Vatican City, Jul 5, 2018 / 11:50 am (CNA).- Most mayors do not live in unheated monastic cells, deliver candy from Orthodox patriarchs to the pope, or become ambassadors for international peace.
Giorgio La Pira was not like most mayors.
The cause fo… […]
Vatican City, Jul 5, 2018 / 04:35 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After the Vatican’s former communications head stepped down in the fallout of a major fake-news scandal, Pope Francis has tapped layman Paolo Ruffini for the job, pulling him from a post with the Italian bishops conference.
Ruffini, born in Palermo in 1956, has until now worked as the director of TV2000, the official television channel for the Italian bishops, and will be responsible for continuing the pope’s overhaul of Vatican communications.
He graduated with a law degree from Rome’s Sapienza University, and has been a professional journalist since 1979. He has been married for roughly 32 years and has worked for various publications, including “Il Mattino” of Naples; “Il Messaggero” in Rome; the radio and television sections for Italian broadcaster “Rai,” among others.
In addition to his hefty background in radio, print and television communications, Ruffini has also received several prizes for journalism and has participated in study conferences about the role Christians play in information, communications ethics and new media.
The July 5 announcement of Ruffini’s appointment comes after the recent decision by Pope Francis to change the Vatican’s communications office from a “secretariat” to a “dicastery,” the general word used for the Vatican’s various offices and departments, which was seen by some as a downgrade.
Ruffini will take over for Msgr. Lucio Ruiz, who has served as an interim leader for the communications office since March, when the former prefect, Msgr. Dario Vigano, stepped down following what has been dubbed the “Lettergate” scandal.
The fiasco took place after the March launch of the 11-book series “The Theology of Pope Francis,” published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the Vatican publishing house overseen by the Vatican’s communications department.
A letter from Benedict XVI praising Francis’ theological and philosophical formation was read aloud at the event, however, the secretariat later admitted to tampering with an image of the letter that was sent to media, blurring out lines in which Benedict said that he had not read the full series, and did not plan to do so, and therefore was not able to offer an in-depth analysis of the text.
Days later, it was revealed that further paragraphs had been left out in which Benedict questioned the inclusion in the series of a theologian known for his “anti-papal initiatives.”
After receiving pressure from the media, the secretariat published the full letter March 17, which they said was confidential and never intended to be published in its entirety.
Following Vigano’s resignation, Pope Francis named Ruiz, former secretary of the department, as an interim prefect, but asked Vigano to stay on in an advisory role, which he is expected to keep when Ruffini steps in.
In a recent interview with Reuters news agency, Pope Francis said he had initially offered the job as his communications chief to a woman, but she had declined due to previous commitments.
Los Angeles, Calif., Jul 4, 2018 / 04:51 pm (CNA).- The story of a donor-conceived woman. The Sexual Revolution of the 1960s. The development of birth control. And a papal document that shocked the world. These themes come together in a new documentary… […]
Vatican City, Jul 4, 2018 / 10:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Almost 50 years after the Church published the new Rite of Consecrated Virginity, the Vatican has issued an instruction on the state of life, its discipline, and the responsibilities of diocesan bi… […]
Vatican City, Jul 4, 2018 / 08:24 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Since 2014 international charity organization Aid to the Church in Need has spent some 40 million euros [$46.6 million] funding relief and reconstruction efforts in Iraq, with the majority of support going toward basic needs such as housing.
However, according to Thomas Heine-Geldem, executive president of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), now that the international community chipping in to rebuild Christian villages destroyed when ISIS took over the Nineveh Plains in 2014, the organization’s primary focus will shift from funding basic reconstruction to restoring religious structures such as churches and monasteries, many of which were desecrated and burned under ISIS rule.
With nations such as Hungary, which has long supported for reconstruction efforts in Iraq, and the United States offering financial help, ACN can take a step back and focus on their “pastoral vocation,” Heine-Geldem said, noting how ACN was founded as a means of providing both spiritual and material help to Christians who are persecuted or living in poverty.
The next stage in the rebuilding process in Iraq, then, will center “on the renovation of destroyed churches, there are many, destroyed seminaries and destroyed monasteries. That’s back to our original vocation,” Heine-Geldem said.
In June the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) pledged to give some $10 million to two aid organizations working in Iraq, one of which is Catholic Relief Services, and an additional $25 million will be given later to support “persecuted communities” in Iraq, specifically Christians returning to the Nineveh Plains and Yazidis in Sinjar.
