Europe

Rome, Italy, Oct 4, 2017 / 04:57 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- It’s well-known that in ancient Rome hundreds of thousands of people would to pile into the stacked layers of stone seating in the Colosseum to watch gladiators fight to their death, cheering on as the warriors met a bloody and often drawn-out end.

However, while being a “gladiator” in modern Rome has mostly become a way pick up extra cash in photo-ops with tourists, there are some who argue that the gruesome nature of the ancient battles, in which people would essentially celebrate and take pleasure in the pain of others, hasn’t gone away, but has rather taken on a new, less obvious form in the digital world: pornography.

When it comes to internet pornography, Dr. Donald Hilton Jr. of the University of Texas Health Science Center said we as a society have to learn to ask the “uncomfortable questions about our culture, why we’re so easily voyeuristic to watch people being harmed.”

While pornography has always been a problem, the new widespread access offered through the digital world has led to a culture that enjoys “watching women being hurt on screen,” he told CNA.

Hilton recalled that in a tour of the Colosseum, his guide explained that throughout the centuries of its of operation, the structure “had up to several hundred thousand animals and gladiators dying in the colosseum with people watching them and enjoying watching their pain.”

Now “I think we have a neon colosseum, a colosseum of screens where far more, now, are watching people being harmed. And people are enjoying it,” he said, adding that in his opinion, “we’re no better than the ancient Romans in that.”

“In fact, in some way I think we’re worse, because at least they did it openly, but we hide behind our screens at night and do it, and tell ourselves it’s okay.”

Hilton spoke as part of a four-day conference on protecting children in a digitally connected and global society. Titled “Child Dignity in the Digital World,” the conference is being held in Rome Oct. 3-6 and is organized by the Pontifical Gregorian University’s Center for Child Protection.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin opened the conference as a keynote speaker. Other participants in the congress include social scientists, civic leaders, and religious representatives. Discussion points include prevention of abuse, pornography, the responsibility of internet providers and the media, and ethical governance.

Several leading personalities participating argued that given the easy access children have to the internet, they are increasingly falling prey to an industry that, without the proper protections, can ultimately leave them vulnerable, becoming victims to a wide variety of abuses.

On day two of the conference, Hilton was part of a panel of experts exploring the dangers of internet pornography and its impact on children, specifically the link between pornography and violence, and the effects of porn use on the human brain, particularly among youth.

A celebrated neuroscientist and world-renown surgeon, Hilton examined the scientific changes in the human brain when viewing pornography.

Essentially, he said human beings have “two brains,” one being the cortex, which he called our “thinking brain,” and the other being the brain stem, referred to by Hilton as our “wanting brain.” So while the brain might tell us to do something because it feels good, the cortex will tell us to slow down and think about the consequences.

Between the two is the “reward center” of the brain, he said, explaining that while it is intended to help motivate us, the reward center can be “hijacked and diverted” from this purpose if we take in “powerful rewards indiscriminately.”

In this case, the reward center can “reset the pleasure thermostat of the brain,” and a “new normal” is established, which can quickly become addiction, Hilton said, explaining that the brain structure is impacted by learning, and that “addictive learning sculpts the brain in a very damaging way.”

Referring to a recent study done by medical personnel, he said addictions to food and sex have now been put on par with substance abuse, because the same changes are found in brain studies “and the behaviors are almost identical.”

Children and young adults are particularly at risk from this, he said, because for one, the frontal-lobe control center of the brain don’t fully mature until the person is in their mid-20s. However, most exposure to pornography happens at a young age, leaving children particularly vulnerable to changes in the brain structure.

He said children are also more at risk because the chemicals for processing rewards and addictions are more potent brains that are not yet mature, so “an immature breaking system is essentially paired with an accelerated reward-seeking drive.” He also cited problems with brains systems that identify observers with the “motivational state” of those performing in the program, which in pornography is often linked to violence.

In his comments to CNA, Hilton said porn access at a young age is particularly concerning because since the brain of a child or teenager is not yet developed, it makes a strong imprint and “sets their template” in way that essentially sculpts the brain to prefer what they watch over reality.

Quoting American author, feminist, and political adviser Naomi Wolf, he said “pornified” boys are increasingly led to a mentality that “real women are just bad porn.”

Hilton said that in order to help counter the online porn industry, the issue has to be addressed in a new way. Whereas in the past it has primarily been relegated to the moral realm, he said the issue is wider, and that it’s important to bring the issue up in public settings “without mentioning religion.”

“Can we talk about exploitation not only of youth who are viewing pornography, but of young female performers that are being used up so quickly and exploited by a very powerful industry? Can we leave the religion out of it and talk about it from a public health perspective?” he said.

