Cardinal Robert Sarah speaks with students and faculty at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas on May 25, 2023. / Credit: Benedicte Cedergren/Angelicum. See CNA article for full slideshow.
Rome Newsroom, Jun 1, 2023 / 10:15 am (CNA).
Cardinal Robert Sarah urged students studying at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas to ask in prayer for “an intimate and profound union with the Lord and with one another.”
Speaking at a Mass to mark the close of the academic year at the university in Rome known as the Angelicum, the Guinean cardinal spoke about the danger of division in the Church and the importance of prayer.
“Jesus asks that each person may live in love and in true unity, a deep communion, in the image of the Trinitarian communion. A union that immerses our lives fully in Jesus, just as Jesus’ life is immersed in the Father,” Sarah said in his homily.
He added: “Such a union is undoubtedly expressed in a Christian life of deep and intense prayer addressed to the Lord, which in daily life is manifested in a gaze of charity toward the brothers and sisters we meet.”
Seminarians, priests, religious, and laypeople studying philosophy and theology at the pontifical university attended the Mass on May 25.
The prefect emeritus of the Vatican Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments reflected on Jesus’ priestly prayer at the Last Supper in which the Lord prayed: “that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me” (John 17:21).
Cardinal Robert Sarah celebrates Mass for students and faculty at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas on May 25, 2023. Credit: Benedicte Cedergren/Angelicum
Sarah said: “Jesus calls for them to be a family of God … Jesus knows well that the spirit of division, hatred, or mutual contempt would destroy his Church and mission. It does not matter how the devil is dressed. Everything that divides is still inspired by him.”
“The danger of division, of infighting, of confusion in doctrinal and moral teaching is so grave that Jesus ventures an ambitious, lofty, almost impossible prayer: He asks the Father that his disciples have the same unity that exists between the two of them.”
The 77-year-old cardinal reminded the students that “if theological study does not make us grow in the love of God and neighbor, if we only work hard to pass the exams, then we are killing ourselves for nothing.”
“In our time, it is urgent to restart the missionary commitment to courageously bring the Gospel of Christ everywhere, but preaching must begin with prayer and the concrete witness of that evangelical love expressed with the death of Jesus on the cross and which impels us to look at others before themselves, to spend one’s life for the Gospel and not for one’s own interest or advantages,” he said.
Cardinal Robert Sarah speaks with students and faculty at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas on May 25, 2023. Credit: Benedicte Cedergren/Angelicum
He said: “Jesus tells us that we should always be able to begin our prayer with this attitude of raising our eyes to heaven, detaching our attention, even physically, from our worries, from our earthly worries and turning towards the high, towards heaven, towards the Father who dwells in it.”
“A gaze bowed and closed in on ourselves does not open us up to God, it does not allow us to enter into a deep and intimate relationship with him. Before we begin to pray, we must, like Jesus, lift our eyes, take them away from our thoughts, even the thought of study and exams, so that we can truly and fully immerse ourselves in him, in his divine dimension.”
Cardinal Robert Sarah speaks with students and faculty at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas on May 25, 2023. Credit: Benedicte Cedergren/Angelicum
Sarah told the students that “the more we know the Lord the more we can love him.”
The Angelicum, which is one of seven pontifical universities in Rome, has 1,000 students coming from almost 100 countries around the world.
Cardinal Robert Sarah celebrates Mass for students and faculty at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas on May 25, 2023. Credit: Benedicte Cedergren/Angelicum
“We are called, like St. Paul, to have courage and to give our life for the Lord in everything that we are given to live, without fearing the cross, but like Jesus, embracing it tenderly, since that cross is the road to eternity, to fullness of God’s glory,” Sarah said.
“Let us ask the Lord, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, to tend through our lives to an intimate and profound union with the Lord and with one another, to become credible witnesses of the Risen One.”
Matthew Santucci contributed to this story.
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An artist’s rendering of the affordable apartment complex soon to be built by Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance in Los Angeles. / Courtesy of Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance
St. Louis, Mo., Aug 26, 2024 / 06:30 am (CNA).
Los Angeles is one of the most expensive cities in the United States, with an average home price almost touching a million dollars in 2024 — a landscape that crowds out not only the poor, but also young families with children. The high cost of housing is one of the primary reasons why tens of thousands of people live on the streets of LA, and most of those who are housed are “rent burdened,” which means they spend more than 30% of their income just keeping a roof over their heads.
In the face of such challenges, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles recently announced it will provide land for a new housing development dedicated to serving community college students and young people exiting the foster care system.