So far, structures being built or restored as part of this “pastoral vocation” include a pastoral center in the village of Kirkuk; a church in each of the villages of Teleskuf, Qaraqosh and Bartella; three convents for Dominican sisters serving in Bartella and Qaraqosh; and the Holy Family orphanage in Qaraqosh.
Representatives from ACN will be making visits to both Iraq and Syria within the next few months to determine what the needs are and to discuss with local ecclesial leaders which structures should be taken up next.
Heine-Geldem was present alongside other ACN representatives, including Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, major penitentiary of the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary and president of ACN international, at the July 4 presentation of the organization’s annual activity report for 2017.
According to the numbers in the report, last year ACN spent the majority of funds on projects in mission territories, supporting some 5,357 projects in 149 countries. The rest went toward administrative costs, advertising and fundraising.
The organization, which has offices in 23 countries around the world, had around 368,000 benefactors in 2017, with a large portion of funding also coming from Catholics who donated in exchange for a Mass intention for themselves or a loved one.
In total, ACN gave around 84.6 million euro [$98.5 million] in 2017 to support their mission projects, most of which are in Africa, followed by Asia, Latin America, Eastern and Central Europe, and the Middle East.
In terms of where most of the money is spent, Africa again took the lead, followed by the Middle East, which Heine-Geldem said was the result of a concrete decision by ACN to provide “exceptional” support to the region to help Christians stay.
“If Christians are not helped to stay there, they will be forced to leave,” he said, adding that “if we don’t have Christians in the Middle East, there is no need to help the pastoral work.”
Most of ACN’s funding in Iraq is going toward their Nineveh Plains Reconstruction Project, and providing spiritual support through Masses, formation and catechesis, as well as food and transport.
The reconstruction project, Heine-Geldem said, has also helped bring different Christian rites in Iraq together and has allowed them to interact in a way that was not typical in the past.
“We have created a platform,” he said, noting that the committee for the project is composed of leaders from the Syriac Catholic Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Syrian Orthodox Church.
“This is very, very important, because in addition to all these struggles, these tragedies, all this ethnic and religious persecution, we have still found a lack of experience in cooperation among Christians in the Middle East,” he said, noting that the committee as a body evaluates the needs and decides which villages or churches to focus on next.
In Syria, which is second on the list of Middle Eastern aid recipients for ACN, most of the funding still comes in the form of basic humanitarian aid since the country is still at war.
“We still have war, we still have uncertainty, and people still need emergency help in order enable Christians there to remain or to entice them to return,” Heine-Geldem said, reiterating that the organization’s main priority is to help Christians stay in their home country.
“This is not a political statement about immigration, but it is our vocation to do that,” he said, explaining that from even from a geopolitical view, they don’t want the area to become “totally Christian free.”
“Christians are a good backbone of society,” he said, noting that many Muslims have told him Christians are needed in the Middle East, because they form the majority of the middle class, and are educated.
In terms of 2018, Heine-Geldem said Syria and Iraq will continue to be a priority, as will the religious freedom report ACN publishes annually, which will be released in November.
Additionally, India will also be a key focus, with particular attention for Catholics who are members of the “Dalit” class, which is the lowest in the caste and whose members are considered “untouchable” and less than human.
These people are “oppressed and neglected by the system,” and they also face increasing religious persecution from the amplified presence of Hindu extremists, Heine-Geldem said, noting that ACN recently launched a campaign to “open the eyes” of the world to what is happening on the ground.
“From what I’ve seen, they really deserve our help. It is a very serious situation.”
Irondale, Ala., Jul 4, 2018 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- EWTN Global Catholic Network will observe America’s Independence Day with airings of Called and Chosen: Father Vincent R. Capodanno.
The 90-minute documentary about the life and death of Fr. Capodanno will air on EWTN July 4 at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Eastern time. Produced by Jim Kelty, the film won a Gabriel Award at the Catholic Media Conference in June.
Servant of God Vincent Capodanno was a decorated Navy chaplain who was killed while seeking to provide the sacraments to ambushed Marines in the Vietnam War. His cause for canonization is being pursued by the Archdiocese for Military Services.
Father Capodanno was a Maryknoll priest from the New York City borough of Staten Island. He was nicknamed the “Grunt Padre” for his service to members of the infantry.
