Across all sectors of society, strange and insane behaviors seem to be accelerating. With AI bursting on the public scene, mental health metrics plummeting across the globe, and the reliability of the media at an […]
Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth, Texas, and Rev. Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach of the Most Holy Trinity Monastery in Arlington, Texas. / Credit: Diocese of Fort Worth; Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity Discalced Carmelite Nuns
Washington, D.C… […]
President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign stop at Hillsborough Community College’s Dale Mabry campus on April 23, 2024, in Tampa, Florida. / Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 23, 2024 / 17:45 pm (CNA).
President … […]
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey walks across the campus of St. John’s Prep in Danvers, Massachusetts, on April 9, 2024. / Credit: Screenshot of St. John’s Prep Facebook page last visited April 19, 2024
Boston, Mass., Apr 23, 2024 / 16:45 pm (CNA).
Pro-lifers in the Archdiocese of Boston are criticizing Cardinal Seán O’Malley over two recent appearances at Catholic education events by the pro-abortion governor of Massachusetts.
Earlier this month, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat who supports legal and publicly funded abortion and who has taken steps to make abortions easier to obtain, spoke at a fundraiser for The Catholic Schools Foundation, which raises money for Catholic schools in the archdiocese and helps poor students attend.
O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, is the chairman of the board of trustees of the foundation, though he was in Rome at the time of the gala and did not attend it.
Healey also recently visited a Catholic school north of Boston, speaking to students and answering questions.
C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, called Healey’s appearances “a grave scandal.”
“Cardinal O’Malley should be ashamed of himself. Is Maura Healey an inspiring role model for Catholic students?” Doyle said.
Thomas Harvey, chairman of the Massachusetts Alliance to Stop Taxpayer Funded Abortions, called including Healey at the Catholic events “really disgraceful,” and he placed the blame on O’Malley.
“Maura Healey is a huge proponent of killing babies in the womb, in direct defiance of Catholic teaching, and yet here she is being presented to impressionable Catholic students as if she were a Catholic role model,” Harvey told the Register by text. “And the clear message being sent to Catholic students here is that killing babies in the womb is just not that big a deal.”
In June 2004, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a document called “Catholics in Public Life,” which states: “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors, or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”
Terrence Donilon, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, pointed out that Healey was not an honoree at the gala or during her earlier appearance at the Catholic school.
Since Healey is the governor of the state, Donilon said, Cardinal O’Malley has worked with her “on a number of issues important to Catholics and the wider community,” including public funding for the archdiocese’s charitable work providing “basic needs assistance, job training, child care services, and immigration and refugee assistance to thousands of residents,” as well as building “badly needed affordable housing” and trying “to stem gun violence.”
“At the same time, the cardinal has been a leader in the pro-life movement for over 50 years and his commitment in being a staunch promoter of life is well known and unwavering,” Donilon said.
O’Malley, 79, a Capuchin Franciscan, has frequently attended the March for Life in Washington, D.C., and has spoken at pro-life rallies. Last week, The Boston Globe published a column by O’Malley urging state legislators to oppose a bill that would legalize physician-assisted suicide.
But critics such as Doyle claim that O’Malley during his time as archbishop has seemed to mix easily and uncritically with abortion-supporting Catholic politicians, including the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (whose funeral Mass he celebrated), the late Boston mayor Thomas Menino, former Boston mayor Marty Walsh, and the current governor, Healey, with whom he co-authored a column in The Boston Globe in September 2017 on immigration.
Donilon, O’Malley’s spokesman, addressing Healey’s participation in The Catholic Schools Foundation gala last week, said that “the governor has been a vocal supporter of Catholic education. … Our Catholic schools save cities and towns hundreds of millions of dollars in education costs. Our families benefit from an outstanding education based in an excellent faith-based environment.”
Healey, 53, was elected Massachusetts attorney general in 2014 with an endorsement from Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund. She served two terms as attorney general before being elected governor of Massachusetts in November 2022.
As an elected official, Healey has frequently supported public policies that clash with Catholic teachings on life and sexuality.
She has verbally attacked pro-life pregnancy centers, steered state government money to private abortion funds, and, in April 2023, quietly arranged for the flagship campus of the state-run University of Massachusetts to purchase 15,000 doses of abortion pills.
