In strongly Catholic Philippines, bishops’ conference picks new leader

July 17, 2017 CNA Daily News 1

Manila, Philippines, Jul 17, 2017 / 04:23 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Philippines is one of the most populous Catholic countries in the world. About 80 percent of the country’s 100 million people belong to the faith.

Now, the country’s Catholic bishops’ conference has elected a new president: Archbishop Romulo Valles.

Since 2012 Archbishop Valles, 66, has headed the Archdiocese of Davao, on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao. Davao is the largest city in the region.

Over 60 percent of Mindanao’s total population is Catholic, while Muslims make up 20 percent. In the past the island has suffered a communist insurgency and an armed Moro separatist movement, Vatican Radio reports. The region is currently suffering an insurgency of Islamic insurgents who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and have captured Marawi City, burning the Catholic cathedral and taking hostage a Catholic priest and several church workers.

Archbishop Valles served as the most recent vice-president of the bishops’ conference. He has chaired the conference’s Commission on Liturgy.

His election took place at the beginning of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ July 8-10 plenary assembly at the Pope Pius XII Catholic Center in Manila.

Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of the Manila-area Diocese of Caloocan was elected the conference vice-president.

The newly elected leaders will take office Dec. 1. The Philippines bishops’ conference covers 86 ecclesiastical jurisdictions.

Archbishop Valles’ archdiocese is the home base of controversial President Rodrigo Duterte, a past mayor of Davao City. The president has vocally insulted the bishops who criticized his harsh crackdown on drugs.

In his final keynote as conference president, Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan stressed the need to reach out to society with an open hand.

“Closed fists do not love; they hurt. Closed fists do not touch, they strike and injure. Closed fists and prayer do not match,” he said.

Without mentioning by name President Duterte, Archbishop Villegas alluded to how the bishops had been “calumniated and slandered.”

“We have been cursed and ridiculed but you our shepherds have chosen to fly high when the mockers of the Church chose to go so low,” he said.

“I know that the values of an open hands, fortitude and listening will be same pastoral tools that we will use to serve and guide the flock of God,” he added.

Archbishop Villegas’ tenure included a massive earthquake in Bohol province and a major typhoon in the Visayas. Pope Francis visited in 2015. The country also hosted the 51st International Eucharistic Congress.

Politically, during the archbishop’s tenure the Philippines bishops clashed with previous president Benigno Aquino over a population control bill and over issues of corruption, Vatican Radio reports.

[…]

Shots fired at people voting outside church in Venezuela

July 17, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Caracas, Venezuela, Jul 17, 2017 / 01:53 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Armed civilians who support the Venezuelan regime opened fire against a large crowd of protestors who were participating in a symbolic referendum in Caracas on Sunday.

The incident forced hundreds to seek refuge inside Our Lady of Mount Carmel church where they stayed until the local archbishop Cardinal Jorje Urosa Savino mediated their safe exit. One person died from gunshot wounds and several others were injured.

Swaths of locals who oppose the current leadership called for a “consultation of the people” on July 16 to protest President Nicolas Maduro’s plans to rewrite the country’s constitution on July 30. Some 7 million people participated in Sunday’s protest.

In the wake of Nicolas Maduro succeeding former socialist president Hugo Chavez after the latter died from cancer in 2013, the country has been marred by violence and social upheaval.

Poor economic policies, including strict price controls, coupled with high inflation rates, have resulted in a severe lack of basic necessities such as toilet paper, milk, flour, diapers and medicines.

Venezuela’s socialist government is widely blamed for the crisis. Since 2003, price controls on some 160 products, including cooking oil, soap and flour, have meant that while they are affordable, they fly off store shelves only to be resold on the black market at much higher rates.

The Venezuelan government is known to be among the most corrupt in Latin America, and violent crime in the country has spiked since Maduro took office.

On July 16, Cardinal Urosa had celebrated Mass in the church located in the Catia section of Caracas. The incident took place following the service.

In concluding the Angelus prayer this Sunday at the Vatican, Pope Francis said he is keeping the people of Venezuela in his prayers.

[…]

Cardinal Simoni to consecrate church of Mother Teresa in Balkans

July 17, 2017 CNA Daily News 1

Prizren, Serbia, Jul 17, 2017 / 11:52 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis on Saturday appointed Cardinal Ernest Simoni to be his delegate at the consecration of a cathedral dedicated to St. Teresa of Calcutta in Pristina, the capital of the self-declared state of Kosovo.

