Madrid, Spain, Nov 6, 2014 / 08:40 pm (CNA).- A social network focused on connecting the world in prayer has launched a mobile application enabling people from across the globe to unite and track their petitions and prayers. May Feelings was launched in May 2012 as a social network, aimed at offering an online platform where people could pray for each other’s intentions. “What we were wondering when we started this amazing project was how it is possible that in a world full of social networks, so many people feel alone?” asked co-founder Santiago Requejo, in a promotional video for their website, mayfeelings.com. The mission of May Feelings is to reach people who are alone, or who do not have anyone to pray for them, with the guarantee that their petitions will be heard and prayed for. Users voice their concerns and petitions, and other people respond and offer their prayers. “May Feelings makes you forget yourself in order to think of other people,” said Bosco Ybarra, one of the network’s founders. The May Feelings website has been largely successful, and the network has now launched a mobile app called “Pray – with your iPhone.” Using the same concept as the website, Pray describes itself as the first app that uses prayer and petitions to unite others from across the globe in fellowship. The app connects people from around the world who need prayer, allows users to make and track prayer resolutions, and offers the ability to chat with others about their petitions and accompany them on their prayer journeys. It also allows users to see weekly prayer progress, follow developments on intentions, and be involved in a community that prays together to change the world. Pray has collected more than 1 million prayers from every continent, and has found particular success in South America and the United States, organizers say. One U.S. woman who was struggling with thoughts of suicide told the app’s creators that the prayers she received from users of app gave her the support and strength she needed to “continue fighting against the difficulties of life.” “She was not alone since there were many who prayed and encouraged her to keep going,” organizers said. “This pray app is currently helping thousands of people around the world” and it “reminds us that the power of prayer moves mountains,” they stated.   The "Pray – with your iPhone" app is free and can be found on the app store or on Google play. Read more

Madrid, Spain, Nov 6, 2014 / 02:49 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Upon announcing her recovery from Ebola, Spanish nurse Teresa Romero said Wednesday that she praises God for her life and holds no ill will against anyone for having contracted the disease. “I don't know what went wrong, or even if anything did go wrong. I only know that I don't hold any grudges, nor do I fault anyone,” Romero said in a brief appearance before reporters, in which she was met with sustained applause. Saying she is still weak, she asked to be given space and said she hopes her infection will contribute something to research into the virus. “If my blood can help cure others, I am here,” she added. Romero had treated two Spanish missionaries who had contracted Ebola while ministering in West Africa. Both later died of the disease. Her case attracted significant Western attention to the Ebola outbreak, which originated in West Africa. The latest World Health Organization estimates indicate that Ebola has killed about 5,000 people, primarily in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. The incurable disease has a high mortality rate. Romero said she thanks God for “giving me my life back” and her family for their support, which inspired her “to fight to continue in this life.” She also praised the doctors at the Carlos III Hospital in Madrid for their care. When she thought she was dying, Romero said she clung to the memories of her family members and her husband. She felt supported by the entire country in her fight against Ebola, an illness she said nobody in Europe cared about until someone on the continent became infected. The nurse expressed gratitude as well for the thousands of messages of encouragement that she received through social networks.   Read more

Rome, Italy, Nov 6, 2014 / 04:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholic experts say occult activity and the resulting need for exorcisms has reached a critical level. Just prior to the season of all things supernatural, the International Association of Exorcists (AIE) met for their 12th annual conference in Rome, from Oct. 20-25. According to AIE spokesperson Dr. Valter Cascioli, an increasing number of bishops and cardinals asked to participate in the conference due to an increase in demonic activity. “It’s becoming a pastoral emergency,” Cascioli told CNA. “At the moment the number of disturbances of extraordinary demonic activity is on the rise.” The rise in demonic activity can be attributed to a decreasing faith among individuals, coupled with an increase in curiosity and participation in occult activity such as Ouija boards and séances, Cascioli added. Many people are led to occult activities through seemingly innocent curiosity. One concerned mother wrote to Crux, the Boston Globe’s Catholic news outlet, for advice on her teenage daughter who seemed to becoming obsessed with the occult – she checks out books on witchcraft, watches “Long Island Medium”, and attends séances at the home of a friend who owns a Ouija board. The advice columnist dismissed it as a phase, similar to an obsession with such literature as C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia or Tolkein's Middle Earth – or with My Little Pony. “If you don’t make it a big deal, she’ll have to face reality herself: Sooner or later, she has to grow up,” wrote Lisa Miller, Crux's advice columnist. However, any involvement, even passive participation in the occult, can be catastrophic and should always be rejected and avoided by believers, Cascioli said. “It usually starts out of ignorance, superficiality, stupidity or proselytizing, actively participating or just watching.” “The consequences are always disastrous.” Ramifications of occult activity affects people on physical, psychological, spiritual, and moral levels, and  include anxiety, panic attacks, nightmares, acts of self-harm, and constant thoughts of death, to name a few, he said. In severe cases, occult activity leads to demonic possession. “Whether we realize it or not, whether we are aware of it or not, whether we do it for fun, for amusement or for any other reason, it does not change anything: the devastating impact of spiritism, is the same.” Often, people are misguided and believe they are in touch with the spirits of deceased loved ones, when in fact they have contacted and invited demons into their lives, Cascioli continued. “This spiritual entity deceives and betrays us about their true identity, telling us things that are only partially based on truth; thus seduce us, trick us and try to enter into us,” he explained.   Fr. Stephen Doktorczyk, a priest of the Diocese of Orange, has participated in healing and deliverance workshops and has prayed many times over people who were approaching possession. He suggested in response to the Crux column that the mother’s duty was to pray the rosary for her daughter and to dissuade her from any further occult involvement.    “The young girl's behavior is potentially dangerous and could lead to serious problems in the not too distant future,” he said. “The Evil One is smart. He knows how to entice people with seemingly harmless things. As we read in 1 Peter 5:8-9: ‘Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, solid in your faith.’” "I have dealt with too many situations involving people who, perhaps innocently, started dabbling in the occult. They now wish they would could go back and undo their prior decision," he added. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, all forms of “divination” – anything that involves recourse to Satan or demons, or that attempts to conjure the dead or reveal future events – are to be rejected. From CCC paragraph 2116: “Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.” The Catechism continues the warnings in the following paragraph against any magic or sorcery or occult activities, called “spiritism.” Another common error is believing that the devil and the spiritual realm are not real, Cascioli said; but the devil is real, he affirmed, and the Bible refers to him 118 times under various names including Satan, the evil one, and the prince of this world. The International Association of Exorcists, whose 250 exorcists are placed all over the world, have noticed an increase in demonic activity irrespective of particular places or cultures. “We know that in some countries of the world, there are no exorcists, and demonic activity and its consequences are spreading all over the world,” Cascioli said. “It is not a socio-cultural phenomenon, it is present all over the world, and that tells us a lot.”   “So, it is truly becoming a pastoral emergency and this is why we have the necessity to combat this situation.”Alan Holdren contributed to this piece. Read more

