Catholic News 2

Vatican City, Nov 3, 2016 / 07:07 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Nov. 6, a special Jubilee for Prisoners will be celebrated at the Vatican, drawing detainees and their families from around Italy and beyond to St. Peter’s Basilica for Mass with Pope Francis and a special reception after.

 “For the first time it will be possible for a large number of detainees from different parts of Italy and other countries to be present in St. Peter's Basilica to live the Jubilee with Pope Francis,” Archbishop Rino Fisichella said Nov. 3.

“We know that the Pope takes great care of detained persons,” he said, noting how in each of his trips abroad, Francis “has repeatedly wanted to visit prisoners and leave the detained a message of closeness and hope.”

Archbishop Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, spoke to journalists at the presentation of the Jubilee for Prisoners, as well as that of the Nov. 13 Jubilee for the Socially Marginalized, set to coincide with the close of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, marking the end of the Jubilee of Mercy.

The Jubilee of Prisoners, intended above all for prisoners and their families, penitentiary employees, prison chaplains and various associations that assist both inside and outside of the prison system, will take place Nov. 5-6 in Rome and is part of Pope Francis’ wider Jubilee of Mercy.

Currently 4,000 people have signed up for the Jubilee, of which 1,000 are prisoners from 12 countries around the world: England, Italy, Latvia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, the United States, South Africa, Sweden and Portugal.

Although the majority of prisoners attending come from Italy, there will be a Lutheran delegation present from Sweden. Around 50 prisoners and ex-prisoners will be coming from the U.S., including a group of 22 from Cincinnati.

Inmates of all types will be included among the crowds, including minors, people on house arrest, and with varying sentences for an event that offers “a future and hope other than condemnation and the length of the sentence,” Fisichella said.

Though Pope Francis has repeatedly called for an end to the death penalty, including during his 2015 visit to the U.S., and has in the past taken a special interest in individual cases of death row inmates, there will be none present during the Jubilee event.

Celebrations for the Jubilee of Prisoners will begin Saturday, Nov. 5, with Eucharistic Adoration and Confessions in the Roman churches of S. Salvatore in Lauro, S. Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova), S. Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini. The day will conclude with pilgrimages to the Holy Door.

On Sunday, Nov. 6, St. Peter’s Basilica will open at 7:30 a.m., and beginning at 9 a.m., testimonies will be given by various participants in the event.

The testimonies will include a prisoner who will share their experience of conversion and will speak alongside their victim, with whom they have reconciled; the brother of someone who was murdered who will talk about mercy and forgiveness; a young man currently serving a sentence; and an agent of the Penitentiary Police, who is in daily contact with the prisoners.

All tickets for the Mass are, as usual, completely free of cost, and there will be no ticket required for the “Reception Celebrating Mercy” in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall after.

An exhibit of various products and items made inside prisons is also being planned, and will be located at Castel Sant'Angelo, which sits at the end of the large street leading up to the Vatican, called Via della Conciliazione.

During Mass, it will be the prisoners themselves who participate in various roles in the liturgy. The hosts used during Communion were also made by prisoners of the Opera maximum security prison in Milan as part of “The Meaning of Bread” project organized for the Jubilee of Mercy.

In his comments to journalists, Archbishop Fisichella said the prisoners coming were chosen by the bishops conferences and prison chaplains. Participating in the Jubilee for Prisoners was proposed to them by the Vatican, he said, explaining that by attending, they have “responded to the invitation of the Pope.”

He said no special security measures are being taken given the special nature of the Jubilee, but that the event will move forward “like normal.”

When it comes to transporting prisoners from around Italy and other countries, the archbishop said that each country has their own laws and regulations for how it will be done.

The Jubilee for the Socially Marginalized, on the other hand, will take place Nov. 13 and is intended for people who, “for different reasons, from economic precariousness to various diseases, from loneliness to a lack of family ties, have difficulties inserting themselves into the fabric of society and often end up on the margins of society, without a home or a place to live.”

Nearly 6,000 people have signed up from countries around the world including France, Germany, Portugal, England, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia and Switzerland.

Celebrations will begin Friday, Nov. 11, with an audience with Pope Francis in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, during which the Pope will listen to testimonies and speak with them. Testimonies will also be given in various parishes around Rome throughout the day.

On Saturday, Nov. 12, a vigil will be held at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Wall, during which attendees can pass through the basilica’s Holy Door. A concert will also be held that night in the Paul VI Hall.

The event will close Sunday, Nov. 13, with a Mass celebrated by Pope Francis. On the same day, the Holy Doors in the three major papal basilicas of Rome – St. Mary Major, St. Paul Outside the Wall and St. John Lateran – and those in dioceses throughout the world will be closed, marking the coming end of the Jubilee of Mercy. The Holy Door in St. Peter’s will be closed at the Nov. 20 conclusion of the Holy Year.

In his comments to journalists, Archbishop Fisichella said that to close the Holy Doors “does not exhaust the commitment of the Church, but in the light of the Jubilee experience, strengthens her witness.”

