News Briefs

Harrisburg, Pa., Jul 27, 2018 / 05:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Friday ordered that a redacted version of a grand jury report detailing sex abuse in six of the state’s eight Catholic dioceses be released next month.

News outlets, victims, and the state attorney general have pressed for the release of the report.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court had stayed the release of the report June 20, after numerous individuals named in the report objected to its release, citing concerns of due process and reputational rights guaranteed by the state constitution.

Lawyers for the media outlets requesting the report’s release have said a redacted version could be released to respond to those concerns, while the court considers challenges to the full report’s release.

The court’s July 27 order effectively adopted that suggestion.

“The Commonwealth is directed to prepare a redacted version of Report 1, which removes specific and contextual references to any petitioner who has an appellate challenge pending before this Court,” read the opinion of the supreme court.

Petitioners who have appeals pending with the court can appeal over the redactions by Aug. 7. If no challenges are made, the interim report and responses are to be publicly released by Aug. 8; but if challenges are made, the public release of the redacted report can be delayed until Aug. 14.

The supreme court wrote that the grand jury had undertaken “the salutary task of exposing alleged child sexual abuse and concealment of such abuse, on an extraordinarily large scale, which the grand jurors have pronounced was perpetrated by trusted members of a religious institution.”

“Thus, the grand jury submitted a report for publication specifically finding that more than 300 people, identified by name, committed criminal and/or morally reprehensible conduct,” the supreme court wrote.

“Ideally, living persons so identified would have been afforded the opportunity to appear before the grand jury and to respond, in some reasonable fashion, to the grand jury’s concerns. For those among the present challengers who were denied such opportunity, and who otherwise have submitted proper appeals seeking the remedy of a pre-deprivation hearing, we hold that they are entitled to this Court’s further consideration of whether additional process can and should now be provided as a curative measure.”

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Oklahoma City, Okla., Jul 27, 2018 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- On Saturday, parishes across Oklahoma will celebrate the first feast day of the first U.S. born martyr, Blessed Stanley Rother, marking the 37 anniversary of his death.

Special masses, relic veneration services, and other events will take place throughout the Oklahoma City-area on the weekend of July 28. Catholics from Guatemala, where Rother served as a priest and was killed, are expected to attend.

His feast day will be celebrated in churches in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, the Diocese of Tulsa, and the Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas.

The first Catholic Church dedicated to Rother is located in Decatur, Arkansas, and was dedicated shortly after Rother’s beatification.

The Diocese of Sololá-Chimaltenango, where the priest served the native people of Guatemala for 13 years, will also celebrate the feast day.

Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City has prepared readings for churches to use in honor of Blessed Stanley Rother.

The Heritage Gallery of the Oklahoma archdiocese was open to facilitate pilgrimages throughout the month of July. The gallery also includes a museum with Rother artifacts and information on the life of the martyr.

On July 28, a special Mass will be celebrated at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church. Here, relics and medals of Rother will be given to members of the martyr’s family. Another Mass will be led by Archbishop Coakley later that evening at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Okarche, the martyr’s hometown.

Other churches and pastoral centers will host prayers services, including times to venerate a first-class relic of Rother at St Francis de Sales Chapel on Saturday and Sunday. The church’s gift shop will feature Blessed Rother’s medals, prayer cards, and posters.

Last September, more than 20,000 people attended a beatification Mass in downtown Oklahoma City, making Blessed Rother the first U.S. born martyr to be officially beatified. Pope Francis approved Rother’s martyrdom in December 2016.

In 1968, the Oklahoma priest arrived at his Guatemala parish in Santiago Atitlan, a poor rural community of mostly indigenous people.

As a missionary priest, Blessed Rother was called on to say Mass, but also to fix the broken truck or work the fields. He built a farmers’ co-op, a school, a hospital, and the first Catholic radio station, which was used for catechesis to the even more remote villages.

Over the years, the violence of the Guatemalan civil war inched closer to the once-peaceful village. Disappearances, killings and danger soon became a part of daily life, but Fr. Stanley remained steadfast and supportive of his people.

In 1981, armed men broke into his rectory, intending to abduct him. He resisted and struggled, but did not call for help, so others at the mission would not be endangered. He was shot twice and killed.

“He is a model of priestly holiness and fidelity. He came from an ordinary home and a small town, growing up on a farm where he learned to work hard. He knew the importance of family and community,” said Archbishop Coakley in a July 25 press release.  

