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(Vatican Radio) For the very first time, the Vatican has approved an association dedicated to its women employees. Donne in Vaticano (D.VA) or Women in the Vatican is open to lay and religious female employees and retirees of Vatican City State, the Holy See and its related institutions.  Its establishment is unprecedented in the history of the small state. According to a press release issued by the Holy See Press office, the twelve founding members of the newly formed Association formally signed the Act of Constitution, approved by the competent authorities, on 1 September 2016 at Vatican City’s Governorate.

Its membership now open to the some 750 women employees of the Vatican and to the many in retirement, D.VA intends to create a network of friendship, exchange and solidarity for the personal and professional growth of its members. President Tracey McClure, a senior journalist at Vatican Radio, says the Association was founded upon the belief “that women are a rich resource to be valued in the workplace and in all areas of life and activity inside the Vatican.  And, we are encouraged by Pope Francis who has been particularly sensitive to the voices of women in the Church.”

“Women account for about 19% of the Vatican’s workforce,” she adds, citing research by Gudrun Sailer, a colleague from Vatican Radio’s German Service and author of three books on women in the Vatican.  “It’s an upward trend,” McClure continues. “It seems the first woman to be hired in the Vatican arrived under the pontificate of Benedict XV, as a seamstress, in 1915. From 1929 the first women with academic qualifications were hired, in places like the Apostolic Library. In 1934, Pope Pius XI had the Vatican Museums hire the German Jewish archeologist Hermine Speier to protect her from Nazi Fascist persecution. More women began to arrive after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) during the pontificate of Pope Paul VI (who had also nominated 23 female auditors to the Council).

Today, McClure notes, “more than 40% of the Holy See’s female employees have university degrees; many work in the various dicasteries of the Curia in a wide range of positions including journalists, lawyers, accountants, restorers, historians and archivists, just to name a few.”  And, she adds, “they represent a good part of the planet, coming from dozens of countries and speaking multiple languages.”

Two women are currently under-secretaries of Vatican dicasteries but this could change after Pope Francis’ nomination of officials at the two recently-created large dicasteries (Laity, Family and Life and Promoting Integral Human Development).

Since its 23 November launch, D.VA counts more than 53 members from 16 different Vatican offices.

Among its various activities, the Association intends to promote social, cultural, professional and spiritual events and projects.  “D.VA also aims to reach out to women in less fortunate circumstances in the hope of relieving some of their suffering,” McClure says.  “We also want to give more visibility to the initiatives and contributions of other Christian women.”

“Many of our first members have expressed keen interest in starting up volunteer initiatives to give back to their communities and to offer assistance to the needy. It’s the kind of “revolution of tenderness” that Pope Francis has talked about.  I know of colleagues who, on their own, have raised money and organized clothing drives for Syrian refugees in Lebanon and for orphaned children in Mozambique, Angola and Brazil; and others who have collected pharmaceutical products and essential foodstuffs for Venezuelans suffering from the economic crisis and shortages. D.VA can get the word out to a growing number of colleagues who could help.”

“Although it’s just one-eighth of the size of New York’s Central Park, the Vatican has offices in different Rome locations,” McClure says. “That means, if you’re a Vatican employee, there are many offices in which you will never step foot, much less meet your colleagues there.  Putting D.VA together over the past 4 years or so has introduced me to some highly intelligent, competent and creative women whose love for their jobs, their dedication to the Pope and their determination to help others – all the while balancing family and social commitments - one can’t help but admire.  We must remember too, that many of us are foreigners in Italy and are therefore lacking the local family support mechanisms.  D.VA can help here too.  We’re talking about creating a ‘time bank’ cooperative in which colleagues can share expertise, experience and their connections in various areas to lend a hand to others.”

“I think this is what all of our recent popes have been telling us; women make up half of our Church and our contribution in all areas of its life is important.  As Pope Francis says, ‘The Church cannot be herself without the woman and her role,’ and  D.VA just makes us a little more visible.”

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Vatican City, Dec 7, 2016 / 09:49 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis gave an interview to a Belgian magazine in which he cautioned media to avoid several major temptations, including the desire to always focus on scandal – which he compared to “coprophilia,” a mental illness in which a person has an abnormal interest in feces.

“Media I think have to be very clean, very clean and very transparent. And not fall – without offending, please – into the sickness of coprophilia,” the Pope said in his new interview, published Dec. 7.

Coprophilia, or coprophagy, is technically defined as a condition in which a person has an abnormal interest and pleasure in feces or excrement.
 
However, for Pope Francis, his use of the word referred to an attitude in journalism that always tries to communicate scandal.  

Since people looking to the media frequently have “a tendency toward coprophilia” – meaning they take pleasure in and seek out scandalous news – this attitude “can do a lot of damage.”

Pope Francis made his comments to Belgian weekly magazine “Tertio” for the occasion of the close of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy. The editor of the publication, Geert de Kerpel, conducted the interview, which focused on a wide range of topics from the media and the Synod of Bishops, to religion in the public sphere and war.

In his comments about media, the Pope said they have “a very big responsibility,” since given their reach, they have the ability “to form opinion.”