Referring to the Jubilee for Prisoners and Marginalized persons, he said, “we are certain that these two Jubilee events will be lived with the same intensity and experience of prayer with which we have seen the entire Jubilee (of Mercy) be celebrated.”

The two events, he said, are “a meaningful horizon of the jubilee program which looks forward to Nov. 20 with serenity and trust.”

Full Article

IMAGE: CNS photo/Paul Jeffrey

By Paul Jeffrey

KIDAPAWAN, Philippines (CNS) -- Justice is slow in the Philippines, but Father Peter Geremia is running out of patience as he awaits justice for the killers of a fellow priest.

Father Geremia is hoping that the country's new president, Rodrigo Duterte, can cut through the impunity and corruption that the priest says have prevented bringing to justice the killers of Father Fausto Tentorio. The Italian missionary was shot to death on Oct. 17, 2011, just outside his parish office in the rural town of Arakan on the southern island of Mindanao, where he had helped indigenous communities organize to resist the theft of their lands by foreign mining companies, loggers, and large agro-export plantations.

Father Geremia, who was born in Italy but became a U.S. citizen in 1971 after living in the United States for more than a decade, is a member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, as were Father Tentorio and two other priests assassinated in Mindanao. One of them, Father Tullio Favali, was murdered in 1985 by military-linked assassins who thought they were killing Father Geremia. Six men were convicted of that killing and served lengthy prison terms.

But that's not the case with Father Tentorio's killers, who remain officially unidentified despite multiple investigations and a Byzantine trail of confessions and recantations by people with links to a paramilitary squad.

Father Geremia says the church got several key witnesses to Father Tentorio's killing into a witness protection program, but as the case has dragged on, the witnesses have chafed at their lack of freedom.

"It's been five years since the killing, and after a while the witnesses and their families couldn't stand it, it was like being in prison. They'd had to abandon their homes and farms and we had to support their families," Father Geremia told Catholic News Service.

The priest, who met personally with the leader of one paramilitary group linked to the killing in an unsuccessful attempt to get him to confess, is hoping things will improve under Duterte, who took office June 30. As part of the president's pursuit of a peace deal with the National Democratic Front, in September he ordered the Philippine army to dismantle the paramilitary groups blamed for widespread repression in indigenous communities.

"These groups are instruments of politicians and the military and serve as security guards for the big plantations and mining operations. They are often composed of indigenous people who've been manipulated by the military and armed with high-powered weapons. They have steadily taken over land and driven people out of their homes, all in an effort to destroy the tribal communities. It's genocide," said Father Geremia.

Asked if he knows the identity of Father Tentorio's killers, Geremia declined to answer specifically, but said the country's army was clearly involved.

"We cannot point fingers at individuals, because they have the right to due process," he said. "But the investigators know very well. The initial information from the National Bureau of Investigation mentions names, but they always refuse to admit the military was in control of the area. Fausto could not have been killed without their permission. When he was killed there were soldiers just a few meters away. The killers felt safe to wait for Fausto in broad daylight with the military all around. And after the killing, they just got on a motorcycle and went away without anyone asking them any questions."

Like many church workers who have sided with indigenous communities in Mindanao, Father Geremia has endured years of harassment and threats. According to Sister Maria Luz Mallo, the executive secretary of the Sisters Association in Mindanao, Father Geremia's commitment during 44 years of pastoral work in the Philippines has brought him unique acceptance by native communities.

"Father Peter may have been born in Italy, but the blood that flows through his veins is Filipino," she said.

Sister Mallo, a member of the Missionaries of the Assumption, has provided pastoral accompaniment to indigenous families -- chased out of their rural villages by paramilitary violence -- who have sought refuge in a Protestant church compound in Davao. She said church workers who side with the indigenous are going to suffer.

"Sometimes we are followed, and people often accuse us of being part of the NPA (communist New People's Army), of being reds. But we are not working against the government, we are just responding to the needs of the people. And we will continue to stand as prophets even though we are red-tagged and our security is threatened. That's part of following Christ," she said.

The struggle of Mindanao's indigenous people, commonly known as Lumads, took a bloody turn April 1 when police opened fire on several thousand demonstrators in Kidapawan, killing three and wounding dozens more.

The protesters were indigenous and nonindigenous farmers suffering from a prolonged drought. They came to Kidapawan to pressure the provincial government to release thousands of sacks of rice that the national government had sent for their relief.

It wasn't the first such incident. During a 1992 drought, Father Geremia and several indigenous leaders were jailed for 28 days following a similar protest. A drought struck again in 1998, but the provincial government released the rice in response to farmers' demands.

During this year's protest, Father Geremia was trying to mediate between the protesters and the government when shots rang out. As many of the demonstrators took refuge in a nearby United Methodist Church compound, Father Geremia stood at the entrance and forbade the police from entering.

In the wake of the melee, charges were filed against almost 100 of the protesters and their supporters, who in turn filed countercharges against the police and the North Cotabato provincial governor, Emmylou Talino-Mendoza, who reportedly ordered the violence. Those cases are pending in court, though Duterte reportedly has pressured to have them dropped.

Valentina Berdin of Arakan was one of those charged. The 78-year-old indigenous woman was held for 11 days before her release pending trial.

