What a missionary to North Korea told the Knights of Columbus convention

August 2, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

St. Louis, Mo., Aug 2, 2017 / 03:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Service to the poor on the peripheries of society was a theme of the 2017 Knights of Columbus States Dinner held Tuesday evening in St. Louis.

“I stand before you in deep gratitude for your love and concern for hearing the cry of the poor,” Fr. Gerard Hammond, M.M. told those in attendance at the States Dinner at the annual Knights of Columbus international convention Aug. 1.

“May we always embrace those who need our mercy and compassion.”

Fr. Hammond, a Maryknoll missionary to North Korea, received the Gaudium et Spes Award from Supreme Knight Carl Anderson at the dinner.

The award, named after Vatican II’s pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world, is the highest honor bestowed by the Knights of Columbus and is given to persons “for their exemplary contributions to the realization of the message of faith and service in the spirit of Christ.”

St. Theresa of Calcutta was the first person to receive the award in 1992. On the award medal is an image of Venerable Fr. Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, comforting a widow and an orphan.

The Knights of Columbus is a worldwide Catholic men’s organization founded in 1882 by Fr. McGivney “to strengthen the faith of Catholic men” and to “protect their families,” in the words of Supreme Knight and CEO Carl Anderson. Since its founding it has grown into an international organization with over 1.9 million members.

This week, around 2,000 Knights from North and South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe meet in St. Louis for the 135th international convention. The theme of this year’s convention is “Convinced of God’s Love and Power.”

Fr. Hammond received his award for his missionary work in North Korea. He has made 50 trips into the country since 1995 to treat patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.

Although he is not allowed by the North Korean government to proselytize, he still tries carry out his priestly mission through serving the sick as an “apostle of peace” and to bring “hope for the voiceless.”

Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, introducing Fr. Hammond at the dinner, said that in the spirit of Gaudium et Spes, Fr. Hammond “has taken upon himself the ‘griefs and anxieties’ of those who are ‘poor and afflicted,’ as he seeks to share with them, through compassionate action, the ‘joys and hopes’ of faith in Jesus Christ.”

Fr. Hammond has “exemplified the call of Pope Francis to go to the peripheries,” Archbishop Lori said.

“God’s heart has a special place for the poor, so much so that he himself ‘became poor’,” the archbishop said. “The entire history of our redemption is marked by the presence of the poor.”

Later on Tuesday evening, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, Archbishop Emeritus of Krakow and former personal secretary to Pope St. John Paul II, praised the Knights for spreading the messages of mercy and the Gospel all over the world.

“The Knights of Columbus embraced the message of Divine Mercy proclaimed by the Pope from Kraków, and they proclaim this message in a world affected by various forms of injustice and violence,” he said in his remarks at the dinner.

Pope Francis has taught us to see to see “the other,” our neighbor,” as a “gift,” Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, said on Tuesday at the dinner.   

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, he said that the two men who passed by the wounded man were “looking to self-interest, looking to other things.” The Good Samaritan, however, “tosses aside any consideration except love of neighbor. His help and generosity is excessive.”

Furthermore, he said, Christ teaches that “there is no more boundary when it comes to ‘who are you neighbor to’?” The Knights of Columbus live this teaching out, he said, helping everyone – the immigrant, the refugee, or the Christian displaced from their home.

Cardinal DiNardo also urged those in attendance to join in solidarity with Eastern Rite Catholics who are fasting before the Great Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God. He asked Latin rite Catholics to pray and fast for persecuted Christians in the days leading up to the Assumption.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Vatican sent a message to the convention assuring those in attendance of the “good wishes” and prayers of Pope Francis.

“The Holy Father has often observed that in our own day a new world war is being fought piecemeal, as an ungodly thirst for power and domination, whether economic, political, or military, is leading to untold violence, injustice and suffering in our human family,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, said in his written message delivered at the opening business session of the convention.

Pope Francis, he said, “has asked Christians everywhere, truly convinced of the infinite power of God’s love, to reject this mentality and to combat the growth of a global culture of indifference that discards the least of our brothers and sisters.”

Cardinal Parolin asked the Knights to “respond generously to this challenge” through working for the “sanctification of the world from within” in their lay vocation.

He also noted Pope Francis’ appreciation for the Knights upholding “the sanctity of marriage and the dignity and beauty of family life,” as well as the organization’s aid to persecuted Christians in the Middle East.

