Vatican City, Apr 26, 2019 / 09:59 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said Thursday that although today has its challenges, especially with the sexual abuse crisis, it is not more difficult to be a Christian now than in other periods over the last 2,000 years.
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Paris, France, Apr 26, 2019 / 09:49 am (CNA).- Sure, smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, low birth rates, strokes, and arthritis. But smoking didn’t cause the April 15 fire at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, at least according to construction workers who smoked on the site.
A spokesman for a scaffolding firm doing work on the cathedral told reporters last week that while his workers “sometimes” smoked on the oak roof of the building, cigarettes were not the cause of the conflagration.
“We condemn it. But the fire started inside the building… so for company Le Bras this is not a hypothesis, it was not a cigarette butt that set Notre-Dame de Paris on fire,” Le Bras Frères spokesman Marc Eskenazi told Reuters April 24.
Eskenazi’s remarks came after French newspaper Le Canard Enchaine reported that police had found seven cigarette butts in the burnt-out cathedral, and sources close to the investigation confirmed the report.
“If cigarette butts have survived the inferno, I do not know what material they were made of,” Eskenazi said, questioning how the butts could have survived the blaze at Notre-Dame Cathedral. The spokesman also said it is impossible for cigarette butts to set even dry wood on fire.
The company also said that the fire was not started by its own scaffolding elevators, noting that their electrical systems were well-maintained, and that power was not running to the elevators at the time the fire begin.
Still, French prosecutors say they have not ruled out any possibilities regarding the start of the fire, and that they continue to investigate all possible causes.
The fire began on the evening of April 15, and destroyed the cathedral’s roof, and spire. While the images of the cathedral’ exterior suggested nearly total devastation after the fire, the cathedral’s vaulted stone ceiling mostly held, and protected many of the cathedral’s religious and historical treasures from the flames.
There is no formal estimate yet for how long the cathedral restoration will take. While France’s President Emmanuel Macron has said that he would like to see restoration completed within five years, experts say that possibility is extremely unlikely.
Nearly one billion euro have been pledged to the restoration effort.
The cathedral’s famed rose windows, its bell towers and massive bells, and its organ were all intact after the fire. The Church’s most important religious items were spared from the fire: the Eucharist, and relics of Christ’s crown of thorns and cross were saved during the fire.
Vatican City, Apr 26, 2019 / 09:47 am (CNA).- Pope Francis emphasized Friday the importance of the Bible in the life of the Church, echoing Benedict XVI’s call for “a new season of greater love for Sacred Scripture.”
“It is important to remember that the Holy Spirit, the Life-Giver, loves to work through Scripture. The Word brings the breath of God into the world, infuses the warmth of the Lord in the heart,” Pope Francis said April 26.
“The word of God is alive: it does not die nor does it age, it remains forever,” he said. “It is alive and it gives life.”
The pope met with the participants in international congress promoted by the Catholic Biblical Federation in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace on the 50th anniversary of the organization’s founding. The April 24-26 congress discussed “the Biblical inspiration of the whole pastoral life and mission of the Church.”
Pope Francis said “it would be nice to see ‘a new season of greater love for sacred Scripture on the part of every member of the People of God, so that … their personal relationship with Jesus may be deepened,’” quoting Benedict’s 2010 apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini.
Francis called for the “Word of God to become the heart of every ecclesial activity; the beating heart, which vitalizes the limbs of the Body.”
“The Word gives life to each believer by teaching them to renounce themselves in order to announce Him,” he said.
The Bible is “constantly calling us to come out of ourselves” he explained, adding that Word of God helps people to be less self-centered.
“The Word leads to Easter living: as a seed that dying gives life, like grapes that give wine through the press, like olives that give oil after passing through the mill. Thus, provoking radical gifts of life, the Word vivifies,” Francis said.
The pope said that the Bible should not remain in the library, but should be brought into the streets of the world where people live.
“The Bible is not a beautiful collection of sacred books to study, it is the Word of Life to sow,” he said.
