News Briefs

The soul is God’s temple, not your own, Francis warns

March 4, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Mar 4, 2018 / 05:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Like Jesus cast out the merchants from the temple in Jerusalem, we should drive the desire for personal gain and advantage from our hearts, replacing it with love, Pope Francis said Sunday.

“We are called to keep in mind those strong words of Jesus: ‘Do not make a market of my Father’s house.’”

“They help us to reject the danger of making our soul, which is the abode of God, a marketplace,” the Pope said March 4, “living in continuous search of our personal profit, rather than in generous and supportive love.”

Speaking before the Angelus, Francis noted that “this teaching of Jesus is always relevant, not only for ecclesial communities, but also for individuals, for civil communities and for societies.”

Recounting the day’s Gospel reading from John, he said that it is a common temptation to want to take advantage of some good and necessary activity in order to cultivate “private, if not even illicit, interests.”

“It is a serious danger, especially when it exploits God himself and the worship due to him, or service to man, [who is made in God’s] image. So Jesus used ‘strong ways’ that time to shake us from this deadly danger,” he explained.

The Pope also pointed out that when Jesus drove out the merchants and moneychangers from the temple, it wasn’t considered a violent act by those who witnessed it, but a typical action of prophets, who would often denounce abuses and excesses in the name of God.

That is why in the Gospel passage the Jews ask Jesus: “What sign do you show us to do these things?” They are asking what authority Jesus has to speak and act in the name of God.

The “sign” that Jesus will give as proof of his authority is his death and resurrection, the Pope continued. Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up,” and as the evangelist notes: “He spoke of the temple of his body.”

“The attitude of Jesus recounted in today’s Gospel passage urges us to live our lives not in search of our advantages and interests, but for the glory of God, who is love,” he said.

“May the Virgin Mary support us in our commitment to make Lent a good opportunity to recognize God as the one Lord of our life, removing every form of idolatry from our heart and our works.”

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Pope praises work of nurses, recalls the one who saved his life

March 3, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Mar 3, 2018 / 01:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Speaking to a group of nurses on Saturday, Pope Francis thanked them for their valuable work and paid a tribute to the Dominican nun who saved his life when he was a young man.

“[She was] a good woman, even brave, to the point of arguing with the doctors. Humble, but sure of what she was doing,” he said March 3.

Francis told a brief story from when he was just 20 years old in Argentina. He was ill and close to dying, he said, when Sr. Cornelia Caraglio, who was a nurse from Italy working in Argentina, argued with the doctors about his treatment, “and thanks to those things [she suggested], I survived.”

The pope told the story to help illustrate the importance of the profession of nursing, saying “many lives, so many lives are saved thanks to you!”

“The role of nurses in assisting the patient is truly irreplaceable,” the pope said. “Like no other, the nurse has a direct and continuous relationship with patients, takes care of them every day, listens to their needs and comes into contact with their very body, that he tends to.”

Pope Francis spoke to members of the Federation of Professional Nursing Colleges, Health Assistants, and Child Wardens in the Pope Paul VI hall at the Vatican.

Nurses, he said, are constantly engaged in the act of listening, in order to understand the needs of their patient, no matter what he or she is going through.

He reminded them that it isn’t enough to merely rely on protocol, but that their job requires “a continuous – and tiring! – effort of discernment and attention to the individual person.”

This makes the profession “a real mission,” and nurses “experts in humanity,” he said. This is particularly important in a society which often leaves weaker people on the margins, only giving worth to people who meet certain criteria or level of wealth, he noted.

The pope also told them that the sensitivity they acquire through their daily contact with patients makes them “promoters of the life and dignity of people.”

“Be attentive,” he continued, “to the desire, sometimes unexpressed, of spirituality and religious assistance, which represents for many patients an essential element of sense and serenity of life, even more urgent in the fragility due to illness.”

He also acknowledged the difficulty of the profession with its risks and tiring shifts. Because of the demands on nurses, he encouraged patients to have patience with them, making requests without demanding, and also offering a smile.

 

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This little pilgrim got a big blessing from Pope Francis

March 3, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Mar 3, 2018 / 03:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- When pilgrims in the Eternal City hope to get an up-close view of the pope, or even shake his hand, they are usually advised to arrive at the Vatican early, to sit next to the barrier and, most importantly, to find a baby.

Brian and Kelle Smith, whose youngest son Bobby recently made his debut on the Pope’s Instagram account, only needed the first two suggestions. They’d come prepared with the baby.

Like many pilgrims who visit Rome, on Wednesday morning they woke up early, gathered their six children and braved the rain and long security lines before making in into the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall for Pope Francis’ Feb. 28 general audience.

