Church in India won’t host next Asian Youth Day

Kolkata, India, Jul 18, 2018 / 11:44 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The superior general of the Missionaries of Charity said Tuesday the congregation is “deeply saddened and grieved” by the alleged sale of several children by an employee of one of its homes for unwed mothers.

“Even while we place our full trust in the judicial process that is underway, we wish to express regret and sorrow for what happened and desire to express in unequivocal terms our condemnation of individual actions which have nothing to do with the Congregation of the Missionaries of Charity,” Sister Mary Prema Pierick said in a July 17 statement.

“We are fully cooperating with the investigations and are open to any free, fair and just inquiry.”

Earlier this month two women affiliated with the Missionaries of Charity, one a religious sister and one an employee, were arrested over the alleged sale of a baby boy.

Anima Indwar, who had worked at the Nirmal Hriday home in Ranchi since 2012, and Sister Concelia (Konsalia), were arrested July 3 and 4. Sister Concelia had been sister-in-charge of the unwed mothers section at the home since June 2017.

Indwar was trusted with escorting the unwed mothers, their babies, and their guardians to hospital and to the Child Welfare Committee office when the religious sisters were engaged with other duties.

Several child protection officers seized admission and attendance registers from Nirmal Hriday June 29, “without providing the receipt for such seizure to the Home,” according to Sister M. Prema.

The officers were interested particularly in the case of Karishma Toppo and her baby, who was born at the shelter May 1. Toppo agreed to hand over her child to the Child Welfare Committee, and Indwar escorted her to surrender her child to the welfare committee.

“Neither Nirmal Hriday nor the Sisters had any way to ascertain whether the child was actually surrendered to CWC. This is so because CWC as a matter of practice did not give any acknowledgment to the Home after obtaining custody of a child from an unwed mother,” Sister M. Prema stated.

Indwar admitted July 3 that Toppo’s child had not been given to the CWC, and she was arrested.

The following day Sister Concelia and Sr. Marie Deanne, superior of Nirmal Hriday, were questioned by police, and Sr. Concelia was arrested. The home’s 11 unwed mothers, another mother with her child, and a guardian were all taken from Nirmal Hriday by the CWC.

On July 6, another Missionaries of Charity home in Ranchi, Shishu Bhawan, was raided by the police. Records there were seized without receipt, and 22 children living at the home were taken.

“It is distressing that CWC has meted out such treatment to a Home which its officials themselves had described as having an ‘excellent environment for the care of children’ only about two weeks before,” Sr. M. Prema said in regard to Shishu Bhawan.

Police say that a couple complained to the CWC in Ranchi that a baby boy they received after payment had been taken back. They say the couple reportedly paid Indwar 120,000 Indian rupees ($1,760). They complained that Indwar took their money in exchange for a child, and that she later took the child back from them for some “formalities”, without returning the money.

Indwar has admitted that she sold children.

Sister Concelia described her experience in a video.

“I came to know that a baby, delivered in May, was missing when the Child Welfare Committee came to check,” she said in a video. “We found out that the baby had been sold off by a staffer.”

Sister Concelia has recounted her conversation with Indwar. “When I initially asked the staffer about the baby, she did not want to tell me anything. It was only when I kept pressing for details that they told me the baby had been sold,” she said.

A small portion of the money had been given to the guard, while nine times that amount was given to “a sister.”

Sister Concelia said that Indwar told her she did not take any money.

The nun said she informed authorities about the matter and said the baby should be brought back.

A police source said that Indwar provided to police a handwritten note from Sister Concelia asking Indwar to take the blame on herself, Matters India reports.

Sister Concelia’s defenders, including the bishops of India, are asking whether she was an accomplice, or the victim of a coerced confession.

“Nobody was allowed to meet Sister Konsalia in custody,” Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, Auxiliary Bishop of Ranchi, said. “Her advocate could meet her on Wednesday, eight days after her arrest, only after we approached the court,” he said July 12, according to the Hindustan Times. “During the 10 minutes interaction that the advocate could have with her, she said she was forced by the police to give her statement.”

Bishop Mascarenhas had objected that the nun was being treated as a criminal. He said she is diabetic with varicose veins, and wasn’t aware of her statement.

He also condemned the sale. “It shouldn’t have happened. But, accusing the entire congregation of Mother Teresa is wrong.”

India’s Ministry of Women and Child Development has instructed states to inspect all childcare homes run by the Missionaries of Charity.

A spokesperson for the Missionaries of Charity has said the order stopped dealing with child adoption in India in 2015, and did not take money for adoptions when it did assist in them. The order is conducting their own investigation about the case.  

Members of opposition parties have accused India’s ruling party, the Hindu-nationalist group the Bharatiya Janata Party, of harassing and persecuting the missionaries on the basis of unbelievable allegations.

The Jharkhand police have also called for a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into foreign funds received by Missionaries of Charity institutions. R.K. Mallick, the senior police officer, told NDTV that the recommendation was motivated by irregularities investigators detected.

The Albanian-born Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata in 1950. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, and canonized in 2016. There are now 5,167 Missionaries of Charity sisters, both active and contemplative, around the world. The order has 244 houses in India.

