Vatican City, Sep 28, 2020 / 06:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis Monday named an Italian lawyer and professor of commercial law to work as an additional prosecutor in the Vatican City State’s court.
Gianluca Perone teaches commercial law at the Univer… […]
Vatican City, Sep 28, 2020 / 05:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis encouraged a religious order Sunday to continue promoting devotion to St. Michael the Archangel.
In a message released Sept. 27, the pope congratulated members of the Congregation of St. Micha… […]
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Denver Newsroom, Sep 27, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- The director of a Catholic organization focused on the needs of people with disabilities said Wednesday that the police shooting of a Utah boy with autism points to the importance of advocacy, understanding, and compassion for people with autism and other disabilities.
“This situation shines a light on two diagnoses unfortunately on the rise in our world: autism and mental illness,” Charleen Katra, director of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, told CNA this week.
“More importantly, we see how the lives of persons currently living with either or both diagnoses are in dire need of understanding and advocacy,” Katra said.
“This situation makes us all weep, along with God. All human beings, in all circumstances, deserve to be treated with dignity.”
Linden Cameron, a 13-year-old Salt Lake City boy, was seriously injured and hospitalized after he was shot by a police officer Sept. 4.
Cameron has Asperger syndrome, also called autism spectrum disorder, and had a mental health crisis on Friday, Sept. 4, according to his mother, Golda Barton. Cameron also has mental health problems; in police bodycam footage his mother said he was under the care of a psychiatrist for multiple mental health diagnoses, and that he has sensory processing disorder.
Barton called 911 on Sept. 4, and requested a crisis intervention officer. She said her son needed to be hospitalized for mental health treatment.
When police officers, rather than a crisis team, arrived, Barton told them that her son was scared of police, had difficult processing commands, was likely to run, and that he needed to be hospitalized. She also told police that Cameron might have a BB gun or a pellet gun. Asked by police if it was a real gun, Barton said she did not believe it was a real gun.
Police expressed uncertainty about how best to approach Cameron, according to bodycam footage, before they approached his house, and, after he began to run, began pursuing him.
After a foot chase through an alley, Cameron slowed to a walk on a sidewalk. Police instructed him to get on the ground as they approached him, and he did not do so.
A police officer then fired 11 shots, and Cameron fell to the ground. He told police “I don’t feel good,” and “Tell my mom I love her,” before the bodycam footage ended.
Cameron suffered injuries to his intestines, bladder, colon, shoulder, and ankles, his mother has said. The shooting is now under investigation in Utah.
“The actions documented in this case are devastating on many levels. The call from a desperate mother for assistance, who rightly requested a crisis intervention team to deescalate a challenging situation, was met with behaviors that did the exact opposite,” Katra told CNA.
“Persons with autism and mental illness often live daily with high levels of anxiety. What Linden needed was patience and compassion. The ability of a person already anxious or experiencing a mental health episode to process actions and words of others will be delayed even more than usual,” she added.
A person with autism spectrum disorders is likely to have difficulties during encounters with police, experts say, because some behaviors typical in persons with autism, such as avoiding eye contact or moving hands rapidly, can be interpreted as a threat if police lack specific training or experience related to autism. Those with mental health problems also have disproportionately challenging interactions with police, as their actions can be perceived as belligerent or threatening.
Barton pointed out in an interview early this month that when police approached her son, he was walking, within reach of them, and smaller than them.
“He’s a small child. Why didn’t you just tackle him?” Barton asked police during an interview with KUTV News. “He’s a baby. He has mental issues.”
“Linden Cameron is a creation of the Creator; made in God’s image. We must continue to educate and advocate for individuals with greater needs with haste,” Katra added.
Police officers have not commented on the shooting, because it is now under investigation.
In a Sept. 9 statement, the Salt Lake City diocese told CNA: “We offer our prayers for Linden Cameron and his family. Whatever the results of the ongoing investigations, we are heartbroken to see a child caught in our culture of gun violence.”
In its statement, the Salt Lake City diocese said it “supports and encourages continued discussions with law enforcement about the use of force and legislative action to ensure that the dignity and sanctity of all life is protected throughout our criminal justice system.”
The National Catholic Partnership on Disability says it is the “voice of the U.S. Catholic Bishops” on disabilities, and was founded to implement the U.S. bishops’ conference’s 1978 pastoral statement on the full inclusion of people with disabilities in the Catholic Church. The organization is affiliated with the U.S. bishops’ conference.
CNA Staff, Sep 27, 2020 / 10:30 am (CNA).- Catholic leaders and academics have voiced their support following President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacant seat on the Supreme Court.
