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Harare, Zimbabwe, Sep 26, 2019 / 04:00 am (CNA).- British-born John Bradburne, who died in Zimbabwe 40 years ago, could be on his way to becoming the country’s first canonized saint.
Bradburne is a revered figure among the Catholic community in the landlocked southern African country of Zimbabwe. According to reports, Bradburne was shot in the back after he was abducted from his hut in Mutemwa in the north-east of Zimbabwe.
Who was he?
Born in 1921 to Anglican parents in Cumbria, England, Bradburne converted to Catholicism in 1947 while living with Benedictine monks, after he had a religious experience during World War II.
He lived after his conversion as a pilgrim, shuttling between England, the Middle East and Italy, living out of one bag. He was a prolific poet.
Bradburne joined the Secular Third Order Franciscan in 1956.
He later made contact with Fr. John Dove, a Jesuit friend living in Zimbabwe. Bradburne asked whether there was a “cave in Africa” where he could pray. Dove encouraged him to move to Zimbabwe, where he arrived in 1962.
In Zimbabwe, he told a Franciscan priest the three desires of his life: “to serve leprosy patients, to die a martyr, and to be buried in the Franciscan habit.”
In 1969, seven years after his arrival in the country , Bradburne’s desire to care for leprosy-afflicted patients was fulfilled, when he was appointed the lead caretaker at Mutemwa Leprosy Settlement, a center that cared for leprosy patients.
Bradburne spent hours with patients. He rose at 3:00 each morning, and washed patients, bandaged them, ate with them, and talked with them. Some of them he carried to Mass. But he clashed with leaders at the center over the conditions in which patients lived, and eventually, he was fired.
He was allowed to live in a deserted single-roomed tin hut in the settlement compound.
His house had no running water, but he was glad to be within the vicinity of the lepers, whom he continued helping in whatever way he could.
During Zimbabwe’s civil war, which lasted from 1964 until 1979, Bradburne protected the lepers from exploitation, something that raised suspicion, especially, locals say, because he was a foreigner, and his motives were frequently suspect.
Locals became hostile towards him, but he refused offers from other Christians to take him to safety.
Bradburne died on Sept. 5, 1979 when he was shot dead at age 58. He was buried in the Franciscan habit, as he had hoped to be.
During his burial, three unexplained drops of blood were found below his coffin, reports say.
For his compassion toward the afflicted, Bradburne has been called the “Damien of the 20th century” in reference to St. Damian of Molokai who cared for lepers in Hawaii.
“He did a good thing, and that is what it is about. The love the lepers continue to have for him, because of his sacrifices, is truly astonishing.” Kate McPherson of the John Bradburne Memorial Trust told reporters in July.
In an interview with BBC, Fr Fidelis Mukonori who worked closely with the Bradburne recalled his friend’s account of living with lepers, “From the day I set my eyes on these people, I discovered I am also a leper among my own people.”
“Working for and with them I feel appreciated, that I am doing something good and they call me Baba [Father] John,” Mukonori remembered Bradburne telling him.
“He arrived with few possessions, only love,” Colleta Mafuta, 78, a leprosy survivor who knew Bradburne told BBC.
“The colony was filthy and the people were dirty. There was no medication, no clothes and people went hungry. He took care of everyone’s needs – feeding people, and washing and bandaging our sores,” she added.
According to Independent Catholic News, two people have claimed miraculous cures through Bradburne’s intercession: a woman in South African who regained the use of her legs, and a man in Scotland cured of a brain tumor.
On July 1, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved initial investigations into Bradburne’s sainthood cause. On Sept. 5, Archbishop Robert Ndlovu of Harare celebrated a Mass at Mutemwa where Bradburne served, to mark 40 years since his death and to officially launch his sainthood cause.
A version of this story was first published by ACI Africa, CNA’s African news partner. It has been adapted by CNA.
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Mexico City, Mexico, Sep 26, 2019 / 12:02 am (CNA).- Pro-life advocates took to the streets throughout Mexico on Sept. 21 to march for life, family, and conscience protections.
Marches were held in some 100 cities across the country, including Guadalajara, Querétaro, Xalapa, Monterrey, Pachuca, Huejutla, Tlaxcala, Chilpancingo, Puebla, Naucalpan, Celaya, Guanajuato, Hidalgo. Additionally, marches took place in the United States at the Mexican consulates in Chicago and San Diego.
Organizers estimated that some 500,000 people participated throughout the country.
A statement read at events in different cities stressed the need to reject a culture of death and “build an authentic culture of life.”
“For this to happen, we have to start with the family, the basic cell of society,” the statement said. “We reiterate that the function of the government is to ensure everyone’s rights…If we can’t guarantee life, we will hardly be able to guarantee other fundamental rights.”
The marches also condemned organized crime, extortions, kidnappings, and other acts of violence, calling on government officials to “make Mexico a safe place to live, where the lives of all Mexicans are guaranteed, the first human right. Today not one less Mexican!”
Mexican actor and producer Eduardo Verástegui greeted participants at the marches on the National Front for the Family’s Facebook page.
“I want to thank the National Front for the Family for all this effort, for all this support that they give women,” he said.
He also encouraged participants to see the movie Unplanned, which will premier throughout Mexico in October. The movie, entitled Inesperado in Spanish, shows the real story of an abortion clinic worker, Abby Johnson, who underwent a powerful conversion upon seeing an abortion take place. Today, Johnson runs a ministry called And Then There Were None, which helps other abortion workers leave the industry.
