2014-10-21T22:35:00+00:00

St. Louis, Mo., Oct 21, 2014 / 04:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Helen Hull Hitchcock, a prominent Catholic speaker, author, and advocate for the Church’s teachings on women and liturgy, died at the age of 75 on Monday, Oct. 20, after suffering from a s... Read more

2014-10-21T22:24:00+00:00

New York City, N.Y., Oct 21, 2014 / 04:24 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Religious believers should acknowledge that they are now “strangers” in U.S. society, in part because of their own failures, but should nevertheless work for renewal and worship... Read more

2014-10-21T20:47:00+00:00

Dallas, Texas, Oct 21, 2014 / 02:47 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- When a Texas family feared to have contracted the Ebola virus was recently placed under quarantine, they found refuge from Bishop Kevin Farrell of Dallas, who offered them shelter in the name of ... Read more

2014-10-21T18:58:00+00:00

Gbarnga, Liberia, Oct 21, 2014 / 12:58 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- "How is it that we have again become the marginalized of the earth?" That is what people ask Bishop Anthony Borwah of Gbarnga, in Liberia, the country most affected by the outbreak of Ebola. Recalling that the west African country is still recovering from a pair of civil wars that lasted from 1989 until 2003, Bishop Borwah told Time magazine recently, “the poor are again asking the existential questions that predominated during the civil war: Where is God? What evil have we done again? How is it that we have again become the rejected of the earth?" Bishop Borwah shared that “a relative of mine who survived Ebola committed suicide, because the people avoided him, and he no longer felt wanted by anyone.” The stigmatization of those who survive Ebola is marked in Liberia and its neighbors, due to a lack of education. Survivors there “carry on their skin the stigma left by this illness,” Bishop Borwah stated. According to the World Health Organization, up to Oct. 14 there had been 4,555 deaths from the Ebola outbreak, and more than 9,200 cases. In July, Catholic Relief Services' regional information officer for west and central Africa, Michael Stulman, told CNA that many misconceptions about Ebola are facilitating the virus’ spread in the region, but that “we try to address the myths, fears and cultural challenges people are facing.” He added that some locals believe Ebola is caused by a curse, which can only be undone by a traditional healer. There is also a risk of spreading Ebola at burial ceremonies that include washing the body of the deceased. Public education is a critical element of CRS’ work combatting the Ebola outbreak. The agency has teamed up with local community leaders, Caritas, and the Ministries of Health to raise awareness about Ebola. CRS is also utilizing local radio stations to broadcast public service announcements and daily radio discussions with health officials and community leaders. During the radio discussions, listeners are encouraged to call in with questions and concerns regarding the outbreak. The hope is that better education will lead to better prevention practices, and halt the spread of the disease. In September, Meredith Stakem, a Senegal-based official of CRS, stated, “there is still a huge need to educate the public in all of the affected countries about Ebola, how it spreads, and what actions people need to take to protect themselves and their families. We have seen firsthand how locally tailored information delivered face-to-face in a way that engages the audience can be effective.” The infectious disease is caused by the Ebola virus, first detected in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1976. Infection is caused when someone has direct contact with the flood, vomit, feces, or bodily fluids of someone who has Ebola; it is not airborne. People are not infectious until they develop symptoms of the disease, and remain so for up to seven weeks after recovery. Ebola has no proven cure, though potential vaccines are being tested. A serum can made from the blood of survivors – which will have antibodies against the virus. In addition to Liberia, the worse affected countries are its neighbors Guinea and Sierra Leone. Nearby Senegal and Nigeria were also affected, but have been recently declared free of the virus. Outside west Africa, Ebola cases have been reported in Spain, the US, Germany, Norway, France, and the UK. The outbreak has been traced to a child who died Dec. 6, 2013 in southern Guinea, but its spread began in earnest in March. The Ebola epidemic has caused a collapse in the health care systems of the countries most affected: on Oct. 12, the WHO reported that Liberia has 620 existing medical beds, but the total number needed is 2,930. In addition, the outbreak is causing people not to work; travel restrictions affecting food trade and the movement of emergency responders; and has aggravated social tensions, leading to rioting in some locales. Many hospitals, schools, and workplaces have been closed. Catholic Relief Services is working to support Ebola prevention, preparedness, and management activities in the affected countries, training and supporting community volunteers and religious leaders, supporting radio programs and household visits, and helping to provide hygiene kits. Bishop Borwah concluded, “we need help to feed those who are hungry and are angry, and to care for and console the survivors of Ebola.” Read more