[…]

Christian leaders unite to oppose assisted suicide in Australia

August 2, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Melbourne, Australia, Aug 2, 2017 / 02:11 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholics and Christian leaders from several denominations have joined forces in the Australian state of Victoria to decry a bill in favor of assisted suicide, expected to be proposed and voted on later this year.

“Euthanasia and assisted suicide represent the abandonment of those who are in greatest need of our care and support,” read the letter, which was printed in The Herald Sun July 31.

The statement was written by leaders from the Greek and Coptic Orthodox churches, as well as Anglicans, Lutherans, and Catholics, including Anglican Archbishop Philip Freier, Orthodox Bishop Ezekiel of Dervis, and Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart.

The bill is expected to be introduced to Victoria’s parliament later this year, and is among the more strict in terms of protocol.

An expert panel chaired by the former president of the Australian Medical Association, Brian Owler, included 68 safeguards in his recommendations for the bill, making it one of the most conservative proposals in the world.

If the legislation is passed, assisted suicide would be a three-step process in the state of Victoria, with at least 10 days between the initial and final request. It would begin with a vocal request, a written request, and end with a final verbal request.

Despite this, no “’safeguards’ will ever guarantee that deaths under the proposed laws will be completely voluntary,” the Christian leaders said in their statement Monday. “There will always be a risk of error, fraud or coercion.”

“When euthanasia or assisted suicide is an ever-present – even if unspoken – option, how long will it be before the option becomes an expectation?”

In their letter, the leaders appealed to members of their faith, citing the 2.8 million Christians in Victoria, including 1.4 million Catholics and 530 thousand Anglicans, according to a 2016 statistic.

Last year, a cross-party committee of Victoria’s Members of Parliament recommended that a law be drafted to legalize assisted suicide, and a debate is expected to follow the bills introduction later this year.

With an exception to the Victoria’s Green party, all Victorian MP’s will not have to vote along party lines, but may vote according to their conscience.

[…]

Knights of Columbus to raise $2 million to rebuild Iraqi town

August 2, 2017 CNA Daily News 1

St. Louis, Mo., Aug 2, 2017 / 10:10 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Knights of Columbus on Tuesday announced it will raise and donate $2 million to re-settle Iraqi Christian families displaced by the Islamic State in their home town of Karemlesh on the Nineveh Plain.

“The terrorists desecrated churches and graves and looted and destroyed homes,” Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, said in his Aug. 1 remarks announcing the $2 million project.

“Now we will ensure that hundreds of Christian families driven from their homes can return to these two locations and help to ensure a pluralistic future for Iraq,” he said. In order for Iraq to have such a future, he said Christians must be treated as “free and equal citizens” and not suffer the “religious apartheid” of previous years.

Anderson addressed the 135th annual convention of the Knights of Columbus held in St. Louis, Mo. Aug.1-3. 90 bishops and 12 cardinals were present, along with Knights councils from all over the world.

The Knights of Columbus is an international Catholic men’s organization founded, in Anderson’s words, to “strengthen the faith of Catholic men” and “protect their families.” Over 1.9 million are members of the organization, founded in 1882 by Venerable Fr. Michael J. McGivney.

The four pillars of the organization are charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism.

An international aid organization as well, the Knights’ Christian Refugee Relief Fund has provided over $13 million in aid to persecuted Christians since 2014, mostly in Iraq and Syria. In 2014, forces of the Islamic State overran large swathes of Syria and Iraq, killing or displacing many Christian families.

The group has since been forced back, losing much of its territory, including the Nineveh Plain where many Christians lived.

Around 1.5 million Christians lived in Iraq before the U.S. invasion in 2003, but that number has fallen to below an estimated 250,000. The situation for Iraqi Christians is so dire, Anderson said, that “without substantial assistance” in the next two months, many of them might leave Iraq for good.

Christians have lived in the area for centuries, tracing their communities back to almost the beginning of Christianity. Some speak Aramaic, the language Jesus would have spoken, and various ancient shrines existed in the region, including the tomb of the prophet Jonah which was destroyed by Islamic State.

“These Christian communities are a priceless treasure for the Church and for humanity,” Anderson said on Tuesday. He called the Knights’ drive to raise money for them a “concrete step” to aid the beleaguered Christians.

