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(Vatican Radio) The Council of 9 Cardinals met this week in the Vatican, from Monday, December 12^th, to Wednesday, December 14^th. The Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Greg Burke, held a briefing on Wednesday to inform journalists of the work done during the sessions.

Two key issues emerged as guidelines for the reform of the Curial dicasteries: missionary thrust and synodality.

The Cardinals have concluded their study of other departments (Doctrine of the Faith, Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the Causes of Saints and Promotion of Christian Unity) and delivered their final proposal to the Holy Father.

Considerable time was devoted to the projects of the two new dicasteries.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell spoke of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, of which he is Prefect. The discussion focused on the role of the laity, with an invitation to all to re-read the letter of Pope Francis to Card. Marc Ouellet, President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

Cardinal Peter Turkson presented the work plan for the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development, which combines four offices: Justice and Peace, Cor Unum, Health Care, and Migrants and Itinerant People. Card. Turkson was accompanied by Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi, who explained the new department as an implementation of the conciliar Constitution Gaudium et Spes.

Cardinal Sean O'Malley presented the most recent activities of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, while Cardinal George Pell reported on the latest developments related to the Secretariat for the Economy.

The afternoon of Wednesday, December 14^th, was to be devoted to a presentation by Msgr. Dario Edoardo Viganò, Prefect of the Secretariat for Communication, detailing the steps taken and those coming for the reform of the Holy See’s communications apparatus, with particular attention to personnel training.

The next Council meeting is scheduled for February 13^th – 15^th, 2017.

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(Vatican Radio) Pinarayi Vijayan, the Chief Minister of Kerala has demanded a fresh probe into the death of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati of Kandhamal in the Eastern Indian State of Odisha on August 23, 2008, which had triggered riots in that area, that led to a massacre of more than a hundred Christians and a destruction of their churches and homes.

The Chief Minister put forth this demand on Tuesday, while releasing the Malayalam translation of ‘Who killed Swami Laxmanananda?’, a book penned by Delhi based journalist Anto Akkara in Thiruvananthapuram.

“The book forcefully shows that the allegation that ‘Christians killed the Swami’ is itself a concocted conspiracy. Yet seven innocent Christians have been convicted to life imprisonment for the murder of the Swami (Hindu religious leader).” remarked the Kerala Chief Minister at the Trivandrum Press Club, while releasing the investigative book translated into Malayalam by N Moosakutty.

Following the rumour that Christians had killed the Swami, Chief Minister Vijayan pointed, Hindu mobs were “incited to attack the Christians that left nearly 100 Christians dead, 300 churches and 6,000 Christian houses plundered in an orchestrated violence. This book has knit together convincing pieces of evidence that makes one breathless – without compromising on truth and honesty. Anto Akkara’s book is a model and great work of investigative journalism,” he added, after handing over the first copy to eminent historian Dr. K N Panikkar.

“I am besieged with mixed feelings. I am glad because the website is dedicated to ensure release of innocent victims,” said Panicker, former head of Modern History at Jawaharlal University in New Delhi, while launching the Malayalam link to the website www.release7innocents.com, at the function.

“At the same time, I feel distressed that justice has been denied to the victims for such a long time that a public petition has become necessary”, he added.

“The wealth of hitherto unknown information which the author has unearthed goes to prove that there was a well-planned conspiracy behind the rights of the people of Kandhamal. Discarding threats from different sections of the Hindu communal outfits, Anto has sought to identify the forces which worked behind the murder of the Swami,” pointed out eminent historian.

“If the 7 convicted Christians are innocent, as Anto says, it calls for a fresh trial. The evidences put forward in the book should be brought before the judiciary for a fair and just trial,” said Alexander Jacob, former Director General of Police of Kerala.

Jacob cited the shocking case of one of the judges going on record that Kehar Singh, who was hanged for Indira Gandhi’s assassination, was innocent 15 years later.