“This is a vast industry, the internet is a vast industry,” he said, adding that if any other industry had the same amount of disease, emotional health issues, and drug abuse involved, “they would cry out and there would be outrage.

However, “with porn, as long as they take their clothes off and put a camera there, you can do anything you want,” he said, comparing porn to “filmed prostitution.”

“Can we really say that porn is good and that people should view it if the people that make it are being harmed? Is it an ethical product then?” he asked, and noted that according to one study paper, 88 percent of the scenes in the 250 most popular porn movies show aggression toward women.

So when looking at the concrete numbers, “if it’s not ethical to produce it, is it ethical to watch it? What is the price someone is paying to film that?”

Also speaking at the conference was Dr. Mary Anne Layden, a psychotherapist and Director of Education for the University of Pennsylvania, who addressed the link between violence and pornography.

In her speech, she presented various research studies linking the use of pornography to increased aggression toward women. In youth particularly, various studies have proved that exposure to porn at a young age increases the likelihood youth will be promiscuous at an earlier age, and are more prone to partner abuse as they get older.

Porn use also and the misconceived belief that if access is so common, it isn’t harmful, and that women who are treated violently in porn films actually like it, she said.

In comments to CNA after her speech, Layden said pornography is especially dangerous for children because “everything children see is educational,” and since porn is typically the only imagery kids have when it comes to sex, they learn about it from “this toxic form.”

“Now their brains are absorbing this and they are getting these messages, and then they very quickly start to act on that,” she said, explaining that they “will likely start having sex earlier, they will likely think all relationships are sexual, they’ll start to try and get their partner to try and act out things they’ve seen in pornography.”

Pornography also leads to misconceptions about the human body and what constitutes abuse, she said, explaining that many young adults have come into her clinic complaining that their bodies “don’t work” because things don’t happen like they do in movies.

While numerous research studies have proven that performers in pornography films don’t enjoy what they do on-set, many people still believe the opposite, Layden said, because they don’t see the suffering the performers endure.

What most people don’t know, she said is that “on those porn sets there is a doctor, on every porn set,” and “he will give you any drug you can name – he will give you Percocet, he will give you Xanex, he will give you heroine, he will give you anything to get you to go through that scene, take that torture and smile while they’re doing it.”

She said that when children first come into contact with pornography their initial reaction is that “there’s something scary” about it, and even something violent, but that very quickly they start to learn from what they see that “violence is a sex act,” and this notion becomes more normal as they get older.

In terms of protecting children from harmful images, Layden stressed the importance of educating parents on the risks and finding the right software to block problematic content from popping up.

Unfortunately, she said around only 20 percent of parents have actually put protective software on their children’s devices and activated it.

But if parents are looking for a good company, she said “Covenant Eyes” has programs that work very effectively through blocks and accountability software that will send a list of their child’s search history to them at the end of the week.

While it might not be possible bring the porn access to zero, it is possible to reduce it, Layden said.

“The fact that we can’t reduce it to zero doesn’t make us stop anything else,” she said, naming youth smokers and cancer patients as examples. And concrete ways to reduce exposure is to put filters on computers in libraries and at schools, as well as personal devices children own, and to not let them put their computers in their bedrooms.

She also stressed the need to get legislators and governments involved, explaining that pornography sites have finally been legally required to check the age of someone trying to access their web-pages.

“That won’t stop the damage that’s done to adult men,” she said, explaining that pornography first of all does damage to those who use it, “but it will stop with the most vulnerable, which is the children.”

Perpetrators of pornography must also be held accountable, Layden said, because the industry ultimately makes money by “hurting children.”

“This is an absolute scandal, these are child abuse perpetrators, these pornographic websites,” she said, explaining that they ought to be treated as perpetrators and put in jail, because “if you actually enforce law against obscenity, you can actually take all of their profits.”

Doing this would also “send the message to culture that if we’re putting them in jail, this must be a bad thing,” she said. “The permission-giving beliefs that say everyone is doing it, it must be fine, is just one of the biggest damages, and we can start the sending the message that it’s not okay.”

“We’ve got to stop saying ‘boys will be boys,’” and instead begin educating families more effectively on what healthy sexuality entails, she said, because pornography “hurts everyone involved; men, women, children, performers…it hurts everybody that comes close to it.”

[…]

Rome, Italy, Oct 4, 2017 / 12:03 am (CNA).- In November Pope Francis will visit Bangladesh and Burma, two developing countries in Asia, where he will bring a message of peace and coexistence amid persecution of minorities, a missionary priest said.

“The Pope’s visit, in my opinion, will help to emphasize that coexistence helps the future of the country, not conflict,” Fr. Bernardo Cervellera told CNA.

