Catholic News 2
TOKYO (AP) -- Caroline Kennedy is stepping down Wednesday after three years as U.S. ambassador to Japan, where she was welcomed like a celebrity and worked to deepen the U.S.-Japan relationship despite regular flare-ups over American military bases on the southern island of Okinawa....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Insurance premiums would soar for millions of Americans and 18 million more would be uninsured in just one year if Republicans scuttle much of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul without a replacement, Congress' budget analysts said Tuesday....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's decision Tuesday to commute Chelsea Manning's sentence brought fresh attention to another figure involved in the Army leaker's case: Julian Assange....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama commuted the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning on Tuesday, allowing the Army intelligence officer who leaked scores of classified documents to go free nearly three decades early....
(Vatican Radio) Wednesday January 18th marks the opening of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, focused this year on the theme of ‘Reconciliation – The Love of Christ Compels Us’. The annual celebration concludes here in Rome with Vespers, presided over by Pope Francis, in the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls on January 25th.The ecumenical context for this year’s week of prayer this year is the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. For that reason the Council of Christian Church in Germany, where the Reformation began, was asked to prepare material for use in local communities around the world.To find out more Philippa Hitchen spoke to Fr Tony Currer, in charge of relations with Anglicans and Methodists at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. He followed closely the preparatory work for this week of prayer for Christian Unity and he notes that as well as looking back 500 years, the German group also used a more recent symbol of div...
(Vatican Radio) Wednesday January 18th marks the opening of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, focused this year on the theme of ‘Reconciliation – The Love of Christ Compels Us’. The annual celebration concludes here in Rome with Vespers, presided over by Pope Francis, in the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls on January 25th.
The ecumenical context for this year’s week of prayer this year is the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. For that reason the Council of Christian Church in Germany, where the Reformation began, was asked to prepare material for use in local communities around the world.
To find out more Philippa Hitchen spoke to Fr Tony Currer, in charge of relations with Anglicans and Methodists at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. He followed closely the preparatory work for this week of prayer for Christian Unity and he notes that as well as looking back 500 years, the German group also used a more recent symbol of division, the Berlin Wall, to reflect on the meaning of reconciliation…..
Listen:
Fr Tony Currer explains that the Reformation anniversary commemorates not only “the painful splitting of the Christian family” but “the fruits of that time that have come down to us and particularly a focus on Christ.”
Commenting on the theme for this year’s week of prayer, he says: “It’s no accident that Christ is in the title – the love of Christ compels us. The focus is on something we can all be united in, focusing on Jesus and a renewed commitment of Christians to focus on Christ and the Redemption, the Salvation, that he has won for us.”
Fr Currer says the German churches have drawn very skillfully on the image of the Berlin wall as a sign of division. “That wall divided families”, he says. “Well, Christian division divides families and that’s a painful reality for some people, just as this wall was for them.”
The German churches emphasised that the lighting of candles and the saying of prayers was involved in bringing the wall down.
“That’s a wonderful image of division and barriers being brought down by ordinary people doing something which no-one can stop them doing: turning to God in their hearts and saying a prayer and lighting a candle. And so our prayer in this week of Prayer for Christian Unity is very much modelled on that image of lighting a candle and saying a prayer in the belief that we can undermine these walls, we can bring them down, we can finally put an end to the divisions that separate families and separate us from our brothers and sisters in Christ.”Berlin
Houston, Texas, Jan 17, 2017 / 10:40 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis’ teaching on marriage aims to help people in difficult family situations without departing from the broader context of Catholic teaching, Bishop Steven J. Lopes of the Personal Ordinariate of St. Peter has explained in a new pastoral letter.“Only a careful and faithful reading of Amoris Laetitia will ensure that we receive the Holy Father’s words with the gratitude and respect due them, safeguarding this beautiful reflection from those who would misuse it to promote practices at odds with the Church’s teaching,” he wrote Jan. 16 in "A Pledged Troth".The bishop cautioned against a reading of the Pope’s 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia based on secular media reports.“As we navigate the joy and pain of family life, including obstacles and challenges that seem, at times, insurmountable, we know that we have a Savior who has gone ahead of us, has suffered a...
Houston, Texas, Jan 17, 2017 / 10:40 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis’ teaching on marriage aims to help people in difficult family situations without departing from the broader context of Catholic teaching, Bishop Steven J. Lopes of the Personal Ordinariate of St. Peter has explained in a new pastoral letter.
“Only a careful and faithful reading of Amoris Laetitia will ensure that we receive the Holy Father’s words with the gratitude and respect due them, safeguarding this beautiful reflection from those who would misuse it to promote practices at odds with the Church’s teaching,” he wrote Jan. 16 in "A Pledged Troth".
The bishop cautioned against a reading of the Pope’s 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia based on secular media reports.
“As we navigate the joy and pain of family life, including obstacles and challenges that seem, at times, insurmountable, we know that we have a Savior who has gone ahead of us, has suffered as we have, and promises that nothing can separate us from his love and mercy,” he said.
The bishop cited Amoris laetitia’s presentation of marriage as “an image for understanding the mystery of God himself” as “a communion of love.”