2014-10-21T16:30:00+00:00

Vatican City, Oct 21, 2014 / 10:30 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Christ wants to see us reconciled rather than living as enemies, Pope Francis said in his homily at Mass on Tuesday, explaining that a true Christian lives with this hope. “We all know th... Read more

2014-10-21T13:52:00+00:00

Vatican City, Oct 21, 2014 / 07:52 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In response to an invitation sent by Patriarch Bartolomeo I of Constantinople, Pope Francis will make a three-day trip to Turkey, during which he will visit the cities of Ankara and Istanbul. Announced in September following the reception of an official letter of invitation signed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the trip will take place Nov. 28-30, and falls just days after Pope Francis’ Nov. 25 address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The visit was largely made in response to an invitation sent to Pope Francis by Patriarch Bartolomeo I asking him to participate in the celebration of the feast of St. Andrew, who is the founder of the Eastern Church and patron of the Orthodox world. In stark contrast with his previous trips, usually packed with various liturgies, audiences and meetings with diverse groups of people, Pope Francis is keeping his schedule light, and will only give 3 public speeches, one being a homily for Mass on the second day of his trip. After departing from Rome’s Fiumicino airport at 9 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 28, the Roman Pontiff will fly directly to the Turkish capital of Ankara, where he will receive an official welcoming ceremony at the airport. He will then make his way to the Atatürk Mausoleum, and afterwards will go to the presidential palace, where he will pay a courtesy visit to the Turkish president and hold an audience with local authorities. He will also visit with Turkey’s Prime Minister and President of Religious Affairs that afternoon. The following day the Bishop of Rome will travel by plane to Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, where he will visit the historic Hagia Sophia museum, which is a former Greek Orthodox patriarchal basilica that was later transformed into an imperial mosque. He will then visit the historic Sultan Ahmet Mosque, also known as the “Blue Mosque” due to the blue tiles covering the inside. After his visit to these two historically significant sites, the Pope will celebrate Mass in Istanbul’s Cathedral of the Holy Spirit. He will then participate in an ecumenical prayer at the Patriarchal church of St. George, after which he will have a private encounter with His Holiness Bartholomew I. On his final day in Turkey Pope Francis will hold a private Mass in the morning before praying the Divine Liturgy at the Patriarchal church of St. George and signing a joint declaration with Bartolomeo I. After having lunch with the patriarch, Pope Francis will head back to Istanbul’s Atatürk airport, and will land at Rome’s Ciampino airport at 6:40 p.m. Please see below for the full itinerary of Pope Francis’ visit to Turkey: Friday, Nov. 28, 2014 9:00a.m. Depart by plane from Rome's Fiumicino Airport 1:00p.m. Arrive to Ankara's Esembo?a Airport   Official Welcome Visit to Atatürk Mausoleum Presidential Palace: Welcoming Ceremony Courtesy visit to the president of the Republic Encounter with authorities Audience with Prime Minister Visit to the president of Religious Affairs at Diyanet Saturday, Nov. 29, 2014 9:30a.m. Depart by plan from Ankara's Esembo?a Airport 10:30a.m. Arrive to the international Atatürk Airport of Istanbul Visit to the Saint Sofia Museum Visit to the Sultan Ahmet Mosque Holy Mass in the Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Spirit Ecumenical Prayer in the Patriarchal church of St. George Private Encounter with His Holiness Bartholomew I in the Patriarchal Palace Sunday, Nov. 30, 2014 Holy Mass in private in the Apostolic Delegation Diving Liturgy in the Patriarchal church of St. George Ecumenical Blessing and signing of the Joint Declaration Lunch between Pope Francis and His Holiness Bartolomeo I at the Ecumenical Patriarchate 4:45p.m. Leave for the Atatürk Airport of Istanbul 5:00p.m. Departure by plane from the international Atatürk Airport of Istanbul 6:40p.m. Arrive at Rome's Ciampino Airport Read more

