Vatican

Vatican City, Oct 4, 2017 / 09:57 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis announced Wednesday that ahead of next year’s synod of bishops on youth, a preliminary meeting will take place drawing young people from various countries and walks of life.

The gathering will give them a platform to share not only their convictions in the faith, but also their doubts and critiques.

“With this path the Church wishes to listen to the voices, feelings, faith and even the doubts and critiques of the youth,” Pope Francis said during his Oct. 4 General Audience.

The meeting is scheduled to take place March 19-24, 2018 – seven months before the synod – and will draw youth from countries all over the world, including non-Catholics and non-Christians.

The synod, titled “Young People, Faith and the Discernment of Vocation,” is scheduled to take place in a year’s time, in October 2018.

According to an Oct. 4 communique from the Synod of Bishops, participants in the pre-synod meeting will represent bishops’ conferences and the Eastern Churches, as well as youth who are consecrated or preparing for the priesthood.

Youth involved in various associations and ecclesial movements will also participate alongside peers from other Christian denominations, other religions, as well as those skeptical of religion.

The young people who come will also represent various fields, including those still in school, those already working, and those involved in sports, the arts, and volunteering activities. Young people from the “extreme existential peripheries” will also be invited along with experts, educators, and trainers engaged in helping youth to “discern their life choices.”

At the end of the meeting, which is being organized by the Synod of Bishops in collaboration with the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, conclusions from the discussion will be compiled and given to synod participants with other documentation in order to “encourage their reflection and further examination.”

According to the Synod of Bishops, the pre-synod discussion is meant to compliment and “enrich” the consultation that has already begun with the publication of the synod’s preparatory document and a questionnaire available for youth to fill out online.

The dates for the meeting were selected intentionally to coincide with the celebration of the 2018 diocesan World Youth Day event, titled “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God,” which is traditionally celebrated on Palm Sunday with Mass celebrated by the Pope.

In their communique, the Synod of Bishops thanked the Pope convoking the meeting, “which will allow young people to express their expectations and desires, as well as their uncertainties and concerns in the complex events of today’s world.”

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Vatican City, Oct 4, 2017 / 03:51 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis said true Christians aren’t sad or gloomy, but have the specific task of being bearers of hope not only with their words, but with actions as simple as a smile or an act of charity.

In his Oct. 4 general audience, the Pope said it’s encouraging to know that the’ disciples “are announcers of Jesus’ resurrection not only in word, but with facts and with the testimony of their life!”

Jesus, he said, “doesn’t want disciples capable only of repeating learned and memorized formulas. He wants witnesses: people who spread hope with their way of welcoming, smiling and loving.”

The most important part loving, he said, “because the strength of the resurrection renders Christians capable of loving even when love seems to have lost it’s meaning.”

For Christians, there is a “more” to existence that can’t be explained simply with the strength of spirit or a great amount of optimism. Rather, believers are people that seem to have a “piece of heaven” with them, and who are accompanied “by a presence that no one can even intuit.”

Pope Francis spoke to pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square, continuing his catechesis on Christian hope. This week, he spoke of the need to have “missionaries of hope,” noting that the call for such witnesses is key in the month of October, which is traditionally dedicated to mission.

A Christian, the Pope said, not “a prophet of misfortune,” but rather, their task entails announcing Jesus, “who died out of love and who God resurrected on the morning of Easter.”

“This is the nucleus of our Christian faith,” he said, explaining that if the Gospels had stopped at the the crucifixion and tomb, “the story of this prophet would add itself to the many biographies of heroic personalities that often have spent their lives for an ideal.”

In this case, the Gospel would simply become “an edifying and consoling book,” but it would in no way “be an announcement of hope.”

However, the Gospels go beyond the tomb, Francis said, explaining that “it is precisely this last part that transforms our lives.”

Although everything seemed hopeless after Jesus’ death, with some disciples already beginning to leave Jerusalem, Jesus rose. And this “unexpected fact” completely “overturns and subverts the heart of the disciples.”

Christians, then, are called to spread this news in the world and “open spaces for salvation, like regenerative cells capable of restoring vigor to those seem lost forever.”

True Christians, Pope Francis said, are “not sad and angry, but convinced by the strength of the resurrection, that no evil is infinite, no night without end, no man is definitively in wrong, no hate is invincible from love.”

But while there is joy that comes from announcing the Gospel, disciples at times have had to “pay a dear price” for their hope, Francis said, and pointed to the many Christians who “have not abandoned their people” in times of persecution.

