2017-01-17T19:46:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 17, 2017 at 7:46 pm   By

Vatican City, Jan 17, 2017 / 12:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In reaction to a new book claiming that Pope Francis has in fact done little to combat clerical sex abuse, and that Cardinal George Pell is implicated, the Australian cardinal's office has dismissed the claims as motivated by opposition to reform. “These most recent attacks on the Vatican, economic reforms and Cardinal George Pell are not only regurgitating false claims but appear to have a more sinister intent,” read a Jan. 15 statement from the office of Cardinal Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy. “Those opposed to the reforms and threatened by the progress in establishing transparency and addressing illegalities and malpractice have long used lies, smears and public attacks as diversionary tactics.” A new book by Italian journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi called Lussaria, or “Lust”, details claims that under Pope Francis, the Vatican has failed to adequately address sex abuse committed by clerics. The book will be release in Italian on Thursday.According to the Guardian, “In some of the twenty cases of alleged sexual abuse by priests in Italy in 2016, Fittipaldi writes, priests have been convicted of abuse without the church taking any canonical action against them.”The Washington Post writes that Fittipaldi “claims to have unearthed documents showing Pell also sought to financially aid priests who had been jailed on pedophilia charges.” Cardinal Pell, 75, has already faced allegations from investigators that while in Australia he had been negligent when informed of child sexual abuse, bribed a victim, moved a known abuser from parish to parish, and had himself committed sexual abuse of minors. The cardinal has adamantly denied committing sexual abuse and covering up the abuse of other priests, but he has expressed regret for failing to take more action against abusive priests in the 1970s and '80s. He was a bishop in Australia from 1987 until 2014, when he was called to Rome to head up Pope Francis' efforts at reforming Vatican finances. These efforts have met some resistance. The statement issued by Cardinal Pell's office characterized Fittipaldi's claims as an instance of this resistance: “As the full impact of the Holy Father's economic reforms now start to bite, articles seeking to discredit the Holy Father and those leading the reforms are unfortunately, to be expected. They should be recognised for such.” It called Fittipaldi's work “a particularly shoddy and dated piece which merely restates false allegations against the Cardinal in a blatant attempt to blacken his name and reputation.” “These matters have already been thoroughly reviewed by relevant civil authorities and it is clear from the detailed analysis that Cardinal Pell has never been a party to cover ups and protection of pedophiles and other offenders,” the statement continued. “There have been no adverse findings against Cardinal Pell by the Royal Commission in Australia in regards to these matters.” It added that “Cardinal Pell was among the first leaders in the Church to confront this evil and take tangible steps to assist to survivors. His commitment to supporting survivors and ensuring safe and proper protocols are in place remains firm.” “The ongoing reporting of false allegations to underscore ulterior motives is not only harmful to the Church but survivors as well,” the statement concluded. Fittipaldi has previously run afoul of Vatican officials. Another of his books was a subject of the “Vatileaks 2” trial held last year. Vatican City held an eight-month trial weighing the guilt of five individuals in the leaking and disseminating of confidential financial documents, sentencing a Vatican official and a laywoman for the crime. The journalists charged in the trial were Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi. It was ruled that the journalists could not be indicted, since what they were accused of – exerting pressure on Vatican officials to obtain private documents for them – falls outside Vatican City jurisdiction. Among the cases detailed in Lussaria is that of Fr. Mauro Inzoli, who was found guilty of child sex abuse by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and laicized in 2012. But in 2014 he was allowed to again exercise his priesthood, albeit under the conditions of “a life of prayer and humble discretion.” In 2016, Fr. Inzoli was convicted on eight counts of abuse by Italian civil authorities. Read more

2017-01-17T17:40:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 17, 2017 at 5:40 pm   By