While with Maryknoll, Fr. Capodanno served in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and then requested to be reassigned as a chaplain with the U.S. Marine Corps. He was sent to Vietnam in 1966, and requested an extension to his tour of duty when it was up.
The chaplain was killed at the age of 38 on Sept. 4, 1967 in Vietnam’s Que Son Valley after his unit was ambushed by North Vietnamese forces. Despite suffering injuries from mortar fire, including a partly severed hand, he continued to give last rites to the dying and medical aid to the wounded.
In disregard of intense small arms fire, automatic weapons fire, and mortars, Fr. Capodanno rushed about 15 yards to reach a wounded corpsman in the direct line of fire of a North Vietnamese machine gunner. He was killed just before he reached the wounded man.
He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor Jan. 7, 1969.
“By his heroic conduct on the battlefield, and his inspiring example, Lt. Capodanno upheld the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life in the cause of freedom,” said the priest’s Medal of Honor citation.
Some Catholics devoted to Fr. Capodanno have reported favors granted following intercessory prayers to the chaplain. In 2006 the Congregation for the Causes of Saints declared Fr. Capodanno a Servant of God.
London, England, Jul 3, 2018 / 05:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As the UK plans to ban conversion therapy as a result of a government-sponsored survey of LGBT people, a Catholic author who identifies as having same-sex attraction said families should maintain the right to pursue pastoral responses framed by Church teaching.
In July 2017, the British government of Conservative prime minister Theresa May launched a survey to gather information about the experiences of LBGT people in the UK.
More than 108,000 people participated, and as a result the government issued a 75-point LBGT Action Plan to improve the lives of LGBT people. Through March 2020, GBP 4.5 million ($5.9 million) will be allocated to implement the plan, and additional funding will be sought for future years.
The plan would introduce an official LGBT health adviser, fight discrimination, promote diversity in educational institutions, and improve responses to LGBT-based hate crime.
The government will “consider all legislative and non-legislative options to prohibit promoting, offering or conducting conversion therapy.”
Penny Mordaunt, Minister for Women and Equalities, told BBC Radio 4 July 3 that it is a “very extreme so-called therapy that is there to try and ‘cure’ someone from being gay.”
“That’s very different from psychological services and counselling. It’s pretty unpleasant, some of the results we found, and it shows that there’s more action to do.”
Daniel Mattson, author of Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay, told CNA that “This is having the state step in and interfere in the rights of parents and children to determine their own choice of action in the name of supposedly protecting people from harm.”
“We as Catholics, we have to defend the rights of our families and young people to find the sort of therapy that is going to help them in accordance with the Church’s teaching.”
Mattson is familiar with some of the dangers in trying to change the sexual orientation of an individual. He said there have been “extreme measures” in therapy which exasperate mental health.
“I think there has been some damage in the name of trying to ‘change someone’s sexual orientation,’” he said. “There are some people who say if you have enough faith and you can pray and these thing would be resolved. Well, that’s not healthy and that’s not helpful and it leads to false promises.”
Mattson said the goal of conversion therapy should not be to change a person’s sexual orientation. Rather, he said a proper therapeutic response should be based in chastity and virtue, leading someone to embrace a natural and virtuous view of the person.
“I think what is very helpful is virtue based therapy, chastity based therapy, guided by Catholic anthropology, where a young person comes in to try and help them with their God given identity,” he said. “It would help someone accept their true sexual nature as revealed to them in their body.”
A part of the problem, Mattson said, is that the homosexual debate is split into a false dichotomy: “either affirming someone in this gay identity or else [engaging] in sexual orientation change efforts.”
In response, Catholics should better define homosexuality and conversion therapies, he said, noting that the presence or absence of same-sex attractions should not be the focus, but rather to embrace the whole truth of the human person as seen by the Church.
“This is a question where parents want their son or daughter to know what it means to be fully comfortable in their own sexual identity as a man or women,” he said.
“What the Church is doing is calling men and women and teenagers to live out the Church’s teaching on chastity and the virtues, and our young people need to have the right to be able to have therapy that might help them with that.”
Cheyenne, Wyo., Jul 3, 2018 / 05:28 pm (CNA).- Emeritus Bishop Joseph Hart has been credibly accused of sexually assaulting two boys after he became Bishop of Cheyenne in 1976, the Wyoming diocese has said, following an investigation of charges ordered… […]
Washington D.C., Jul 3, 2018 / 04:45 pm (CNA).- Since the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, reports have circulated that Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a federal judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, is a leading candidate for the country’s high court.
