This Catholic group supports church leaders, parents to catechize children with disabilities

Denver Newsroom, Oct 14, 2020 / 03:33 pm (CNA).-  

Catholics in California rallied in a peaceful demonstration Tuesday evening at the former site of a statue of St. Junipero Serra, which a group of activists defaced and pulled down earlier this week.

The riot at which the statue was destroyed took place Oct. 12 at Mission San Rafael Arcángel in San Rafael, CA, north of San Francisco Bay.

Father Kyle Faller, parochial vicar at the mission, led a rosary and addressed the crowd of 75-100 people Oct. 13, many of whom held signs saying “Free the Mass,” in reference to the city’s COVID-19 restrictions on public worship, which San Francisco’s archbishop has called unjust.

Faller also led a Litany of Reparation for the statue’s destruction, as well as the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone is set to offer exorcism prayers at the statue’s former site Oct. 17.

“Let this be a time for all of you to take courage and not be afraid, as our great Pope St. John Paul II said,” Faller told the crowd.

“This is what it means that our faith is not restricted to private life or in a church itself. Our faith is meant to be lived in the church but also on the streets, in our homes, in our workplaces.”

St. Serra, an 18th-century Franciscan priest and missionary, is viewed by some activists as a symbol of colonialism and of the abuses that many Native Americans suffered after contact with Europeans. However, historians say the missionary protested abuses and sought to fight colonial oppression.

While many Native peoples did suffer horrific abuse, activists tend to conflate the abuses the Natives suffered long after Serra’s death with the period when Serra was alive and building the missions. Pope Francis canonized Serra in 2015 during a visit to the United States.

Though Serra himself did not found Mission San Rafael, it owes its existence to Serra’s legacy, as he founded the first nine missions in what would become California.

The hourlong protest Oct. 12, organized by members of the Coast Miwok tribe, marked Indigenous People’s Day, the holiday that some cities and states – including California – have designated to replace Columbus Day.

A church maintenance worker had covered the statue in duct tape before the protest to protect it from graffiti, and boarded up windows at the mission. Numerous statues of the saint have been vandalized or destroyed this year, most of them in California.

The masked rioters peeled off the duct tape and sprayed red paint in the statue’s face. Some protestors tried to prevent local news cameras from filming the toppling, but Fox2 captured the statue’s fall on video. At least five people can be seen pulling on the statue’s head with nylon cords and ropes.

Faller said when he and the parish pastor, Father Luello Palacpac, looked out at the rioters pulling down the statue, they saw “people that need to be loved.”

Father Faller encouraged those in attendance to persevere in prayer and offered a reflection on Jesus’ forgiveness in the face of persecution.

“Let your heart not be embittered or stubborn in hate or anger,” he exhorted the crowd.

“On the cross, when Christ looked at those who were persecuting them, those who called for his death, and what did he say? He did not condemn them. He did not scream at them…He said to his Father, ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ That is the beating prayer of the cross, and that should be our prayer each and every day,” Faller said.

Police have arrested five women in connection with the incident and charged them with felony vandalism, Fox2 reported.

Father Palacpac could not be reached for further comment, but an archdiocesan spokeswoman told CNA that he believes the mission will be able to restore the statue.

The San Rafael Police Department said in an Oct. 13 statement that the five women had been issued citations and released, and that the cases had been forwarded to the district attorney’s office for prosecution.

The department said they had worked with representatives from the Archdiocese of San Francisco to develop a plan in response to the Oct. 12 protest. The protest’s organizers had announced the gathering on social media before it took place. 

“The archdiocese requested that we use de-escalation techniques and minimize interactions that could lead to the use of force against protestors. The Archdiocese supported a civil protest and stated that they wanted to prosecute any offenders who damaged or vandalized their property,” the police department said Oct. 13.

“During the planning process, it was recognized that the main priority would be to safeguard individuals from violence. A decision was made not to get directly involved in or interact with the demonstration as it was not our intention to inflame or escalate behaviors during the protest.”

