CNA Staff, Oct 22, 2020 / 10:00 pm (CNA).-
The head of the EWTN media network said ahead of Election Day that the 2020 presidential election offers, beyond a choice between individuals, a philosophical choice between different views of American… […]
CNA Staff, Oct 22, 2020 / 08:01 pm (CNA).- Following recent attacks on three churches in Chile, the bishops of Paraguay, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, and Argentina expressed their closeness to and support of the Church in Chile.
The Church of the Assumption… […]
CNA Staff, Oct 22, 2020 / 07:00 pm (CNA).- The Knights of Columbus has launched a nine-day novena to prepare for the beatification of the organization’s founder, Fr. Michael McGivney, at the end of the month.
The novena starts October 22 and continues through October 30, the eve of Fr. McGivney’s beatification.
During the novena, participants will reflect on different aspects of McGivney’s life, including his pastoral leadership, charity toward the poor, and support for family life and the domestic church.
Each day of the novena will include prayers for McGivney’s intercession and reflections on virtues to imitate. It will also include a prayer for McGivney’s canonization, which will require one more approved miracle.
“We are praying that many graces will come through the beatification of Father McGivney, that by his example of virtue we may be inspired to put our faith into action for the good of our families, parishes and communities,” said Supreme Knight Carl Anderson in a press release.
“We will also pray for a miracle that will lead to the canonization of Father McGivney.”
McGivney will be beatified October 31 at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford, Connecticut.
The priest founded the Knights of Columbus in 1882. Today it is the world’s largest Catholic fraternal service organization, with nearly two million members in more than a dozen countries. Over the past year, the Knights of Columbus have volunteered over 77 million service hours and donated $187 million in charitable funds.
Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1852, McGivney played a critical role in the growth of the Church in the United States in the latter part of the 19th century. After his ordination in Baltimore in 1877, he served a largely Irish-American and immigrant community in New Haven.
Amid an anti-Catholic climate, he established the Knights to provide spiritual aid to Catholic men and financial help for families that had lost their breadwinner.
McGivney’s sainthood cause officially opened in 1997 in the Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut. In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI declared the American-born priest a Venerable Servant of God in recognition of his life of heroic virtue.
Pope Francis approved McGivney’s first miracle in May. The miracle involved an unborn child in the United States who was healed in utero of a life-threatening condition in 2015 after his family prayed to McGivney.
Following his beatification, McGivney’s cause will require one more authenticated miracle before he can be considered for canonization.
He would not be the first member of the Knights of Columbus to be canonized. A group of six Mexican members of the organization were martyred during the Cristero War of 1926-29 and its aftermath.
The six are St. Luis Batis, St. Rodrigo Aguilar, St. Miguel de la Mora, St. Pedro de Jesús Maldonado, St. José María Robles, and St. Mateo Correa.
CNA Staff, Oct 22, 2020 / 06:19 pm (CNA).- The president of the French bishops’ council for Catholic education expressed solidarity with the country’s school community following the beheading of a Parish school teacher in an Islamist terror attack last week.
“In these dark hours, Catholic education feels deeply united in solidarity with the whole school community…and first of all with the teachers,” Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Lille said in an Oct. 19 statement. The statement was co-signed by Philippe Delorme, Secretary General of Catholic Education.
“Because it is our raison d’être, we will defend the school (and school community) so that ignorance is fought everywhere,” Ulrich said.
“Ignorance builds fear,” he added.
Ulrich wrote in response to the beheading of Samuel Paty, who was killed Oct. 16 in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb of Paris. Student Abdoullakh Abouyedovich Anzorov reportedly attacked Paty, a history and geography teacher, after Paty showed his class a cartoon depicting Muhammad. According to the BBC, Paty had reportedly told Muslim students that they could leave the room before showing the cartoon if they thought they would find it offensive.
Eyewitnesses said that Anzorov shouted “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is great” — as he murdered Paty near the middle school where he taught. The 18-year-old Russian national of Chechen origin was shot dead by police shortly after the murder. “We will not back down on our confidence in the possibility of fraternity between people…of dialogue between social groups, between religions and cultures, between knowledge, between faith and reason,” Ulrich stated. “And as Catholics, we repeat here to Muslims in our country that we will always be in dialogue with them, without confusing them with fanatics, extremists and terrorists,” the bishop added. “We want to assure the members of the (Catholic education community) that the mission they carry is essential, that it is not in vain, that its fruits of humanization will outweigh the evil…you have our admiration, our friendship, our respect and our prayer,” the bishop said.
