San Francisco, Calif., Mar 18, 2015 / 05:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- San Francisco’s cathedral installed a special sprinkler system to wash out “needles, feces and other dangerous items” from its doorways – and never intended to remove homeless people sleeping there, the archdiocese has explained in the face of media attacks. “The problem was particularly dangerous because students and elderly people regularly pass these locations on their way to school and Mass every day,” San Francisco Auxiliary Bishop William Justice said March 18. “The purpose was to make the Cathedral grounds as well as the homeless people who happen to be on those grounds safer.” Bishop Justice, who is also rector of the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption, said the cathedral installed the system about two years ago after learning from “city resources” that such a system was in common use in the city’s financial district for “safety, security and cleanliness.” The Archdiocese of San Francisco told CNA that members of the San Francisco Police Department had recommended the system to the cathedral’s previous rector. Bishop Justice said dangerous items such as needles and feces were regularly being left in the cathedral’s hidden doorways. He said people who were regularly sleeping in the doorways were informed in advance that the sprinklers were being installed. “The idea was not to remove those persons, but to encourage them to relocate to other areas of the cathedral, which are protected and safer.” An initial report from San Francisco KCBS, which cited a cathedral staff member, claimed that the sprinkler system had been installed “to keep the homeless from sleeping in the cathedral’s doorways.” The sprinkler system ran for about 75 seconds every 30 to 60 minutes. Reporters saw several homeless people and their belongings become soaked by the water and said the sprinkler system was ineffective at cleaning the area and lacked a drainage system. Bishop Justice apologized that the cathedral’s intentions had been misunderstood and described the sprinkler system method as “ill-conceived.” “It actually has had the opposite effect from what it was intended to do, and for this we are very sorry.” He noted that the San Francisco archdiocese and the St. Vincent de Paul Society are “the largest supporter of services for the homeless in San Francisco.” “Every year, it helps many thousands of people through food, housing, shelter programs for people at risk including homeless mothers and families, and in countless other ways,” the bishop said. “St. Mary's Cathedral is a huge part of that program, and does more than any other Catholic church.” Only hours after the first news report on the cathedral water system, the City of San Francisco issued a formal notice that the sprinkler system violates building and safety codes. Bishop Justice said the archdiocese had already started to remove the system. Negative coverage of the cathedral did not come in a vacuum. The San Francisco archdiocese is presently the target of protests, critical media coverage and political pressure after Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone announced changes to archdiocesan high school teachers’ handbooks intended to clarify Catholic religious and moral teachings. He also announced, and later withdrew, a proposed clause to Catholic high schools’ teacher contracts outlining teachers’ ministerial role. The political reaction included a March 6 resolution from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors against the archbishop’s proposal.   Board member Mark Farrell, who sponsored the resolution, claimed in a March 18 tweet that the sprinkler system was “inhumane and appalling.” Media coverage could be aggravated by the involvement of Sam Singer, founder of the influential San Francisco-based communications firm Singer Associates, whose clients include the Chevron oil company and prominent San Francisco newspapers. Singer told the SF Weekly newspaper that “concerned parents” are paying for his services in their dispute with the archbishop. While the SF Weekly report indicated that the parents are from the Catholic high schools, Singer told the National Catholic Reporter that he was in fact hired by parents, alumni and others opposed to the actions of Father Joseph Illo, a pastor at Star of the Sea Church and its K-8 school. The pastor’s decisions include having only male altar servers. However, Singer is aiming at Archbishop Cordileone. “Everyone is praying that the Pope will remove the San Francisco Archbishop and these priests,” he said in a Feb. 18 Google+ post that referenced the Our Lady Star of the Sea controversy. Singer’s social media accounts are publicizing negative interpretations of the archbishop and the archdiocese while promoting stories siding with the protesters. His Twitter account promoted press coverage of cathedral’s sprinkler system, as well as some individuals’ negative reactions. Read more