Healey’s administration in June 2023 successfully proposed a curriculum framework for public schools that calls for teaching between third and fifth grades “the differences between biological sex and gender identity” and “how one’s outward behavior and appearance does not define one’s gender identity or sexual orientation.”
Healey also supports same-sex marriage. In February, she nominated her former same-sex partner for a seat on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which is the state’s highest court. She is currently living with a woman.
Healey appeared Thursday, April 11, at the annual gala of The Catholic Schools Foundation at a hotel in Boston.
“So I didn’t have the benefit of going to Catholic school,” Healey said, according to a text of her remarks provided by a spokesman. “My mom went to Catholic school, and my nephew goes to Catholic school; we have priest[s] at the dinner table every Sunday. But I do know, both having been your attorney general and now as your governor, what your work means. And I can see that experience firsthand.”
She also said she wants to find ways “to partner” with the foundation “in the important work that you [are] doing.”
“And I want you to know that, as governor, I value our vibrant mix of education, our public schools, our private schools, and our religious schools,” Healey said.
Two days earlier, on Tuesday, April 9, Healey spent about 50 minutes with a group of 120 students at St. John’s Preparatory High School, a Catholic boys’ school founded by the Xaverian Brothers in Danvers, about 18 miles northeast of Boston, according to a description of the visit published on the school’s website. The school is in the Archdiocese of Boston, though it is not run by the archdiocese.
Healey had never visited the school before, “but it was quickly clear her personal values are closely aligned with those of the Xaverian Brothers,” the school’s write-up states.
Healey emphasized leadership and empathy during her remarks. The governor also told the students that while she believes in civil discourse, “there are some basic values that have kept our society intact,” and she told students they should “call out hate when you see it.”
“We can have differences of opinion on things,” Healey said, according to the school’s write-up, “but, to me, equality has got to abide. Respect for the dignity and worth of each person is something I call on people to really adhere to.”
Robert Joyce, a lawyer and member of the board of the Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund, which provides legal representation for pro-lifers, said that St. John’s Prep last fall turned down an offer he made to provide a pro-life assembly for students featuring a canon lawyer, a physician, and a vocations director. (The head of school, Edward Hardiman, did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.)
Joyce called Healey’s recent appearances at the gala and at the school “abominations for Catholic education.”
“They send the clear message to Catholic students and parents that critical, fundamental precepts of the Catholic faith are not all that important. In simple terms, they declare that protection of innocent unborn life and the defense of traditional marriage are negotiable with these Catholic educators,” Joyce indicated.
Healey is also a featured speaker at the annual Spring Celebration of Catholic Charities Boston scheduled for Wednesday, May 29, at the Boston Harbor Hotel in Boston. O’Malley is expected to receive an award at the event for his work in welcoming immigrants.
Healey does not often talk about religion in public, but she occasionally identifies herself as a Catholic.
In October 2018, when she was state attorney general, she led off a brief column in The Boston Globe with the words: “As a member of law enforcement and as a Catholic …”
In April 2022, when Healey criticized Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester for calling for a Catholic school to take down a rainbow flag, she added, according to MassLive.com: “And I speak as a Catholic …”
In October 2022, during a debate while she was running for governor, Healey used a Catholic reference while defending herself from a claim by her Republican opponent that a bill she had supported effectively legalized infanticide, as the National Catholic Register subsequently reported. “You know, my mom goes to Mass every morning,” Healey said.
Healey is widely thought of as a potential candidate for other offices. She would be an obvious Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts if either of the two incumbents (both in their 70s) leaves office.
Additionally, just hours before her appearance at The Catholic Schools Foundation gala, Healey participated in an event at Northeastern University in Boston honoring former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. The moderator floated Healey as a potential future candidate for president of the United States, to applause from the audience.
This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and is reprinted here on CNA with permission.
The Vatican ambassador to Colombo, Archbishop Brian Udaigwe (third from left) and Sri Lanka’s Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith (fourth from left) take part in a remembrance service during the fifth anniversary of the Easter Sunday suicide attacks at St. Anthony Church in Colombo on April 21, 2024. / Credit: ISHARA S. KODIKARA/AFP via Getty Images
ACI Prensa Staff, Apr 23, 2024 / 16:05 pm (CNA).