The amount of $2 million would also match the donation of the government of Hungary, which has helped resettle around 1,000 families in the Iraqi village of Telskuf.

The Knights will partner with the Chaldean Archeparchy of Erbil to help rebuild Karemlesh, which is just 18 miles east of Mosul.

Anderson said that while the town was controlled by Islamic State, homes were vandalized or destroyed and churches were desecrated. “We will give them and many others hope for the future,” he said.

The Knights will also partner with the U.S. bishops’ conference to sponsor a national day of prayer and a “week of awareness” for persecuted Christians, starting Nov. 26.

Those wishing to make a tax-deductible donation to the project for Karemlesh can do so at www.ChristiansAtRisk.org, or by phone at 1-800-694-5713. 100 percent of the donations will go to the project.

In his annual address, Anderson noted other work the Knights had accomplished, including more than $177 million in donations and over 75 million volunteer hours.

Local Knights councils had responded to various disasters and tragedies, including providing drinking water and sandbags to families in Louisiana after over 60,000 homes had been flooded by record rainfall, Anderson said. The Knights provided more than $100,000 in emergency relief after Hurricane Matthew caused hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damage in the Caribbean and the United States.

The Knights also worked to provide for the spiritual life of families, he said, as the family which Fr. McGivney grew up in “was a true domestic Church.”

He said that Knights councils had organized pilgrimages in various dioceses for the Jubilee Year of Mercy, and had introduced a spiritual program for men based on a pastoral letter by Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, “Into the Breach.”

Knights had also organized “Warriors to Lourdes” pilgrimages, taking wounded veteran soldiers to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes for healing.

Anderson called the Knights to stand against the “polite persecution” of secular society, quoting Pope Francis.

[…]

Haitian children, Andrea Bocelli sing for Pope Francis

August 2, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Aug 2, 2017 / 09:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Wednesday there was a special surprise at the end of Pope Francis’ general audience – a performance by acclaimed Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and a choir of 60 children from the poorest areas of Haiti.

The choir, called “Voices of Haiti,” sang three songs with Bocelli, including ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Ave Maria,’ following the general audience in the Vatican’s Pope Paul VI hall Aug. 2. After the performance the children and world-renowned singer were greeted by Pope Francis.

The performance was part of a nearly two-week-long European tour of the children’s choir, made up of youth ages 9-15, coming from some of the poorest areas of Port-au-Prince Haiti. Besides Rome, the tour included stops in Pisa, Florence and Lajatico, Italy, Bocelli’s birthplace.

In Lajatico they will perform with Bocelli in front of 15,000 people for the 12thh edition of his annual concert at the famous Teatro del Silenzio. In Florence they sang for the inauguration of a foundation dedicated to the Italian director Franco Zeffirelli.  

According to a press release, the project, “offers the opportunity to children and young Haitians coming from extremely disadvantaged situations to enhance their talent thanks to a highly specialized training, benefitting also of a wealth of opportunities, precious for their future.”

“Grown up in a context of extreme poverty, thirsty for beauty, eager to learn, through a highly professional educational path, the young singers have reached a great understanding, have become aware of discipline, passion, love for music and of the joy of sharing. Therefore, what they can convey through their singing is pure joy.”

The children of the choir and related projects come from the Citè Soleil slums where over 300,000 people live in tin shack houses, without access to water and sanitation.

The project has been ongoing since January 2016. The children participate in weekly rehearsals on Saturdays, which include breakfast, lunch and game time in addition to vocal exercises, music therapy and song rehearsal. Buses pick them up and bring them home after.

They learn both folk Haitian and international music and perform throughout the year in local celebrations in their community, such as Easter and the end of the school year. In September 2016 they traveled internationally for the first time, performing in New York City.

“Voices of Haiti” is a project of the Andrea Bocelli Foundation. In addition to the choir, the foundation also introduces music into the 30 schools supported by the local St. Luc Foundation in Haiti.

They also help to provide education, food, and health assistance to thousands of children, water and electricity to remote and poor communities, solar panels and libraries.

According to their website, “because all the students come from poor economic and social backgrounds, through music they have been able to find a way to consolidate discipline, cooperation, and have moved away from the misery brought on by the grip of poverty.”

“Music becomes an additional means for social and intellectual development, not only personal, but for entire communities.”