To all within the education community, “we reaffirm our firm and persevering determination to work for an educational fraternity,” he added.
Paty was remembered in a French ceremony Oct. 21, during which he was awarded the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest national honor.
Numerous Catholic leaders have condemned the attack and mourned the violent murder in the days following Paty’s killing.
Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen was joined by representatives of Muslim, Jewish, and other Christian communities Oct. 18 at the memorial near the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, where Fr. Jacques Hamel was murdered by Islamists in 2016.
Archbishop Jean-Paul James of Bordeaux co-signed an interreligious statement with Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Protestant and Orthodox leaders of Gironde, France, condemning the murder and calling for renewed, peaceful solidarity among religious believers. “May his family, loved ones, friends, students and colleagues find here the expression of our deep compassion. We are all upset by this barbaric act, and particularly in solidarity with all the teachers deeply affected by this heinous crime,” the religious leaders stated Oct. 21. “Human life is sacred. We reaffirm that any attack against (life) in the name of God is unjustifiable. Together…we want to reiterate forcefully that no one can attempt the life of another, by claiming their religious or ideological convictions whatever they may be.” “In this difficult time, against violence and hatred, we want to firmly keep our commitment to be peacemakers,” they added. “The best bulwark against barbarism, fanaticism and terrorism remain fraternity, education and unity.” The leaders invited all believers to continue to pray and work for a peaceful society.
Denver Newsroom, Oct 22, 2020 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- A San Francisco public school district committee this month recommended that 44 schools with “inappropriate” names be renamed, with Junipero Serra Elementary School near the top of the list.
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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 22, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- The United States hosted the signing ceremony of the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Thursday. The document rejects the claim that abortion is an international human right.
“Today we put down a clear marker; no longer can UN agencies reinterpret and misinterpret agreed-upon language without accountability,” said Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar during the ceremony Oct. 22..
“Without apology we affirm that governments have the soverign right to make their own laws to protect innocent life and write their regulations on abortion” Azar said.
“In signing the declaration today, the United States is honored to stand alongside Brazil, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, and Uganda, the cross-regional cosponsors for the declaration,” he said. A total of 32 countries have signed onto the declaration.
Azar called the signing the “high point” of his time leading the department, and noted that countries who have not yet signed the document can still do so.
“The Geneva Consensus Declaration is a historic document, stating clearly where we as nations stand on women’s health, the family, honoring life, and defending national sovereignty,” said Azar, calling it “much more than a statement of beliefs.”
“It is a critical and useful tool to defend these principles across all United Nations bodies and in every multilateral setting, using language previously agreed to by member states of those bodies,” he explained.
The declaration was written partially in response to a “disturbing trend” in the United Nations, he said.
“With increasing frequency, some rich nations and UN agencies beholden to them are wrongly asserting [that] abortion is a universal human right.”
Azar said that these policies have the effect of forcing countries to implement “progressive” abortion laws or face the loss of funding or international standing. He accused some nations of having a “myopic focus on a radical agenda that is offensive to many cultures, and derails agreement on women’s health priorities.”
The coalition of signing countries “will hold multilateral organizations accountable,” he explained, by denouncing these organizations for “promoting positions that can never gain consensus.”
“We will unequivocally declare that there is no international right to abortion. We will proudly put women’s health first at every stage of life,” he said.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also spoke at the signing ceremony, calling the declaration a “deep and personal commitment to protect human dignity” and “the culmination of lots of hard work.”
Pompeo highlighted the Trump administration’s “unprecedented defense of the unborn abroad,” and said that “the United States has defended the dignity of human life everywhere and always” over the last four years.
“It’s historic to be here,” he said. “It’s the first time that a multilateral coalition has been built around the issue of defending life.”
The Geneva Consensus Declaration, said Pompeo, is a “commitment to work together at the UN and in other international settings to achieve tangible results,” something he is “confident” will happen. He added that he was “truly proud” of the work being done.
Valerie Huber, Special Representative for Global Women’s Health at U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), provided background of the declaration.
The declaration, Huber explained, was intended to be signed at the culmination of the World Health Assembly’s global women’s health summit, which was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We decided to move forward with the declaration now, because accelerating health gains for women cannot wait,” said Huber.
“Supporting the intrinsic value of the family cannot wait. Protecting life born and unborn, and the sovereignty of nations to make their own laws on this issue cannot wait.”
Rome Newsroom, Oct 22, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- As the Sino-Vatican provisional agreement was renewed Thursday, an article in a Vatican newspaper said that two Chinese bishops had been appointed under the “regulatory framework established by the agreement.”