Houston, Texas, Jan 17, 2017 / 10:40 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis’ teaching on marriage aims to help people in difficult family situations without departing from the broader context of Catholic teaching, Bishop Steven J. Lopes of the Personal Ordinariate of St. Peter has explained in a new pastoral letter. “Only a careful and faithful reading of Amoris Laetitia will ensure that we receive the Holy Father’s words with the gratitude and respect due them, safeguarding this beautiful reflection from those who would misuse it to promote practices at odds with the Church’s teaching,” he wrote Jan. 16 in "A Pledged Troth". The bishop cautioned against a reading of the Pope’s 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia based on secular media reports. “As we navigate the joy and pain of family life, including obstacles and challenges that seem, at times, insurmountable, we know that we have a Savior who has gone ahead of us, has suffered as we have, and promises that nothing can separate us from his love and mercy,” he said. The bishop cited Amoris laetitia’s presentation of marriage as “an image for understanding the mystery of God himself” as “a communion of love.” Bishop Lopes’ Houston-based ordinariate, which covers the United States and Canada, is a special Church jurisdiction set up by Benedict XVI to aid Anglican communities who entered into full communion with the Catholic Church while retaining certain elements of their liturgy and other customs. The bishop’s pastoral letter reflects on the ordinariate’s marriage rite, in which spouses pledge “a deep, exclusive loyalty and lifelong faithfulness.” The marriage rite for the husband includes the words “to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy law.” A valid marriage is “irrevocable” and not even the Church has the power to contravene it, said the bishop, citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The pastoral letter gave particular attention to ordinariate members who may have divorced while part of Episcopalian or Anglican ecclesial communities. “Knowing well the reality of sin and weakness, the Church tenderly accompanies those who struggle and fail in their attempts to live God’s holy law,” Bishop Lopes said. “Constantly encouraging that daily conversion by which those who fall, can, by God’s grace, rise again, the Church never abandons her children. No one is excluded from the love and mercy of God!” Bishop Lopes noted Amoris laetitia’s emphasis on pastoral accompaniment of those who have divorced and civilly remarried. This process begins “in reminding people in this circumstance that they are loved by God and remain cherished members of the Church.” It continues through “discerning whether the irregular marital situation can be effectively resolved through a declaration of nullity of the previous marriage.” This process can appear complicated or can cause fears of opening “old wounds best left alone.” The process should not be done alone but rather within the community of the Church to help a person “peer into difficult realities with the strength of faith and Gospel truth, so that what was hurtful in the past does not inflict new pain now.” Bishop Lopes said members of the ordinariate who are divorced-and-remarried should speak to their pastor or another priest or deacon of trust. The bishop’s ordinariate does not yet have a marriage tribunal, but its priests and deacons can help the faithful navigate the local Catholic diocese’s tribunal. Concerning cases where a person’s first marriage was valid, Bishop Lopes cited both Amoris laetitia and St. John Paul II’s 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris consortio. The entire community of the faithful must be attentive to a couple’s situation and ensure that they do not consider themselves separated from the Church. The community must help the couple and any of their children experience the Church “as a mother who welcomes them always.” The bishop cited Pope Francis’ exhortation, which said a lukewarm attitude or any relativism would be “a lack of fidelity to the Gospel and also of love on the part of the Church.” “To show understanding in the face of exceptional situations never implies dimming the light of the fuller ideal, or proposing less than what Jesus offers to the human being,” the Pope’s exhortation said. The Pope warned against hasty judgements about individuals and encouraged treating the weak with compassion. Pastoral discernment with the divorced-and-remarried must avoid the “grave danger” of misunderstandings, including the idea that “any priest can quickly grant ‘exceptions’,” according to Amoris laetitia. Bishop Lopes explained that the prohibition against adultery “admits of no exceptions.” As Familiaris consortio says, discernment does not allow us to “look on the law as merely an ideal to be achieved in the future” and there are not different degrees of God’s law for different individuals and situations. The bishop stressed the need for formation of conscience in the light of Church teaching. He cited Amoris laetitia’s statement that conscience formation “can never prescind from the gospel demands of truth and charity, as proposed by the Church.” “Consequently, pastoral discernment admits of no exceptions to the moral law, nor does it replace moral law with the private judgments of conscience,” Bishop Lopes said. Bishop Lopes interpreted Amoris laetitia’s footnote 351 as saying that the formation of conscience “can include the help of the sacraments.” This phrase has been the source of much controversy. The bishop explained this help of the sacraments can include the Eucharist, under conditions of Church teaching on worthy reception of the Eucharist: anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the Sacrament of Confession. His pastoral letter placed Pope Francis’ teaching in the context of St. John Paul II’s 2003 encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, which repeated the Council of Trent’s teaching that confessing one’s mortal sins must precede the worthy reception of the Eucharist. A civilly remarried couple “committed to complete continence” could receive the Eucharist after proper discernment with their pastor and after making a sacramental confession, the bishop taught. “A civilly remarried couple firmly resolving complete chastity thus resolves not to sin again, which differs in kind from a civilly remarried couple who do not firmly intend to live chastely, however much they may feel sorrow for the failure of their first marriage,” Bishop Lopes explained. “In this situation, they either do not acknowledge that their unchastity, which is adultery, is gravely wrong, or they do not firmly intend to avoid sin.” At the same time, no one should regard themselves as beyond God’s grace. “The firm intention for a chaste life is difficult, but chastity is possible, and it ‘can be followed with the help of grace’,” Bishop Lopes said, quoting Pope Francis’ exhortation. “God orders us to our happiness and well-being, he commands only what is for our goodness, and he never abandons us in our weakness and need,” he added. His pastoral letter noted that the Anglican Communion’s pastoral practice includes, in some jurisdictions, accommodation of divorce, contraception, and same-sex unions. “As a result, that Communion has fractured as the plain teaching of Scripture, Tradition, and reason was rejected,” Bishop Lopes said, noting that this situation motivated groups of Anglicans to repeatedly request individual and corporate reception into the Catholic Church. Read more