The consecration will take place Sept. 5, 2017, the 20th anniversary of the death of St. Teresa of Calcutta, and just one year after her canonization in Rome by Pope Francis.

Though in use by Catholics in the area since 2010, the consecration will mark the shrine’s formal dedication to Mother Teresa.

Cardinal Simoni, 88, is a priest of the Archdiocese of Shkodrë-Pult. He is one of the last survivors of the communist persecution in Albania.

Cardinal Simoni was a seminarian in December 1944, when an atheistic communist regime came to power in Albania. In 1948, communists shot and killed his Franciscan superiors. He continued his studies in secret and was later ordained a priest.

Four years later, communist leaders gathered together priests who had survived and offered them freedom if they distanced themselves from the Pope and the Vatican. Cardinal Simoni and his brother priests refused.

On Dec. 24, 1963, as he was concluding Mass, four officials served him an arrest warrant and decree of execution. He was handcuffed and detained. During interrogation, they told him he would be hanged as an enemy because he told the people, “We will all die for Christ if necessary.”

He suffered immense torture, but said “the Lord wanted me to keep living.” He was later freed from the death sentence and given 28 years of forced labor instead, during which time he celebrated Mass, heard confessions, and distributed Communion in secret.

Cardinal Simoni was released only when the communist regime fell and freedom of religion was recognized. Pope Francis made him a cardinal in the consistory of Nov. 19, 2016.

Built in an neo-renaissance and Italianate style of architecture, the Church of St. Teresa of Calcutta will eventually have two bell towers, each 230 feet tall, making it one of the tallest buildings in the city.

It’s stained-glass windows include depictions of St. Teresa of Calcutta with St. John Paul II, and Pope Francis embracing Benedict XVI.

Begun in 2007, it is the main Catholic church in Kosovo, though it is still partially under construction.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February 2008, and its independence is recognized by the United States, much of western Europe, as well as by other countries across the globe.

There are approximately 65,000 Catholics out of a population of roughly 2 million in Kosovo. They are mainly ethnic Albanians, like St. Teresa of Calcutta. There are also some Eastern Orthodox, but the area is majority Muslim.

Most Catholics in Kosovo live in Pristina, as well as the cities of Klina, Gjakove/Djakovica, Viti and Prizren, where St. Teresa of Calcutta’s parents were from.

[…]

Kids in a time of climate change – what’s a Catholic to do?

July 17, 2017 CNA Daily News 2

Washington D.C., Jul 17, 2017 / 04:31 am (CNA).- Travis Rieder and his wife Sadiye have one child.

She wanted a big family, but he’s a philosopher who studies climate change with the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. One child of their own was all the world could environmentally afford, they decided.

In his college classes, Rieder asks his students to consider how old their children will be by 2036, when he expects dangerous climate change to be a reality. Do they want to raise a family in the midst of that crisis?

Many scientists concur that the earth is currently in a warming phase – and that if the earth’s average temperatures rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius, the effects would be disastrous.

The 2015 Paris Agreement, signed by nearly 200 countries within the United Nations, aims to address just that. Signatory countries agreed to work to keep the global temperature from increasing by two degrees through lowering their greenhouse gas emissions, and to work together on adapting to the effects of climate change that are already a reality.

But reproductive solutions, such as the ones proposed by Rieder, are wildly controversial for the ethical and moral questions they raise.

Penalizing parents

In his book “Toward a Small Family Ethic,” Rieder and two of his peers advocate for limited family size because of what they believe is an impending climate change catastrophe.

They suggest a “carrots for the poor, sticks for the rich” population control policy, which they insist is not like China’s harsh one-child policy.

For poor developing nations, they suggest paying women to fill their birth control and widespread media campaigns about smaller families and family planning. For wealthier nations, they suggest a type of “child tax,” which would penalize new parents with a progressive tax based on income that would increase with each new child.

“(C)hildren, in a kind of cold way of looking at it, are an externality,” Rieder told NPR. “We as parents, we as family members, we get the good. And the world, the community, pays the cost.”

While it might sound strange, the idea that climate change and overpopulation morally necessitate couples to limit their family size (or to have no children at all) is not new.

