Catholic News 2

Vatican City, Oct 13, 2016 / 02:25 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On Thursday the Vatican’s longtime point-man on the topic of migration said that the issue is an urgent one that can’t be solved by the “human egoism” that closes doors and fosters a xenophobic attitude toward foreigners.

“It’s not Christian to be xenophobic, it’s not Christian to not welcome a migrant, who has rights and also duties,” Cardinal Antonio Maria Vegliò, president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, told journalists Oct. 13.

When an immigrant arrives “they need to be recognized by the country who welcomes them,” he said.

He emphasized that a migrant must respect “the traditions and identity of the culture where they go, just as the country where they arrive must respect the dignity and the identity of the immigrant.”

“Each one, whether it is the welcoming country or the migrant, has rights and duties,” he said, noting that the controversy over the phenomenon is unfortunately reflected at a political level.

“We see it here in Europe. We see it also a bit in the United States,” he said, explaining that in his opinion, everyone “wants his own backyard, their corridor, their sacred space and they don’t want to be disturbed.”

This attitude, he said, is “very egotistical... (it’s) human egoism, which isn’t human if you don’t consider (migrants) as children of God, as we are.”

Cardinal Vegliò, who has headed the pontifical council since 2009, spoke following the release of Pope Francis’ message for the 2017 World Day of Migrants, “Child Migrants, the Vulnerable and the Voiceless.” The day will be celebrated Jan. 15, 2017.

In comments to CNA, the cardinal said that ahead of the presidential elections in the United States, it’s important for Christians to remember that “a migrant is a person as we are, a person with inalienable rights just as ours, but at the same time the state has the sacred right to defend their own citizens.”

“It’s a delicate choice between respect for one’s own identity and the welcoming of others,” he said, explaining that these are “the fundamental principles that go [not only] for the United States on the vigil of the presidential elections, but that go for all. The Church has always taught this.”

When asked by journalists about the situation of migrants, particularly unaccompanied minors, who cross the border from Mexico into the United States, Cardinal Vegliò acknowledged that Mexico “isn’t an exemplary country for what regards migrants.”

Although Mexican citizens “justly protest the closure of that wall that would separate them from the United States,” the migrants who come to Mexico from Central America don’t necessarily “find themselves in better conditions,” he said.

“All of us know how many problems there currently are in the world that center on migration,” he said, noting that it’s a global issue affecting not only Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, but also Europe.

“All over the world there is this problem, in some places more serious, in some less. But it’s a problem that won’t go away right away. It will also continue to get worse than what it is now,” the cardinal observed.

He stressed the need to find realistic solutions, but recognized that while welcoming migrants is a duty, “it’s not possible to receive everyone.”

“Migration isn’t resolved welcoming everyone, which is impossible because every state has the right to and duty protect their citizens,” he said, but noted that the problem can’t be solved “saying 'get out, no one can come',” either.

“It’s a problem that needs to be resolved, that needs a solution,” he said, noting that unfortunately Europe is “very egotistical, it bothers everyone to have one more” migrant in their midst.

“For migrants, however many there are, it’s something that disturbs our lives, in the beautiful area, in the things we have, and we don’t want to be disturbed. It’s not human, it’s not Christian,” he said, adding that the Church “tries to raise awareness” of this fact.

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Denver, Colo., Oct 13, 2016 / 04:30 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- For history professor Christopher Shannon, Catholics in American politics have a long history, yet this legacy is overshadowed by a troubling disunity in the present.

“This rupture in the Church and the change in American politics has only hardened divisions within the Church,” said the Christendom College professor. “What frustrates me or troubles me is that they seem to be more concerned about ‘where’s our country going?’ than ‘where’s our Church going?'.”

“They seem much more comfortable and happy to work for a better America, with their liberal friends or their conservative friends, than [to] really restore unity in the Church,” he said. “The political divisions in the Church have only hardened and worsened the theological divisions and the division in general.”

Prior to the 1960s, the unity that people see in the Church was also reflected in a political unity, Shannon thought.