“I wish you to be good bearers of the Word, with the same enthusiasm that we read these days in the Easter stories, where everyone runs,” Pope Francis said. “They run to meet and announce the living Word.”
Washington D.C., Apr 26, 2019 / 03:18 am (CNA).- Chocolate bunnies and marshmallow Peeps have graced the shelves of U.S. stores for weeks in anticipation of Easter, but now that the actual Easter Season has begun, how should Catholics observe it?
“We cannot, as Christians, walk out of Easter liturgy and wash our hands of the business. Our life is forever changed, and it can never be what it was, if we believe that a man has walked out of the tomb,” said Fr. Hezekias Carnazzo, director of the Institute of Catholic Culture.
Easter Sunday begins the liturgical season of Easter, which continues through the celebration of the Ascension to Pentecost Sunday, 50 days in all. Each day of the Octave of Easter, the first eight days of the season, is a solemnity, ending on the Second Sunday of Easter, or Divine Mercy Sunday.
The Easter Triduum follows the 40-day penitential season of Lent, which is marked by penance, prayer, and almsgiving.
However, once the Triduum is over and Catholics cast off their Lenten penances, what comes next? Was Lent just one big detox program, and is the Easter Season a marathon of steak dinners, chocolate eggs, Netflix binges and bigger bar tabs, while practices of daily Mass and prayer are neglected?
Not so, said liturgical experts, who stressed that Catholics can both celebrate Easter and also grow in their spiritual life.
How do we do that? First, Catholics must remember the spiritual focus of the season, which is on Christ’s Resurrection and the evangelization that immediately follows from it, Fr. Chrysostom Baer of the Norbertines of St. Michael’s Abbey in Orange County, Calif., told CNA.
“The apostles were trying to convert the world because Jesus rose from the dead. And they really got the impulse to go at Pentecost, but the message is ‘Jesus died and rose’,” he said.
This evangelization was powered by a type of “evangelical poverty,” he said, pointing to the Acts of the Apostles: “The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. With great power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great favor was accorded them all.”
While Easter is not a time for hairshirts and fasting, he clarified, Catholics shouldn’t feel like they must abandon good Lenten practices during Easter, if those practices help them be better Catholics – especially if they gave up things that were occasions of sin for them.
The Resurrection should change everything about our lives, Fr. Hezekias insisted, because in the words of St. Paul, since Jesus rose from the dead, “death no longer has dominion over Him.”
“It’s no great mystery that God is not able to be controlled by death. The great mystery is that a man walked out of the tomb that day. He was filled with Divine life. He’s the God-man. His divinity destroyed the power of death, but destroyed the power of death over us,” he said.
“We can say now, we who have been baptized in Him, death no longer has dominion over us,” he said. “Easter, Pascha, is the Christian life. Death no longer has dominion over us.”
This means that the created world has been brought back “into communion with God,” he said, and that realization should change how we see everything.
“I would think the first best way to celebrate the season is to go to daily Mass. That is bar none, the best,” Fr. Chrysostom said. “Because it really puts you in the mind of the Church, with regard to the season. The prayers change every day, but they’re all focused on the Resurrection.”
Catholics should also continue any good practices they fostered during Lent like prayer or almsgiving, he insisted, and should give attention to virtues they cultivated from Lenten penance.
“The Easter Season is for fostering those virtues that you’ve planted during Lent, and allowing them to grow,” he said. This requires taking “concrete steps” and not just vague promises to ensure that good habits are maintained, he added.
For instance, if someone gave alms during Lent, they could resolve to give money to the poor a certain number of times per week, he said.
However, Easter shouldn’t just be lived at church, but “it’s got to live out in our everyday lives,” Fr. Hezekias told CNA. There must be a “more intense realization that every aspect of my life has come into communion with God.”
“What about reading the Gospel in our homes or singing the Gospel in our homes before we bless the food at the dinner of that Sunday?” he suggested.
Another way to do this is for Catholics throw a party, he said, which we can enjoy in a new way having first fasted during Lent.
