Vatican City, Apr 16, 2015 / 04:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a joint report marking the conclusion of a multi-year mandate for reform, members of the LCWR have agreed to corrections called for by the Vatican, and said they will continue on the path of dialogue. “We are pleased at the completion of the mandate, which involved long and challenging exchanges of our understandings of and perspectives on critical matters of Religious Life and its practice,” Sr. Sharon Holland, IHM, President of LCWR, said in an April 16 press release. Officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle and officers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) met at the Vatican April 16. Although she was unable to attend the Vatican meeting, Sr. Holland said that “we learned that what we hold in common is much greater than any of our differences.” Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said in the press release that “the Congregation is confident that LCWR has made clear its mission to support its member institutes by fostering a vision of religious life that is centered on the person of Jesus Christ and is rooted in the Tradition of the Church.”   This vision, he said, “makes religious women and men radical witnesses to the Gospel, and, therefore, is essential for the flourishing of religious life in the Church.” Archbishop Sartain, who in 2012 was charged with leading their reform, presented a joint report with members of the LCWR on the implementation of the congregation’s Doctrinal Assessment and Mandate, which was issued in April 2012. The joint report outlines the process in which the implementation of the mandate has been carried out. With the congregation’s acceptance of the joint report, the Vatican’s doctrinal assessment of the LCWR has come to a close. Members of the LCWR leadership met with Pope Francis today at 12:15 p.m., following the official publication of the final report. With some 1,500 members, the LCWR constitutes about 3 percent of the 57,000 women religious in the United States. However, the group says it represents 80 percent of American sisters since its members are leaders of their respective religious communities. In April 2012, the Vatican released the findings of a four year doctrinal assessment of the women’s conference, which found a state of doctrinal crisis within the organization, and raised concerns of dissent from Church teaching on topics including homosexuality, the sacramental priesthood and the divinity of Christ. Among the assessment’s key findings were serious theological and doctrinal errors in presentations at the conference’s recent annual assemblies. Some presentations depicted a vision of religious life incompatible with the Catholic faith, or attempted to justify dissent from Church doctrine and showed “scant regard for the role of the Magisterium,” the assessment found. At the same time the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith assigned Archbishop Sartain to oversee the conference’s reform, and he was given a mandate of up to five years to help the LCWR review and revise their statues, formation materials, presentations, events and links with affiliated organizations. A key topic the report addressed was the mandate’s call for a careful review of the LCWR’s publications and programs to ensure that they are faithful to Church teachings. The conference said that the nature of their publications is intended to address spiritual matters rather than engage in formal theological inquiry, since their audience extends beyond members of the Catholic Church. However, because of the “vital link between spirituality and theology” as well as the goal to both inspire and grow as women religious, the report consented that all of their publications “need a sound doctrinal foundation.” “To this end, measures are being taken to promote a scholarly rigor that will ensure theological accuracy and help avoid statements that are ambiguous with regard to Church doctrine or could be read as contrary to it,” the report stated. It was also noted that a publications advisory committee has been put into place, and that all manuscripts will be reviewed by “competent theologians, as a means of safeguarding the theological integrity of the Conference.” The choice of assembly topics and speakers – which has been one of the most contested points of the LCWR’s reform mandate – was also addressed in the report. In order to stay faithful to their mission and service in the Church, the selection of discussion topics and speakers will be carried out in “a prayerful, thoughtful and discerning manner,” according to the report. In 2012, the same year the original assessment was released, the conference hosted philosopher Barbara Marx Hubbard, an author and promoter of “Conscious Evolution” as the keynote speaker for their annual general assembly. Since then the concept – which Cardinal Müller cautioned opposes Christian revelation – has been featured heavily in LCWR materials. “When taken