Vatican

Vatican City, Apr 16, 2019 / 05:28 am (CNA).- Pope Francis Tuesday expressed his unity with the people of France following a major blaze at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, encouraging the rebuilding of the “architectural jewel” and “wi… […]

Vatican City, Apr 15, 2019 / 05:28 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis met with a group of high school students this weekend, encouraging them to monitor their cell phone use, so as not to create obstacles to a culture of encounter.

Students from Visconti High School visited with the pope at Paul VI Hall on April 13. The meeting comes a month after the 450th anniversary of the birth of St. Aloysius Gonzaga. The saint was known for his charitable work with the poor, which resulted in him contracting the plague and dying at the age of 23.

The school’s building in Rome houses the remains of Gonzaga, who is the patron saint of the youth. Gonzaga himself attended the school. Pope Francis praised the saint for his willingness to encounter those around him, particularly those in need.

In modern times, the pope warned, we must be cautious of anything that tears us away from encounter and authentic relationships. While cell phones can be a valuable tool for communication, they can also reduce our freedom and present an obstacle to true dialogue, he said.

“Free yourself from dependence on your mobile phone, please!” Francis said. “You have certainly heard of the drama of addiction…This one is very subtle.”

“Be careful, as there is the danger that, when the telephone is a drug, communication is reduced to simple ‘contacts’. But life is not for ‘contacting’, it is for communicating!”

The pope emphasized the importance of the school system as a place of communication, especially between cultures. The Church promotes fraternity, he said, noting that this requires a foundation of freedom, truth, solidarity, and justice.

“The dialogue between different cultures and different people enriches a country, enriches the homeland and enables us to move ahead in mutual respect, enables us to go ahead looking at one earth for all, not just for some,” he said.

Pope Francis also commented on the important role modesty and fidelity have within friendships. He stressed that love is not solely an emotional reality but a responsibility.

“The sense of modesty refers to a vigilant conscience that defends the dignity of the person and authentic love, precisely so as not to trivialize the language of the body. Faithfulness, then, along with respect for the other, is an indispensable dimension of every true relationship of love, since one cannot play with feelings.”

Pope Francis’ concerns about cell phone addictions echo those of technology experts in recent years, as computer and phone use have become more prevalent among children and teens, raising concerns about academic performance, social wellbeing and overall quality of life.

Psychologist Jean Twenge, author of “iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy–and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood,” spoke to CNA last September about trends in technology.

The average daily screen time for teenagers is high above the recommended two hours, Twenge noted. “Beyond that, the risks increase, topping out at the highest levels of use,” she said.

She pointed to a 2015 study from the research group Common Sense Media. It stated that over half of teens in the U.S. spent at least four hours in front of a screen and 25% were reported to have been in front of a screen for more than eight hours a day, with detrimental effects.

“For example, teens who use electronic devices 5 or more hours a day are 71% more likely to have a risk factor for suicide than those using devices less than an hour a day,” Twenge said. “They are also 51% more likely to not sleep enough. Teens who are online 5 or more hours a day are twice as likely to be unhappy as those online less than an hour a day.”

Pope Francis has spoken on the moderation of technology in the past. During a 2016 homily, he highlighted the damages television and cell phones can have on family encounters.

“In our families, at the dinner table, how many times while eating, do people watch the TV or write messages on their cell phones? Each one is indifferent to that encounter. Even within the heart of society, which is the family, there is no encounter.”

He said it is the responsibility of the family to seek out dialogue in which the person is truly seen and heard rather than treated as an object of indifference.

“We are accustomed to a culture of indifference and we must strive and ask for the grace to create a culture of encounter, of a fruitful encounter, of an encounter that restores to each person his or her own dignity as a child of God, the dignity of a living person,” he said.

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Vatican City, Apr 14, 2019 / 04:37 am (CNA).- On Palm Sunday, Pope Francis warned against the temptation of “triumphalism,” encouraging Catholics to follow Jesus’s way of humility and obedience exemplified in His Passion.

“Joyf… […]

Rome, Italy, Apr 12, 2019 / 11:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis paid a surprise visit to a center for Alzhiemer’s patients Friday afternoon.

With this visit to the Emmanuel Village on the outskirts of Rome, the pope desired to turn attention to the ex… […]

Vatican City, Apr 12, 2019 / 10:09 am (CNA).- In the wake of massive flooding in Iran, Pope Francis has sent 100,000 euros (about $113,000) for emergency aid.

