Catholic News 2

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The Philippine government's war against illegal drugs has become a challenge to not only church leaders but to "the people of God" who believe in the sacredness of life and in mercy and compassion.

The president's war, which has already killed some 3,500 drug addicts and peddlers, has become a call on the conscience and the integrity of Philippine Catholic Church leaders.

"Thou shall not kill," reads the placards displayed outside some churches. Some Catholics have already decided to act and speak to protect life, practice love and mercy, and to heal the wounded.

The teaching of Jesus to protect life has become a challenge in the midst of the killings. Filipino Catholics are called by their faith to take a stand on the issue of justice and due process and the right of people to live and not be shot on the mere suspicion of being a drug addict.

"Although death is a twin sister born with us on the same day we were born, death by terror and violence, death in the hands of our fellowmen is a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance," read a statement by Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the bishops' conference.

Bishop Emeritus Teodoro Bacani, among other Philippine church leaders, appealed to the conscience of authorities to refrain from killing suspected drug users and peddlers.

Taking a stand and speaking out for justice, for what is just and right, for what is true and good is the challenge Filipino Catholics now face. (UCAN)

 

 

 

 

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday during his General Audience greeted the restorers of the Basilica of the Nativity in Jerusalem, accompanied by the vicar general of the Custody of the Holy Land, Fra Dobromir Jasztal, OFM.

The current restoration works of the Basilica started in 2013, and so far the roof, windows, the wooden door in the narthex, and the mosaics of the walls in the nave and the transepts have been completed.

Currently, the wooden architraves above the marble columns are being restored, and last month work started on the stone external facades on the western end. Funds are being sought to help restore the 50 columns, the floor mosaics, and to provide for the installation of fire prevention and lighting systems.

 

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday remembered the Feast Day of Pope St. John XXIII, which was celebrated on Tuesday, during his special remarks to the young, the sick and newlyweds before his final blessing during his General Audience.

“Yesterday we celebrated the memory of St. John XXIII,” – Pope Francis said – “Invoke his heavenly intercession, dear young people, to imitate the gentleness of his paternal love; pray to him in moments of the cross and in suffering, dear infirm, to face difficulties with the same meekness; and learn from him, dear newlyweds, the art of educating children with tenderness and by example.”

Pope Francis canonized John XXIII – along with Pope John Paul II – on 27 April 2014. Saint John XXIII was Pope from 28 October 1958 until his death on 3 June 1963.

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(Vatican Radio) The United States Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region of Africa said the Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of Congo has “made very clear that they will condemn efforts by the opposition that appear to be tilting towards violence.”

Tom Perriello told Vatican Radio the Church is seen as a “voice for the national interest” in the ongoing unrest following the announcement of the postponement of elections.

Listen to the interview with Tom Perriello:

President Joseph Kabila’s term of office is supposed to end in December, but the nation’s electoral commission announced last month that scheduled elections could not be held in November. The announcement led to protests which left several people dead.

The United Nations envoy for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Maman Sidikou, on Tuesday told the UN Security Council the country is at "extreme risk" of descending into widespread violence, and the” scope of the threats dramatically outstrip the … capabilities" of the 18,000-strong peacekeeping force in the country.

Perriello  is in Rome to meet with officials about the Congo after visiting the country last month, and he said the Catholic Church is trying to help to keep the peace.

The Catholic Church is quite possibly the most respected institution in the country, and one with the largest reach into communities really across the entire country,” Perriello said.

“The bishops made a difficult decision to be part of this recent dialogue process under African Union auspices which was seen quite controversially by the Congolese people,” – the US envoy told Vatican Radio – “We appreciated the bishops played a role there, and I think unlike some of the political actors, who the Congolese people fear are more looking out for themselves than necessarily the country as a whole, there was a sense that the bishops were a voice for the national interest, and really were looking for trying to make it a success, but also showed that they needed to walk away when certain indications were clear that this was not a process headed towards a credible result.”