unreflectively,” the cardinal said, the fundamentals of Conscious Evolution “lead almost necessarily to fundamental errors regarding the omnipotence of God, the Incarnation of Christ, the reality of original sin, the necessity of salvation and the definitive nature of the salvific action of Christ in the Paschal Mystery.” However, the joint report assures that the LCWR will select speakers and presenters who speak “with integrity and to further the aims and purposes of the conference, which unfold within the wider context of the Church’s faith and mission.” “When a topic explicitly addresses matters of faith, speakers are expected to employ the ecclesial language of faith,” the report reads. “When exploring contemporary issues, particularly those which, while not explicitly theological nevertheless touch upon faith and morals, LCWR expects speakers and presenters to have due regard for the Church’s faith and to pose questions for further reflection in a manner that suggests how faith might shed light on such issues.” The report also announced that they have revised the process for selecting the recipient of their Outstanding Leadership Award, which in 2014 was given to Sister Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J. – a theologian whom the U.S. bishops have criticized for serious doctrinal errors, including misrepresentations of Church teaching on God. The joint report also recognized the revision of the LCWR’s statues, which have been changed to clarify the conference’s role as “a public juridic person centered on Jesus Christ and faithful to the teachings of the Church.” The revised Statutes were approved Feb. 6, 2015, with an official Decree from the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. Other topics emphasized in the report were the importance of celebrating the Eucharist and the need to pray the traditional Liturgy of the Hours prayer in religious communities. The centrality of a communal process of contemplative prayer practiced at LCWR Assemblies and other gatherings, the relationship between LCWR and other organizations and the essential understanding of LCWR as an instrument of ecclesial communion were also discussed. The report closes with an expression of gratitude for the “clarifying and fruitful conversation” that has taken place throughout the mandate process. “The very fact of such substantive dialogue between bishops and religious has been a blessing to be appreciated and further encouraged,” it read, and highlighted the commitment of the LCWR leadership to its “crucial role” in serving the conference, as well as bearing witness to the vocation of religious life.   Read more

Vatican City, Apr 15, 2015 / 03:13 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has blessed the family of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani woman sentenced to death for blasphemy, as they continue to work for her release.   Bibi’s husband, Ashiq Masih, said “the Holy Father blessed and encouraged us.” Masih and the couple’s youngest daughter, 14-year-old Isham, briefly met with Pope Francis after his Wednesday General Audience. “We are here in Italy to make sure we can be the voice of an innocent woman who has been suffering in jail for six years,” Masih told CNA April 15. Asia Bibi was convicted of violating Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws in 2010, an allegation she denies. She was accused of making derogatory comments against Islam’s Prophet Muhammad while arguing with a Muslim woman in 2009. On Oct. 16, 2014 the Lahore High Court rejected Bibi’s appeal seeking to overturn the death sentence. Isham, Bibi’s daughter, was nine when her mother was arrested. She defended her mother during an April 14 press conference at Italy’s Chamber of Deputies. “The accusations against her are false,” Isham said. “My mother was working when two women asked her for water to drink. When my mother gave them the water, they began saying their hands were impure, that Christians are not dignified to eat and drink with Muslims, who are clean. On this basis, the accusation of blasphemy was built.” Masih told CNA he and his daughter wanted to ask Pope Francis to encourage the government of Pakistan to free Bibi. They also wanted to raise awareness about Bibi’s case before the Pope and European authorities. Joseph Nadeem, one of Asia Bibi’s lawyers, spoke about her case. “We still have the hope of a presidential pardon,” he told CNA, saying a pardon would immediately release Bibi. Appeals to the Pakistan Supreme Court “could take a very long time.” Bibi’s family is seeking help from the international community to pressure Pakistan’s government to help secure a presidential pardon. Masih visited his wife before the trip to Italy. She is currently an inmate in a prison close to Lahore. Bibi is kept in isolation because sharing a cell with Muslims could put her life at risk.   “Since the day Asia Bibi was arrested, our family is totally destroyed. The children cannot survive without their mother. Asia Bibi misses her children, the children miss her,” said Masih.     “Asia’s faith is very strong, but she cries,” Masih added. “All of our family is praying to God to help her, and so we appeal to international community.” “The life of Christians in Pakistan is very difficult,” he said, adding that “every Christian is in danger in Pakistan.” People in Pakistan have made public protests against Bibi’s release. Some of those released from prison after facing blasphemy charges have been killed. According to Masih, their killers “enjoy great esteem.”   He said that about 74 percent of Pakistan’s population is Muslim, adding “most of them are against Asia Bibi, they don’t want her to be set free. “If Asia Bibi will be free, she cannot stay in Pakistan, she should move abroad very quickly.”   The blasphemy law has been in effect since 1986. According to the Pakistan Catholic Church’s National Committee for Justice and Peace, at least 964 people have been charged with the crime of blasphemy from 1986 to 2009. Among these were 479 Muslims, 340 Ahmadis, 119 Christians, 14 Hindus and 10 people whose faith is not known.   Asia Bibi is the first woman sentenced to death under the 1986 law. The law has faced criticism within Pakistan, as well. Salman Taseer, a Muslim who was governor of Punjab, called the law a “kala kanoon,” a “black law” in the Urdu language, because it can be exploited.   Shabhaz Bhatti, a Catholic who had served as Pakistan’s minister for religious minorities, said that the law is often used “as a tool to solve personal issues” and that 85 percent of the charges are false. Both Taseer and Bhatti advocated for Asia Bibi’s release. Both of them were assassinated in 2011 by Islamist extremists.   Religious extremism in Pakistan is still a major issue. Fides news agency reported that a 14-year-old boy named Nauman Masih was recently burned alive by a group of Muslims, causing severe burns. After several days at a Lahore hospital, he died April 15. The boy had reportedly been assaulted because he had said he was Christian.   Read more

Vatican City, Apr 15, 2015 / 09:22 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has warned against gender theories which seek to eradicate differences between man and woman, saying they perpetuate the very problems they are trying to solve. “Experience teaches us: to know each other well and grow in harmony, the human being requires the reciprocity of man and woman,” the pontiff said Wednesday to participants in his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square. In his Apr. 15 catechesis, the Pope challenged notions of “so-called gender theory,” and whether it “aims to erase sexual difference because it no longer knows how to confront it.” Observing how such theories are an expression of frustration and resignation, the Pope added: “the removal of the differences is the problem, not the solution.” “We risk taking a step backward,” he said. Pope Francis acknowledged that today’s culture has allowed for advancements in the understanding of man and woman’s differences, but warned that “many doubts and skepticism” have also been introduced. Sexual difference is evident in many life forms, but what makes men and women unique is that they are created in God’s image and likeness, he said. Recalling that we are called to “listen to and help one another,” the pontiff suggests that without this reciprocal relationship, we cannot understand “what it means to be man and woman.” Problems with relationships are resolved when men and women speak, listen, know, and love each other more, he added. Pope Francis also stressed the universal significance of marriage, saying it is “serious matter” for everyone, and not just for Christian believers.   He appealed to intellectuals to not desert the idea of marriage, as though it has become “secondary” in their commitment to build a “freer and more just society.” Without the “alliance” between men and woman, affection and hope diminish in the world, the pontiff said. He observed that there are already “worrying” signs that this is the case. There is an urgent need to be attentive to the role of women in the Church and society, and recognize the significance of man and woman being created in the image and likeness of God, Pope Francis said. In order to strengthen the reciprocal relationship between men and women, women should “not only be listened to more,” but they should be “a recognized authority, in society and in the Church.” Pope Francis also noted the connection between the crisis in man and woman’s “alliance” and the modern crisis of faith in God. The Bible, he said, shows how “communion with God is reflected in the communion of the human couple, and that the loss of faith in the Heavenly father engenders division and conflict between man and woman.” “From here comes the great responsibility of the Church, of all believers, and  above all believing families, to rediscover the beauty of creative design, which inscribes God’s image even in the alliance between man and women.” Read more