2016-01-21T17:14:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 21, 2016 at 5:14 pm   By

Vatican City, Jan 21, 2016 / 10:14 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has changed the rules for the Church’s traditional foot-washing ceremony on Holy Thursday, issuing a decree allowing women to participate in what has until now been a ritual officially open only to men. In a letter addressed to Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Pope said that from now on the 12 persons chosen to participate in the ritual of the washing of the feet will be selected “from among all members of the People of God.” “For some time I have been reflecting on the rite of the washing of the feet, which forms part of the Liturgy of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, with the intention of improving the ways in which it is put into practice, so that we fully express the meaning of the gesture made by Jesus in the Upper Room, his gift of self until the end for the salvation of the world, his boundless charity.” Francis also stressed that “an adequate explanation of the meaning of the rite itself” ought to be provided for those chosen to participate. The official decree was signed by Cardinal Sarah Jan. 6. In it, the cardinal specified that the previous text of the Roman Missal, which says that “the men chosen are accompanied by the ministers,” has now been changed to read “those chosen from among the People of God are accompanied by the ministers.” Pastors can freely choose a group of faithful “that represents the variety and unity of every part of the people of God,” he said, explaining that this group may now consist of “men and women, and suitably of young and elderly, healthy and sick, clerics, consecrated and laity.” Many parishes around the world had already been including women in the ritual for years; the decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship makes the practice licit. Francis himself had a habit of including women and non-Catholics in the ritual during his own Holy Thursday liturgies, which have taken place in both a juvenile detention center and a center for the elderly and disabled. Just after his election as Bishop of Rome in 2013, Pope Francis said Mass at Rome’s Casal del Marmo juvenile detention center, where washed the feet of 12 youth, including two women and two Muslims. A year later, he said Holy Thursday Mass at the Don Gnocchi center for the elderly and disabled, where he washed the feet of both young people and elderly, four of whom were women. Although the Pope has previously chosen to wash the feet of both non-Catholics and non-Christians, Archbishop Arthur Roche, secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, cautioned that the new change does not necessarily include them. In Jan. 21 comments to CNA, the archbishop said that the changes are meant for “the local community,” and members of “the local parish.” He said that reading the decree as an invitation for non-Catholics to participate would be a “selective interpretation” of the text, and that while this could be something that happens “in the future,” it’s probably not what the Pope’s decision intended. However, Archbishop Roche did say that although the decree is meant for the local community, it’s possible that a non-Catholic spouse of a parishioner who regularly attends the Catholic liturgy could be chosen to participate. The archbishop also touched on the topic of whether non-Christians could be chosen. He pointed to Pope Francis’ decision to wash the feel of Muslim youth in 2013, distinguishing between papal liturgies from the everyday liturgy in “normal” situations. He explained that when Pope Francis chose to wash the feet of Muslim youth, it was under “special circumstances” and took place in an “unusual setting,” whereas the current decree is intended for the “normal, everyday liturgy in the parish.” So when reading the decree’s emphasis on the “People of God,” Archbishop Roche said the phrase can be interpreted from its use in Lumen gentium, the Second Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on the Church, in which the term refers “specifically to the Church.” Read more

2016-01-21T13:04:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 21, 2016 at 1:04 pm   By