Bishop Lopes’ Houston-based ordinariate, which covers the United States and Canada, is a special Church jurisdiction set up by Benedict XVI to aid Anglican communities who entered into full communion with the Catholic Church while retaining certain elements of their liturgy and other customs.
The bishop’s pastoral letter reflects on the ordinariate’s marriage rite, in which spouses pledge “a deep, exclusive loyalty and lifelong faithfulness.”
The marriage rite for the husband includes the words “to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy law.”
A valid marriage is “irrevocable” and not even the Church has the power to contravene it, said the bishop, citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The pastoral letter gave particular attention to ordinariate members who may have divorced while part of Episcopalian or Anglican ecclesial communities.
“Knowing well the reality of sin and weakness, the Church tenderly accompanies those who struggle and fail in their attempts to live God’s holy law,” Bishop Lopes said. “Constantly encouraging that daily conversion by which those who fall, can, by God’s grace, rise again, the Church never abandons her children. No one is excluded from the love and mercy of God!”
Bishop Lopes noted Amoris laetitia’s emphasis on pastoral accompaniment of those who have divorced and civilly remarried. This process begins “in reminding people in this circumstance that they are loved by God and remain cherished members of the Church.” It continues through “discerning whether the irregular marital situation can be effectively resolved through a declaration of nullity of the previous marriage.”
This process can appear complicated or can cause fears of opening “old wounds best left alone.” The process should not be done alone but rather within the community of the Church to help a person “peer into difficult realities with the strength of faith and Gospel truth, so that what was hurtful in the past does not inflict new pain now.”
Bishop Lopes said members of the ordinariate who are divorced-and-remarried should speak to their pastor or another priest or deacon of trust. The bishop’s ordinariate does not yet have a marriage tribunal, but its priests and deacons can help the faithful navigate the local Catholic diocese’s tribunal.
Concerning cases where a person’s first marriage was valid, Bishop Lopes cited both Amoris laetitia and St. John Paul II’s 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris consortio. The entire community of the faithful must be attentive to a couple’s situation and ensure that they do not consider themselves separated from the Church. The community must help the couple and any of their children experience the Church “as a mother who welcomes them always.”
The bishop cited Pope Francis’ exhortation, which said a lukewarm attitude or any relativism would be “a lack of fidelity to the Gospel and also of love on the part of the Church.”
“To show understanding in the face of exceptional situations never implies dimming the light of the fuller ideal, or proposing less than what Jesus offers to the human being,” the Pope’s exhortation said.
The Pope warned against hasty judgements about individuals and encouraged treating the weak with compassion.
Pastoral discernment with the divorced-and-remarried must avoid the “grave danger” of misunderstandings, including the idea that “any priest can quickly grant ‘exceptions’,” according to Amoris laetitia.
Bishop Lopes explained that the prohibition against adultery “admits of no exceptions.” As Familiaris consortio says, discernment does not allow us to “look on the law as merely an ideal to be achieved in the future” and there are not different degrees of God’s law for different individuals and situations.
The bishop stressed the need for formation of conscience in the light of Church teaching. He cited Amoris laetitia’s statement that conscience formation “can never prescind from the gospel demands of truth and charity, as proposed by the Church.”
“Consequently, pastoral discernment admits of no exceptions to the moral law, nor does it replace moral law with the private judgments of conscience,” Bishop Lopes said.
Bishop Lopes interpreted Amoris laetitia’s footnote 351 as saying that the formation of conscience “can include the help of the sacraments.” This phrase has been the source of much controversy.
The bishop explained this help of the sacraments can include the Eucharist, under conditions of Church teaching on worthy reception of the Eucharist: anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the Sacrament of Confession.
His pastoral letter placed Pope Francis’ teaching in the context of St. John Paul II’s 2003 encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, which repeated the Council of Trent’s teaching that confessing one’s mortal sins must precede the worthy reception of the Eucharist.
A civilly remarried couple “committed to complete continence” could receive the Eucharist after proper discernment with their pastor and after making a sacramental confession, the bishop taught.
“A civilly remarried couple firmly resolving complete chastity thus resolves not to sin again, which differs in kind from a civilly remarried couple who do not firmly intend to live chastely, however much they may feel sorrow for the failure of their first marriage,” Bishop Lopes explained. “In this situation, they either do not acknowledge that their unchastity, which is adultery, is gravely wrong, or they do not firmly intend to avoid sin.”
At the same time, no one should regard themselves as beyond God’s grace.
“The firm intention for a chaste life is difficult, but chastity is possible, and it ‘can be followed with the help of grace’,” Bishop Lopes said, quoting Pope Francis’ exhortation.
“God orders us to our happiness and well-being, he commands only what is for our goodness, and he never abandons us in our weakness and need,” he added.
His pastoral letter noted that the Anglican Communion’s pastoral practice includes, in some jurisdictions, accommodation of divorce, contraception, and same-sex unions.
“As a result, that Communion has fractured as the plain teaching of Scripture, Tradition, and reason was rejected,” Bishop Lopes said, noting that this situation motivated groups of Anglicans to repeatedly request individual and corporate reception into the Catholic Church.