Barrett, a Catholic, was appointed a federal judge in 2017. During and after her confirmation process, questions were raised about her faith, and about her affiliation with a group called the “People of Praise,” a charismatic “covenant community.”
People of Praise has been referred to in the media as a “cult,” criticized for leaders called “heads” and “handmaidens” and for its widely noted “loyalty oaths.”
But what is the “People of Praise?” Is it a cult? CNA spoke with current and former members to find out.
Bishop Peter Smith is a member of the Brotherhood of the People of Praise, an association of priests connected to the group, founded with the support of the late Cardinal Francis George of Chicago. Smith was ordained a bishop on April 29, 2014.
People of Praise was founded in 1971 as part of the “great emergence of lay ministries and lay movements in the Catholic Church,” Smith told CNA.
The group began with 29 members who formed a “covenant”- an agreement, not an oath, to follow common principles, to give five percent of annual income to the group, and to meet regularly for spiritual, social, and service projects.
Covenant communities- Protestant and Catholic- emerged across the country in the 1970s, as a part of the Charismatic Renewal movement in American Christianity.
While most People of Praise members are Catholic, the group is officially ecumenical; people from a variety of Christian denominations can join. Members of the group are free to attend the church of their choosing, including different Catholic parishes, Smith explained.
“We’re a lay movement in the Church,” Smith explained. “There are plenty of these. We continue to try and live out life and our calling as Catholics, as baptized Christians, in this particular way, as other people do in other callings or ways that God may lead them into the Church.”
Cardinal George, who was widely reputed among bishops for orthodoxy, wrote of the group: “In my acquaintance with the People of Praise, I have found men and women dedicated to God and eager to seek and do His divine will. They are shaped by love of Holy Scripture, prayer and community; and the Church’s mission is richer for their presence.”
The group was tapped to assist with the formation of deacons in at least one diocese, and several members have been ordained deacons.
While Barrett is known for her judicial conservatism, particularly on life issues, the group is not partisan. A person’s political viewpoints do not play a role in membership, Smith told CNA.
“I know for a fact there are both registered Republicans and Democrats as well as independents in the People of Praise,” said Smith.
There are an estimated 2,000 adult members of People of Praise. The organization has priest members in two dioceses, and operates three schools in the United States.
Barrett’s Catholic faith came under scrutiny in 2017, when she was nominated for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. During a confirmation hearing, she was asked by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) if she was an “orthodox Catholic” who believed in the Church’s teachings. Feinstein also said that “the dogma lives loudly” in Barrett- that phrase has become which a rallying cry of sorts among many Catholics. #DogmaLivesLoudly has even become a popular hashtag.
People of Praise has faced criticism, and some former members allege that leaders have exerted undue influence over family decision-making, or pressured the children of members to commit to the group before being able to make that decisions with maturity.
One critic, philosopher Adrian Reimers, has written that the group has made “serious errors” in its theological approach.
Despite the criticisms it has faced, a former member of People of Praise told CNA that “the rank and file People of Praise members are very, very good people, wholeheartedly dedicated to the Lord,” he said.
Bishop Smith rejected the idea that there is anything out of the ordinary or inappropriate about People of Praise. If affiliation with the group were something to be concerned about, he said, he would not have been made a bishop.
“When one becomes a bishop, they check your background out very, very closely,” Smith said. “My People of Praise affiliation was very clear in my consideration for appointment as bishop, so the Holy Father Pope Francis appointed me bishop, knowing full well my involvement with People of Praise.”
“If this was a nefarious group, I certainly wouldn’t be part of it, and I certainly wouldn’t be in the position that I’m in as well.”
While Barrett is reportedly a member of the group, People of Praise does not official disclose information about individual members, and declined CNA’s request for comment. And while women in the group’s leadership were previously referred to as “handmaidens,” the terminology has since shifted and these women are now called “women leaders.”
Rome, Italy, Jul 3, 2018 / 03:07 pm (ACI Prensa).- Cardinal Leopoldo José Brenes Solorzano of Managua believes the two month-long open conflict in Nicaragua will come to an end through genuine dialogue and by listening to the voice of the people, many of whom are calling for early elections.