Santander, Spain, Jan 21, 2016 / 06:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A video that shares the testimonies of people who have personally suffered the persecution of Christians in the Middle East is calling on their fellow Christians in the West to “wake up” to the grave crisis facing their brethren. The most important thing that Christians can do for their brethen in Iraq and Syria is to build a courageously Christians society in their own countries, an exiled Iraqi bishop says in his interview. The two objectives of the short video are to “help people become more aware of the persecution that is taking place in the East” and to “encourage Christians to begin to live a more profound faith with courage,” Sr. Megan María Conway, SHM, told CNA. The video, “Wake Up!” is produced by the EUK Mamie Foundation, a new evangelization effort of the Home of the Mother, an international public association of the faithful which was approved by the Vatican in 2010. One of the testimonies is from Father Douglas Bazi, an Iraqi priest who in 2006 was kidnapped and tortured by Muslim extremists. He is currently rector of the St. Elijah parish and refugee camp in Erbil, where tens of thousands of residents of Mosul fled after it was captured by the Islamic State in June 2014. “First of all, I ask you to wake up,” Fr. Bazi says to the video's viewers. “If you are going to just be silent, it is the same thing as agreeing with those who are persecuting us. So don't be silent. If you can, don’t just watch. Take action. And – wake up.” Archbishop Amel Shamon Nona of the Chaldean Eparchy of Saint Thomas the Apostle of Sydney – and who was the Chaldean bishop of Mosul until January 2015 – stated that “the whole Western world is in danger, because many suicide bombers, many militants, Islamic State militants, have come to us from Europe, America, and Australia.” An Argentine religious priest who serves at the Baghdad cathedral, Fr. Luis Montes, said that the Islamic State “has reached this level of madness, this craziness, because (they’ve) let hatred enter into their hearts.” The video also presents the testimony of Miereille Al Farah, a Syrian Catholic woman who works as a marketing director in Damascus. She comments that “there is a certain rejection of what we are, I don’t like to say it, but a certain hatred...We were born Christians, but we’ve also chosen this faith and it’s the only true Way, as Jesus says: 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life'.” Nevertheless, Fr. Montes said, “the Christians in Iraq are an incredible example of forgiveness. People who forgive, who forgive with all their hearts.” “We have to fight against this hatred by doing good. With the charity that Jesus taught us, that led him to give his life for us, the same charity that inspires these martyrs,” the priest adds. “We have martyrs, I don’t like to say this, but if we’re going to have more martyrs than the people who have faith in Europe, I think we have a problem,” Fr. Bazi then warns. Archbishop Nona says that “you can help us by building a more active and courageous Christian society, which is active, brave. You have to evangelize your society again with courage, without any fear of saying, 'we’re Christians'. This is the help you can give us.” Read more

2016-01-21T07:09:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 21, 2016 at 7:09 am   By

