Catholic News
Vatican City, May 17, 2015 / 10:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis canonized the Church’s four newest saints on Sunday, praising their loving witness to Jesus Christ’s Resurrection. He said “this is the secret of the saints: abid... Read more
Vatican City, May 17, 2015 / 10:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis canonized the Church’s four newest saints on Sunday, praising their loving witness to Jesus Christ’s Resurrection. He said “this is the secret of the saints: abid... Read more
Washington D.C., May 17, 2015 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis will remain within the tradition of previous papal visits to the U.S. when he comes to the east coast this autumn said Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, who added that the Pope's voyage would build upon Benedict XVI's papacy if he addresses the environment. “Pope Benedict initiated a lot of commentary on climate change,” Bishop Soto explained, “and I think Pope Francis is going to be pushing that significantly, especially from the perspective of how that affects the poor.” Benedict talked repeatedly about the need to care for the environment as God’s creation, and made the theme of the 2010 World Day of Peace “If you want to cultivate peace, protect creation.” During his 2008 visit to the U.S., he told the United Nations General Assembly that “international action to preserve the environment and to protect various forms of life on earth must not only guarantee a rational use of technology and science, but must also rediscover the authentic image of creation.” Pope Francis, meanwhile, has written an encyclical on ecology which is expected to be published this summer. He too has often spoken out about the need to protect creation. “This is one of the greatest challenges of our time: changing to a form of development which seeks to respect creation,” he said at a meeting with laborers at the University of Molise on July 5, 2014. “I see America — my homeland, too: many forests, stripped, which become land that cannot be cultivated, which cannot give life. This is our sin: exploiting the land and not allowing it to give us what it has within it, with our help through cultivation.” Pope Francis will make a three-stop tour of the U.S. east coast in September, first to Washington, D.C. where he will canonize Blessed Junipero Serra outside the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Sept. 23. He will meet with President Obama in the White House and address a joint session of Congress on Sept. 24. He will address the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on Sept. 25, and then head to Philadelphia for the culmination of his visit, the World Meeting of Families, on Sept. 26 and 27. An estimated 1 million are expected to attend his Sept. 27 Mass. Bishop Soto spoke about the upcoming visit with CNA at a Catholic-Evangelical Summit on Overcoming Poverty in Washington, D.C. on May 11, hosted by Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life. He took part in a panel discussion on poverty and also addressed reporters about the need to overcome the tolerance of injustices such as the high incarceration rate among the poor. Poverty and the family are intricately connected, and the Church must address poverty if it seeks to support families worldwide, he explained. Environmental problems – particularly a severe drought – acutely affect the poor in Bishop Soto’s Sacramento diocese, which spans northern California. Unemployment pushes 20 percent in some largely agricultural parts of his diocese, he said. He cited an Environmental Protection Agency report showing the worst environmental problems are also in the poorest areas of the state. There are social problems affecting the family, he reflected, and with the World Meeting of Families and the Synod on the Family coming this autumn, the Church has an opportunity to address these issues. Family poverty in the U.S. is exacerbated by problems in the immigration and education systems, he said. The lack of a comprehensive immigration reform bill has kept immigrants in California from starting businesses and establishing themselves in society. The public education system has also failed poor families, he said. “Public education in California is not serving well our families, immigrant families and working-class families. Their children are not getting the kind of education they deserve, and that is undermining their ability to escape the cycles of poverty, and so with poor educational outcomes … those children get caught up in cycles that are very hard to escape.” “There seems to be almost a reluctance to want to have parents have too much choice in how schools do their job,” he said. “I do think that we have to continue to explore how to engage parents and families in the education of children. And charter schools is one way to do that. And if there are other ways, better ways to do that, then we'll explore that.” And here is an opportunity for the Church to reach families, through parochial schools. There is a “national inquietude” on the matter of Catholic schools reaching out to low-income families and changing