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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis celebrated Mass in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta on Friday morning, focusing his remarks following the readings of the day on the need for priests to serve as authentic mediators of God’s love, rather than as intermediaries – “go-betweens” or “middle-men” – concerned  only with advancing their own interests.

No to “go-between” priests, yest to priests who are mediators of God’s love

The role of the mediator is not that of the intermediary – and priests are called to be the former for their flock:

“The mediator gives himself (lit. perde se stesso) to unite the parties, he gives his life. That is the price: his life – he pays with his life, his fatigue, his work, so many things, but – in this case the pastor - to unite the flock, to unite people, to bring them to Jesus. The logic of Jesus as mediator is the logic of annihilating oneself. St. Paul in his Letter to the Philippians is clear on this: ‘He annihilated himself, emptied himself, and to achieve this union, [he did so] even unto death, death on a cross. That is the logic: to empty oneself, to annihilate oneself.”

The priest who abandons the task of being a mediator and instead prefers to be an intermediary si unhappy, and soon becomes sad – and he will seek happiness in vaunting himself and making his “authority” felt.

Rigidity brings us to push away people who seek consolation

Jesus had a powerful message for the “go-betweens” of his day, who enjoyed to stroll the squares to be seen:

“But to make themselves important, intermediary priests must take the path of rigidity: often disconnected from the people, they do not know what human suffering is; they forget what they had learned at home, with dad’s work, with mom’s, grandfather’s, grandmother’s, his brothers’ ... They lose these things. They are rigid, [they are] those rigid ones that load upon the faithful so many things that they do not carry [themselves], as Jesus said to the intermediaries of his time: rigidity. [They face] the people of God with a switch in their hand: ‘This cannot be, this cannot be ...’. And so many people approaching, looking for a bit of consolation, a little understanding, are chased away with this rigidity.”

When a rigid, worldly priest becomes a functionary, he ends up making himself ridiculous

Rigidity – which wrecks one’s interior life and even psychic balance – goes hand-in-glove with worldliness:

“About rigidity and worldliness, it was some time ago that an elderly monsignor of the curia came to me, who works, a normal man, a good man, in love with Jesus – and he told me that he had gone to buy a couple of shirts at Euroclero [the clerical clothing store] and saw a young fellow - he thinks he had not more than 25 years, or a young priest or about to become a priest - before the mirror, with a cape, large, wide, velvet, with a silver chain. He then took the Saturno [wide-brimmed clerical headgear], he put it on and looked himself over. A rigid and worldly one. And that priest – he is wise, that monsignor, very wise - was able to overcome the pain, with a line of healthy humor and added: ‘And it is said that the Church does not allow women priests!’. Thus, does the work that the priest does when he becomes a functionary ends in the ridiculous, always.”

You can recognize a good priest by whether he knows how to play with children

“In the examination of conscience,” Pope Francis said, “consider this: today was I a functionary or a mediator? Did I look after myself, did I look to my own comfort, my own comfort, or did I spend the day in the service of others?” The Pope went on to say, “Once, a person told me how he knew what kind of priest a man was by the attitude they had with children: if they knew how to caress a child, to smile at a child, to play with a child ... It is interesting, that, because it means that they know this means lowering oneself, getting close to the little things.” Rather, said Pope Francis, “the go-between is sad, always with that sad face or the too serious, dark face. The intermediary has the dark eyes, very dark! The mediator is open: the smile, the warmth, the understanding, the caresses.”

St. Polycarp, St. Francis Xavier, St. Paul: three icons of the mediator-priest

In the final part of the homily the Pope then brought three “icons” of “mediator-priests and not intermediaries.” The first is the great Polycarp, who “does not negotiate his vocation and is brave all the way to the pyre, and when the fire is around him, the faithful who were there, they smelled the aroma of bread.”

“This,” he said, is how a mediator makes his end: as a piece of bread for his faithful.” Another icon is St. Francis Xavier, who died young on the beach of Shangchuan, “looking toward China” where he wanted to go but could not because the Lord took him to Himself. And then, the last icon: the elderly St. Paul at the Three Fountains. “Early that morning,” Pope Francis reminded those gathered for Mass, “the soldiers went to him, they got him, and he walked bent over.” He knew that that was because of the treachery of some in the Christian community but he had struggled so much, so much in his life, that he offered himself to the Lord as a sacrifice.”
“Three icons,” he concluded, “that can help us. Look there: how I want to end my life as a priest? As a functionary, as an intermediary, or as a mediator, that is, on the cross?”

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(Vatican Radio)  The Papal preacher, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, delivered his second Advent Sermon on Friday to Pope Francis and members of the Roman Curia.

As preacher to the Papal Household, Capucin Father Cantalamessa gives a meditation to the Pope, Cardinals and members of the Roman Curia every Friday morning in Lent and Advent in the Apostolic Palace’s “Redemptoris Mater” Chapel. 