In particular, Pope Francis will address the plight of the long-persecuted Rohingya people, in whose defense he has spoken out many times.

Rejected by Buddhist fundamentalist groups – Burma’s religious majority – the Muslim ethnic group has been largely turned away from the Muslim country of Bangladesh as well, where they have sought refuge.

“So these people don’t have a country, they are migrants in the full sense of the term, they have nowhere to lie their head,” Cervellera said.

“And so the Pope defends them, to let Christians and Muslims know that we need to help people not on the basis of their creed, or on the basis of their wealth, or their abilities, but simply because they are human beings.”

Cervellera, a priest of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) and editor-in-chief of AsiaNews, has spent time in both Burma and Bangladesh. He spoke about Francis’ upcoming visit to Bangladesh and Burma, also known as Myanmar, Nov. 27-Dec. 2.

Something to note about the visit, he said, is that Catholic population in both countries is very small. In Bangladesh less than three percent of the population is Catholic and in Burma it’s less than one percent.

So the Church there is undoubtedly a small minority, he explained, and on top of that, Burma and Bangladesh are still developing, very much placing these countries at the “peripheries of the world.”

“The Pope continues to say: I should go to the peripheries, go out to the peripheries. I find that the Pope really goes to the peripheries to meet with these Catholics and to sustain their mission,” he continued.

In addition to being a minority religion in itself, the Church in these countries is also made up of people from a variety of ethnic minority backgrounds as well.

Besides the Rohingya, during his visit in November the Pope will likely speak out strongly against the ongoing persecution of other minorities in these countries, and “in this case the two things coincide,” Cervellera said.

“That is, the Catholic minority is formed from many ethnic minorities. So the Pope speaks of defending minorities because in this way he also defends Catholics.”

“But in the defense of Catholics, the defense of minorities, he wants to speak to the whole society because the way of peace is the most fruitful for everyone,” he emphasized.

Cervellera also stressed that the Catholics in these areas, though a tiny minority, also have a very important mission in their contribution to development. Because of the Church “there are hospitals, shelters, clinics for the poor, schools, professional schools, colleges, work cooperatives,” he said.

“The Church is a help to the society, to evolve, to mature.”

He also said that he has been to both Bangladesh and Burma and can say that they are “very enthusiastic communities in their faith.” Their faith is “what gives meaning to their life, what gives it color and dignity,” he said.

Though they sometimes face persecution and oppression because of their minority status, this seems to only strengthen their catholicity, he pointed out, finding consolation in having a larger, universal identity to which they also belong.

Though the Catholics in these two countries are among the poorest, living in huts and sleeping on dirt floors, “they are joyous,” he said, and they wish to share the faith with others.

“I think that we can learn from them, this enthusiasm. And maybe we can support them in some way. Because their mission is also ours,” he pointed out.

[…]

Rome, Italy, Oct 3, 2017 / 06:24 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Despite the challenges of secularization, a Dutch cardinal encouraged Catholics from his country and from all parts of the world to be a “creative minority” in society.

Cardinal Wilhelm Jacobus Eijk, archbishop of Utrecht, recently spoke with CNA in Rome, while giving a presentation on euthanasia. Eijk studied medicine before becoming a priest, and wrote a doctoral dissertation on euthanasia.  

The cardinal, however, identifies euthanasia as only one of many issues the Church is facing amidst a secularizing society.

Between 2003 and 2013, the Catholic population of the Netherlands declined by 589,500. Catholics now represent just 22.9 percent of population, according to 2015 data.

The country underwent a rapid period of secularization during the 1970s and ’80s, and religious groups now find it difficult to identify their place in public life.

Euthanasia is one of the most obvious symptoms of this problem, Eijk said. The Netherlands legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2002. The cardinal noted that Dutch “society is marked by abortion and euthanasia.”

The situation is similar in Belgium, the Netherlands’ neighbor. There, the cultural push toward euthanasia has affected hospitals owned by the Brothers of Charity religious order, whose lay-majority board recently voted to allow euthanasia to be performed in their facilities under certain conditions.

Cardinal Eijk said that the struggle against secularization is mostly cultural. “We have to fight this secularizing trends with testimony,” he said.

In the public square, he said, Catholics “have limited possibilities, because they are just a few, and because among them there are even fewer Catholics who fully accept the Church’s teaching.”

Eijk said the solution is for faithful Catholics to build a culture of life by becoming a “creative minority.”

“When Benedict XVI traveled to the Czech Republic, he said that Czech Catholics could be few in number, but when a minority is creative, we can achieve a lot,” Cardinal Eijk said.

