Vatican City, Apr 3, 2015 / 11:35 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his homily for the celebration of the Passion of Our Lord on Good Friday, papal preacher Father Raniero Cantalamessa called for a spirit of forgiveness amid rising persecutions in the world. ... Read more
Rome, Italy, Apr 14, 2017 / 01:51 am (CNA).- In the hours after evening Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday, a few pilgrims in Rome make their way to the Church of Saint Praxedes, home to a fragment of stone alleged to be the pillar upon which Jesus was scourged. Known as the Column of the Flagellation, the stone offers an object of contemplation for those visiting the church to reflect on Christ's Passion. This is especially true on Holy Thursday, when pilgrims traditionally go to churches throughout the city to venerate the decorated altars within which the Eucharist has been reposed in anticipation of Good Friday. The column is kept in a glass reliquary in one of the side chapels of Saint Praxedes, a 9th century church named after an early Christian martyr who has long-standing devotion in Rome, but about whom little is known for certain. The pillar itself, sculpted from black-and-white marble, was retrieved from the Holy Land during the medieval period. Is the artifact which continues to be visited by pilgrims as the column of the scourging a true relic of Christ's Passion? Most scholars would say this is highly doubtful. Yet the probable in-authenticity of the pillar does not take away from the value in venerating it, says one expert. Rather, it is reminiscent of the genuine spirituality of medieval Christians, like those who found the pillar and brought it back from the Holy Land. “The Middle Ages had a very powerful sense of God’s Providence,” said Gregory DiPippo, managing editor of the New Liturgical Movement website, “and to them you could almost say it was illogical that God would allow something like (the pillar) – which would have been Sanctified by being part of the Lord’s Passion – to go missing.” Whether the true pillar of the flagellation still exists anywhere is uncertain. Jerusalem's Chapel of the Apparition claims to have the true pillar: a broken red porphyry column which bears no resemblance to the artifact in Rome. However, in speaking of Saint Praxedes pillar, DiPippo explained it was improbable that the original would have survived on account of the 1st century uprisings which led to the destruction of Jerusalem. Nonetheless, there is inherent value in venerating an object that may not be genuine, when one takes into account the objective of veneration, he added. In the Western tradition, “you aren’t venerating the object for its own sake, necessarily, but rather as an expression of a sort of realized presence of the person or the event that it represents.” This point is further illustrated by comparing Western and Eastern liturgical practices, he said, observing that in the West, the priest incenses the relics of the saints, whereas Byzantines incense the images and icons. “It is the living presence, realized presence in this case, of the Passion of Christ,” DiPippo said. “Even if it isn’t authentic, we are still honoring the Passion of Christ by venerating it as such.” The pillar of Saint Praxedes was first brought to Italy by Cardinal Giovanni Colonna, a 13th century prelate appointed by Pope Innocent III, who had been serving as papal legate in the Holy Land during the sixth Crusade. Returning to Rome in the 1220s, he brought with him the column in question. “One mustn’t think of this as a conscious fraud on the part of Cardinal Colonna, or the people who received it as the relic of the flagellation,” DiPippo explained, but rather of Medieval devotion. This article was originally published on CNA April 3, 2015. Read more
Miao, India, Apr 13, 2017 / 05:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In the Diocese of Miao, located in India's northeasternmost state of Arunachal Pradesh, Bishop George Pallipparambil does not stay quietly in his cathedral for Holy Week, but rather holds services across the diocese in an effort to better serve his people. “What we're trying to do is to reach to as many places as possible. I'm not confining myself to the main church in Miao,” the bishop told CNA in a 2015 interview. “I'll be there only for the Easter Sunday Mass.” “I finished today in one place, tomorrow I'll be in a big community called Khonsa, and for Good Friday I'll be in another district headquarters. For the [Easter] Vigil I'll be in another place, and then for Sunday Mass I'll be in Miao.” The Miao diocese covers a vast area of nearly 17,000 square miles, and it is home to the easternmost portions of the Himalayas. The terrain ranges “from the very low plains to the high snow-covered