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(Vatican Radio) Caritas Internationalis and the Lutheran World Federation’s charitable arm are jointly preparing a key event in Sweden’s Malmö arena as part of the October 31st anniversary of the Reformation.

Pope Francis and Lutheran leaders are together hosting a day of ecumenical events in Sweden to kick off the 500th anniversary commemorations of the Reformation and to celebrate the progress that has been made in Catholic-Lutheran relations over the past half century.

Following a joint prayer liturgy in Lund cathedral, the pope and the Lutheran leaders will travel to Malmö for a celebration of the witness that Catholics and Lutherans are giving together, working for justice and peace in countries around the world.

To find out more about this unprecedented initiative, Philippa Hitchen spoke to the secretary general of Caritas Internationalis Michel Roy…

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Roy says the initiative originates with the Catholic and Lutheran Churches, which want to show that after so many decades of “doctrinal theological discussions”, there is a move to “concrete action together to show that we are united”. While unity is a strong word, he says, it’s clear that Pope Francis has “a vision of unity” which follows this same goal.

Response to Colombia's peace process

While this is an “opportunity to speed up” cooperation, Michel Roy says that Catholic and Lutheran communities already work together in many places providing emergency responses, welcoming refugees or promoting peace and reconciliation. One good example which will be showcased in Malmö, he says, is the peace process in Colombia, which has been promoted by Caritas Colombia together with the Lutheran World Federation's World Service.

Declaration of Intent

During the Malmö event, he says, the leadership of Caritas Internationalis and the World Service will sign a Declaration of Intent to show that “we will go beyond and seize every opportunity of moving together”. While the two organisations are different in structure, this declaration aims to inspire and encourage people to work closer together to recover and promote human dignity, he says.

Key role of faith groups

Part of the inspiration for this stepped-up cooperation comes from Pope Francis “who is breaking all the barriers” and “rebuilding links” with Christians and other faith leaders, Roy explains.  At the same time, he notes, “there is a strong call from the United Nations” and other organisations like the World Bank who “see the plus that we bring, as compared to simple civil society organisations”. The international community, he adds, is increasingly recognizing that where faith groups are organizing “at village level”, there is greater “leverage for the real fight against extreme poverty”.

Pray for peace in Syria

Finally Roy talks about the funds that will be raised by the sale of the tickets in Malmö arena, all of which will go towards supporting victims of the Syria conflict. The Caritas Syria programme, based in Aleppo, provides educational support for children there, while the Lutheran project helps Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries. Caritas Syria president, Bishop Antoine Audo, will be speaking at the Malmö event and participants will together pray the prayer that Caritas Syria has shared through the #peaceispossible campaign. Roy says “We believe in the power of prayer in such dire times and so we invite everyone to pray this prayer that you can find on the website dedicated to this campaign: syria.caritas.org 

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(Vatican Radio) The Catholic Church in Sweden is hoping Pope Francis will bring a message of faith, hope and unity to a very secular society. The Pope arrives in the southern city of Malmö on Monday and travels to nearby Lund to take part in an ecumenical prayer service with leaders of the Lutheran World Federation in the cathedral there.

Later in the afternoon, he returns to Malmö for an event in the main sports arena jointly organised by Caritas Internationalis and the Lutheran World Service. The theme of the event ‘Together in Hope’ is focused on common witness and service to those most in need.

On Tuesday, the Pope will celebrate Mass for the Solemnity of All Saints day in Malmö before returning to Rome in the afternoon.

Oblate Father Fredrik Emanuelson is episcopal vicar for evangelization in Stockholm, the only Catholic diocese in the country and has been helping to coordinate this papal visit to Sweden. He talked to Philippa Hitchen about the country’s tiny Catholic community and the about the challenges of ecumenical collaboration…

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Fr Emanuelson says the Catholic Church in Sweden has an “enormous cultural diversity,” with immigrants of 2nd,  3rd and even 4th generations making up the majority of people in the 44 parishes, mainly located around the big cities.