“I read Anto’s book non-stop. It is a historical work of investigative journalism. For the first time, a journalist has gone deep into a riot – from its roots to the prosecution process and verdict,” pointed out Jacob.

“After going through what Anto has brought out my only prayer is that these things should not be true – that police who were supposed to protect the victims played a role in the conviction of innocents,” added the former police chief of Kerala.

“When Anto made a strong media intervention in a lock-up death case (in 1991 with a Times of India feature titled ‘Sometimes dead men tell tales’), several police officials told me that he is a dangerous journalist. But as Ernakulam Commissioner of Police at the time, I told them that he should be watched out as a journalist trying to bring out truth. But I never thought that he will come to this level.

“This is a not a book in the traditional sense. It is a fight for truth and justice,” pointed out journalist author Anto Akkara who has made 23 trips to Kandhamal while introducing the book. He urged everyone to lend their voices to the 7 innocent Christians – six of them illiterates – languishing in jail due to the Sangh Parivar fraud.

(source: report of Anto Akkara)

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(Vatican Radio) Fifteen children from the Central African Republic accompanied by their new Cardinal, the Archbishop of Bangui, Dieudonné Nzapalainga, will be amongst those present on Thursday morning for a special audience with Pope Francis.

It’s special because the children the Pope will be meeting are patients of the Vatican’s Children’s Hospital: the ‘Bambino Gesù’.   

A press release from the Hospital reveals that the first few rows in the Paul VI Hall are reserved for some 150 young patients; many of them come from Italy but some of them, it says, come from the “peripheries of the world”.

They come from far, having travelled to this medical center of excellence and research from countries such as Argentina, Venezuela, Pakistan, Nepal, Russia, Lebanon, Moldavia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, Poland, Congo and Nigeria as well as from the Central African Republic.  

Hospital doctors and medical staff, employees, volunteers and the families of the little patients will also be present together with the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

During the audience, the President of the ‘Bambino Gesù’, Mariella Enoc, will talk about how the Pediatric Hospital has become the largest of its kind in Europe, with connections to leading international centers in the sector. 

She will explain how, in various ways, the hospital staff of almost 2,500 people treats and cares for a large number of patients, and of how over 1.550.000 healthcare services are provided each year to children and adolescents from all over the world.

Enoc will also talk about how the hospital, which was founded in 1869, has developed a ‘Bambino Gesù System’ that stretches well beyond regional boundaries with the establishment of Centers in Southern Italy that aim to eliminate the long "journeys of hope" that weigh not only on young patients but also on their families, with demanding relocations that have significant financial and social costs for all.

Equally important are the Hospital’s international missions in developing nations. Today the ‘Bambino Gesù’ is present in 12 countries, with the goal of providing care and passing on its experience in the poorest areas of the world. It is also active with special cooperation projects in Jordan, Palestine and the Central African Republic. 

The papal audience will be broadcast live by the Vatican CTV and by the Italian Bishop’s Conference television station, TV2000.    

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Manila, Philippines, Dec 14, 2016 / 06:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholic prayer and protests greeted proposals to expand the use of the death penalty in the Philippines, with the move drawing outspoken opposition from the country's bishops.

“Christ died for the criminals and the victims. The love of God is for all. Our love should be like God's love. For all,” said Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan at a Dec. 12 prayer rally in San Carlos City.

“We are not protesting without a solution. We are protesting with an alternative. Reform the criminal justice system,” he added. “If there's a death penalty but the criminal justice system is corrupt, slow and one-sided, rapist and plunderer, and (drug) pusher and killer will remain confident.”

In 2006 the country abolished the death penalty for crimes involving drugs, rape and arson. Now, President Rodrigo Duterte and his supporters have sought to reinstate capital punishment for such crimes, citing rising crime rates and drug use.

Archbishop Villegas, however, said that the courts can make mistakes, and there is no way to correct a mistake after a prisoner is executed. He said the death penalty is “a lazy form of penalty” that does not help reform “those who made mistakes.”