“Catholics, for all of their infighting, could see themselves as a united people in the Church, and also because they were united in their politics,” he said in a Sept. 9 interview with CNA.

Catholics in America through the 19th century

Catholic politicians, though always a minority, have a long history in the United States. Maryland’s Charles Carroll, for instance, was the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence.

But by the mid-19th century the average Catholic in America was an immigrant, and poor. Unlike in Europe, no Catholic party had emerged in the United States.

For Shannon, Archbishop John Hughes of New York, who headed the archdiocese from 1842-1864, came closest to creating a Catholic politics in the 19th century. He would never have considered himself to be acting as a Catholic politician, but his actions regarding the public school system certainly had a political edge.

The public school system was de facto Protestant, with religious education based on reading the King James Version of the Bible. Catholics objected to this, and bishops sought that Catholics could be excused from reading the Protestant Bible.

The archbishop’s stand was simply based on “self-preservation and defense of his community,” according to Shannon. Archbishop Hughes did start a political party over the issue to split the Democratic Party vote in New York politics, but he eventually resolved the controversy by starting the Catholic school system.

There were no Catholic politicians in the 19th century of the same stature as Archbishop Hughes. Rather, these politicos played smaller roles in patronage and influence networks like New York City’s Tammany Hall.
 
Such a politician was “not a man of principle in the modern sense… but very much a man of the people,” Shannon explained. “These type of politicians have a bad reputation today for their corruption and such, but for them politics was about delivering the goods and not about high principles: The widow Murphy needs coal, or she will freeze to death. Old Joe Riley he can make sure she got coal.”

“That was Catholic politics, really, through most of the 19th century,” Shannon summarized. “That was good enough for those people.”

At the time, there weren’t Catholic principles that applied to democratic institutions. The Church itself had doubts about democracy. The first social encyclicals aiming to engage modernity on positive grounds had little impact, except for a small but growing number of priests who used them to try to articulate a Catholic politics – most clearly exemplified by Msgr. John Ryan, who became especially prominent as an ally of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.

The venue for most Catholics was also geographically localized.

“Catholic politics is urban politics,” Shannon said. “It was all urban, it was all about the political machines that ran the cities.”

Irish immigrants especially dominated politics. They came largely fluent in English, and their homeland was politicized in the wake of Catholic emancipation. Their dominance was at time resented by other Catholic groups, not to mention other Americans.

Al Smith, four time New York governor

Since the late 19th century, Catholics had become a force in the Democratic Party. New York governor Al Smith, a Democrat, became the first Catholic candidate for president in 1928.

While Smith had come out of a Tammany Hall environment, he was not considered corrupt. He was also sympathetic to some concerns of the Progressive Era, which saw the need for a programmatic approach to social problems instead of case-by-case acts of charity.

Smith was not directly influenced by the social teachings of the papacy. At one point, a leading writer in The Atlantic challenged his candidacy and wondered his presidency would be negatively influenced by papal encyclicals.

Possibly apocryphally, Smith replied: “What the hell is an encyclical?”

“He was trying to develop a Catholic politics without calling it a Catholic politics,” Shannon said. “I think the most important thing about Smith, the great contrast with Kennedy later, is that when he would say, ‘I’m an American, I’m not trying to impose my faith on people,’ he would be attacked and attacked, but he would never back down from his commitment to the Church and from identifying himself as a Catholic.”

“For him, Catholic politics was a kind of identity politics: ‘I’m Catholic and I can be Catholic and American, I can be a Catholic and a good president, and I’m not going to renounce my faith by silence or by denying or ignoring my faith’.”

Smith sought votes not for his religion, but for his political positions.

Al Smith failed win the presidency, but his career peak as New York governor was a tremendous step for Catholics in America.

JFK: a president who happened to be Catholic

The presidency of John F. Kennedy was another watershed moment for Catholics in the United States.

“He in some sense, more through his assassination than his actual election, puts to rest the idea that Catholics cannot be good citizens,” Shannon said.