“The idea of a creative minority,” he explained, “is derived from the English historian (Arnold) Toynbee. He analyzed many cultures and determined that the rise of culture is due to creative minorities.”

And so, the cardinal said, “we should behave as Catholics in a way that shines with the culture of life and fights the culture of death.”

In pragmatic terms, this includes fighting euthanasia through public testimony, and by providing care for the sick and suffering.

“We work a lot to propose bills or amendments to bills in the Parliament, we explain our positions in our journals and websites,” Eijk said. “We try to announce the Gospel of Life as clearly and as often as possible.”

 

[…]

Rome, Italy, Oct 3, 2017 / 03:11 am (ACI Prensa).- Three years ago, there were 73 nuns with the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Siena living in Kurdistan. Since the Islamic State captured the Plain of Nineveh in 2014, one-third of them have died.

Sister Silvia is one of the survivors. Surrounded by devastation, she said that she is praying for those who persecute her community, and learning how to forgive them.

“We pray for them every day as sisters. We pray for them, for those bringing peace, for our soldiers, for those who help people have a better life,” she told CNA.

“This prayer helps us forgive – not to forget, because you can’t forget, but to not hate the other person. If we hate others, that means that we’re doing what the devil wants, not what Jesus wants.”

Silvia had been living with 35 of her fellow sisters at a convent in Qaraqosh, Iraq’s largest Christian city.

“When we knew that ISIS has arrived, the first thing we felt was fear – fear of being taken prisoner by them, fear of violence, fear of death.”

The sisters – whose community has lived in the Nineveh Plains and Kurdistan regions of Iraq for 120 years – were forced to flee in August 2015.

During ISIS’ occupation of the Nineveh Plain, some 100 places of worship were destroyed, mostly Christian churches.

Now, thanks to the support of the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need, about 1,000 Christian families have returned to their homes. Since 2014, the foundation has allocated $36.6 million for food and housing projects for the displaced Christians in northern Iraq. The estimated cost of reconstruction of the Christian towns is $250 million.

Looking forward, Silvia says, she hopes to continue the religious mission to which she has dedicated her life.

“My dream is to live in peace,” she said. “Both my own peace, within myself – because we are also at war within ourselves – and the peace we physically live. Living in tranquility, in love, and helping the people know Jesus because he is love.”

“I say to all Christians that if we are really Christians, baptized in the name of Jesus, we must always trust in the fact that Jesus will be with them. Jesus is with us. Jesus never leaves us. Even if we turn away from him, he will wait for us to return,” she emphasized.

Little by little, Christians have begun to return to the Plain of Nineveh, but there still remains much to be done.

“We’ve asked Aid to the Church in Need for help in rebuilding our convent, and to allow people to return as soon as possible,” Sister Silvia said.

“Around 30 sisters will return. We will give hope to the people, we will help educate them, because we have schools to educate their children, and we will continue our catechesis in the churches and the schools,” she said.

 

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

[…]

Minsk, Belarus, Oct 2, 2017 / 04:40 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The annual gathering of the presidents of European episcopal conferences began Thursday with a strong appeal to the continent “not to waste itself by forgetting its Christian roots,” … […]

Barcelona, Spain, Oct 2, 2017 / 03:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholic leaders voiced pleas for peace after a Catalonian regional referendum vote on secession from Spain drew a strong police reaction.

“The situation of violence we have experienced … […]

Bologna, Italy, Oct 1, 2017 / 01:59 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In his homily on Sunday, Pope Francis encouraged the faithful to be sinners on a journey, always working towards conversion and repentance, rather than “sitting sinners” who are closed off to the Lord.

His reflection was based on the parable in the Gospel of Matthew, in which Jesus asks the people about two sons – one who initially refuses to do his father’s will but then does it anyway, and one who says he will do his father’s will but then does not.

“…there is a big difference between the first child, who is lazy, and the second, who is hypocritical,” the Pope said.

Pope Francis gave his homily at Mass on Sunday during his day trip to the northern Italian cities of Bologna and Cesena. During the trip, he met with various groups including religious, workers, students and migrants.

“Let’s imagine what happened inside them,” Francis said, referring to the sons in the parable.

“In the heart of the first, after no, his father’s invitation again resounded; in the second, however, despite saying yes, the voice of his father was buried.”

This ultimate rejection of the father’s will made the second son’s heart “impermeable to the voice of God and conscience, and so he had embraced a double life without any problems.”

Rather than living double and hypocritical lives, we need to recognize that while we are sinners, we can choose to repent, the Holy Father said.

“…we can choose to be sinners on a journey, who are listening to the Lord and when they fall they repent and rise, like the first son; or sinners sitting, always and only ready to justify ourselves with words according to what is convenient,” he said.

