News Briefs

Vatican City, Mar 17, 2017 / 11:16 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis told priests Friday to make confession a priority in their parishes, and, if they want to be good confessors, to have a strong prayer life focused on growing in humility and closeness to the Holy Spirit in order to evangelize.

The confessor, in face, is called daily to go to the peripheries of evil and sin,” the Pope said March 17, adding that “this is an ugly periphery,” but the priest is called to go “and his work represents an authentic pastoral priority.”

“To confess is a pastoral priority,” he said. “Please, may there not be those signs (that say): ‘confessions only Monday and Wednesday, from this time to this time.’”

“Confess each time they ask you,” he said, telling priests that if they are sitting in the confessional praying, “you are there with the confessional open, which is the open heart of God.”

Pope Francis spoke to participants in the Apostolic Penitentiary’s annual course on the internal forum.

The Internal Forum branch of the Apostolic Penitentiary is one of the three tribunals of the Roman Curia and is responsible for issues relating to the forgiveness of sins in the Catholic Church, particularly sins involving some types of grave matter which require a special form of absolution that only certain priests can administer.

Taking place March 14-17, the course is held every year in Rome and is designed to educate attendees on canon law regarding Confession, as well as what the internal forum does. It is attended by around 500 seminarians in their third year of studies and by priests who wish to participate.

In his speech, the Pope said that to be a good confessor, a priest must be a man of prayer, who is attentive to the Holy Spirit and knows how to discern well, and who also is a good evangelizer.

They must be “a true friend of Jesus the Good Shepherd,” he said, adding that without this friendship, “it will be very hard to mature that paternity which is so necessary in the ministry of Reconciliation.”

This friendship is cultivated primarily through prayer, he said, whether it’s a personal prayer “constantly asking for the gift of pastoral charity,” or a special prayer for “ the exercise of the duty of confessors toward the faithful … who come to us looking for God’s mercy.”

A ministry of confession that is “wrapped in prayer” will be a “credible reflection of God’s mercy” and will help to avoid the “bitterness and misunderstandings” that can at times happen in the confessional.

Confessors must also pray for themselves, the Pope said, specifically to understand well that they themselves are sinners who have been forgiven.  

“One cannot forgive in the Sacrament without the knowledge of having been forgiven first,” he said, adding that prayer is “the first guarantee of avoiding every attitude of harshness, which uselessly judges the sinner and not the sin.”

Francis also stressed the need for priests to pray for the gift of “a wounded heart,” which is able to understand other wounds “and heal them with the oil of mercy,” like the Good Samaritan did to the man on the side of the road.

A priest must also pray for humility and invoke the Holy Spirit, who is the spirit “of discernment and compassion” that allows him to accompany others with prudence.

A confessor must also be “a man of the Spirit, a man of discernment,” who knows how to listen to the Holy Spirit in trying to discern the will of God.

“How much harm is done to the Church from the lack of discernment! How much harm comes to souls from an act that is not rooted in humble listening to the Holy Spirit and the will of God,” he said.

“The confessor does not act according to his own will and does not teach his own doctrine. He is called always to do the will of God alone, in full communion with the Church, of whom he is the minister, that is, a servant.”

Discernment, the Pope said, allows the priest to distinguish individual cases instead of generalizing and putting everyone together in the same category, which helps the penitent to open “the shrine of their own conscience” in order to receive light, peace and mercy.  

This discernment is necessary above all because many people who come to confession find themselves in “desperate situations.” They could also be “spiritually disturbed,” he said, explaining that these cases have to be discerned well, keeping all of “the existential, ecclesial, natural and supernatural” causes in mind.

“When the confessor becomes aware of the presence of genuine spiritual disturbances – that may be in large part psychological, and therefore must be confirmed by means of healthy collaboration with the human sciences – he must not hesitate to refer the issue to those who, in the diocese, are charged with this delicate and necessary ministry, namely, exorcists. But these must be chosen with great care and great prudence.”

Confession must also be a true place of evangelization, Pope Francis said, stressing that “there is no more authentic evangelization than the encounter with the God of mercy, with the God who is mercy.”

“The confessional is then a place of evangelization and therefore of formation,” he said, explaining that in the brief dialogue with the penitent, the confessor is called to discern “what is most useful and what is even necessary for the spiritual path of that brother or sister.”

At times this will mean re-explaining the most basic fundamentals of the faith, “the incandescent core, the kerygma,” without which the experience of God’s love and mercy would be “mute.” Other times it will mean explaining the basics of the moral life, “always in relation to the truth, to the good and to the will of the Lord.”

“It involves a work of ready and intelligent discernment, which can be of great benefit to the faithful,” the Pope said, urging the priests to be good confessors who are “immersed in relation with Christ,” and who are capable of careful discernment and attentive evangelization.

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Denver, Colo., Mar 17, 2017 / 02:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- They’re Irish, they’re Catholic, and they’re proud. But you maybe haven’t heard of them.

They’re the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Lady’s Ancient Order of Hibernians, the oldest and largest Irish Catholic organizations in the United States.