Since July 1, when the new president took office, more than 2,000 people have died in police operations against illicit drugs, Reuters reports. Those killed are mainly street level drug dealers, accused by police of resisting arrest.

In the same time frame, another 3,000 people have been killed by masked men and vigilantes on motorcycles. President Duterte has denied claims of extrajudicial killings.

Senators have reported that they have no clear proof the killings are linked to state-sponsored actions. They have told the president to observe due process for the accused.

Cardinal Luis Tagle of Manila and the Manila archdiocese’s presbyteral council urged a prayer against the death penalty to be recited at all Sunday Masses in the archdiocese Sunday Dec. 8.

“Father, source and giver of life, we lift our hearts and voices to you. Help us to build a society that truly chooses life in all situations,” began the prayer, with the response “Lord, heal our pain.”

The prayer was on behalf of victims, perpetrators and society.

“There is in our land a cry for vengeance and a move to fill up death rows and kill offenders but disguised as a call for justice,” the prayer continued. “Let true and lasting justice spring forth.”

The prayer petitioned that Jesus, who suffered execution at the hands of the powerful, help Christians “reach out to victims of violence so that our enduring love may help heal their wounds.”

A separate proposal in the Philippines would lower the age of criminal liability to nine years old from 12. The bishops have warned this could escalate violence related to anti-drug campaigns.

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Vatican City, Dec 14, 2016 / 07:22 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals met for the 17th time this week, with synodality and the Church’s “missionary drive” forming the basis of the discussion on how reform of the Curia’s various departments will move forward.

Discussion largely centered around the role of the Secretary of state and the Congregations for the Evangelization of Peoples (Propaganda Fides), for Bishops and for Oriental Churches.

According to a Dec. 14 communique from the Vatican, the “fundamental” themes of “missionary push” and “synodality” emerged as guidelines during the Dec. 12-14 the discussion. In the past, the council has also emphasized the need for greater harmonization and simplification in the Curia.

In this round of meetings, the cardinals handed the Pope their completed studies on several Vatican dicasteries, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, for Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, for Saints Causes and for Christian Unity, which Francis must himself now study and approve.

All nine members of the council were present for the meeting as well as Pope Francis, who participated in the majority of the sessions, but was out Wednesday morning for the general audience, as usual.

According to the communique, “considerable time” was dedicated to the projects of the two new mega-dicasteries for Laity, Family and Life, and for Integral Human Development.

Neo-cardinal Kevin Farrell, head of the department for Laity, presented first, placing a strong emphasis on the role of laity.

He encouraged the other members to reread Pope Francis’ March 19 letter to Cardinal Marc Ouellet, President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, in which the pontiff blasted clericalism as “one of the greatest distortions” facing the local church, particularly in South America.

Though not a member of the council, Cardinal Turkson, head of the new department for Integral Human Development, was also present to talk about the progress and initiatives of the new dicastery, which merges four other offices and is set to go into effect Jan. 1.

Archbishop Silvestro Tomasi, the secretary-delegate of the Vatican’s council for Justice and Peace, which will be merged into the dicastery for Human Development, was also present and spoke about the new dicastery as “a realization” of the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution “Gaudium es Spes.”

The Vatican also announced today that Fr. Michael Czerny, a consultant with the Council for Justice and Peace, and Fr. Fabio Baggio, headmaster of the International Scalabrini Migration Institute of the Faculty of Theology at the Pontifical Urbaniana University, will be the new undersecretaries for the dicastery.

Both Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, President of the Commission for the Protection of Minors, and Cardial George Pell, Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, also spoke on recent developments in their respective areas.

Msgr. Dario Edoardo Vigano is set to speak Wednesday afternoon about the accomplishments and the steps that still need to be taken in communications reform, with particular emphasis on personnel training.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke told journalists in a Dec. 14 briefing on the meeting that Cardinal Pell proposed a balance sheet, which should come out “soon,” as well as a budget for 2017.