the trajectory of poverty for many children, he said. “Catholic schools not only produce, I believe, good Catholics, but also produce good citizens. And so how can we use that formula that worked so well and make sure that it's serving immigrant and working class families better.” With the 2016 presidential election looming, that brings other social concerns of civic disengagement and the marginalization of religion to the forefront, he acknowledged. “I am concerned that there is a tendency to want to push religious discourse off to the margins,” he said of the 2016 presidential election prospects. Catholic institutions already do much for the poor in the U.S. “And I hope that the candidates will see the value of having vigorous, vibrant religious institutions, like Catholic schools, Catholic hospitals, Catholic social services involved as partners in society, and their ability to be able to participate while maintaining the integrity of their institutions,” he said. The silencing of faith in public life was something Benedict addressed in his previous visit to the U.S., Bishop Soto said, and Pope Francis will call attention to it through the lens of the Church’s role in serving the poor. “He's also going to challenge us as pastors to go further,” the bishop said, “to ‘smell like the sheep’ and really take the Church back to its primary mission … of announcing the good news to the poor.” The recent unrest in Baltimore and Ferguson has also highlighted the danger of civic disengagement, he continued. While noting that some of the protests were peaceful and some were not, he added that “part of that is they want their voice to be heard. What that is is the condemnation of the political process, that doesn't allow that voice to be heard.” “There's a serious disengagement of people, and that is not good for our political system,” he continued. “Voter participation in California is dismal, and that doesn't bode well for the social covenant when a lot of people, for whatever reasons, are disengaged.” Read more
Washington D.C., May 16, 2015 / 04:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Nearly 1,000 United States priests made their own a petition to the fathers of the upcoming Synod, originally made public and signed by nearly 500 English priests. The statement’s wording is exactly that of the English version, and urges the fathers of the upcoming Ordinary Synod on the Family to issue a “clear and firm” proclamation of Church teaching on marriage and sexuality. The organization Credo Priests has been circulating the petition and collecting online signatures, which are verified as U.S. Catholic clergy before appearing on the site. The signatory priests, sensing confusion among the laity after last year’s synod, said they wished to “re-state our unwavering fidelity to the traditional doctrines regarding marriage and the true meaning of human sexuality, founded on the Word of God and taught by the Church’s Magisterium for two millennia.” Among the U.S. signatures are seven bishops - three active and four retired. According to the Credo Priests website, the petition was signed in keeping with Pope Francis’ call for open and honest dialogue during the preliminary Extraordinary Synod on the Family last fall. “…it is necessary to say all that, in the Lord, one feels the need to say: without polite deference, without hesitation. And, at the same time, one must listen with humility and welcome, with an open heart, what your brothers say,” Pope Francis said to the Extraordinary Synod fathers last October. “The Holy Father has been very clear about the invitation for all people to comment on certain questions related to the synod and to provide their views,” said J.D. Flynn, director of communications for the Diocese of Lincoln, whose own Bishop Conley is one of the three active U.S. bishop signatories. According to Flynn, Bishop Conley signed the petition because he saw it as a way of encouraging and supporting the Synod fathers in their upcoming work. “I think he really saw it as something that supports the work of the synod because the synod is intending to do things that effectively proclaim the Gospel to the world of today and to the situations and the culture of today.' An incorrectly translated midterm document as well as skewed media coverage of last year’s preliminary Synod led to confusion among many Catholics about the purpose and practical effects of a Synod. The purpose of this signed statement is to clarify where the Church stands in regards to its teachings on marriage and family, Flynn said. “At times the secular media lacks an understanding of the context…(and) has tried to turn the conversation around the synod into something that’s partisan or divisive or that resembles the American political process, and that’s just not how the church works,” he added. Bishop Kagan of Bismark, N.D., said he also thought the secular media was trying to understand the synod from the point of view of a political process, rather than as a dialogue amongst bishops who are in union under the same Pope. “The secular media gave the impression that Cardinal Kasper was the pope’s spokesman,” Bishop Kagan said. “Well, he