“The reason the Church has us set aside meat [during Lent] is because we’ve become dependent on those things,” Fr. Hezekias explained. “The key to the celebration of Easter and Pascha is the re-ordering in our life, that now I eat meat as a gift from God,” he said.
If someone has given up meat for 40 days, he explained, they will appreciate its goodness all the more: “Suddenly they take a bite of meat, and what do you say? ‘Thank you, God!’”
And Catholics should party together.
“I think what makes a feast really a feast is that it’s shared, with friends,” Fr. Chrysostom said, and where drinks served “heightens the conviviality and the joy.”
“Everyone should be asking themselves right now, who should I invite to my home [during the Easter Season]?” Fr. Hezekias said. They should also consider inviting the newly baptized at their parish over to their homes.
“We’ve forgotten our ability as Christians to go out and really have a party,” he said. “Our society is starving because of that. We’re the ones who are supposed to be showing everyone else what true joy is, but unfortunately we’ve forgotten it ourselves.”
“We’ve got to re-discover that for the sake of society.”
This article was originally published on CNA April 18, 2017.
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London, England, Apr 25, 2019 / 05:41 pm (CNA).- A committee of the British parliament has said Westminster should bypass Northern Ireland’s self-governance to clarify the region’s abortion law.
The House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee said Thursday that the UK government should provide a “clear framework and timeline” for Northern Ireland to address United Nations concerns on Northern Ireland’s abortion restrictions.
The committee’s report was welcomed by Amnesty International UK and the Family Planning Association.
Christian groups and local officials have pushed back, saying this decision would hinder Northern Ireland’s devolution. British Prime Minister Theresa May has said abortion should remain a devolved issue.
Abortion is legally permitted in Northern Ireland only if the mother’s life is at risk or if there is risk of permanent, serious damage to her mental or physical health.
The committee said the current law violates the rights of women in Northern Ireland.
“The lack of clarity about the current legal situation is creating confusion, fear and inequality,” said the committee’s chair, Maria Miller, according to the Independent. “Our report sets out action which the government must take to address this.”
“This government can’t hide behind devolution to defend denying the women of Northern Ireland their basic human rights because they want to please the DUP,” said Labour MP Stella Creasy.
According to the committee, devolution cannot be used as an excuse to ignore human rights standards and “does not remove the UK Government’s own responsibilities to comply with its international obligations.”
The Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont is currently suspended due to disagreements between the two major governing parties
The committee said there is a lack of clarity over whether doctors in Northern Ireland may refer women for free National Health Services Abortions in England, Scotland, and and Wales, which they have been able to procure since November 2017.
Christian Action Research and Education (CARE), a pro-life group, responded to the committee’s report, stating that the basis of human right standards was based on a single UN committee which had no legal standing, according to a April 25 statement by CARE’s chief executive, Nola Leach.
She also said that the report undermines devolution.
“The issue of abortion law in Northern Ireland should be decided by the people of Northern Ireland through their elected representatives and not by MPs sitting on a Westminster Committee,” Leach said. “The repercussions of damaging the devolution settlement in the way recommended in the report would be felt across the UK.”
The group pointed to an October 2018 online poll from ComeRes of more than 1,000 Northern Ireland adults, which ound 64 percent said abortion law should be decided by the people of Northern Ireland and their representatives, not MPs from other parts of the U.K.
Tory MP Eddie Hughes, a member of the Equalities Committee, released an alternative report, requesting that Westminster not interfere with the devolution of Northern Ireland. Rather, he said the Department of Health for Northern Ireland should seek to improve clinical care for women with fetal abnormalities.
Leach welcomed Hughes’ report, saying it had “sensible proposals.” She said a change in the restrictions could lead to a greater increase in abortions and highlighted the number of children alive as a result of the law.
“The prospect of Westminster imposing change is highly alarming, as any legislation put forward could be amended to allow for widespread access to abortion on request for any reason in Northern Ireland. We do not believe the hardest of hard cases should be utilised to allow for abortion on request,” she said.
“We must not forget that thanks to NI’s life-affirming laws there are 100,000 people alive today across the Province.”