Himalayan peaks,” Bishop Pallipparambil explained. “Some of the biggest rivers in the world are in this region, coming down from the Himalayas flowing down to the plains.” Mountainous terrain coupled with a lack of infrastructure explains why the diocese held its Chrism Mass entirely outside of Holy Week, that year on March 26. The Chrism Mass is traditionally said on the morning of Holy Thursday, and it gathers all the priests of a diocese together with their bishop to emphasize their common ministry. The bishop blesses three kinds of oil – chrism, oil of the catechumens, and oil of the sick – which are distributed to the priests and used in sacramental anointings throughout the following year. However, the Diocese of Miao has had to change this practice to adapt to its needs. The diocese was established in 2005, and Bishop Pallipparambil is its first ordinary. “The first year we had [Chrism Mass] on Tuesday of Holy Week, and we found many of the priests could not reach back to their own places for Holy Thursday,” he explained. “So, we started in the last eight years to have the Chrism Mass in the previous week.” Bishop Pallipparambil himself is sometimes beset by travel difficulties: in 2015, heavy rains had made the road to Kulagaon village extremely muddy, and on his way to Holy Week services there, he had to get out and push his jeep along with passersby. Another adaptation: the Chrism Mass was not held in the cathedral at Miao, but rather in Minthong parish in the Longding district. “It is one of the decisions we made when the diocese was created,” Bishop Pallipparambil said. He explained that “having the Chrism Mass in the cathedral, at least for me, didn't make sense,” because each year, the same people would attend and carry the holy oils back to the distant villages and parishes, where the local people “just don't know what it is.” “(W)hereas if the Chrism Mass is held in their place, they come to know because it is always done in their language, and so they know what it is. And when it's time to have an anointing, whether it be for baptism or confirmation or another occasion, they know the sacredness of this oil.” He added that “it brings all the priests and religious to pray together with the people the whole day before the Mass, so that also has a positive catechetical influence.” That year, the Chrism Mass was the occasion for Bishop Pallipparambil to present the first translation of the entire New Testament into the Wancho language. At the bishop's request, Father TJ Francis spent three years working with Wancho leaders in preparing the translation, which will serve the 60,000 Wancho people who live in the Longding and Tirap districts. Fr. Francis' work “must inspire many of us to take up a similar responsibility to translate the Message of the Gospel to the language of the people we serve,” Bishop Pallipparambil said at the Mass. The Miao diocese is home to more than 100 distinct tribes, many of which have their own language. Bishop Pallipparambil told CNA that the Wancho, of whom 95 percent are Christian, now have printed in their own language only the Bible and a few prayer and hymn books. As the language had no written form, it also lacked its own script, the bishop noted, and Fr. Francis wrote the works with Latin letters. The priest has also produced a Wancho grammar. Despite lacking access to written Scripture until now, many of the Wancho have converted “just by hearing and seeing” the Gospel. “Some of their children in the '80s and '90s travelled outside their area and attended Christian schools, and when they got knowledge of Christianity they helped by teaching Bible in their own language,” he explained. The diocese also hold four to five-day Bible camps in which biblical stories and the catechism are explained. Asked if the diocese hopes that the Old Testament will now be translated into Wancho, Bishop Pallipparambil affirmed “yes, we want to do it by all means at the earliest.” This article was originally published on CNA April 3, 2015. Read more
Kyiv, Ukraine, Apr 2, 2015 / 04:10 pm (Aid to the Church in Need).- Bishop Bronislaw Bernacki of Odessa-Simferopol was stunned by the Russian annexation of Crimea and the subsequent war in eastern Ukraine. “No one expected that another war wou... Read more