Vatican officials have repeatedly stressed that the accord between China and the Holy See — which will not expire until Oct. 22, 2022 — is focused solely on the appointment of bishops.
While the terms of the agreement have been kept confidential, it reportedly allows the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association to choose a slate of nominees for bishop.
An article published by L’Osservatore Romano Oct. 22 said: “The main purpose of the provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops in China is to support and promote the proclamation of the Gospel in those lands, restoring the full and visible unity of the Church … The question of the appointment of bishops is of vital importance for the life of the Church, both locally and universally.”
With this in mind, what do we know about the bishops who have been affected by the Sino-Vatican agreement? Those who were newly appointed under the confidential provisions of the deal, those whose excommunications were lifted after the deal, and the bishops who stepped back from their former leadership roles.
Who was appointed?
Bishop Antonio Yao Shun of Jining, in the Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia, was the first bishop consecrated in China under the terms of the Sino-Vatican agreement, on Aug. 26, 2019.
Prior to his appointment, Yao had served as the secretary and later vice director of the liturgical commission overseen by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the Council of Chinese Bishops since 1998. He returned to the Diocese of Jining in 2010 to serve as victor general.
Born in Ulanqab in 1965, Yao is a native of Inner Mongolia. He both studied and taught at the national seminary in Beijing. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1991, Yao completed a degree in liturgy in the United States at St. John’s University in Minnesota from 1994 to 1998. He also spent some time pursuing biblical studies in Jerusalem.
Yao’s episcopal motto is “Misericordes sicut pater,” which means “Be merciful as the Father is.”
The New York Times has reported that the Vatican had approved Yao as the successor of Bishop John Liu Shigong in the Diocese of Jining in 2010, but the Chinese government refused to approve him, even after Bishop Liu died in 2017 at the age of 89.
But Chinese researchers have pointed out that Yao is not one to speak out critically about the Chinese government.
“The Communist Party feels comfortable with him,” said Francesco Sisci, a Beijing-based researcher on Chinese Catholicism told the Times in 2019. “They don’t want someone doing agitprop against them.”
Bishop Stephen Xu Hongwei of Hanzhong, in Shaanxi Province, was ordained a coadjutor bishop on August 28, 2019, at the age of 44.
He serves the Diocese of Hanzhong as coadjutor to 91-year-old Bishop Louis Yu Runchen. The diocese was divided between underground and state-approved Catholic communities for many years. Yu Runchen was selected by the Chinese Patriotic Association to be bishop without the approval of the Holy See in 1985, a year after the Vatican’s appointment of Bishop Bartholomew Yu Chengti. The Vatican recognized Yu only after the underground bishop died in 2009.
After his ordination in 2002, Xu studied at the Pontifical Urban University in Rome from 2004 to 2008. He undertook further studies in the Diocese of Vancouver, Canada. Upon returning to China in 2010, he was appointed pastor of West Street Cathedral in the Diocese of Hanzhong.
Xu was a member of a regional Standing Committee of the Chinese People’s Consultative Political Conference — the consultative political body part of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front — in 2012 and 2017, and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.
Whose excommunications were lifted?
With the signing of the provisional agreement between the Holy See and China in Sept. 2018, Pope Francis also lifted the excommunication of seven bishops who had been appointed illicitly by the state-controlled Chinese Patriotic Association.
They include Bishop Joseph Guo Jincai, 52, of Chengde in Hebei Province. Pope Francis created the Diocese of Chengde in 2019 out of the Dioceses of Jinzhou and Chifeng in 2018, so that Guo could lead his own diocese after his excommunication was lifted.
Guo participated in the Synod of Bishops in Rome in 2018 and has served three terms as a deputy to the National People’s Congress in Beijing.
As a member of China’s legislative body, Bishop Guo publicly supported an amendment to eliminate presidential term limits and enshrine “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” in the Chinese constitution in March 2018.
“My position as a national legislator will not and cannot affect my religious service, as China implements the principle of separation of church and state,” Guo told the state-sponsored newspaper Global Times at the National People’s Congress in 2018.
Bishop Vincent Zhan Silu, 61, of Mindong/Funing in Fujian Province. After underground Bishop Joseph Guo Xijin stepped aside to allow him to lead the diocese, Zhan led a delegation of 33 priests from the Diocese of Mindong to participate in a “formation course” at the Central Institute of Socialism, in collaboration with the United Front of Fujian Province, where they listened to presentations on the “sinicization of religion.”
“We must contribute to the creation of a new reality in the diocese of Mindong and in the Catholic Church of Fujian,” Zhan said after the course, according to Asia News.