Tributes to the Catholic judge and nominee followed Barrett’s official presentation in the White House Rose Garden Saturday evening, after a week of speculation that she was the president’s choice.
Announcing the selection, Trump called Barrett “one of our nation’s most brilliant and gifted legal minds,” Trump said, paying tribute to Barrett as “a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials and unyielding loyalty to the constitution,” and “eminently qualified” for service on the nation’s highest court
Barrett graduated from Rhodes College before receiving a full scholarship to Notre Dame Law School where she graduated first in her class.
Barrett went on to clerk for Judge Laurence Silberman and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, before going into private practice. She returned to Notre Dame Law School and taught classes in 2002 before becoming a professor in 2010. She currently serves on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, a position to which Trump nominated her in 2017.
Speaking after the nomination was announced, Notre Dame University president Fr. John Jenkins, CSC, paid tribute to Barrett, saying that “the same impressive intellect, character and temperament that made Judge Barrett a successful nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals will serve her and the nation equally well as a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.”
“She is a person of the utmost integrity who, as a jurist, acts first and foremost in accordance with the law,” Jenkins said.
Writing in the Washington Post, John Garvey, an expert in U.S. constitutional law and the president of The Catholic University of America, recalled meeting Barrett when she was a student of his at Notre Dame Law.
“After she graduated from law school,” Garvey said, “I wrote a one-line letter of recommendation for her to [Supreme Court] Justice Antonin Scalia: ‘Amy Coney is the best student I ever had.’ He was wise to hire her as a clerk.”
Bishop Thomas Tobin of Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, also welcomed the announcement, saying on Twitter: “Congratulations to Judge Amy Coney Barrett, now nominated to the Supreme Court. May God bless Judge Coney Barrett and her beautiful family with grace and peace in the challenging days to come.”
President Trump noted on Saturday that Barrett received bipartisan support during her Senate confirmation in 2017 and that as “a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials and unyielding loyalty to the constitution,” she is “eminently qualified” for service on the nation’s highest court.
Republican Senate leaders have indicated that they will move quickly to schedule confirmation hearings before the Senate judiciary committee and bring Barrett’s nomination to a full vote.
Barrett said Saturday that she “looked forward” to working with members of the Senate during the confirmation process.
“I will do my very best to demonstrate that I am worthy of your support,” she said, while conceding that she had “no illusions that the road ahead of me will be easy, either for the short term or the long haul.”
Judiciary committee chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he expects hearings to begin on Barrett’s nomination on Oct. 12, but two Democratic members of the committee, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CON), said they would refuse to meet with Barrett prior to the hearings.
In a statement sent to CNA Saturday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), a Catholic, called Barrett “a well-qualified, highly respected nominee.”
“That’s why the Senate previously confirmed her,” Rubio said, while also noting that the judge’s Catholic faith would likely feature during the confirmation process.
During Barrett’s 2017 nomination hearing, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) questioned her on her personal faith and values, saying that “when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that’s of concern.”
In the past week, media criticism has focused on Barrett’s Catholic faith and the size of her family – she has seven children, including two children adopted from Haiti.
On Saturday, Rubio called Barrett “a person who is strong in her faith. Sadly, I expect my Democratic colleagues and the radical left to do all they can to assassinate her character and once again make an issue of her faith during her confirmation process.”
Speaking on Friday, ahead of the formal announcement of Barrett’s nomination, Princeton University professor Robert P. George also noted the anti-Catholic tone of much of the criticism of Barrett.
“I’ll give Amy Barrett’s opponents some good advice, in blissful assurance that they won’t take it,” George said on Twitter.
“Don’t attack her faith. Don’t go near it. Stay a million miles away. Talk about health care, im
Rome Newsroom, Sep 27, 2020 / 09:10 am (CNA).- Cardinal George Pell is set to return to Rome on Tuesday, his first time back in the Vatican since 2017, when he took a leave of absence from his role as prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy to travel to Australia.
The cardinal is set to fly on Sept. 29, sources close to Pell confirmed to CNA on Sunday, following an initial report by Australian journalist Andrew Bolt in the Herald Sun newspaper.
Pell has been living in his former Archdiocese of Sydney since his acquittal by Australia’s High Court in April on charges of sexual abuse.
In 2014, the cardinal was appointed by Pope Francis to take charge of the newly created Secretariat for the Economy and to lead efforts at reforming Vatican financial affairs. After charges of sexual abuse were brought by Victoria police, Pell took temporary leave of his role in 2017 in order to return to Australia and prove his innocence.
Pell faced allegations from a single accuser related to his time as Bishop of Melbourne. He spent 13 months in solitary confinement after he was initially convicted and given a six-year prison sentence, before being vindicated on appeal to the High Court.