Non-Irish need not apply to the orders – membership is reserved for those who can prove that at least some Irish blood flows through their veins. The word ‘Hibernian’ is another word for Irishmen, taken from ‘Hibernia’, the classical Latin term for Ireland.

Members also must be practicing Catholics willing to stand up for and support the Catholic Church.

Today, the order functions similarly to other Catholic charitable organizations, such as the Knights of Columbus, but with an Irish twist. They support many Catholic causes such as vocations and pro-life work, but they also promote Irish culture and education on Irish history, and help modern-day Irish immigrants to the U.S. and support a free and united Ireland.

“If you had a group of us in a room you’d have twice as many opinions as you’d have people,” Danny O’Connell, National Vice President for the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America, told CNA.

“But the thing that pulls us all together is our culture, our music, our traditions, many of which came from the immigrants.”

Why the Ancient Order?

The orders come from a time when secret societies were in vogue, and the stakes were much higher.

After the Protestant Reformation, the English, who had conquered Ireland, tried fiercely to convert the stubborn Irish Catholics, to little avail. Irish Catholics soon became accustomed to “Mass rocks”, where a priest would say Mass outside on a rock and quickly be able to hide the altar cloth and feign a picnic if they were found out.

At this time, secret groups with names like the Whiteboys, Ribbonmen, and Defenders supported rights for Catholics, but their first job was to protect their clergy. Despite persecution, the Catholics clung fiercely to their faith.

As Catholic oppression continued and crop failures struck Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Irish began to move, and their secret societies, now a learned defense mechanism, came with them. It was around this time that the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Ireland and the UK was born.

Many Irish also immigrated to the United States, with more than 1 million doing so around the time of the Irish potato famine between 1845-1852. So many sick Irish died on the trip that the boats that brought them over began to be referred to as “coffin ships.”

“When people refer to the famine, most of the Irish see it as a genocide,” O’Connell explained. “It was the Great Hunger. They were exporting more food from Ireland than they are today, yet the Irish Catholics were dying and their teeth would be stained green because the only thing they could even try and eat was the grass. It was the British government starving the people who weren’t allowed to eat the food on their land except for the potatoes, and it was land that the British stole from us.”

But despite promises of religious freedom, the Irish found that United States was also hostile to Catholicism, under the guise of patriotism.

Since colonial times, Americans had been suspect of Catholics from all immigrant groups, suspicious that their allegiances to the Pope would trump their loyalty to the U.S.

“Like any immigrant group, when you were new in the U.S., you were low on the totem pole, you were the ones abused and beaten and robbed and not given good jobs,” O’Connell said.

“And people didn’t understand Catholicism, so they would prevent you from practicing your religion. So if you were having a Mass, they would beat up or often kill the priest … so the Hibernians would stay outside or wherever they were, and stand guard. Back in those days that’s what you did, you stood outside and protected the life of your priest, and that was the only way you could continue practicing your religion,” he said.

The Hibernians also helped their own to overcome discrimination when they were looking for housing and employment. In 1894, the Daughters of Erin, which eventually became the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians, was founded in order to protect young Irish immigrant women in the United States.

The Hibernians today

A strong Irish Catholic identity, forged in the overcoming of numerous adversities, can still be felt strongly in many parts of the United States, and is what bonds the Hibernians together today.

Marilyn Madigan, the National Treasurer for the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians, said the camaraderie among the early Hibernians can still be felt strongly in the organization today.

“It’s the best organization I’ve ever belonged to, we’re like a second family,” she said.

Madigan said one of the most important things the orders do today, besides their Catholic charitable work, is to help undocumented Irish immigrants in the United States, of whom there are an estimated 50,000. Most of them entered the country legally, but are now here on overstayed visas.

Fears and anxiety are even higher among this group after the election of President Donald Trump, who promised to crack down on illegal immigration.

“There are a lot of undocumented Irish in this country, and most of the Irish organizations do work to try to document those Irish, so we haven’t forgotten where we came from, we hold that country dear to our hearts, as well as our religion,” Madigan said. In fact, the two are really inextricably linked.

“Most of the famine Irish were Catholic, their religion was taken away from them, they had to go to Masses behind rocks, so our Irish and Catholic heritage is very important,” she said.

Because the orders are non-profit groups, they do not engage in any kind of lobbying for Irish immigration, and they also declined to comment politically on the immigration situation of other undocumented immigrants in the United States.

A completely free and independent Ireland is another cause near and dear to the Hibernian heart, and the group hopes to see a peaceful and legal reunification of the country soon, though Brexit has raised some doubts.

“We’re very involved with Brexit, the fear is that we could see a return to a hard border between the North and the Republic,” O’Connell explained. Ireland and Northern Ireland (the six northern counties that still belong to the U.K.) have enjoyed relatively open borders since the 1990s, to the benefit of both countries’ economies, he added. Several members of the order will be travelling to Europe to voice their support for an open border.

The diversity of causes that the order supports and the faith that undergirds it continues to tie them together, O’Connell said.