Rome, Italy, Apr 2, 2015 / 12:23 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis on Holy Thursday told inmates of a Rome prison that God’s love is personal and endless, emphasizing that he too needs forgiveness and purification. “Today I will wash the feet of 12 of you, but among these brothers and sisters are all of you, all of you, all--all that live here. You represent them,” the Pope told inmates of the Rebibbia New Complex Prison at the April 2 Mass of the Lord’s Supper. However, Pope Francis stressed that “I, too, need to be washed by the Lord, so please, during the Mass, pray for me, so that God cleans my dirtiness, so that I, too, can be your slave, at the service of the people, as Jesus was.” The Pope celebrated the traditional Holy Thursday Mass commemorating the Last Supper at Rome’s Rebibbia New Complex Prison, located in the suburbs of Rome. During the ceremony, which took place in the prison’s “Our Father” chapel, the Pope engaged in the traditional washing of feet. The ceremony commemorates the moment before the Last Supper when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. Among the inmates who had their feet washed by Pope were six men incarcerated in the prison as well as six women detained in the nearby district prison for women. In his off-the-cuff homily, Pope Francis reminded inmates that God’s love knows no bounds. He cited the gospel passage about how Jesus had loved his disciples “to the end.” “Jesus loves us, but without limits, always, until the end,” the Pope said. “The love of God for us doesn't have limits. There is always more, always more. He never tires of loving anyone.” Francis emphasized that Jesus gave his life for each person by name, saying that “each one of us can say, 'he gave his life for me.' Each one… His love is like this! Personal!” The Pope then explained that in the time of Jesus, it was the job of the slaves to wash the feet of the guests who came into the house. The Church asks priests to imitate Jesus in assuming the role of the slave by washing the feet of 12 people. Pope Francis encouraged the congregation to remember “in our heart we need to have the certainty, we need to be sure that when that when the Lord washes our feet, he washes everything, he purifies us, he makes us feel his love again.” Before calling up the 12 prisoners whose feet he would wash, the Pope emphasized to all present that “among these brothers and sisters are all of you, all of you, all, all that live here. You represent them.” As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, it was common for Francis to celebrate Holy Thursday Mass in a prison or in any other places for the needy like hospices and slums. Just after his election a little over two years ago, Pope Francis broke with the papal tradition of celebrating Holy Thursday Mass at the Basilica of Saint John in Lateran and visited a youth detention center instead. The Mass was traditionally held in the papal basilica as an opportunity for the people of Rome to meet with Rome’s bishop, the Pope. However, in 2013 Francis accepted an offer from Italian Justice Minister, Paola Severino, to celebrate the liturgy at the Casal del Marmo juvenile detention center, where he washed the feet of 12 young men and women, including a Muslim. Last year for Holy Thursday Pope Francis visited the St. Mary of Providence Center, a 150-bed residential rehabilitation center for disabled people in Rome. He washed the feet of 12 residents. The venue for his 2015 Holy Thursday Mass, Rome’s overcrowded Rebibbia New Complex Prison, has an official capacity of 1,200 inmates, but at present it houses some 1,750 people across 14 sections. The prison has partnered with the Holy See-owned hospital Bambino Gesù in a call center work education program to help inmates reintegrate into society. Francis’ predecessor Pope Benedict XVI visited the Rebibbia detention center December 18, 2011. Read more
Washington D.C., Apr 2, 2015 / 07:54 am (CNA).- As Catholics around the globe prepare for the Easter Triduum, the three-day period beginning with Holy Thursday and culminating in the celebration of Easter, the Jewish community prepares for its own liturgical celebration of Passover, remembering how God freed their ancestors from slavery in Egypt. These two liturgical events are connected, and Catholics of Jewish origin stress that recognizing this connection can help give context and deepen the understanding of Christ’s Paschal sacrifice and the ultimate meaning of Easter. Roy Schoeman, an author and self-described “Hebrew Catholic” – or Catholic of Jewish heritage – spoke to CNA about the inseparable link between Christ’s Passion and the whole of salvation history. “Judaism and the Catholic Church are not two different religions,” but instead form “one tapestry of salvation,” reaching “from the Garden of Eden until the Second Coming,” and in which Abraham and the other Hebrew fathers play a significant role, he explained. “They are one system of salvation that God set up at the beginning of time for all mankind, divided into two phases, the preparatory phase, which is to prepare for the incarnation of God as man, and the fulfillment phase, a second period of salvation history, in between God’s incarnation as man and His second coming.” The covenant, or promise, God