There are also a dozen or more national missions with people gathering around priests of different nationalities, cultures or languages. A key pastoral challenge therefore, he says, is “to live as a Catholic community in  unity” the relationships between parishes and national missions.

Officially registered Catholics number only 113.000, Fr Emanuelson says, there are known to be many more unregistered throughout the country.

Dialogue between Church and society

The Swedish Lutheran Church was a state church from 1593 up until the year 2000, when there was separation between State and Church. It is still by far the biggest Church, but Fr Emanuelson notes that “the reality of believing, practicing Christians is Sweden is just a fraction of that membership”. The real challenge today, he says, is not so much dialogue between Churches but between the Gospel and Swedish society.

Message of faith and hope

Asked about the message the Pope can bring on this visit, Fr Emanuelson says he hopes it will be a message of faith and hope in a country where social welfare is well advanced, yet where there are new challenges with the many refugees from the Middle East. He says Swedes “have to be careful to live up to values that we call our core values and, as Churches, to help in a practical way and to be prophetic witnesses in leading the way”.

3 elements of commemoration

Speaking about the ecumenical events on Monday, Fr Emanuelson points out that the initiative stems from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and Lutheran World Federation but is also being hosted by the Stockholm dioceses, “so we have 3 different levels, global, national and local level and 2 different churches. He describes it as “a very courageous thing to do” and explains the way the events are “taking the cue” from the 2013 report ‘From Conflict to Communion’. That document details the 3 main elements of commemoration -  thanksgiving for the official dialogue which began 50 years ago and has brought the Churches much closer together. The 2nd moment, he continues, speaks of penance and of recognizing “the pain and the hurt we’ve caused one another”, encouraging us to look ahead and “to ask how can we mend and have purification  of memory”. The 3rd moment, he says, is “in service and witness to live the Gospel in Sweden and the world today”.

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(Vatican Radio) As Pope Francis makes his 17th Apostolic visit to Sweden for a joint commemoration of the Reformation together with leaders of the Lutheran World Federation, the President of the Federation says he reciprocates the Pope's feeling of closeness between the two Churches.

Listen to Philippa Hitchen’s interview with Bishop Munib Younan, President of the Lutheran World Federation

Bishop Munib Younan, speaking about his own personal hopes for the visit notes, “we have behind us fifty years of deep dialogue between the Lutheran Church and the Catholic Church and this dialogue is built on issues and this is the reason we sighed the joint declaration…”  He also says this commemoration consolidates that closeness which shows “we are brothers and sisters in Christ”.

He stresses that, “the division of the past must not determine our future today” and like the Pope, he emphasizes the urgency of Christian unity because of those being persecuted and killed for their Christian faith in different parts of the world including the Middle East .

Bishop Younan says when he returns to the Middle East he wants to bring back with him a message of unity, underlining that, “only unity will strengthen the Churches in Jerusalem, in the Holy Land and in the whole Middle East. This unity is not our work, it is the work of the Holy Spirit and we must take it seriously.”

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(Vatican Radio)  Pope Francis has arrived in Sweden for a two-day apostolic journey where, together with the heads of the Lutheran World Federation he will jointly preside at an ecumenical prayer service in Lund cathedral, followed by a public witness event in the nearby city of Malmö.

On Tuesday morning, All Saints Day, the Pope will celebrate Mass in Malmö for Sweden’s tiny Catholic community.

Highlighting the importance of this apostolic journey to Sweden to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the protestant Reformation, the Pope asked journalists to help the public understand.

Greeting media professionals travelling on board the papal plane to Malmo on Monday morning, Pope Francis said: “This journey is important because it is an ecclesial journey, it’s very ecclesial in the field of ecumenism.

“Your work will be a big contribution in making sure people understand well” he said.

The formal occasion for the Pope’s visit to Sweden is to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. The event comes as the culmination of years of theological progress, from the signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1999, to the publication of a shared history of the Reformation in the 2013 document ‘From Conflict to Communion’.