Jesus originally addressed this parable to the chief priests and elders of the people, which shows us that rank does not make us holy, Pope Francis noted.

“(The) Christian life is a humble journey of a conscience never rigid and always in relationship with God, who can repent and entrust itself to Him in its poverty, never pretending to be enough in itself,” he said.

“The key word is to repent: it is repentance that makes it impossible to be rigid, to transform the ‘no’s’ to God into ‘yes’, and the ‘yes’s’ to sin into ‘no’ for the love of the Lord.”

The Pope then asked the people to remember three “P” words on the journey: the parola (the Word of God), the pane (the Bread of Life), and the poor.

“In all of them we find Jesus,” he said. “The Word, the Bread, the Poor: We ask for the grace to never forget these basic elements that support our path.”

 

[…]

Bologna, Italy, Oct 1, 2017 / 12:50 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On Saturday, Pope Francis made a pastoral visit to the cities of Cesena and Bologna, meeting with people from every area of society and encouraging them to give witness to the Gospel in word and deed and sustained by prayer.

“Jesus’ sores remain visible in so many men and women living on the margins of society – even children, marked by suffering, discomfort, abandonment, and poverty,” the Pope said Oct. 1.

“People wounded by the harsh trials of life, who are humiliated, who are in prison or the hospital. By joining together and treating these wounds with tenderness, often not only corporal but also spiritual, we are purified and transformed by the mercy of God.”

But to fulfill this mission, we must reserve adequate time and space for prayer and meditation on the Word of God, he said. As seen in the example of St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “prayer is the strength of our mission,” he said.

“The constant encounter with the Lord in prayer becomes indispensable both for priests and for consecrated persons, and for pastoral workers, called to leave their ‘little vegetable garden’ and go to the existential peripheries.”

In his day-long visit to the two cities, Francis met with people from all walks of life, including migrants and refugees, workers and the unemployed, priests and religious, and laity.

He also met with those involved in academia in Bologna, both students and teachers.

Migrants

After meeting with citizens and priests and religious of Cesena in the morning, the Pope’s first stop in Bologna was to the city’s regional hub for welcoming migrants.

There Francis spent around one hour greeting around 1,000 migrants, each one individually. In solidarity, he also wore on his wrist the same yellow identification bracelet worn by migrants at the center.

In the encounter, Francis spoke about the fear many people have toward the stranger. “Many do not know you and are afraid. This makes them feel right to judge and to be able to do it with hardness and coldness,” he explained.

These people believe they see well, but “it is not so,” he continued. You can see well when you look with the gaze of mercy. “Without this, the other is a stranger, even an enemy, and cannot be my neighbor.”

From afar we can say and think anything, he stated, something we can do easily when writing on the internet. But if we look upon our neighbor without mercy, not realizing his suffering, his problems, we run the risk that “God also looks at us without mercy.”

“I am in the midst of you because I want to carry your eyes in mine…in my heart, your heart,” he said.

“I want to bring with me your faces that ask to be remembered, to be helped, I would say ‘adopted,’ because in the end you search for someone who will wager on you, who will give you confidence, who will help you to find that future whose hope has made you come here.”

You are the “fighters of hope!” Francis encouraged, saying that he wants to carry their fears, difficulties and uncertainties in his heart.

During the encounter, Francis also asked for a moment of silence to pray for all those who have not survived the journey to a new land: “Men do not remember them, but God knows their names and welcomes them to himself,” he said.

Workers

Francis then met with workers, the unemployed and union representatives. “Seeking a more just society is not a dream of the past but a commitment, a job that everyone needs today,” he said.

We cannot get used to the numbers of unemployed in our communities as if they are just a number or a statistic, he said, but must help the poor and struggling around us to find work, thus restoring their dignity.

We must dethrone profit, instead placing the human being and the common good at the center, as it should be. But to put this into action, “it is necessary to increase the opportunities for decent work,” he said.

“This is a task that belongs to the whole society,” he said. “At this stage in particular, the whole social body, in its various components, is called upon to make every effort, because work, which is the primary factor of dignity, is a central concern.”

The Poor, Imprisoned and Refugees

For lunch, Pope Francis dined with the poor, imprisoned and refugees in a “Lunch of Solidarity” held at the Basilica di San Petronio, reminding those present that the Church is for everyone, but especially the poor, and that we are all only invited because of grace, a mystery of God’s love for us.

“We are all travelers, beggars of love and hope, and we need this God who comes near and reveals himself in the breaking of bread,” he said. And this “bread of love” that we share today we can also bring to others in need of sympathy and friendship.

“It’s the commitment we can all have,” he explained, pointing out that “our life is always precious and we all have something to give to others.”