isn’t, the pope is perfectly capable of speaking for himself. Cardinal Kasper was not intellectually dishonest, he was expressing his own thoughts, and he’s free to do that.” A look at Church history and the various synods and councils that have taken place will show that there has often been differences of personal opinion and perspective among the faithful during discussions, but this does not mean that everything everyone says will then be codified into official Church teaching, Bishop Kagan explained. “If people in general want a good idea of how the synod works, or how a council works, read the section (in Acts of the Apostles) where Paul and Barnabas come to Jerusalem and meet with the apostles to clarify whether Gentile converts needing to be circumcised in order to be true Christians,” Bishop Kagan said. “That’s a very good analogy to keep in mind.” Bishop Kagan said while he was aware of the English statement, he didn’t know a United States version existed until a priest in his diocese approached him and asked permission to sign it. After re-reading the statement himself, Bishop Kagan said he had no qualms with signing it himself. “The credo statement certainly isn’t new, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to any Catholic,” he said. “I see it as an expression of my fraternal support for my brother bishops and for the Holy Father, and it’s a great teaching moment for the whole church.” Much of the media coverage during last year’s synod focused on the issue of whether or not divorced and re-married Catholics could receive communion, and whether any changes could be made to the annulment process. Bishop Kagan, who worked on annulment tribunals for 29 years, is well aware of the difficult and painful annulment process, and remains “hopeful that all of these issues will be addressed.” However, the heart of the Synod is actually reaffirming marriage and family as the foundation of society itself, Bishop Kagan noted, and the credo statement simply supports that. “Hopefully it isn’t misinterpreted,” he said. “It’s not a political agenda being pursued here.” Read more
Vatican City, May 16, 2015 / 02:17 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Speaking to vowed religious, Pope Francis said Christianity must be festive. He praised the special nourishing power of a nun’s smile. “The feast is a theological category of life. And you cannot live the consecrated life without this festive dimension. It's a party. But partying is not the same as making noise,” he said May 16. This festive dimension to life is “one of the things that we Christians forget,” he said, according to Vatican Radio. For Pope Francis, the way to have a party is described in Deuteronomy Chapter 26. The believer brings his “first fruits” in sacrifice to God, thanking him for his kindness. He then goes home and celebrates by sharing his wealth with those who have no family, with neighbors and with slaves. The Pope noted this Bible chapter has a prayer about “the joy of remembering all that God has done for us.” The Pope's remarks were for an audience of vowed religious men and women of the Diocese of Rome on Saturday in Paul VI Hall in Vatican City. “One of the things that you must never, ever miss is a time to hear people! Even in the hours of contemplation, of silence,” he told the audience. He noted that some monasteries have voice mail and people call to ask prayers. “This link is important to the world,” he said. While monastic religious should leave behind “media chatterers,” they should never leave behind knowledge of the world like “news of wars, diseases, of how much people suffer.” The Pope said there are “many graces form the Lord” in the “tension” between the cloistered life of prayer and considering the situation of others. He noted that some monasteries dedicate time each day to give food to those who ask for it. This does not contradict the monastic’s “hiddenness in God,” he said. Rather, this is “a service” and a “smile.” “The smile of the nuns open their hearts! The smile of the nuns feeds more than the bread that came.” He told the vowed religious their vocation is not a “refuge.” Rather, their vocation is “to go into the field of battle and fight and knock at the heart of the Lord for that city. Consecration has a spousal dimension both for men and women. He stressed the “motherhood” of consecrated women and the qualities of “perseverance, loyalty, unity, heart.” Religious sisters are “the icon of the Church of Our Lady,” he said. “Do not forget that the Church is feminine,” he continued, adding that the Church is the “bride of Jesus.” The love and fidelity of consecrated women must “reflect the loyalty, the love, the tenderness of the Mother Church and mother Mary.” Pope Francis said that the Church must help explain the “feminine genius,” noting his previous calls for women to be department heads in the Church. “When we treat a problem among men we arrive at a conclusion, but if we treat the same problem among women, the conclusion will be different: it will go on the same road, but it will be richer, stronger, more intuitive.” He encouraged consecrated religious to look to the concrete action Jesus