“We will deepen the content of Catholic doctrine in order to foster social harmony, progress and a positive culture. To carry out the sinicization of religion with determination, we will continue to follow a path that conforms to socialist society,” Zhan said in August 2019.
Bishop Paul Lei Shiyin, 56, of Leshan in Chongqing Province. Lei served as an official delegate at the government’s Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in 2018. He previously served as a vice president of the Patriotic Association.
After his excommunication was lifted, Lei was a speaker at a 2019 celebration of the Chinese Red Army’s Long March, led by Mao Zedong, in which he spoke of a meeting convened by Mao in a (requisitioned) Catholic priest’s house in Moxi in 1935 as a story of “patriotism of our country’s Catholicism,” according to the Catholic Patriotic Association website.
Bishop Joseph Huang Bingzhang, 53, of Shantou in Guangdong Province. After he was appointed by the government without papal permission in 2011, Huang became vice president of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.
He served as a deputy in the most recent National People’s Congress, as well as the National People’s Congress that took place from 2008 to 2013.
Huang said in 2017 that he would work to actively promote the practice of Catholic patriotism, according to the Chinese Patriotic Association website.
Bishop Joseph Liu Xinhong, 56, of Anqing in Anhui Province. Illicitly ordained in 2006 after the government-controlled Catholic bishops’ conference combined the dioceses of Anqing, Bengbu and Wuhu to form the Anhui diocese — a restructuring that was not recognized by the Holy See, according to UCA News.
Bishop Joseph Ma Yinglin, 55, of Kunming in Yunnan Province. Ma previously served as secretary for the Council of Catholic Bishops at a time when the government-controlled “episcopal conference” was not recognized by the Holy See. In 2010, Ma was appointed president of the Chinese patriotic association’s bishops’ conference.
Bishop Joseph Yue Fusheng, 56, of Harbin in Heilongjiang Province. Yue was illicitly named bishop of Harbin in 2012 by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.
Bishop Anthony Tu Shihua of Hanyang and Puqi in Hubei province. Before his death in 2017 at the age of 98, Tu expressed a desire to be reconciled with the Holy See. One of China’s first illicitly named bishops, Tu was appointed without papal mandate in 1959, and later served as rector of the National Seminary in Beijing between 1983 and 1992, and as a leader of the Patriotic Association and the Council of Chinese Bishops.
Who stepped aside?
Bishop Peter Zhuang Jianjian, 89, of Shantou in Guangdong Province was asked to retire by Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli in 2019 so that Bishop Joseph Huang Bingzhang would be recognized by the Vatican as the Bishop of Shantou.
Bishop Joseph Guo Xijin, 62, of Mindong/Funing in Fujian Province. In October this year, Guo announced that he was retiring to concentrate on prayer because he did not “want to become an obstacle to progress.” Guo was an underground bishop who previously agreed to become an auxiliary bishop so that state-appointed Bishop Zhan Silu would be recognized by the Vatican. “In any circumstance or change, you should never forget God, and neither ignore the Lord’s commandments, nor damage the integrity of faith, nor delay the salvation of the soul, which is the most important thing,” he said in a letter to his diocese Oct. 5.
Who is missing?
Bishop James Su Zhimin, 88, of Baoding in Hebei Province. The whereabouts of Bishop Su, who has spent 24 years in prison, is unknown. He was arrested by Chinese authorities in 1997. He was last seen by family at a hospital in 2003 while he was in government custody.
According to Bishop Su’s nephew, Chinese officials have reportedly asked the Vatican to appoint a new bishop of Baoding, UCA News reported on July 22. Their preferred candidate is said to be Coadjutor Bishop Francis An Shuxi, a member of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the state-sanctioned church.
Vatican City, Oct 22, 2020 / 11:22 am (CNA).- The director of a new documentary about Pope Francis received an Italian film award in a ceremony in the Vatican Gardens on Thursday, amid international controversy over his documentary on the life and mini… […]
Rome Newsroom, Oct 22, 2020 / 05:00 am (CNA).- The three teenage girls who killed Sr. Maria Laura Mainetti 20 years ago attested afterward that, while they were stabbing the 60-year-old religious sister to death, she told them she forgave them.
&ldquo… […]
Vatican City, Oct 22, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- The Vatican and China have renewed a provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops for two more years, the Holy See announced Thursday.
An Oct. 22 Vatican communique said that the Chinese government and Vatican authorities agreed to extend “to extend the experimental implementation phase” of the two-year provisional agreement first signed on Sept. 22, 2018, concerning the nomination of bishops. It added that the two parties intended to pursue “an open and constructive dialogue.”