Amy Anderson, executive director of Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance and a former chief of housing for the City of Los Angeles, told EWTN News that a group of Catholic lay leaders from the business and philanthropic community reached out to the archdiocese with a vision for creating an independent, nonprofit affordable housing development organization.
“Our vision is to really collaborate with the archdiocese and [use] the resources potentially available from the archdiocese to create homes that are affordable to a wide range of populations and incomes,” Anderson told “EWTN News Nightly” anchor Tracy Sabol.
She said they hope to break ground on the project, known as the Willowbrook development, “about a year from now.”
“The archdiocese is a fantastic partner. They are providing the land for our first development, which is already in process, and we’re working really closely with them to identify additional opportunities.”
The proposed building, which will be located steps from Los Angeles Community College, will feature 74 affordable housing units, as well as “on-site supportive services” for young people transitioning out of foster care — a population that often ends up experiencing homelessness.
The land, located at 4665 Willow Brook Ave just a few miles from the Hollywood Sign, currently hosts a Catholic Charities building, which will move its operations to another site to make way for the apartments.
“Through Catholic Charities and our ministries on Skid Row [an LA street where many unhoused people live] and elsewhere, we have been working for many years to provide shelter and services for our homeless brothers and sisters,” Archbishop Jose Gomez said in a statement to LAist.
“With this new initiative we see exciting possibilities to make more affordable housing available, especially for families and young people.”
Making land work for mission
The Catholic Church is often cited as the largest non-governmental owner of land in the entire world, with an estimated 177 million acres owned by Catholic entities.
Maddy Johnson, program manager for the Church Properties Initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate (FIRE), noted that the Church as a large landowner is not a new phenomenon, but there is a need today to adapt to modern challenges like regulations, zoning, and the importance of caring for the natural environment.
Many Catholic dioceses and religious orders have properties in their possession that aren’t fulfilling their original purpose, including disused natural land and parking lots, as well as shuttered convents and schools. Sometimes, Johnson said, a diocese or religious order doesn’t even realize the full extent of what they own.
“How can the Church make good strategic decisions, strategic and mission-aligned decisions, if it doesn’t know what properties it’s responsible for?” she said.
The Church of St. Agatha and St. James in Philadelphia, with The Chestnut in the foreground, a housing unit developed on property ground-leased from the church. Courtesy of Maddy Johnson/Church Properties Initiative
Since real estate management is not the Church’s core competency, FIRE aims to “provide a space for peer learning” to educate and equip Church leaders to make better use of their properties in service of the Church’s mission.
To this end, they offer an undergraduate minor at Notre Dame that aims to teach students how to help the Church make strategic real estate decisions that align with the Church’s mission. The Institute also organizes a quarterly networking call with diocesan real estate directors, as well as an annual conference to allow Catholic leaders to convene, share best practices, and learn from each other.
Fr. Patrick Reidy, C.S.C., a professor at Notre Dame Law School and faculty co-director of the Church Properties Initiative, conducts a workshop for diocesan leaders on Notre Dame’s campus in summer 2023. Courtesy of David J. Murphy/Church Properties Initiative
In many cases, Catholic entities that have worked with FIRE have been able to repurpose properties in a way that not only provides income for the church, but also fills a need in the community.
Johnson said the Church is called to respond to the modern problems society faces — one of which is a lack of housing options, especially for the poor.
“Throughout its history, there have been so many different iterations of how the Church expresses its mission…through education, healthcare — those are the ones that we’ve gotten really used to,” Johnson said.
“In our day and age, could it be the need for affordable housing?…that’s a charitable human need in the area that’s not being met.”
Unlocking potential in California
Queen of Angels Housing’s first development, which has been in the works for several years, is being made possible now by a newly-passed state law in California that aims to make it easier for churches to repurpose their land into housing.
California’s SB 4, the Affordable Housing on Faith Lands Act, was signed into law in October 2023. It streamlines some of the trickiest parts of the process of turning church-owned land into housing — the parts most people don’t really think about. These can include permitting and zoning restrictions, which restrict the types of buildings that can be built in a given area and can be difficult and time-consuming to overcome. SB 4 even includes a provision allowing for denser housing on church-owned property than the zoning ordinances would normally allow.
Yes in God’s Backyard
The law coming to fruition in California is part of a larger movement informally dubbed “Yes in God’s Backyard,” or YIGBY — a riff on the term “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY), a phenomenon whereby neighbors take issue with and oppose new developments.
Several Catholic real estate professionals with ties to California expressed excitement about the possibilities that SB 4 has created in the Golden State.