Washington D.C., Jan 21, 2016 / 12:09 am (National Catholic Register).- The major relics of Maximilian Kolbe, who was canonized by St. John Paul II, began an 8-month tour Jan. 15-17 in Ellicott City, Md., at the Shrine of St. Anthony. The tour started with noon Mass at the shrine. The tour sponsored by the Franciscan Friars Minor Conventual of the Our Lady of the Angels Province will continue until August 14, the date commemorating the 75th anniversary of Kolbe’s martyrdom in the World War II Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland. The pilgrimage will be historic — the largest tour of his relics ever mounted in the United States. Traveling up and down the east coast and also into Canada, St. Maximilian's relics will visit 39 sites. At each site there will be a liturgy, opportunities for veneration, time for prayer and material for study. Most stops will be for two days, such as an early one at St. Casimir Church in Baltimore, Md., on Jan. 22-24, and later ones such as St. Francis of Assisi Church in Athol Springs, N.Y., on May 20-22. A few will last several days, like the one scheduled at Catholic University of America in Washington for Feb. 17-21. The large silver and bronze reliquary presents different symbols from his life and, notably holds strands from St. Maximilian’s beard. Because he was martyred at Auschwitz, these are the only remaining first class relics — something that was part of a saint’s body. In 1938, the saintly friar returned from a missionary journey to Japan sporting a full, long beard. He had grown it to help his missionary work in Japan because the beard earned the respect of those people who was there to serve. But in Poland, the beard was more than a detraction. Under the country’s National Socialism, the beard incited his own persecution and the persecution of fellow friars — there were hundreds in the monastery, a phenomenal number. One book on his life offers this quote from the saint: “Beards provoke the enemy who rapidly is approaching our friary. Our Franciscan habits also will provoke him. I can part with my beard. I can’t sacrifice my habit.” Joseph Hamilton, spokesman for the tour and director of development for the Franciscan Friars Conventual in Ellicott City, told the story of how Maximilian’s beard came to be saved. “He was the only friar in Poland like that at the time. All the others were clean shaven,” Hamilton explained. In the fall of 1939 when the Nazis invaded Poland, the printing presses established by Maximilian Kolbe were running 24 hours a day. “He was on the Nazi radar,” Hamilton emphasized. His superior told him it was better he shaved his beard off so as not to stand out in the society. Hamilton described how “the brother shaving off the beard put it aside. Maximillian saw it and asked what he was doing.” Then he told the barber brother to throw the beard into the fire. The brother did, but there were no coals. “So when Maximilian left, he fished it out. By 1939 he was a ‘force’, so the guys knew we better grab some relics while we can," Hamilton said. Indeed Maximilian Kolbe was a “force” on the watch list. He founded the Militia Immaculata (MI), an evangelization movement identifying with Mary, the Immaculate. He founded “Cities of the Immaculata” in Niepokalanow, Poland outside Warsaw, and in Nagasaki, Japan. Religious works poured from the printing presses in Niepokalanow including a daily newspaper with a circulation of 230,000 and a monthly magazine with over one million circulation. Friars and seminarians there numbered an astounding 782 already by 1936. Of course, in 1939 Maximilian was arrested along with 50 other friars, but they were released. He was arrested again on Feb. 17, 1941. This time he would not make it out. It didn’t come as a surprise because, Hamilton told me, “After the first arrest they knew.” The barber friar’s decision to save the beard turned out to be providential. After the Gestapo arrested him the second time, he was sent to Auschwitz where he volunteered to take the place of an innocent husband and father to be executed. Maximilian died a martyr on Aug. 14, 1941. Hamilton added more details about the relic. He said a large chunk of beard was stuffed into a pickle jar. Today two main or biggest sections of it are split between Rome and Poland. Some of the strands were placed into four identical reliquaries. One is used for this pilgrimage. Father James McCurry of the Franciscan Friars Conventual and minister provincial of the Our Lady of the Angels Province, explained the importance of relics. “Relics remind us that saints were real human beings with hair, skin, bones and blood,” he noted. “We venerate relics to connect with the real person behind them — now proclaimed by the Church to be in Heaven, from where he or she remains interested and involved in our lives.”The Reliquary The large silver and bronze reliquary holding the strands from Maximilian’s beard in a glass case is quite unique. It’s designed to include important symbols from his life too. The base is shaped like Poland, the place of his birth and where his vocation and work first flourished. “Thorns” grow from this Poland symbolizing the occupation by the Third Reich and then the Auschwitz concentration camp too. But from the thorns grow a lily symbolizing purity and a tulip symbolizing martyrdom. The flowers tell how God made him blossom like a lily, while both flowers symbolize his love being victorious over hate. The glass case holding the strands from his beard is encircled by a Franciscan cord with its tradition three knots for the three Franciscan vows. It symbolizes his vocation.Year of Mercy Saint In 1982 St. Pope John Paul II canonized Maximilian as a "Martyr of Charity" and “patron saint of our difficult century.” St. Maximilian Kolbe is also the patron saint of prisoners, families, the pro-life movement, journalists, and chemically addicted. How do the Franciscans of Our Lady of the Angels Province see this pilgrimage fitting into the Year of Mercy? "St. Maximilian Kolbe died as a ‘Martyr of Charity’ at Auschwitz Concentration Camp 75 years ago (Aug. 14, 1941).  His death bore witness to "mercy" par excellence,”   Father McCurry told the Register. “Its anniversary aptly coincides with the Church’s Jubilee Year of Mercy.” The minister provincial explained, “Mercy — in Latin, Misericordia — means ‘to feel in one’s heart the misery of others.’  Moved with such compassion for the miserable plight of a fellow prisoner, St. Maximilian offered to take the condemned man’s place in a starvation bunker.  His martyrdom was an act of mercy, showing that God uses ordinary men and women to exemplify extraordinary love of neighbor." This relic tour again brings to light that act of mercy in this jubilee year. See the complete pilgrimage itinerary here. Read more