Since the 1960s, some scientists have been advocating for smaller families for various reasons – overpopulation, climate cooling, the development of Africa – and now, global warming and climate change.

And while the idea isn’t new, neither are the moral and ethical concerns associated with asking parents to limit their family size for the sake of the planet.

Should Catholics limit their family size?

Ultimately, Catholics ethicists said, while environmental concerns can certainly factor into lifestyle choices, those who would ask people to completely forego children simply due to their carbon footprint are approaching the topic from the wrong perspective, not realizing the immeasurable worth and dignity of every human person.

“The proposals (on limited family size)…need to be assessed with a perspective as to the very nature of the human person, marital relationships, and society,” Dr. Marie T. Hilliard told CNA.

Hilliard serves as the director of bioethics and public policy at The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), a center designed specifically to answer the moral bioethical dilemmas that Catholics face in the modern world.

What’s problematic about the policies proposed by Rieder and other scientists is that they ask married couples to frustrate one of the purposes of their sexuality, Hilliard said.

“(T)he procreative end of marriage must be respective. Couples cannot enter into a valid marriage with the intent of frustrating that critical end, and one of the purposes of marriage,” she said. If couples are not open to the possibility of a child, “it frustrates at least one of the two critical ends of marriage: procreation and the wellbeing of the spouses.”  

Dr. Christian Brugger is a Catholic moral theologian and professor with St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. He clarified that while the Church asks couples to be open to life, it does not ask that they practice “unlimited procreation.”

“The Catholic Church has never held – and has many times denied – that responsible parenthood means ‘unlimited procreation’ or the encouragement of blind leaps into the grave responsibilities of child raising,” he said.

“It does mean respecting marriage, respecting the moral principles in the transmission of human life, respecting developing human life from conception to natural death, and promoting and defending a social order manifestly dedicated to the common good.”

Considering the common good can include considering the environment, as well as a host of other factors that pertain to the flourishing of the human person, when couples are considering parenting another child, Brugger said.

But he cautioned Catholics against the moral conclusions of scientists whose views on life and human sexuality differ greatly from Church teaching.

“Catholics should not make decisions about family size based upon the urgings of these activists,” he said.  

“Why? Because they hold radically different values about human life, marriage, sex, procreation, and family, and therefore their moral conclusions about the transmission of human life are untrustworthy.”  

“(P)opulation scare-mongering has been going on in a globally organized fashion for 70 years. The issues that population activists use to promote their anti-natalist agendas change over time…But the urgent conclusion is always the same: the world needs less people; couples should stop having children,” he said.

And many worry that legislated policies encouraging and rewarding smaller families could open up a host of ethical and moral problems.

Rebecca Kukla of Georgetown University told NPR that she worries about the stigma such policies would unleash on larger families. She also worried that while a “child tax” might not be high enough to be considered coercive, it would be unfair, and would favor the wealthy.

Hilliard agreed.

“(A) carte blanche imperative to limit family size can lead us to the dangers the (NPR article) cites, as discrimination and bias and government mandates can, and have, ensued,” Hilliard said.

Women in particular would bear the brunt of the resulting stigmas of such policies, Brugger noted.

“(W)omen will and already do suffer the greatest burden from this type of social coercion. Women have always been the guardians of the transmission of human life. They share both the godlike privilege of bearing life within them and the most weighty burdens of that privilege. Anti-natalist demagoguery is always anti-woman, always,” Brugger said.

All things considered, the Catholic Church would never take away the right and responsibility of parents to determine their family size by supporting a policy that would ask families to limit their size because of climate change, he said.  

It’s not people, it’s your lifestyle

William Patenaude is a Catholic ecologist, engineer and longtime employee with Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management. He frequently blogs about ecology from a Catholic perspective at catholicecology.net.

The idea that we must choose between the planet or people, he told CNA, is a “false choice.” The problem isn’t numbers of people – it’s the amount each person is consuming.

“The US Environmental Protection Agency reports that in 1960 the United States produced some 88 million tons of municipal waste. In 2010 that number climbed to just under 250 million tons—and it may have been higher had a recession not slowed consumption. This jump reflects an almost 184 percent increase in what Americans throw out even though our population increased by only 60 percent,” he wrote in a blog post about the topic.