“They have stayed there, where tomorrow isn’t certain, where they couldn’t have plans of any sort, (but) they stayed hoping in God.”

Referring, as he often does, to the many modern martyrs who give their lives for Christ, the Pope said their fidelity proves that “injustice does not have the final word in life.”

“In Christ Risen we can continue to hope,” he said, noting that while men and women who have a certain reason to live are able to resist more than others in times of difficulty, “those who have Christ at their side truly no longer fear anything.”

“Because of this Christians are never easy and accommodating men,” he said, stressing that “their meekness must not be confused with a sense of insecurity or of submissiveness.”

And this, he said, “is why the Christian is a missionary of hope. Not by their merit, but thanks to Jesus, the grain of wheat who, fallen to the earth, died and brought much fruit.”

At the end of the audience, just before leading pilgrims in the Our Father, Pope Francis announced that a special meeting will be held March 19-24 with youth from all over the world in order to prepare for the 2018 Synod of Bishops on “Young People, Faith and the Discernment of Vocation.”

Youth who will attend the conference will also include non-believers and non-Catholics, whether they come from other Christian traditions, other faiths entirely. Conclusions of the discussion will be given to synod participants to take into consideration during the discussion.

In preparing for the synod, “the Church wants to listen to the voices, feelings, faith and even doubts and critiques of the youth,” Pope Francis said, which is why the March meeting will gather such a vast panorama of participants, and why, ultimately, their reflections will be taken into consideration during the synod itself.

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Vatican City, Oct 3, 2017 / 03:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In the keynote speech at a conference on protecting children in the digital world, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said child safety is one of the most urgent issues of modern times, and stressed that children on the global “peripheries” shouldn’t be forgotten.

In his Oct. 3 speech, Parolin noted that technological and cultural change “is particularly fast in many countries in which social and economic progress are still very limited and unbalanced.”

Thousands of children are now growing up in the digital world in vastly underdeveloped nations, he said, which means their parents and educators “will no longer be culturally equipped to accompany them and help them grow in this world, while their governments often don’t know where to begin in protecting them.”

“We are also responsible for these children, and the businesses that promote and push the development of the digital world are also responsible for them,” he said.

Given the international and interdisciplinary approach of the conference, Parolin stressed that the participants themselves “must take responsibility for those peripheries of the world of which Pope Francis continually speaks.”

The peripheries, he said, are in geographical areas of great economic poverty, but which “are also found within rich societies, where there is considerable human and spiritual poverty, loneliness and a loss of the meaning of life.”

“It is no coincidence that it is precisely minors from these peripheries that are the preferred object of global networks of exploitation and organized violence online.”

He pointed specifically to several crimes against children: trafficking, forced conscription of child soldiers, slave labor, prostitution, drugs, all of which are compounded by inadequate education, hunger and poverty.

In each of these cases, “the horrible reality of sexual abuse is practically always present, as a common aspect and consequence of a multifaceted and widespread violence,” he said, noting that sexual abuse entirely disregards “respect not only for the body, but even more so for the soul, for the profound vulnerability and dignity of every child,” regardless of nationality.

Quoting Pope Francis, Parolin said “we need the courage” to guard children from “the new Herods of our time, who devour the innocence of our children” through various forms of slavery and exploitation.

Parolin spoke on the opening night 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 (CCP).

Participants in the congress include social scientists, civic leaders, and religious representatives from around the world. Topics include prevention of abuse, pornography, the responsibility of internet providers and the media, and ethical governance.

Notable presenters representing the global “peripheries” will be Cardinal John Njue, Archbishop of Nairobi in Kenya, and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Archbishop of Manila in the Philippines, who will address the issue of protecting minors from the perspectives of Africa and Asia respectively.

Parolin’s focus on social peripheries echo remarks from Fr. Hans Zollner SJ, president of the CCP and a member of Pope Francis’ commission for protecting minors.

In a briefing with journalists Oct. 2, the day before the conference began, Zollner said the issues of child abuse and protection, widely spoken about in Western nations, are also of major concern for developing nations.

He said the problem “is everywhere and the risks are everywhere,” he said. “It is not a Western problem, although in many parts of the world, 75% of countries in this world, issues of child sexual abuse have not reached the level of discussion in Anglo and Western- European countries.”

On the opening night of the conference, the panel of speakers was preceded by a powerful video in which minors who have been abused either online or in person shared their stories, detailing instances of online bullying, body-shaming, sexual exploitation and pornography addiction.