2016-01-20T23:47:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 20, 2016 at 11:47 pm   By

Denver, Colo., Jan 20, 2016 / 04:47 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- One year after a similar effort was defeated, the Colorado legislature will revisit proposals to legalize assisted suicide, with opponents warning against creating incentives for people to kill t... Read more

2016-01-20T23:20:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 20, 2016 at 11:20 pm   By

Vatican City, Jan 20, 2016 / 04:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- While advancements in technology are mostly positive, they can also negatively affect the poor and the environment and risk letting “soulless machines” take the place of people, Pope Francis warned. “In the face of profound and epochal changes, world leaders are challenged to ensure that the coming 'fourth industrial revolution,' the result of robotics and scientific and technological innovations, does not lead to the destruction of the human person,” the Pope has said. He cautioned against allowing human beings to be “replaced by a soulless machine,” and warned that if technology gets too far out of our hands, the planet could slowly turn into “an empty garden for the enjoyment of a chosen few.” “There is a need to create new models of doing business which, while promoting the development of advanced technologies, are also capable of using them to create dignified work for all, to uphold and consolidate social rights, and to protect the environment,” he said. “Man must guide technological development, without letting himself be dominated by it!” Pope Francis made his comments in a message addressed to Professor Klaus Schwab, founder and president of the World Economic Forum, on the first day of the organization's annual meeting. A Swiss nonprofit organization based in Geneva, the forum holds a meeting every year in Davos-Klosters to discuss how to improve the state of the world by engaging global leaders in the business, political and academic fields to collaborate in global, regional and industry agendas. Following the theme “Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” the forum this year runs from Jan. 20-23. Cardinal Peter Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, read the Pope's message aloud on the first day of the meeting. In his message, Francis noted that the rise of the “so-called fourth industrial revolution” has been accompanied by a “drastic reduction” in the number of jobs available. He referred to a recent study conducted by the International Labor Organization, which indicates that hundreds of millions of people are currently affected by unemployment. “The financialization and technologization of national and global economies have produced far-reaching changes in the field of labor,” the Pope said, adding that the lack of opportunity for “useful and dignified employment,” coupled with a decline in social security, are causing “a disturbing rise” in both poverty and inequality throughout the world. Francis stressed the need to create new ways of doing business that both promote technological advancements, and safeguard the dignity of the human person. Pope Francis urged them not to forget the poor, saying that this concern is “the primary challenge before you as leaders in the business world.” “We must never allow the culture of prosperity to deaden us, to make us incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people's pain, and sensing the need to help them, as though all this were someone else's responsibility and not our own,” he said. To weep for other people's pain doesn't just mean sharing in their sufferings, he said, but primarily requires that we realize our own actions are frequently a cause of injustice and inequality. Once we realize this, “we become more fully human, since responsibility for our brothers and sisters is an essential part of our common humanity.” Francis told attendees that in opening their hearts and minds to the poor, “you will give free rein to your economic and technical talents, and discover the happiness of a full life, which consumerism of itself cannot provide.” He encouraged them to take present opportunities when it comes to governing the processes currently underway, building “inclusive societies” founded on respect for the human person, tolerance, compassion and mercy. “I urge you, then, to take up anew your conversation on how to build the future of the planet, our common home, and I ask you to make a united effort to pursue a sustainable and integral development.” The Pope said that business is “a noble vocation,” especially when it promotes the creation of jobs as “an essential part of its service to the common good.” Business therefore has a great responsibility in helping to overcome the “complex crisis of society and the environment,” as well as the scourge of poverty. Doing this, he said, will make it possible to improve the poor living conditions that millions of people are subjected to, and will bridge “the social gap which gives rise to numerous injustices and erodes fundamental values of society, including equality, justice and solidarity.” Francis closed his message by expressing his hope that the meeting would become a platform from which to advocate for the defense and protection of creation, as well as the achievement of a progress that is “healthier, more human, more social, more integral.” He also voiced his hope that participants would give special attention to the environmental goals and efforts to eradicate poverty outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as well as the recent Paris Agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Read more