“The Holy See considers the initial application of the agreement — which is of great ecclesial and pastoral value — to have been positive, thanks to good communication and cooperation between the parties on the matters agreed upon, and intends to pursue an open and constructive dialogue for the benefit of the life of the Catholic Church and the good of Chinese people,” the communique said.
An article in L’Osservatore Romano Oct. 22 lauded the results of the agreement, saying that “processes for new episcopal appointments are underway, some at an early stage, others at an advanced stage.”
It reported that two bishops have already been appointed under the “regulatory framework established by the agreement”: Bishop Antonio Yao Shun, of Jining Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia, and Bishop Stefano Xu Hongwei, of Hanzhong in Shaanxi Province.
“It must be acknowledged that there are many situations of great suffering. The Holy See is deeply aware of this, takes it into account and does not fail to attract the attention of the Chinese government to encourage a more fruitful exercise of religious freedom. The path is still long and not without difficulties,” the Vatican newspaper stated.
Following the Vatican-China agreement in 2018, state officials in different regions of China removed crosses and demolished church buildings, and underground Catholics and clergy have reported harassment and detention. A 2020 report of the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China found that Chinese Catholics suffered “increasing persecution” after the deal.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin told journalists Oct. 21 that he was “happy” with the agreement. But he acknowledged “there are also many other problems that the agreement was not intended to solve.”
The cardinal said that the goal of the agreement is “unity of the Church” and that through this unity “it will become an instrument of evangelization,” according to a transcript provided by Italian newspaper Avvenire.
When asked about the persecution of Christians in China, Parolin responded: “But, what persecutions … You have to use the words correctly. There are regulations that are imposed and which concern all religions, and certainly also concern the Catholic Church.”
In China, religious education of any person under the age of 18 is illegal. This means that catechism classes have been closed and minors are not allowed to enter church buildings. Catholic churches registered with the Chinese authorities are closely monitored via CCTV cameras connected to the public security network. Priests have been forced to attend government training courses.
The Chinese government continues to imprison Catholic clergy who refuse to support the Communist Party, according to a September report out of the province of Jiangxi.
But other religious groups have fared far worse under the Chinese Communist Party’s policies of “sincization” and technological control, particularly the Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province, who have suffered forced labor, indoctrination, sterilization, forced abortion, and torture in dentention camps.
While introducing more restrictive rules on religious practice, President Xi Jinping’s repeatedly stated goal has been the “sinicization” of religions. The authorities have sought to diffuse “religious theories with Chinese character” into the five official religions supervised by the government, including the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. This has included instructing Chistian churches to remove images of the Ten Commandments and replace them with sayings of Chairman Mao and Xi.
In March 2018, the Chinese government instituted a major change in its religious regulation by placing the management of religions, including Catholicism, under the direct control of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department (UFWD). The United Front has the task of ensuring that groups outside of the CCP, such as Xinjiang Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, Hong Kong democracy activists, and the Catholic Patriotic Association, are following the party line.
Xi Jinping has called the United Front Work Department one of his “magic weapons,” used to co-opt and control.
Despite mounting international condemnation of China’s internment of more than a million Uyghurs in detention camps, neither Pope Francis nor the Holy See has commented publicly on the situation.
Cardinal Joseph Zen, the emeritus Bishop of Hong Kong, attributes this silence to the Vatican’s ongoing diplomatic talks with the Chinese government.
“It seems that in order to save the agreement, the Holy See is closing both eyes on all the injustices that the Communist Party inflicts on the Chinese people,” Zen wrote Oct. 7.
The Vatican-China agreement gave CCP officials a say in the ordination of bishops, but also allowed for the enforcement of “sinicization” in Church matters, Zen said.
Cardinal Parolin has previously compared “sinicization’” to the Church’s practice of “inculturation,” saying in 2019 that “these two terms … refer to each other without confusion and without opposition.”
In his most recent comments to journalists this week, Parolin said that the contents of the Sino-Vatican agreement will not be made public. But he added that what has been agreed to thus far “does not envisage the establishment of diplomatic relations.”
“On both sides, as long as the agreement is ad experimentum [provisional], it was decided to keep the contents confidential,” Parolin said,
“For the moment there is no talk of diplomatic relations, we are focused on the Church,” he said. The agreement does not concern diplomatic relations nor does it envisage the establishment of diplomatic relations. The agreement concerns the situation of the Church, a specific point which are the appointments of bishops and the difficulties that exist and that we hope to tackle through dialogue.”
© Catholic World Report