“He placed all his natural gifts and talents at the service of his priestly ministry and missionary endeavors. With so many challenges facing our priests today, here is a priest we can embrace and celebrate – the shepherd who didn’t run.”

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Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Jul 27, 2018 / 04:54 pm (CNA).- Life used to be very isolated for Ho Ngoc Linh, an 11-year-old girl living in central Vietnam.

She lived at home with her family and went to school with her peers. But she could never make the… […]

Denver, Colo., Jul 27, 2018 / 04:00 pm (CNA).-  Today CNA says farewell to our summer intern, Lizzy Joslyn. In her final week at CNA this summer, Lizzy offered “The Genius of Woman,” a four-part series of interviews and profiles, based on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Letter to Women,” and interviews with seven Catholic women from very different walks of life. Today, she offers her own commentary on the “feminine genius.”

As a young woman immersed in popular culture, especially via social media, I have heard–and often joined–the battle cry for women to be “strong” and “independent.”

Taken at face value, these are great qualities to possess. Of course, every woman–every person–should strive to be strong and independent.

But what exactly do those words mean in the context of some modern feminist viewpoints? I’d like to pinpoint the specific shade of each word as it applies to culture’s tagline of the “strong, independent woman,” then re-adjust the hue of their meanings to their purest and most original form–what it means to be a “strong, independent women” according to the Church.

There are women who think that being strong in the world has to mean hiding her femininity, lest she be judged by the world to appear weak or soft. And women sometimes do face social pressures that lead us to feel nearly obliged to avoid any semblance of gentleness or emotional warmth.

 It’s true, of course, that women have spent years battling glass ceilings, sexual violence and lacking representation in many spheres, and these battles rightfully continue. It’s true that women have to be prepared for those battles.

Despite this, women, I have discovered that we do not have to hide or throw away the warm, gentle side of our nature–or any part of our nature, for that matter. In fact, we shouldn’t.

Strength, in God’s eyes, means having the courage to embrace our womanly qualities, not to stifle them. We shouldn’t have to be embarrassed for our keen social skills and sensitivity to others’ emotions. We shouldn’t have to conceal our desire to care for others or our instinct to nurture. To grow the world’s appreciation for what women are: this is the true battle, the one worth fighting.

Independence, for women, is sometimes attached to the idea of “not needing” men, specifically in the context of romantic relationships. There is actually some truth to this. Women should not hold the concept of marriage as the ultimate goal in life, and neither should men. God does not call every woman and man to marriage.

But the idea of independence is most meaningful in the sense that women should focus on the unique path God is creating for them.

Though women’s lives do not hinge on men (or vice versa), they do, and should, depend on each other to bring their respective strengths to the world’s needs. This is the beauty of complementarity that John Paul II wrote about.

While I acknowledge that each woman has a different personality and a different set of gifts, I argue that these differences are varying reflections of the feminine genius. Some women may be more or less emotional or inclined to nurture than others. Women are called to work in various areas of the workforce; some are called to be mothers, some to both. Some women are more soft-spoken and gentle, others, perhaps, more vocal and audacious.

But no woman lacks the feminine genius, and no woman escapes its serious responsibilities, however it manifests itself in each woman’s highly specific calling. God made women different from men for a reason, and it is this we must embrace in order to live the feminine genius to its fullest.

So, my fellow sisters in Christ, let’s be strong in God’s plan for us, and independent on our search for his purpose for our lives.

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San Francisco, Calif., Jul 27, 2018 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An initiative in the Archdiocese of San Francisco to form the Catholic imagination through beauty will next month host a workshop on how to teach “chant camps,” in which children and teens are educated in Gregorian chant.

The Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, founded by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone in 2014, is holding a Teaching Children’s Chant Camp Workshop in Menlo Park, about 30 miles south of San Francisco, Aug. 9-12.

The institute means to promote the vision of the Second Vatican Council, whose constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, said that Gregorian chant is “specially suited to the Roman liturgy” and that “therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.”

Maggie Gallagher, executive director of the Benedict XVI Institute, told CNA that children are particularly receptive to Gregorian chant.

“Kids, teens, and tweens take to chant like a duck to water. For two reasons: First, music is a language and like all languages it is best learned young,” she said.

“Secondly, kids are fascinated by doing ‘grown-up’ music. People keep offering 8 and 9 year olds ‘children’s’ hymns at the exact moment tween are looking to put aside the babyish and assume older identities.”