Steve Cameron, a Catholic real estate developer in Orange County, told CNA that he is currently working with the Diocese of Orange, which abuts the LA archdiocese, to inventory properties that could be repurposed for residential use.
He said their focus is on building apartment buildings and townhomes, primarily for rental rather than for sale, in an attempt to address the severe housing shortage and high costs in Southern California.
Unlike some dioceses, the Orange diocese has an electronic GIS (geographic information system) database showing all the properties it owns. Prepared by a civil engineering firm, the database includes details such as parcel numbers, acreage, title information, and demographic reports, which facilitate the planning and development process.
“Strategically, what we’re doing is we’re inventorying all of the property that the diocese and the parishes own, and trying to understand where there might be underutilized property that would make sense to develop some residential use,” Cameron said.
Cameron said he can’t yet share details about the housing projects they’re working on, but said they are looking to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Queen of Angels housing project as a model for how to take advantage of the new incentives created by SB 4.
“I think it’s great, and it’s exciting that they’re taking the lead and that they are able to find an opportunistic way to repurpose an underutilized property to meet the housing shortage in California,” he said.
“[We] look at them as a role model for what we’re trying to accomplish here in the Diocese of Orange.”
Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago with One Chicago Square in the background, a residential tower constructed on the former cathedral parking lot, which was sold in 2019. Courtesy of Maddy Johnson/Church Properties Initiative
John Meyer, a former president of the California-based Napa Institute who now works in real estate with J2 Development, emphasized the importance of viewing the Church’s vast real estate holdings as an asset rather than a liability.
Meyer said he is currently working with two Catholic entities on the East Coast on ground lease projects, one of which will fund the construction of a new Catholic Student Center at a university. He told CNA he often advises Catholic entities to lease the land they own rather than selling it, allowing the church to maintain ownership of the property while generating income.
Naturally, he noted, any real estate project the Church undertakes ought to align with the Church’s mission of spreading the Gospel, and not merely be a means of making money.
“Any time we look at the Church’s real estate decisions, it’s got to be intertwined with mission and values,” he said.
“We’re not just developing for the sake of developing. What we want to do is we want to create value for the Church, and we also want to create value for the community. So working closely with the municipality to make sure that needs are met, and to be a good neighbor, is important.”
He said Church leaders should strongly consider taking advantage of incentives in various states such as California for projects like affordable housing, which align with the Church’s mission and provide both social and financial benefits.
“Priests and bishops aren’t ordained to do these things, and sometimes they have people in their diocese that have these abilities, and sometimes they don’t,” Meyer said.
“This [new law] in California has created an incentive that we can take advantage of, so we need to take advantage of that incentive…it’s allowing us to unlock potential value in land while at the same time serving a social good that’s part of the mission of the Church.”
Washington D.C., Mar 15, 2022 / 08:47 am (CNA).
Sister Deirdre Byrne, perhaps better known as “Sister Dede,” says she can temporarily resume her work as a physician and surgeon after suing Washi… […]
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It was not until Pentecost that Jesus started His own Catholic Church. During His life of the flesh, Jewish Jesus, Jewish John the Baptist and the Jewish Apostles weekly celebrated the Sabbath at the Synagogue with their Jewish religious brothers, their God authorized Jewish Church leaders, the Jewish Pharisees. Were Jewish Jesus, John the Baptist and the Apostles, and their Jewish Pharisee brothers united or divided in the Jewish faith? Did Jewish Jesus, John the Baptist and the Apostles, love or hate their fellow Jewish Pharisee brothers of their combined Jewish faith? I would say that Jewish Jesus, John the Baptist and the Apostles, loved their Jewish Pharisee brothers, by pointing out their failures, but remained united in their Jewish faith, until Pentecost.
Just because Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Apostles, are in this huge religious struggle with the evil Jewish Pharisees, doesn’t automatically mean there is hatred or disunity. This is just how religion works.
Matthew 3:7
When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.
Matthew 23:1 Denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees.
Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice.
Matthew 23:13
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the kingdom of heaven before human beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You traverse sea and land to make one convert, and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves…
…“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. [But] these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth. Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.
Jesus was crucified by Jewish God authorized Church leaders for not shrouding Jewish God authorized leaders sins in darkness.
Jesus, John the Baptist and the Apostles were all members of the Jewish Church, observing the Sabbath with their fellow God authorized Church leader Jewish brothers, the Pharisees, Sadducees and Jewish High Priest. Did Jesus, John the Baptist or Christ’s Disciples commit sin, hate, or ‘cause division’, by not shrouding Jewish God Authorized Church leader’s sins in darkness? I am sure that the Jewish people were all talking about the evil which Jewish God authorized Church leaders were committing, once Jesus, John the Baptist and Christ’s Disciples pointed out Jewish God Authorized Church leaders, evils out to them.