However, his method of engaging the issue of Catholic faith and politics was different from that of Smith, particularly in how he addressed the concerns of those sceptical of a Catholic in the White House.

Kennedy, in his Sept. 12, 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, said, “I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic.”
 
“I do not speak for my Church on public matters; and the Church does not speak for me,” Kennedy continued. “Whatever issue may come before me as President, if I should be elected, on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject, I will make my decision in accordance with these views – in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressure or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.”

For Shannon, this represents a privatization of Kennedy’s Catholic faith. His example often flowed into popular interpretations of the Second Vatican Council.

“The Church is not saying that your faith should be purely private, but it is endorsing what looks like an American model in terms of disestablishment and religious pluralism,” Shannon said.

“The big thing is, when Kennedy becomes this great martyr, Catholics feel they’ve finally arrived,” he added. “On what terms? On American terms. They’re accepted as Americans, they’re not accepted as Catholic Americans. And certainly not accepted because as Catholics they have something distinct to contribute to the country, as Catholics.”

Shannon held that a politician like Smith would never have claimed to be a Catholic politician or to have had the right to impose his faith on others. However, “he would never have renounced the Church in the way that Kennedy did. It was a matter of tone and style.”

For Shannon, Kennedy’s statement is a harsh one – he could have taken the same stand without so strongly distancing himself. Those who say their faith has nothing to do with their politics must answer the question, “Where do you draw your guidance from?”

The situation after Vatican II

With the example of Kennedy, and popular interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, both conservative and liberal Catholics would cite the pluralistic nature of democracy as a reason to privatize their faith.

“They start saying ‘various positions are rooted in my faith, and therefore they are private’,” Shannon said.

Both liberal and conservative Catholics started making the distinction. Even on abortion, the conservative writer William F. Buckley, Jr. in March 1966 column, claimed that the principal meaning of the Second Vatican Council was that other men must be free to practice their conscience, and if they do not believe abortion is wrong then anti-abortion laws would contradict the Church’s position.

“That kind of distinction gathers steam through the mid-60s and '70s, and is given its most famous formulation by Mario Cuomo at Notre Dame, significantly, as he is seeking national office,” Shannon said.

In his Sept. 13, 1984 speech sponsored by the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Theology, Cuomo justified his pro-abortion rights position by saying Catholic public officials live a “political truth” which holds “that to assure our freedom we must allow others the same freedom, even if occasionally it produces conduct by them which we would hold to be sinful.”

“I accept the Church's teaching on abortion. Must I insist you do? By law? By denying you Medicaid funding? By a constitutional amendment? If so, which one? Would that be the best way to avoid abortions or to prevent them?” the governor asked.

Shannon summarized Cuomo’s position as “personally opposed but publically agnostic.” The governor said his duty as a public servant was to uphold “the law of the land,” but he does not give consideration to his ability to change the law.

This built on the deep rupture within the Church over Bl. Paul VI’s reaffirmation that the use of artificial birth control is sinful, including use of the then-novel birth control pill.

“Those issues are the basic ones that divide liberal and conservative Catholics to this day,” Shannon said.

This in turn has led to deeper divisions.

Where we are today

Pro-life advocates first sought a home in the Democratic Party on the assumption that its policies focused on caring for people and were consistent with Catholic social justice tradition.

This effort continued through the mid-1970s, when pro-life Democrats, stymied by feminist resistance, started to migrate into the Republican Party as it slowly converted to a pro-life view.

However, Shannon noted, these former Democrats then adopt “a whole range of political positons that most Catholics would have never thought have adopting, because they saw them as ‘un-Catholic’: a general endorsement of the free market, a comparative lack of concern for the poor, a tendency to blame the poor for their poverty.”

“In earlier times, the Catholics were the poor and they were being blamed for their poverty,” Shannon said. “Today, they are clearly divided in their Church, just as they are divided in their politics”

He acknowledged that a united Catholic position would face difficulty finding a home in either party at present.