Christ described in the Beatitudes and in Chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew. He said “the whole program is there.” The Pope reflected on the virtue of fruitful obedience, connecting this to the “mystery of Christ” in which Jesus became incarnate “through obedience, up to the cross and death.” While he warned against the temptation to take a “disciplinary attitude” towards obedience, he said that obedience is “the icon of the road of Jesus.” Pope Francis also warned that monastic life can give rise to vices like jealousy, envy, and criticism of superiors. He cautioned against a wrongly competitive spirit between the diocese and congregations or between monastic congregations. He stressed the need for collaboration and unity, despite self-interest and sin. “The bishop should not use the religious as a stopgap, but the religious ought not use the bishop as if he owned a company that gives you a job,” the Pope explained. Pope Francis announced plans to update the 1978 document “Mutuae Relationes,” which addresses relations between vowed religious and the local bishop. The bishops’ synod of 1994 had asked for a reform, but this request was never fulfilled. Read more
Vatican City, May 16, 2015 / 06:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Controlling populations is not the answer in fighting poverty and protecting the environment, says a leading official for the Catholic aid federation, Caritas Internationalis. “We do not see that population control, the way it is being thought by many, is the right way to go forward,” Caritas secretary general Michel Roy said in an interview with CNA. The question of sustaining the planet is not approached “by suppressing people,” he said. Roy has been in Rome for Caritas International's 20th general assembly which has been running from May 12-17 on the theme: “One human family, care for creation.” While the protection of the environment is being addressed over the course of this week's meetings, Roy said caring for the poor lies at the heart of this year's gathering. “We really need to rethink our ways of living, always starting from the poor,” he said: “to listen to them, to learn from them, and to ask them to lead, to think of the society they want to live in.” Roy said what really creates problems in the area of poverty for today's secularized world is consumerism. “When people become too individualistic, when there is no solidarity in the family, in the community, when you fall into poverty, it’s a real tragedy.” In contrast: “The answer to poverty lies in relationship, and lies in solidarity.” Roy spoke about collaborating with the international community in helping to protect the environment and combat hunger. He cited the United Nations General Assembly's upcoming adoption of sustainable laws on Sept. 25, and the upcoming climate summit in Paris in late November which will center on reducing the impact of climate change. Critics have raised concerns about the Vatican’s collaboration with the U.N. on environmental protection, taking into account that the U.N. promotes population control as a means of combating climate change. Pope Francis met with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon at the Vatican late April, during which they discussed the pontiff’s upcoming encyclical on protecting the environment. Addressing the criticism, Roy said: “We are who we are. They (the U.N.) know who we are. If they want to work with us, they have to accept the values that we are promoting.” Saying it is necessary to work with the U.N., since is a “community of nations,” the Caritas official said: “we have to challenge them as well.” “They are calling on us because they know what we do at the grassroots is probably the best work against poverty that is being done.” Held once every four years, the aim of the 2015 assembly is to outline and design the goals for the next quadriennal term, as well as to elect new leadership. On Thursday, the delegates elected Cardinal Luis Tagle as the federation’s newest president, and first to hail from Asia. Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga stepped down from the role as Caritas president, having served two mandates from 2007-2011, and 2011-2015. This year's Caritas assembly comes just ahead of Pope Francis’ anticipated encyclical on environmental degradation and the global effects of climate change on the poor. Expected to be published in mid-late June, the document has already been written and is currently being translated. Read more
Turin, Italy, May 15, 2015 / 04:25 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to Turin is an opportunity to reflect on the outstanding group of saints whose lives embodied Catholic social teaching in 19th century Turin, when the Piedmont r... Read more