Perriello agreed with his United Nations counterpart that the situation in the country is volatile, and the opposition feels strongly that Kabila should leave office in December; but he said the Catholic bishops are urging any protests be peaceful.

“They have also pushed the opposition very hard to keep a non-violent stance,” he said.

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(Vatican Radio) At the end of Wednesday’s General Audience, Pope Francis made a special greeting to the organizers and participants of the “Match for peace and solidarity” scheduled to take place on Wednesday evening at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico.

The football match is being promoted by ‘Scholas occurrentes’, Comunità Amore e Libertà, Centro Sportivo Italiano and Unitalsi. The players include Diego Maradona and Francesco Totti.

The event is to promote peace efforts among populations around the world, and proceeds from the match will help the earthquake victims in central Italy.

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(Vatican Radio) After reflecting on the mystery of God’s mercy, from the actions of the Father in the Old Testament to those of Jesus, Who in the Gospels demonstrates by His words and gestures that He is the very incarnation of mercy, the Pope announced in this Wednesday’s general audience that he will dedicate a new cycle of catechesis to the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

“It is not enough to experience God’s mercy in our lives”, the Pope observed. “It is necessary for those who receive it also to be a sign and instrument for others. … It is not a question of making great efforts or superhuman gestures. The Lord shows us a far easier path, made up of little gestures but which, in His eyes, have great value, to the point of saying that it is on these that we will be judged. … Jesus says that every time we give something to eat to a hungry person and give something to drink to one who thirsts, we dress the naked and welcome the stranger, or we visit the sick or imprisoned, we do this also to Him. The Church calls these gestures ‘corporal works of mercy’, as they assist people in their material needs”.

However there are also, as Francis recalled, another seven spiritual works of mercy, that respond to other equally important needs, “especially nowadays, as they affect the most intimate aspect of the person and often make them suffer more. We all surely remember one which has entered into common parlance: to bear patiently those who wrong us. … It may seem to be of little importance, or indeed make us smile, but instead it contains a sentiment of profound charity; and it is the same also for the other six, which are good to remember: to counsel the doubtful, to instruct the ignorant, to admonish sinners, to console the afflicted, to forgive offenses, and to pray for the living and the dead”.

“It is better to start with the simplest ones, that the Lord shows us as the most urgent. In a world that is unfortunately afflicted by the virus of indifference, works of mercy are the best antidote. They educate us, indeed, in attention towards the most elementary needs of ‘the least of our brothers’, in whom Jesus is present. … This enables us always to be vigilant, avoiding that Christ may pass by us without us recognising Him. St. Augustine’s phrase returns to mind: ‘I fear Jesus will go by’, and I will not recognise Him, that the Lord will pass by my side in one of these little people, in need, and I will not realise that it is Jesus”.

The works of mercy “reawaken in us the need and the capacity to make faith live and work through charity. I am convinced that through these simple daily gestures we can effect a true cultural revolution. … If each one of us, every day, did one of these, this would be a revolution in the world! But all of us, every one of us. How many saints are still remembered today not for the great works they performed but for the love they knew how to transmit! Mother Teresa, for example, recently canonised: we do not remember her for the many houses that she opened throughout the world, but because she stooped to all the people she met in the street to restore their dignity to them. How many abandoned children she held in her arms; how many dying people she accompanied on the threshold to eternity, holding their hands!”

“These works of mercy are the features of the countenance of Jesus Christ, Who cares for the least of His brothers to bring God’s tenderness and closeness to every one. May the Holy Spirit help us; may the Holy Spirit kindle in us the desire to live in this way. Do at least one of them a day, at least! Let us learn again by heart the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, and ask the Lord to help us to put them into practice every day and at the moment in which we see Jesus in a person in need”.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn

By Mark Pattison

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A letter to President Barack Obama and congressional leaders asks them to "renounce publicly" a contentious sentence in the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights' report that equates religious freedom with discrimination.