“The cultural positions of the Church are going to offend the Democrats, the economic positions of the Church are going to offend Republicans,” he said, pondering the state of Catholics today.

“What troubles me is that they’re seeking the solution to this division more through politics than through the Church itself. They’re thinking: ‘If our side wins at politics then we’re going to drive the others out of the Church, and we’ll win in the Church’.”

Shannon proposed another path.

“Why not heal the wounds and divisions in the Church first? Certainly, be good citizens, be involved in the political process, but do so from a united Catholic position.”

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(Vatican Radio) US-born singer-songwriter Bob Dylan on Thursday was named the winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Grammy award winning artist was recognized by the Nobel committee for having created "new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."  

One of the more significant events of Dylan’s career was when he played for Pope St. John Paul II at the 23rd Italian National Eucharistic Congress in Bologna in 1997.

During the event, Dylan played the songs Blowin’ in the Wind, Knockin' on Heaven's Door and A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall; with Forever Young as an encore.

And this musical set was the basis of the remarks by St. John Paul II.

“A representative of yours has just said on your behalf that the answer to the questions of your life ‘is blowing in the wind’. It is true!” – said the Pope. –  “But not in the wind which blows everything away in empty whirls, but the wind which is the breath and voice of the Spirit, a voice that calls and says: ‘come!’

The then answered one of Dylan’s other most famous questions.

“You asked me: How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? I answer you: one! There is only one road for man and it is Christ, who said: ‘I am the way’ (Jn 14:6). He is the road of truth, the way of life,” the Pope continued.

Pope St. John Paul II also took the time to praise song, and spoke about how singing is pleasing to God.

“It invites us to bless his name, to rejoice and be glad together with all creation. Singing thus becomes the response of a heart filled with joy, which recognizes God’s presence beside it,” –  ¬the Pope said –  “The answers are blowing in the breath of the Holy Spirit.”

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(Vatican Radio) Some of you may have seen it splashed across the newspapers of the world: the iconic image of a Catholic priest, peacefully interposing his cassock-clad body between an armoured military vehicle and the open gate of a Church-cum-shelter and first aid clinic for students fleeing dangerous confrontation with police.

An image highlighting the South African university crisis and its far-reaching consequences.

Shortly after that photograph was taken Jesuit Father Graham Pugin was shot in the face with a rubber bullet as he stood as a human shield between Holy Trinity Catholic Church which is right next to university and riot police who had ordered him to lock the gate. 

Father Graham was wounded in the mouth and is now recovering at the Jesuit Institute of South Africa in Johannesburg  

The South African student demonstrations began last October at Johannesburg's main University when students blocked the entrance to the campus, following indications that the institution would raise fees by 10.5% this year.

Under the banner #FeesMustFall the protests have led to the closure of some of the country's top universities.

Father Graham, who spoke to Vatican Radio’s Linda Bordoni two days after the incident, has been one of the facilitators, along with other clergy and student leaders, working towards an agreement between students, management and other University stakeholders.

He says he hopes Holy Trinity Catholic Church will continue to serve as a safe and sacred space for negotiations. He also speaks of the continuing chain of injustice that is being perpetrated in South Africa and of the situation of so many young people who are unable to break the cycle of poverty that is crippling the nation because they cannot afford to pay for education… 

Listen: 

Father Graham Pugin SJ recounts the dramatic events that led to his injury explaining how he was present as always on Mondays at Holy Trinity Church, which is not on the University Campus, but surrounded on three sides by the campus. and facing an open street.

“During this time of unrest I have tried to be present for the students, for anybody involved, providing a safe and sacred space - a place of refuge, a place of sanctuary – which I believe is the Church’s role in these situations” he says.

He says that in light of failed negotiations on Friday, there were expectations of violence on Monday and he had been asked whether he could provide safe parking for ambulances in the Church’s parking ground.

He tells of how each time (and there have been several times) he has heard the sounds of shots on campus and the sounds of screaming as students flee, and of how he dashes outside into the parking lot and “wherever the people are coming from he has tried to be there to reassure frightened, panicking students” as well as “frightened, panicking policemen”.