2016-01-20T13:02:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 20, 2016 at 1:02 pm   By

Cordoba, Spain, Jan 20, 2016 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The love in a marriage is like “the wine at the wedding feast of Cana,” a Spanish bishop said in a recent pastoral letter, in which he encouraged spouses to turn to the Virgin Mary for help when their relationship is troubled. Bishop Demetrio Fernández Gonzalez of Cordoba encouraged the faithful to pray to the Virgin so that love is never lacking in their union in a Jan. 14 letter: “May the good wine of a renewed love never be lacking in each and every one of your homes.” “And when love is gone? It seems that everything is over and the only solution is to go your separate ways. But no. Have recourse to Mary, who said to Jesus: 'They have no wine'. If Jesus is present, he can make wine in any circumstances … as he did at the wedding of Cana.” “If that first love has grown cold, it can be rekindled with a humble request to Jesus, who came to fill the human heart in every way, including the marital dimension,” Bishop Fernández said. Taking up the Gospel of the wedding at Cana where Christ worked his first miracle, the bishop recalled the importance of marriage as “the foundation of the family according to God’s plan,” a union between one man and one woman “united in the love blessed by God, generously open to life, until death do they part.” “Jesus instituted the sacrament of marriage through which the spouses are consecrated by the Holy Spirit to give themselves completely throughout their lives to one another, in a self-giving of love,” the Bishop of Cordoba explained, and pointed out that on that journey “every day, true love has to be shown anew.” Bishop Fernández therefore highlighted the importance of the humble petition of the spouses so that “there is no lack of the wine of joy in the home, the wine of love that Jesus Christ gave to each of the spouses on their wedding day.” “Lifelong fidelity is possible, a love that never ends is possible, happiness is possible in  marriage,  which God himself created and Christ has sanctified,” the bishop said. He added, however, that “you’ve got to humbly ask for it with faith every day.” ‘This is the miracle that Jesus is ready to multiply in our times, so that there is no lack of the good wine renewed in each and every home.” Read more

2016-01-20T12:32:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 20, 2016 at 12:32 pm   By

Vatican City, Jan 20, 2016 / 05:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his general audience during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Pope Francis focused on the common baptism Christians share, saying the strength of this bond is stronger than existing divis... Read more

2016-01-20T10:06:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 20, 2016 at 10:06 am   By

Lyon, France, Jan 20, 2016 / 03:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After sustaining a damaged leg tendon in 1982, 34-year old international footballer Jean-Pierre Adams thought that a routine knee surgery at a hospital in Lyon, France would relieve some of his discomfort. By the end of the day, the surgery had left Adams in a comatose state, unable to perform normal bodily functions like walking or talking. That was over thirty years ago. Today, his devoted wife Bernadette personally cares for Jean-Pierre in their home near Nimes, France, where the beloved footballer remains bedridden and comatose. “I think he feels things. He must recognize the sound of my voice as well,” Bernadette told CNN in a recent interview, saying he can still breathe on his own but needs round-the-clock attention. Bernadette and Jean-Pierre met at a dance in the 1960s. As an interracial couple, the two grew in resilience through the challenges they faced and married in 1969. Not long after, Jean-Pierre was playing first division side football as the “garde noire” alongside some of the best in the world. “He was the 'joie di vivre' embodied in human form – a laugher and joker who liked to go out,” his wife told CNN. That all changed on March 17, 1982 when the understaffed hospital botched Adams' intubation, causing a heart attack, brain damage, and an eventual coma. The surgery was ruled as an “involuntary injury” and the medical workers were found guilty seven years after the incident. Jean-Pierre, now 68, is cared for daily by his faithful wife Bernadette. She feeds him, talks to him, clothes him, and still buys presents for him to open on his birthday. “I'll buy things so that he can have a nice room, such as pretty sheets, or some scent. He used to wear Paco Rabanne but his favorite one stopped so now I buy Sauvage by Dior,” Bernadette told CNN. When asked about euthanasia, Bernadette replied, “What do you want me to do – deprive him of food? Let him die little by little? No, no, no.” Although the 33-year journey has not been easy, Bernadette still clings to hope and to her husband of 46 years. “If one day, medical science evolves, then why not? Will there be a day when they'll know how to do something for him? I don't know,” she told CNN. More information about the Adams' story can be found here.  Read more