Pell’s term of office as head of the Vatican’s financial secretariat expired during his time in prison, with Pope Francis naming Fr. Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, SJ, to succeed him in 2019.
The news of Pell’s return to Rome comes just days after the dramatic resignation of Cardinal Angelo Becciu, whom Pope Francis asked to resign as prefect of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints and from the rights extended to members of the College of Cardinals on Sept. 24 after he was linked to an ongoing investigation of financial misconduct at the Vatican.
Becciu had worked previously as the number two-ranking official in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, where, CNA has previously reported, he repeatedly clashed with Pell over the reform of Vatican finances.
Pell, who had not spoken publicly about his former Vatican role since his exoneration, responded to the news of Becciu’s resignation with gratitude.
“The Holy Father was elected to clean up Vatican finances. He plays a long game and is to be thanked and congratulated on recent developments,” Pell wrote in a statement sent to CNA Sept. 25.
“I hope the cleaning of the stables continues in both the Vatican and Victoria,” Pell said.
CNA has reported that in 2015 Becciu seemed to have made an attempt to disguise the loans on Vatican balance sheets by canceling them out against the value of the property purchased in the London neighborhood of Chelsea, an accounting maneuver prohibited by new financial policies approved by Pope Francis in 2014.
The alleged attempt to hide the loans off-books was detected by the Prefecture for the Economy, then led by Pell. Senior officials at the Prefecture for the Economy told CNA that when Pell began to demand details of the loans, especially those involving the Swiss bank BSI, then-Archbishop Becciu called the cardinal in to the Secretariat of State for a “reprimand.”
In 2016, Becciu was instrumental in bringing to a halt reforms initiated by Pell. Although Pope Francis had given the newly created Prefecture for the Economy autonomous oversight authority over Vatican finances, Becciu interfered when Pell’s financial secretariat planned an external audit of all Vatican departments, to be conducted by the firm PriceWaterhouseCooper.
Unilaterally, and without permission of Pope Francis, Becciu canceled the audit and announced in a letter to all Vatican departments that it would not take place.
When Pell challenged internally the audit’s cancellation, Becciu persuaded Pope Francis to give his decision ex post facto approval, sources inside the prefecture told CNA. The audit never took place.
Becciu held a press conference in Rome Sept. 25 at which he protested his innocence of financial wrongdoing.
Lovecraft and me, we go way back. Both from Providence, both fantasy writers. Growing up in Rhode Island, I liked the kinship. Granted, there were differences. He was world-famous; I was a scribbling unpublished wannabe. […]
Vatican City, Sep 27, 2020 / 06:53 am (CNA).-
On Sept. 25, EWTN News spoke with Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, who met with Pope Francis during a visit to Rome.
Duda spoke about his own Catholic faith, Pope St. John Paul II, secularization, and his efforts to promote the family.
Below is the full text of that interview:
President Duda, you grew up in the south of Poland in a Catholic family. How was your life of faith in the family, how did you live the Catholic faith and how have you brought that to your presidency? Has it been a challenge?
Indeed I was raised in a family that has always been Catholic, for generations. That’s the type of family I grew up in. This connection to the Church, to the Catholic Christian community, was always a fact, from the beginning of my life. And it always was very important in my home for my parents and grandparents. As a child I was an altar boy. I served Mass at church in Krakow and in Stary Sacz, where my father was born, where my grandparents used to live at that time. I simply grew up in this atmosphere. This was always important. And you could easily say that I was absorbing these values.
Christian values form the deep, deep, deep history of Poland because in Stary Sacz there is a monastery established by St. Kinga, many centuries ago. And this tradition still remains. This tradition of this very uncommonly strong Catholicism – I would say a conservative Catholicism – because there is a Poor Clare monastery – and they are cloistered nuns. So, this Catholicism there is very, very strong.
Tell me about your specific devotion to St. Bobola and to other saints in Poland.
I can tell you openly that I was born on May 16, 1972 which is the feast day of St. Andrew Bobola. And, among other reasons, it was because it was the feast of St. Andrew Bobola that my parents gave me the name Andrew in order for St. Andrew Bobola to be my patron saint.
So, there is this special attachment and later I grew up in this particularly patriotic atmosphere. I was active in boy scouts, who were very patriotic. St. Andrew Bobola was a man who died not just for the faith. Not only was he violently murdered by Cossacks because he was a Catholic clergyman but he also died for Poland and Polish ideals, so you could say that he was a believer, a priest and a patriot.
You’re also from Krakow. John Paul II was there for many years. What was your relationship with John Paul II?
