work of the Sisters of Life, Sr. Madonna drew on the Blessed Mother.
“When we receive Jesus, and we allow him to be conceived in our hearts as she did at the Annunciation, and then when we go out, like the Visitation, and we meet these women who are pregnant, we hope that, just like John the Baptist leapt in Elizabeth’s womb, we hope that something would leap in these women, that they would recognize Christ come to them, that they would experience this joy, the Holy Spirit, coming upon them.”
Vatican City, Jan 8, 2018 / 06:44 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a speech to diplomats on Monday, Pope Francis said that the stability of the family is integral for the future, and that such stability is created when founded upon the faithful and lasting rela… […]
“The Church’s mystical tradition is rarely, if ever, addressed from the pulpit,” saysSusan Brinkman, author of a new book on the practice of mindfulness, “which […]
The Last Jedi demythologizes Skywalker in order to deconstruct the cultural achievements of the original Star Wars trilogy and clear the way for a new […]
© Catholic World Report