In addition to the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, members of the Missionaries of Charity take a fourth vow pledging “wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor.”

Sr. M. Prema said the order “vows to continue their whole-hearted and free service to the poorest of the poor, by serving the needy and vulnerable even in the middle of the unprecedented and unfounded criticism that it faces today. We have full faith in the courts of law and the investigating authorities and are confident that justice shall prevail.”

“We pray for all those who have been hurt by the recent developments and we ask God to bless all those who are standing by us in these painful and difficult moments, and we lift up to God in prayer all people of goodwill,” she added.

“May our Mother, St. Teresa of Calcutta intercede for us before our Almighty Father.”

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CNA Staff, Sep 14, 2020 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- Catholics, including some local priests, have said a proposed diocesan catechetical curriculum in Australia promotes views on gender identity and human sexuality at odds with Church teaching. Diocesan officials have defended the curriculum, which they say is a “bold new approach” to religious education.

In a letter on Sept. 9 published in the diocesan CatholicOutlook, Fr. Christopher de Souza, vicar for education in the Diocese of Parramatta, pushed back against what he called “wrong and misleading” media reports about the Draft New Curriculum, and insisted the document “completely adheres to the Catholic faith” and is still in the consultation process.

The Australian Daily Telegraph reported on August 16 that “Catholic school students will be taught about different sexual identities, atheism and social media relationships as part of a radical shake-up of the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta’s religious curriculum.”

Ater media reports about the proposed new curriculum, Fr. de Souza wrote that “the curriculum does not teach gender theory or gender studies or associated material,” and that it “does not teach students anything that is contrary to the Catholic faith.”

“Gender identity is a big issue and it is a big issue for adolescents and we’re providing them with the church’s teaching – our community is supportive of those people, they’re included,” Greg Whitby, executive director of Catholic education in the diocese, told The Daily Telegraph.

The principal of a Catholic secondary school in the Sydney suburbs, Xavier College, also told the Telegraph that the new syllabus had been “trialled” on students, saying that it allowed the faculty to “remove the boredom of religion by making it inquiry based,” and that religion was not being taught as “a closed sort of shop” bur rather “we are open to other religions, in our school we have a variety of kids all types of religions – Hindu, Sikh and Catholic.”

A draft curriculum document obtained by CNA advertises a “transformation model of education,” one that requires “going beyond what we know and into the deep,” according to a Feb., 2020 letter by the diocese’s executive director of Catholic education, Gregory B. Whitby.

“We hear the call of Vatican II, we have read ‘the signs of the times’ and responded with this draft curriculum, a bold new approach to religious education,” the letter states.

In the “Stage 5, Learning Cycle 4” section of the draft curriculum, under the “significance for learning” headline, is the goal of teaching students to “acknowledge our own sexuality, whilst respecting sexual identities as an essential attribute to human flourishing.”

Part of the expectations set for students’ learning is a study of Scripture on human sexuality, but also “[t]o recognise sexuality as an exploration in forming personal identity as a prerequisite for human flourishing.”

Some of the “inquiry questions” listed in the section are “Is sexual identity nature or nurture?” and “Is sexuality optional?”

Other questions include “Does the Church’s teaching on sexuality have any value or relevance to modern life?” as well as “How does social media construct sexual identity?” and “How is sexuality an expression of personhood (who I am)?”

Definitive answers to those questions are not part of the curriculum.

In another section of the curriculum on artificial intelligence and human dignity, one of the inquiry questions is “Are all rights equal? (women, indigenous, disability, ethnic, refugee, LGBTQI, youth).” One of the “learning expectations” for the section is “To advocate for human dignity and liberation.”

Another section concentrates on “indigenous spirituality” in Australia, asking if “a non-Indigenous person” can “engage in The Dreaming?”

In his Sept. 9 letter, Fr. de Souza addressed the “inquiry questions.” 

“It is important to note these questions were derived from our students, who raised thousands of questions during our seven-year survey and consultation process,” he said. 

The questions “will be critiqued through a Catholic perspective,” he said, adding that “students will learn the Catholic response to these questions, if and when they arise in a class.”

“Without any shadow of a doubt there is nothing in the curriculum, specifically the ‘Essential Content’ component that is not Catholic,” he said. 

In August, some Catholics in the diocese stated their opposition to the draft curriculum.

Fr. John Rizzo, FSSP, who is the chaplain at Tyburn Priory in the diocese, wrote in a letter reported in the Telegraph, “I kindly remind the Catholic Education Office of Parramatta of their crucial responsibility in teaching their students of the importance of the 10 Commandments [and] the Catholic teachings of morality.”

“Catholic faithful are sick and tired of politically correct agendas being thrown at the innocence of their children,” he wrote.

Another priest, Fr. John O’Neill at St John Vianney Parish, told the Daily Telegraph that he had “forbidden” the curriculum to be taught at his parish school.

Fr. de Souza wrote in an August 28 letter that the curriculum had not been finalized yet and the diocese is “trialling our first draft.”