Almost as soon as he entered the hall, Francis saw the family and made a beeline to the kids, giving each of them a blessing and patting Bobby, 2, on the cheeks. The toddler, perched on the barrier, has his eyes fixed on the Pope’s pectoral cross.

Instead of continuing down the line, Francis paused when he saw Bobby pointing to his chest, and stepped closer, allowing the boy to trace his finger along the chain holding his pectoral cross.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”><a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/PopeFrancis?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#PopeFrancis</a> greets a young child at today’s audience who wants to get a better look at the Cross he wears. <a href=”https://t.co/vXH0u7UHqv”>pic.twitter.com/vXH0u7UHqv</a></p>&mdash; Mary Shovlain (@maryshovlain) <a href=”https://twitter.com/maryshovlain/status/968773182936289280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 28, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

Video footage of the encounter shows the Pope flashing a big smile and giving Bobby a final pat on the cheek before moving down the line of pilgrims.

Clips of the interaction immediately went up on Twitter, and later that day a close-up of the Bobby touching Francis’ cross went up on the Pope’s Instagram account, Franciscus.

In a March 2 interview with CNA, Brian Smith, the boy’s father, said it was a special moment for the family, “and Pope Francis was great, he was engaging with [Bobby].”

Smith said his son had been waving at the Pope as he walked in, “and he’s got the curly blonde hair, so I guess he caught Pope Francis’ eye.”

Francis, he said, “was very warm, and he spent a lot of time with the kids, really engaging with my youngest son.”

Though the interaction only lasted about 20 seconds, Smith was moved by the amount of time Pope Francis spent with them. “He’s the Pope, he’s the leader of our Church, of a billion Catholics, and he came and spent that amount of time with us when thousands of people were there to see him.”

During the brief encounter both the Pope and Bobby were talking with each other, Francis spoke in Italian and Bobby in baby-babble. However, with the noise and the excitement of the moment, Smith said he couldn’t make out what either was trying to say.

“It all seemed to happen so fast,” he said, noting that Francis “came and touched all six of the kids’ heads and gave them all a blessing, which was great.”

The family left Rome Thursday night and returned to Germany, where Smith is stationed with the U.S. military. They didn’t know about the Pope’s Instagram post until the next day, when a friend sent them a link to the post on Facebook.

“It was a pretty neat photo, the photographer did a great job capturing it,” he said. “It was pretty meaningful.”

<blockquote class=”instagram-media” data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-permalink=”https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfvu1NMDWx-/” data-instgrm-version=”8″ style=” background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:658px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% – 2px); width:calc(100% – 2px);”><div style=”padding:8px;”> <div style=” background:#F8F8F8; line-height:0; margin-top:40px; padding:50.0% 0; text-align:center; width:100%;”> <div style=” background:url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACwAAAAsCAMAAAApWqozAAAABGdBTUEAALGPC/xhBQAAAAFzUkdCAK7OHOkAAAAMUExURczMzPf399fX1+bm5mzY9AMAAADiSURBVDjLvZXbEsMgCES5/P8/t9FuRVCRmU73JWlzosgSIIZURCjo/ad+EQJJB4Hv8BFt+IDpQoCx1wjOSBFhh2XssxEIYn3ulI/6MNReE07UIWJEv8UEOWDS88LY97kqyTliJKKtuYBbruAyVh5wOHiXmpi5we58Ek028czwyuQdLKPG1Bkb4NnM+VeAnfHqn1k4+GPT6uGQcvu2h2OVuIf/gWUFyy8OWEpdyZSa3aVCqpVoVvzZZ2VTnn2wU8qzVjDDetO90GSy9mVLqtgYSy231MxrY6I2gGqjrTY0L8fxCxfCBbhWrsYYAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); display:block; height:44px; margin:0 auto -44px; position:relative; top:-22px; width:44px;”></div></div> <p style=” margin:8px 0 0 0; padding:0 4px;”> <a href=”https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfvu1NMDWx-/” style=” color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;” target=”_blank”>#GeneralAudience</a></p> <p style=” color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;”>A post shared by <a href=”https://www.instagram.com/franciscus/” style=” color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px;” target=”_blank”> Pope Francis</a> (@franciscus) on <time style=” font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;” datetime=”2018-02-28T15:42:59+00:00″>Feb 28, 2018 at 7:42am PST</time></p></div></blockquote> <script async defer src=”//www.instagram.com/embed.js”></script>

After living in Germany for two years, the family is set to return to the United States in six months, and had wanted to visit Rome one last time before going back.

“We basically just went to Rome to see the Pope,” Smith said, explaining that they had initially planned to attend the general audience in January while visiting a friend in Italy, but had to cancel the Rome portion of the trip because the Pope was in South America.

