Vatican City, Sep 16, 2015 / 03:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Outside entities who drive the Syrian war – either through the selling of arms or their own political and strategic interests – must stop, and the country should look inside itself to resolve the conflict. These are the words of the Chaldean Bishop of Aleppo, Antoine Audo, who has watched the destruction of his country through fighting between its government and various rebel factions over the last four years. “I think the solution is political,” he told CNA. “We have to stop giving arms and money to those groups, and to find a way for a political solution from the Syrian (people), from inside and not from outside.” The Chaldean bishop's words came ahead of a Sept. 16 news conference titled “Syrian Christians: help us to stay,” hosted by Aid to the Church in Need and the Foreign Press Association. During a question and answer session for the event, the bishop said that “at an international level, (there is) a determination to continue the war, to destroy, to divide, until everything has been leveled to the ground, like they did in Iraq, like they did in Libya, like they are doing in Yemen.” The reality of the Syrian war, he said, is one bent on destruction and division that serves both regional and international interests. “I think the first interest is, and Pope Francis has spoken of this on several important occasions, the selling of arms. Economic interests at the regional and international level, and then strategic interests.” Russia has been a leading importer of arms in Syria, donating millions in weapons, including missile systems, which critics have said help keep Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in power, according to Rueters. The United States has also been a generous contributor to the conflict, mostly via a secret CIA operation aimed at training and arming Syrian rebels,   the Washington Post reports.   Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the main supporters of the rebels in the Middle East. Since the war first broke out in 2011, 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives, among whom are 11,000 children. Four million Syrians have fled abroad and are living as refugees, while an additional 8 million are internally displaced. Close to 3 million children have stopped going to school, and life expectancy in the country has dropped from 79 in 2011 to 55 today. Bishop Audo told CNA the situation on the ground is one “of war, of danger everywhere, not only for Christians but for everybody,” particularly in Aleppo, which sits near the Turkish border and is more vulnerable to attacks. “It's a very hard situation of danger and poverty. For instance, we’re still living for more than a month or two with no water or electricity,” he said. In his speech, the bishop said that poverty is drastically increasing, and that “when I walk out onto the street I see an aggressive poverty. Misery.” He noted how there is one well in Aleppo where people go to get water, of which there is a shortage. Children can frequently be seen in the streets with empty bottles in hand looking for water, he said, adding that the hot summer has aggravated the situation. “All of those who can leave do, because this region is in immense poverty…how can one live without dignity and quality of life?” he asked. This is the situation that leads many to gather what funds they can and travel to Turkey to pay for a trip across the sea, which all too often end in “these terrible accidents and deaths…because there isn’t a horizon for a solution.” As the authority who oversees Aleppo's Chaldean Catholic population, Bishop Audo said that he understands why they are leaving, but wants to do everything possible to help them stay. “It's not easy,” he confessed, adding that to see Christians leaving is “an experience of death, an experience of the end of our presence.” “Not for me as a Chaldean bishop, but for all patriarchs, all bishops, for the whole community,” he said, but conceded that “we don’t have another choice in front of us. This is the drama we are living today.” However, he told CNA that the presence of Christians “is very important for Syria, for the universal Church, for Arabic Christianity in dialogue with Islam, and for our Eastern Churches rooted in this country,” and because of this he will continue to do what’s possible for Christians to stay. Read more

Vatican City, Sep 16, 2015 / 11:52 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Council of Cardinals finally submitted to Pope Francis on Wednesday a proposal to establish a new congregation for laity, family, and life in the Roman Curia, after widespread discussion and anticipation. The council of nine cardinals, who are advising the Pope on reform of the Roman Curia, met at the Vatican Sept. 14-16. Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, Emeritus Archbishop of Milan, had prepared for Pope Francis a study on the feasibility of creating a congregation for laity, family, and life, and presented his findings to the council. Having formally recommended the creation of the laity-family-life congregation, the Council of Cardinals is still discussing the proposal of another new congregation, for charity, justice, and peace. It is planned that the congregation for laity, family, and life would absorb the Pontifical Councils for the Laity and Family, and the Pontifical Academy of Life. A congregation for charity, justice, and peace would take on the tasks of the Pontifical Councils for Justice and Peace, Migrants, Cor Unum, and Health Care. It is now up to Pope Francis to decide how to receive and implement the council's recommendations. At the Sept. 16 press briefing presenting the findings of the council, Fr. Federico Lombardi, Holy See press officer, noted that that work of the council “is not only focused on curial reform: the cardinals are also called to advise the Pope on the government of the universal Church.” To that end, they also discussed a possible reform of the procedure for the appointment of bishops, in particular discussing “the qualities and requisites for candidates in view of the needs of today’s world, and on the related issue of information gathering.” Fr. Lombardi added that this will be discussed further, and with the relevant dicasteries. The Council of Cardinals also heard from Msgr. Dario Edoardo Viganò, prefect of the recently established Secretariat for Communications. Msgr. Viganò explained that the secretariat has appointed a group of experts, drawn from the involved institutes, to draft its statutes. The statutes are to emphasize the legal and administrative aspects of the Holy See's communications. During the last meeting of the Council of Cardinals, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors advanced a proposal to establish a new judicial section in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to judge eventual wrongdoing of bishops in cases of abuse. The Pope accepted the proposal and established a five year period for further development of these proposals and for completing a formal evaluation of their effectiveness. This theme was raised during the last Council of the Cardinals. Fr. Lombardi said that “the matter of how to implement proposals was explored in further depth, especially with regard to the possibility of accelerating the resolution of the many cases still pending.” There was also discussion about a draft preamble of the new apostolic constitution defining the Roman Curia, which will replace St. John Paul II's Pastor bonus. The 12th meeting of the Council of Cardinals will take place Dec. 10-12. Read more

Vatican City, Sep 16, 2015 / 11:19 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Women have a special God-given role in protecting each generation against the evils of its time, Pope Francis said in characteristically off-the-cuff remarks during his weekly Wednesday general audience. Reflecting on Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis, Pope Francis noted that this first man and woman failed at protecting the creation that had been entrusted to them by God, resulting in the inheritance of original sin for all of mankind. However, God covered the nakedness of Adam and Eve as a “gesture of tenderness,” to show that He did not wish us to be left “naked and abandoned to our destiny as sinners,” Pope Francis said.   Rather than abandoning us to this “disease” of original sin, God set up a woman as a “protective barrier” against the evils of every generation, he added.   “This means that the woman carries a secret and special blessing” for defending us against evil, the pontiff said, recalling the woman from the book of Revelation who hid her son from the dragon. “Think about that depth which is opened here! There exist many stereotypes – which are often offensive – about the temptress woman who inspires evil.” “Rather, there is a place for a theology of woman who has the height of this blessing from God for her and for her generation!” Christ himself was “born of a woman,” the Pope said, and “is the tenderness of God on our wounds, on our mistakes, on our sins. But God loves us as we are, and he wants to carry us forward with this great plan.” Good families, too, serves as a protection against evil when men and women are in a “conjugal-familial” alliance. “(The family) saves us from many, many attacks, destruction, colonizations – such as (the colonization) of money,” or those “ideologies which greatly threaten the world,” he said. The Pope made his off-the-cuff comments in Italian during his Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square on Sept. 16. Since last year, the pontiff has been dedicating his Wednesday catechesis on themes of marriage and family as part of the lead-up to the World Meeting of Families in September, as well as October’s Synod of Bishops on the Family. “Both (of these events) have a global importance, which corresponds to the universal dimension of Christianity, but also to the universal scope of this fundamental and irreplaceable human community which is, precisely, the family,” the Pope said.   At the end of the general audience, Pope Francis asked for prayers ahead of his upcoming trip to Cuba and the United States. Highlights of his trip, which will span from Sept. 19-28, will include the canonization of Blessed Junipero Serra at Washington D.C.'s National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, his visit to the United Nations headquarters in New York, and the World Meeting of Families in Washington, D.C. The Pope asked for “light and strength of the Holy Spirit and the intercession of Mary Most Holy, Patroness of Cuba as the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, and Patroness of the United States of America as the Immaculate Conception.” Read more