Washington D.C., Apr 25, 2019 / 04:10 pm (CNA).- The role of the laity is crucial to the Church’s efforts to combat clerical sex abuse, Archbishop of Allen Vigneron said Thursday morning.
Speaking at The Catholic University of America on April 25, the Detroit archbishop explained that in his own ministry he had seen how lay collaboration is essential in Church governance, and has a natural place with the Church’s hierarchy.
“In order to act well, I recognize that I am in need of what I might call ‘co-agents’–others who help me by thinking and acting along with me,” said Vigneron.
These “co-agents” take the form of both members of the clergy and laity, he explained, and could even include non-Catholics.
Vigneron was speaking at an event titled “The Way Forward: Principles for Effective Lay Action,” part of a series organized by The Catholic Project, Catholic University’s progam dedicated to helping shape the Church’s response to the sexual abuse crisis.
The archbishop identified three particular areas in which co-agents were crucial to his own ministry, including the review board and finance council, and the archdiocesan synod which was convened in 2016.
Recalling that when he arrived in Detroit in 2013 the archdiocese faced a financial crisis, Vigneron said it was his lay advisors who were crucial in rescuing the situation.
“Without the wise advice of the [finance] council, I would not have been able to endorse the course that enabled us to avoid financial disaster,” said Vigneron, adding that the experience gave him confidence that lay co-agents had an equally important role to play in solving the present sexual abuse crisis.
Vigneron also identified “victim-survivors” of clerical abuse as indispensable guide to helping him understand the trauma of abuse.
Meeting abuse survivors had, he said, “provided a unique and painful perspective of the enormity of the sins perpetrated against these innocents.”
“I hear incredible anger and disappointment, especially from those victim-survivors who have been driven away from the sacraments for the rest of their lives,” he said, while expressing gratitude and admiration for the many who had told him they remained committed to the Church.
One of the key points of discussion in the ongoing debate about enhanced lay participation in Church accountability is the strain it could place on the hierarchical nature of the Church. The office of bishops to lead and govern the Church is divinely instituted, and many – including in Rome – are reluctant to pursue reforms which could be seen to undermine episcopal authority.
Vigneron rejected the idea that effective lay involvement would necessarily supercede or undermine his role as a bishop.
“It is the final firm determination of the bishop that secures the stable basis for consistent acting,” he said. “And no healthy approach to lay-clergy collaboration can contradict this aspect of Christ’s constitution of his Church.”
Collaboration would be most fruitful and effective, explained the archbishop, when “any actions taken to respond to the challenges of the current crisis are parts of a greater whole” which is in harmony with the Church’s essential nature. The “greater whole,” he said, is the entire work of the Church for the salvation of souls, final responsibility for which rests with the bishop.
“It is the particular competence of the diocesean bishop to be the trustee of this common good and to ensure that all particular ecclesial acts contribute to this end.”
Speaking after the event, Vigneron told CNA that he was preparing for the release of a report into clerical sexual abuse by the Michigan attorney general and that “there will be a great involvement of the lay faithful helping us as this unfolds.”
While the laity could play unique and expert roles in many areas according to their skills and experience, Vigneron said that it is vitally important that all the faithful maintain their prayer lives and work to hold people accountable for inaction.
The archbishop told CNA that healing the scandal of sexual abuse in the Church was a spiritual as well as structural labor.
“All the laity can continue to be engaged at the spiritual level, to realize that if there’s going to be change in the Church, part of it has to be that we all pray for that to happen,” he said.
“The other thing is to continue to hold the pastors accountable, to urge us to do what we need to do to advance the purification of the Church and to support us as we’re engaged in those challenges.”
Washington D.C., Apr 25, 2019 / 03:40 pm (CNA).- The president of The Catholic University of America has voiced his support for a student government resolution that asked the university to block the 200 most popular porn sites from its internet system.
“I am so proud of our students,” CUA president John Garvey wrote in an op-ed for the Arlington Catholic Herald April 24.