Before travelling to the Lutheran Cathedral of Lund for the joint ecumenical prayer service on Monday afternoon, an official welcome ceremony at Malmö International Airport saw state and religious authorities on the tarmac to receive Pope Francis.

As per protocol, the Prime Minister of the host country, Sweden’s Stefan Löfven, and the Minister of Culture and Democracy meet privately with the Pope at the Airport.

Also before the ecumenical service which is scheduled to begin at 2.15pm, the Pope will pay a courtesy visit to the Swedish King and Queen, Carl XVI Gustav and Silvia, at Lund’s Royal Palace (the Kungshuset).

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Pope Francis on Monday appointed an archbishop to the Latin Archdiocese of Verapoly in southern India’s Kerala state.  He appointed Bishop Joseph Kalathiparambil, the Secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, as the new Archbishop of Verapoly.  The 64-year old bishop replaces Archbishop Francis Kallarakal who has retired.   Verapoly: The Dioceses of Cochin, Kannur, Kottapuram, Sultanpet and  Vijayapuram are suffragans of Calicut Metropolitan Archdiocese.

Born on Oct 6, 1952,  in Vaduthala, Kerala, Bishop Kalathiparambil was ordained  priest on March 13, 1978, and appointed Bishop of Calicut in April 2002 and consecrated the following month.  Pope Benedict XVI called him to the Vatican in Feb.  2011, to be the Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples.   But with the reform of Pope Francis of the central administration of the Catholic Church in the Vatican, the four Pontifical Councils for Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, Justice and Peace, Cor Unum, and Healthcare ‎Workers‎ will cease to exist individually on Jan. 1, 2017, and will be merged into a new single office for the promotion of integral human development.  

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(Vatican Radio) Christian Chavarria Ayala from El Salvador is the artist who designed and painted the wooden cross which has been chosen as the symbol of Pope Francis’ apostolic journey to Sweden to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

The brightly colored cross with its doves, its vine and its depiction of Jesus welcoming people of all backgrounds to participate in his banquet brings a message of hope from one of the most conflict-ridden countries in the world today.

Chavarria Ayala told Philippa Hitchen he felt hugely honored when the World Lutheran Federation General Secretary asked him to paint the cross for the prayer service of the Joint Ecumenical Commemoration on Monday 31 October in Lund.

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Christian Chavarria Ayala says his crosses are very colorful and painted in a very simple way “but this is the gift that God gave me, and this is what I have!”

He explains that on this particular cross there are many symbols and what he wanted to show is how God works in our world:  there are God’s hands holding the world meaning that the Lord created everything; then there is the vine and Jesus is telling us ‘I am the vine and you are the branches’; the people depicted on the cross are of all colors and ethnicities and they are all being called to the table of the Lord’s banquet “and everyone is happy because God wants us to be happy, just as every parent wants his children to be happy”; there are also three white doves on the cross, because he says, “I have always believed the Holy Spirit is with every person, even in the most difficult moments of one’s life”.

Chavarria Ayala points out that there are doves on every cross he paints also because in his own country, El Salvador, the dove was considered a sign of protest. For years, he explains, it was forbidden to paint pictures of white doves in El Salvador, to the extent that doing so put the life of artists in danger.

He recalls the day Salvadorian soldiers asked him about the white birds on his early paintings and says “I did not give the true reason - that the doves were my wish for peace in the country - you were not allowed to say that.” 

Chavarria Ayala also goes on to speak of the important role the Catholic Church played in his country during the civil war and says it is still has pivotal work to do on the rocky road to peace and justice, also because, he says, reconciliation has not taken place in El Salvador, and the youth especially, are in deep need of guidance and hope.

The artist also speaks of how there is no State programme for people with disabilities in El Salvador and of how he involves disabled people in his workshop for whom making crosses has become doubly significant because  it provides livelihoods for entire families as well.

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Boston, Mass., Oct 31, 2016 / 04:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The last person hanged for witchcraft in Boston could be considered a Catholic martyr.