“Voices of Haiti” is directed by Malcolm J. Merriweather, a professor at Brooklyn College Conservatory in New York, and is run by a team of Haitian collaborators made up of musicians, teachers, and administrators.

Why a choir? Because “music is the soul’s voice, its strength and beauty open minds, and develop thoughts…” the website continues.

“From the secret melodies of celestial bodies to the beat of the fruit fly wings, creation is a sound metaphor of its Creator, and every element contributes, imperceptibly, but effectively to universal harmony, that with immeasurable perfection rules life and expresses a poetic, amazing synonym of God.”

[…]

Vatican justice branch sets anti-corruption goals for 2018

August 2, 2017 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Aug 2, 2017 / 09:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After hosting a discussion earlier this summer, the Vatican office for justice has outlined several goals and action points in their plan to fight corruption, which will be a central focus for the upcoming year.

On June 15 the International Consultation Group for justice, corruption, organized crime and mafias, part of the Vatican dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, organized an “International Debate on Corruption.”

The event, hosted in collaboration with the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences, drew some 50 participants from all over the world, including anti-mafia and anti-corruption magistrates, bishops, Vatican officials, representatives from the U.N. and various States, heads of movements, victims and ambassadors.

As a result of that meeting, the consultation group has issued a joint text July 31 highlighting their priorities and providing 21 goals and actions points they hope to accomplish in the coming year.

In the text, the group noted that among Pope Francis’ monthly prayer intentions for 2018 is the petition “that those who have material, political or spiritual power may resist any lure of corruption,” to which the month of February will be dedicated.

“Corruption, prior to being an act, is a condition,” they said. “Hence the need for culture, education, training, institutional action, citizen participation.”

To encourage this, the group said that from September of this year on, they will place a special focus on anti-corruption efforts, and plan to formulate different definitions of “corruption,” which was mentioned in a book-length interview with Cardinal Peter Turkson titiled “Corrosione,” or “Corrosion.”

Published the same day as the June 15 debate on corruption, the book was presented during the event and features a forward by Pope Francis, who called corruption a “form of blasphemy” and a “cancer that weighs our lives.”

According to the text, the group “will not just come up with virtuous exhortations, because concrete gestures are needed.” To educate means having credible teachers, they said, “even in the Church.”

As an international network, the group and the Church itself will work “with courage, resolution, transparency, spirit of collaboration and creativity.”

The group insisted that “anyone seeking alliances to obtain privileges, exemptions, preferential or even illegal pathways, is not credible.”

“If we decide to follow this behavior, we can all run the risk of becoming unsuitable, harmful and dangerous,” they said, adding that those “taking advantage of their position to recommend people who are often not recommendable – both in terms of value and honesty – are not credible.”

“Thus, the action of the Consultation Group will be educational and informative, and will address public opinion and many institutions to create a mentality of freedom and justice, in view of the common good.”

Consequences arising as a result of corruption are not often recognized, they said, noting that “one is unaware that an act of corruption is often at the base of a crime.”

Because of this, the group aims to intervene and “fill this gap, especially wherever, in the world, corruption is the dominant social system.”

With the help of bishops’ conferences and local churches, members will also dedicate themselves to investigating a global response to the “excommunication of the mafia” and other similar criminal groups, as well as “the prospect of excommunication for corruption.”

Pope Francis himself said in a June 2014 visit to Calabria, a region plagued by mafia activity, called the local criminal branch, known as the ‘Ndrangheta, “adorers of evil” and said that those who have chosen this path “not in communion with God. They are ‘excommunicated,’” as an invitation to conversion.

Another objective the group will pursue is to “develop the almost-lost relationship between justice and beauty,” since “our extraordinary historical, artistic and architectural heritage will be a formidable element supporting educational and social actions against all forms of corruption and organized crime.”

They will also seek to promote a political mindset which, in their words, is capable of “enlightening actions towards civil institutions, to ensure that international treaties are effectively enforced and laws are standardized to best pursue the tentacles of crime, which go well beyond state borders.”

To this end, the principals of both the Palermo and Merida Conventions against transnational organized crime and corruption will be studied.

Peace and the relationship between peace processes and various forms of corruption will be another area of study, since corruption “also causes a lack of peace.”

“A movement, an awakening of consciences, is necessary,” the group said. “This is our primary motivation, which we perceive as a moral obligation. Laws are necessary but not sufficient.”