Archbishop Cordileone on Tuesday decried the “mob rule” that led to the statue of the saint being “mindlessly defaced and toppled by a small, violent mob.”

“This kind of behavior has no place in any civilized society. While the police have thankfully arrested five of the perpetrators, what happens next is crucial, for if these are treated as small property crimes, it misses the point: the symbols of our faith are now under attack not only on public property, but now on our own property and even inside of our churches,” Cordileone said Oct. 13.

Cordileone noted that the protest against the statue began peacefully, but soon descended into violence. He encouraged people to learn more about Serra.

“There is no question that the indigenous peoples of our continent suffered under Europeans who came here and their descendants, especially after the mission era ended and California entered into the United States. But Fr. Serra is the wrong symbol of those who wish to address or redress this grievance,” Cordileone contended.

“Fr. Serra and his fellow Franciscans renounced all worldly pursuits to give their lives to serving the native peoples and so protected them from the abuses of their fellow Spaniards.”

A crowd of about 100 people tore down another St. Junípero Serra statue in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park the evening of June 19. Cordileone offered exorcism prayers after that incident.

The exorcism prayer Cordileone offered at Golden Gate Park, the St. Michael Prayer, invokes the intercession of the Archangel Michael against the power of Satan. It is not the same as those exorcism prayers offered by the Church if a person is believed to be the subject of demonic possession.

After rioters pulled down a statue of St. Junipero Serra in Sacramento on July 4, a local Catholic set up a makeshift shrine to Serra on the statue’s empty plinth July 5, and led other Catholics in cleaning graffiti from the site.

The vandalism in San Rafael is the latest in a series of attacks on Churches and Catholic statues across the country this year. On July 11, an arson attack gutted the 249-year-old Mission San Gabriel in Los Angeles, a mission church founded by St. Serra.

Eighty-three percent of Catholic likely voters are concerned about attacks on churches in recent months, according to a poll conducted Aug. 27 – Sept. 1 by RealClear Opinion Research in partnership with EWTN News.
 

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Pope Francis interacted with an energetic crowd of 65,000 young adults and catechists at Martyrs’ Stadium in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Feb. 2, 2023. / Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Feb 2, 2023 / 05:45 am (CNA).

To bring about peace, “prayer is the most powerful weapon there is,” Pope Francis told thousands of young adults and catechism teachers in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday.

The meeting in Martyrs’ Stadium in Kinshasa, the capital city of the DRC, took place on Feb. 2, the third day of the pope’s visit to the central African country. On Feb. 3, Francis will fly to Juba, South Sudan, for the second leg of his peace pilgrimage.

Pope Francis on Thursday interacted with an enthusiastic crowd of about 65,000 young people and adults, some of whom traveled days to be present for the papal visit.

“Yes, prayer conquers fear and enables us to take our future into our hands. Do you believe this?” the pope said. “Do you want to make prayer your secret, as refreshing water for the soul, as the one weapon you carry, as a traveling companion on each day’s journey?”

During the second half of his speech, the pope was repeatedly drowned out by the energetic audience, which broke out in cheering, singing, and dancing despite the hot weather.

In his talk, Francis used the imagery of the hand to speak about the future of the DRC.

“God has placed the gift of life, the future of society and the future of this great country in those hands of yours,” he said.

“Dear brother, dear sister, do your hands not seem small and frail, empty and unsuited to so great a task? It’s true,” he said. “Let me tell you something: your hands all look alike, they all look alike, but none of them is exactly the same. No one has hands just like yours, and that is a sign that you are a unique treasure, an unrepeatable and incomparable treasure.”

He invited those present in the stadium to open and close their hands while meditating on whether they wanted to choose peace or violence.

“Notice how you can squeeze your hand, closing it to make a fist. Or you can open it, to offer it to God and to others,” he said.

“You who dream of a different future: from your hands, tomorrow can be born, tomorrow can be born from your hands, from your hands peace so lacking in this country can at last come about.”

Bishop Donatien Bafuidinsoni Maloko-Mana from the Diocese of Inongo, in western DRC, was at the meeting.