2014-10-21T10:02:00+00:00

Rome, Italy, Oct 21, 2014 / 04:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As the Church continues to reflect on the pastoral needs of the family following the recent Synod of Bishops, there has emerged the need for marriage formation lasting well beyond the day a husband and wife take their vows. Marriage preparation was one of many topics on the agenda for the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, which concluded Oct. 19, with the synod fathers acknowledging the importance of improving marriage formation. “There is a real need for the creation of a standard for the preparation and formation for marriage,” said John Noronha, a PhD candidate in bioethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum,  in an email interview with CNA Oct. 2. John and his wife Ashley, both known for having hosted the EWTN series "Vatican Report's Art & Faith," moved to Rome shortly after their marriage in 2008. He noted how the marriage preparation which is currently available “can range from non-existent to substantially formative,” depending on one's diocese or parish. “Since the Church is universal there needs to be uniformity,” he said, “but also using the wisdom of subsidiarity and solidarity, certain fundamental norms and guidelines ought to be developed and followed to ensure that the couple is in fact ready, informed and fully prepared for the important and sacred sacrament of marriage.” “The Church has the spiritual and practical wisdom, but just needs to find ways to reach out to families to share it.” “Married couples and those considering marriage,” Ashley said in the same interview, “need support from the local church to offer guidance in how to form strong families that are built on sharing the love of the Lord with each other and their local communities.” While acknowledging that some churches offer instruction to couples in the lead up to their marriage, she stressed that this “support should continue on after a man and woman take their vows.” “The Church can nurture family life by teaching a Catholic family how to tie in their domestic culture with that of their local parish and the universal Church,” Ashley continued. She gave an example of a local Church which offered programs in “parenting, family counseling, and teen mentoring,” which resulted in an increase in parish activity “because people were able to build a strong parish life that then trickled down into how they formed their families.”   She also cited various grassroots initiatives which parishes can provide, including as “bible studies for couples and families, even simply reading Church documents together that explore family issues, like the Catechism, Theology of the Body, Familiaris Consortio and Mulieris Dignatatem.” “By reading and sharing the Gospel and exploring the wisdom of the Church together,” Ashley continued, “married couples can bond more deeply in the love of Christ and enter deeper into the sacramental mystery of their commitment. Authentic Catholic culture will bloom in a family when it is nurtured and celebrated in tangible ways by the local church.” Another element of preparation, said John, “should be to help the couple prepare for the role of being faithful and practicing Catholic parents.” “For new parents it wouldn’t be easy to make a promise at their child’s baptism to bring up the child in the faith of the Church, if the parents do not know or haven’t practiced the faith after their wedding day.” John stressed the importance of families being able to find the spiritual support they need at their local parishes. “Families should be able to get support from the local church to know where to go to tap into the treasures of the spiritual wisdom of the Church and the writings of the church fathers. The local parish is a natural place where they can learn practical aspects of living together as a couple and a family and how to do that in an authentically Catholic way.” The move from being an independent to being part of a family, John said, is “one of the most critical steps that a man and woman can take in their lifetimes.” He expressed his hope that the synods will find “ways to explain the wisdom of the Church’s teachings on the family and family life in a way that is clear, concise and solidly grounded in scripture.” “Stronger and well-formed families mean a stronger Church and a stronger moral society,” said Ashley. “Stronger families mean that more people feel the love of Christ every day in their homes, neighborhoods, cities and countries.”   Read more