In the 1650s, Ann Glover and her family, along with some 50,000 other native Irish people, were enslaved by Englishman Oliver Cromwell during the occupation of Ireland and shipped to the island of Barbados, where they were sold as indentured servants.

What is known of her history is sporadic at best, though she was definitely Irish and definitely Catholic. According to an article in the Boston Globe, even Ann's real name remains a mystery, as indentured servants were often forced to take the names of their masters.

While in Barbados, Ann's husband was reportedly killed for refusing to renounce his Catholic faith. By 1680, Ann and her daughter had moved to Boston where Ann worked as a “goodwife” (a housekeeper and nanny) for the John Goodwin family.

Father Robert O'Grady, director of the Boston Catholic Directory for the Archdiocese of Boston, said that after working for the Goodwins for a few years, Ann Glover became sick, and the illness spread to four of the five Goodwin children.

“She was, unsurprisingly, not well-educated, and in working with the family, apparently she got sick at some point and the kids for whom she was primarily responsible caught whatever it was,” Fr. O'Grady told CNA.

A doctor allegedly concluded that “nothing but a hellish Witchcraft could be the origin of these maladies,” and one of the daughters confirmed the claim, saying she fell ill after an argument with Ann.  

The infamous Reverend Cotton Mather, a Harvard graduate and one of the main perpetrators of witch trial hysteria at the time, insisted Ann Glover was a witch and brought her to what would be the last witch trial in Boston in 1688.

In the courtroom, Ann refused to speak English and instead answered questions in her native Irish Gaelic. In order to prove she was not a witch, Mather asked Ann to recite the Our Father, which she did, in a mix of Irish Gaelic and Latin because of her lack of education.

“Cotton Mather would have recognized some of it, because of course that would have been part of your studies in those days, you studied classical languages when you were preparing to be a minister, especially Latin and Greek,” Father O'Grady said.

“But because it was kind of mixed in with Irish Gaelic, it was then considered proof that she was possessed because she was mangling the Latin.”

Allegedly, Boston merchant Robert Calef, who knew Ann when she was alive, said she “was a despised, crazy, poor old woman, an Irish Catholic who was tried for afflicting the Goodwin children. Her behavior at her trial was like that of one distracted. They did her cruel. The proof against her was wholly deficient. The jury brought her guilty. She was hung. She died a Catholic."

Mather convicted Ann of being an “idolatrous Roman Catholick” and a witch, and she hung on Boston Common on November 16, 1688. Today, just a 15 minute walk away, the parish of Our Lady of Victories holds a plaque commemorating her martyrdom, which reads:

“Not far from here on 16 November 1688, Goodwife Ann Glover an elderly Irish widow, was hanged as a witch because she had refused to renounce her Catholic faith. Having been deported from her native Ireland to the Barbados with her husband, who died there because of his own loyalty to the Catholic faith, she came to Boston where she was living for at least six years before she was unjustly condemned to death. This memorial is erected to commemorate “Goody” Glover as the first Catholic martyr in Massachusetts.”

The plaque was placed at the Church on the tercentennial anniversary of her death in 1988 by the Order of Alhambra, a Catholic fraternity whose mission includes commemorating Catholic historical persons, places and events. The Boston City Council also declared November 16 as “Goody Glover Day”, in order to condemn the injustice brought against her.  

Ann Glover has not yet been officially declared a martyr by a pope, nor has her cause for canonization been opened to date, partly because her story has faded into obscurity over time, Fr. O’Grady said.

“Part of the dilemma here (too) is that when she was hanged, Catholics were a tiny, minuscule, minority in Boston, so picking up her ‘cause’ was not easy or ‘on top of the list,’” he said.

Ann Glover's trial also set the tone for the infamous Salem Witch Trials in 1692, during which 19 men and women were hanged for witchcraft, and in which Reverend Cotton Mather and his anti-Catholic prejudices played a major role.

 

This article was originally published on CNA Oct. 31, 2014.

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