In the second Advent sermon, Fr. Cantalamessa continued his theme of the Holy Spirit’s action in the Church, focusing on the charism of discernment.

Please find below the full text English translation of the Sermon:

Second Advent Sermon

The Holy Spirit and the Charism of Discernment

Let us continue our reflections on the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian. Saint Paul mentions a specific charism called “discernment of spirits” (see 1 Cor 12:10). This phrase originally had a very specific meaning: it indicated the gift that made it possible to distinguish from among the inspired or prophetic messages given during an assembly those that came from the Spirit of Christ and those that came from other spirits, such as the spirit of man, or a demonic spirit, or the spirit of the world. 

For Saint John this is its fundamental meaning as well. Discernment consists in testing “the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 Jn 4:1). For Paul the fundamental criterion for discernment is confessing Christ as “Lord” (1 Cor 12:3); for John, it is confessing that Jesus “has come in the flesh” (1 Jn 4:2), meaning, the Incarnation. In John, discernment already begins to take on a theological function as the criterion by which to discern true doctrines from false ones, orthodoxy from heresy, which would become pivotal later.

1. Discernment in ecclesial life

There are two areas in which this gift of discerning the voice of the Holy Spirit needs to be exercised: the ecclesial and the personal. In the ecclesial area, discernment of spirits is carried out by the authority of the magisterium, which, however, must take into account, along with other criteria, the “sense of the faithful.”

But I would like to dwell on one point in particular which may be helpful in the discussionche taking place today on certain moral problems: the discernment of the signs of the time. The Second Vatican Council declared,

“In every age the church carries the responsibility of reading the signs of the time and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel, if it is to carry out its task. In language intelligible to every generation, it should be able to answer the ever-recurring questions which people ask about the meaning of this present life and of the life to come, and how one is related to the other.” [1]

It is clear that if Church has to discern the signs of the times in the light of the gospel, it does not do so by applying long-standing measures and rules  to the “times,” that is, the problems and situations that emerge in society, but rather by giving new responses, “intelligible to every generation” starting each time from the gospel. The difficulty that is encountered on this path—and which must be taken seriously—is the fear of compromising the authority of the magisterium by admitting changes in its pronouncements.

There is a consideration, I believe, that can help overcome this difficulty in the spirit of communion. The infallibility that the Church and the pope claim is certainly not of a higher level than that which is attributed to revealed Scripture. Biblical inerrancy ensures that the Scripture writer expresses truth in the way and to the degree in which it could be expressed and understood at the time he wrote it. We see that many truths are articulated slowly and gradually, like the truth about the after-life and eternal life. In the moral sphere as well, many  prior customs and laws are abandoned later to make way for laws and criteria that are more in accordance with the spirit of the Covenant. One example from among many: Exodus affirms that God will punish the children for the iniquities of the fathers (see Ex 34:7), but Jeremiah and Ezekiel say the opposite, that God will not punish the children for the sins of the fathers but that each person will be held responsible for his or her own actions (see Jer 31:29-30; Ez 18:1ff).

In the Old Testament the criterion by which people move beyond earlier proscriptions is a better understanding of the spirit of the Covenant and of the Torah. In the Church the criterion is a continuous re-reading of the Gospels in the light of new questions that are put to it. “Scriptura cum legentibus crescit,” said St. Gregory the Great: “Scripture grows with those who read it.” [2]   

We know that the constant rule for Jesus’ actions in the Gospels, in moral questions, can be summarized in seven words: “No to sin, yes to the sinner.” No one is more severe than he is in condemning unjustly acquired wealth, but he invites himself to Zacchaeus’ house, and simply by going there to meet him he brings a change.  He condemns adultery, even that of the heart, but he forgives the adulteress and gives hope back to her; he reaffirms the indissolubility of marriage, but he engages in conversation with the Samaritan woman who has already had five husbands, and he reveals to her the secret he had told no one else in such an explicit way: “I who speak to you am he [the Messiah]” (Jn 4:26).

If we ask ourselves how to justify theologically such a clear-cut distinction between the sinner and sin, the  answer is very simple: sinners are God’s creatures, created by him and made in his image, and they maintain their dignity despite all their aberrations; sin is not the work of God: it does not come from him but from the enemy. It is the same reason why the Son of God became everything human beings are, “except sin” (see Heb. 4:15).

One important factor in accomplishing this task is the collegiality of the bishops, which the Council itself emphasized. Collegiality allows the bishops “to reach agreement on questions of major importance, a balanced decision being made possible thanks to the number of those giving counsel.” [3] The effective exercise of collegiality brings to bear on discernment and the solution to problems the diversity of local situations, points of view, insights and different gifts, which are present in every church and with every bishop.