There is a similar trend in carbon emissions, which increase at a faster rate than the population.

“We can infer from this that individuals (especially in places like the USA) are consuming and wasting more today than we ever have, which gets to what Pope Francis has been telling us about lifestyles, which is consistent with his predecessors,” Patenaude told CNA.

Climate change has been one of the primary concerns of Pope Francis’ pontificate. While not the first Pope to address such issues, his persistence in addressing the environment has brought a new awareness of the urgency of the issue to other Church leaders.

In May 2015, Pope Francis published “Laudato Si,” the first encyclical devoted primarily to care for creation.

In it, the Holy Father wrote that the earth “now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will.”

But never does the Pope ask families to have fewer children. Instead, he urges Catholics to address pollution and climate change, to make simple lifestyle changes that better care for “our common home” and to work toward a better human ecology.  

“It seems that voices that urge fewer children aren’t interested in new and temperate lifestyles. In fact, they are implicitly demanding that modern consumption levels be allowed to stay as they are – or even to rise. This seems selfish and gluttonous, and not at all grounded in a concern for life, nature, or the common good,” Patenaude said.

Furthermore, the good of any individual person outweighs the damage of their potential carbon footprint, he said.

“The good and dignity and worth of every human person is superseded by nothing else on this planet. If we don’t affirm that first, we can never hope to be good stewards of creation, because we will never really be able to appreciate all life,” he said.

“On the other hand, one way to affirm the dignity of human life – collectively and individually – is to care for creation. Because as I noted earlier, creation is our physical life-support system, and so to authentically care for it is to care for human life.”

Dan Misleh is the executive director of Catholic Climate Covenant, which was formed in 2006 by the United States Catholic Bishops in order to help implement Church social teaching regarding climate change.

Misleh agreed that while reducing the consumption of fossil fuels is “imperative” to reducing negative effects of climate change like droughts and rising sea levels, that does not mean mandated population engineering and smaller families.

“As for population, places like the U.S., Japan and many European countries have both high carbon emissions and relatively low population growth and birth rates. So there is not a direct correlation between low-birth rates and fewer emissions. In fact, the opposite often seems to be true: countries with the highest birthrates are often the poorest countries with very low per-capita emissions,” he told CNA.

What is needed is a true “ecological conversion,” like Pope Francis called for in Laudato Si, Misleh said.  

“(P)erhaps we Catholics need to view a commitment to a simple lifestyle not as a sacrifice but as an opportunity to live more in keeping with the biblical mandate to both care for and cultivate the earth, to spend more time on relationships than accumulating things, and to step back to appreciate the good things we have rather than all the things we desire.”

 

This article was originally published on CNA Oct. 27, 2016.

 

[…]

In new school, Byzantine spirituality meets Montessori method

July 16, 2017 CNA Daily News 2

Denver, Colo., Jul 16, 2017 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- With the goal of encountering children on a more personal level to meet their academic and spiritual needs, a Montessori school influenced by the Byzantine Catholic tradition is opening in Denver, Colorado.

Pauline Meert, who co-founded Sophia Montessori Academy along with Irene O’Brien, said the two “wanted to combine Montessori and Catholicism because it just made so much sense.”

Meert said the school aims to help children fulfill their God-given potential, and that “the Montessori message really makes that possible for each child, not just for a classroom as a whole, but for each individual.”

Students in Montessori schools work in periods of uninterrupted time – ideally three hours – having the freedom to choose from an established range of options. The Montessori Method uses hands-on techniques in presenting concepts to individual children, rather than a group oriented, lecture-based approach to learning. The student’s involvement in his or her own work then gives the teacher the freedom to spend time with each child and cater to each of their needs.

Sophia Montessori of Denver is in its final stages of its development, pending licensing and a few business inspections. But classes for children aged between three and six are expected to start in the fall of this year, and both Meert and O’Brien hope the school, currently with 11 families enrolled, will grow in number and into the high school level.  

When asked about the origin of the school’s idea, Meert discussed her connection to children and her dream helping bring about a child’s full potential. She began her Montessori training in high school, and later envisioned Catholic teaching and the Montessori Method together.

Meert said the school has been four years in the making, but that she added the Byzantine spirituality aspect within the past year after she became a parishioner at Holy Protection Parish in Denver.