Key areas of focus, then, will be education, culture and citizenship, they said, stressing that “we need to act with courage to stir and provoke consciences, shifting from widespread indifference to the perception of the severity of these phenomena, in order to fight them.”

[…]

The story of the 26 year-old Filipino Jesuit on the road to sainthood

August 2, 2017 CNA Daily News 1

Manila, Philippines, Aug 2, 2017 / 06:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Brother Richie Fernando was a 26 year-old Jesuit seminarian from the Philippines when in 1996 he died protecting his Cambodian students from a hand grenade.

He is now on the road to sainthood, thanks to a norm issued by Pope Francis this summer that opens the door to canonization for those who have “voluntarily and freely offered their lives for others and have persevered until death in this regard.”

Father Antonio Moreno, head of the Jesuits in the Philippines, told Rappler July 30 that the order had received permission to begin the initial work of opening Brother Fernando’s cause for canonization.

Brother Richard (Richie) Fernando, S.J., arrived in Cambodia in 1995 to serve at a Jesuit mission which served people who had been disabled by polio, landmines, or other accidents.

According to the Jesuits of the Asia Pacific Conference, Richie quickly earned the trust of his young students as he learned their native language and took the time to listen to their stories of suffering.

One of his students was an orphan named Sarom, who became a soldier at 16 and was maimed by a landmine. Even while some at the mission found Sarom’s attitude troublesome, Richie wrote in letters to friends that Sarom still had a place in his heart.

On October 17, 1996, Sarom came to the mission school for a meeting with the school director and staff. While he had finished classes, he had asked to continue at the school, though his request was denied because school officials found him disruptive.

Angered, Sarom suddenly reached into his bag and pulled out a grenade, and moved towards a classroom full of students. The windows of the classroom were barred, so the students were trapped.

Brother Richie stepped behind Sarom and grabbed him to prevent him from throwing the grenade.

“Let me go, teacher; I do not want to kill you,” Sarom pleaded. But he dropped the grenade, and it fell behind him and Brother Richie, exploding and killing the Jesuit, who fell over Sarom, protecting him and everyone else in the school from the blast.

Just four days before he died, Riche had written a long letter to his friend and fellow Jesuit, Totet Banaynal SJ: “I know where my heart is. It is with Jesus Christ, who gave all for the poor, the sick, the orphan … I am confident that God never forgets his people: our disabled brothers and sisters. And I am glad that God has been using me to make sure that our brothers and sisters know this fact. I am convinced that this is my vocation.”

He had also once written about death in a retreat diary, in which he said: “I wish, when I die, people remember not how great, powerful, or talented I was, but that I served and spoke for the truth, I gave witness to what is right, I was sincere in all my works and actions, in other words, I loved and followed Christ,”

In 1997, Richie’s parents wrote to King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, asking pardon for Sarom. Again, Sarom said he had never wanted to kill Richie, who he considered a friend.

While the Philippines is a Catholic-majority country, the island nation only claims two canonized saints thus far, both of whom died in the 17th century: St. Lorenzo Ruiz, a martyr of Nagasaki, and St. Pedro Calungsod, a martyr of Guam.

However, numerous causes have been opened in recent years, with many people in the various steps of the process of canonization.

On July 31, the feast of Jesuit founder St. Ignatius of Loyola, Fr. Moreno said Richie is among many Jesuits who have imitated Saint Ignatius, “offering themselves in the self-sacrificing service of God and his people.”

In his memo to the Philippine Province of the Society of Jesus, Fr. Moreno noted that “various expressions of devotion to Richie have sprung up and continued, not just in the Philippines and Cambodia but in other places as well.”

This includes a Facebook group in his honor, named: “Friends of Bro. Richie R. Fernando SJ.

The next step for Brother Richie’s cause involves building a compelling case for his life of virtue through his writings, talks, and interviews with those who knew him, among other things.

“I ask the prayers of all in the Province to beg the Lord’s gracious assistance in this process that, if he so wills, it may prosper for the benefit of his people,” Fr. Moreno said.

[…]

First human embryos edited in the USA. Here’s why it’s problematic.

August 2, 2017 CNA Daily News 1

Washington D.C., Aug 2, 2017 / 03:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Researchers in Oregon have announced that they have successfully altered genes in a human embryo for the first time in the United States, but Catholic ethicists warn that the procedure was morally objectionable for many reasons.