He told EWTN News that people from his diocese traveled in boats on the Congo River for two to four days to arrive in Kinshasa.

Bafuidinsoni said the Congolese people were disappointed last year when the pope’s visit was canceled, but “now that the pope is here it’s a big joy for us all.”

Even those who are following the trip from home “are really happy,” he added. “It’s a message of joy, of peace, and of hope for all.”

Sister Asterie Neema, 29, is from Rutshuru in eastern Congo, where, she told EWTN News, they are under the control of an armed group called M23.

Neema said her older brother was killed in 2022 by unidentified rebels in front of his 12- and 7-year-old children.

In her 29 years of life, she said, her region of the DRC has never seen peace. Neema added that she has forgiven her brother’s killers, but she hopes for peace in her country.

Not everyone in the audience was Catholic. Two young Muslim men also attended the youth gathering with Pope Francis.

Yassine Mumbere, from Butembo in eastern DRC, told EWTN News that he came to the event because all young people were invited. He also studied at a Catholic school.

The 35-year-old Muslim Scout leader said he hopes the pope’s trip will help bring peace to the DRC’s eastern region.

In his speech, Pope Francis encouraged those present to be careful of the temptation to point fingers at people, or to exclude others because of “regionalism, tribalism, or anything that makes you feel secure in your own group, but at the same time is unconcerned with the life of the community.”

“You know what happens: first, you believe in prejudices about others, then you justify hatred, then violence, and in the end, you find yourself in the middle of a war,” he said.

To create a concrete sign of community, Francis invited the crowd to hold hands with those beside them and to sing a song together: “Imagine yourselves as one Church, a single people, holding hands.”

“Yes, brother and sister, you are indispensable and you are responsible for your Church and for your country,” he said after the song. “You are part of a greater history, one that calls you to take an active role as a builder of communion, a champion of fraternity, an indomitable dreamer of a more united world.”

After Pope Francis spoke against corruption — inviting everyone to shout together, “Go away, corruption!” — the stadium broke out in loud singing and cheering.

The event’s emcee had to invite the crowd to quiet down before the pope could continue speaking.

Francis also drew attention to two Congolese martyrs and their examples of faith: Blessed Isidore Bakanja and Blessed Marie-Clémentine Anuarite.

Blessed Marie-Clémentine Anuarite, a member of the Sisters of the Holy Family, was killed during the civil war in 1964 at the age of 24. Anuarite was beatified by Pope John Paul II during his visit to the DRC, then known as the Republic of Zaire, in 1985.

Blessed Isidore Bakanja was a Catholic convert at the age of 18. He became a catechist and was devoted to Our Lady of Mount Carmel. He died in 1909, around the age of 21 or 22, after succumbing to an infection caused by a beating and other torture he received at the hands of a European manager for refusing to remove his brown scapular at work. Bakanja was beatified in 1994 by Pope John Paul II.

Statues of the two blesseds were present at the youth meeting, where people in the crowd shouted and held signs asking the pope to make them “santi subito!”

The pope pointed to another example of virtue from the DRC, Floribert Bwana Chui, who was killed in 2007 in Goma.

The 26-year-old man, who worked as a customs manager, was killed for refusing to cooperate with corruption; specifically, he did not allow the passage of expired food products.

“He could easily have turned a blind eye; nobody would have found out, and he might even have gotten ahead as a result,” Francis said. “But, since he was a Christian, he prayed. He thought of others and he chose to be honest, saying no to the filth of corruption.”

“Now I want to tell you something important,” he added. “Listen closely: If someone offers you a bribe, or promises you favors and lots of money, do not fall into the trap. Do not be deceived; do not be sucked into the swamp of evil. Do not be overcome by evil!”

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Pope Francis meets with members of the Italian Basketball Federation at the Vatican’s Clementine Hall, May 31, 2021. / Vatican Media.

Vatican City, May 31, 2021 / 08:30 am (CNA).
Pope Francis described basketball on Monday as “a sport that lifts… […]