Vatican City, May 15, 2015 / 11:47 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis' address to the bishops of the Central African Republic on Friday focused on the Church's role in fostering reconciliation in the war-torn country, urging a deeper adhesion to the Gospel and the importance of honesty and justice in the process. Armed conflict broke out in CAR in December 2012, and it has has since been gripped by violence between the mostly Muslim and foreign Seleka, and the largely Christian anti-balaka. The conflict has died down since the presence of international peacekeepers was enlarged in late 2014, but the nation remains unstable. The Pope told the CAR bishops May 15 at the Vatican: “You, brothers in the episcopate, must play an indispensable prophetic role during the current institutional transition, recalling and reflecting the witness of the fundamental values of justice, truth and honesty, which are the foundation of any renewal, promoting dialogue and peaceful coexistence between members of different societies and ethnicities, thus encouraging reconciliation and social cohesion, which is the key to the future.” The country's conflict began when Seleka rebels, loosely organized groups that drew primarily Muslim fighters from other countries, ousted the president and installed their own leader in a March 2013 coup. In September 2013, after 10 months of terrorism at the hands of the Seleka, anti-balaka self-defense groups began to form. The conflict in the nation took on a sectarian character, as some anti-balaka, many of whom are Christian, began attacking Muslims out of revenge for the Seleka’s acts. “Your task is difficult,” Pope Francis reflected with the bishops, “but it touches the very mystery of Jesus Christ, who died and rose again. It is when evil and death seem to triumph that the hope of renewal in Christ emerges.” “It is when hatred and violence are unleashed that we are called upon – and find the strength through the power of the Cross and the grace of Baptism – to respond with forgiveness and love. If, sadly, this has not always been the case in the recent events that you have experienced, it is a sign that the Gospel has not yet deeply penetrated the heart of the People of God, to the point of changing their reflexes and their behaviour.” Since the Churches of the CAR are the result of recent evangelization – the first was founded in 1909 – “your primary mission is to continue the work recently begun,” Pope Francis told the bishops. “You must not be discouraged by the storm you are passing through, but on the contrary must find, in faith and hope, a source of renewed enthusiasm and dynamism.” The Pope also referred to “the countless testimonies of faith and fidelity Christians have rendered to the risen Christ on numerous occasions. I am particularly aware of all that your communities have done to for victims of violence and for refugees,” he said. The fighting between the Seleka and anti-balaka killed thousands and displaced some 1 million from their homes. Since December 2013, Catholic churches have been sheltering the displaced – both Christians and Muslims – and protecting them from attack by both forces. These include St. Peter's parish in Boali, a parish in Carnot, and Bangui's Carmelite monastery. Catholic Relief Services has also fostered reconciliation workshops in the country, led by Rwandans who lived through their own country's 1994 genocide. In the face of the violence, Pope Francis told the bishops their priority must be “Christian formation and a deepening of the faith … so that the Gospel permeates the life of the baptised, for the good not only of the Christian communities, but also the whole of Central African society.” He welcomed the contribution to Christian formation made by catechists and by “fidei donum” priests, who are on loan to Central African dioceses from their local Churches in other countries: “they are to be warmly thanked for coming to share the ministry in such difficult conditions,” he said. The Central African bishops “are called upon to form the conscience of the faithful, and indeed that of all the people, as your voice is heard and respected by all,” he told them. “It is in this way that you should take your rightful place in current developments, avoiding direct involvement in political quarrels.” “However, by forming and encouraging the laity so they are steadfast in their faith and solidly trained in the social doctrine of the Church, able to engage in political debate and to take responsibility – and it is their role – you are able to gradually transform society according to the Gospel and to prepare a happy future for your people.” To be able to do this, Pope Francis said, the bishops must be attentive fathers to their priests. He also reflected on seminary formation, stressing the importance of “human and affective formation” in seminaries “so that future priests may be capable of living their commitment to celibacy; on this no compromise can be accepted.” The Pope also devoted time to speaking about families, saying they are “the first victims of violence and who are too often destabilised or destroyed” in the armed conflict which CAR has experienced. He added that families are “the privileged location for the proclamation of the faith and the practice of Christian virtues, the cradle of many priestly and religious vocations,” and the ideal setting for learning the culture of forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation, “which your country so needs.” Pope Francis remind the bishops “it is essential that the