The stories depicted included a 17-year-old girl who committed suicide after explicit videos of her, taken by a boyfriend, were posted online. Other stories were that of a young Filipino boy who fell victim to a sex-trafficking ring, and that of a 10-year-old boy who, despite feeling shame, became addicted to pornography.

In his opening remarks, Zollner said that “stories such as these are why were are gathered here.”

“We have listened to stories of victims, and now we are here to talk about hope,” he said, explaining that he has “conflicting emotions” about the conference. While he has a “somber feeling” due to the topic of discussion, the priest said he also has a “hopeful feeling” when he looks at the faces present in the audience and the various areas they represent.

Referring to the stories shared in the video, Zollner asked “how can we stop these terror attacks on the heart of the child?”

One thing is certain in the process, he said, which is that “there is not one single medicine that will fix it all.” Rather, “it is a combination of threads that weave this safety net,” and the threads are people.

According to statistics given by the panel of speakers, in Europe alone there are currently some 30,000 websites that portray children being sexually abused.

Several experts reported that in 2013 alone, 18 million children were sexually abused, amounting to roughly 30 percent of Europe’s children. Numbers given by Interpol for 2016 show that at least 5 children fall victim to sexual abuse online per day.

In his speech, Parolin also emphasized the need to form networks, reiterating concern that the sexual abuse of minors is “an immensely vast and widespread phenomenon.”

Over the past few decades, the reality of child sexual abuse within the Church has become more apparent, as “very serious facts have emerged,” he said. Parolin explained that as facts emerged, the Church became aware of the damage done to victims, and the need to provide “a new culture of child protection” which “effectively guarantees their growth in safe and secure environments.”

“This is a commitment that requires deep human attention, competence and consistency,” he said, adding that the efforts made must continue to “expand and deepen” with clarity and firm commitment.

Attention is necessary, he said, “so that the dignity and rights of minors are protected and defended with much more attention and effectiveness that has been done in the past.”

He noted that “the scourge of offenses against the dignity of minors” now “spreads and aligns itself within the new parameters of the digital world.”

“This plague meanders and infiltrates along a labyrinth of paths and through deep, hidden layers of reality,” he said, stressing that the digital world is not “a separate part of the world,” but an integral part “of a unique reality of the world.”

With old challenges manifesting themselves in new ways, the culture of protecting minors “must be sufficiently able to address today’s problems.”

New energies must be channeled toward a shared commitment “to overcome the sense of disorientation and powerlessness when faced with such a markedly difficult challenge, and to help us to intervene creatively,” he said.

Furthermore, “we must work to regain control of the development of the digital world, so that it may be at the service of the dignity of minors, and thus of the whole human race of tomorrow,” he said. “For the minors of today are the entirety of tomorrow’s human race.”

While research and understanding problems are important, Parolin called for a “far-seeing, courageous endeavor” on the part of all participants, and appealed for “the cooperation of every person in a position of responsibility” in all countries and sectors of society.

Parolin said that in this regard, special attention ought to be paid to the “moral and religious” aspects of the life and development of the human person.

“The minors of whom we speak and whose dignity we wish to defend and promote are human
persons, and the value of each of them is unique and unrepeatable,” he said, adding that each of them “must be taken seriously and protected in this ever more digitalized world, so that they may be able to fulfill the purpose of their life, their destiny, their coming into the world.”

Scripture itself says we are created in the “image and likeness” of God, he said, and in the New Testament it tells of how the Son of God came to the world as “a vulnerable child, and in needy circumstances, assuming both the fragility and the hope for a future that are intrinsic to an infant.”

“To disparage infancy and to abuse children is for the Christian, therefore, not only a crime, but also – as Pope Francis has stated – sacrilege, a profanation of that which is sacred, of the presence of God in every human being.”

While the driving forces behind global technical and economic development might seem “unstoppable” and are likely driven by both economic and political interests, Parolin stressed that “we must not allow ourselves to be dominated by” these interests.

“The power of sexual desire that dwells in the depth of the human mind and heart is great and wonderful when it advances the path of humanity,” he said, but can also be “corrupted and perverted,” becoming “a source of suffering and unspeakable abuse.”

Sexual desire must be “elevated and directed,” he said, adding that “the sense of moral responsibility in the sight of humanity and in the sight of God, the reflection on the correct use of freedom in the building and orientation of a new world and in learning how to live in it, are thus absolutely necessary and fundamental for our common future.”

He closed his speech calling the defense of children in the digital world “one of today’s most important and urgent issues” for humanity.”