However, it wasn’t their first time meeting the Vicar of Christ. Though it was their first interaction with Pope Francis, Brian, Kelle and their three oldest children met Benedict XVI during his Mass for Pentecost in 2010.

“One thing about both of them is that popes love babies,” he said, recalling that as soon as Benedict entered St. Peter’s Basilica “he saw the children and he just ignored everybody else and came for the kids and blessed them.”

“So my older three kids don’t have an excuse,” he joked, “because they’ve been blessed by two popes.”

Smith said that while he is excited to return to his home in Texas for a few years, he has enjoyed living in Europe, where, despite a general decline in the practice of the Christian faith, “there’s still so many great sites…Pretty much all of modern Europe is based on 1,000 years of the Church being here. So it’s great.”

Highlights of their time in Europe have included visits to Fatima, Orvieto and Lourdes, where Smith participated in the annual military pilgrimage to the shrine, as well as many other places where saints are buried.

However, Smith said perhaps the biggest highlight was having his son Bobby – who is named after Jesuit St. Robert Bellarmine – baptized by a Jesuit priest he knows during Mass celebrated at the saint’s tomb in Rome.

“This has been a great posting for us,” he said, “because you hear about things but America is not really a Catholic country, so it’s great to be able to see all of these pilgrimage places, it’s a great blessing.”

 

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‘Do you stand by what you believe?’- Mosebach on ISIS killings

March 2, 2018 CNA Daily News 2

Rome, Italy, Mar 3, 2018 / 12:00 am (CNA).- Martin Mosebach is the author of “The 21: A Journey into the Land of the Coptic Martyrs.” Walter Mayr, Rome correspondent of German magazine Der SPIEGEL recently interviewed Mosebach, and has authorized CNA to publish a translation of that interview.

Walter Mayr: Mr. Mosebach, your book “The 21: A Journey into the Land of the Coptic Martyrs” is about those Coptic Christians who were beheaded on a Libyan beach in 2015 by ISIS henchmen. Why did you choose this subject matter?

Martin Mosebach: The subject matter came to me when I saw a picture of one of those decapitated heads – it was a face expressing a peculiar peace, a peculiar trance. The picture then did not let me go and I decided to describe what the life of these 21 men was like before they were beheaded. And so I just headed out, I went to Upper Egypt and tried to learn more from the social circle of those executed.

What makes this particular case special for you, compared to other atrocities committed by ISIS?

Terrorist attacks are usually directed against people who have not been asked about their stance on religion. But these people were questioned by ISIS after over 40 days of imprisonment; and they stood by their religion, making this a less common case. After all, terror actually is predicated on the fact that it can strike anyone who can be called “innocent.” By the way, most ISIS victims are Muslims. Here, the victims, Christian Copts, were asked at gunpoint: “Do you stand by what you believe?”

Where did you see the entire video for the first time and how can one endure watching it?

I first saw the entire video, the unabridged version showing the actual decapitation, on the laptops of the relatives of the murdered. In El-Or, in Upper Egypt. In the cowshed, so to speak, or in the houses of the families. On YouTube you can now find a sanitized version. But there, in the community of brothers, the cousins, the fathers, this is considered with composure. And with pride. They will point to their relatives in the row of the beheaded, to their brother, and say, “this is our Samuel, this is our Abanoub.”

Is that what fascinated or astonished you most at the behavior of the victims and later of the bereaved?

I went to Upper Egypt with the image in mind that we have in the West of persecuted Christianity in the Middle East. Instead I encountered a strong, growing, large, determined church full of people who in no way appeared to be pushed up against the wall, but instead really perceived the martyrdom as a great triumph, just like in the first Christian centuries.

By “Growing Church” you mean to say that the number of Coptic believers is growing?

In any case, it is much larger than what we read about here in Germany, where there is talk of eight or nine percent of the Egyptian population. Although that also would be quite a lot of people, given there are 90 million Egyptians. The Coptic bishops, however, assert that the number is closer to 25 percent of the population. There are no official statistics though, as that is not in the state’s interest.

What is the everyday life of the Copts in Al-Sisi’s Egypt like?

There is persecution, there is also legal disqualification, a Copt can not obtain a leadership position, can not become general, broadcasting director, university rector, minister, and a Muslim may not obey a Copt. But that does not prevent this group from forming a state in the state, a community that holds its head up high. After all, there is no other place that the Copts could go – they have to stay, this is their home, they are the actual descendants of the Pharaohs. The Turkish approach of yesteryear, to completely dispel the Armenians and the Greek, can not work with this number of people. When I’m in a Coptic church, I don’t get the sense of being in an underground community. The churches built after Mubarak’s fall are huge, and the towers are sometimes higher than the minarets of the mosques.

Could the troubled Catholic Church, which you so often criticize, learn from the Coptic Christians?