We have a moving example of this in the first “council” of the Church, the Council of Jerusalem. That meeting allowed ample opportunity to both of the opposing points of view, those of the Judaizers and those who favored an openness to the pagans. There was “much debate,” but in the end they all agreed to announce their decision with this extraordinary formula: “It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us . . .” (Acts 15: 28; see Acts 15:6ff).

We can see from this how the Spirit guides the Church in two different ways: sometimes in a direct, charismatic way through revelations and prophetic inspirations, and at other times in a collegial way, through the painstaking and difficult confrontation, and even compromise, between the different parties and points of view. Peter’s discourse on the day of Pentecost and at Cornelius’s house is very different from the one he later gave to justify his decision in front of the elders (see Acts 11:4-18; 15:14).

We need, therefore, to have confidence in the ability of the Spirit to achieve that accord in the end, even if at times it can seem as if the whole process is getting out of hand. Whenever pastors of the Christian churches gather together at the local or international level to discern or to make important decisions, each one should have a heartfelt, confident certainty of what the Veni Creator sums up in two verses: Ductore sic te praevio / vitemus omne noxium, “So shall we not, with Thee for guide, / turn from the path of life aside.”

2. Discernment in our own lives

Let us move on to discernment in our own lives. As a charism applied to individuals, the discernment of spirits underwent a significant evolution over the centuries. Originally, as we have seen, the gift functioned to discern the inspirations of others, of those who had spoken or prophesied in an assembly. Later, it functioned mainly to discern one’s own inspirations.

This was not an arbitrary evolution of the gift: it was in fact the same gift even though it was used for different purposes. A large part of what spiritual authors have written concerning the “gift of counsel” also applies to the charism of discernment. Through the gift, or charism, of counsel, the Holy Spirit helps us to evaluate situations and to orient our choices based not only on human wisdom and prudence but also in the light of the supernatural principles of faith.

The primary and fundamental discernment of spirits is the one that allows us to distinguish the “the Spirit of God” from “the spirit of the world” (1 Cor 2:12). St. Paul offers an objective criterion for discernment that is the same Jesus gave: the fruit. The “works of the flesh” demonstrate that a given desire has come from the old sinful nature, while “the fruits of the Spirit” reveal that a desire has come from the Spirit (see Gal 5:19-22). “The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh.” (Gal 5:17)

At times, however, this objective criterion is inadequate because the choice is not between good and bad but between one good and another good, and the question is to discern what God wants in a specific circumstance. It was precisely in response to this need that Saint Ignatius of Loyola developed his teaching on discernment. He invites us to consider one thing above all: our own interior dispositions, the intentions (the “spirits”) that lie behind a choice. In so doing, he was aligning himself with an already established tradition. One medieval author had written,

“No one can test the spirits to see if they are from God unless God has given him discernment of spirits to enable him to investigate spiritual thoughts, inclinations and intentions with honest and true judgment. Discernment is the mother of all virtues; everyone needs it either to guide the lives of others or to direct and reform his own life. . . . This then is true discernment, a combination of right thinking and good intention.” [4]

St. Ignatius proposed practical ways to apply these criteria. [5] For example, when you have two possible choices before you, it is good to select one of them as though you were about to follow it, and to remain in that stance for a day or more.  You then evaluate your inner reaction to that choice to see if it brings peace, if it is in harmony with other choices you have made, if there is something within you that encourages you in that direction, or, on the contrary, if it leaves you with a cloud of uneasiness. Then you repeat that process with your other potential choice.

At the root of Saint Ignatius’s teaching on discernment is his doctrine of “holy indifference.” [6] It consists in placing oneself in a state of total willingness to accept the will of God, giving up all personal preference, like a scale ready to tip to the side where the greatest weight is. The experience of interior peace thus becomes the main criterion in all discernment. After long consideration and prayer, the choice that is accompanied by the greatest peace of heart must be the one retained.

It is essentially a question of putting into practice the ancient advice that Moses’ father-in-law gave him: “present the questions to God” and wait in prayer for his response (Ex 18:19). A deep-seated habitual disposition to do God’s will in every situation puts a person in the most favorable position for good discernment. Jesus said, “My judgment is just because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (Jn 5:30).

