Catholic News 2

(Vatican Radio) Following the 2nd anniversary of the publication of his encyclical “Laudato Sì – On Care of our Common Home”, Pope Francis has endorsed a pledge campaign that aims to mobilize at least 1 million people to directly engage in turning the encyclical’s message into action. 

Organized and promoted by the Global Catholic Climate Movement, the pledge  calls on those who sign to answer the call of Laudato Sì by praying with and for creation, living more simply, and advocating to protect our common home.

The "Laudato Sì Pledge campaign" has received support from Church leaders from around the globe including Cardinal Turkson, Cardinal Tagle, Cardinal Ribat, Cardinal Cupich and Cardinal Marx. It has also garnered the support of major environmental leaders.

Tomás Insua, Executive Director of the Global Catholic Climate Movement, said, "We are grateful and inspired by Pope Francis' endorsement of the Laudato Si' Pledge. With 1.2 billion Catholics around the world, we have a critical role to play in tackling climate change and the wider ecological crisis. Pope Francis has already changed the discussion around climate change and this pledge is inviting us to put the Church's teachings into action and answer the urgent call for strong political action and lifestyle change put forth in Laudato Si'."

The Pope's endorsement adds to the momentum of recent Catholic climate action: Pope Francis requested that Angela Merkel uplift the Paris climate accord during the G20 summit, several Catholic organizations recently divested from fossil fuels, GCCM joined other Christian groups calling on governments to take strong action before the G7 last month and the Movement’s Executive Director joined other scientific, political and faith leaders in publishing a letter in Nature Magazine pushing the G20 to recognize the urgency of the climate crisis. 

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Sri Lanka's prime minister on Wednesday assured the nation’s Buddhist majority their religion would remain paramount in the bitterly divided island, seeking to head off protests led by the powerful Buddhist clergy against proposed changes to the constitution.   The government announced plans last January to devolve power to provinces including in areas dominated by the country's ethnic Tamil minority in an effort to address alienation and bury the kind of ethnic tension that led to a 26-year civil war.  But Buddhists who make up 70 percent of Sri Lanka's 21 million people are opposed to any changes in the constitution under which Buddhism is accorded foremost position while allowing people of other faiths to practice.

Sri Lanka has chosen only Buddhists to the post of president and prime minister since independence from British colonial rule in 1948. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the Buddhist character of the country would not be touched.  "We are in the process of preparing the new constitution ... the president and myself have agreed to maintain the priority given to the Buddhism in the constitution as it is," Wickremesinghe told a group of Buddhist monks in Colombo. 

More than 75 prominent monks last week warned the government not to change the constitution or it would face consequences.  The opposition, led by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, and hardline Buddhist groups have warned the government of nationwide demonstrations if the government went ahead with changes to the charter.  Some opposition members have alleged that the new constitution had been drafted to please Western nations and to dilute the influence of Buddhism.

More than 100,000 people were killed in the civil war that ended in 2009 in a crushing defeat for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fighting for a separate homeland for the Tamils.  (Source: Reuters)

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Denver, Colo., Jul 13, 2017 / 03:01 am (CNA).- Chastity actually means fulfillment, not suffering – and labeling people in terms of their sexual inclinations or attractions first is ultimately a reduction of their human dignity.

These ideas form the basis of a provocative new book by Daniel Mattson, a Catholic who finds identifying as “gay” unhelpful in the dialogue on the issue, and who also believes that living the Church's teaching on sexuality leads to the most profound experience of peace and freedom.  

“The Church must truly have a missionary zeal in proclaiming chastity as an invitation to a more fulfilling life for all men and women,” Mattson told CNA.

He said that Catholics need to reach out “to those who identify as LGBT to truly 'come out,' and let the masks of the world's sexual identity labels fall from them, and see themselves as God sees them: solely as men and women, beloved children of God.”

“The dividing line of human sexuality is not between gay and straight, but rather between male and female, as we see in the Creation account of Genesis,” said Mattson.

In his new book, “Why I Don't Call Myself Gay,” Mattson delves into the story of his upbringing: how he was raised in a Christian family, his experience of sexual confusion and social rejection in his early childhood, an addiction to pornography and an anger towards God. Living out his same-sex desires later in his life only made him more unhappy and lonely, and it wasn't until he turned to the Church that he found true fulfillment.

Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles has called Mattson's book “powerful” and Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments, said Mattson's voice is one “seldom heard” in discussions surrounding same-sex attraction.  

