Gold medalist weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz inspires the Philippines with her victory and Catholic devotion

Lima, Peru, Jan 13, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- After controversial remarks last week, the Archbishop of Lima said Thursday that he did not intend to undermine the importance of prayer in the presence of the Eucharist.

“It is essential for us to maintain a level of entering and contemplating the mystery of the Lord made bread for us, the mystery of the transubstantiation as we call it more technically, which means the real presence of the Lord,” Archbishop Carlos Castillo Mattasoglio said Jan. 7.

Castillo’s remarks came after he told Lima’s synodal assembly Jan. 7 that “no one is converted with the tabernacle.” At that meeting, Castillo said that while Pope Francis has mentioned contemplation of the Eucharist as a source of spiritual growth, “no one is converted with the tabernacle. We are all converted from meeting people who ask us questions and who are human dramas where the possibility of encountering the Lord arises.”

“I can later sit before the tabernacle and pray and all that, and surely; but it is very rare that I have illumination in a passive state…Contemplation is extremely important but to the extent the faith has been transmitted, somebody communicated the faith to me,” Castillo added.

“We are all believers because someone announced the Gospel to us, from our mother who made the sign of the cross, the grandma. the dad, the aunt, classmates at school, the Christian community or the singing group…It’s in human relationships where the Lord is hidden, that his presence appears and we welcome him,” Castillo added.

The archbishop’s remarks, posted on YouTube, became a source of controversy in Peru, where they were seen by some Catholics to downplay the importance of the Eucharist, or the power of prayer.

After his comments were published, Castillo offered a “clarification,” explaining that “some people were a bit surprised by a point I made in the morning. What I said was, let’s say, before the tabernacle you don’t find your vocation, a vocation is found in life. And the tabernacle, as you know, is the place to visit where the permanent presence of the Lord is under the forms of bread and wine, and there the Real Presence.”

“Pope Francis said here in Trujillo that when one has a vocation, the vocation is always received in life,” Castillo added.

Castillo, who was a theology professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, became Lima’s archbishop March 2, 2019.

Castillo’s remarks were intended as a commentary on a Jan. 20, 2018 discourse from Pope Francis to priests and consecrated religious in Trujillo, Peru. In that speech, the pope discussed the importance of prayer before the Eucharist.

“Sit down a while and allow him to look at you and remember those times he looked at you and looks at you. Allow yourselves to receive his gaze. This is the most precious possession of a consecrated person: the Lord’s gaze,” Francis said in his remarks.

The pope added that the Lord finds and heals believers in the difficult circumstances of their own life, and from those circumstances, brings them to contemplate him in the presence of the Eucharist.

That, Castillo claimed Jan. 7 in his clarification, is the point he had been trying to make.

The “first encounter with the vocation and the successive kerygmatic encounters are in life and in often terrible situations and sometimes also very beautiful situations, but they aren’t, let’s say, in a moment where I’m alone and there’s a kind of look from the Host at me and me at the Host.”

The archbishop’s clarification, however, also raised a concern about the role of contemplation in life.

“And we have to take into account something that is very important: all that which are  sacraments are signs the Lord has left to remember life and to live life more deeply, to nourish life, but not to replace it.” 

Nevertheless, Castillo added, “I can’t then say tomorrow we all go to the tabernacle and we only devote ourselves to be before the tabernacle, because that’s the truest part of life. [Because] who’s cooking?  And who’s preparing something to eat? So if we see things that way, with [contemplation] as the greatest thing there is, and the only thing that is, be careful.”

Pope Francis has referred to the importance of praying before the Eucharist.

In September 2018, speaking to the bishops in mission territories, the pope explained that a bishop, being a successor of the apostles, is called by Jesus to remain with him and therefore “before the tabernacle he learns to entrust himself to and to trust in the Lord,” because “there he finds his strength and his confidence.”

On Jan. 31, 2019, the pope recalled Don Bosco, the founder of the Salesians, and said that for the priest to look at reality “with the eyes of a man and with the eyes of God,” he has to spend “ample time before the tabernacle”

At Midnight Mass, Dec. 24, 2019, Pope Francis also spoke of the importance of contemplating Christ in the Eucharist present in the tabernacle.

“Today is the right day to draw near to the tabernacle, the crèche, the manger, and to say thank you. Let us receive the gift that is Jesus, in order then to become gift like Jesus. To become gift is to give meaning to life. And it is the best way to change the world: we change, the Church changes, history changes, once we stop trying to change others but try to change ourselves and to make of our life a gift,” the pontiff said.

[…]

CNA Staff, Apr 2, 2020 / 01:05 pm (CNA).- A parish in the Philippines has canceled an “online general absolution.” Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Parish in Quezon City, Philippines had advertised the event would be available by livestream, and was set to take place on April 3. 

On Thursday, the parish issued a retraction and an apology. 

“Fr. Nelson wants to correct himself. General absolution cannot be given via online,” said a statement issued by the parish. 

“The penitent must be physically present— meaning, the priest who absolves and the penitent who receives the absolution must be in the same place,” the statement clarified. 

According to the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary, which has authority over the sacrament of confession and matters falling under the sacramental seal, general absolution without prior individual confession may only be imparted where the imminent danger of death occurs, when there is not enough time to listen to the confessions of individual penitents, or there is a serious need. 

Amid the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) and many dioceses worldwide suspending Masses and confessions, the Vatican has clarified that if a general absolution is done, it must be approved by the bishop, and it must be done in person. 

Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, clarified on March 19 that priests giving general absolution in particular cases must explain the conditions of general absolution, and also must be physically present to those receiving it, at least to the point of penitents being able to hear the priest’s voice.

Father Pius Pietrzyk, OP, chair of pastoral studies at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, California, told CNA Thursday that the sacraments must be an encounter between the priest and the person receiving the sacrament.

In the same way that a penitent could not confess their sins to a priest over the telephone— which would remove the person-to-person encounter of the sacrament— offering general absolution online removes the unity between the priest and the penitents, and therefore is not valid, he said. 

“This kind of virtual presentation of the sacrament is not what the Church understands a sacrament to be,” he said. 

“They need to understand that what they are doing is not a sacrament.”

In addition, the law is abundantly clear, he said, that if general absolution is given, the bishop must give the parameters. Parishes must get permission from the bishop to offer general absolution, he said. 

A parish employee at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Parish was unable to confirm whether the cancelation of the planned online general absolution was the result of an intervention on the part of the bishop. 

Another Philippines parish, Our Lady of Sorrows in the Diocese of Tarlac is, as of press time, going ahead with a livestreamed general absolution for its viewers “with the explicit permission of the Bishop of Tarlac.” 

The Diocese of Tarlac and Bishop Enrique Macaraeg did not reply to CNA’s request for comment by press time. 

Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo, Archbishop of Jakarta, reportedly led an online general absolution on Monday. 

[…]

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.”

[…]