The danger in some modern approaches to understanding and practising discernment is an emphasis on its psychological aspects to the point of forgetting the primary agent in each discernment, the Holy Spirit. Saint John sees the decisive factor in discernment in being “anointed by the Holy One” (1 Jn 2:20). Saint Ignatius also mentions that in certain cases only the anointing of the Holy Spirit allows us to discern what we should do. [7] There is a profound theological reason for this. The Holy Spirit is himself “the substantial will of God,” so when he enters into a soul, this “Will of God . . . makes himself known to the person into whom he pours himself.” [8]

Discernment, in its essence, is not an art or a technique but a charism, a gift of the Spirit! Its psychological aspects are of great importance, but they always come second. One of the ancient Fathers wrote,

“Only the Holy Spirit can purify the mind. . . . So by every means, but especially by peace of soul, we must try to provide the Holy Spirit with a resting place. Then we shall have the light of knowledge shining within us at all times, and it will show up for what they are all the dark and hateful temptations that come from demons, and not only will it show them up: exposure to this holy and glorious light will also greatly diminish their power. That is why the Apostle says: Do not stifle the Spirit. [1 Thess 5:19]”. [9]

The Holy Spirit does not normally shed his light in our soul in an extraordinary or miraculous way but very simply through the words of Scripture. The most important exemples discernment in the history of the Church have come about this way. It was in hearing the saying from the Gospel, “If you want to be perfect . . . ,” that the Desert Father Anthony understood what he needed to do, and he founded monasticism.

This was also the way that Saint Francis of Assisi received the inspiration to initiate his movement of a return to the Gospel. He writes in his Testament, “After the Lord gave me some brothers, no one showed me what I had to do, but the Most High himself revealed to me that I should live according to the pattern of the Holy Gospel.” [10] It was revealed to him during Mass after listening to the passage from the Gospel in which Jesus tells the disciples to go into the world and “take nothing for your journey: no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics” (Lk 9:3). [11]

I myself remember a small example of this same sort of thing. A man came to me during a mission and shared his problem with me. He had an eleven-year-old son who had not been baptized. He said, “If I baptize him, there will be trouble at home because my wife has become a Jehovah’s Witness. If I do not baptize him, my conscience will be uneasy because when we were married, we were both Catholic and promised to raise our children in the Church.” I told him to come back the next day because I needed time to pray and reflect. The next day he came to me radiant and told me, “I found the solution, Father. I was reading in the Bible about Abraham, and I saw that when he took his son Isaac to be offered in sacrifice, he didn’t mention anything to his wife!” The Word of God enlightened him better than any human advice could have. I baptized the boy myself, and it was a great joy for everyone.

Alongside listening to the Word, the most common practice for exercising discernment on a personal level is the examination of conscience. This practice should not be limited, however, only to preparation for confession but should become a continuous excercise of placing ourselves under God’s light to let him “search” our innermost being. If an examination of conscience is not done or not done well, even the grace of confession becomes problematic: either we do not know what to confess or we are too full of psychological or voluntaristic efforts, that is, we are aiming only at self-improvement. An examination of conscience limited to preparing for confession identifies some sins, but it does not lead to an authentic one-on-one relationship with Christ. It easily becomes just a list of imperfections that we confess so that we can feel better without the attitude of real repentance that makes us experience the joy of having “so  great a Redeemer” in Jesus.

3. “Led by the Spirit”

The concrete fruit of this meditation should be a renewed decision to entrust ourselves completely and for everything to the inner guidance of the Holy Spirit as a kind of “spiritual direction.” It is written that “whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the sons of Israel would go onward; but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not go onward” (Ex 40:36-37). Neither should we undertake anything unless the Holy Spirit moves us (according to the Fathers, the cloud was a figure for him [12]) and unless we have consulted him before every action.

We have the most vivid example of this in Jesus’ life itself. He never undertook anything without the Holy Spirit. He went into the desert with the Holy Spirit; he returned in the power of the Spirit and began his preaching; he chose his apostles “through the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:2); he prayed and offered himself to the Father “through the eternal Spirit” (Heb 9:14).

We need to guard against a certain temptation, the temptation of wanting to give advice to the Holy Spirit instead of receiving it. “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, / or as his counsellor has instructed him?” (Is 40:13). The Holy Spirit directs everyone and is himself directed by no one; he guides and is not guided. There is a subtle way of suggesting to the Holy Spirit what he should to do with us and how he should guide us. We even make our own decisions at times and then attribute them flippantly to the Holy Spirit.

Saint Thomas Aquinas speaks about this inner leading of the Holy Spirit as a kind of “instinct of the righteous”: “As in bodily life the body is not moved save by the soul, by which it has life, so in the spiritual life all of our movements should be through the Holy Spirit.” [13] This is how the “law of the Spirit” works; this is what the Apostle calls being “led by the Spirit” (Gal 5:18).

We need to abandon ourselves totally to the Holy Spirit, like the strings of a harp to the fingers that pluck them. Like good actors, we need to listen attentively to the voice of the hidden prompter, so that we may recite our part faithfully on the stage of life. This is easier than some might think because our prompter speaks within us, teaches us everything, and instructs us about everything. At times we need only a simple glance inward, a movement of the heart, a prayer. We read this beautiful eulogy about a saintly bishop who lived in the second century, Melito of Sardis, that we would hope could be said of each of us after we die: he “lived entirely in the Holy Spirit.” [14] 

Let us ask the Paraclete to direct our minds and our whole lives with the words from a prayer recited in the Office for Pentecost in the Syrian Rite:

“Spirit, dispenser of charisms to everyone;

Spirit of wisdom and knowledge, who so loves us all,

you fill the prophets, perfect the apostles,

strengthen the martyrs, inspire the teachers with teaching!