Mattson said a major reason why he wrote the book was to take on the notion of people identifying themselves first in terms of straight or gay. When Mother Teresa was asked about “homosexuals” in an interview, he said she refused to refer to anyone with same-sex attraction as anything else but “a child of God.”

“Even though men and women may be living outside of God's plan for them, their dignity as children of God calls them to love others as Christ loved us,” Mattson said. “As a Christian, that means sex must always be reserved for use only in true marriage, which is always open to life. The Church needs to have enough confidence in Her beautiful vision of human sexuality to help people believe God says no to sex outside of marriage because He loves us.”

In the book, he describes how he can trace the contours of his life that lead to his same-sex attractions, which contrasts with the assumption that homosexuality is innate.

But while understanding where his same-sex attractions came from was helpful for Daniel, he says it's not necessary for everyone. Though the Church teaches in the Catechism that homosexuality has a “psychological genesis,” how same-sex attractions come into a person's life is a minor question. The Church, Mattson says, is “more concerned about providing a path to a fulfilling life in the future.”

In his interview with CNA, Mattson emphasized that his adherence to the Catholic view on human sexuality isn't rooted in moralism or a suppression of desire.

“The biggest reason I have embraced the Church's teaching as good, true and beautiful is because following the world’s vision of happiness in the realm of human sexuality brought far more suffering into my life,” he said. Today, he finds in the Church’s vision of human sexuality true happiness and liberation.

“The Church recognizes that there is a ‘theology of the body,’ and our bodily reality as male and female points to the path of both what is normal and healthy in human sexuality, as well as to what is moral.”

In his book, Mattson references the self-identified lesbian feminist and scholar Camille Paglia, who agrees that same-sex attraction is not of the norm, but as a self-labeled pagan, says that the fulfillment of man comes with conquering what she sees as the confines of nature. Mattson disagrees with her view of morality, but he finds her acknowledgment of the true nature of sexuality refreshing.

“At least she’s honest about the fact that everyone’s sexuality is truly ordered toward procreation.” Mattson said.

But what Paglia’s view of sexual liberation ignores, Mattson argues, is that “there is far more pain and suffering in the lives of those who live outside of God’s design and ordering for human sexuality than those who choose to live within it.”  

He also noted that self-denial is an essential part of chastity, which everyone – not just people with same-sex attraction – are called to. For example, single men and women attracted to the opposite sex “are taught by the virtue of chastity to refrain from any sexual activity, too, and though this can be challenging, there is less suffering – and even more importantly, more peace – in one’s life when one follows the path set before us by God than if we go our own way.”

It's not an issue of who suffers more but rather a shared connection of “the common human experience of suffering,” which stems from “rejection from other people, dashed hopes and dreams, heartbreak and loneliness.”

Mattson said that one reason he wrote his book is to help pave a path forward for those who have suffered from heartbreak and loss in their own relationships.

These sufferings, Mattson said, are universal to the human experience and not something particular to people with same-sex attraction. He referenced Cardinal Ratzinger's 1986 “Letter on the Pastoral Care of the Homosexual Person,” which helped him refrain from self-pity and “thinking that somehow my various forms of suffering associated with living out a single and celibate life are more challenging than anyone else's challenges.”

Through his book, Mattson says he wants to help the Church to, as he puts it, “reclaim sexual reality” and to help the Church and the world move beyond a view of the person which is ultimately “based on a reductionist label of sexual identity rooted in one’s sexual attractions and feelings.”

“In the eyes of the Church, there is no 'us' and 'them,' there is just us, and this is one of the great gifts of the Church.”

Mattson also offered a key distinction between Catholics being welcoming and shifting on magisterial teaching. He said that often the homosexual community has viewed the Church as ostracizing “for the reason that the Church won't affirm them in their chosen way of living their lives.”

“The Church must be as welcoming and as loving as possible, but we cannot be more welcoming or loving than Jesus was who does not condemn us for our sins, but always calls us to go and sin no more.”

This call to change one’s moral life can be challenging, but it's a calling which invites people to conversion and “is a sign of true love and compassion.”

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Kyiv, Ukraine, Jul 13, 2017 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Shortly after Pope Francis donated money to help those suffering from Ukraine's ongoing conflict, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri arrived in the country, saying that while pained, he sees hope for the future.