“The Byzantine faith is going to be the foundation,” she said, noting that the day will begin with a form of the Jesus prayer.

Montessori schools often begin the day with the “silence game,” in which children learn how to be calm and quiet in a time period of about 30 seconds to two minutes. Many schools have interpreted this freely, but she expressed a desire to tie this into the Byzantine’s Jesus Prayer.

“The beauty about being Byzantine is that we do that through the Jesus prayer: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on us, your children,’ she said, “You know because it’s kind of hard to call them sinners right away.”

The school will also have the kissing of icons and will teach according to the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.

“The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is a very hands-on way of teaching the children about who Jesus is in time and space: through the parables, through infancy narratives, and through learning the nomenclature of the church.”

Children want to be a part of the world of adults and understand the liturgy, she said, and so the teachers aim to give them direct experiences related to the tabernacle and liturgical seasons.

“If we just tell them to be quiet and read a book during mass and during liturgy then we are not meeting their needs. They just want to know, they just want to be a part, they want to be welcomed by the church.”

She said many people would be surprised at the theological discussions she’s had with four-year-olds as well as the harmony created in the classroom. The environment is “surprisingly peaceful and calm, even though there are 20 three-to-six year-olds together.”

Meert also described the trust needed to allow children the freedom to make choices within prescribed limitations. “Three year-olds can do so much!” she said.

Meert defined this freedom as “not the freedom to do whatever you want, but…the freedom that Saint Thomas Aquinas talks about – having freedom within responsibility, within boundaries and within awareness of other people.”

In her interview with CNA, she also voiced her hope to establish afternoon classes for homeschooled kids and support for parents.

“We want to give parents tools and support. Some of the Montessori approach is common sense, but sometimes it’s a little trickier and parents just need extra support (or) someone to bounce ideas off of,” she said.

“We really want to be that support with those tools, and create a community that is often missing in our life.”

[…]

Benedict XVI: Cardinal Meisner died a ‘cheerful’ man

July 16, 2017 CNA Daily News 3

Vatican City, Jul 16, 2017 / 09:16 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a letter sent for the funeral of the late Cardinal Joachim Meisner, retired Pope Benedict XVI praised the prelate as a passionate pastor, who died a happy man at peace with the Lord and his will for the universal Church.

“What particularly impressed me in my last conversations with the now deceased Cardinal was the serene cheerfulness, the inner joy and the confidence at which he had arrived,” Benedict said in the letter, read aloud by Archbishop Georg Ganswein at the prelate’s July 15 funeral in Cologne.

Benedict, who had known Meisner personally, noted that the late prelate, a “passionate shepherd and pastor,” had found it difficult to leave his post in Cologne upon retirement, especially at a time when the Church needs persuasive priests “who resist the dictatorship of the Zeitgeist and who live and think the faith with complete determination.”

“However, what moved me all the more was that, in this last period of his life, he learned to let go and to live all the more deeply with the conviction, that the Lord does not abandon His Church, even when sometimes the boat has taken on so much water as to be on the verge of capsizing.”

Cardinal Meisner, archbishop emeritus of Cologne, died July 5 while on vacation in Bad Füssing, Germany, at the age of 83. His funeral was celebrated July 15 in the cathedral of Cologne.

Archbishop of Cologne from 1989-2014, he retired with the permission of Pope Francis in February 2014, at the age of 80, the same year his age made him ineligible to vote in a conclave.

Meisner, alongside Cardinals Carlo Caffarra, Walter Brandmüller and Raymond Leo Burke, submitted five “dubia,” or doubts, about the interpretation of Amoris laetitia to Pope Francis on Sept. 19, 2016.

The letter, made public in November, asked for clarification on Chapter 8 of the document, which touches on the reception of communion for divorced and remarried couples.

In May, the four – dubbed the “dubia cardinals” – sent a letter to the Pope requesting a private audience to discuss the content of the “dubia,” since they have not yet received a response.

Cardinal Meisner, considered a leading conservative Catholic figure in Germany, stood in contrast to other German prelates who have propagated one of the more liberal interpretations of Chapter 8 of the post-synodal document.

In his letter, Benedict said that when he first received the news of Cardinal Meisners death, he couldn’t believe it, as they had spoken over the phone the day before.