To you, our Paraclete God,

we send up our supplication along with this fragrant incense.

We ask you to renew us with your holy gifts,

to come down upon us as you came down on the Apostles in the upper room.

Pour out your charisms upon us,

fill us with knowledge of your teaching;

make us temples of your glory,

let us be overcome by the wine of your grace.

Grant that we may live for you, be of one mind with you, and adore you,

you the pure, you the holy, God Spirit Paraclete.” [15]

[1] Gaudium et spes [Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World], n. 4, in The Documents of  Vatican Council II, ed. Austin Flannery (Northport, NY: Costello, 1995), p. 165.

[2] Gregory the Great, Homilies on Ezekiel 1.7, 8 (CCC 94).

[3] Lumen Gentium [Dogmatic Constitution on the Church], n. 22, p. 29.

[4] Baldwin of Canterbury, “Treatise 6,” Second Reading for Friday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time in The Office of Readings, pp. 334-335; see also PL 204, p. 466.

[5] See The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, Fourth Week, trans. Anthony Mottola (New York: Doubleday, 1989), 101-128.

[6] Cf. G. Bottereau, “Indifference, ” in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, vol. 7, coll. 1688 ff.

[7] Saint Ignatius Loyloa, The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, 141, 414, trans. and comm. George E. Ganss (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1969), p. 126, 204.

[8] See William of St. Thierry, The Mirror of Faith, 61, trans. Thomas X. Davis (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1979), p. 49; see also SCh 301, p. 128.

[9] Diadochus of Photice, On Spiritual Perfection, 28, Second Reading for Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time, in The Office of Readings, p. 227, italics original; see also SCh 5, p. 87 ff.

[10] Francis of Assisi, “Testament of Saint Francis,” in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 1: The Saint, eds. Regis J. Armstrong et al. (New York: New City Press, 1999), p. 124. See also Fontes Franciscanas, p. 356.

[11] See Thomas of Celano, First Life, 22, trans. Christopher Stace (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2000), p. 24; see also ED, I, p. 201.

[12] See St. Ambrose On the Holy Spirit,  III, 4, 21 (N.p.: Veritatis Splendor Publications, 2014), p. 177; and  On the Sacraments, I, 6, 22, in “On the Sacraments” and “On the mysteries,” trans. Tom Thompson (London: S.P.C.K., 1950), p. 56.

[13] Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Letter to the Galatians, V, 5, n. 318, in Commentary on the Letters of Saint Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, eds. John Mortensen and Enrique Alarcón, trans. Fabian R. Larcher and Matthew Lamb (Lander, WY: Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2011), p. 150; see also V, 7, n. 340, and Commentary on the Gospel of John, VI, 5, 3.

[14] Eusebius of Caesarea, The History of the Church, V, 24, 5, ed. Andrew Louth, trans. G. A. Williamson (New York: Penguin Books, 19650, p. 172.

[15] Pontificale Syrorum, in Emmanuel-Pataq Siman, L’expérience de l’Esprit par l’Église d’après la tradition syrienne d’Antioche (Paris: Beauchesne, 1971), p. 309.

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A new Catholic ecological committee held its first symposium early December  to find ways to activate environmental awareness in Korean parishes and develop an ecological liturgy.

The Committee for Ecology and Environment met in order to discuss and implement the pope's encyclical, Laudato si in which Pope Francis critiqued environmental degradation and climate change. Sister Yoon Soon-shim from Caritas said that parishes needed to establish ecology sections or movement groups to work with diocesan-level committees.

"Until now, the Catholic ecological movement was led by priests. Now it is time for all the faithful in Korea to show their voice as the 'green church,'" she said.

Father Timothy Yoon Jong-sik, liturgy professor at Seoul Major Seminary said that they can change the consciousness of their parishioners and insert ecological themes in general prayer intercessions,  add ecology-related scripture readings and compose hymns about preserving the environment.

The committee was established at the spring plenary assembly of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea. (UCAN)

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The Social Communications Commission of the Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM) has expressed satisfaction over the way Catholic media houses in the country are responding to the audience research training they underwent in August this year.

The National Communications Secretary, Fr. Godino Phokoso said this when he and Fr. Andrew Kaufa toured Radio Tuntufye of Karonga Diocese recently. Fathers Phokoso and Kaufa also visited Radio Tigabane FM of Mzuzu.