More than 50,000 Catholics have asked the Church in Sri Lanka to recognize as martyrs the 171 victims of the 2019 Easter massacre in the island nation.
On April 21, 2019, Easter Sunday, eight suicide bombers attacked two Catholic churches, a Protestant church, and three luxury hotels, killing 269 people and leaving more than 500 injured.
Of the victims, 171 were Catholic faithful who were attending Mass at St. Sebastian and St. Anthony Churches in Colombo, the capital of the Asian country.
Five years after the tragedy, on Sunday, April 21, the local Church announced that it will begin the procedures to recognize the martyrdom of the 171 Catholics, who were remembered with various initiatives, including a petition with more than 50,000 signatures that was presented to the archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Albert Malcolm Ranjith.
The Archdiocese of Colombo will now send an official request to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints to proceed with the opening of the diocesan phase of the beatification cause.
“The collection of signatures and raising awareness among the faithful has been underway since the beginning of Lent. Among the people there is full awareness of the gift of faith of those innocent people, murdered in the church while celebrating the resurrection of Christ,” Father Jude Chrysantha Fernando, director of the archdiocese’s communications office, told the Vatican news agency Fides from Colombo.
The priest said that on Sunday “there was a large participation of the faithful in the celebrations: in the morning memorial Masses were held in all churches and a special ceremony was held in the presence of Cardinal Ranjith at St. Anthony Church in Colombo” as well as with other religious leaders and civil authorities.
In Colombo thousands of people observed “a solemn two-minute moment of silence, which was also observed in churches across the country, to honor and remember those who lost their lives” on Easter 2019.
“It was a moment of great spiritual intensity for the Catholic community of Sri Lanka: The memory of these ‘heroes of the faith’ is alive and a source of inspiration for many,” Fernando told Fides.
In the Mass held at St. Anthony Church, Ranjith noted that the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka has been asking for justice for five years and demanding that an international and independent investigation into the 2019 attacks be carried out.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Archbishop Luis Argüello and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. / Credit: Archdiocese of Valladolid; La Moncloa
ACI Prensa Staff, Apr 23, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).
The Spanish government approved today in the Council of Ministers a plan to impl… […]
Over a year after the earthquake that hit Syria and Turkey in February 2023, restoration of Aleppo’s Church of St. George has been completed. / Credit: Abdul Kareem Daniel
Aleppo, Syria, Apr 23, 2024 / 14:15 pm (CNA).
This year’s feast of St. George was a particularly joyful one in the Syrian city of Aleppo, especially for the Melkite Greek Catholic community.
The church is reopening its doors after undergoing restoration due to damage from a February 2023 earthquake. Additionally, Archbishop George Masri of the Melkite Archdiocese of Aleppo and its environs will celebrate his golden jubilee.
The celebrations took place during the visit of Patriarch Joseph Absi, the current patriarch of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, who presided over the Divine Liturgy in the restored church on the evening of April 23. The evening before, there was a procession along Holy Bible Street followed by vespers.
In an exclusive interview with ACI Mena, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, Father Fadi Najjar, principal of Providence Private School, which is adjacent to and belongs to the church, explained that last year’s earthquake caused cracks in the church walls on both the right and left sides, allowing rainwater to leak inside. The exterior facade was also shattered, with falling stones damaging the stairs.
“The first step was removing the loose stones from above to protect people, especially since the church hall had sheltered the displaced for over a month, providing meals,” Najjar explained. “The restoration then began, taking about a year under Archbishop Masri’s direct supervision. The cracks were sealed, the exterior facade restored, the interior repainted, the stone polished, and new stairs built.”
Regarding Providence School, Najjar said that classroom walls had also cracked while sanitation systems were damaged. “We didn’t just restore the school. Rather, we began a complete renovation, taking advantage of the summer vacation. In five months, the building rose beautifully from the ashes,” he explained.
“New classrooms are being opened, the language lab revived, bathrooms added, as well as a TV/cinema hall, playroom, and aerobics studio. About 150 seats will be restored, walls repainted, floors polished, and stonework whitened — all thanks to funding from the Salla charity. Aid to the Church in Need covered the church’s restoration costs,” he added.
Najjar revealed that Masri strongly supported the school’s renovation, expressing deep appreciation for the contractor, engineer Joseph Nono, who was entrusted with both the church and school projects.
