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San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina, Oct 6, 2016 / 02:45 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A priest in the northern Argentine city of San Miguel de Tucumán who in recent days denounced drug traffickers in his homilies was found dead in his rectory on Wednesday.

The body of Father Juan Heraldo Viroche, 46, was found hanged Oct. 5 in his room at Our Lady of the Valley rectory. Police reported finding his belongings scattered on the floor.

The court has ordered an autopsy on the priest's body to establish the cause of death.

Hallaron muerto al sacerdote Juan Viroche (46) quien había denunciado el accionar de bandas de narcos en Tucumán https://t.co/V8Z9Ibe2Dx pic.twitter.com/iOVBftTJqm

— DiarioJornadaChubut (@JornadaWeb) October 5, 2016 The parish faithful said that days before, the priest had expressed his concern over threats received because of his denunciations of the gangs engaged in selling drugs.

One of Fr. Viroche's actions was to say a Mass in November 2015 calling for a people free of drugs and thefts in Delfín Gallo, a rural settlement just 10 miles southeast of San Miguel de Tucumán.

Also, because of the repeated thefts in the last year, the priest decided to put a fence around the church and the blamed criminal activity on the growing drug trafficking which he said corrupts teens and young adults in the area.

The Archdiocese of Tucumán issued a statement lamenting Fr. Viroche's death and adding: “We expect prompt clarification of the facts and trust in the action of the justice system, with which of course we will be cooperating in everything that depends on us.”

The Tucumán archdiocese added that they join with the priest's family and the parish faithful in “their grief over the loss of their pastor” and commended Fr. Viroche “to the mercy of God, that the Lord may welcome him into heaven.”

Sustained threats against the priest by drug gangs led him to ask to be transferred, which had already been authorized. However, the priest wanted to finish the novena he had started in the community, Archbishop Alfredo Zecca of Tucumán said.

The Argentine bishops' conference also expressed their “sorrow and dismay over the death” of Fr. Viroche, and asked for a “prompt clarification of the facts.”

“We ask God to welcome into his home our brother, Fr. Juan, and may his life and ministry be for the Church a priestly witness that encourages everyone to continue to work for a more fraternal society in the service of the most vulnerable,” they said.

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Vatican City, Oct 6, 2016 / 02:58 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Holy Spirit is the “great gift” of God the Father who helps us avoid the stupidities of a legalistic faith while leading us forward in Christian life, Pope Francis has said.

“May the Lord give us this grace: to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit, so that we will not become stupid, bewitched men and women who sadden the Holy Spirit,” the Pope remarked in his homily at morning Mass at Casa Santa Martha Oct. 6.

He provided several questions for the faithful to examine their spiritual lives:

“Is my life a continual prayer to open myself to the Holy Spirit, so that He can carry me forward with the joy of the Gospel and make me understand the teaching of Jesus, the true doctrine that does not bewitch, that does not make us stupid, but the true (teaching)?”

“Do I ignore the Holy Spirit?” he asked. “And do I know that if I go to Sunday Mass, if I do this, if I do that, is it enough?”

“Is my life a kind of half a life, lukewarm, that saddens the Holy Spirit, and doesn’t allow that power in me to carry me forward, to be open?” he added.

The Pope said that continual prayer to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit “helps us understand where our weaknesses are, those things that sadden Him; and it carries us forward, and also carries forward the Name of Jesus to others and teaching the path of salvation.”

Pope Francis’ homily drew on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, which included several rebukes and warnings about legalism.

The Pope noted that one can wrongly seek justification in doctrine and law, and not through Jesus “who makes sense of the Law.” There is the temptation to reduce the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ to the Law.

Paul rebuked the Galatians because “they ignored the Holy Spirit, and they did not know to go forward,” the pontiff explained.

They were “closed, closed in precepts: ‘we have to do this, we have to do that’,” he said. “At times, it can happen that we fall into this temptation.”

“(T)his attachment to the Law ignores the Holy Spirit. It does not grant that the redemption of Christ goes forward with the Holy Spirit, it ignores that. There is only the Law,” he warned.