In comments to local Catholic media after landing in Ukraine July 11, Cardinal Sandri recalled that when he made his first trip to the country several years ago, it was because “in this land was born and is growing, a great hope, a great vision of the future for this Christian country.”

“Today, unfortunately, I also bring pain for a country that ought to be the vanguard of peace in the life of Europe, but which instead is suffering, in all of it's inhabitants, many deprivations and many victims of this situation,” he said, referring to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine's eastern region.

Because of this, he said, “I also come with a desire for hope for life and a great future of this beloved country.”

Cardinal Sandri, Prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Oriental Churches, is currently on an official July 11-17 visit to Ukraine to participate in the national Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Zarvanytsia.

He offered his comments to Zhyve TV, which is the Catholic TV Station of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, after his arrival.

His visit falls in the midst of ongoing upheaval in the country, largely the result of political instability and tensions surrounding the Russian invasion of their eastern region in 2014, which prompted a conflict that has endured three years, claimed thousands of lives and displaced millions of others.

Conflict erupted in Ukraine in November 2013, when the former government refused to sign the Association Agreement with the European Union, leading to months of violent protests.

Tensions deepened in February 2014, when the country’s former president was ousted following the protests, and a new government appointed. In March of that year, Ukraine’s eastern peninsula of Crimea was annexed by Russia and pro-Russian separatist rebels have since taken control of eastern portions of Ukraine, around Donetsk and Luhansk.

Fighting continues, with more casualties reported daily. More than 10,000 people, including civilians, have died in the fighting between Ukraine's military and pro-Russian separatists. Roughly two million others have been forced to flee due to violence and a lack of basic humanitarian necessities, and those who remain lack access to food, heating and medical supplies.

Last April Pope Francis announced that he would be taking up a special collection in all European churches in order to provide relief from those who are still suffering. In December 2016, the Pope made an initial donation of 6 million euros from the funds collected, asking that it be distributed to different charitable projects.

In his comments to Zhyve TV, Cardinal Sandri said it was “an immense joy” for him to be back in the country after three previous visits, including one with St. John Paul II.

“I come particularly because I was invited to the celebration of the Madonna of Zarvanytsia, so I come to bring to her, the Queen of Ukraine, all the veneration we have for her in the Roman Church, but which we know summarizes the Marian identity of the Ukrainian people,” he said.

The cardinal also offered to Archbishsop Shevchuk and all bishops and faithful in Ukraine, “the greeting, blessing and closeness of the Pope, Francis.”

After his arrival, Sandri traveled to the capital city of Kyiv alongside the Vatican's nuncio to Ukraine, Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, and Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Major Archbishop of the Greek-Catholic Church in Ukraine.

While there, he had a moment of silent prayer in front of the Cross of Maiden Square, where he laid flowers in honor of those who lost their lives during the bloody riots of 2014.

From there, he visited the Museum of the Holodomor, making a symbolic gesture in memory of the more than 100 victims.

On Wednesday, July 12, which marks the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul on the Giulian calendar, he will participate in the Pontifical Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral of the Resurrection, offering the homily. After, he is expected to pray at the tomb of Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, Marjor Archbishop Emeritus of Kyiv-Halych and former head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, who died May 31.

Later, the cardinal will hold a meeting with seminarians before leaving for the central-eastern city of Kharkiv, where he will visit the local Caritas.

The next day, July 13, Cardinal Sandri will take part in the Divine Liturgy at the cathedral of the Exharkate of Kharkiv before heading to lunch with priests and various other guests.

He is then expected to meet with the Bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Nicodemus. In the afternoon he will travel roughly 124 miles to Kramatorsk, where on Friday morning he will celebrate Mass and meet with the local bishops and priests of Donesk.

After paying a visit to the local Caritas and a community center, Sandri is scheduled to stop in the town of Sloviansk, where he will meet with several individuals who have been internally displaced by the conflict.

On Saturday, July 15, the cardinal will hold a meeting with the Greek-Catholic Metropolitan Bishop Volodymr Viytyshyn before joining the annual pilgrimage to the Shrine of Zarvanytsia.

That night, as part of the pilgrimage, Sandri will lead a special meeting with young people before leading a reflection at the close of the procession of candles.

Cardinal Sandri will then preside over Mass Sunday before traveling to Lviv, where he is scheduled to visit the Greek-Catholic Cathedral Saint George and pray at the tombs of Metropolitan Bishop Andrey Sheptytsky and of Cardinal Joseph Slipyj, heads and fathers of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church for a large portion of the 20th century.