Gallagher’s words echoed those of Pius XI, who wrote in his 1928 bull Divini cultus that in “their earliest years” young people “are able more easily to learn to sing, and to modify, if not entirely to overcome, any defects in their voices.”

This is the first summer the Benedict XVI Institute has held chant camps for children. The camps’ director, Mary Ann Carr-Wilson, however, “has taught children’s chant camps for the past ten years, helping to pioneer the form,” Gallagher said.

Carr-Wilson directs choirs at St. Anne Catholic Church in San Diego, has been a soloist with the San Diego Chamber Orchestra and other groups, and holds an M.M. from San Diego State University.

“Learning from Mary Ann is learning from the best. We’re very grateful she’s decided to join the Benedict XVI team,” Gallagher stated.

Rather than teaching solely performance, the camps impart a sense of the meaning of the Mass, and what is participation in the liturgy.

She has said that during the week-long chant camps, children learn how to chant the Mass, in a way that engages them immediately. Older and more experienced singers mentor the younger and weaker ones, and children who thought they couldn’t sing find that they are able.

Most importantly, Gallagher has said, is that the children participants deepen their understanding of the Mass.

Gallagher reported to CNA the words of Fr. Corwin, the chaplain at a recent chant camp, that “These kids get more catechesis at chant camp than they do all year. They learn what the Mass is. They learn than chant is not performance, it’s prayer.”

Fr. Corwin added, “They are intrigued to find out they are singing the same prayers their favorite saints prayed through the ages. They are tasked with mastering the Tradition and then charged with handing it down. They love the responsibility. They love the Mystery. And they love the beauty they offer to glorify God and sanctify the Faithful.”

The Benedict XVI Institute’s promotion of Gregorian chant is in line with the Second Vatican Council, and with popes from St. Pius X to Pope Francis.

In his 1903 motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini promoting active participation in the liturgy, St. Pius X focused on the importance of chant, writing that “Gregorian Chant has always been regarded as the supreme model for sacred music.”

He directed that “special efforts are to be made to restore the use of the Gregorian Chant by the people, so that the faithful may again take a more active part in the ecclesiastical offices.”

Pius XI said, “so that the faithful may more actively participate in divine worship, let Gregorian chant be restored to popular use.”

Ven. Pius XII wrote in his 1947 encyclical Mediator Dei that Gregorian chant “makes the celebration of the sacred mysteries not only more dignified and solemn but helps very much to increase the faith and devotion of the congregation.”

In his 2007 apostolic exhortation Sacramentum caritatis, Benedict XVI wrote that “while respecting various styles and different and highly praiseworthy traditions, I desire, in accordance with the request advanced by the Synod Fathers, that Gregorian chant be suitably esteemed and employed as the chant proper to the Roman liturgy,” adding that “nor should we forget that the faithful can be taught to recite the more common prayers in Latin, and also to sing parts of the liturgy to Gregorian chant.”

The 1967 instruction on music in the liturgy, Musicam sacram, which was an implementation of Vatican II, stated that “the study and practice of Gregorian chant is to be promoted, because, with its special characteristics, it is a basis of great importance for the development of sacred music.”

And in an address marking the 50th anniversary of Musicam sacram, Pope Francis praised the instruction and its focus on active, conscious, and full participation in the liturgy.

In his March 4, 2017 address to participants in a sacred music conference, Francis lamented that “At times a certain mediocrity, superficiality and banality have prevailed, to the detriment of the beauty and intensity of liturgical celebrations.”

He urged that musicians and others “make a precious contribution to the renewal, especially in qualitative terms, of sacred music and of liturgical chant.”

Among the participants in the Benedict XVI Institute’s Aug. 9-12 workshop are the Missionaries of Charity, who Gallagher has said “told us they wanted our help to learn both to improve their own prayer life and so they can teach children how to participate in the Mass in this special way.”

Gallagher told CNA that “if you’d like to bring a chant camp or a chant camp workshop to your parish or school or youth choir, contact us Rose Marie Wong at wongr@sfarch.org.”

She added that one or two slots with scholarships for the Aug. 9-12 How to Teach Children Chant workshop are available.

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Washington D.C., Jul 27, 2018 / 12:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- How can Catholics respond to young people’s questions and concerns about faith, science, and modern problems?
 
Father Robert Spitzer, S.J. thinks a new educational series called Cre… […]