The money, sent through the Vatican’s office for the Promotion of Integral Human Devel… […]

Washington D.C., Apr 11, 2019 / 04:45 pm (CNA).- After the April 11 publication of a new essay by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, commentators are mostly discussing their perception of the politics surrounding the release, or Benedict’s assessment of the sexual revolution and its relationship to the crisis.

But lost in that discussion is the immediate practical application of the document, which articulates a theology of law that seems to support the ‘zero tolerance’ approach to addressing sexual abusers in the Church, which Pope Francis has long endorsed, even while he has not yet arrived at a practical way of delivering it.

At the heart of his new argument, the former pontiff insists that the purpose of punishing the perpetrators of sexual abuse is the salvation of souls, which is the highest law of the Church.

Recalling that, in the 1980s, the crisis of abuse began to reach Rome after decades of building at the diocesan level, Benedict’s essay explained that there was in Rome a double failure of law and theology, which left both victims of abuse and the faith itself unprotected.

While the previous Code of Canon Law contained a long list of specific crimes a cleric could commit – including a litany of sexual delicts – “the deliberately loosely constructed criminal law of the new Code” of 1983 offered a much pared down set of penal norms, Benedict argued.

He added that in accord with a prevailing ecclesiology at the time there also emerged among many canonists and bishops a false dichotomy between justice and mercy, in which mercy was seen to pre-empt and exclude the former, rather than following and tempering it.
 
Benedict highlighted the emergence of a kind of legal “guarantorism,” in which the rights of the accused seemed to be afforded the central concern of the canonical process, often at the expense of victims, restorative justice, and the public good.

Temporary suspensions and stints in therapy for abusive clerics were treated as adequate punishment, and local bishops were left with abusive priests they were expected to rehabilitate.

Under Pope St. John Paul II, reforms to the process began, starting with Rome’s decision to raise the canonical age of majority for these cases to 18, and to extend the canonical statute of limitations. The reforms under Pope St. John Paul II culminated in 2001, when Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela established new legal norms for the handling of “major crimes” against faith and morals in canon law.

Among the most crucial of St. John Paul’s reforms was, Benedict noted, the transfer of competence of sexual abuse cases from the Congregation for Clergy to the Congregation for the Doctrine if the Faith. This change was not, the pope emeritus explained, a merely bureaucratic move, but one rooted in a proper understanding of the nature and gravity of the crime of sexual abuse.

Benedict said the decision was a recognition that sexual abuse of minors is a crime against the immediate victim, and against the faith itself.

Certainly, the experience of recent decades appears to bear out the effect of the sexual abuse scandals on the faith all of Catholics, at least some of whom have lapsed in the practice of the faith following the sexual abuse crises.

This does not suggest that Benedict’s essay ignored concern for the right of defense. Instead, Benedict argued that “a properly formed canon law must contain a double guarantee — legal protection of the accused, legal protection of the good at stake.”

The idea that there is a legal necessity to defending the “good of the faith” in sex abuse cases will likely prove the most important contribution Benedict will makes to the ongoing progress of reform.

Benedict’s essay articulated its own version of  “zero tolerance” in that framework, noting that “Jesus protects the deposit of the faith with an emphatic threat of punishment to those who do it harm.”

Presenting sexual abuse as a crime against the soul, not just the body, and recognizing that it can have cascading tiers of victims, refocuses the legal process through the lens of its most quoted maxim: “salus animarum suprema lex est.”

Benedict seems to argue that if the salvation of souls is the Church’s highest law, the protection of the faith should be understood as a legal good at least as important as protecting the rights of accused abusers.

From that vantage point, Benedict observed that there is much legal reform still to be done, and that Pope Francis is rightly carrying it forward.

Much of the ongoing discussion has centered around what other kinds of sexual misconduct, in addition to the abuse of children, should be canonically criminalized.

Some prominent bishops have insisted on distinguishing between the sexual abuse of minors and sexual misconduct between adults, arguing that potentially consensual sexual misconduct by clerics should not be accorded the status of a major crime. In light of Benedict’s essay, some are likely to see in that approach the juridic framework that Benedict described as guarantorism.

But other bishops, including Cardinal Séan O’Malley of Boston, have emphasized the importance of seeing sexual abuse of clerical power treated with the same gravity as abuse of a minor.