“It is true that there are the Commandments and we have to follow the Commandments – but always through the grace of this great gift that the Father has given us, His Son, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

The Pope noted the spiritual danger of “those who preach with ideologies” and speak in a mindset that is “absolutely just.”

“They bewitch: it’s all clear,” he said. “But look, the revelation is not clear, eh? The revelation of God is discovered more and more each day, it is always on a journey.”

There is a different clarity to God’s revelation, he said.

“Is it clear? Yes! It is crystal clear! It is Him, but we have to discover it along the way. And those who believe they have the whole truth in their hands are not (just) ignorant.”

Paul calls the Galatians “stupid” because they have allowed themselves to be “bewitched,” the Pope explained.

Another attitude saddens the Holy Spirit when “we do not allow Him to inspire us, to lead us forward in the Christian life.” Christians should allow “the liberty of the Spirit,” not the “theology of the law,” to tell them what to do. The wrong attitude brings Christians to lukewarmness and “Christian mediocrity” because the Holy Spirit “cannot do great works in us.”

Pope Francis stressed the need “to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit, and let the Spirit carry us forward.”

“That’s what the Apostles did, (with) the courage of the day of Pentecost. They lost their fear and opened themselves to the Holy Spirit,” he said. This is the way to understand and welcome the words of Jesus.

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Washington D.C., Oct 6, 2016 / 04:19 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine was gravely wrong to say he personally opposed abortion while taking a pro-choice stance in public office, a moral theologian says.

Kaine, a Catholic, took a “gravely immoral position” and one “that is incorrect,” Fr. Thomas Petri, dean of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., told CNA of Kaine’s argument that he tries to “follow the teachings of my church in my own personal life” but will not “mandate that [faith] for everybody else” through opposing abortion in public office.

“This is a human issue, not a religious issue,” Fr. Petri said of abortion. He pointed to Pope St. John Paul’s encyclical “Evangelium Vitae” which insisted that right to life is the “primary right” and “without life, there are no other rights.”

One must oppose abortion not just on religious grounds, but as the primary human rights issue, Fr. Petri said.

At Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, the candidates were asked to reveal “a time when you struggled to balance your faith and a public policy position” from their time in public office.

Kaine, a baptized Catholic who attends St. Elizabeth parish in the Diocese of Richmond, Va., answered that when he was governor of Virginia, he was religiously opposed to the death penalty, but allowed executions because the law of the state demanded it in certain “heinous” cases.

“I think it is really, really important that those of us who have deep faith lives don’t feel like we can just substitute our views for everybody else in society regardless of their views,” he said at the debate.

Kaine was then pressed by his opponent Mike Pence, the Republican governor of Indiana, about his support for legal abortion, and Kaine repeated the same defense – a politician’s religious beliefs shouldn’t be imposed on others through governance and legislation.

Pope St. John Paul II wrote in “Evangelium Vitae” that “laws which legitimize the direct killing of innocent human beings through abortion or euthanasia are in complete opposition to the inviolable right to life proper to every individual; they thus deny the equality of everyone before the law.”

“Consequently, a civil law authorizing abortion or euthanasia ceases by that very fact to be a true, morally binding civil law,” he continued. “There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection.”

Kaine insisted that for the Hillary Clinton campaign, “we support Roe v. Wade. We support the constitutional right of American women to consult their own conscience” and “make their own decision about pregnancy.”

People of faith should be “convincing each other, dialoguing with each other about important moral issues of the day,” he continued, “but on fundamental issues of morality, we should let women make their own decisions.”

However, religion can’t be just a private thing, but should play a key role in how a politician governs, Fr. Petri insisted.

“We don’t expect legislators to be blank slates,” he said. “We expect them certainly to represent the interests of their constituents, but we vote for our legislators based on their positions on things, which one would hope would be shaped by experience, by life, by family, by faith – all of these things.”

“And so one naturally has to ask how important is the faith for any person who says ‘my faith has no bearing on my work or what I do in life’,” he continued.

Kaine has received a 100 percent rating from the National Abortion Rights Action League during his time in the Senate. Planned Parenthood’s political arm has hailed him as “a strong advocate for reproductive health and rights” and gave him a 100 percent rating.