2014-10-21T08:37:00+00:00

Los Angeles, Calif., Oct 21, 2014 / 02:37 am (CNA).- “The world today is upside down, and is suffering so much, because there is so very little love in the homes and in family life.” One could easily attribute these words to any number of participants in the extraordinary gathering of the Synod of Bishops in Rome that recently came to a close. But, in reality, these were the words of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta in an interview with a Christian magazine nearly two decades ago. “She was talking about the breakdown of the family way before anybody else,” explained David Scott, vice chancellor for communications at the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. “Over and over again, she would tell people, ‘You deal with the poor in the abstract and you forget about the poor in your own home’.” “The poor are the kids you’re ignoring to do your job,” Scott said. “They’re the wife you’re ignoring at the end of the day, when you come home from work. Love really does begin in the home.” Scott is author of a newly published book titled “The Love that Made Mother Teresa: How Her Secret Visions and Dark Nights Can Help You Conquer the Slums of your Heart” (Sophia Institute Press, 2014). Currently available online, the 113-page book is part biography and part catechesis. Blessed Mother Teresa became a household name after she was featured in the Malcolm Muggeridge-produced BBC special “Something Beautiful for God.” In 1979, she won the Nobel Peace Prize. Despite her international familiarity, very little is known about the life of the Albanian nun. She was born Agnes Gonxha in 1910 in present-day Macedonia. She first recognized her call to religious life during an annual family pilgrimage to a local Marian shrine. In 1928, she traveled to India to join the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto. Nearly two decades later – while riding a train from Calcutta to Darjeeling - she was inspired to start a new religious order: the Missionaries of Charity.   Scott told CNA that his book is geared toward Catholics who may mistakenly think they know everything there is to know about Blessed Mother Teresa. “That's certainly how I was when I starting writing the book,” he reflected. “I thought she was a neat nun who did neat things with the poor. But, the more you know about her, the more you realize she was a mystic living in the slums.” Furthermore, Scott said, Mother Teresa's life and work is also extremely relevant to the modern-day Church. He pointed to her early warnings about the breakdown of family life as well as her similarities to Pope Francis. “The existential peripheries that Pope Francis talks about are the places in the human heart where we’ve got our sins, our addictions, all the loneliness we feel, all the indifference and injustice we have,” Scott explained. “(Blessed Mother Teresa) was writing and thinking and living all those things a long time before.” In her 1997 book “No Greater Love,” Mother Teresa characterizes this spiritual poverty as a slum found in the heart of every person. She writes: “The streets of Calcutta lead to every man's door, and the very pain, the very ruin of our Calcutta of the heart witness to the glory that once was and ought to be.” Scott chose to reference Mother Teresa's words on the slums of the human heart in the subtitle of his book. He said her words inspired him with their darkness, beauty and mystery. “She's taking the very physical image of the slums and applying it to our hearts,” he said. “We make our hearts a kind of heap of ruins because of our sins, our selfishness and all of the ways we're indifferent to people.” “But, under all that debris, we were given a heart and it was made clean in baptism. We have to get back to conversion – and part of that conversion is opening ourselves up to others, especially to the poor.”   Read more