Washington D.C., Mar 18, 2015 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Pope's surprise announcement of a holy year for mercy has Catholics weighing in on the significance of the move, which some say can be boiled down to this: Francis wants us to know how much God loves us. The Fathers of Mercy, a priestly order based in Kentucky, said they were thrilled when news of the jubilee broke last week. A self-described “itinerant missionary preaching order of priests,” they conduct parish missions focused on conversion through the sacraments of Mass and Confession. “We see first-hand the reality and beauty of conversion – God's mercy at work,” member Father Wade told CNA. During a penitential service at St. Peter's Basilica March 12, Pope Francis announced the extraordinary jubilee Year of Mercy, which will begin later this year on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8. It will end on the Solemnity of Christ the King, Nov. 20, 2016. The scriptural focus for the jubilee year will be Christ's command from Luke 6:36, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” “It's a journey that starts with a spiritual conversion,” Pope Francis said at the announcement. But what is mercy, and how is it concretely practiced? “Mercy is who God is. It is love's second name,” Fr. Menezes said. And conversion is its “most concrete expression,” he added, quoting St. John Paul II's 1980 papal encyclical “Dives in Misericordia,” or “Rich in Mercy.” “God is more interested in our future than in our past,” he explained. God takes past sin “seriously” but never “as the last word,” because He “wants each one of us to become the 'best version' of our self that He wills for each one of us, personally, in His divine and eternal mind, and this requires conversion.” This is exactly what Pope Francis has in mind in announcing the Year of Mercy, said Kathryn Jean Lopez, founding director of Catholic Voices USA. “In our busy, buzzing, often bifurcated lives, we often don't find the time for the silence of examination of conscience. This Holy Father is a Jesuit spiritual director to the world, urging us to see just how much God loves us, reorienting our hearts to His,” she told CNA. Rather than proposing something radically new, Pope Francis is continuing the devotion to mercy of his predecessors St. John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, noted Lopez. “Pope John Paul II loved Divine Mercy so, Pope Benedict would call him the apostle of Divine Mercy. Benedict would also say that Divine Mercy is the name of God himself,” she said. This unbroken line is also proven in the encyclical Dives in Misericordia, where John Paul II wrote that “the Church – professing mercy and remaining always faithful to it – has the right and the duty to call upon the mercy of God,” Fr. Menezes said. What's more, though, mercy is also practiced through concrete acts of charity. The Church lists seven “corporal” and “spiritual” “works of mercy” which must be performed by the faithful. “Catholics do the work of education, hospice care, caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, visiting the imprisoned, looking after the lonely. This is the encounter Pope Francis talks about,” Lopez said listing the corporal works of mercy. The seven spiritual works of mercy are to admonish the sinner, instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, comfort the sorrowful, bear wrongs patiently, forgive all injuries, and pray for the living and dead. “A message of mercy brings people in the door to freely encounter the heart of Christ in the sacramental life of the Church,” Lopez added. According to the Vatican's website, the jubilee year has its roots in the Monastic law when every fiftieth year was made holy for the Jewish people. Debts were canceled, slaves were freed, and lands were restored to their “original owners.” Ordinary jubilees occur every 25 or 50 years, and extraordinary jubilees are called for some momentous occasion. Two extraordinary jubilees were called in the 20th century – 1933, to mark the 1900th anniversary of Christ's redemption in 33 A.D., and 1983, its 1950th anniversary. The jubilee year is a “holy year” marked by acts of faith, charity, and “brotherly communion,” the Vatican's website adds.   “I am convinced that the whole Church will find in this Jubilee the joy needed to rediscover and make fruitful the mercy of God, with which all of us are called to give consolation to every man and woman of our time,” Pope Francis said after announcing the jubilee year. “From this moment, we entrust this Holy Year to the Mother of Mercy, that she might turn her gaze upon us and watch over our journey,” he said. The jubilee year will begin on a Marian feast day, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. Read more

Philadelphia, Pa., Mar 18, 2015 / 04:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia warned Tuesday that the United States will face increasing pressure to abandon its traditionally broad protections for religious liberty, though he e... Read more