“Very young humans have been created in vitro and treated not as ends, but as mere means or research fodder to achieve particular investigative goals,” said Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Director of Education for the The National Catholic Bioethics Center, in a statement to CNA.

“Their value as human beings is profoundly denigrated every time they are created, experimented upon, and then killed. Moreover, if such embryos were to grow up, as will doubtless occur in the future, there are likely to be unintended effects from modifying their genes,” Fr. Pacholczyk continued.

A team of scientists led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov at Oregon Health and Science University announced this week that they used a technology known as CRISPR to edit sections of the human genome, performing the procedure on embryonic humans. The technology, which selectively “snips” and trims areas of the genome and replaces it with strands of desired DNA, has previously been used on adult humans and other species.

Researchers in China have also announced that they have used the technology on embryos, but the edited genes were only present in some of the embryonic subject’s cells.

While researchers laud the breakthrough as a step towards the birth of genetically modified humans and the potential ability to treat inherited genetic diseases, the embryonic humans created and tested in both the US and Chinese experiments were all destroyed within a few days of the procedure. If allowed to survive, the subject embryos would have carried the edits they received in their own egg and sperm cells, and thus have the ability to pass those edited genes down to future generations.

CNA also spoke to John DiCamillo, an ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, in February about CRISPR technology more broadly, and the ethics surrounding the technique. He stressed that while Catholics “need to be attentive to where the dangers are” surrounding CRISPR technology generally, he cautioned Catholics not to “automatically consider any kind of gene editing to be automatically a problem.”

He pointed to gene therapy trials for disorders such as sickle cell disease and cancer that show promise for treating difficult disorders. He also noted that there “could be limited situations that could exist where the germ line could be legitimately edited. In other words, making changes to sperm, to eggs, or to early embryos as a way of potentially addressing diseases – inheritable diseases and so forth.”

However, permitting edits to germ line cells – such as embryos, eggs, and sperm – could also be “very dangerous on multiple levels,” DiCamillo warned. Since the technology is so new, patients or their descendants could experience a range of “unintended, perhaps harmful, side effects that can now be transmitted, inherited by other individuals down the line.” An embryo who experiences gene modification could also carry and pass on edited genes.

Echoing similar concerns, Fr. Pacholczyk pointing as well to the guidance from the National Academies of Sciences’ 2017 report on human gene editing. In the report, he said, the scientists point out that this kind of gene editing is controversial “precisely because the resulting genetic changes would be inherited by the next generation, and the technology therefore would cross a line many have viewed as ethically inviolable.”

Fr. Pacholczyk  also stressed the importance of limiting gene editing to therapeutic purposes, with the subject’s best interests in mind. He stated that human beings should never be subjected to the research without themselves or their guardians being offered informed consent and without the treatment being ordered to the patient’s health and healing.

In the cases in Oregon, however, the parents of the children created were not able to give valid consent because ethical consent “by definition excludes any approval of directly causing their death or otherwise using [subjects] as mere means to an end.”

“These experiments were nontherapeutic, as the goal was ultimately to destroy the embryos,” Fr. Pacholczyk continued. “Consent is particularly important when dealing with very vulnerable research subjects, and human embryos are among the most vulnerable of God’s creatures.”

Currently, Food and Drug Administration regulations require that all embryos who experience gene editing are later destroyed.

Furthermore, to be ethical, any applications or experiments utilizing CRISPR or other gene editing technology cannot use any other methods in its process which are themselves intrinsically immoral, Fr.Pacholczyk said. The Catholic Church forbids immoral methods of removing spermatozoa and ova from the body outside of intercourse and conception of new human beings through in vitro methods because both techniques dissociate procreation from the integrally personal context of the conjugal act.

[…]

In August, watch this meteor shower named for a saint

August 1, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Denver, Colo., Aug 2, 2017 / 12:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Star-gazing might not be the first thing that comes to mind when Catholics think of St. Lawrence, the early Christian martyr who was cooked to death by the Romans on an outdoor grill.

But every August, Catholics have the chance to see a meteor shower named in his honor.

The Perseids meteor shower, also called the “tears of St. Lawrence,” is a meteor shower associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle, which drops dust and debris in Earth’s orbit on its 133-year trip around the Sun. (The comet poses no immediate threat to Earth, at least not for several thousand years.)