“He supports access to affordable birth control and has consistently voted to ensure women have access to safe, legal abortion care,” the Planned Parenthood Action Fund stated of Kaine.

The candidate has said he personally supports the Hyde Amendment – which prohibits the taxpayer funding of elective abortions – but Clinton wants it repealed, and a Clinton spokesperson previously said that Kaine “is committed to carrying out Secretary Clinton’s agenda.”

When Kaine was picked by Clinton to be her running mate, his bishop issued a statement about Church teaching on abortion and legislating.

“From the very beginning, Catholic teaching informs us that every human life is sacred from conception until natural death. The right to life is a fundamental, human right for the unborn and any law denying the unborn the right to life is unequivocally unjust,” Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo of Richmond stated on July 22.

Kaine also said that he believed the Catholic Church would eventually change its teaching and allow for same-sex marriage, speaking at a national dinner of the LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.

Three days later, his bishop issued another statement that Church teaching on marriage could not, and will not, change.

“More than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage, and despite recent statements from the campaign trail, the Catholic Church’s 2000-year-old teaching to the truth about what constitutes marriage remains unchanged and resolute,” Bishop DiLorenzo stated on Sept. 13.

“As Catholics, we believe all humans warrant dignity and deserve love and respect, and unjust discrimination is always wrong,” he added. “Our understanding of marriage, however, is a matter of justice and fidelity to our Creator’s original design.”

 

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Indianapolis, Ind., Oct 6, 2016 / 04:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Indiana Governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence’s bid to keep Syrian refugees out of his state was blocked by a federal appeals court this week.

The appeals court, made up of a panel of three well-known conservative judges, upheld a lower court’s decision, which said Pence was discriminating against Syrians by blocking them from receiving federal funds to resettle in his state.

One member of the appeals court is on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

In a unanimous decision, the appeals court said that Pence acted illegally by accepting federal funds to resettle refugees from other countries and denying them to Syrian refugees.

In November 2015, Pence suspended state agencies’ involvement in the relocation of Syrian refugees following terrorist attacks that killed more than 120 people in Paris on Nov. 19, 2015.

This week, the federal appeals court said Pence’s security concerns regarding Syrian refugees are "nightmare speculation" based on no evidence. The court also said the state presented no evidence that any Syrian refugee had been involved in a terrorist act in the U.S.

Judge Richard Posner, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, wrote for the court that Pence’s refusal to resettle Syrians is still “discrimination on the basis of nationality." Judges Frank Easterbrook and Diane Sykes joined the decision. Sykes, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, is on Trump’s list of potential Supreme court nominees.

The decision came just one day before the vice presidential debate on Oct. 4, during which Pence said he stood by his policy to block Syrian refugees.

“As governor of the state of Indiana, I have no higher priority than safety and security of people in my state,” he said. “So you bet I suspended that program. And I stand by that decision.”

He also said he would stand by similar policies as vice president, should he be elected.

“Donald Trump and I are committed to suspending the Syrian refugee program and programs and immigration from areas of the world that have been compromised by terrorism,” Pence said.

Pence’s blockade of Syrian refugees almost impeded Catholic Charities and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis from resettling a family in Dec. 2015. Pence identified in 1994 as a “born-again, evangelical Catholic.” He started attending an evangelical megachurch with his family in the 1990s, though it is unclear which church he attends now.

The Indianapolis archdiocese was asked to help settle the family through a public-private partnership program between the federal government, the U.S. bishops’ conference, and the conference’s Migration and Refugee Services office. The family had fled Syria three years prior, and had undergone the two-year refugee screening process and were approved for entry to the United States. The archdiocese regularly participates in the program and the local Catholic Charities agency has resettled refugees for more than 40 years.

Pence met with Archbishop Tobin for an hour to discuss the matter, saying that he respectfully disagreed with the proposal to resettle a Syrian family in Indiana. While Archbishop Tobin said he “prayerfully considered” Pence’s security concerns, he moved ahead with resettling the Syrian family in Indiana.

According to Crux, an aide to Pence said at the time that Pence hoped the people of Indiana would welcome the family, despite his objections. Pence also said on Twitter at the time that Donald Trump’s proposal to block all Muslims refugees from the United States was “offensive.”