2017-01-17T16:28:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 17, 2017 at 4:28 pm   By

Vatican City, Jan 17, 2017 / 09:28 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In the latest development in an ongoing feud between the Vatican and the Knights of Malta, the Holy See has issued a statement affirming their support for the Order and their work, but saying they expect full cooperation with an investigation into the dismissal of the Knights’ former Grand Chancellor. “In relation to the events of recent weeks concerning the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the Holy See wishes to reiterate its support and encouragement for the commendable work that members and volunteers carry out in various parts of the world,” a Jan. 17 statement from the Vatican read. However, it is for the “support and advancement” of the Order’s essential mission in service of the poor, sick, and the defense of the faith that the Holy See voiced a reaffirmation of “its confidence” in the five member group appointed by Pope Francis “to inform him about the present crisis of the Central Direction of the Order.” The Vatican said it also “rejects, based on the documentation in its possession, any attempt to discredit these members of the group and their work.” The line refers to recent reports that in the past few days the Knights have voiced their intention to launch an inquiry into the Vatican’s investigative group on the grounds that they have a “conflict of interest,” citing links between certain group members to a fund in Geneva. The statement is the latest move in what has turned out to be a heated feud between the Knights of Malta and the Vatican over the ousting of the Order’s former Grand Chancellor, Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager, in early December. Shortly after Boeselager was dismissed the Knights released a Dec. 13 statement saying his removal was due to the “subsequent concealment … from the Grand Magistry” of “severe problems which occurred during [his] tenure as Grand Hospitaller of the Order of Malta.” Since then it has come to be known that the problem cited refers to when the Order's charity branch, under Boeselager’s watch, had inadvertently been involved in distributing condoms in Burma to prevent HIV. In comments to CNA, the Order’s Communications Director confirmed that while the Burmese incident was part of why Boeselager was asked to resign, the full list of reasons is “more complex.” However, he did not reveal what the full motivations were, saying “the reasons for the dismissal are confidential.” The Vatican announced Dec. 22 that Pope Francis had formed a group of five senior officials shortly after the forced resignation to investigate the matter. Members of the group include Archbishop Silvestro Tomasi, Fr. Gianfranco Ghirlanda S.J., Jacques de Liedekerke, Marc Odendall, and Marwan Sehnaoui. In response, the Knights issued a Jan. 10 statement defending their decision, calling Boeselager’s dismissal “an internal act of governance,” making the group established by the Holy See to investigate the decision is “legally irrelevant” given the Order’s sovereignty. The Order voiced both their refusal to cooperate in the investigation as well as their encouragement for members questioned by the Vatican group to not take a stance other than that of the Grand Magistry. “Considering the legal irrelevance of this group and of its findings relating to the legal structure of the Order of Malta, the Order has decided that it should not cooperate with it,” they said in their Jan. 10 statement, insisting this refusal is meant to protect the Order’s sovereignty against “initiatives which claim to be directed at objectively (and, therefore – quite apart from its intentions – reveals it to be legally irrelevant) questioning or even limiting said Sovereignty.” They also charged that depositions individual members might give to the Vatican’s investigative group “cannot, in their terms and judgments, be in contradiction, directly or indirectly,” with the decision to remove Boeselager from his position. However, despite the ongoing tensions, the Vatican in their Jan. 17 statement said the Holy See “counts on the complete cooperation of all in this sensitive stage.” In addition, it said the Holy See “awaits the report of the above-mentioned group in order to adopt, within its area of competence, the most fitting decisions for the good of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and of the Church.” Read more

2017-01-17T13:01:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 17, 2017 at 1:01 pm   By

London, England, Jan 17, 2017 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Ahead of the Church of England’s General Synod, the Archbishop of Canterbury may be preparing a statement expected to call for repentance for the violence of the English Reformation. &ld... Read more