At the end of this meal you will be given the most precious food, however, the Pope said: “the Gospel, the Word of that God we all carry in our hearts.”

“It is for you! It is just for those who need it! Take it all and bring it as a sign, a personal seal of God’s friendship.”

Today, just as the “Our Father” says, “we can share our daily bread,” he concluded.

Priests and religious

Pope Francis met with priests, consecrated men and women, and laity involved in the Church in both Cesena and Bologna Sunday.

To priests he stressed the importance of meeting daily with Christ and of having joy in their ministry. “So many times people find sad priests,” he said. Sometimes I want to ask priests what they had for breakfast, he joked: a cup of coffee or vinegar?

“Do not lose joy. The joy of being priests, of being called upon by the Lord to follow him to bring his word, his forgiveness, his love, his grace.”

Youth and Families

The family, Francis said, is facing a difficult time, both as an institution – the most basic building-block of society – and within particular families.

Because of this, we are called in a particular way at this moment to teach the world to love, he said. And among those who most need to experience the love of Jesus are young people.

“Thanks to God, young people are a living part of the Church – the next meeting of the Synod of Bishops involves them directly – and they can communicate to their peers their testimony,” he said.

He pointed out that the Church has a lot of young people, a valuable source of gifts for the Church for “their attitude towards the good, towards the beautiful, towards authentic freedom, and towards justice.”

They need to be helped to discover the gifts God has given them though, he said, and “encouraged not to fear the great challenges of the present moment.”

Meet with them, listen to them, encourage them, the Pope urged. Help them to meet Christ and his love.

Students and academics

Later in the day, Pope Francis met with students and academics from the University of Bologna, telling them that the key to success in studies is “the search for good.”

“Love is the ingredient that gives flavor to the treasures of knowledge and, in particular, to the rights of man and people,” he said, listing three rights he considers relevant to the student today: the right to culture, the right to hope, and the right to peace.

“In front of so much lament and clamor that surrounds us, today we do not need someone who is screaming, but who promotes good culture,” he stressed. “We need words that reach minds and put hearts in order, not scream straight to the stomach.”

We should not be content, he continued, to follow “the theatricals of indignation” which are often hiding large egos and self-centeredness, but should devote ourselves to “with passion to education, that is, to ‘draw out’ the best of each person for the good of all.”

In the midst of a culture that “reduces man to waste, research to interest and science to technique,” we should assert a “culture of humanity,” he said, and a research “that recognizes merits and rewards sacrifices.”

About university classrooms, the Pope said it would be nice if they could be havens of hope, places where people work for a better future and learn to be responsible for themselves and for the world.

“Sometimes fear prevails. But today we are experiencing a crisis which is also a great opportunity, a challenge to the intelligence and freedom of each, a challenge to be embraced, to be artisans of hope,” he said.

The right to peace, Francis explained is also “a right and a duty, inscribed on the heart of humanity. Because ‘unity prevails over conflict’ (Evangelii gaudium, 226).”

“Do not believe who tells you that fighting for this is useless and that nothing will change! Do not settle for small dreams, but dream big,” he urged.

 

[…]

Rome, Italy, Sep 29, 2017 / 12:21 am (CNA/EWTN News).- During a conference on rebuilding Christian villages on the Plains of Nineveh, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said Christians are an essential part of Iraqi society, and must strive to be witnesses of peace true reconciliation.

One of the greatest challenges in Iraq right now is “to restore to the Christian communities the environment of a normal life, essential for all the families in overcoming fear and despair, and looking to the future with hope,” Cardinal Parolin said in his Sept. 28 speech.

The rebuilding of houses and villages, he said, “is the first and fundamental condition for the return of Christians to their own lands.”

However, beyond the rebuilding of cities and structures, Parolin said “there is the more important obligation of reconstructing Iraqi society and consolidating a harmonious and peaceful coexistence.”

“Here, Christians have the specific position to be artisans of peace, reconciliation and development,” he said.

And this mission, he added, is made all the more important in the context of current regional instability and “urgently demands a process of national reconciliation and shared effort by all parts of society to achieve shared solutions for the good of the whole country.”

Cardinal Parolin was one of seven panelists participating in a half-day symposium organized by the pontifical organization Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) on efforts to rebuild Christian towns and villages on the Nineveh Plains.

In addition to Parolin, other speakers included Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, international president of ACN and prefect of the Congregation for Clergy; Archbishop Alberto Ortega Martin, apostolic nuncio to Iraq and Jordan; and Chaldean Patriarch of Baghdad Luis Rafael Sako, among others.