Verástegui said the movie portrays “a very powerful story, with a pro-life, pro-woman and pro-family message. It’s very important for everyone in Mexico to see it.”
In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language partner, Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the National Front for the Family, said the marches were intended “to give a voice to those who have no voice. We want to embrace Mexico and say loudly and clearly: Not one less Mexican.”
“Mexico is suffering from a terrible culture of death that is tearing apart families, and from illegal organized crime that is taking away the lives of many Mexicans,” he lamented.
He said that politicians at both the state and federal level aggravate the problem rather than solving it, by “adding to illegal organized crime the legal organized crime of abortion.”
Cortés also warned against efforts by politicians to impose gender ideology in schools, rather than working to strengthen and reinforce the institution of marriage.
“There will only be peace if life is respected, there will only be development if the family is respected, and there will only be authentic democracy if fundamental freedoms are respected such as conscience or belief, and if the freedom of parents to educate their children is respected,” he said.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Sydney, Australia, Sep 25, 2019 / 06:40 pm (CNA).- In the wake of a major clergy sex abuse scandal and the high-profile, controversial trial and conviction of sex abuse of Cardinal George Pell, government and Church officials in Australia are scrambling for solutions.
Among these proposed or enacted interventions are those that would break with teachings or traditions of the Catholic Church.
One such oft-proposed intervention is the scrapping of the seal of confession, a proposed solution included in the Australian Royal Commission’s report on clergy abuse published last year.
Earlier this month, the Australian states of Victoria and Tasmania passed a law requiring priests to violate the seal of confession if anything in the confession indicated or implicated someone in a case of child sex abuse. The laws add religious leaders to the existing list of mandatory reporters, and failure to report abuse is punishable by time in prison.
Unlike in other countries with similar laws and policies, reports of child abuse made in a sacramental context are no longer exempt and must be reported.
A similar bill is being considered in Queensland, ABC in Australia reported.
If priests were to follow this law, they would be in serious violation of the teachings of the Catholic Church. According to the Code of Canon Law: “The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church also states that priests are bound to keep confessions secret without exceptions: “Given the delicacy and greatness of this ministry and the respect due to persons, the Church declares that every priest who hears confessions is bound under very severe penalties to keep absolute secrecy regarding the sins that his penitents have confessed to him. He can make no use of knowledge that confession gives him about penitents’ lives. This secret, which admits of no exceptions, is called the ‘sacramental seal,’ because what the penitent has made known to the priest remains ‘sealed’ by the sacrament.”
Bishops in both Tasmania and Victoria have said that their priests are unable to follow these news laws. The bishops of Australia also defended the seal of confession in their written response to the Royal Commission report last year.
“Personally, I’ll keep the seal,” Archbishop Peter Comensoli during an August 14 interview with ABC Radio Melbourne, shortly after the bill was introduced to the Victorian parliament. The archbishop said that he would urge anyone who confessed to abuse to report themselves to the police. However, a priest is forbidden from ordering a penitent to turn themselves in to the authorities.
Australian priest Fr. Kevin Dillon told ABC radio in Australia that he believes the seal could be changed because the rules of the seal of confession are “not written in scripture” and instead are taken from the tradition of the Church.
In another reaction to the sex abuse crisis, some Catholic officials have said that the formation of seminarians needs to be completely reimagined.
Typically, a seminarian studying to be a priest enters 7-8 year program of classes in philosophy and theology, with focuses on spiritual, human, academic and pastoral formation.
But according to an investigation by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, using data from the Royal Commission’s investigation, “seminaries had become places where repressed young men would experiment sexually with one another with little consequence, before some of them turned their attention to children in their parish,” The Age reported.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, president of the Australian bishops’ conference, told Crux in August 2018 that “In seeking to combat clericalism, we need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Clearly, it requires a radical revision of how we recruit and prepare candidates for ordination. Much has changed in our seminaries, but one has to wonder whether seminaries are the place or way to train men for the priesthood now.”
The Age reports that a new “national program of priestly formation” is already being developed and will be considered by the Australian bishop’s conference in November.
One change already announced by Church leaders is that seminarians will be subjected to the same training and screening as other Church officials by the Catholic Professional Standards Ltd, a group that safeguards against child sex abuse through trainings and audits of Catholic bishops, priests and religious. The independent group is chaired by a lay board; its members are the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and Catholic Religious Australia.
Sheree Limbrick, chief executive of Catholic Professional Standards Limited, told The Age that a rethinking of seminary formation should also include “ongoing formation, support and supervision” of seminarians and priests, and that the audit process would help hold seminarians and priests accountable.
Francis Sullivan, the previous head of the church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council, told The Age that within the Church there are already “quite a lot of conversations about whether the seminary model is fit for purpose any more – that a revamp of the system is long overdue.”
“I think people like Archbishop Mark Coleridge are seriously considering whether the system works or whether there should be more of a focus on seminarians being integrated into academic and parish life,” he said.
The Age reports that Coleridge has previously mentioned a possible “apprenticeship model” of formation for seminarians, where they would study the same classes but have a closer relationship with a parish on the ground level. Coleridge declined further comment to The Age on the subject.
Shane Healy, a spokesman for the Melbourne Archdiocese, told The Age there was “no intention” to close the diocesan seminary, Corpus Christi, and that the bishops and leadership of the school were “committed to Corpus Christi College being a place of excellence in the formation of our future priests.”
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