In the conversation, Benedict recalled that Meisner was “audibly grateful” to be on vacation, and to have participated in the beatification ceremony of Bishop Teofilius Matulionis – a Lithuanian priest who was consecrated a bishop in secret during Soviet persecution, and who spent the majority of his episcopate in prison before being poisoned by the USSR – the day before.

For Benedict, Meisner’s whole life “was ingrained both with a love for the churches of the neighboring countries to the East, who had suffered under Communist persecution, as well as an appreciation for their holding fast amidst the suffering of those times.”

“Thus it is probably no coincidence that the final visit of his life was dedicated to a Confessor of the Faith from those lands.”

In addition to the beatification and the state of peace he had attained before his death, Benedict said there were two specific reasons the cardinal was so cheerful in his final years.

For one, “he repeatedly told me how it profoundly delighted him to see young people, especially young men, experience the grace of forgiveness in the Sacrament of Confession – the gift of having truly found that life which only God can give them,” Benedict said.

The second thing he cited for putting the cardinal in “a joyful mood” was the “quiet growth of Eucharistic Adoration.”

Benedict recalled how at World Youth Day in Cologne in 2005, Meisner was adament that there be adoration, and a space for “ a silence in which only the Lord speaks to the hearts.”

While some of those in the field of pastoral and liturgical work thought it would be impossible or even “obsolete” to accomplish with such a large group of people, arguing that the Lord desires to be received and not looked at, what happened proved them wrong.

It became abundantly clear, Benedict said, “that you can not eat this bread like it were just some food, and that ‘receiving’ the Lord in the Eucharistic Sacrament makes demands upon every dimension  of our existence – that to receive necessarily also means to adore.”

This became “an interior event, one that remained, not only for the Cardinal, unforgettable. This moment remained ever present, like a great light, within him.”

Benedict concluded his letter noting how on the morning he died, Cardinal Meisner was found in his room with his breviary on his lap.

“He had died whilst in prayer, his gaze fixed on the Lord, in conversation with the Lord,” Benedict said, adding that “the manner of death which was granted to him yet again shows how he lived: gaze fixed to the Lord and conversing with the Lord.”

[…]

As US hits refugee cap, bishops ask Trump administration to do more

July 16, 2017 CNA Daily News 2

Washington D.C., Jul 16, 2017 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- With the United States government’s cap on refugees having been reached for the year, the nation’s bishops have issued a plea to the Trump administration to increase the limit in a time of a global refugee crisis.

“Now, these vulnerable populations will not be able to access needed protection and will continue to face danger and exploitation,” said Bishop Joe S. Vasquez of Austin July 14.

“Pope Francis reminds us that ‘refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity.’ We must be mindful that every refugee is more than just a number, they are a child of God.”

Speaking in his role as chair the US bishops’ conference Committee on Migration, Bishop Vasquez said he reacted with sadness to the news that the new refugee admissions cap of 50,000 people had been reached for this year.

“While certain refugees who have ‘bona fide relationships’ will still be allowed to arrive, I remain deeply concerned about the human consequences of this limitation and its impact on vulnerable refugees such as unaccompanied refugee children, elderly and infirm refugees, and religious minorities,” the bishop said.

The bishops’ conference added that this year’s cap was “historically low.”

Bishop Vasquez urged the cap for the next fiscal year to be increased to 75,000 individuals.

In March 2017, Bishop Vasquez and the U.S. bishops criticized an executive order of President Donald Trump that reduced the numbers of refugees allowed to resettle in the U.S. to 50,000 from 110,000 per year.

His latest statement repeated those words, saying such a limit “does not reflect the need, our compassion, and our capacity as a nation.”

“We firmly believe that as a nation the United States has the good will, character, leadership, and resources to help more vulnerable people seek refuge,” he said. He voiced the Catholic Church’s continued willingness to serve refugees and show solidarity with them.

Bishop Vasquez said the Church would welcome and accompany them “on their journey to protection and safety.”

There are about 22.5 million refugees seeking protection around the world.

[…]

Jesus not only sows the seed, he’ll pull the thorns, Pope Francis says

July 16, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Jul 16, 2017 / 05:58 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Sunday, Pope Francis said that in the parable of the seed and the sower Jesus invites us to reclaim the ‘soil’ of our hearts by bringing to him, in prayer and Confession, the stones and thorns in need of healing.