We call this generation of ours, the generation of kids who were born in the 70s and the beginning of the 80s and also those born in the 60s, “the JPII generation”… John Paul the Second. We grew up with the pilgrimages of the Holy Father. And Krakow was the place that the Holy Father, during the history of his pontificate visited most often. It was, after all, his city. He was the metropolitan of Krakow and the cardinal of Krakow before he became pope. He especially loved to meet the youth in Krakow.
He always had time for the youth and we as children were brought by our parents to meetings with him and then as young people we went by ourselves underneath the famous papal window on Franciszkanska Street and to the fields of Krakow where he said the Holy Masses, attended by millions of people. And this was always incredible. And the Holy Father did the greatest thing you could do for the Poles at that time, namely, he showed to my parents’ generation how many people in Poland think alike.
During the dark time of communism, in 1979, he came on a pilgrimage to Poland and people gathered and saw that there were millions of them. And that millions of these people are of the faith and they think alike. They were listening to him at that time. And it was the beginning of the changes in Poland.
After that, in 1980, Solidarnosc was created. This year we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of Solidarnosc. And that was the beginning of the end of communism. Despite the imposition of martial law, all of this could not be stopped. The Holy Father was here [in Rome] and was vigilant all the time. And that’s how we have freedom, because of him. There’s no doubt about it.
You’ve made defending and promoting the traditional family a big part of your platform in Poland. You spoke about it with the pope today. You took part in a march for the family back in Poland earlier this week. If we look at your policies, you’re constantly defending the family and this is in the face of the European Union which often speaks poorly of Poland for defending this values, speaking in other terms, asking for you to take on abortion rights or defend same sex marriage, or other things like this. What do you think the European Union is asking of you, personally and as a president, and what is Poland’s response?
You are touching on a very important issue.
The family in my presidency and in my life has an immense value and in my view of the state, every state, but first of all obviously the Polish State. What is there to say but that there is no nation, no State without a family that has children, which in turn causes the renewal of generations, which means that the nation remains and it can create a State. So, if someone thinks of himself as a Polish patriot, if someone thinks that Poland should remain, that our nation should exist, then there should be no doubt that the family in all of this has a fundamental meaning. That’s how I approach this.
I try to proclaim these views not just in Poland, and build this legal and systemic framework so that the family can grow best, have the most children, be supported by the Polish state, just as the Polish Constitution stipulates.
The Polish Constitution orders the State to particularly defend the family.
Marriage, according to the Polish Constitution, is a union between a man and a woman. And the parents have the right to raise the children according to their convictions. These are the fundamental rights written into the Polish constitution. So, I only act according to the Polish constitution. And I do not hesitate to talk about it at the European Union. But I work, I serve Poland, that is my duty. And how politicians in other countries, other presidents approach this, that’s their prerogative. And it’s their societies who hold them accountable. That’s my approach. And this is also a Christian approach.
And this is, in my opinion, the most deeply correct approach.
You made news for picking up a host that fell on the ground during Mass, the Eucharist when it fell on the ground. We saw that across the world. You’ve also made it a point to defend the Eucharist. There’s an artistic performance in Spain that’s desecrating the hosts, the Eucharist and Poland has sent a representative to the Human Rights Court of Europe to defend [the Eucharist]. How is this part of your policies?
Our religion tells us to be docile. Our Catholic religion tells us even to love our enemies. This is what Jesus taught us. This is very difficult, but everyone should try and every one of us should live as best as possible.
And I think this is abused by various sorts of performers who are inimical to Christianity and Catholicism. And you gave an example of that. He knows that he can afford to do that because Catholics, Christians will not hurt him in any way because of that. And so he has this cheap courage.
The birthrate in Poland is rising after some efforts that you’ve made, but only slightly and it’s still not at the point where it will replace itself, the population of Poland. You also are promoting family, education, you spoke about that with the Pope today as well. What’s the long game in Poland for defending Poland against the secularization that’s happening across Europe and how are you going to carry that out?
I told the Holy Father today that I believe that at this time when from all sides we are being pushed by this anti-Catholic, anti-Christian propaganda – some would say liberal leftist [propaganda], where there is this very strong pressure to imbue other values, especially into the young people, completely opposite to the values that we read about in the Sacred Scriptures, the Bible – it is simply our duty as people of faith to pronounce our values steadfastly, constantly and unceasingly and try with all our strength to stem these other currents which in my conviction destroy the traditional family, destroy the human being as it is best understood. They disrupt traditional upbringing. I think we should [pronounce our values] despite everything, do our duty, and that’s what I do.
How are you working with other neighboring countries to defend Christianity, also in places where it is persecuted?