During the symposium, one of ACN’s reconstruction projects, titled “Iraq, return to the roots,” was presented. From 2014-2017, the project has financed various programs for Christians in Iraq, amounting to an approximate total of 30 million euro.

Among the structures destroyed or damaged since the ISIS invasion of the Nineveh Plains in 2014, it is estimated that some 13,000 homes, schools, hospitals and religious buildings were completely or partially destroyed.

The project, with a total estimated cost of $250 million, aims to continue providing a concrete response to Christians from the Nineveh Plains who want to return to their homes.

In his speech, Cardinal Parolin noted the significance of the fact that the project draws participation from the three main Christian Churches in Iraq: the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac-Catholic Church and the Syriac-Orthodox Church, each of which had representatives present at the meeting.

“May the cooperation between Churches be a tangible sign of unity in charity,” the cardinal said, and thanked the bishops for their “generous commitment,” urging them “to spare no effort before overcoming the sources of tension between the various communities in order to obtain a renewed unity.”

“Such a witness of Christian unity is made all the more urgent and necessary by the complex situation that the country faces and the real danger of loss of the Christians and the Christian presence,” he said.

In addition to the challenges posed by violent extremism, the region has also undergone new threats to social stability with a Sept. 25 referendum held by the Kurdish Regional Government on whether to declare independence from the central Iraqi government in Baghdad.

In the referendum, Kurds voted almost unanimously in favor of the referendum, prompting concern on the part of some that a declaration of independence would lead to war between Baghdad and Kurdistan, which would likely take place on the Nineveh Plains, again putting Christians in harm’s way.

In his speech, Cardinal Parolin stressed the need to work for unity, saying one of the greatest challenges in Iraq right now is “to create the social, political and economic conditions to enable a new social cohesion which favors reconciliation and peace.”

This also entails ensuring Christians and other minorities have full rights, he said. Christians do not want to simply be “benignly tolerated,” but want “to be citizens whose rights are protected and guaranteed along with all the other citizens,” he said.

And without the option of returning to the cities and villages of their birth, “very little of the aforementioned would be possible.”

“Christian presence is fundamental in the Middle East for peace, stability and pluralism,” he stressed. “Each of the Christian communities have made their own contribution in the centuries.”

The presence of Christians is in “constant decline” due to a lack of security and an unclear future, Parolin said, adding that the conflicts and tensions of recent years have made the situation worse, posing a risk “not only for the survival of Christians, but also for the very possibility that the Middle East can be a place of coexistence between peoples of different religious and different ethnic groups.”

He stressed the importance of safeguarding the rights of Christians by means of “adequate juridical instruments,” including their right to return home, their right to security and to religious freedom.

“There is likewise a need to address the root causes of the phenomenon of terrorism and to promote inter-religious dialogue, mutual understanding,” he said, noting that while “much has been done” since the effort to re-take Mosul began a year ago, “much remains to be done.”

“The process of reconstruction (and) the return of Christians to a degree of normality in their lives should be the primary and urgent objective of our efforts,” he said.

This, Cardinal Parolin added, “will allow the Christian community in new force to face up to other challenges that await them, so that they can be fully and generously engaged in working for the common good of the entire nation.”

In his speech, which was a joint statement from the patriarchs of the three Christian Churches in the region, Patriarch Sako said that in the face of the Christian genocide perpetrated by ISIS, “it is our duty” to reconstruct the houses and villages of Christians.

Their presence in these areas, he said, “is as important as maintaining witnesses of Gospel values, otherwise, they will leave the country.”

In order to help Christians stay, he stressed the need for educational and political support, humanitarian assistance, the defeat of fundamentalism, and security and stabilization of the areas freed from ISIS so that those displaced by the group can return home.

“Iraqi Christians need well-defined support and strong action to save them and help them return to their towns, homes and jobs,” he said, urging those in positions of authority to be “seriously open-minded.”

In many ways, Iraqi culture is still deeply “tribal,” Sako said, and as such is frequently drawn to war, violence and revenge.

Going into the future, “we need to be trained to live in peace, respecting life and living in harmony together despite our religion or ethnicity,” he said.

He also pushed for a swift stabilization of areas recently liberated from ISIS, saying this sense of security is “essential” in ensuring both the “rapid return” of those who have been displaced, and long-term protection.

When it comes to putting an end to terrorism in the region, the patriarch stressed that a military victory over ISIS “does not mean all of the problems have been solved.” This, he said, is because the extremist ideology continues to present “a fundamental problem and risk for us all.”

“Therefore, it is urgent for all who are concerned to work together for dismantling and eradicating the extremists’ widespread ideology,” he said, explaining that this can be possible through adequate educational programs.

Patriarch Sako closed his address saying Christians in Iraq “love our land, where our root traces back to thousands of years and we want to stay and contribute in the reconstruction of our country.”