2016-01-20T07:57:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 20, 2016 at 7:57 am   By

Washington D.C., Jan 20, 2016 / 12:57 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Beneath the pro-life/pro-choice divide in the U.S., there is a significant consensus favoring abortion restrictions, according to a new Marist poll commissioned by the Knights of Columbus. &ld... Read more

2016-01-19T23:49:00+00:00

Last updated on: January 19, 2016 at 11:49 pm   By

New York City, N.Y., Jan 19, 2016 / 04:49 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A new United Nations report has tried to count the civilian toll of continuing conflict in Iraq, largely at the hands of Islamic State militants, and the numbers are "staggering." “Even the obscene casualty figures fail to accurately reflect exactly how terribly civilians are suffering in Iraq,” Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Jan. 19. “The figures capture those who were killed or maimed by overt violence, but countless others have died from the lack of access to basic food, water or medical care.” He said the report showed the sufferings of Iraqi civilians and “starkly illustrates what Iraqi refugees are attempting to escape when they flee to Europe and other regions.” “This is the horror they face in their homelands.” Between January 2014 and October 2015, at least 18,802 civilians were killed in Iraq. About half of them died in Baghdad province. Another 36,000 were injured. The deadliest tactic against civilians has been the use of improvised explosive devices, both in vehicles and in the vests of suicide bombers. Another 3.2 million people were internally displaced in the 21-month time period measured by the report. The displaced include about 1 million school-aged children. The figures were recorded by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. “The violence suffered by civilians in Iraq remains staggering,” the report said. The report noted the Islamic State group’s continued “systemic and widespread violence and abuses” and its systematic persecution of different ethnic and religious communities. “These acts may, in some instances, amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide,” the report continued. The Islamic State has controlled Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, since June 2014. It has imposed a rigid version of Islamic law in territory it controls, but its rule also features arbitrary violence. The U.N. estimates that the group holds about 3,500 slaves. The slaves are mainly women and children of the Yazidi religion. Some of the women are killed for trying to escape or for refusing sexual relations with Islamic State fighters. The report said that 800 to 900 children in Mosul have been abducted and put through Islamic State religious and military training. There have been accounts of child soldiers who were killed for fleeing fighting on the front lines of Iraq’s Anbar province. Islamic State courts have sentenced their opponents to punishments including death, stoning, or amputation. Those targeted included people affiliated with the government, doctors, lawyers, journalists, and tribal and religious leaders. The report said actual casualties could be “much higher than reported” due to difficulties in verifying incidents. This is true particularly of Anbar province, in Iraq's west, much of which is controlled by the Islamic State. The Islamic State group has targeted ancient sites, churches, mosques, shrines, and tombs it considers to be un-Islamic. U.N. agencies have also received reports of human rights violations and abuses by pro-government forces. These include unlawful killings, abductions, movement restrictions, and forced evictions. Military airstrikes, shelling and other operations have killed civilians and damaged their property. At least 2,365 civilians were killed by unknown perpetrators in 2015 from May 1 to October 31. The U.N. report noted new discoveries of mass graves. Many of the mass graves are recent, while some date to the time of Saddam Hussein. Jan Kubis, the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General for Iraq, especially denounced the Islamic State group’s treatment of civilians. “I strongly reiterate my call to all parties to the conflict to ensure the protection of civilians from the effects of violence,” he said. Read more

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