“Our Church teaches that parents and guardians are the first educators of their children,” he wrote, adding that “the Draft New Curriculum is firmly based in Catholic Scripture, Tradition and Context.”

He also noted that “some media outlets are not presenting the new curriculum accurately.”

According to Fr. de Souza, the draft curriculum is the result of a six year-long process of review, consultation, and development.

“Numerous Church documents especially from the Congregation for Catholic Education underpin our approach which will be included in the final version of the Curriculum as a resource for teachers,” he stated.

In June, 2019, the Congregation for Catholic Education in Rome released a document titled “Male and Female He Created Them,” condemning so-called gender theory and insisting that the Church teaches an essential difference between men and women, ordered in the natural law and essential to the family and human flourishing.

“The effect of [the emergence of gender ideologies] is chiefly to create a cultural and ideological revolution driven by relativism, and secondarily a juridical revolution, since such beliefs claim specific rights for the individual and across society,” the congregation wrote.

“Over the course of time, gender theory has expanded its field of application. At the beginning of the 1990s, its focus was upon the possibility of the individual determining his or her own sexual tendencies without having to take account of the reciprocity and complementarity of male-female relationships, nor of the procreative end of sexuality,” the document said.

The congregation noted that “educational programs on this area often share a laudable desire to combat all expressions of unjust discrimination, a requirement that can be shared by all sides,” but that “the generic concept of ‘non-discrimination’ often hides an ideology that denies the difference as well as natural reciprocity that exists between men and women.”

“The school must respect the family’s culture,” the congregation said. “It must listen carefully to the needs that it finds and the expectations that are directed towards it.”

[…]

Sydney, Australia, Dec 11, 2017 / 05:10 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Church in Australia kicked off Advent with a Catholic Youth Festival in Sydney last weekend, drawing some 20,000 attendees and including the country’s largest Mass since the World Youth Day in 2008.

The event was also the opening of a “Year of Youth” meant to “open new horizons for spreading joy joy for the young Church and our communities.”  

Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney said that “our culture has messed up about life and love, justice and mercy,” at the festival’s Dec. 9 Mass, citing political challenges such as the recent legalization of voluntary euthanasia in Victoria.

“If ever we need new John the Baptists to call to people to repent and to believe, to offer some really good news amidst all the bad and to point people to Christ, it’s right now.”

The festival was held Dec. 7-9, shortly after Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, invited the nation’s youth to participate in the 2018 Year of Youth, which will last until Nov. 25, 2018.

The festival mostly took place at the Sydney Olympic Park. There young people attended workshops, Mass, faith-filled discussions, and even interactive games, such as a Saint John Paul II video game.

However, the highlight of the weekend was a pilgrimage through Australia’s largest city followed by the closing event. Depending on the desired length, people could begin the pilgrimage at either the St Mary Mackillop Shrine, Harbour Bridge, or St Mary’s Cathedral, but the pilgrims all converged for a concert and closing Mass at the Domain in the Royal Botanical Gardens.

The nearly three hour praise and worship concert included Matt Maher and tributes to the country’s aboriginal groups. A Saturday anticipated Mass soon followed the event, celebrated by Archbishop Fisher, who cancelled all other anticipated Masses to encourage attendance at the youth Mass.

“Episode Eight is coming,” said the archbishop at the beginning of his homily, referring to the new Star Wars movie which will be released this month.

He explained that he had first seen Star Wars during his last year of school nearly 40 years ago, and how it is now a cultural staple which has earned billions of dollars and spawned cultural phrases such as “I am your father.”

Although the series has a bizarre religious perspective, he said, it is still based on the theme of a struggle between light and darkness, adding that the movies include champions who fought on behalf of goodness.

“One thing is still clear, we still look for heroes,” he said, pointing to John the Baptist, an unlikely hero who ate bugs, honey, and smelled like camels.

“All together, JB (John the Baptist) is not the kind of guy your parents would want you to bring home from ACYF as your new boyfriend or new best mate,” he joked.

However, he said this saint aimed to bring people the good news, namely Christ, and stood up against the evils of the times, even if it meant losing his head to Herod because he denounced the king’s illegitimate marriage.

Archbishop Fisher highlighted the evils of euthanasia, which was recently legalized in the state of Victoria, and warned that people can no longer rely on the Christian presence within the culture, but will have to choose for themselves to believe in the teachings of the Catholic Church.

“Things are sliding in our culture, and going forward Christians may not be as influential or even welcome as they used to be. Christian’s won’t be carried by the culture any more. They will have to decide for themselves.”

The culture needs Catholic youth to be heroes and to proclaim the good amid the darkness of the world, he said, noting the example of Mary, the mother of God.

“There were many challenges for [Mary] and not just at the beginning. Accompanying Christ to the cross tore her Immaculate Heart,” he said.

But instead of despairing over evil, he challenged Catholic youth to respond as Mary did at the resurrection.

“Being held by him after the resurrection must have been the greatest joy a human heart, even an immaculate one, could ever have contained. Indeed she couldn’t contain that joy. The next time we see her in the New Testament she is praying in the cenacle of the Church as she awaits her new children to be over shadowed by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

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