"We planted rice, but because of El Nino, none came up. I went to Kidapawan because the alternative was starving to death," said Berdin, who is charged with assaulting a police officer.

"I didn't assault him. I turned myself over to him so I wouldn't get shot," she said.

Father Geremia said those captured by the police were the ones who could not run fast.

"How insulting it is to the police that the only ones they arrested were the old women and the wounded," he said.

Although the demonstrators were unable to obtain food with their protest, Berdin said she has been offered one sack of rice and 4,000 pesos (about $82) every month if she agrees to drop the charges against the governor.

Berdin says she that she and other indigenous people in Mindanao appreciate the accompaniment of church leaders like Father Geremia.

"Father Peter has continued the work of Father Fausto in supporting the Lumads against the mining companies and the plantations that are trying to take our land. With Father Peter on our side, we will continue to fight for our rights," she said.

- - -

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.

Full Article

IMAGE: CNS photo/Remo Casilli, Reuters

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When the Benedictine monks in Norcia led residents in prayer before the ruins of their medieval city, they showed one way the church steps into action in times of crisis.

First responders encouraged the religious, recognizing they could do their job better when the distraught receive emotional or spiritual rescue, too. SOS, after all, means "save our souls."

In fact, the one disaster that cameras don't easily capture is the shattering of people's resolve and the collapse of courage when everything they have is gone.

"Certainly the crumbled walls and the missing roofs" are a problem, Archbishop Renato Boccardo of Spoleto-Norcia said, but the most serious concern is the people -- "people who have been living for two months in a state of continual fear and worry and are under considerable psychological stress and losing hope."

He told Vatican Radio the day after the Oct. 30 tremors that the people he talks to are tired of starting over; some have rebuilt their homes twice already from past quakes.

"The temptation to give up is there," he said, and the church's job is to "sustain hope, listen to people vent and dry their tears."

As central Italy quaked, a city further north was celebrating its own rebirth from ruin and honoring the perseverance and selflessness of those who helped save it.

Florence -- the cradle of the Renaissance -- was commemorating the 50th anniversary of the day the Arno River burst its banks Nov. 4, 1966.

Water, silt and debris smashed into septic systems and tanks of fuel oil and gas, creating a black-brown sludge that permeated priceless works of art, books and manuscripts. Rushing waters 20 feet high carried away roads, cars and supplies, and filled homes and businesses with oily muck.

The disaster prompted hundreds of students, workers and professionals to go help the city, earning them the name, "the mud angels." Some of their testimony and details were published in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, and on internet news sites.

Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti of Perugia-Citta della Pieve was among the mud angels, according to the Vatican newspaper.

He was a 24-year-old priest who had been ordained in Florence just two months prior. He and a handful of teenagers broke into a garage where tanks of acetylene were illegally stored. With the water quickly rising, they pulled out the tanks to lessen the potential and power of an explosion, he said.

Cardinal Giuseppe Betori of Florence, who was 19 at the time, said seeing "the suffering, the loss on the Florentines' faces" was unforgettable.

He and many other seminarians and young priests studying in Rome went to Florence with the encouragement of their rector who believed the experience would be "formative." In fact, the cardinal told the Italian news agency ANSA, it turned out to be a course in theology "with a shovel in my hand."

They slept in a theater and wore boots and overalls like all the other volunteers, he said.

While media attention buzzed around those salvaging books from the national library in the historic center, the seminarians were assigned to the outskirts of town to help a working class neighborhood, Cardinal Betori said.

For those folks, "we really were angels," he said, "unexpected apparitions, a presence that was a pure gift."

He said he's "proud to have been among the people and not the books, not to diminish the importance of culture, especially in Florence, but it seems to me that for a seminarian, a priest, a bishop, it is much more important to be able to say 'I served the people.'"

He helped residents dig through the sludge for their precious possessions, like a metal box filled with a married couple's love letters. Hit with a bad case of the flu, he ended laid up on a cot for a week, "doing nothing more for Florence" until Pope Benedict XVI appointed him archbishop of the city in 2008.

Now, he says, he always recalls "that the first staff I held in my hand in Florence was the handle of a shovel. It helps me, let's say, stay measured" when he processes into church with a pastoral staff in hand, reminded of "those days filled with mud and water."

Cardinal Betori was to lead a Mass Nov. 4 at the Church of Santa Croce, together with other prelates who had been "mud angels" in their youth.

L'Osservatore Romano said three Italian cardinals and at least six bishops had been "mud angels." Indian Cardinal Telesphore Toppo of Ranchi, then a 27-year-old theology student in Rome, even contributed by donating blood.

Responding to Italy's latest disaster -- the series of earthquakes -- Archbishop Boccardo has organized a "task force of hope," assigning available priests to live among those left homeless.

One of his priests, Father Marco Rufini, has been living in a car like other townsfolk in Norcia. He told Vatican Radio Nov. 1 that even though the town has lost its churches, "the house of God isn't the walls but the people."

If people are on their knees in sorrow or pain, then the church needs to kneel down with them -- "to work on that edifice made of living stones," he said.

- - -

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.

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article