Vatican City, Jan 17, 2017 / 12:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In reaction to a new book claiming that Pope Francis has in fact done little to combat clerical sex abuse, and that Cardinal George Pell is implicated, the Australian cardinal's office has dismissed the claims as motivated by opposition to reform.“These most recent attacks on the Vatican, economic reforms and Cardinal George Pell are not only regurgitating false claims but appear to have a more sinister intent,” read a Jan. 15 statement from the office of Cardinal Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.“Those opposed to the reforms and threatened by the progress in establishing transparency and addressing illegalities and malpractice have long used lies, smears and public attacks as diversionary tactics.”A new book by Italian journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi called Lussaria, or “Lust”, details claims that under Pope Francis, the Vatican has failed to adequately address sex abuse c...
Vatican City, Jan 17, 2017 / 12:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In reaction to a new book claiming that Pope Francis has in fact done little to combat clerical sex abuse, and that Cardinal George Pell is implicated, the Australian cardinal's office has dismissed the claims as motivated by opposition to reform.
“These most recent attacks on the Vatican, economic reforms and Cardinal George Pell are not only regurgitating false claims but appear to have a more sinister intent,” read a Jan. 15 statement from the office of Cardinal Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.
“Those opposed to the reforms and threatened by the progress in establishing transparency and addressing illegalities and malpractice have long used lies, smears and public attacks as diversionary tactics.”
A new book by Italian journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi called Lussaria, or “Lust”, details claims that under Pope Francis, the Vatican has failed to adequately address sex abuse committed by clerics. The book will be release in Italian on Thursday.
According to the Guardian, “In some of the twenty cases of alleged sexual abuse by priests in Italy in 2016, Fittipaldi writes, priests have been convicted of abuse without the church taking any canonical action against them.”
The Washington Post writes that Fittipaldi “claims to have unearthed documents showing Pell also sought to financially aid priests who had been jailed on pedophilia charges.”
Cardinal Pell, 75, has already faced allegations from investigators that while in Australia he had been negligent when informed of child sexual abuse, bribed a victim, moved a known abuser from parish to parish, and had himself committed sexual abuse of minors.
The cardinal has adamantly denied committing sexual abuse and covering up the abuse of other priests, but he has expressed regret for failing to take more action against abusive priests in the 1970s and '80s.
He was a bishop in Australia from 1987 until 2014, when he was called to Rome to head up Pope Francis' efforts at reforming Vatican finances. These efforts have met some resistance.
The statement issued by Cardinal Pell's office characterized Fittipaldi's claims as an instance of this resistance: “As the full impact of the Holy Father's economic reforms now start to bite, articles seeking to discredit the Holy Father and those leading the reforms are unfortunately, to be expected. They should be recognised for such.”
It called Fittipaldi's work “a particularly shoddy and dated piece which merely restates false allegations against the Cardinal in a blatant attempt to blacken his name and reputation.”
“These matters have already been thoroughly reviewed by relevant civil authorities and it is clear from the detailed analysis that Cardinal Pell has never been a party to cover ups and protection of pedophiles and other offenders,” the statement continued. “There have been no adverse findings against Cardinal Pell by the Royal Commission in Australia in regards to these matters.”
It added that “Cardinal Pell was among the first leaders in the Church to confront this evil and take tangible steps to assist to survivors. His commitment to supporting survivors and ensuring safe and
proper protocols are in place remains firm.”
“The ongoing reporting of false allegations to underscore ulterior motives is not only harmful to the Church but survivors as well,” the statement concluded.
Fittipaldi has previously run afoul of Vatican officials. Another of his books was a subject of the “Vatileaks 2” trial held last year.
Vatican City held an eight-month trial weighing the guilt of five individuals in the leaking and disseminating of confidential financial documents, sentencing a Vatican official and a laywoman for the crime. The journalists charged in the trial were Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi.
It was ruled that the journalists could not be indicted, since what they were accused of – exerting pressure on Vatican officials to obtain private documents for them – falls outside Vatican City jurisdiction.
Among the cases detailed in Lussaria is that of Fr. Mauro Inzoli, who was found guilty of child sex abuse by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and laicized in 2012. But in 2014 he was allowed to again exercise his priesthood, albeit under the conditions of “a life of prayer and humble discretion.”
In 2016, Fr. Inzoli was convicted on eight counts of abuse by Italian civil authorities.
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) -- With the U.S. increasingly looking inward and China eager to take a lead on the global stage, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday cast his country as a champion of free trade and stability, a rebuke to the isolationist urges that helped carry Donald Trump to power....
LONDON (AP) -- Britain's future outside the European Union became much clearer Tuesday: It's so long to the single market, goodbye to the European Court of Justice and farewell to the freedom of movement for workers....
ISTANBUL (AP) -- The accused perpetrator of a New Year's nightclub attack in Istanbul has confessed and his fingerprints are a match, Turkish authorities said Tuesday. They identified him as an Uzbek national who trained in Afghanistan and staged the attack for the Islamic State group....