The letter, dated Oct. 7 and released Oct. 12, was signed by 17 religious leaders, including two U.S. Catholic bishops.

The sentence was written by commission chairman Martin Castro and was incorporated into the 306-page report issued Sept. 8. It said, "The phrases 'religious liberty' and 'religious freedom' will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance."

"We understand that people of good faith can disagree about the relationship between religious liberty and anti-discrimination laws in our country, and how that relationship should best be structured," said the letter, released in Washington by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "These questions have to do with issues critical to the common good such as marriage, the family, contraception, abortion and the source of human dignity.

"At the same time, we are one in demanding that no American citizen or institution be labeled by their government as bigoted because of their religious views, and dismissed from the political life of our nation for holding these views. And yet that is precisely what the Civil Rights Commission report does."

The letter said, "There should be no place in our government for such a low view of our First Freedom -- the first of our civil rights -- least of all from a body dedicated to protecting them all."

Among the signatories were Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, and Maronite Bishop Gregory J. Mansour of the Eparchy of St. Maron of Brooklyn, N.Y. Also signing was Thomas Farr, director of the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University in Washington and president of the Religious Freedom Institute.

On Sept. 13, Archbishop Lori issued his own statement criticizing Castro without mentioning him by name. "Statements painting those who support religious freedom with the broad brush of bigotry are reckless and reveal a profound disregard for the religious foundations of his own work," the archbishop said.

Other signatories of the letter included representatives from Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Mormon, Southern Baptist, Baha'i, African Methodist Episcopal and evangelical leaders, as well as leaders of nonreligious organizations.

The letter was addressed to Obama, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, and Senate President Pro Tem Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

It said each of the letter's signers "opposes hateful rhetoric and actions," and believes in the equality of all Americans, no matter their creed or community. However, it said, they all "are determined and unafraid" to speak the truths about beliefs they "have held for millennia."

"Slandering ideas and arguments with which one disagrees as 'racism' or 'phobia' not only cheapens the meaning of those words, but can have a chilling effect on healthy debate over, or dissent from, the prevailing orthodoxy. Such attacks on dissent have no place in the United States where all religious beliefs, the freedom to express them, and the freedom to live by them are protected by the First Amendment," the letter said.

"We are grateful particularly to President Obama for his willingness to recognize that the religious and moral dimension of our laws is not only unavoidable, but has long served the cause of civil rights," it added.

One of a series of talking points prepared by the USCCB in support of the religious leaders' letter says: "The U.S. bishops have spoken forcefully in defense of religious freedom in the U.S. and have also highlighted the suffering of persecuted Christians around the world. We can honor those who suffer persecution by robustly living our faith, but we need to have the freedom to do so."

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Bassam Khabieh, Reuters

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In the wake of intensified attacks in Syria, Pope Francis called for an immediate cease-fire -- even if temporary -- so that civilians, especially children, could be rescued from the ruins.

Emphasizing that his thoughts and prayers are with "all victims of the inhumane conflict in Syria," the pope said it was with "a sense of urgency that I renew my appeal, imploring -- with all my strength -- those responsible so that an immediate cease-fire be arranged."

He asked the cease-fire be "implemented and respected at least for the time needed to allow for the evacuation of civilians, most of all children, who are still trapped under fierce bombings."

The pope made his appeal Oct. 12 at the end of his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square. It came after a wave of intense violence as Russian airstrikes, supported by the Syrian government, hit Aleppo and rockets launched by rebels rained on Dara in the South.

At least six people were killed in the South and 25 people reportedly killed in Aleppo Oct. 11, although the number of casualties may rise as rescuers continue to comb through the rubble.

In a statement Oct. 11, Caritas Internationalis, the umbrella organization for Catholic charities around the world, said more than 275,000 people "face intensified daily bombardment in eastern Aleppo; 100,000 of the people trapped in the rebel-controlled area are children. They are facing a humanitarian catastrophe."