formed with Abraham to send a Messiah and set aside the Jewish people is a prefigurement of the sacrifice of Jesus and salvation of all peoples, Schoeman explained. God’s testing of Abraham, asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac, is a clear image of this foreshadowing of Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary, he continued. “Basically, as Abraham put the wood forth for his son’s sacrifice on his shoulders, led him up the mountain, bound him on the wood and was about to sacrifice him, was a precursor to the fulfillment of that picture.” That fulfillment, “is God taking his own beloved son, putting the wood on His shoulders, leading Him up literally to the very same mountain, binding him to the wood, that is nailing him to the Cross, and truly sacrificing.” “All of Passover was a prefigurement of the Crucifixion,” Schoeman continued. “The Exodus from Egypt in Jewish theology was always seen as a prefigurement of the coming of the Messiah in Jewish theology. The Passover Seder is full of explicit Messianic references, including the place setting for Elijah,” he said of the ceremonial Passover meal. For instance, throughout the Gospel narrative of the Last Supper and Crucifixion, “Jesus is explicitly equated with the Paschal lamb,” Schoeman commented. This is seen in the fulfillment of requirements such as “not a bone of the Passover lamb must be broken,” when Christ’s legs were not broken on the Cross. The use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist in the Roman Catholic Church is another sign of the link between the promises God made to the Jewish people and the fulfillment in Christ’s sacrifice. This recognition is part of Church history – many writings of the early Church Fathers, Schoeman noted, likened “the Jews’ slavery to the Pharaoh in Egypt was a picture of mankind’s slavery to sin,” and drew other parallels between the Jewish people and the Universal Church. Fr. Paul Schenck, a Catholic priest raised in the Jewish faith before becoming first a Protestant pastor and then being received fully into the Church, also spoke of the powerful lived experience and significance of the Eucharist, as well as its prefigurement in Passover. “The Eucharist itself as an action, as a sacrifice, as a liturgy, arises out of the Passover,” he explained to CNA. “These are interlocked eternally.” He noted the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist took place during the ritual Passover meal. “Out of this liturgy of the Exodus arises the Liturgy of the Eucharist, so it behooves us to understand the entity which is the blueprint, the framework of what we do.” Both the Passover and the Eucharist share a unique view of ritual remembrance that involve a real presence and participation in the event remembered, he said. “We know the story of the first Passover is the story of the liberation of the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt. But it’s more than that, it’s a timeless event.” Recalling one of his earliest memories of Passover as a young boy, Fr. Schenck commented particularly on the part of the meal where they were told, “Tonight we are slaves in Egypt.” This remembrance impacted him greatly: “I was no longer a kid in the suburbs of New York, I was a slave in Egypt,” he recounted. “Passover is a timeless event, and there’s a reason for that,” he continued. “Passover illustrates the greatest sacrifice ever made in the history of the universe – the Passover of the Son of God, the Savior, who becomes the Lamb of God and takes away the sins of the world.” It is this sacrifice, he said, that is remembered at every Mass. “I always remind Catholics, we celebrate the Passover at every Eucharist. We are perpetuating the feast.” During the celebration of the Mass, many of the prayers and the words of consecration during the liturgy come from “the very same prayer that we say at the Passover Seder.” For Fr. Schenck, this link makes a profound impact on his celebration of the Eucharist. “As a priest there’s simply no more transcendent, marvelous, wondrous moment than when I have the great and utterly undeserved privilege of reciting those words at the altar over the bread and the wine, and then after to elevate the host.” However, perhaps most striking for Fr. Schenck is the importance Jesus attributes to the Last Supper, his final Passover meal before his death. Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke that He “desired with great desire to celebrate the Passover” with his disciples. “That immediately tells us that this is an unavoidable, inescapable central element of our faith as Christians, as Catholics, as people of the Eucharist.” For Catholics who wish to learn more about these roots at the base of Holy Week, Fr. Schenck suggested participating in a Passover Seder dinner, but cautioned Catholics to heed the bishops’ guidelines for participation. The U.S. bishops’ 1998 document, “God's Mercy Endures Forever: Guidelines on the Presentation of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Preaching,” acknowledges “educational and spiritual value” in participating in Seders, but warned against merging the liturgical rubrics of the Seder – called a Haggadah – with New Testament readings or with the Eucharist. “Such mergings distort both traditions,” they cautioned, adding that the “primary reason why Christians may celebrate the festival of Passover should be to acknowledge common roots in the history of salvation,” and such celebrations are not a “restaging” of the Last Supper or alternative to the Triduum. “When we celebrate the Passover it should be with an authentic Haggadah and it should be in unity with the Jewish people, not use it ever as a polemic,” Fr. Schenck warned. Schulman echoed the call for learning and education, citing books and talks by scholars like Scott Hahn and Brant Pitre as useful resources for learning about the roots underneath the celebrations of Holy Week. Regardless of background, Schoeman suggested, Catholics should learn about the history of the Jewish people, because it contains “the whole root and trunk of this story of the Last Supper, the Mass and the act of redemption.” “It’s the flowering of the tree of Judaism. If you just cut off the top slice of the tree, you’re not seeing much.” Read more
Rome, Italy, Apr 2, 2015 / 04:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- During Holy Thursday’s Chrism Mass Pope Francis warned priests not to fall into a tiredness that leads to worldliness, and said that only resting in the Lord will enable them to continue when they feel worn out. “There is also weariness of ourselves. This may be the most dangerous weariness of all,” the Pope said during his April 2 Chrism Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. “I like to call this kind of weariness ‘flirting with spiritual worldliness,’” he said, explaining that when priests are alone, “we realize how many areas of our life are steeped in this worldliness, so much so that we may feel that it can never be completely washed away.” This is a dangerous tiredness to all into because while the other forms come from being exposed and going out to meet people, this tiredness is more “self-referential.” “It is dissatisfaction with oneself, but not the dissatisfaction of someone who directly confronts himself and serenely acknowledges his sinfulness and his need for God’s mercy,” the Pope noted, explaining that this tiredness is like the “wanting yet not wanting” of those who gave up everything but still “yearn for the fleshpots of Egypt.” “This can be a dangerous kind of weariness,” he said, and cautioned that “only love gives true rest. What is not loved becomes tiresome, and in time, brings about a harmful weariness.” Pope Francis made his remarks on the priesthood during the morning's Chrism Mass, which takes place in the Catholic Church each year on Holy Thursday and involves the blessing of oils used for the sacraments of Confirmation, Holy Orders and the Anointing of the Sick. During the Mass all priests, bishops and cardinals present renewed the promises they made on the day of their ordination. While Francis dedicated last year’s Chrism Mass to the joy of the priesthood and the priest’s call to anoint others with the “oil of gladness” they received at their ordination, this year he focused on how this joyful anointing can at times become tiring. “The tiredness of priests! Do you know how often I think about this weariness which all of you experience? I think about it and I pray about it, often, especially when I am tired myself,” the Pope said. He revealed that he prays for all priests as they minister to their flocks, including many who serve “in lonely and dangerous places,” and said that the tiredness of a priest “is like incense which silently rises up to heaven. Our weariness goes straight to the heart of the Father.” Francis cautioned that when a priest feels “weighed down” by his pastoral responsibilities, the temptation can arise to try to rest “however we please,” and explained that rest itself is a gift from God which is often hard to do. “For us priests, what happens in the lives of our people is not like a news bulletin: we know our people, we sense what is going on in their hearts,” he said, noting that priests, who share their people’s suffering, can get “exhausted, broken into a thousand pieces, moved and even consumed by the people.” A priest’s ability to rest can say a lot about a his own capacity to trust and to realize that he himself is a sheep, Francis said, and asked the cardinals, bishops and priests present if they