“Media are the builders of a society” and as such are meant to foster a fraternal exchange of ideas, to educate and to make one think. Media is not inherently evil, he said, but cautioned that we are all sinners, and even media “have their temptations.”

First of all, they can be tempted to slander or defile people, above all in politics, he said, and also warned against defamation, since “every person has the right to a good name.”

To bring to light a problem from a person’s distant past and to hold them responsible, even if they have already rectified the situation, “is serious, it does damage, it nullifies a person,” Francis said.

“There is not right to this. This is a sin and it does harm,” he said, pointing to another particularly harmful attitude in the media: “misinformation.”

Described by the Pope as telling only one part of the truth but not the other, Francis said that to do this: “This is to misinform. Because you, the viewer, you give them half of the truth. And therefore they cannot make a serious judgement on the complete truth.”

Misinforming people “is probably the greatest harm that media can do. Because it directs opinion in one direction, taking away the other half of the truth,” he said, adding that if media stay away from these problematic attitudes, “they are builders of opinion and they can edify, and do an immense, immense good.”

In the interview, Pope Francis also asked about his vision of reform following the Second Vatican Council, specifically regarding the issue of “synodality” – a term Francis has often used when describing his vision for how the Church ought to be structured and function.

Describing the term “synodality,” Francis noted that the Church itself is ultimately born from baptism and from communities that gather around a bishop, who guides and supports them.

“The bishop is the successor of the apostles. This is the Church. But in the entire world there are many bishops, many organized churches, and there is Peter,” he said, noting that there can either be a “pyramidal” Church where “what Peter says is done,” or a “synodal” Church where Peter still holds his authority, but “accompanies the Church and makes her grow, listens to her.”

“Moreover, he learns from this, and harmonizes, discerning what comes from the (local) churches, and returns to it,” he said, pointing to the 2014-2015 Synod of Bishops on the family as a prime example of what this synodal Church looks like.

Bishops from all over the world gathered together in representation of their own dioceses to voice their thoughts and concerns, the result of which was the Pope’s post-synodal exhortation “Amoris Laetitia.”

Pope Francis then pointed to the richness of the different “nuances” that came out during the discussion, explaining that “it’s unity in difference. This is synodality. Not to go down from top to bottom, but to listen to the churches, harmonize them, discern.”

Turning to Amoris Laetitia, the Pope noted how everything inside the document was approved by a two-thirds majority of the synod fathers, which is a “guarantee.”

“A synodal Church means that if from this movement is given from top to bottom, bottom to top. The same for the dioceses,” he said, but added that synodality is something the Church must still work to understand and embrace.

He pointed to the Latin phrase “cum petro et sub petro,” meaning “with Peter and under Peter,” as an example of how the local churches ought to function in the “synodal” model of the Church.  

When asked about the centenary of the First World War, Francis said the post-war insistence of “war never again” failed, and that money is currently being made off the various conflicts around the world.

“Making war is an easy way to make wealth,” he said, but cautioned that “of course, the price is very high: blood.” He pointed to current, ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Yemen, the Middle East and Africa as examples.

As he has done several times in the past, Francis insisted that war can never be justified in the name of God.

“Terrorism, war, are not related to religion. Religious deformations are used to justify” war, he said, but insisted they have nothing to do with “the essence” of religions, which “is love, unity, respect, dialogue.”

Pope Francis also some had advice for priests. When asked what he thought was most important in the life of a priest, the Pope said what came to his mind was “remember that you have a mother who loves you. Do not stop loving your mother the Virgin.”

A second point was to allow themselves to “look toward Jesus,” and to try to find “the suffering flesh of Jesus” in their brothers and sisters.

“This is where you will find Jesus. This as a foundation. Everything comes our form here,” he said, explaining that if a priest gets “unhooked” from the one who called him, which is Jesus, he will “never be able to live the Gospel.”

Francis, as he has also done in the past, said the path to follow is that of “tenderness...do not be ashamed of the cures of tenderness.”

“Caress the suffering blood of Jesus,” he said. “Today we need a revolution of tenderness in this world, which suffers from the disease of cardio-sclerosis.”

 

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Pearl Harbor Museum

By Mark Pattison

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A Catholic military chaplain and historian says the attack on Pearl Harbor, even 75 years later, continues to rivet the attention of Americans because it is "such a powerful event."

As the anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack neared, Father Daniel Mode detailed the effect of the Japanese attack on the Hawaiian outpost.

"Before that, we were debating whether to get involved with World War II or not. We were basically a neutral country, trying not to get engaged in it. It (the attack) changed the tenor, and the president's resolve, Father Mode told Catholic News Service. "It brought our country together to fight a common threat."

Speaking in a telephone interview from the Pentagon, where he works for the chief of chaplains, Father Mode said he can see a parallel between Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 terror attacks.

"They're both cataclysmic events that galvanized our country," he said. "One was more obviously targeted toward the civilian population, one toward the military population," the priest added, "but both certainly were defining moments in our country."

As a child, young Daniel Mode lived at Pearl Harbor for four years while his father was on duty in the Navy.