“Jesus invites us today to look inward: to give thanks for our good ground and to work on the ground not yet good,” he said July 16.

“Let us ask ourselves if our heart is open to welcome with faith the seed of the Word of God. Let us ask ourselves if the rocks of laziness are still large and numerous within us; we identify and we call by name the brambles of our vices.”

“We find the courage to make a beautiful reclamation of the land, bringing to the Lord in Confession and in prayer our stones and our stumps. In doing so, Jesus, a good sower, will be happy to do an extra work: to purify our hearts, removing the stones and thorns that stifle his Word.”

Pope Francis addressed the crowds in St. Peter’s Square before leading the Angelus Sunday, reflecting on the day’s Gospel of the Parable of the Sower and the Seeds.

When Jesus used parables, he noted, as in today’s Gospel, he uses simple language and imagery from everyday life to help explain the mystery of the Kingdom of God in terms that can “easily be understood by everyone.”

“That’s why they listened willingly and appreciated his message that came straight to their heart.”

In the parable, we know that Jesus is the sower, and in this image he doesn’t impose, but proposes, the Pope said. He throws the seed, attracting us not by conquering us, but by giving himself to us.

And this seed, “how can it bear fruit?” he asked. “If we welcome him.”

“Therefore the parable concerns above all us: it speaks, in fact, of the soil rather than of the sower. Jesus performs, so to speak, a ‘spiritual radiography’ of our heart, which is the ground upon which the seed of the Word falls.”

“Our heart, like soil, can be good and then the Word brings so much fruit, but it can also be hard, impermeable. This happens when we hear the Word, but it bounces off of us just like on a road: it does not enter,” he said.

He pointed out that between the good soil and the road of asphalt or ‘sanpietrini’ – the name of the rounded cobblestones that can be found in St. Peter’s Square and around Rome – there are two intermediate terrains: the stony and the thorny.

In the stony ground the seed germinates, but doesn’t put down deep roots, the Pope said.

“So is the superficial heart that welcomes the Lord, wants to pray, love and testify, but does not persevere, tends to wear and never “takes off”. It is a thick heart, where the rocks of laziness prevail over the good land, where love is inconsistent and passable.”

What do the thorns in the thorny ground represent? “‘The world’s concern and the seduction of wealth’, so Jesus says explicitly,” he said.

We all have these brambles in our hearts, such as making idols out of worldly wealth or power, or only living for ourselves. “You need to tear them away, otherwise the Word will not bear fruit, Francis emphasized.

July 16 is also the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The Pope concluded his message by saying that the Blessed Virgin Mary is “unsurpassed in welcoming the Word of God and putting it into practice.”

May she help you “to purify your heart and preserve the presence of the Lord.”

[…]

Holy Homebrew: Catholic priest wins brewing’s highest honor

July 15, 2017 CNA Daily News 2

Fort Worth, Texas, Jul 15, 2017 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Long blessed by Catholics as a “healthful drink for mankind,” one Texas priest has managed to take beer to new heights – winning the highest award in the United States for home-brewed beverages.

“It’s surreal,” Fr. Jeff Poirot told the Fort Worth Star- Telegram. “After we were done screaming from excitement when we won, it was hard to put it into words what winning the Ninkasi means to us.”

Yet, for the brewing priest, his hobby doesn’t detract from his vocation.

“This is a hobby, and it’s a hobby I’ve done all right with. So I would never want it to eclipse what I do … because my role as a priest takes precedence,” he told the newspaper.

“You can have a busy life. You can have commitments with family and work, but you can still do something you love.”

Fr. Poirot serves as pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in Fort Worth, and brews with his homebrewing partner Nick McCoy, who is also a Catholic. Together one of their beers has won the 2017 Ninkasi Award from the American Homebrewers Association, and is the highest award for the best drink judged in the annual National Homebrew Competition.

Together their beer was chosen as the best drink submitted among all 33 categories of beers, meads, and ciders submitted for the competition. Over 8,500 beers were submitted in the competition.

Submitting under then name “Draft Punk,” a play on the French Electronic duo Daft Punk, Fr. Poirot and McCoy’s brew club also won first place in the Specialty IPA and Trappist Ale and Strong Belgian categories at the National Homebrew Awards in Minneapolis. This was the third year Fr. Poirot and McCoy have entered beers into the competition.