knew what it meant to rest. “Do I know how to rest by accepting the love, gratitude and affection which I receive from God’s faithful people? Or, once my pastoral work is done, do I seek more refined relaxations, not those of the poor but those provided by a consumerist society?” Francis also questioned whether the Holy Spirit was a truly a source of rest for them, or if his is merely considered the one who keeps them busy. He encouraged priests to spend time in prayer, to seek wise advice from other priests, and to rest from “the demands I make on myself, from my self-seeking and from my self-absorption.” Pope Francis then outlined more positive forms of weariness that can come up in the life of a priest, noting that one is what he called “the weariness of the crowd.” To be among the people can be exhausting, Francis noted, and pointed to how Jesus himself was scarcely left with time to eat during his earthly ministry. “But the Lord never tired of being with people. On the contrary, he seemed renewed by their presence. This weariness in the midst of activity is a grace on which all priests can draw. And how beautiful it is!” This tiredness, he said, is “a good and healthy” and is a sign of the priest “who wears the smell of the sheep…but also smiles the smile of a father rejoicing in his children or grandchildren. It has nothing to do with those who wear expensive cologne and who look at others from afar and from above.” If Jesus himself is the one truly guiding the flock, then priests “cannot be shepherds who are glum, plaintive or, even worse, bored. The smell of the sheep and the smile of a father,” Francis said. The Pope then referred to “the weariness of enemies,” which he described as the tiredness that can come from fighting the devil and his minions, who work tirelessly to silence the word of God or distort it. The devil, he said, “is far more astute than we are, and he is able to demolish in a moment what it took us years of patience to build up.” Francis encouraged priests to never let their guard down, and to thwart the attacks of the devil without pulling up the good wheat “or presuming to protect like supermen what the Lord alone can protect.” Pope Francis closed his reflections by drawing attention to how Jesus washed his disciples’ feet the night of the Last Supper. Jesus, he said, “gets involved with us, becomes personally responsible for removing every stain, all that grimy, worldly smog which clings to us from the journey we make in his name,” and washes off the dirt our feet have accumulated by following him. “Like battle wounds, the Lord kisses them and washes away the grime of our labors,” he said, explaining that to do this for others is something holy. Francis closed his reflections by encouraging priests to go out to the peripheries to anoint others, and prayed that they “learn how to be weary, but weary in the best of ways!” Read more
Washington D.C., Apr 1, 2015 / 05:22 pm (CNA).- The editor of Religion News Service has denied that a grant from a wealthy LGBT advocacy funder has biased its coverage of traditional religion, which includes a recent controversial story on Cardinal Raymond Burke. The Arcus Foundation dispenses millions of dollars in grants every year to support LGBT activism. Its 2014 grants included $120,000 to the Religion Newswriters Foundation, the owner of the widely syndicated Religion News Service. The Arcus Foundation’s grant listing said the one year of support was intended “to recruit and equip LGBT supportive leaders and advocates to counter rejection and antagonism within traditionally conservative Christian churches.” The foundation’s Sept. 23, 2014 announcement said the grant aimed at “fostering a culture of LGBT understanding through the media” by funding the production of feature stories and blog posts “about religion and LGBT peoples of color.” Kevin Eckstrom, RNS editor-in-chief, told CNA that receiving money from the advocacy group did not influence editorial choices. “All editorial decisions about coverage of the LGBT community, or any other issue, are made independent of any foundation support, including Arcus,” he said, adding that RNS welcomes support “from any individual or foundation that supports our aim of informing and challenging our readers.” RNS coverage of some Catholic figures has drawn criticism. On March 27, RNS ran a story by David Gibson entitled: “Cardinal Raymond Burke: Gays, remarried Catholics, murderers are all the same.” The RNS story drew on an almost 5,000-word interview in LifeSite News, which asked the cardinal about debates on whether Catholic leaders should emphasize positive qualities among people in committed unmarried or homosexual relationships and among those who have divorced and civilly remarried. Cardinal Burke said that God wants