The duo said following the training that was facilitated by Dr Nancy Booker and Graham Mytton from Kenya and the United Kingdom respectively Catholic media houses in Malawi are now able to conduct research and know for themselves how they are faring regarding audience and programming.

"The training that we went through is now bearing fruit. From our monitoring visit, things are moving on well, and by the end of this exercise our media houses should be able to compete on the market and produce content that is favourable for listeners and viewers," said the Communications Secretary. 
Adding his voice, Fr. Kaufa reiterated the message and importance of the exercise. 

"Most of the findings from the research that our media houses have conducted are reflecting a true picture of what is on the ground.  It is able to tell how many listeners one particular media house has.” Fr. Kaufa believes Catholic media houses can confidently approach the advertising world with accurate information and numbers as they know exactly they are reaching.

ECM Social Communications Commission is implementing the Audience Research Training Project for Catholic Media Houses with funding from Stem Van Africa through the German-based Catholic Media Council (CAMECO). The project involves Radio Maria Malawi, Radio Alinafe, Radio Tigabane, Tuntufye FM, Luntha Television, Montfort Media and Likuni Press. 

(Prince Henderson, Episcopal Conference of Malawi)

Email: engafrica@vatiradio.va

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Kenya’s Catholic Bishops say they are concerned about the on-going strike action by doctors.

The Bishops have said it is unfair for Kenyan doctors to abandon innocent patients and have called on the Government to resolve the stand-off quickly.

Kenya’s medical professionals have downed tools citing government’s failure to honour the implementation of a Collective Bargaining Agreement. 

(Email: engafrica@vatiradio.va)

Below is the full statement:

Listen To The Voice Of The Suffering Poor
“ ...... He took pity on them and healed their sick” (Mt. 14:14)

Introduction 
We the Catholic Bishops of Kenya express our deep concern over the ongoing Doctors and Nurses strike that has caused the Kenyan citizens pain, misery and suffering of unimaginable proportions.

Helpless sick and frail people, children and the elderly including premature babies and accident victims have been abandoned to suffer and die in horrifying conditions while medical professionals and Government officials engage in grandstanding with no clear direction or hope.

While the Church empathizes with the medical professionals on their disappointments with the Government over the unhonoured Collective Bargaining Agreement, it is unfair for them to abandon innocent patients to such suffering.

We invite the medical professionals who swore to protect life to reconsider their position and not engage in actions that threaten life. It is very painful that we still have not seen any coherent plan by government to stop the strike. We should not wait for more deaths in order to find a solution. We therefore make the following appeal.
 
Appeal to Government
It is incumbet on the Government to ensure a health of its citizenry is prioritized. We therefore, appeal to the government both of the National and County to create a harmonious environment for dialogue in order to bring an end to this stalemate.

It cannot be business as usual while people die of abandonment in a country that boasts to have a working government. No project or undertaking is more important than human life at any time.

Appeal to Medical Professionals
We appeal to the medical professionals to respond to essential emergencies in order to save life. Doctors and nurses work under an oath and ethical commitment to protect human life at all times.  We call for possible action to ensure normal medical services are restored without further delay.

To respond to dire situation across the country, we also appeal to private medical institutions to go out of their way and respond to essential medical emergencies and help save lives.

Conclusion
It is our prayer and hope that quick action will be taken by all involved to ensure normal services are restored for the good of the Kenyan citizens who are in dire need of medical services.

Signed by:
 (All Kenyan Bishops)

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Vatican City, Dec 9, 2016 / 05:21 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Friday, the Vatican announced that Bishop John O. Barres of Allentown – who was baptized by the famed Archbishop Fulton Sheen – will be taking the helm in the Diocese of Rockville Centre.

“I must…thank the priests and the entire people of God of the Diocese of Allentown, where I have had the great blessing of serving as bishop for the last seven-and-a-half years,” Bishop Barres said in a Dec. 9 press release announcing his appointment.

“You will all always be in my heart, my memories, my prayers and my Masses as I remember our days of ‘holiness and mission’ together.”

A native of Larchmont, N.Y., Bishop Barres, 56, has led the Diocese of Allentown since July 2009, and will take over in Rockville Centre for retiring Bishop William Murphy, who has reached the age limit of 75.

His transfer will make him the first bishop of Allentown in their 55-year history to ever be transferred to another diocese.

The Rockville Centre diocese, which includes the Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, was established in 1957 and is the sixth largest diocese according to Catholic population in the U.S., serving 1.5 million Catholics with 291 active priests in 133 parishes.

According to the press release, Bishop Barres will be introduced to his new diocese by concelebrating with Bishop Murphy in Rockville Centre’s Cathedral of St. Agnes. He will be officially installed in the cathedral Jan. 31, 2017.