"I vividly remember as a young kid -- fourth-, fifth-, sixth-grade -- going to the (USS) Arizona Memorial. As an altar server, I served Mass. It made a great impact on me. It was probably the seeds that were planted in my heart as I discerned my vocation to the priesthood. Pearl Harbor has made an amazing impact on my life."

The lesson to be learned from Pearl Harbor, he said, is "always vigilance, to be vigilant. To use all sorts of opportunities for diplomacy, opportunities for peaceful engagement, to use all those opportunities ahead of time to engage with populations of other countries, but to be ever vigilant. We want to be friends, right? We have to have friends all over the world. But we have to be aware that not everyone wants to be our friend."

Ordained a priest of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, 24 years ago, Father Mode has spent most of his ordained ministry in the Navy Reserve, and the last 12 years in full-time chaplaincy, where he has attained the rank of commander. He's currently six months into a three-year stint at the Pentagon, where his work, among other things, includes collecting data on all the work performed by chaplains.

He took a brief break from that work in October when he was selected to represent the Chaplain Corps at a funeral Mass in Dubuque, Iowa, in October for Father Aloysius Schmitt, a chaplain aboard the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor, who pushed a dozen men out a narrow porthole to safety during the attack at the cost of his own life as the ship was sinking. He was the first U.S. chaplain to die in World War II. It was only recently that his remains had been positively identified.

"It amazed me, too, that 75 years later, it would be an amazing occasion that gathered so many people together, but that it made national news," Father Mode told CNS.

Another heroic World War II chaplain Father Mode identified was Father Joseph O'Callahan, a Jesuit priest who was the Catholic chaplain aboard the USS Franklin, then a troop transport ship about 50 miles from the coast of Japan in March 1945, five months before the war ended. Father O'Callahan was awarded the Medal of Honor, the military's highest honor, for organizing rescue and firefighting parties, leading men below deck to soak magazines that had threatened to explode -- which would have catastrophically increased the death toll beyond the 800 who did perish -- and administer last rites.

"He certainly comes to mind as a hero," Father Mode said. "He did not die. He served, he went back to (the College of the) Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, to continue teaching math, which is what he did as a Jesuit priest. He is buried in the Jesuit cemetery at Holy Cross."

Father Mode does not confine his historical research to World War II. For his master's thesis in history, he wrote a book on Father Vincent Capodanno, a Navy Reserve chaplain who died while serving with the Marines in Vietnam in 1967, was affectionately called "the 'grunt padre' for his ability to relate well with soldiers and his willingness to risk his life to minister to the men." "Grunt" is slang for a member of the U.S. infantry. The cause for his sainthood was formally opened in 2006.

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Follow Pattison on Twitter: @MeMarkPattison.

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Christian hope is not the same as being optimistic about the future, but is knowing that whatever dark or frightening things are going on in one's life, God is there offering protection and light, Pope Francis said.

Holding his general audience in the Vatican audience hall decorated with Nativity scenes and Christmas ornaments from the state of Queretaro, Mexico, Pope Francis announced Dec. 7 that he was beginning a series of audience talks about hope.

Especially during Advent and in preparation for Christmas, he urged people to read the second half of the Book of Isaiah, "the great prophet of Advent, the great messenger of hope."

The audience began with a reading of Isaiah 40, which starts: "Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God."

When the prophet was writing, the pope explained, the people of Israel were in exile, they had "lost everything -- their homeland, freedom, dignity and even their trust in God. They felt abandoned and without hope."

Isaiah not only proclaims God's love and fidelity, but calls on those who still have faith to offer consolation to others and help them "reopen their hearts to faith."

The desert -- literally and figuratively -- "is a difficult place to live, but it is precisely the place where one can walk to return not only to one's homeland, but to God, return to hoping and smiling," the pope said. "When we are in darkness and difficulty, it's hard to smile.

"Hope teaches us to smile," the pope said. "One of the first things that happens to people who withdraw from God is that they are people without smiles. They might be able to laugh out loud -- tell one joke after another and laugh -- but their smile is missing."

"When we are with a baby, a smile comes spontaneously because a baby is hope," he said. "We smile even if it's a bad day because we see hope."

Hope does not come with power or wealth, but with trusting in God, the pope said. It is knowing that "God, with his love, walks with us. I hope because God is alongside me. And this is something all of us can say. I have hope because God walks with me, he walks alongside me and holds my hand."

The key players in the Christmas story, he said, prove that "history is not made by the powerful, but by God together with his little ones, those small and simple people whom we find around Jesus, who is about to be born: Zachariah and Elizabeth, who are old and marked by sterility; Mary, the young virgin engaged to Joseph; the shepherds, who were despised and counted for nothing."

They had hope, the pope said, and they turned the dark and twisted paths of life around them into "a highway on which to walk toward the glory of the Lord."

"There's no denying that there is a crisis of faith in the world today," he said. "People say, 'I believe in God. I'm Christian.' 'I belong to that faith.' But their lives are far from being Christian, far from God! Religion, faith has turned into an expression."

Those who believe must convert, constantly turning their hearts to God and "following that path toward him. He awaits us."

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Copyright © 2016 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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