Protests against president Daniel Ortega have resulted in 309 deaths, according to the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights. The country’s bishops have mediated on-again, off-again peace talks between the government and opposition groups.
Protests began April 18 after Ortega announced social security and pension reforms. The changes were soon abandoned in the face of widespread, vocal opposition, but protests only intensified after more than 40 protestors were killed by security forces initially.
The Church in Nicaragua was quick to acknowledge the protestors’ complaints. Barricades and roadblocks are now found throughout the country, and clashes frequently turn lethal. Bishops and priests across Nicaragua have worked to separate protesters and security forces, and have been threatened and shot.
While in Rome to brief Pope Francis on the situation in Nicaragua and to participate in the June 28 consistory, Cardinal Brenes spoke to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language sister agency, describing the
state of affairs as “very painful.”
“We bishops have said ‘not one more death’, but nevertheless they continue. The prophetic voice of the bishops on many occasions has not been listened to, but we will go on insisting. One death, two deaths, three deaths and already there are more than 300 deaths. I have always said that behind the death of every Nicarguan, the pain affects many more,” he said.
“One day I read a banner that a mother was carrying during a demonstration. It said, ‘giving birth to a child is painful, but losing a child is much more painful.’ When a mother gives birth, she suffers at that time, but when the child is born she is filled with joy. However, when that mother loses a child, especially when he is murdered, that sad expression on her face lasts a lifetime. And it just doesn’t hurt her, but also the siblings, and if he is married, his wife, his children; but it also goes beyond the families, because it affects neighbors and friends.”
The cardinal described the bishops’ relationship with Ortega’s government as “one of pastors with president to whom we have said we are not enemies, and we don’t want them to see us as enemies.”
“As pastors we are supporting a common cause. As pastors we don’t want to form a political party; no one aspires to be president of the country or have a position in the government. We agreed to be part of the national dialogue as mediators and witnesses, and if tomorrow this gets resolved, we’ll be happy.”
The Church’s mediation of dialogue between the government and the opposition is “a service which we want to offer for the governability and democratization of our country,” he said.
Cardinal Brenes added that “we have felt the confidence of the people in the bishops’ conference” and noted, “there’s no bishop in particular who is setting the guidelines. Perhaps at some point they will want to make some bishop stand out, but in reality it’s the entire bishops’ conference. What’s important is to see a bishops’ conference that is very united.”
The cardinal believes the resolution of the conflict is going to take “both the civic alliance and the delegates from the government learning to dialogue, because with shouts, complaints, and insults, nothing gets done.”
“We have now entered into that process, but the first few days were really intense, and we had to call for a truce, and say: ‘let’s think this through.’ But then they began to talk again.”
“We are organizing small working groups, in which there are usually six members from the government and another six from the alliance, and in another working group three and three, with their respective advisers, and a coordinator who represents us bishops,” Cardinal Brenes said, explaining the current configuration of the talks.
“The primary thing is to begin to learn how to speak and to have as a common goal the good of the country leading to its democratization. The people are calling for early elections and we as a bishops’ conference have taken up that sentiment of the people and have presented the project, that route to take, to the president of the government. Everything is in his hands,” he stated.
The Church in Nicaragua “is an institution the people trust,” he said, “and that is a challenge for us, because it means we are answerable to that trust.”
Cardinal Brenes emphasized the importance of well-formed youth, citing their role in standing up to Ortega’s government.
“This entire situation we’re going through broke out because of them, because it was from that social commitment which they have that they began the protests, which then spread throughout the country,” he explained.
“We also have a great challenge: How to form young people so that come tomorrow, we don’t fall back into the same errors of today. They are the ones who have in their hands the destiny of Nicaragua” and therefore it is important to ask ourselves “how to make a better Nicaragua.”
Anti-government protesters have been attacked by “combined forces” made up of regular police, riot police, paramilitaries, and pro-government vigilantes.
The Nicaraguan government has suggested that protestors are killing their own supporters so as to destabilize Ortega’s administration.
The pension reforms which triggered the unrest were modest, but protests quickly turned to Ortega’s authoritarian bent.
Ortega has been president of Nicaragua since 2007, and oversaw the abolition of presidential term limits in 2014.
He has shown resistance to calls for elections, which are not scheduled until 2021, to be held early.
Ortega was a leader in the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which had ousted the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and fought US-backed right-wing counterrevolutionaries during the 1980s. Ortega was also leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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