Parolin voiced his hope that with the “living sense of the beauty and the mystery of human persons, of the greatness of their vocation to life, and thus of the duty to protect them in their dignity and their growth” in mind, this perspective would “inspire your work and bear concrete and effective fruit.”

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Vatican City, Oct 3, 2017 / 06:09 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican announced Tuesday that Pope Francis has appointed Bishop Edward J. Weisenburger, who was the “promoter of justice” for the beatification cause of Fr. Stanley Rother, as the next bishop of Tuscon.

Bishop Weisenburger, 56, replaces Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas, 76, who has retired from the episcopate after reaching the normal age of retirement, which is 75.

Before becoming bishop of Salina, Weisenburger was the promoter of justice for the cause of beatification of Fr. Stanley Rother, who was beatified Sept. 23 in Oklahoma City after being recognized as a martyr.

Loosely speaking, the “promoter of justice” for a beatification or canonization cause is the person who, on a diocesan level, is in charge of carrying out an investigation into the candidate’s qualifications for sainthood.

The promoter of justice must be a priest with a solid background in theology, canon law and knowledge of saints’ causes. They are tasked largely with inspecting the documentation and testimonies gathered on the candidate’s life for accuracy, and can make further inquiries or requests if necessary.

For his role in the canonization cause, Bishop Weisenburger was given a first-class relic of now-Bl. Rother for the Diocese of Salina.

Weisenburger also served as an on-site chaplain for rescue workers at the site of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City after the April 19, 1995, bombing that killed 168 people.

He was born Dec. 23, 1960, in Alton, Illinois. His father was a military officer and his mother was a homemaker. He spent two years of his childhood in Hays, Kansas, but grew up in Lawton.

The future bishop studied philosophy at Conception Seminary College in Conception, Miss. and theology at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.

Ordained a priest on December 19, 1987, for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, he afterward studied at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, Canada, obtaining his pontifical degree in canon law.

He has served as a parochial vicar and pastor at several parishes in Oklahoma City, and also worked in prison ministry and served on the archdiocesan tribunal for 20 years.

From 1996-2012 he was vicar general of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, and was rector at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Oklahoma City from 2002-2012.

He was also a member of the College of Consultors of the archdiocese’s Council of Priests.

In 2009 he was given the honorific title “monsignor” by Benedict XVI and in 2012 was appointed Bishop of the Diocese of Salina in Kansas. In addition to English, Weisenburger also speaks Spanish.

[…]

Vatican City, Oct 3, 2017 / 12:43 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Technology will be at the heart of an upcoming Vatican conference on accompanying human life in the digital era, particularly with regard to the medical field.

The conference will emphasize both the benefits and limits of new technology, and what those mean for the Church.

New technology has “an increasingly relevant impact on the various aspects, the various moments of human life,” Msgr. Renzo Pegoraro, chancellor of the Pontifical Acedemy for Life, said Oct. 2.

The Pontifical Academy for Life wishes to look at the positive aspects of technology and everything it has achieved “in the field of health, of human life, and the betterment of certain conditions and situations.”

However, while great helpful strides have certainly been made, Pegoraro said it’s also important to discuss “the dangers, the risks that are linked with a technology that is increasingly invasive and powerful, which can condition many aspects of human life.”

Pegoraro spoke at a news briefing on the academy’s upcoming general assembly, which is titled “Accompanying Life: new responsibilities in the technological era,” and will take place Oct. 5-7.

The conference marks the academy’s first general assembly since the renewal of their statutes last year, and will draw new academic members from 37 countries around the world.

Among the members are four honorary members; 45 ordinary members appointed by the Pope; 87 corresponding members named by Board of Directors; and 13 young researchers, a request of the new statutes. All members will serve for a five-year period.

In his comments to journalists, Pegoraro said the academy wants to start the discussion from a “positive perspective,” and stressed that there is “there is no fear of technology or immediate negative judgement” of its uses.

Rather, the goal is to recognize the positive and beneficial contributions of new technologies while also drawing attention to the risks.

The great challenge, he said, is finding an answer to the question: “what is the responsibility? What ethics are at play? What methods are there of managing this power, which has been entrusted to man’s responsibility?”

The program of the conference more or less follows the structure of the new charter for healthcare workers the Vatican published in February, and is divided into three main categories: issues surrounding the beginning of life, healthcare in general, and the themes relevant to the phase of the end of life.

Topics to be discussed include looming modern questions in the areas of reproduction, parenthood, illness, and death, as well as the consequences of what Pope Francis has often called a “throwaway culture.”