2014-10-21T06:03:00+00:00

Vatican City, Oct 21, 2014 / 12:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Father Francesco di Felice worked at the Secretariat of State during the pontificate of Bl. Paul VI, and recently recounted the story behind the blessed Pope's 1968 encyclical which was received with widespread dissent. In drafting Humanae vitae, his encyclical on the regulation of birth, Bl. Paul VI studied the work began by St. John XXIII, who created a “commission for the study of population problems, the family, and births” in order to have a better understanding of the effects of contraceptives, Fr. di Felice told CNA. Hormonal contraceptives having been introduced in 1960, in March 1963 – three months before his death – St. John XXIII established a Pontifical Commission on Birth Control to, as Bl. Paul VI wrote in his encyclical, “examine views and opinions concerning married life, and especially on the correct regulation of births” and “to provide the teaching authority of the Church with such evidence as would enable it to give an apt reply in this matter.” St. John XXIII had appointed six persons to the commission, which Bl. Paul VI soon increased to 12. Then, in 1965, he further increased it to 75 members, plus a president, Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and two deputies, Cardinals Julius Doepfner and John Heenan. During that time there was much lobbying, even among Churchmen, to accept artificial means of contraception. Cardinal Leo Suenens asked on Oct. 29, 1964 for an opening to artificial birth control, and his opinion was backed by many participants of the Second Vatican Council.   In April 1967, a document favorable toward the birth control pill was published simultaneously in the French newspaper “Le Monde,” the English magazine “The Tablet,” and the American magazine “National Catholic Reporter.” The leaked report stressed that 70 members of the Pontifical Commission were favorable to the pill; but the document was in fact “just one of the 12 reports presented to the Holy Father,” Bernardo Colombo, a professor of demographics and a member of the commission, revealed in an article he wrote in Teologia, the journal of the theological faculty of Milan and Northern Italy. The same report which had been leaked to the media was sent to Bl. Paul VI, and it was divided into two parts: the opinion of the majority, supporting artificial contraception, and the minority report, arguing for the maintenance of traditional Catholic teaching. Fr. di Felice told CNA that “Paul VI took these two documents, one from the majority and the other from the minority. He brought them to his private chapel, and spent the entire night in prayer asking what he should do for the good of souls.”   “Then, in the first light of dawn, a strong decision came to him like an illumination, as if the Holy Spirit was comforting him, and he said, ‘This is what I should choose!’” “And it was a huge choice,” the priest recounted, “because if we had allowed the use of pills that alter the mystery of life, we would have altered the natural course, and that would have been a disaster.” Bl. Paul VI himself recounted in the encyclical that “when the evidence of the experts had been received, as well as the opinions and advice of a considerable number of Our brethren in the episcopate … We were in a position to weigh with more precision all the aspects of this complex subject.” Acknowledging that he was departing from the majority opinion of the commission, the blessed Pope wrote that “the conclusions arrived at by the commission could not be considered by Us as definitive and absolutely certain, dispensing Us from the duty of examining personally this serious question. This was all the more necessary because, within the commission itself, there was not complete agreement concerning the moral norms to be proposed, and especially because certain approaches and criteria for a solution to this question had emerged which were at variance with the moral doctrine on marriage constantly taught by the magisterium of the Church.” “Consequently, now that We have sifted carefully the evidence sent to Us and intently studied the whole matter, as well as prayed constantly to God, We, by virtue of the mandate entrusted to Us by Christ, intend to give Our reply to this series of grave questions,” he concluded the first chapter of Humanae vitae.   When Bl. Paul VI published these words, public opinion was already oriented against the Church’s principles which he had reaffirmed, and bitter disputes arose against the Church. In an interview with Corriere della Serra in March, Pope Francis applauded Bl. Paul VI's “prophetic genius,” saying that “he had the courage to take a stand against the majority, to defend moral discipline, to exercise a cultural restraint, to oppose present and future neo-Malthusianism.” In his last address to the College of Cardinals, delivered June 23, 1978, Bl. Paul VI anticipated Humanae vitae's 10th anniversary, saying it suffered from “a certain climate of expectation that … engendered the idea of supposed concessions, or facilities, or liberalization in the Church's teaching on morality and marriage.” “It seems to us that a decade having passed since its promulgation, a sufficient perioed allows us to evaluate better – following the confirmations of serious science – the scope of the decisions made before the Lord, and it will be an occasion, also, to reiterate the importante princiople that, in the wake of the recently completed Council, we might enunciate with a more accurate formulation: the principle of respect for the laws of nature, which – in the words of Dante – 'takes her course / from the divine intellect and his art'; the principle of a conscious and ethically responsible paternity.” In fact, as a consequence of the contesting of the document worldwide, Bl. Paul VI never wrote another encyclical, though he remained Pope for another 10 years. In the five years preceding Humanae vitae, he had written seven encyclicals.   Because of all this, Bl. Paul VI's Secretary of State, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, would later say, “On the morning of July 25, 1968, Paul VI celebrated the Mass of the Holy Spirit, asked for light from on high and signed it. It was his most difficult signature, one of his most glorious signatures. He signed his own passion.”   Read more

2014-10-20T22:26:00+00:00

Rome, Italy, Oct 20, 2014 / 04:26 pm (CNA).- More than 200,000 people have signed a petition asking European leaders to offer “real help” for persecuted Christians and other religious minorities around the world. Luca Volonté, a b... Read more




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