Washington D.C., Mar 18, 2015 / 02:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Many challenges to families need addressing today, including perhaps too much attention given to college basketball’s “March Madness,” and not enough to studying Church teaching. So said Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, the head of the U.S. bishops conference, at a Mar. 16 discussion at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. “If we took the same studied approach to what the Church is saying as we do, let’s say, to sports, we’d be experts,” he reflected. The problem, he explained, is many Catholics see the secular headlines on Pope Francis and don’t study Church teaching to grasp what he is really saying. Moral and doctrinal confusion ensues. “I tell our people we have to be students,” he said. One of the missions born from last year’s extraordinary Synod on the Family, he added, “is to take an interest, become a student, even as much as March Madness.” The archbishop revealed he has filled out an NCAA tournament bracket, but wouldn’t directly state his pick to win. “I am from Kentucky,” he said, dropping a not-so-subtle hint to laughter from the audience. The archbishop was discussing last year’s extraordinary Synod on the Family and the upcoming ordinary synod, both in the context of the New Evangelization. The extraordinary synod focused on “pastoral challenges to the family in the context of evangelization.” The ordinary synod, which will take place this October in the Vatican, will continue deliberations of the previous synod to result in “pastoral guidelines” for these challenges. In a wide-ranging talk with the university’s theology professor John Grabowski, the archbishop revealed some of the inner workings of the recent synod, the family’s importance to the New Evangelization, and some obstacles and opportunities to the family’s role in the U.S. Many young people doubt they will have a successful marriage because they see the divorce statistics are so high, or they grew up in a broken family. Rates of cohabitation and children without parents have risen sharply in the last two decades. The Church must “inspire, especially young people, to think they’re not a statistic. That they’re not going to fail,” Archbishop Kurtz insisted. “We need living examples of faithful love,” he continued. Canonization of more saintly married couples – like the parents of St. Therese of Liseux, Blessed Louis and Zélie Martin, who could be canonized during the next synod – could help in this regard, he acknowledged. “One of the things that I raised is I said at the synod, I said don’t tell me that people don’t understand sacrificial love when they see a mother or a father sacrificing for a child that maybe has a disability,” he added. “I think in some ways that brings out the best in people, and I think we need to be able to highlight that.” Another challenge for American families is to place more importance on relationships, he explained. “We have so much. We sometimes don’t give time to the people who are most important in our lives. The most important things are the relationships that we have,” he said. More Catholics need to “put a priority on the gift of marriage and family.” He also addressed questions about tension at the synod over discussing matters of pastoral care. Yes it was present, he admitted, while adding that it’s a natural part of the process. “I went back to the Acts of the Apostles, and I read about the Council of Jerusalem,” he said, chuckling that in his epistle to the Galatians, St. Paul admitted of tension at the council, or “passionate discernment,” as Archbishop Kurtz referred to it. That indeed “characterized the second week” of the synod after the controversial mid-term report was published. The relatio contained “some really good things,” yet “some things that we felt needed improvement.” “We wanted to leave that synod with the best document possible,” he said, explaining some of the passionate deliberations, adding that “the Holy Spirit works through zeal and passion and listening.” He also shared what he told President Obama in a December meeting between the two at the White House. Quoting Pope Francis’ words to families, “don’t limit your life to what happens in Church,” he told the president that the Church in the U.S. needed religious freedom to serve the poor in the public square. “I said, 'listen, we’re not looking for any special favors. We just know as a Church, we need to serve others. Please don’t tie our hands.'” Archbishop Kurtz also discussed Pope Francis' plan to visit the U.S. in September, including an appearance at the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, and what he will find. Like any guest visiting the Church in the U.S., “you want them to get a real feel for what I would call how beautiful the Church is, and how beautiful the commitment of faith is in the hearts of people,” he explained. “America sometimes from the outside looks like we’re this big superpower and all we’re interested in is money and material things,” he said, but added that in visiting the U.S., “I think [Pope Francis] will see some beautiful things.” Read more