Many times, also in the European parliament, I participated in passing various acts of declarative character but also legislative ones pertaining to the defense of Christians, especially in the Middle East where they are in danger or in Asia, southeast Asia, there are many such places where people are being persecuted for their religious beliefs, but Poland right now, as it is governed by the United Right [coalition], while I am president we really pay close attention to that.
We are now a member of the Human Rights Council. We pay attention to these issues. We were the non-permanent member of the security council of the UN. And, a year ago, we passed a resolution pertaining to those who are being persecuted for their religious beliefs. We stress this problem because we believe we have to talk about it.
President Duda also offered a message to the viewers of EWTN Polska:
Heartfelt greetings to all the viewers of EWTN Poland. Thank you for watching Catholic television. I think that this TV station carries the values that are important for us. Here in this place, our Holy Father John Paul II served God, the Church and Poland. This year we celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth. I would like you to sometimes take in your hand the sermons the Holy Father gave us, his words he spoke to us. I would like you to sometimes look on the Internet and on YouTube or some other channels find the words spoken by the Holy Father, because it is important to remind ourselves of them in order to know what path we Poles, we people of faith, we Catholics, should follow through life. I very cordially invite you to do that. Thank you for your attention, thank you for listening. All the best, everybody.
Vatican City, Sep 27, 2020 / 06:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said Sunday that the Christian life requires concrete commitments and spiritual combat in order to grow in holiness.
“There is no path to holiness without some renunciation and without spiritual combat,” Pope Francis said in his Angelus address Sept. 27.
This battle for personal sanctity requires grace “to fight for the good, to fight not to fall into temptation, to do what we can on our part, to come to live in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes,” the pope added.
In the Catholic tradition, spiritual combat involves an internal “battle of prayer” in which a Christian must fight temptation, distraction, discouragement, or dryness. Spiritual combat also entails cultivating virtues to make better life choices and exercise charity towards one’s neighbor.
The pope acknowledged that conversion can be a painful process because it is a process of moral purification, which he likened to removing encrustations from one’s heart.
“Conversion is a grace for which we must always ask for: ‘Lord, give me the grace to improve. Give me the grace to be a good Christian,’” Pope Francis said from the window of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace.
Reflecting on Sunday’s Gospel, the pope said that “living a Christian life is not made up of dreams or beautiful aspirations, but of concrete commitments, in order to open ourselves ever more to God’s will and to love for our brothers and sisters.”
“Faith in God asks us to renew every day the choice of good over evil, the choice of the truth rather than lies, the choice of love for our neighbor over selfishness,” Pope Francis said.
The pope pointed to one of Jesus’ parables in chapter 21 in the Gospel of Matthew in which a father asks two sons to go and work in his vineyard.
“To the father’s invitation to go and work in the vineyard, the first son impulsively responds ‘no, no I will not go,’ but then he repents and goes; instead the second son, who immediately replies ‘yes, yes father,’ does not actually do so,” he said.
“Obedience does not consist of saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but of acting, of cultivating the vineyard, of bringing about the Kingdom of God, in doing good.”
Pope Francis explained that Jesus used this parable to call people to an understanding that religion should affect one’s life and attitudes.
“With His preaching on the Kingdom of God, Jesus opposes a religiosity that does not involve human life, that does not question the conscience and its responsibility in the face of good and evil,” he said. “Jesus wants to go beyond a religion understood only as external and habitual practice, which does not affect people’s lives and attitudes.”
While acknowledging that the Christian life demands conversion, Pope Francis emphasized that “God is patient with each one of us.”
“He [God] does not tire, He does not desist after our ‘no’; He leaves us free even to distance ourselves from Him and to make mistakes … But He anxiously awaits our ‘yes’, so as to welcome us anew in His fatherly arms and to fill us with His boundless mercy,” the pope said.
After praying the Angelus with the pilgrims gathered under umbrellas in a rainy St. Peter’s Square, the pope asked people to pray for peace in the Caucasus region, where Russia staged joint military exercises with China, Belarus, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Armenia last week.
“I ask the parties to the conflict to make concrete gestures of goodwill and brotherhood, which can lead to solving problems not with the use of force and arms, but through dialogue and negotiation,” Pope Francis said.
Pope Francis also greeted the migrants and refugees present at the Angelus as the Church celebrates the World Day of Migrants and Refugees and said that he was praying for small businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
“May Mary Most Holy help us to be docile to the action of the Holy Spirit. He is the One who melts the hardness of hearts and disposes them to repentance, so we may obtain the life and salvation promised by Jesus,” the pope said.
© Catholic World Report