2017-08-25T09:25:00+00:00

Last updated on: August 25, 2017 at 9:25 am   By

Montreal, Canada, Aug 25, 2017 / 03:25 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Claude Paradis was impoverished and homeless, living on the streets of Montreal, Canada. He struggled with addiction to both alcohol and drugs, with a future so bleak, he considered ending his own life. He did not end his life, however, and today he is a priest who dedicates his time to serving the physical and spiritual needs of those trapped in poverty, prison and prostitution.  “The street brought me to the Church and the Church in the end brought me back to the street,” the priest told the Journal Metro. Last December, as a sign of his closeness and solidarity with the homeless, Fr. Paradis decided to sleep on the street for the whole month, to care for the homeless people there with solidarity and charity. His hope was that he could accompany people in a difficult situation while also making the citizens of Montreal aware of the harsh reality faced by those living on the street. Fr. Paradi founded an institution called Notre-Dame-de-la-rue (Our Lady of the Street). Each night, he goes out to bring food and shelter to those living on the streets. He also administers the sacraments, celebrates the Eucharist and even presides at funerals. The priest is accompanied by one of his co-workers, Kevin Cardin, who also was addicted to drugs, but found help, changed his life and now has a family. Notre-Dame-de-la-rue has the support of the Archbishop Christian Lépine of Montreal, who has described the initiative as “a presence of the Church to give encouragement.” It also has the support of the city. “Our mission is especially to give encouragement. Unlike the shelters, we go out to the people, a bit like a door-to-door service. We talk to them, sometimes we pray together before they go back to face the harshness of the street.” Fr. Paradis knows how hard life on the street is. After growing up in the Gaspé region and working in Cowansville as a nurse, he came to Montreal 25 years ago. However, he was unable to find a job. “Isolation and despair took hold of me,” he said. Living on the street, he thought about committing suicide. “I started doing cocaine and then crack,” he recalled. In a letter posted on the website of La Victoire de l'Amour (the Victory of Love), Fr. Paradis tells how he met the Lord. “I had the privilege of meeting God just at the moment I was doubting Him. On a little back street in Montreal, abandoned by people, there was nobody there. Passing by the old church, impelled by I don't know what instinct, I turned back in there.” At that moment, he had a deep and intense encounter with God. He realized he did not want to die, but rather wanted to become “a man of the Church.”  Fr. Paradis went on to fight his addictions and now ministers to many people who face the same challenges he struggled with years ago. The 57-year-old priest has dedicated the rest of his life to serving the poor, saying “on the street is where I want to be, until I die.”  This article was originally published on CNA Jan. 17, 2017. Read more

2017-01-17T07:18:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 17, 2017 at 7:18 am   By

New York City, N.Y., Jan 17, 2017 / 12:18 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Thousands gathered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City on Friday to commemorate and mourn the loss of Officer Steven McDonald, one of the city’s most influential police ... Read more

2017-01-17T00:17:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 17, 2017 at 12:17 am   By

Washington D.C., Jan 16, 2017 / 05:17 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The new nominee for U.S. Attorney General has said that he would “vigorously” enforce obscenity laws, a move which one expert described as a step forward in fighting pornography and... Read more

2017-01-16T23:44:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 16, 2017 at 11:44 pm   By