Vatican City, Sep 16, 2015 / 06:07 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Religious fundamentalism keeps God at a distance, and keeps believers from building bridges with others, Pope Francis reflected on Sunday during a radio interview. “Our God is a God who is close, who accompanies. Fundamentalists keep God away from accompanying his people, they divert their minds from him and transform him into an ideology. So in the name of this ideological god, they kill, they attack, destroy, slander. Practically speaking, they transform that God into a Baal, an idol,” he said in a radio interview that aired Sept. 13. “No religion is immune from its own fundamentalisms,” he said. “In every religion there will be a small group of fundamentalists whose work is to destroy for the sake of an idea, and not reality. And reality is superior to ideas.” The Pope said that no religion is immune from the possibility of fundamentalism. He said fundamentalism, instead of creating a bridge, creates a wall that blocks encounter with another person. It seeks ways to disagree. With fundamentalism, he said, “you can’t have friendship between peoples.” His comments came in a wide-ranging interview with Marcelo Figueroa, an evangelical Protestant who is a personal friend of the Pope and journalist at Buenos Aires’ Radio Milenium. In his other comments, the Pope noted that many of the faithful pour out their lives to him when he meets them. “A priest has to be a bridge, that’s why they call him a pontiff,” he said, alluding to the original, literal meaning of “pontifex” as “bridge-builder.” He warned of the temptation for priests and bishops to withdraw from “from those kinds of people Jesus spent Mathew 25 talking about.” The Pope compared them to legalists, the Pharisees and the Sadducees who taught the law and thought themselves to be pure. The Pope also discussed his encyclical Laudato si', on care for our common home. “It’s obvious we’re mistreating creation. We’re not the friends of creation, we treat her sometimes like the worst enemy,” he said. He noted problems like deforestation, water misuse, the depletion of fertile croplands and mineral extraction using poisonous chemicals. He stressed mankind’s mission to care for the earth and warned against “misusing creation to carry out his purposes.” Mankind is also part of creation, and the Pope’s concerns include abuse of mankind by “a system set up to make money.” The Pope also spoke about his firsthand experience of people who abuse friendship, something “very sacred,” for personal gain. This form of friendship “pains me,” he said. “I have felt used by some people who have presented themselves as ‘friends’ with whom I may not have seen more than once or twice in my lifetime, and they used this for their own gain. But this is an experience which we have all undergone:  utilitarian friendship,” the Pope said. Read more

Vatican City, Sep 16, 2015 / 06:07 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Religious fundamentalism keeps God at a distance, and keeps believers from building bridges with others, Pope Francis reflected on Sunday during a radio interview. “Our God is a God who is close, who accompanies. Fundamentalists keep God away from accompanying his people, they divert their minds from him and transform him into an ideology. So in the name of this ideological god, they kill, they attack, destroy, slander. Practically speaking, they transform that God into a Baal, an idol,” he said in a radio interview that aired Sept. 13. “No religion is immune from its own fundamentalisms,” he said. “In every religion there will be a small group of fundamentalists whose work is to destroy for the sake of an idea, and not reality. And reality is superior to ideas.” The Pope said that no religion is immune from the possibility of fundamentalism. He said fundamentalism, instead of creating a bridge, creates a wall that blocks encounter with another person. It seeks ways to disagree. With fundamentalism, he said, “you can’t have friendship between peoples.” His comments came in a wide-ranging interview with Marcelo Figueroa, an evangelical Protestant who is a personal friend of the Pope and journalist at Buenos Aires’ Radio Milenium. In his other comments, the Pope noted that many of the faithful pour out their lives to him when he meets them. “A priest has to be a bridge, that’s why they call him a pontiff,” he said, alluding to the original, literal meaning of “pontifex” as “bridge-builder.” He warned of the temptation for priests and bishops to withdraw from “from those kinds of people Jesus spent Mathew 25 talking about.” The Pope compared them to legalists, the Pharisees and the Sadducees who taught the law and thought themselves to be pure. The Pope also discussed his encyclical Laudato si', on care for our common home. “It’s obvious we’re mistreating creation. We’re not the friends of creation, we treat her sometimes like the worst enemy,” he said. He noted problems like deforestation, water misuse, the depletion of fertile croplands and mineral extraction using poisonous chemicals. He stressed mankind’s mission to care for the earth and warned against “misusing creation to carry out his purposes.” Mankind is also part of creation, and the Pope’s concerns include abuse of mankind by “a system set up to make money.” The Pope also spoke about his firsthand experience of people who abuse friendship, something “very sacred,” for personal gain. This form of friendship “pains me,” he said. “I have felt used by some people who have presented themselves as ‘friends’ with whom I may not have seen more than once or twice in my lifetime, and they used this for their own gain. But this is an experience which we have all undergone:  utilitarian friendship,” the Pope said. Read more