Discussion will also bring in elements of Pope Francis’ chapter on technology in his 2015 encyclical Laudato si’, raising questions such as: “Is the spread of technology is creating more justice and reducing certain inequalities? Or are inequalities growing?” Pegoraro said.

“Those who have this technology in hand, are they favoring global growth in various countries, especially in the relationship between the north and south of the world? Or do they run the risk of widening the gap between developed countries and those in the process of developing?”

He stressed the need to more clearly explore where the line should to be drawn between prolonging life and when to accept mortality, incorporating technology to reduce pain and help the person to have a “dignified death.”

Technology can help to keep a person comfortable, he said, but “it doesn’t defeat death.” So the great challenge, then, is “to find the lines that are respected for every person, especially the most weak, vulnerable and suffering.”

In comments to CNA, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the academy, said there is an urgent need to reflect on life “not as if it were an abstract idea, but in the concrete reality of people of all ages, in the different conditions in which they live, so that human life rediscovers its meaning, its vocation, and also its responsibility in the entire context of the planet.”

So while beginning of life issues such as abortion or end of life issues such as euthanasia are crucial modern talking points, they aren’t the full picture, he said, explaining that the academy seeks to address “defending life in all its conditions,” including childhood, adolescence, and old age, as well as when it comes to other opics such as the death penalty.

“We interested in accompaniment at every moment, we are interested in making understood the contradiction of choices of new technologies in front of a humanistic vision,” he said, explaining that the recovery of a “humanistic” dimension is required for all “scientific areas that involve human life.”

Also present at the news briefing was Dr. Bernadette Tobin, Director of the Plunkett Centre for Ethics at the Australian Catholic University.

In comments to CNA, Tobin said that “new technologies require us to think out (about) medicines, healing, ethics, and thinking out how that can be provided for people in a way that respects their dignity as human beings.”

New technologies have helped ensure that people suffering from various diseases have cures, “and can now live out what you might call a natural lifespan rather succumbing to some of these terrible diseases.”

However, the reverse side “is that people are often kept alive in circumstances in which they simply would not want that to happen, and they simply feel that they don’t have a duty to accept what kind of healthcare is being offered to them,” Tobin said.

Because of this, “we need to think carefully about that, and help doctors who are looking after people at the end of their lives understand ethically and clinically what their responsibilities are because there is both over-treatement, and under-treatment, and we’ve really got to avoid both.”

New technologies, she said, have “augmented medicine’s ability” to pursue noble objectives such as pain relief, various cures and organ transplantation.

“This is a wonderful new set of technologies,” Tobin said, while cautioning there is always a challenge in ensuring “that what’s now possible is done in ways which respect both the internal ethic of medicine, and respect the dignity of the human being.”

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Vatican City, Oct 2, 2017 / 05:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The September 19 re-establishment of the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Science on the Family and Marriage is a good object lesson in the modus operandi of Pope Francis. It offers observers some helpful lessons about the Roman Pontiff’s leadership style.

The John Paul II Pontifical Institute, founded by the late Polish Pope, whom Pope Francis calls the “Pope of the Family”, has developed as well-respected institution in theological circles. It is known to foster and promote theological discussions on family and marriage issues at twelve campuses around the world.

The institute’s work was mentioned in the 2014 Synod on the Family’s instrumentum laboris – its working document. It is worth noting, however, that no professors of the institute were invited to serve as theological experts to the 2014 Synod.

Fr. José Granados, however, who is one of the institute’s most prominent faculty members, was included among the participants of the 2015 Synod.

Nevertheless, some have suggested the institute seems to have been sidelined under Pope Francis.

The appointment of Archbishop Paglia as Grand Chancellor of the institute, together with the appointment of Professor Pierangelo Sequeri as its president, were interpreted as a shift away from the institute’s ordinary approach, which some speculated the Pope considered too traditional.

With the motu proprio refounding the institute, Pope Francis apparently wanted dispel any perception that he had sidelined the institute.

Speaking with journalists Sep. 20, Sequeri remarked twice that “the Pope renews an institute that was considered sidelined, and involves the same professors of the institute in this renewal.”

The institute’s new direction will not take shape until its statutes are drafted. It is possible that some faculty members will be involved in the drafting process. The Pope, however, gave clear indication of his intentions in the motu proprio.

According to Archbishop Paglia, the new institute will broaden its focus to include history, economics, and other social sciences.The social science focus will include a new endowed chair, to be named for  Gaudium et Spes, the Second Vatican Council’s pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world.