When any of God’s Prophets entered Judah, or Israel, they were usually pointing out the sins and wrongdoings of Israel’s God authorized Church leaders, Israel’s kings, and the people of Israel’s sins and wrongdoing. Did God Will His Prophets to point out the sins and wrongdoings of Jewish God Authorized Church leaders, or not? Pointing out all the sins of Israel, especially Jewish God authorized Church leaders, generally got Prophets martyred.
Jesus’ Matthew 24 sign for His Second Coming is, ‘When you see the Desolating Abomination’ ‘Standing in the Holy Place’. Well if we see the ‘Desolating Abomination’ ‘Standing in the Holy Place’, does not God Will us to warn our fellow Catholics and all the people of the world, about what we see?
Matthew 23:29
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’ Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets; now fill up what your ancestors measured out! You serpents, you brood of vipers, how can you flee from the judgment of Gehenna? Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, so that there may come upon you all the righteous blood shed upon earth, from the righteous blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Amen, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
The theology of Paul Tillich, “being and becoming” and whatnot, is not the Catholic faith and not Catholic religion. A Pope can not endorse Tillich, nor canonize his theology, nor rehabilitate their wrongness. Attempts by a Pope to do it “because it is done by a Pope” are both fraught and bad.
It was not until Pentecost that Jesus started His own Catholic Church. During His life of the flesh, Jewish Jesus, Jewish John the Baptist and the Jewish Apostles weekly celebrated the Sabbath at the Synagogue with their Jewish religious brothers, their God authorized Jewish Church leaders, the Jewish Pharisees. Were Jewish Jesus, John the Baptist and the Apostles, and their Jewish Pharisee brothers united or divided in the Jewish faith? Did Jewish Jesus, John the Baptist and the Apostles, love or hate their fellow Jewish Pharisee brothers of their combined Jewish faith? I would say that Jewish Jesus, John the Baptist and the Apostles, loved their Jewish Pharisee brothers, by pointing out their failures, but remained united in their Jewish faith, until Pentecost.
Just because Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Apostles, are in this huge religious struggle with the evil Jewish Pharisees, doesn’t automatically mean there is hatred or disunity. This is just how religion works.
Matthew 3:7
When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.
Matthew 23:1 Denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees.
Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice.
Matthew 23:13
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the kingdom of heaven before human beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You traverse sea and land to make one convert, and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves…
…“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. [But] these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth. Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.
Jesus was crucified by Jewish God authorized Church leaders for not shrouding Jewish God authorized leaders sins in darkness.
Jesus, John the Baptist and the Apostles were all members of the Jewish Church, observing the Sabbath with their fellow God authorized Church leader Jewish brothers, the Pharisees, Sadducees and Jewish High Priest. Did Jesus, John the Baptist or Christ’s Disciples commit sin, hate, or ‘cause division’, by not shrouding Jewish God Authorized Church leader’s sins in darkness? I am sure that the Jewish people were all talking about the evil which Jewish God authorized Church leaders were committing, once Jesus, John the Baptist and Christ’s Disciples pointed out Jewish God Authorized Church leaders, evils out to them.
When any of God’s Prophets entered Judah, or Israel, they were usually pointing out the sins and wrongdoings of Israel’s God authorized Church leaders, Israel’s kings, and the people of Israel’s sins and wrongdoing. Did God Will His Prophets to point out the sins and wrongdoings of Jewish God Authorized Church leaders, or not? Pointing out all the sins of Israel, especially Jewish God authorized Church leaders, generally got Prophets martyred.
Jesus’ Matthew 24 sign for His Second Coming is, ‘When you see the Desolating Abomination’ ‘Standing in the Holy Place’. Well if we see the ‘Desolating Abomination’ ‘Standing in the Holy Place’, does not God Will us to warn our fellow Catholics and all the people of the world, about what we see?
Matthew 23:29
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’ Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets; now fill up what your ancestors measured out! You serpents, you brood of vipers, how can you flee from the judgment of Gehenna? Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, so that there may come upon you all the righteous blood shed upon earth, from the righteous blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Amen, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
The theology of Paul Tillich, “being and becoming” and whatnot, is not the Catholic faith and not Catholic religion. A Pope can not endorse Tillich, nor canonize his theology, nor rehabilitate their wrongness. Attempts by a Pope to do it “because it is done by a Pope” are both fraught and bad.