“Christians also have not only problems and sufferings; they have a mission in Iraq,” he said, explaining that they want to stay faithful to Christ and understand faith as a journey “into the light that can ‘point the way.’”

“It is like a lamp that burns and turns into a joy, that brightens our night,” he said, and “with this faith we can overcome fears by daily prayers while we are awaiting our blessed hope.”

 

[…]

Rome, Italy, Sep 27, 2017 / 06:45 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A leading opponent of assisted suicide says that while the movement supporting euthanasia seems strong, the reality is that, at least in the United States, it has had few political victories.

“The difficulty in this issue is that the media sells us this as a tidal wave that’s coming; it’s inevitable, this is people’s rights, it’s going to happen anyway, and in fact none of this is true,” Alex Schadenberg told CNA Sept. 23.

While a handful of states in the U.S. have legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide, “over and over and over again [euthanasia] bills have been defeated.”

Assisted suicide became legal in the United States when Oregon approved the practice in 1998. Washington State legalized it in 2009, Vermont in 2013, and Colorado, California, and Washington, D.C. in 2016. In Montana, the practice was permitted by the state Supreme Court in 2009.

However, while the legalization of euthanasia in these states has been “tragic,” the losses for the euthanasia movement far outweigh their victories, Schadenberg said, explaining that thus far in 2017, assisted suicide bills were introduced in dozens of states, and “all of them were defeated.”

“U.S. courts have universally found that there is no right to assisted suicide,” he added. “So in the U.S. you don’t have a tidal wave.”

Schadenberg is the executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition in Canada, and was a speaker during a Sept. 20-24 conference for MaterCare International in Rome.

In his comments to CNA, Schadenberg said “the [euthanasia] movement has lost more battles than probably any other movement in the history of the U.S., and yet there’s supposedly a tidal wave in favor.”

“And for a group that has the kind of money they have, they should almost be embarrassed,” he said, explaining that Americans “are not buying the news, they’re not buying their lies.”

The euthanasia mentality is built on a lie, he said, because while those supportive of legalization argue that euthanasia supports freedom and autonomy, though actual laws are focused on protecting doctors’ rights instead.

In Canada, which legalized euthanasia in 2016, laws protect doctors and nurse practitioners who assist in euthanasia from nearly any liability or error, “so long as it is reasonable error.”

By law, then, there’s essentially “no way (for) a doctor who intentionally does something, (that) you can prosecute them. The law is so tightly protecting of them,” Schadenberg said.

He noted that the American College of Physicians reiterated their stance against euthanasia and assisted suicide in a recent position-paper on topic, published September 19.

In the paper’s abstract, the college said they remain unsupportive of euthanasia because it “is problematic given the nature of the patient–physician relationship, affects trust in the relationship and in the profession, and fundamentally alters the medical profession’s role in society.”

“Furthermore, the principles at stake in this debate also underlie medicine’s responsibilities regarding other issues and the physician’s duties to provide care based on clinical judgment, evidence, and ethics,” the abstract read, and stressed the need to focus on palliative care.

“There is no tidal wave in the U.S…the doctors don’t even want this,” Schadenberg said. What actually happens in the states and counties where euthanasia has been legalized, he said, is“terribly sad, because lives are being lost and vulnerable people are being abandoned.”

“The reality is when you legalize euthanasia or assisted suicide, there is money that’s saved because you are ending the lives of people who are not always terminally ill…but might have a significant health condition, which means they are expensive,” Schadenberg said.

He condemned the “eugenics mentality” that he said drives the push for euthanasia, saying it’s a part of our culture “whether we like it or not.”

Schadenberg said that euthanasia supporters “look at certain lives as not worth living, they would look at certain conditions” and, coupled with the fact that euthanasia is money-saving and makes healthy organs available, “would be in favor of it for those reasons, they would say that’s actually a good thing.”

However, the average person who supports the euthanasia cause wouldn’t argue on these points, but rather on the prospect of eliminating suffering, Schadenberg said.

People are afraid to suffer, “and that’s a normal human reality,” he said, explaining that “we’ve got to break down the issue and talk about our normal human experience, and my experience as a human being is that when I’m going through a terrible situation, I become very emotionally upset, and that’s because that’s how we are as humans.”

“This is how we were made to be, whether you believe in God or not, we’re wired this way,” he said, adding that throwing in the idea of euthanasia when one is “emotionally and physically distraught” makes the situation worse.

Rather than freedom and autonomy, euthanasia and assisted suicide are about “abandonment,” he said. “It’s about abandoning people in a time of need, it’s not about freedom.”

 

[…]