However, much remains uncertain about the institute’s future. Nothing is known about how the new statutes will be developed, nor if the institute’s present professors will be invited to stay on.

So how can the establishment of this new theological institute can give clues about Pope Francis’ modus operandi?

First of all, it is clear that Pope Francis wants to make every reform very personal. He issued a motu proprio to renew a Pontifical Institute, an unusually involved step that might ordinarily be delegated, which seems intended to connect his desired reforms to his name and to his authority.

Likewise, this reform follows his pattern: all the others reforms he has enacted in the Curia have begun with a motu proprio or a chirograph.

In general, the Pope has left the details to be determined after announcing his intentions – discussion of the statutes of the new dicasteries has typically come after his announcements.

He has done the same with the new John Paul II Theological Institute. He issued a motu proprio, setting the direction, and he left the discussion of statutes, which govern the practical details of reform, to others.

A second characteristic of Pope Francis’ leadership style is that he likes to do reform “in the making.”

What does this mean? A response to the question can be provided by Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium.

In the exhortation, the Pope stressed that “giving priority to time means being concerned about initiating processes rather than possessing spaces”, and so “what we need, then, is to give priority to actions which generate new processes in society and engage other persons and groups who can develop them to the point where they bear fruit in significant historical events. Without anxiety, but with clear convictions and tenacity.”

The Pope begins reforms, and then he waits for things to organically move in the direction for which he is calling.

Finally, it is an old saying in leadership that “people are policy.” Pope Francis seems to approach personnel decisions uniquely. Rather than firing people, the Roman Pontiff prefers to add new people or new groups to decision-making processes, in order to rebalance the general discussion.

At the renewed John Paul II Institute, it seems unlikely that the Pope will dismiss the full professors, who are hired into tenured positions. Instead, he will add to the faculty new chairs on different topics in order to broaden the conversation.

And then, if history is a good predictor, he will wait to see what happens next.

[…]

Vatican City, Oct 2, 2017 / 06:34 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Monday Pope Francis offered his condolences and spiritual support to victims of a deadly shooting in Las Vegas that left at least 50 people dead and 200 more wounded when a gunman opened fire at a country music festival.

“Deeply saddened to learn of the shooting in Las Vegas, Pope Francis sends the assurance of his spiritual closeness to all those affected by this senseless tragedy,” read an Oct. 2 telegram signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

Addressed to Las Vegas Bishop Joseph Anthony Pepe, the telegram offered the Pope’s encouragement for the efforts of police and emergency service personnel. Francis also assured of his prayers “for the injured and for all who have died, entrusting them to the merciful love of Almighty God.”

In what has become deadliest the mass shooting in U.S. history, at least 50 people died and 200 were wounded when a shooter opened fire on the last of a the three-day Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas, Nev. just after 10p.m. Sunday night, BBC News reports.

According to the Las Vegas Police department, an estimated 406 people have been hospitalized after the incident.

The death toll, which police say is only preliminary, tops last year’s massacre at a nightclub in Orlando, which left 49 dead. It was also reminiscent of a deadly shooting in Paris in November 2015 that killed 89 people as part of a coordinated attack by the Islamic State that left a total of 130 people dead.

The festival, which took place along the Las Vegas Strip, was sold out, and had drawn thousands of participants to see top performers such as Eric Church, Sam Hunt and Jason Aldean.

Identified as Stephen Paddock, 64, the shooter opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, raining bullets on the open-air music festival happening below. Although the local sheriff department has not given an exact number of casualties, two of the at least 50 killed were off-duty officers.

The Associated Press reports that Paddock shot and killed himself as police tried to enter his room. Officers believe he acted alone, but are unsure of his motive. They are also currently pursuing a female Asian companion, reported to be Paddock’s roommate, as a “person of interest” in the incident.

In a tweet sent this morning, U.S. President Donald Trump offered his “warmest condolences and sympathies” to victims and families affected by “the terrible Las Vegas shooting.”

Various other global leaders have also voiced support and condolences, including representatives from the UK, Australia and Sweden.

In separate tweets, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston also offered his support to victims, their families and emergency workers, asking that “God grant strength and faith to families affected by last nights violence; Lord welcome the dead into your loving embrace.”

Grant strength and faith to families affected by last nights violence; Lord welcome the dead into your loving embrace #LasVegasShooting

— Cardinal Seán (@CardinalSean) October 2, 2017

He also prayed that God would bless all first responders “as they care for the victims of last nights’ violence.”