He stressed that there was no talk whatsoever about the “dubia” sent to the Pope by four cardinals over footnote 351 in “Amoris Laetitia” referring to communion and divorced and remarried Catholics, which were later published by the signatories.

The letter “is not the purpose” of the Council of Cardinals, Burke said, adding that the Pope was “very clear” in saying that the Synod of Bishops had already spoken on the matter.

The appointment of bishops was also touched on during the meeting, he said, noting that the discussion on this point “isn’t completely closed, it’s still open.”

After a two month break, the council’s next meeting will take place Feb. 13-15, 2017, in the Vatican.

Established by Pope Francis shortly after his pontificate began in 2013, the Council of Cardinals, also called “the Council of Nine,” serves as an advisory body on Church governance and reform, with special on the reform of Pastor Bonus, the 1988 apostolic constitution of St. John Paul II that regulates the competencies and work of the Roman Curia.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Gary Cameron, Reuters

By Kurt Jensen

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Organizers of the March for Life made it clear Dec. 13 that although they're "cautiously optimistic" about eventually overturning the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision with a Donald Trump administration and a Republican-controlled House and Senate, they don't expect to be in lockstep with other aspects of the new president's agenda.

"We're nonpartisan," said Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, adding, "We always advocate that people vote pro-life" without regard to party label. "Difficult as it is, we always try to have a Democratic speaker at the March for Life as well," she said.

Referring to the president-elect's volatility on social media, Tom McClusky, the march organization's vice president of government affairs, remarked: "You always have to worry about the 3 a.m. tweet that's going to knock your whole agenda off."

The annual march, which in some years has drawn as many as 100,000 participants, always including busloads of teens from Catholic schools from across the United States, is scheduled for Jan. 27, one week after Trump's inauguration and five days after the 44th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion virtually on demand.

One of Trump's initial tasks will be to nominate a new Supreme Court justice to replace Antonin Scalia, a strong pro-life jurist who died in February. That appointment alone is not expected to result in a repeal of legal abortion, but is expected to restore a 5-4 conservative majority on the court.

Mancini also expressed optimism for legislation called the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which has passed the House but remains stalled in the Senate. It would block abortions after the fetus is at least 20 weeks old. "It is our hope that in this administration, late-term abortions will be outlawed," Mancini said.

Initially, Mancini and McClusky said their expectation is that the Hyde Amendment, considered a temporary fix to block federal funds from paying for abortions, could be made permanent law.

That measure prohibits federal funding of abortion except in cases of rape, incest or threat to the woman's life. Proposed by the late Republican Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois and first enacted in 1976, it is an amendment on an appropriation bill Congress must pass each year. It prevents taxpayer funding of abortions in various federal health programs run by the Department of Human Services, which oversees the National Institutes of Health, Medicaid and Medicare, and the Children's Health Insurance Program, among others.

Mancini said of Trump's election, "I think in a way we're recovering from the shock -- in a good way. I think there's such an unexpected sense of hope."

She had been on the sidewalk in front of the Supreme Court May 27 when the court issued its 5-3 decision in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. The court struck down restrictions on Texas abortion clinics that required them to comply with standards of ambulatory surgical centers and required their doctors to have admitting privileges at local hospitals.

"In a million years, I never thought things would turn the way they've turned," she said.

As for the pre-march rally on the Washington Monument grounds, Mancini said they've invited a few individuals they expect to be working in the Trump White House to address the marchers, but have not received confirmations.

Speakers the organizers have confirmed include Karyme Lozano, a star of Mexican telenovelas; Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who is chairman of the U.S. bishops' pro-life committee, and possibly a Hollywood performer, whom Mancini declined to name but described as "open to our issues."

This year's theme is "The Power of One." Mancini said it references both the impact of a single vote and a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote in "The Fellowship of the Ring": "Even the smallest person can change the course of the future."

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