"The indiscriminate brutality witnessed in Aleppo must end. The people of Aleppo need an immediate cease-fire," said Michel Roy, secretary general of Caritas Internationalis.

The increase in violence continued to keep humanitarian efforts from reaching people in need, Krista Armstrong, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, told the Los Angeles Times Oct. 11.

"The needs are rising, but we need to see a cessation of violence in order to get to these areas," Armstrong told the paper, adding that the Red Cross has not been able to reach east Aleppo since April.

Since a cease-fire collapsed in September, air raids by Syrian and Russian forces have increased, besieging the people of Aleppo, said Carlos Francisco, head of mission of Doctors Without Borders, Oct. 10.

"First the surrounding areas were hit, then the roads leading into the city, then hospitals, water supplies, residential neighborhoods, rescuers' equipment. We are talking about a city exhausted by five years of war, which has received no aid since July, when the siege began -- a city that is being devastated, flattened, in front of our eyes," Francisco said.

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By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- All it takes is just one person carrying out one simple, loving act of mercy every day to start a revolution and stamp out the "virus of indifference," Pope Francis said.

Sharing God's mercy is not about expending a huge amount of effort or performing "superhuman" acts, he said during his general audience Oct. 12 in St. Peter's Square.

Jesus showed with his words and deeds that it's much simpler than that: It's about making "small gestures that in his eyes, however, hold great value, so much so that he told us we will be judged upon these" actions, the pope said.

As he continued his series of talks about God's mercy, the pope said he would begin looking at each one of the seven corporal and seven spiritual works of mercy in the following weeks.

The audience began with a reading from the Gospel of Matthew's "Judgment of the Nations" (25: 31-46) in which Jesus tells his disciples they will be blessed with eternal life for helping the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the ill and the prisoner because "whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me." Those who do not bother to help will "go off to eternal punishment."

"Jesus is always present there where there is a need, a person who is in material or spiritual need," the pope said.

Works of mercy are concrete ways to show mercy and be genuine witnesses of the faith, he said.

"I am convinced that through these simple daily gestures we can achieve a true cultural revolution," the pope said, as he urged each and every person to carry out at least one work of mercy each day.

Be aware of simple, daily cries for help, he said, and don't brush them off saying, "'Oh, God will help you, I don't have time.' No. I stop. I listen. I waste time and I console."

"This is a gesture of mercy and is done not just for (the person in need) but for Jesus," he said.

So many saints are remembered not for their grand achievements, the pope said, but for their modest, loving ways.

When people think of St. Teresa of Kolkata, for example, they don't think about the many homes she ran, but rather the way she embraced an abandoned child, kneeled before a homeless person or accompanied the dying by holding their hand.

But a person does not have to go as a missionary to a far-off land to help, the pope said. "Often it is those who are closest to us who need our help."

"We don't have to go seeking who-knows-what challenge" to tackle, he said; it's better to start with the simplest things, which, the Lord shows, are often the most urgent.

"In a world unfortunately hit by the virus of indifference, the works of mercy are the best antidote," and they draw people's attention to the importance of meeting people's most basic needs, he said.

Pope Francis recalled St. Augustine's words: "I fear Jesus passing by," and how it reflects the human tendency to often be distracted or indifferent so that "when the Lord passes by, we lose the opportunity to encounter him."

"Let us learn once more by heart the corporal and spiritual works of mercy and let us ask the Lord to help us put them into practice every day," the pope said.

The spiritual works of mercy are: counsel the doubtful; instruct the ignorant; convert the sinner; comfort the sorrowful; forgive offenses willingly; bear wrongs patiently; and pray for the living and the dead.

The corporal works of mercy are: feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; clothe the naked; visit the imprisoned; shelter the homeless; visit the sick; and bury the dead.

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NEW YORK (AP) -- Have you ever missed someone so much that even the thought of them made you burst into tears?...

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