Bishop Edward Burns of Dallas, Texas, also tweeted-out support, saying “Our prayers and concerns are with all those affected by the horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas. May God, the giver of all life, sustain us.”

[…]

Vatican City, Oct 1, 2017 / 03:34 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Sunday Pope Francis said that we can’t improve our political landscape by observing and judging from afar, but that it involves personal involvement, which should always be done in a spirit of charity and helpfulness.

“Try to act personally instead of just looking and criticizing the work of others from the balcony,” the Pope said Oct. 1.

But make your advice constructive, he continued. “If the politician is wrong, go tell him, there are so many ways to say, ‘But I think that would be better like so, like so…’ Through the press, the radio… But say it constructively.”

“And do not look out from the balcony, look at her from the balcony waiting for her to fail.”

Pope Francis spoke to people in the Italian town of Cesena during a day trip to Cesena and Bologna Oct. 1. In Cesena he met with citizens of the town and with priests, religious and lay people at the city’s cathedral.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Cesena was the birthplace of Pope Pius VI and Pope Pius VII. Also in the 19th century Francesco Xaverio Castiglione (the future Pope Pius VIII) was bishop of Cesena, thus giving the city its nickname of the “city of the three popes.”

In Bologna the Pope’s schedule included meetings with migrants and refugees, clergy and religious, academics and students, and workers and the unemployed.

“The authentic face of politics and its reason for being,” Francis said, is “an invaluable service to the good of the whole community. And that is why the Church’s social doctrine regards it as a noble form of charity.”

In order to re-establish the independence and the ability of politics to serve the public good, he continued, we must “act in such a way as to diminish inequalities, to promote the welfare of families with concrete measures, to provide a solid framework of rights-duties – balance both – and make them effective for everyone.”

Therefore, the Pope said, from the centrality of the “piazza” – the square – goes out the message that it is “essential to work together for the common good.”

“I invite you to consider the nobility of political action in the name and favor of the people,” he said. In recent years, the true aim of politics has appeared to retreat in the face of aggression and financial power.

Thus, we must “rediscover the value” of this essential part of society and give our contribution – recognizing the need for political ideas to be held up to reality and reshaped as necessary.

We shouldn’t claim an impossible perfection from those in public life, he stated, but we should still “demand” from politicians “the coherence of commitment, preparation, moral rectitude, initiative, forbearance, patience and strength of spirit in addressing today’s challenges.”

This won’t fix everything quickly or easily, of course, he continued. “The magic wand doesn’t work in politics.” But if a politician does wrong: constructively tell them, he encouraged.

We all make mistakes, Francis said. And when we do, we should apologize, return to a right path and go on.

Concluding, he said that it is the right of everyone to have a voice in politics, but especially we should listen to “the young and the elderly.” To young people because they are the ones with the energy to do things, and to the elderly because they have the wisdom and authority of life.

The people expect from good politics the defense and “harmonious development” of their heritage and its best potential, he said.

“Let us pray to the Lord for the raising of good politicians who really care for society, the people and the good of the poor.”

[…]

Rome, Italy, Sep 30, 2017 / 10:42 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A global congress to be held in Rome next week will focus on how to protect children in the digital age, bringing together various experts from around the world to develop concrete ways to combat the issue of online child sex abuse.

Fr. Hans Zollner, SJ told journalists Sept. 29 that this is an issue that is dangerous for “many, many young people in the world today.”

Head of the Center for Child Protection and a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Zollner said he has spoken to many parents who do not know what to do about their children’s access to the internet: “Everyone is talking and they do not know what to do.”

With this congress, “we can propose something we believe could be useful.”

But this is just the beginning, he told CNA. “We will start now, but this is again, one step in a very long journey that needs persistence and perseverance and we try to give our contribution to that.”

The world congress, on the topic of “Child Dignity in the Digital World,” is being held in Rome Oct. 3-6. It has been organized by the Pontifical Gregorian University’s Center for Child Protection (CCP).

The week-long congress will include scientists, academic experts, leaders of civil society, high-level politicians, and religious representatives from around the world. It will conclude with a papal audience, where participants will present a final document – a declaration on future action – to Pope Francis.

In the congress “we will try to sort out some action points that will then be incorporated in the declaration that will be adopted by the participants of the congress at the end of Thursday’s meetings,” Zollner said.

“Then that will be brought to the Holy Father, so it will be presented to him by a young person. And we hope then, that from those action points, concrete developments will take off.”  

Among the speakers are Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who will give a keynote address on the Holy See and its commitment to combatting sexual abuse online.