family be protected and defended 'so that it may offer society the service expected of it, that of providing men and women capable of building a social fabric of peace and harmony,'” quoting Africae Munus, Benedict XVI's 2011 apostolic exhortation on the Church in Africa in service to reconciliation, justice and peace. “I can therefore only encourage you to accord to the pastoral care of marriage the attention that it deserves, and not to be discouraged by resistance due to cultural traditions, human weakness, or the new forms of ideological colonisation that are spreading everywhere,” Pope Francis stated, thanking them for their participation at the upcoming Synod on the Family, and asking their prayers for the synod. Since the Central African bishops were in Rome for their five-yearly visit ad limina apostolorum – to the tombs of Saints Peter and Paul – and to St. Peter's successor, Pope Francis told them, “I sincerely hope that this pilgrimage to the sources of the faith gives you comfort and encouragement for the continuation of your pastoral ministry. May the intercession of St. Peter and St. Paul obtain for you the graces necessary to gather and to lead the flock that the Lord has entrusted to you.” Pope Francis has also considered himself visiting CAR. He expressed desire to do so during his January flight back to Rome from the Philippines, and Archbishop Dieudonne Nzapalainga of Bangui told Aid to the Church in Need in March that Pope Francis will visit CAR this November, saying, “The papal visit is a sign of the goodness of God and a consolation. He is coming to us as a father – and precisely at a moment when we have just been through a long crisis that has left deep scars.” The Pope concluded his address to the Central African bishops saying, “I entrust all of you, as well as the priests, consecrated persons, catechists, and lay faithful of your dioceses, to the protection of the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church and Queen of Peace.” Read more
Vatican City, May 15, 2015 / 11:40 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his daily homily on Friday Pope Francis said that Christian communities become “sick” when they live in fear and fail to be joyful – even when times are difficult. “When the Church is fearful and when the Church does not receive the joy of the Holy Spirit, the Church is sick, the communities are sick, the faithful are sick,” the Pope said during Mass at the Santa Marta residence May 15. He added that the Christian community grows “sick with worldliness” when “it does not have the joy of Christ.” “A Christian without joy is not Christian. A Christian who continually lives in sadness is not Christian. And a Christian who, in the moment of trial, of illness, of so many difficulties, loses peace – something is lacking in him.” These two words – “fear” and “joy” – and what each means for the Christian community, were at the center of the Holy Father’s homily. Speaking first on fear, Pope Francis explained: “A fearful Christian is a person who has not understood the message of Jesus.” This kind of fear provokes a self-centered selfishness which leads to a sort of paralysis. It “harms us. It weakens us, it diminishes us. It even paralyzes us,” the Pope said. Recalling how Jesus told Saint Paul to speak and not be afraid, he said: “Fear is not a Christian attitude.” Rather, it is an attitude of a “caged animal” who lacks the freedom to look forward, create, and do good, being prevented by a sense of danger. “This fear is a vice,” he added. Pope Francis said this fear and lack of courage jeopardizes the health of those communities which to forbid everything in an effort to always be safe. “It seems they have written on the gateway: 'Forbidden,'” he said. “And you enter into this community and the air is stale, because it is a sick community.” “Fear makes a community sick. The lack of courage makes a community sick.” Pope Francis encouraged the faithful to ask God to overcome this fear: “Do not be afraid, and ask for the grace of courage, the courage of the Holy Spirit that He sends us.” The Pope clarified that fear as a vice should not be confused with what is referred to as “fear of the Lord,” which is a virtue that helps Christians in their mission. Pope Francis then turned his reflection to “joy,” which he said is not simply an emotion. “Christian joy is not simply enjoyment, is not a fleeting cheerfulness,” but “a gift of the Holy Spirit.” A Christian who lives in joy does so because “the Lord reigns, the Lord is at the right hand of the Father,” the pontiff said. “The Lord has looked upon me and called me and has given me His grace, and has made me a Son of the Father…That is Christian joy.” “No one can take away your joy,” he said, which brings peace in “the saddest moments, in moments of sorrow.” Pope Francis concluded his homily, praying: “Lift us up, O Lord, to Christ seated at the right hand of the Father…raise our spirit. Take away our every fear, and grant us joy and peace.” Read more