salvation for everyone, but “that can only come about by conversion of life.” “And so we have to call people who are living in these gravely sinful situations to conversion. And to give the impression that somehow there’s something good about living in a state of grave sin is simply contrary to what the Church has always and everywhere taught.” The cardinal agreed with the interviewer that it is “not enough” to recognize that people living in public sin are kind, dedicated and generous. “Of course it's not. It’s like the person who murders someone and yet is kind to other people.” Gibson said the cardinal’s comments were “out of touch with the pastoral tone” of Pope Francis. However, Mark D. Tooley, president of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, argued that Gibson had mischaracterized the cardinal’s comments. Writing on the institute’s blog “Juicy Ecumenism,” Tooley said the headline’s characterization was “distorting and snarky of a sort that is common towards religious traditionalists.” “As a theologian, if asked, doubtless Burke would articulately explain that murder as a sin is of a different order than sexual immorality, although both are grave,” Tooley said. “He obviously cited murder as an example only for the sake of stark clarity. Should the Church be permissive towards a murderer because he is nice?” Jim Davis, a writer at the GetReligion news analysis blog, similarly defended the cardinal. “What Burke told LifeSite, of course – again, after he was asked – was that the Catholic Church still considers some deeds to be grave sins,” Davis said in a March 30 post. Davis questioned whether the RNS story should have been presented as news instead of analysis or commentary, “which would have freed the writer to stack cards and give his viewpoint.” The GetReligion writer also noted that Pope Francis has pursued both a pastoral strategy while also being “not so yielding” on issues like marriage. Davis cited the Pope’s January remarks in the Philippines, in which the pontiff said “the family is threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life.” News outlets that syndicate RNS include the Huffington Post, the Washington Post, Crux, the National Catholic Reporter and America. Speaking to CNA, Eckstrom defended the Gibson piece as “a fair and even-handed treatment of a controversial (and influential) figure within the Roman Catholic Church,” saying Tooley and GetReligion frequently criticize RNS because it does not “meet either’s standard of theological orthodoxy.” He also said that all LGBT coverage underwritten by Arcus is “clearly labeled as such” and is “specifically focused on coverage of LGBT communities of color.” He said that the RNS general budget supports the “lionshare” of coverage of Pope Francis and LGBT issues within churches. He noted that the grant language is “Arcus’ description of their funding, not ours.” For its part, the Arcus Foundation’s self-described social justice program aims to cultivate “positive religious leaders and advocates” and to develop “effective faith messages and messengers” that have an impact in target communities. The foundation’s grants also oppose “the abuse of religious freedoms” through religious exemptions and aim to develop “religious and legal strategies to hold exemptions in check” while challenging “religious opponents of LGBT people in the U.S. and internationally.” The foundation’s grant application page said it considers grant applications from organizations whose work “aligns with our values, strategic priorities and EEO requirement.” Eckstrom said that the RNS grant proposal to the Arcus Foundation stressed the need to “increase and improve domestic and international coverage of how religion affects a diverse range of LGBT communities.” “Our job is to offer readers a window into the personalities, theology and institutions that are shaping a momentous social and civic debate,” Eckstrom told CNA. The $120,000 grant appears significant compared to the Religion Newswriters Foundation’s past revenue. Its tax forms show a total revenue of $216,000 in 2012, and $166,000 in 2011. Religion News LLC, the non-profit corporation that operates RNS, had $1.8 million in revenue for Fiscal Year 2012-2013. One Arcus-sponsored RNS feature story was by Jay Michaelson, a former vice president for social justice programs at the Arcus Foundation. On March 31, RNS ran a different story by Michaelson about the controversy over Indiana’s religious freedom bill. The stories did not acknowledge Michaelson’s past with Arcus, which together with the Ford Foundation has spent at least $3 million since 2013 supporting legal groups, law school projects, pro-abortion rights groups and media strategy development to counter religious freedom exemptions. On April 1, Eckstrom