Until then, Bishop Barres will serve as diocesan administrator for Allentown. Once he makes the official transfer to Rockville Centre, Allentown’s College of Consultors, which consists of 10 senior priests in the diocese, will select a new administrator, who will serve until another bishop is appointed.

Born in 1960, Bishop Barres is the fifth of six children born to two Protestant ministers who met at Yale Divinity School and eventually converted to Catholicism in 1955, according to the bishop’s biography on the Allentown Diocese’s website.

Bishop Barres himself was baptized by then-Bishop Fulton Sheen in 1960. His father had been working for Sheen at the Propagation of the Faith in New York City.

The media-savvy archbishop – who served as host of the “Catholic Hour” radio show and the television show “Life is Worth Living” – headed the Society for the Propagation of the Faith and served as an auxiliary bishop of New York and as bishop of Rochester before his death in 1979 at the age of 84.

Pope Benedict XVI authorized a decree that recognized the heroic virtues of the archbishop in 2012, allowing his cause for canonization to move forward. The process has been stalled for the past two years due to a diocesan dispute over his remains, however, it is expected to move forward again soon.

After completing secondary school, Bishop Barres graduated from Princeton University with a BA in English Literature before moving on to obtain a MBA in Management from the New York University Graduate School of Business Administration.

He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Wilmington Oct. 21, 1989, by Bishop Robert Mulvee after studying in seminary at the Theological College of The Catholic University of America. He began his priestly ministry by serving as an associate pastor at different parishes throughout Newark and Wilmington.

Eventually Barres went to Rome for further study before returning to Wilmington, where he then served as Vice Chancellor and then Chancellor of the diocese.

The bishop’s theological background includes an STB and STL in Systematic Theology, which he got from The Catholic University of America, and a JCL in Canon Law and an STD in Spiritual Theology from Rome’s Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.

In 2000 St. John Paul II gave him the title “Monsignor,” and he was named bishop of Allentown by Benedict XVI in 2009 by Cardinal Justin Rigali, who was Archbishop of Philadelphia at the time.

As shepherd of the Allentown diocese, Bishop Barres launched a diocesan-wide society for lawyers, called the St. Thomas More Society, in an order to promote religious liberty. He also established a special program aspirant for young men considering the priesthood.

He was also instrumental in expanding the diocese’s Hispanic ministry, given the fact that the Hispanic population is one of the fastest growing in the diocese. He is also known for his strong social media presence, particularly on Twitter and a video blog he launched for the diocese.

Beyond his diocese, Bishop Barres has also served on the USCCB Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, and since 2013 has held the role of Episcopal Liaison to the Pontifical Mission Societies.

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By Cindy Wooden

ROME (CNS) -- In two long interviews with Jesuit publications, director Martin Scorsese described his new film "Silence" as a major stage in his pilgrimage of faith, a pilgrimage that included flunking out of the minor seminary, investigating other religions and recognizing that the Catholic Church was his home.

Growing up in New York, "I was extraordinarily lucky, because I had a remarkable priest, Father (Frank) Principe. I learned so much from him, and that includes mercy with oneself and with others," Scorsese told Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, editor of the journal La Civilta Cattolica.

"This man was a real guide. He could talk tough, but he never actually forced you to do anything -- he guided you. Advised you. Cajoled you. He had such extraordinary love," the director said in the interview, published Dec. 9.

A day earlier, America magazine released an interview with Scorsese conducted by Jesuit Father James Martin, who also provided advice during the making of "Silence," a film based on the novel by Shusaku Endo. The book and film are a fictionalized account of the persecution of Christians in 17th-century Japan; the central figures are Jesuit missionaries.

Scorsese had wanted to make the film since reading the book in 1989. Actually making the film, he told Father Martin, "it becomes like a pilgrimage. It's a pilgrimage. We're still on the road and it's never going to end. I thought it would for a little while, but once I was there, I realized no. Even in the editing room, it's unfinished. It will always be unfinished."

The film is set for a Dec. 23 release in the United States.

In the interview with Father Spadaro, the 74-year-old Scorsese said, "When I was younger, I was thinking of making a film about being a priest. I myself wanted to follow in Father Principe's footsteps, so to speak, and be a priest. I went to a preparatory seminary but I failed out the first year.

"And I realized, at the age of 15, that a vocation is something very special, that you can't acquire it, and you can't have one just because you want to be like somebody else," he said. "You have to have a true calling."

One thing he always wondered about Father Principe and other priests, he said, was "how does that priest get past his ego? His pride?" and focus on the needs of his parishioners. "I wanted to make that film. And I realized that with 'Silence,' almost 60 years later, I was making that film. Rodrigues (one of the main Jesuits in the story) is struggling directly with that question."

Scorsese told Father Spadaro that while he would not describe himself a regular church-goer, "my way has been, and is, Catholicism. After many years of thinking about other things, dabbling here and there, I am most comfortable as a Catholic."