Aleppo, Syria, May 15, 2015 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A four-year civil war in Syria has left a mounting death toll and displaced millions of persons, but one bishop is staying to rebuild the Church in Aleppo, in the northwest corner of the country. “The Church is living,” Melkite Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart of Aleppo told CNA earlier this month. “Here, I am building, I am restoring, I am maintaining a lively Church in which every stone is a human being and who can be a witness, a testimony to the world.” “I wondered if I am not copying St. Francis when he was working to rebuild the Church. It was crazy, nobody thought that he would succeed,” the archbishop noted. “And he succeeded because the Lord was with him.” The four-year Syrian conflict being fought among the Assad regime and various rebel factions has devastated the country. More than 3.9 million refugees have fled to surrounding countries, and around 8 million Syrians are believed to have been internally displaced. The war’s death toll is currently around 220,000. Outside countries and entities have taken advantage of the civil war, profiting from it through the arms trade or waiting for Syria to collapse so to move in and take power in the vacuum. Pope Francis has spoken out against the arms trade here and has been criticized for it, Archbishop Jeanbart noted. Aleppo endured a terrible two-month siege by rebel forces last year. Its infrastructure has been devastated, and its residents endure great poverty. Those who chose to stay face a myriad of challenges. Houses, businesses, schools, and hospitals have been damaged or destroyed in the war, leaving fathers without work, families without shelter, the sick without medical care, and children without education. Thus it is an uphill battle to convince residents to stay and not re-settle elsewhere, Archbishop Jeanbart admitted. Syrians see the U.S. on television and think it a “paradise,” and want to move there. He has to convince them of the unseen difficulties that such a move might bring. Words are not enough to convince people, however. The Church must act to help Christians who stay so once peace comes – and it will, the archbishop maintains – a stable Christian community is in place and Christians can have a seat at the peace negotiations. “We want that we may have our rights,” he said. “We want that everybody may feel comfortable in the country.” “What we want to do, and what I am looking for,” Archbishop Jeanbart said, “is to go to another position, a position looking positively to the future, trying to give them hope that the future of their country may be good, and will be better if they work and if they prepare themselves.” The Church in Aleppo is working to meet the local needs. It provides thousands of baskets of food to needy families, 1,000 scholarships for students to attend Catholic schools, stipends to almost 500 fathers who have lost their business in the war, heating to houses in the wintertime, rebuilding homes damaged in the war and medical care for the needy since many government hospitals were destroyed in the fighting. It’s a daunting task for an archbishop in his seventies. He admitted to initially wondering how he could do it. “But when I began working on it, I felt that I was 50. Like if the Lord is pushing me to go ahead and helping me to realize this mission,” he said. “I invest myself entirely. I have decided the consecrate the rest of my life to do that.” Archbishop Jeanbart has been assisted in his efforts to serve the people of Aleppo by the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. The charity has ensured a six month supply of medical goods for the city, and paid for repairs and fuel costs at the city's schools, in addition to the rest of its work throughout Syria. Archbishop Jeanbart maintained that another reason Christians need to stay in Syria is to be a light to people of other religions, especially Muslims. If the Christians leave, no one will be left to preach the Gospel in Syria. “Perhaps the time has come to tell these people ‘Come, Christ is waiting for you.’ And many Muslims now, I must say, are wondering where should be their place? Are they in the right place? Are they perhaps supposed to rethink and review their choices? It will be wonderful if I told them we may have the freedom and the freedom of faith which would allow anyone to make his own choice freely.” Critics of the Church in Syria have accused it of not immediately supporting the rebels in the name of freedom and democracy, the archbishop noted, and this is a false mischaracterization. Christians are wary of regime change because they have seen what has happened in surrounding countries where fundamentalists took power in the Arab Spring and religious pluralism suffered as a result: there is “a feeling among Christians that they are afraid that the government may change and with the change of the government, they may lose their freedom … they are afraid to lose their freedom to express and to live their Christian life.” He cited the success of the Islamic State, which in the power vacuum caused by the Syrian civil war has established a caliphate in eastern Syria and western Iraq where “many Christians were killed because they were Christian.” Christians in Syria are, in fact, supportive of freedom and democracy, he said. “They want to have a democratic regime where they may have all their freedom and where they may live tranquil but at the same time happy in the country,” he said. “In any settlement,” he maintained, “the Christian must have the rights to be Christian in this country. And they should not become Muslims because the regime will be Muslim.” “We want to have our rights and to live as free Christians in our country,” he said. Read more