told CNA he was “completely unaware” of Michaelson’s past affiliation with Arcus when RNS began working with him. “All I knew was that he was a talented and skilled reporter with a particular expertise on the LGBT beat. He’s a professional full-time writer now, and that¹s what matters to me, not necessarily where he worked in the past.” The Arcus Foundation’s founder, heir Jon Stryker, is a major backer of “gay marriage.” The foundation’s executive director, Kevin Jennings, is the founder of the high school LGBT activist network GLSEN and served as assistant deputy secretary for the U.S. Department of Education under the Obama administration. The foundation’s other media-related spending has included support for Religion Dispatches, Media Matters for America, and Faith in Public Life. Read more
Vatican City, Apr 1, 2015 / 01:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis, in his General Audience address for Holy Week, said that the Christian martyrs of today, by the shedding of their blood, join with Christ in serving the Church through their witness. “Even today,” the Pope said in off-the-cuff remarks, “there are many men and women, true martyrs, who offer their lives with Jesus to confess the faith only for this reason; it is a service. A service of the Christian witness to the point of shedding blood.” In his Apr. 1 address, the pontiff recalled the “heroic witness” of Fr. Andrea Santoro, a Roman priest and missionary to Turkey, who was shot dead in the back moments before celebrating Mass on Feb. 5, 2006. “This example, of a man of our times, and many others, sustain us in offering life as a gift of life for our brethren, in imitation of Jesus.” The Pope has spoken out repeatedly on Christian martyrs of today. He has stressed that there are more persecuted Christians throughout the world now than there were in the early centuries of Christianity. Addressing the crowds in St. Peter's Square on the Wednesday of this year's Holy Week, Pope Francis centered his catechesis on the upcoming Easter Triduum. Observances officially begin Holy Thursday with the Mass of the Lord's Supper, commemorating the vigil of Christ's Passion during which He offered his Body and Blood under the species of bread and wine, the first Eucharist. At this meal, Jesus also washed the feet of the Apostles. “Jesus – as a servant – washes the feet of Simon Peter and the other eleven disciples” in a “prophetic gesture” which recalls the purpose of His life and Passion, which is in “service to God and his brethren,” Pope Francis said. As Christians, he continued, we experience the cleansing of our sins by grace during our Baptism, as well as in the reception of the Eucharist, for which we must be properly disposed. “If we approach Holy Communion without being sincerely willing to wash the feat of one another, we do not recognize the Lord's Body,” he said. Pope Francis went on to reflect on Good Friday, a day which culminates in Christ's death on the Cross with the words: “It is accomplished.” This word, he said, “signifies that the work of salvation is accomplished, that all of Scripture find their fulfillment in the love of Christ, the Lamb who was slain. Jesus, with his Sacrifice, has transformed the greatest iniquities into the greatest love.” Pope Francis then spoke about Holy Saturday, during which “the Church contemplates the 'rest' of Christ in the tomb after the victorious battle of the Cross.” This day is an opportune time to reflect on Mary, the Pope said. “On Holy Saturday, the Church, once again, identifies itself with Mary: all of its faith is gathered in her, the first and perfect disciple, the first and perfect believer.” “In the darkness which surrounds creation, she alone remains to keep the flame of faith alive, hoping against every hope in the Resurrection of Jesus.” Finally, during the Easter vigil, which begins late Saturday evening, Christ's resurrection is celebrated. “At times, the darkness of night seems to penetrate the soul,” the Pope said. “At times we think: 'By now there is nothing more to be done,' and the heart does not find the strength to love... but it is in this darkness that Christ ignites the fire of God's Love: a blaze shatters the darkness and announces a new beginning.” Like the women and disciples who went to the tomb on Easter Sunday, the Pope said, “as Christians, we are called to be sentinels of the morning, who know how to see the signs of the Resurrection.” Read more
Lincoln, Neb., Apr 1, 2015 / 12:28 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On Tuesday of Holy Week, Bishop James Conley of Lincoln offered Mass and Confirmed four inmates at the Nebraska State Penitentiary, encouraging those present to embrace God’s mercy and striv... Read more
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