Father Graham says that contrary to an unwritten agreement he has with authorities, on Monday he had unlocked inter leading gates between the Church and the university, and entered into an altercation with a policeman who insisted he lock the gate. 

He says the gates were then forcibly locked on the university side but Fr Graham made sure the gate on the Church side would remain open for those coming from the road and promised to do all he could to make sure that it would stay open in order to maintain that “safe and sacred space”.

“I went and stood at the Church gate in my alb as I always have done whenever the tensions have been high, making it perfectly clear that I am a clergyman, making sure I am perfectly visible” he says.

As he stood there, Fr Graham says every now and then a wave of students would run screaming up the road towards the Church, and they were allowed in provided they were totally unarmed.

“As I looked down the road I saw a large vehicle with guns pointing out moving very slowly across the intersection, firing all the while towards us” he  says. 

He says he presumes they were rubber bullets and points out that to his knowledge live ammunition has not been used in these circumstances, but it was certainly enough to cause panic and cause students to flee.

Fr. Graham also speaks of the first aid clinic that operates underneath the Church in emergency situations thanks to volunteers who stand by. He says the situation was very fraught and violent on Monday morning and, although he was personally injured during the shooting and had to be assisted, he remembers at least two ambulances on the scene with various students needing medication.
            
He points out that historically the Church in South Africa has provided a neutral venue for negotiations and sanctuary in situations of unrest or difficulty.

“The Church has been trying to provide the kind of service and ministry that the Church ought to provide for the last 60 years” he says.

During the apartheid struggle, he says “we were often the only place people could find shelter, and we did that – I did it myself – in the Church in the 70’s, in the 80’s in the 90’s…” .

Fr Graham tells of how he was one of the first conscientious objectors and was court marshalled in 1979 for refusing conscription and of how he always took part in the struggle against injustice dedicating his life to opposing violence and resisting peacefully in many charged occasions.

He explains that until he was shot he was involved as a facilitator, along with other clergy and student leaders working towards an agreement between the students, management and other stakeholders at the University of Witwatersrand.

Fr Graham said he had been asked by the facilitators whether they could use the Church of Holy Trinity as a safe place where they could meet out of the glare of the media, and he tells of how groups of many different constituencies were using the Church as a place of refuge and dialogue.

He says his hope is that all parties involved will be able to come to a just and peaceful solution but points out that in South Africa “it is very difficult to advance both those simultaneously under the circumstances”. 

Fr Graham says ‘reconciliation’ – a very loaded word in South Africa – is far from having been completed.

He says the ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ did a wonderful job, but it was limited in its scope and that there is still huge amount of work to be done, even within the student body which is seen as being very polarized racially, and even more so “in this very volatile situation”.

Father Graham says he will be going back to his ministry as soon as his presence won’t be judged ‘provocation’ on one side or the other.

“I am looking forward to going back because my real business is there helping the poor, running the soup kitchen” he says.

And speaking of the scheme he has been running for feeding some of the students who are so poor they cannot afford to eat, he says: “all this is about poverty and students”.

And this brings the conversation back to the #FeesMustFall protests because, Father Graham explains, the students certainly cannot afford to pay increased tuition fees.

“There are 36,000 students at the university; 22,000 of those are on government loans that they will have to pay back, and those loans cover their university fees and their accommodation but nothing else and so they are, by definition, very poor; then there  are some 6,000 students who are well funded either by their families or by bursaries; and in between there are 8,000  who do not qualify for government assistance and whose families cannot afford to support them: they are children of domestic workers, of labourers, of school teachers and policemen” he says.

So, Father Graham says, the chain of inequality in South Africa continues appallingly, “and that’s what this is all about”.

And he says he is convinced that the question can only be resolved by the government, something that would be financially possible “if all the money that disappears into corruption and into the back pockets of government ministers – if that were available there would be no difficulty – all it needs is the political will”.

After the shooting Father Graham Pugin received an “unconditional apology” by a police delegation and an official investigation into the incident has been instituted.