The pope seems to thinking along the same lines as O’Malley, demonstrated by his recent expansion of the definition of a “vulnerable adult” in the canonical norms of the Roman Curia and the Vatican City State.

Benedict’s theology of penal law, which holds at its center the crimes against the faith of the Church — and of the victims of abuse — offers a powerful rationale for Pope Francis’ action.

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea,” Benedict quotes from the gospel.

These little ones, the Pope emeritus wrote, are not only those who physically suffer abuse but also the “common believers who can be confounded in their faith,” be they children or adults.

‘It is important to see,” Benedict says, “that such misconduct by clerics ultimately damages the Faith.”

Set against this understanding of the depth of sexual abuse as a crime both physical and spiritual, Pope Francis’ ongoing efforts to articulate legally the policy of “zero tolerance” may find a renewed impetus.

Such a policy, Benedict has now argued, is essential to the salvation of souls.

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Vatican City, Apr 11, 2019 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis Thursday told the formerly warring leaders of South Sudan that peace is possible in their fledgling country through the power of Christ’s resurrection.

“Your people today are yearn… […]

Denver, Colo., Apr 11, 2019 / 11:45 am (CNA).- A new website aims to make available to Catholics and researchers a collection of photographs of the Shroud of Turin by a scientific photographer who was part of a research project that spent more than one hundred hours conducting tests on the shroud.

The Shroud of Turin is a linen cloth 14 feet 5 inches long by 3 feet 7 inches wide, which shows the image of a man tortured and crucified. It is held by many Catholics to be the burial cloth that wrapped the body of Jesus after his death on the cross.

From 1977 to 1981, a team of physicists, chemists, pathologists, and engineers from universities and U.S. government laboratories conducted the Shroud of Turin Research Project, which concluded that “the shroud image is that of a real human form of a scourged, crucified man. It is not the product of an artist. The blood stains are composed of hemoglobin and also give a positive test for serum albumin. The image is an ongoing mystery and until further chemical studies are made, perhaps by this group of scientists, or perhaps by some scientists in the future, the problem remains unsolved.”

The project’s final report added that “no pigments, paints, dyes or stains” were found on the shroud’s fibers, adding that “it is clear that there has been a direct contact of the Shroud with a body, which explains certain features such as scourge marks, as well as the blood. However, while this type of contact might explain some of the features of the torso, it is totally incapable of explaining the image of the face with the high resolution that has been amply demonstrated by photography.”

“The scientific consensus is that the image was produced by something which resulted in oxidation, dehydration and conjugation of the polysaccharide structure of the microfibrils of the linen itself. Such changes can be duplicated in the laboratory by certain chemical and physical processes. A similar type of change in linen can be obtained by sulfuric acid or heat. However, there are no chemical or physical methods known which can account for the totality of the image, nor can any combination of physical, chemical, biological or medical circumstances explain the image adequately.”

Vernon Miller was the official scientific photographer of the Shroud of Turin Research project. His photographs, and magnified micrographs of various aspects of the shroud, are now freely available to view or download at shroudphotos.com. Photographs taken under ultraviolet light are also available for download. Organizers of the site say that it was Miller’s wish that his photograph’s be digitized and made available to those who have never seen them. The site is the first place to publish a digitized and organized catalog of Miller’s work.

Miller recognized the power of images of the shroud.

“Worldwide interest in the Shroud of Turin was stimulated by the first photographs of it in 1898 when photography was in its infancy. Up to that time, people who looked at the cloth found it faint. It took the camera, with its negative image [of the man], to appreciate it,” he said after the research project was completed.

The shroud has been in Turin, Italy since 1578, has been the subject of thousands of scientific investigations from diverse specialties, and more than 32,000 photographs have been taken of it. The Church’s official position on the shroud is one of neutrality.

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Vatican City, Apr 11, 2019 / 06:40 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said Thursday that human trafficking is, “without doubt,” a crime against humanity for its violation of human dignity and freedom.

Trafficking, he said April 11, “constitutes… […]

Vatican City, Apr 10, 2019 / 09:49 am (CNA).- As Pope Francis’ council of cardinals wraps up the drafting of a new apostolic constitution, they have decided to take up the topic of management roles for women working in the Vatican.

Vatican spoke… […]