“This month the student government association, the body that represents our undergraduates, passed a resolution asking the university to prohibit access through the campus network to the 200 most frequently visited pornography websites. I told them we’d be happy to.”
The non-binding resolution was passed by a vote of 13 to 12, and student body president Jimmy Harrington signed it April 1.
Student Sen. Gerard McNair-Lewis, a junior at the university, was the resolution’s sponsor.
Garvey noted that pornography has become more accessible than it once was; where in the past it could only be found in “leather-bound books in gentlemen’s clubs and private libraries,” today “any 6-year-old can find it on a cellphone.”
In addition, pornography has become more graphic, and advances in technology not only make pornography more addictive, but also make it easier for people to slip into the mindset of: “We don’t need one another for sexual fulfillment. We can summon imaginary partners at the touch of a button.”
“I think that basic human urges are fairly constant from one generation to another. But technology can change our stimuli and the way we respond. That’s happening here,” Garvey said.
Reproductive technology such as artificial contraception have reinforced the idea, Garvey asserted, that if sex is merely a form of recreation, then “any partner will do: even a virtual one.”
“Our students are right to be concerned about the trend in this direction, because the digital revolution’s ambition is to make virtual reality indistinguishable from life,” he noted.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes pornography as a “grave offense.”
It “offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other” and does “grave injury to the dignity of its participants,” the Church teaches.
“Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials,” the Catechism says.
Of course, Garvey acknowledged, blocking pornography on the university’s internet system will not solve students’ appetite for porn—they can still use their phones or access a site that is not yet blocked.
But, “it does communicate a point of view that our students say they want to hear,” Garvey wrote.
“It says that this is not the sort of relationship they should be looking for, and we’re not going to lend our system to help them find it.”
Garvey’s op-ed did not include specific details about how and when the university would implement the pornography ban, but a spokesperson for the university told CNA that the block on top porn sites should go into effect “within weeks.”
“Our students asked President Garvey to block the top 200 porn sites, and he told them that he’d be happy to do so,” Catholic University spokesperson Karna Lozoya told CNA on Thursday.
“We are working on implementing those blocks, and should have the top sites blocked within weeks.”
When the university last considered banning porn from the network, they found it would have been both expensive and ineffective. Now, due to advances in technology, it is now more affordable to implement this kind of filter, Loyoza told CNA earlier this month.
While students may work around a firewall and continue to access porn, “the student resolution made a convincing argument that banning porn on the University network sends the right message to the student body.”
One of the resolution’s co-sponsors, Alexandra Kilgore, told CNA that she was surprised to learn action had not already been taken.
“I was honestly shocked to learn that such a ban wasn’t already in place. Even my public high school blocked inappropriate content on its wi-fi, so I knew The Catholic University of America could do better,” she said.
“As a woman, I thought it was important to be a cosponsor to bring to light that pornography is not just a men’s issue. Not only does the industry exploit and prey upon primarily women and girls, but females can struggle with addiction and consumption just as much as males.”
Kilgore described the resolution as a positive expression of corporate concern among the student body, not a condemnation.
“Our resolution is not intended to shame anyone or to make pornography addiction more isolating than it already is. Rather, it demonstrates the Student Government Association’s commitment to the well-being of the student body and the University’s continued demonstration of the teachings of the Catholic Church.”
Harrington rejected the idea that blocking pornography amounted to censorship or a violation of personal freedoms, saying “it is a regulation that the national University of the Catholic Church or any private institution ought to enact.”
Harrington pointed out in his statement that many secular organizations ban pornography from their networks, not only out of moral concerns, but also because such websites often contain viruses and other malware that can damage machines.
“If a secular company can block these sites from their networks and computers, then I am even more convinced that The Catholic University of America ought to be able to and should regulate these sites on its own network,” Harrington said.
Portland, Ore., Apr 25, 2019 / 03:32 pm (CNA).- Pro-life advocates have lamented a federal judge’s preliminary injunction against the federal Protect Life Rule, which bars family planning funds for clinics at the same location as abortion provide… […]
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