Notably, Absi’s Aleppo visit included stops at the Dar Al-Nahda Music Institute under artist Shady Najjar’s direction and a dinner for men and women named after St. George born between 1960 and 1980. He has also planned a tour of Aleppo’s Old Square.
This article was originally published in ACI Mena, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, and has been translated and adapted by CNA.
The Augustine Institute’s new facilities in Florissant, Missouri. / Credit: Boeing Company and Augustine Institute
CNA Staff, Apr 23, 2024 / 13:30 pm (CNA).
The Augustine Institute, a Catholic educational and evangelization apostolate based in Denver for nearly two decades, announced on Tuesday that it will be moving its operations to a new campus in the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
The institute, founded in 2005 as a Catholic graduate theology school, currently has an enrollment of a little over 300 students. It says on its website that it exists to serve “the formation of Catholics for the new evangelization” by “equip[ping] Catholics intellectually, spiritually, and pastorally to renew the Church and transform the world for Christ.”
The organization announced on Tuesday that it had purchased the former Boeing Leadership Center in Florissant, Missouri, just outside of downtown St. Louis. The school will “begin transitioning its operations over the next few years,” it said in a press release.
The nearly 300-acre property “offers an unprecedented opportunity to expand our Graduate School of Theology and further our mission to help Catholics understand, live, and share their faith,” institute President Tim Gray said in a Tuesday press release.
The Boeing facility, a former retreat center that went on sale in March, offers “state-of-the-art facilities” for the group’s Catholic mission, Gray said.
The president told CNA this week that the Augustine Institute “wasn’t even in a search mode” when they learned of the facility.
“Some of the leadership at the Archdiocese of St. Louis told us about this property when it became available,” he said.
The property was on the market for nearly a year before the institute began exploring it. “A couple of different buyers tied it up, but those deals fell through,” he said. “We found out about it toward the end of November, and it wasn’t until December that we started looking into it.”
Gray himself visited the campus in January; within several weeks the institute had purchased the property.
“My head’s still spinning,” he said. “Just a few months ago this was not even on our radar.”
Archbishop of Denver Samuel Aquila said in the institute’s press release this week that the discovery of the property was “providential” for the organization.
“It will allow the institute the opportunity to remain faithful to its mission while continuing to grow,” the prelate said, calling the purchase “the realization of a long-standing hope for a campus environment for students, faculty, and expanded theology programs.”
In addition to its graduate school, the Augustine Institute offers sacramental preparation resources, a Bible study app, an apologetics course for high school seniors, and other instructional and catechetical materials.
Much of that material is in digital format. Gray said this week that the new property will allow the Augustine Institute to expand from digital into “a national center for Catholic conferences, retreats, evangelization, and fellowship.”
The institute had largely outgrown its facilities in Denver, he told CNA.
“We’ve been growing here and we’ve filled up our building,” he said. “We love Denver, it’s been great for us. But we didn’t have student housing. Housing is very expensive in Denver and it’s hard to recruit people to move out here. Those were challenges we were facing.”
The organization had to work quickly to raise enough funds to realize the sale, he said.
“We had to raise a lot of money in just a few months so we could purchase this campus in cash,” he said. “We also had to raise enough money to have a reserve fund for the operations of such a large campus.” The institute amassed $50 million over the course of several months, he said.
The Augustine Institute is expecting to hold its 2024-2025 graduate school year at the new property starting in September.
Mitchell Rozanski, the archbishop of St. Louis, said in the press release that the facility could become “the premier center for the new evangelization in the United States.”
The institute “can foster a new era of collaboration with Catholic organizations nationwide,” the archbishop said, “and invite more people to encounter Jesus Christ and his Church.”
Brooklyn Bishop Robert Brennan leads a Eucharistic procession inside a packed Louis Armstrong Stadium in Brooklyn, New York, on April 20, 2024. / Credit: Jeffrey Bruno
New York City, N.Y., Apr 23, 2024 / 13:00 pm (CNA).
I’d never ridden the sub… […]
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. / Credit: Shutterstock
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 23, 2024 / 11:45 am (CNA).
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is embracing a “massive subsidized day care initiative” to reduce abortions in the U… […]
© Catholic World Report