"I believe in the tenets of Catholicism. I'm not a doctor of the church. I'm not a theologian who could argue the Trinity. I'm certainly not interested in the politics of the institution," the director said. "But the idea of the Resurrection, the idea of the Incarnation, the powerful message of compassion and love -- that's the key. The sacraments, if you are allowed to take them, to experience them, help you stay close to God."

Father Spadaro asked Scorsese if, like Father Rodrigues, he ever felt God's presence when God was silent.

"When I was young and serving Mass," the director responded, "there was no doubt that there was a sense of the sacred. I tried to convey this in 'Silence,' during the scene of the Mass in the farmhouse in Goto. At any rate, I remember going out on the street after the Mass was over and wondering: How can life just be going on? Why hasn't everything changed? Why isn't the world directly affected by the body and blood of Christ? That's the way that I experienced the presence of God when I was very young."

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (CNS) -- Astronaut legend and decorated World War II pilot John H. Glenn, who served for 24 years in the U.S. Senate and inspired young people to pursue careers in sciences and engineering, died Dec. 8. He was 95.

Born in Cambridge and raised in nearby New Concord, Glenn was propelled to fame after being one of seven military test pilots chosen as the country's first astronauts. He was the third American in space and the first to orbit earth when he flew aboard the Mercury Friendship 7 capsule, traversing the globe three times in a flight that lasted just less than five hours Feb. 20, 1962.

Among those watching Glenn's first space flight was St. John XXIII, who asked to be kept regularly informed about the progress of flight.

Glenn became the oldest man to fly in space, when at age 77 and still a senator, he blasted into orbit on the Space Shuttle Oct. 29, 1998, after lobbying the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for two years that he could serve as a "guinea pig for geriatric studies."

While on the fourth day of the mission, Glenn, a Presbyterian, said, "I pray every day. To look out at this kind of creation out here and not believe in God is, to me, impossible. It just strengthens my faith."

Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, then-secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, praised Glenn the day after the shuttle took off. "Just think of it," the archbishop said. "A man as old as the pope is now orbiting the world."

The phrase "Godspeed, John Glenn" was in common use for both missions.

Glenn died surrounded by family at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, where he been hospitalized for about a week. His wife of 73 years, Annie, was with him.

In a guest sermon, Glenn told a Virginia Presbyterian congregation that the "orderliness of the whole universe," from the structure of atoms to the arrangement of galaxies, was "one big thing in space that shows me there is a God, some power that put all this into orbit and keeps it there. It wasn't just an accident."

Glenn later told a Senate subcommittee he thought it would be foolish to assert that God could be pinpointed to "one particular section of space." "I don't know the nature of God any more than anyone else, nor would I claim to because I happened to have made a space ride that got us a little bit above the atmosphere," he said. "God is certainly bigger than that. I think he will be wherever we go."

After his astronaut career, the former Marine Corps pilot started a career in business, but subsequently turned to politics, becoming a senator representing his home state in 1976. He served four terms before retiring in 1999. His Senate tenure included the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. He also served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Foreign Relations Committee, Armed Services Committee, and the Special Committee on Aging.

Reaction to Glenn's death came from across the country.

NASA immediately posted a tribute on its website to the space hero after his death was announced. The space agency had renamed its Lewis Research Center in Cleveland the John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in 1999.

President Barack Obama, who awarded Glenn the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, said in a statement that the country had lost an "icon."

"John always had the right stuff, inspiring generations of scientists, engineers and astronauts who will take us to Mars and beyond -- not just to visit, but to stay," Obama said.

"The last of America's first astronauts has left us, but propelled by their example we know that our future here on earth compels us to keep reaching for the heaves. On behalf of a grateful nation, Godspeed, John Glenn," the statement concluded.

The son of a plumber, Glenn flew 59 combat missions in the South Pacific during World War II, taking direct hits several times but always returned to his airbase. He also was assigned to fly a jet interceptor in the Korean War. For his 149 combat missions in both wars, he was presented the Distinguished Flying Cross six times and the Air Medal with 18 award stars.

He was a winner of the Legion of Honor medal, the highest award of the Four Chaplains Memorial Foundation, an interfaith organization dedicated to four Army chaplains who died together in World War II.

Glenn also completed the first supersonic transcontinental flight, from California to New York, in 1957.

On the eve of his retirement from the Senate, Glenn placed fifth among the world's most admired men in an annual Gallup poll, placing behind only President Bill Clinton, St. John Paul II, evangelist Billy Graham and basketball star Michael Jordan.

After politics, he founded the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy, now known as the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at Ohio State University. He taught at the school as an adjunct professor.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete Dec. 9. Besides his wife, Glenn is survived by two children, David and Carolyn Ann, and two grandchildren.

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