Under the 1980 Refugee Act, the president determines how many refugees to admit into the United States each year based on humanitarian or other concerns or needs. In 2016, President Obama set the number at 85,000, including 10,000 Syrians.

In late August of this year, the United States met its goal and admitted the 10,000th Syrian refugee, bringing the total number of Syrian refugees to 12,000 since the country’s civil war began five years ago.  

Authorities say that of all refugees, Syrians must undergo the most intense screening process available in order to be approved to enter the United States; a process that typically takes between a year and a half to two years.

The Syrian civil war began in March 2011 with demonstrations against Assad. The war has claimed the lives of more than 280,000 people, and forced 4.8 million to become refugees. Another 8 million Syrians are believed to have been internally displaced by the violence. Approximately half of the displaced are Syrian children.

The already dire situation in Syria has only worsened in recent days and weeks as an attempted ceasefire collapsed and other diplomatic efforts failed.

Catholic leaders in the city, including Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart of Aleppo, have made continual appeals to the international faith community for prayers and humanitarian aid.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Giorgio Onorati, EPA

By Rhina Guidos

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Typically, the Facebook page for the Diocese of Providence Office of Vocations in Rhode Island gets anywhere from 3 to 40 likes on their posts -- most which celebrate seminarians, priests and their ministry.

But it took an actor and former member of a boy band to set its Facebook page on fire, not with a song, but with a video praising the priesthood, and one which has been viewed -- as of Oct. 6 -- 560,000 times, and received more than 6,000 likes and upward of 8,000 shares.

Actor Mark Wahlberg, a native of Boston, where the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors held its annual conference Sept. 30?Oct.7, made the homemade video shown to those who attended, and later posted on Diocese of Providence vocations office Facebook page.

"We, the Catholic faithful, are counting on you to bring us good and holy priests," Wahlberg said in the video. "Enjoy my hometown this week and know that I will pray for you and for your success. Thank you for all that you do and God bless."

Some priests from the Boston area, who know Wahlberg, had brought up the idea of asking the actor to attend the conference once the city had been chosen as the location, said Rosemary Sullivan, executive director of the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors. But as his schedule got tighter and tighter, he asked if he could do a video instead. Wahlberg is currently promoting a film in which he stars, "Deepwater Horizon," about the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and how it affected the workers. The film was released the day the conference started.

He wasn't given a script for the priesthood video, but spoke from his heart, Sullivan said in a phone interview with Catholic News Service from Boston Oct. 6. Wahlberg spoke about how priests have helped him during difficult moments in his life and also are there for the good times: when he got married, when his children were baptized, when members of his family died and were buried, when he needs God's forgiveness, when he receives the body and blood of Jesus Christ to replenish his faith.

In the video, Wahlberg said he wants his children and future generations to have "good priests in their lives, just like I had." And even though he got into trouble in his youth, "I always had a priest to stick by me," he said.

When the video was shown in the conference, the reaction was silence, but a good kind of silence, Sullivan said: "He was so deeply sincere and you could feel it when you're watching the video."

"My Catholic faith is the anchor that supports everything I do in life," said Wahlberg, adding that he would be praying for the success of the conference and of the vocation directors.

What's plain to see is that the actor "spoke as a son of Christ" in his plea to keep the priesthood alive, and about a responsibility that doesn't belong to vocation directors alone, Sullivan said.

"We all bear that responsibility," she added.

And Wahlberg, as a Catholic, took that responsibility seriously in trying to see what he could do to help.

"This is an example where you use a gift God has given you," she said, adding that Wahlberg also was present at the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia in 2015 and emceed an event attended by the pope.

It's important to follow his example and, as Wahlberg did, let priests, those who thinking about the priesthood, and vocation directors, know what they mean to Catholic communities, Sullivan said.

"They need to know how much we love them and support them," Sullivan said. "Mark Wahlberg is challenging them, saying 'We need you to help us.'"

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Editor's Note: The Diocese of Providence Office of Vocations Facebook page can be viewed at http://tinyurl.com/hub4ot8.

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Follow Guidos on Twitter: @CNS_Rhina.

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