Bologna, Italy, Jan 16, 2017 / 04:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In an interview with an Italian daily published Saturday, Cardinal Carlo Caffarra discussed at length the questions which exist about the interpretation of Amoris laetitia, Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation on love in the family. Cardinal Caffarra, the emeritus Archbishop of Bologna who was head of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family from 1981 to 1995, spoke to Matteo Matzuzzi of Il Foglio in an interview published Jan. 14. He is among the four cardinals who authored a letter with five dubia, or doubts, about the interpretation of Amoris laetitia, requesting that Pope Francis “resolve the uncertainties and bring clarity.” Their letter was sent privately to the Pope Sept. 19, but released to the public two months later. The letter and its dubia “were long reflected on, for months … for my part, they were also the subject of lengthy prayer before the Most Blessed Sacrament,” Cardinal Caffarra explained to Il Foglio. The four cardinals believed themselves obliged to submit the dubia because of their role in counselling the Pope, and because of “the fact – which only a blind man could deny – that in the Church there exists great confusion, uncertainty, insecurity caused by some paragraphs of Amoris laetitia.” “In these months, in terms of fundamental questions regarding the sacramental economy (marriage, confession, and the Eucharist) and the Christian life, some bishops have said A, some others have said the contrary of A, with the intention of interpreting well the same text.” Cardinal Caffarra said that “the way out of this 'conflict of interpretations' was to have recourse to fundamental theological criteria of interpretation, the use of which I think can reasonably demonstrate that Amoris laetitia does not contradict Familiaris consortio.” And yet, he said, “we saw that this epistemological model would not suffice. The contrast between the two interpretations continued,” and so the only way to address the question was to ask the author of Amoris laetitia to clarify it. Out of respect for the Pope, the four cardinals chose to submit their dubia privately, deciding to make them public only “when we had certainty that the Holy Father would not respond … we interpreted his silence as authorisation to continue the theological discussion. And, moreover, the problem profoundly involves both the magisterium of the bishops (which, lest we forget, they exercise not by the delegation of the Pope but on the basis of the sacrament which they have received) and the life of the faithful.” The cardinal noted that scandal on the part of the faithful had been growing, “as though we comported ourselves like the dogs who did not bark,” alluding to Isaiah 56:10, in which the prophet says the Lord's watchmen “are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber.” He also added that division in the Church “is the cause of the letter, not its effect.” Cardinal Caffarra pointed to the example of a pastor who had written him saying that “In spiritual direction and in confession I don't know what to say” when confronted by penitents who wish to receive Communion despite their adulterous situation, and cite the Pope in their defence. “The situation of many pastors of souls, I mean above all parish priests, is this,” the cardinal continued: “there is on their shoulders a burden too hard to bear.” Cardinal Caffarra charged that speaking of too great a division between doctrine and pastoral practice is a grave problem: “To think pastoral practice is not founded and rooted in doctrine signifies that the foundation and root of pastoral practice is arbitrary. A Church which pays little attention to doctrine is not a more pastoral Church, but a more ignorant Church.” He continued, “When I hear it said that this is only a pastoral change, and not a doctrinal one, or that the commandment prohibiting adultery is a purely positive law which can be changed (and I think no righteous person can think this), this signifies that yes a triangle has generally three sides, but that it is possible to construct one with four sides. That is, I say, an absurdity.” Cardinal Caffarra also discussed the notion of “development of doctrine,” which is at times used to invoke the admission of the divorced-and-remarried to Communion. He said that “if there is one clear point, it is that there is no evolution where there is contradiction. If I say that S is P and then I say that S is not P, the second proposition does not develop the first, but contradicts it. Already Aristotle had justly taught that enunciating a universal affirmative principle (e.g., all adultery is wrong) and at the same time a particular negative proposition having the same subject and predicate (e.g., some adultery is not wrong), this is not making an exception to the first. It is contradicting it.” The dubia, he noted, were meant to clarify whether or not Amoris laetitia is a development of the preceding Magisterium, or a contradiction of it – as both interpretations have been taken by some bishops. “Has Amoris laetitia taught that, given certain circumstances and after going through a certain process, the [divorced-and-remarried] faithful could receive the Eucharist without resolving to live in continence? There are bishops who have taught that this is possible,” the cardinal remarked. “By a simple deduction of logic, one must therefore also teach that adultery is not in and of itself evil.” He affirmed that Amoris laetitia's value is that “it does not call pastors of souls to be content with responding 'no'” to the faithful, but that it calls them to help the faithful discern their situation. Cardinal Caffarra maintained that the importance of the dubia is ensuring that bishops and pastors remember that there are intrinsically evil acts – which he noted can be known by reason, and was recognized first in the West by Socrates. The cardinal then turned to misunderstandings of conscience. He clarified that conscience “is an act of reason … a judgement, not a decision,” and contrasted this with the understanding of conscience as “an unappealable tribunal on the goodness or evil of one's actions: one's subjectivity.” He said the fifth dubium was the most important, for it regarded conscience, asking if the teaching “that conscience can never be authorised to legitimate exceptions to absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts by virtue of their object” still need be regarded as valid. Cardinal Caffarra noted that a passage of Amoris laetitia seems “to admit the possibility that there can be a true judgement of conscience … in contradiction with what the Church teaches as pertaining to the deposit of divine Revelation. It seems. Therefore have we given the dubia to the Pope.” The cardinal concluded by referring to Bl. John Henry Newman, who he said understood conscience “in a most lucid way”. The English convert recognised that private judgement cannot be elevated as “the ultimate criterion of moral truth.” “Never say to a person: 'Always follow your conscience', without adding, always and immediately: 'love and seek the truth about the good'. Otherwise you would put in his hands the weapon most destructive of his humanity.” Read more

2017-01-16T18:36:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 16, 2017 at 6:36 pm   By

Manila, Philippines, Jan 16, 2017 / 11:36 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Philippines government has blocked several commonly accessed pornography websites, on both desktop and portable devices, citing child pornography laws. The country’s National Tel... Read more

2017-01-16T17:14:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 16, 2017 at 5:14 pm   By

Vatican City, Jan 16, 2017 / 10:14 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis Monday sent a telegram to survivors of a cargo plane crash in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan, expressing his sorrow for all those who died and sending his prayers for the res... Read more

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