As Earth orbits the Sun, it hits pieces of left-behind debris from the comet, causing them to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

This creates a prolific meteor shower that can best be seen in the Northern Hemisphere from late July to early August, usually peaking around Aug. 10, the feast of St. Lawrence.  

During it’s peak, the rate of meteors reaches 60 or more per hour.

The name “Perseids” comes from the constellation Perseus, named for a character in Greek mythology, and the radiant of the shower or the point from which it appears to originate.

The name “tears of St. Lawrence” came from the association with his feast day and from the legends that built up around the Saint after his death.

Saint Lawrence was martyred on Aug. 10, 258 during the persecution of the emperor Valerian along with many other members of the Roman clergy. He was the last of the seven deacons of Rome to die.

After the pope, Sixtus II, was martyred on Aug. 6, Lawrence became the principal authority of the Roman Church, having been the Church’s treasurer.

When he was summoned before the executioners, Lawrence was ordered to bring all the wealth of the Church with him. He showed up with a handful of crippled, poor, and sick men, and when questioned, replied that “These are the true wealth of the Church.”

He was immediately sent to his death, being cooked alive on a gridiron. Legend has it that one of his last words was a joke about his method of execution, as he quipped to his killers: “Turn me over, I’m done on this side!”

Catholics began calling the meteors the “tears of St. Lawrence,” even though the celestial phenomenon pre-dates the saint.

Some Italian lore also holds that the fiery bits of debris seen during a meteor shower are representative of the coals that killed St. Lawrence, and some traditions hold it that if one waters a basil plant and sets it out on the night of the meteor shower, they will find coal chips underneath the plant next day from St. Lawrence’s tears.

Anyone in the Northern Hemisphere should be able to view the “tears of St. Lawrence” best after midnight on Aug. 11-12 this year. The meteors will shower from various points in the sky rather than from one particular direction.

For the best viewing, it is recommended to go to a rural area away from light pollution.

[…]

Vatican insists on peaceful, democratic resolution in Venezuela

August 1, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Aug 1, 2017 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After violence followed a controversial vote in Venezuela this weekend, the Vatican Secretary of State has encouraged the country’s citizens to find a “peaceful and democratic” way out of the crisis.

The violence comes on the heels of a vote for an assembly charged by the country’s socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, with writing a new constitution.

According to ANSA news agency, Cardinal Pietro Parolin said that he and Pope Francis are “very committed” to seeking a peaceful solution to the crisis in Venezuela. The Vatican has been “seeking to help all, indiscriminately, and calling each person to fulfill their own responsibility.”

“The criteria should be only the good of the people,” he said. “The dead are too many and I do not think there are other criteria to follow that is not in the common good of the people,” he insisted.

With that in mind, Cardinal Parolin said that “it is necessary to find a peaceful and democratic way to get out of this situation, and the only way is always the same: we must find, talk, but seriously, to find a way to solution.”

His statements come only days after July 30 nation-wide elections, which approved a constitutional assembly to reform the country’s 1999 constitution. However, some reports and members of Venezuela’s opposition have disputed the fairness of the elections, which were boycotted by the opposition.

Although the government claims that more than 8 million voters attended, the Democratic Unity Table, an organization monitoring the election, reported that only 2.4 million votes, or 12 percent of eligible voters, were cast, of which a quarter would have voted “no”.

Furthermore, in the days leading up to and following the election, uprisings and protests swept throughout the country. Conflicts between protestors and the country’s Bolivarian National Guard have resulted in the death of at least 15 people, including two minors.

According to critic of the Maduro regime and Attorney General, Luisa Ortega Díaz, “10 people lost their lives surrounding Sunday’s vicious election, totaling 121 deaths since the protests began in April.”

The constitutional revisions have been rejected by the Venezuelan bishops for being not only “unconstitutional, but also unnecessary, inconvenient and harmful for the Venezuelan people.”

In their message of July 27, the bishops said that Maduro’s initiative “has not been convened by the people, has unacceptable commissions, and only the partisans of the ruling party will be represented there.”

“It will be a biased and biased instrument that will not solve, but will aggravate the acute problems of high cost of living, the shortage of food and medicines that suffer the people, and deepen and worsen the deep political crisis we currently face,” .

Two opposition leaders, Leopoldo López and Antonio Ledezma, have been re-arrested following the vote.

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