Cardinal John Njue, archishop of Nairobi in Kenya, and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, archbishop of Manila in the Philippines, will also each present on the issue of safeguarding from the perspectives of Africa and Asia respectively.

Topics of the presentations include data and research, prevention of abuse, pornography, the responsibility of internet providers and the media, and ethical governance.

Because the focus of the congress is children and vulnerable adults, Zollner said that including victim/survivors in the congress would not be possible.

“For the reason precisely to preserve their dignity, which is in the name of our congress, we decided against inviting declared victim/survivors of sexual abuse online,” he explained.

Instead, they have invited to observe the congress 10 university students, around the age of 20-22, who have grown up in the age of the internet.

They will have the opportunity in the plenary and working group sessions to voice “their perceptions, their concerns, and their experiences in dealing with this phenomenon,” he said.  

Another initiative of the congress is a call for scientific papers, which they put out at the conclusion of the week.

“We will invite the scientific world to engage in specific areas of concern in a scientifically valid way,” Zollner said. “We hope that this will create then a sort of avalanche of future processes and projects that can then be presented in two or three years’ time.”

[…]

Vatican City, Sep 30, 2017 / 10:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis on Saturday told mayors that they must go to those on the margins of their communities in order to learn how to best serve the common good, including the needs of the poor, unemployed, and migrants and refugees.

“To you, mayors, let me say, as a brother: You must frequent the peripheries, those urban, those social and those existential,” the Pope said Sept. 30.

To do so is to learn from the best school, he continued, because it teaches us about the real needs of people, shows us injustice, and helps us to build better communities, where everyone is recognized as a person and citizen.

“I think about the situation in which the availability and quality of services is lacking, and new pockets of poverty and marginalization are formed,” he said.

This is where a city becomes divided, he said: on one side of the highway are the secure and well-off and on the other are the poor and unemployed – including families and migrants who have no support.

Pope Francis’ speech was made in an audience with Italian mayors, members of the National Association of Italian Towns (ANCI), in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican Sept. 30.

In the audience he spoke about the specific issue of immigration, saying that he understands that many people are uncomfortable in the face of the massive arrival of migrants and refugees.

This discomfort is understandable, he said, especially when there is innate fear of the “stranger,” and the already-present wounds of economic crisis, lack of community, and inadequate response to emergencies by the government.

Francis said that these challenges can only be overcome through personal encounter, including the mutual exchange of artistic and cultural riches, as well as the knowledge of people’s places and communities of origin.

“I am delighted to hear that many of the local administrations represented here can be among the main advocates of good reception and integration practices, with encouraging results that deserve broad dissemination. I hope that many follow your example,” he said.

It is this way that politics can fulfill the “fundamental task” of helping people to see the future with hope, he noted, saying that it is “hope in tomorrow that brings out the best energies of everyone, of young people first of all.”

If a mayor is close to his or her people, directing everything toward the common good, then things will go well, he continued.

Pope Francis also spoke about the symbol of the city as it is found in Sacred Scripture.  

At the beginning of the Bible we hear the story of the history of Babel, a city “unfinished, destined to remain in the memory of humanity as a symbol of confusion and loss, presumption and division, of that inability to understand that makes any common work impossible,” he said.

The Bible also closes with the vision of a city. But unlike the city of Babel, the new Jerusalem “smells of heaven and tells of a renewed world.”

It is significant, the Pope continued, that the image of the city recurs throughout Sacred Scripture. It teaches us that human society can only stand when rested on the foundation of true solidarity.

Envy, unbridled ambition and a spirit of adversity, on the other hand, condemn us to the violence of chaos. To move away from this we need a politics and economy centered on ethics, “an ethics of responsibility, relationships, community and the environment,” he said.

“I would like to talk to you about a city that puts the public well-being above private interests, not allowing corruption or the privatization of public spaces, where the ‘us’ is ‘reduced to slogans, to rhetorical artifice that masks the interests of few,'” he said.

It is this view that helps people to grow in dignity. “It promotes social justice, therefore labor, services, opportunities,” he said.

“To embrace and serve this city it takes a good and great heart, in which to preserve the passion of the common good,” he encouraged, “because what contributes to the good of everyone also contributes to the good of the individual.”

If we do this, he concluded, “then the city will advance and reflect the heavenly Jerusalem.”

“It will be a sign of God’s goodness and tenderness in man’s time. A mayor must have the virtue of prudence to govern, but also the virtue of courage to move forward and the virtue of tenderness to approach the weakest.”

[…]