Los Angeles, Calif., May 15, 2015 / 03:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Adding to recent controversies surrounding various forms of birth control, a new study out of UCLA suggests that the birth control pill may thin areas in a woman's brain and affect their function.Published in April in the journal “Human Brain Mapping,” the study measured cortical thickness in the brains of 90 women – 44 of whom were using oral contraceptives, and 46 of whom were naturally cycling. Only women using the combination form of oral contraceptives were used in the study – it did not measure women using progesterone-only or other forms of oral contraceptives. The research found that oral contraceptive use was significantly associated with a thinning in two areas of the brain: the lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex. The lateral orbitofrontal cortex is involved in emotion regulation and response to rewards, while the posterior cigulate cortex regulates inward-directed thought, such as recalling personal memories or planning for the future. Although the study only measured brain structure, the findings suggest that there could be possible effects on behavior. "Some women experience negative emotional side effects from taking oral contraceptive pills, although the scientific findings investigating that have been mixed," Nicole Petersen, a neuroscientist at UCLA and the study's lead author, told The Huffington Post. "So it's possible that this change in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex may be related to the emotional changes that some women experience when using birth control pills." Because the study is one of the first of its kind, as far as measuring effects of the birth control pill on brain structure, it’s difficult for scientists to draw any definite conclusions at this point. But Larry Cahill, a professor of neurobiology and behavior at the University of California-Irvine and a co-author of the study, said while the interest in the link between sex hormones and brain structure has increased in the past few years, he’s amazed at the lack of research considering how long the pill has been on the market. “You might think after 50 years and hundreds of millions of women taking various incarnations of the pill, there would be a large and cohesive and impressive body of evidence on it, but there’s next to nothing,” Cahill told CNA. “I honestly find that amazing.” Although Cahill cautioned against a panic or alarm because of the recent study, he said it raises further questions for research that are important to the millions of women who use oral contraceptives every day. For example, follow-up studies are needed to determine whether the thinning effect is permanent, or whether it just occurs if a woman is currently using the pill. In April 2011, Cahill and three other researchers found that the emotional memory of women using hormonal contraception was more similar to that of men than of women. Combined with the evidence of the most recent study, Cahill said one group that might benefit from the pill’s possible impact on emotional memory could be women in combat or other traumatic situations. If using hormonal contraception, these women could be potentially less likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder than naturally cycling women in similar situations, though more research is needed. These studies are part of a growing body of research on sex differences in the brain, which is challenging the long-held assumption that men and women are mostly biologically the same, save for their reproductive organs, Cahill noted. “We’re all blinded by our assumptions, and there’s simply been an assumption…that any differences between (men and women) occur in the bikini zone and that’s it,” Dr. Cahill said. “And now we’re realizing, well, no. There’s sex differences all over the place. It’s important that we stop assuming that women are just men with pesky hormones.” Challenging assumptions has been somewhat of a road block for Cahill and fellow researchers trying to publish their findings, because they are often dismissed as being “alarmist,” Cahill said. However, as a scientist, Cahill said he believes it’s important to continue to study the potentially good, bad or neutral effects of a medication that millions of women use for large portions of their life. “If I’m a woman on the pill, or I know a woman who’s on the pill…or I have a daughter who wants to go on the pill, you want to operate from knowledge, not from complete lack of knowledge,” he said. “That was the goal, to explore what the pill might be doing just as we've been doing for 3 or 4 years.” Read more
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