The winning beer, a Belgian Quadrupel, drew its inspiration from the Trappist tradition.

Generally winners of the Ninkasi award go on to open their own shops or to write books, but the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that Fr. Poirot and McCoy will be staying where they are.

“For me, I always want to balance [brewing] with being a priest, because being a priest is primary, first and foremost for me,” Poirot told the newspaper.

[…]

Chile hopes Pope Francis’ visit will bring a ‘revolution of tenderness’

July 15, 2017 CNA Daily News 3

Rome, Italy, Jul 15, 2017 / 06:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The head of communications for Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to Chile said the country is in a period of social unrest, but the country has hope his trip will help them to rebuild on a foundation of love and tenderness.

“We are really expecting that he will start a ‘revolution of tenderness,’ those are the words of the Pope,” Fr. Felipe Herrera told CNA July 12.

“We have no social cohesion…people are angry against the government, congress, against the Church, against big enterprises, small enterprises, even with their neighbors. We need to rebuild our society on love, trust, fraternity and freedom. So we hope to hear that from the Pope.”

Fr. Felipe Herrera, a priest of the Archdiocese of Santiago, said all Chilean people, not only the Catholics, are excited about the visit.

What will be the Pope’s main message of the trip? The only one who can know that for sure “is the Pope” himself, Fr. Herrera said, but they expect him to bring “the word of Christ, the word of the Lord, particularly calling all Christians to be involved in the life of society.”

“Sometimes as a Church, we live inside of the ‘temple,’ and we need to go out and to witness his love everywhere. And in this case I think we need to rebuild our country in fraternity and trusting each other.”

A detailed schedule of the Pope’s trip has not yet been released, but the Vatican announced in June that Francis will visit Santiago, Temuco, and Iquique Jan. 15-18, 2018. From there, the Roman Pontiff will travel to Peru Jan. 18-21.

His first stop will be the capital city of Santiago, from there traveling south to Temuco, in one of the regions affected by devastating wildfires that raged for weeks in January 2017.

Considered the worst in the Chile’s history for the damage caused, at least 11 people lost their lives in the flames, and countless homes, livestock, and pastures were destroyed. The Pope’s visit will fall just one year after the fires.

Temuco is in a very beautiful area of the country though, Fr. Herrera said. It is also the home of the indigenous Mapuche people, who have been at the center of a decades-long conflict surrounding the rightful ownership of the territory.

Since the start of the disputes in the 1990s, Mapuche have been responsible for fires, shootings, and kidnappings in the country, as negotiations to return their rightful land, taken from them by former dictator Augusto Pinochet, have stalled.

In 2016, 227 acts of violence were reported in the Araucania and Biobio regions, including 61 building fires. Of these, 16 were churches or other religious structures.

There has been conflict, Fr. Herrera said, because of the land they have not received, but deserve. “I think the Pope will bring a ceasefire message to that area.”

In the north of the country is the town of Iquique, a city which receives most of the immigrants coming into Chile, so it’s likely the Pope will have a message for immigrants in that city, he said.

Iquique is also the capital of religious festivities in Chile.

Nearly 50 miles to the east, in the same diocese, is the town of La Tirana, home of a shrine to Our Lady of Mount Carmel. There, every year starting on July 12 and ending on the feast day of July 16, Chile holds a week-long festival celebrating Our Lady, including fireworks and traditional dances.

Considering his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Pope Francis is likely to make a stop at one of the country’s many shrines to Our Lady, including, possibly, the shrine to the Immaculate Conception, on top of Santiago’s San Cristóbal Hill.

One of the principal shrines in Chile, it is known for its large statue of the Immaculate Conception, which is 46 feet tall and stands on a 27 foot tall pedestal.

St. John Paul II visited the shrine during his visit to Chile in 1987. His trip 30 years ago is still remembered and spoken of by the Chilean people today, Fr. Herrera said. He hopes this new visit by a Pope will have the same effect.

“We hope that this new visit from the Pope will bring us a real ‘revolution of tenderness’ among all Chileans and will be a huge topic for the next 30 years,” he said.

“We need a revolution of tenderness, loving each other, and fraternity among all Chileans.”

[…]