Berlin, Germany, Nov 6, 2014 / 02:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As Cardinal Walter Kasper prepares to receive an award and give a speech at The Catholic University of America later today, a storm is brewing. Critics point out that while Cardinal Kasper and most of his fellow German bishops have been leading the charge to allow those in “irregular” marital situations – those who are divorced and remarried – to receive Communion, they have simultaneously denied the sacraments, including even Confession, to those who opt out of paying Germany’s “church tax”: a position seen by critics as hyprocritical. In both cases, the German position is at odds with Church teaching: admitting to Communion those formally not allowed, and forbidding those whom the Vatican says can validly receive the sacraments. The German definition of mercy, critics say, is a "pay to pray system" that has its “financial” limits. The bishops in Germany “are notoriously the most merciful in wishing to grant Communion to the divorced and remarried, but at the same time are the most ruthless in de facto excommunicating those who refuse to pay the church tax, which in their country is obligatory by law,” Sandro Magister wrote Oct. 29 in his “Settimo Cielo” blog for L'Espresso. The church tax earned the Church in Germany an income of more than $7 billion in both 2012 and 2013. Critics charged that the German bishops are on one hand saying that mercy demands Communion be given to those living in what Christ called adultery, while simultaneously banning those who may be living according to Church teaching, but for whatever reason choose not pay their church tax, from all the sacraments. “In Germany the church tax (kirchensteuer) is obligatory, such that to be able to not pay it, one must declare their departure from the church to which they belong, whether Catholic or Protestant, by a public act made before a competent civil authority,” Magister explained. When Germans register as Catholic, Protestant, or Jew on their tax forms, the government automatically collects an income tax from them which amounts to 8 or 9 percent of their total income tax, or 3-4 percent of their salary. The “church tax” is given to the religious communities, rather than those communities collecting a tithe. The Church uses its funds to help run its parishes, schools, hospitals, and welfare projects. Many Germans have de-registered in recent years, so as to avoid paying the additional tax. Magister noted that the number of persons declaring their departure from the Church has been substantial – in 2010, the figure was more than 180,000. The number of de-registrations has been heightened this year, as the church tax is now being withheld from capital gains, as well as from salary. Many of those who have de-registered from the Church on the German government's forms continue to practice the faith, and have de-registered to avoid the tax altogether, or to support the Church with private tithes. In response to the numbers de-registering, the German bishops issued a decree in September 2012 calling such departure “a serious lapse” and listing a number of ways they are barred from participating in the life of the Church. The decree specified that those who do not pay the church tax cannot receive the sacraments of Confession, Communion, Confirmation, or Anointing of the Sick, except when in danger of death; cannot hold ecclesial office or perform functions within the Church; cannot be a godparent or sponsor; cannot be a member of diocesan or parish councils; and cannot be members of public associations of the Church. If those who de-registered show no sign of repentance before their death, they can even be refused a religious burial. While these penalties have been described as "de facto excommunication," the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, wrote in a March 13, 2006 document that opting out of taxes in a civil situation was not the same as renouncing the faith, and thus excommunication did not apply to such persons. The German group Union of Associations Loyal to the Pope has said it is ironic that one could reject Church teaching on any number of issues, including the indissolubility of marriage, and still be considered Catholic – as long as one paid the church tax. The group charged that the "selling of sacraments" through the tax system was even worse than the abuses protested by Martin Luther at the start of the Protestant Reformation. Read more