Amongst the messages of solidarity and concern he has been receiving are the prayers and closeness of his Jesuit brothers who are currently gathered in their General Congregation in Rome, and he says, Archbishop Peter Wells, the apostolic nuncio to South Africa has also given him great support.

Father Graham concludes: “Anyone who hears this interview: please keep praying. We desperately, desperately need your prayers”.
 

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Vatican City, Oct 13, 2016 / 10:42 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Thursday, asked about what he likes and doesn’t like in the Lutheran ecclesial community, Pope Francis said he likes Lutherans who are active followers of Christ, while he dislikes Christians who are hypocritical or who have a lukewarm faith.

“I like all the good Lutherans, eh?” he said. “There are many good ones, the Lutherans who really follow Jesus Christ. On the other hand, I don’t like lukewarm Catholics or lukewarm Lutherans.”

The Pope’s response was made during an audience with Lutheran pilgrims at the Vatican Oct. 13. During the meeting, he condemned those Christians, who, he said, have a “hypocritical attitude,” stating that you can’t be a Christian without living as a Christian.

The audience with Lutherans took place ahead of the Pope’s trip to Sweden for a joint commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. The meeting in Sweden will also highlight 50 years of official dialogue between Catholics and Lutherans.

The trip will close what has been a month filled with ecumenical visits for Pope Francis, including meeting with Patriarch Ilia II, the leader of the Georgian Orthodox Church, and the more recent meeting at the Vatican with the head of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.

Commenting on hypocrisy as it regards the issue of refugees, Pope Francis said there is a contradiction between wanting to defend Christianity in the Middle East while also being against helping refugees and those of other religions, wanting to “kick out” someone “who really needs my help.”

“If I say I am Christian but do these things, I am a hypocrite,” he stated.

An example of “Christian coherency,” on the other hand, can be found in the parable of the Good Samaritan. “A doctor of the law passed, looked and left. A priest passed, looked and left.” But “a sinner passed, felt mercy and drew close and helped him,” he said.

“This is the path that we must follow, this ecumenical path between us. To help others, to help the needy, to help the brothers and sisters in need, and to pray.”

Cracking down on those who just “say,” instead of “do,” Pope Francis called proselytism “the strongest poison against the ecumenical path.”

“The last thing you should do is ‘say,’” he emphasized. “It’s not licit to convince them of your faith. You must give witness of your Christian life.”

When we are witnesses of the faith, it stirs up a restlessness in the hearts of those who see it and calls to mind the question: “but why does this man, this woman, live like this?”

This is the most powerful form of teaching because it prepares the heart for the work of the Holy Spirit, the Pope said. Because it is the Holy Spirit who ultimately converts hearts, not us.

Addressing young people at the audience, the Pope encouraged them to be “witnesses of mercy” in promoting the faith.

“While theologians carry on the dialogue in the doctrinal field, continue to look with persistence for opportunities to meet each other, to get to know each other better, to pray together, and to offer your help to each other and to all those who are in need.”

Pope Francis acknowledged that the Church must always be reformed – that the Church “progresses, matures,” but that some reforms in history were “mistaken” or “exaggerated.”

“The greatest reformers of the Church are the saints,” the Pope said. Those men and women “who follow the Word of the Lord and practice it.”

They may not be great theologians or teachers, they may just be humble people, but “those who have hearts full of the Gospel are those who truly reform the Church,” Francis said, noting that both the Lutheran community and the Catholic Church have had men and women of this type.

What unites Lutherans and Catholics is our identity as Christians, he said. “We didn’t choose Jesus Christ, it’s he who chose us, and this is grace, pure grace,” he emphasized.

We aren’t justified by ourselves or by other people, “only the blood of Christ has saved and justified us.”  

Cracking a joke at the end of the meeting, the Pope inquired if he could take a turn with a question, asking the Lutheran pilgrims, “Who are better? The Evangelicals or the Catholics?” The response was a hearty laugh, but no answer.

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