“The culture, the music, the song, that brings us all together, and it’s kind of like with a family … and it’s driven by being Catholic. There’s not another Irish group in the country that has that diversity, and that’s why we’re so strong.”

But membership is waning. The women’s and men’s orders combined have a membership of about 80,000 in the U.S., at a generous estimate. It’s something that has both O’Connell and Madigan concerned.

“It seems like the younger generations do not join organizations like we have in the past,” Madigan said. “It seems like the younger generation, while they’re proud of their heritage, they don’t join, or they may join or not be as active.”

“We’re trying to do a better job of welcoming people who are younger than 60,” O’Connell said.

“We’re in the process of really kicking off what’s going to be a several-year membership campaign. We’ve never really done that before, and we realize how many people say, ‘I don’t know anything about this, why don’t I?’”

What a Hibernian wants you to know about St. Patrick’s Day

While you might think you’d find a Hibernian dressed in green and drinking steadily like the stereotypical St. Patrick’s Day celebrant, there are a few things the Hibernians wish the general population understood about the holiday.

“First and foremost, to a true Irishman, St. Patrick’s Day is a feast day,” Madigan said.

“We start out with Mass, with the majority of us participating in parades prior to or on the day itself, where we highlight our Irish heritage.”

Getting drunk, she said, is not part of the plan.

“The things that upset me the most is that people think it’s just a day to go out and celebrate and imbibe in alcoholic beverages, and maybe be overserved,” she said.

“They wear shirts that are very denigrating to the Irish, making us look like we’re a race of drunks. We’re not, we’re a proud irish race that has spread Christianity throughout the world through our missionaries. And I don’t think that the general public really sees what we do.”

O’Connell said that he is also “very disturbed” by the T-shirts and decorations that denigrate the Irish.

“What I try to tell people when I talk to them about it, is I say change it to a different nationality, change it to a different race … can you imagine?”

St. Patrick’s Day is also an Irish-American holiday, he added. We eat corned beef and cabbage because that’s what the Irish immigrants in America ate because they couldn’t afford other cuts of meat. They wanted to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in a big way because they wanted to feel close to their Irish heritage. It wasn’t until recently that the holiday became anything more than any other feast day in Ireland, and they only started holding big celebrations for tourism purposes.

Still, he said, it’s hard to completely blame those who want to be Irish for a day.

“Being Irish is just so much fun.”

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Vatican City, Mar 17, 2017 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- With Easter only a month away, plans have already been set in the Vatican for the celebrations surrounding the big day, and the lead-up to Holy Week will be filled with several papal daytrips, Masses, and liturgies.

The Pope began Lent with his March 5-10 spiritual exercises alongside members of the Curia in Ariccia, a small town just outside of Rome.

Next on the schedule is a March 17 penitential service in St. Peter’s Basilica, during which several individuals will go to confession with the Pope as part of his annual “24 Hours for the Lord” event, which this year takes place the third Friday and Saturday of Lent.

A worldwide initiative led by Pope Francis, the event was launched in 2014 under the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization and points to confession as the primary way to experience God’s mercy.

On March 25, the feast of the Annunciation of the Lord, Francis will make a daylong pastoral visit to Milan, where he is scheduled to say Mass, meet with youth who recently received Confirmation, and visit the city’s cathedral and a prison.

After his visit to Milan, the Pope will start the month of April by making another daylong visit to the northern Italian town of Carpi, during which he will commemorate the nearly 20 people who died when an earthquake struck the region in 2012.

One week later Pope Francis will say Mass for Palm Sunday at 10 a.m. in St. Peter’s Square April 9, during which he will process with palms from the obelisk in the middle of the square to the main altar, as is tradition.

During the Mass, the World Youth Day Cross will be handed over from Poland to Panama, signaling the location of the next international encounter in 2019. As is customary, the Pope will also deliver his message for WYD at a local level, which this year holds the theme “The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name,” taken from Lk 1:49.

On April 13, Pope Francis will offer the Chrism Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at 9:30 a.m., which will be concelebrated with the cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, and priests present in Rome.

Then in the afternoon he will say the Mass of the Lord’s Supper with the traditional washing of feet. The location of this year’s Holy Thursday liturgy has yet to be announced, but Francis has typically chosen to hold it either in prisons or centers for the sick and disabled. Last year the celebration was held at a refugee welcoming center on the outskirts of Rome.

On Good Friday the Pope will preside over an afternoon liturgy commemorating the Lord’s Passion in St. Peter’s Basilica at 5 p.m., with the papal preacher Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap., delivering the homily, as usual.

Later that night he will make his way to the Colosseum to pray the Via Crucis with the faithful at 9:15 p.m., extending his blessing to all present. The name of person writing this year’s meditations has yet to be announced.

The following night, Holy Saturday, Francis will celebrate the Easter Vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica at 8:30 p.m. In previous years he has baptized and confirmed several individuals during the celebration, and is expected to do so again this year.

On April 16, Easter Sunday, the Pope will hold a public Mass in St. Peter’s Square at 10 a.m. Immediately after, he will give his special “urbi et orbi” blessing, “to the city and to the world.”

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