He will then hold a brief meeting with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Lviv, Mieczys?aw Mokrzycki, before heading back to Rome.

According to the website of the apostolic nunciature in Ukraine, Pope Francis has, through Cardinal Sandri, offered all Catholic and Orthodox faithful in Ukraine, his personal greeting and blessing.

The Pope also expressed his “affection and closeness to the population for the sufferings and deprivations they have and are enduring during the well known conflict,” and encouraged those working for peace and reconciliation, as well as those engaged in assisting the displaced.

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(Vatican Radio) Twice President of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva,  has been sentenced to nine and a half years, after being convicted by a Judge of corruption charges.  

Listen to James Blears report:

Judge Sergio Moro  found Lula guilty of accepting the equivalent of 1.2 million dollars in bribes, principally in the form of a luxury apartment in return for steering State Petroleum Company Petrobras contracts the way of engineering company OAS.  Lula, who's denied any wrong doing, says it's been a political witch hunt.  Characteristically he's said: "I'll keep fighting."  Born into acute poverty, a shoe shine boy who became a union leader, and twice President of Brazil, economically pulling it up by its bootstraps, Lula remains very popular amongst the millions he helped elevate from dire  poverty.  His chosen successor Dilma Rousseff was impeached and removed from the Presidency for allegedly manipulating the economy via banks. and  current President Michel Temer, has been formally charged with bribery.

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Montevideo, Uruguay, Jul 13, 2017 / 12:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- For many people, a warm meal is a way to come together, celebrate, and spend time with friends and family. For homeless people living on the streets of Montevideo, Uruguay, it’s an experience that’s rare. But about 500 young people in the city are working to change that.

Every night, especially in wintertime, around 16 groups coming from universities, parishes, and movements in the archdiocese go out to distribute more than 1900 meals to the city's homeless residents.

The volunteers get together in late afternoon to cook, using donations from parishioners, businesses and the young people themselves. When night comes with its low temperatures, they set out to meet the most needy.

One of these groups is the Luceros Movement, made up of more than 100 volunteers who gather Mondays and Wednesdays at the Virgin of Carmen and Saint Therese Parish to prepare more than 100 meals.

This group came about after a pilgrimage to the Virgin of Salta, eight years ago.

After returning from the pilgrimage, the young participants formed a growing prayer group, and started to “make chocolate milk and some sandwiches to hand out to the people on the street,” Juan José Malvárez told the Catholic Church's TV channel (ICM) in Montevideo.

“It’s common, if you live in Montevideo, that when you leave your house, on your block or the next, there's somebody sleeping or living on the street. It's shocking,” explained Felipe Silva.

“The food is really just a means, it's a vehicle,” Silva said. “It's important to fill the belly, but a lot more important to fill the hearts of these people.”

The name “Luceros,” which means “bright stars,” came out of the experience in Salta.

“It's to be a light in the night, to not hold back the lamp so it can be raised high, to shine down light. It's to be little lights that illuminate the darkness,” Silva said. The Virgin of Salta speaks about this a little: “you will soon see how you will be transformed into little lights that will illuminate,” he noted.

The spirituality which they have maintained over the years leads the volunteers to pray a Rosary under the title of the Immaculate Mother of the Divine Eucharistic Heart of Jesus before heading out.

Another group, “Mother Teresa of Calcutta's Kettles,” hails from Mary Queen of Peace Parish. It came about after some of their members decided to continue the works of service they had been performing in preparation for the Sacrament of Confirmation.

Their group goes out on Wednesdays and Saturdays, despite the cold and rain, to carry out this apostolate. Agustin Yurdan told ICM that everyone works together to prepare the food. Some peel and chop the vegetables, while others stir the stew in the kettles.

“We try to be there as much as the people want us to be. Sometimes they need to talk for an hour, and we stay there for an hour. Other times, they grab the warm plate and take off,” he explained.

Gabriel Muscarelli from the Sembradores (Sowers) group, told ICM that their apostolate began 16 years ago as a family initiative. They began with 30 meals and now they distribute around 200, in addition to clothing, personal hygiene products, lightweight material for shelters, and sacramental preparation aids.

“We go out with physical food which is necessary. But it's much more necessary to bring that hope which is Christ risen in our lives,” Muscarelli said. “And that is what motivates you to face the entire reality of human existence.”

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