Yes, that it could: namely, that one must proclaim the Faith, instead of hiding one’s cross on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, like Cardinal Marx did – a Copt could not do that, because he has his cross tattooed on the back of his hand, between his thumb and forefinger. The Jews were forced to wear the Star [of David] in Germany, the Copt fashions himself his own cross.

Whilst working there, did you ask yourself how you would behave, if you found yourself in such a situation?

But of course one asks oneself the question. I realized that this is a challenge I too would have to face. Whether I would live up to it is another matter.

What role does Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi when it comes to the Copts and religious conflicts in general?

This man is not to be envied for his office.

Are you being serious?

He ousted the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood representative, President Mursi, now there is a military dictatorship and, among the supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, seething rage over this act of violence against a democratically elected head of state. This anger is also directed against the Copts, many of whom of course do rely on the dictatorship, since Mursi wanted to largely deprive them of their rights.

That sounds like Sisi is the lesser evil for the Copts.

Yes, but he makes himself the mortal enemy of a large part of his own people. For example, in the village of El-Or, the construction of a cathedral for the Copts was personally promoted by Sisi himself. He also personally attends mass at Christmas, Easter, as well as requiems. He is trying to stabilize things, trying to keep a lid on this explosive pressure cooker.

You are likely to draw criticism from conservatives that your book avoids pointing out the perpetrators clearly enough, given how it eschews the “Islamic State” stereotype.

Islamism was less interesting to me in this particular case. What mattered to me was the role of martyrdom. It is inseparable from the Christian message.

 

Anian Christoph Wimmer translated this interview from German.

 

[…]

Catholic lawyer voices concern at Supreme Court’s immigrant bond ruling

March 2, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

Washington D.C., Mar 2, 2018 / 07:20 pm (CNA).- After the Supreme Court rejected the idea that detained immigrants are entitled to periodic bond hearings, a Catholic immigration lawyer warned that detention centers take a toll on those who spend long periods of time there.

“I was just recently in a facility in South Texas where they were detaining children and families and it was an old Walmart that had been converted into a jail like facility,” said Michelle Saenz-Rodriguez, who serves on the Dallas bishop’s Immigration Task Force.

The detention facility has a “bathroom in the middle of the room. You don’t have any privacy, which really makes people feel that…they don’t have any dignity,” Saenz-Rodriguez told CNA.

“A lot of people are depressed…they have suffered violence in their country and now they really need treatment,” she continued.

On Feb. 27, the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 that periodic bond hearings are not required for detained immigrants who face possible deportation.

The class-action lawsuit, Jennings vs. Rodriguez, was brought by a collection of immigrants who have been in custody for long periods of time. It includes both immigrants who are claiming asylum and those who were detained on charges of committing a crime.

A lower court had ruled that bond hearings must be held every six months in cases where an immigrant is being detained.

Saenz-Rodriguez, a Catholic immigration lawyer who has worked with the detained for 27 years, said immigrants often refer to these detainment centers as the “hieleras” or “refrigerators” due to the constant, uncomfortably cold temperature inside.

She said that she often sees cases in which the detention time is 14-15 months or more.

“I have a client right now…who had applied for asylum in the United States and was actually deported…He was sent back to Honduras and when he was in Honduras they [a gang] tried to kill him and he was badly, badly beaten. So he makes his way back to America and he is detained at entry…not entitled to any type of bond,” said Saenz-Rodriguez. “It took us, I want to say, 16 months to get his case heard and ultimately he was granted protection.”

“Unfortunately, right now it is a broken system that is overburdened and the immigration judges, even though they want to hear cases, there is just not enough human manpower to get it done,” she said.

She added that the immigrants in question often “turn themselves in. They don’t sneak across the border. They literally walk up to the bridge or the officer and say ‘I’m here seeking protection,’ so it is not like they are catching them.”

“I mean there is a certain extent of human trafficking where you’ll see a smuggler trying to bring people across, but the vast majority of people who have asked for asylum are turning themselves in when they get to the border.”

Dr. Christopher Wolfe, a University of Dallas politics professor specializing in Constitutional Law and Catholic Social Teaching, said that “the question of whether this issue involves an injustice or not is not the same as whether the policy is unconstitutional or not. Those are two different questions.”

“I would doubt that there is Constitutional grounds for requiring bail hearings for detained immigrants. And, therefore, it seems best to me that those who think such a policy is necessary should go to Congress to get legislation for it,” he told CNA.

Saenz-Rodriguez said that she has been encouraged by Dallas Bishop Edward Burns’ involvement in seeking to serve the immigrant community in his diocese.

“He’s been out there and he immediately formed a task force of all the different sectors of the community trying to say, ‘How do we make people understand that this should not be a polarizing issue? This needs to be a humanitarian issue.’”

 

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