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Rome, Italy, Sep 5, 2016 / 02:14 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- It’s a little-known fact that near the end of her life, Mother Teresa went to China three times in order to establish her order there, but was “heartbroken” when her efforts failed because of the poor diplomatic relations between China and the Holy See.

“Mother Teresa long dreamed of serving the people of China and, after bringing her sisters around the world – including to Russia, the United States and Muslim countries – China became and remained her focus,” said Fr. John Worthley, who lived and taught in China for many years and accompanied Mother Teresa on all three of her trips.

“Indeed, Pope St. John Paul II asked her to live her final years as a bridge of love and reconciliation to China from the Universal Church,” Fr. Worthley said at a symposium on Mother Teresa held Sept. 2 in Rome.

Reconciliation between China and the Universal Church may not be far off, according to Fr. Worthley. “I am very hopeful that something will happen soon. There's been a lot of good discussion and both sides are getting close to being ready,” Fr. Worthley told CNA.

The priest admitted that there are still many obstacles to improving relations between the Holy See and China. He said there are many people who know a lot and “think it's naive to expect something soon.” Fr. Worthley is hopeful, however, that it will happen soon, “only because of Mother Teresa's sacrifices.”

Mother Teresa wanted “to be with the poor all over the world,” but especially China, he said. When she was first founding her order, the Missionaries of Charity, and she received permission to lead the sisters, she was told that “a sacrifice would be offered for the success of the Missionaries of Charity.”

A week later, the priest who had guided her through part of the process of founding the order died, and “she considered that a sacrifice,” Fr. Worthley explained. “He had talked to her about China, and maybe that was what began” her interest.

Mother Teresa visited China for the first time in 1986, and then again in 1993. The final time she visited was in January 1994. Agreements had been reached for four of Mother Teresa's sisters to serve at a new Wellness Center for the handicapped, orphaned and elderly in Hainan, an island province of China.

But when she arrived in Hong Kong, before she could fly to Hainan, she received notice that entry was not allowed after all. “Mother was heartbroken,” said Fr. Worthley. It was “the hardest thing for her.”

“Mother had been so sure that this was the time. We gathered in Hong Kong and prayed for hours while appealing the decision. Mother's third and most difficult holy sacrifice for reconciliation was to accept the situation and depart,” he said.

“We promised her that we would not cease our efforts until the time eventually became right.”

In May, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, said that relations with mainland China “have been and are part of a long path with different phases. This path is not concluded yet, and we will finalize it according to God’s will.”

In an Aug. 27 speech at the diocesan seminary in Pordenone, Italy, Cardinal Parolin was positive. “Today, as ever, many are the hopes and expectations for new developments and a new season of relations between the Apostolic See and China for the benefit not only of Catholics in the land of Confucius but for the entire country, which boasts one of the greatest civilizations on Earth.”

Cardinal Parolin emphasized that the pursuit of good relations with China – including diplomatic ties – are not an attempt at worldly success.

“They are thought out and pursued … only in the measure in which they are 'ordered' toward the good of Chinese Catholics, to the good of the entire Chinese people, and to the harmony of the whole society, in favor of world peace.”

Pope Francis has shown great interest in restoring relations with mainland China, and it is no secret that one of his dreams would be a visit to Beijing.

Under Xi, the Holy See’s relations with mainland China improved at a diplomatic level. It is noteworthy that Pope Francis has been the first Pope allowed to fly through the country's airspace, during his flights to South Korea and the Philippines.

The Church in China is thriving, said Fr. Worthley. “When you have a country of a billion and a half people,” it doesn't take much to make it the largest sector of the Catholic Church in the world. 

“The churches are filled with young people and families … it's just growing amazingly.”

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Rome, Italy, Sep 5, 2016 / 02:24 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- More than 20 years ago, Ann Pollak traveled to Calcutta, hoping to volunteer alongside Mother Teresa. The experience would spark a years-long process that would eventually lead her to adopt a severely handicapped child from one of the care centers run by the Missionaries of Charity. 

“It has not been easy, at all, but the blessings have far, far outweighed the sacrifices,” Pollak told CNA. “Oddly, in adopting a blind child, I began seeing the world through my own eyes from a different perspective.”

Nearly 16 years ago, Pollak adopted a child from one of Mother Teresa’s orphanages. But adoption was not initially her intent. 

In 1995, Pollak travelled to India in order to meet Mother Teresa. She spent two weeks doing volunteer work and was impressed with Mother Teresa’s constant smile, and the fact that despite winning a Nobel Prize and being globally famous, the religious sister was very approachable.

Pollak would return to do volunteer work numerous times in the years that followed. In 1997, about a month before Mother Teresa’s death, she was working with handicapped children. She was assigned to feed one little girl, Rekha, who was blind, autistic and mentally retarded. 

“She had the sweetest smile on her face,” Pollak recalled of Rekha. “I just fell in love with her.” She also believed that the child had potential to develop and grow, if she was able to get the proper care and attention from a family.

A year later, Pollak returned to India to see if the little girl was still there. She was. 

Pollak said that she wanted to find the young girl a family, or at least a school, somewhere that would be able to offer the proper care for someone with her particular needs.

But as time went on, she became frustrated with her inability to find anyone to care for the girl. She began praying every day, asking God for a solution. Although she had not previously considered adoption, she began to feel an inner call to adopt Rekha.

“I couldn’t find any other solution,” she reflected.

It took almost a year to prepare and get everything in order. Numerous complications arose. Pollak recalled praying what Mother Teresa had termed her “Little Novena” – a series of 9 Memorare prayers offered consecutively. 

Within days, the complications had been resolved and the adoption process was complete. “I attribute that to the intercession of Mother Teresa and also the Blessed Virgin Mary,” Pollak said.

Rekha was seven-and-a-half years old at the time of her adoption. Now, she is 23.

Pollak said that her daughter has come a long way. While some of her conditions can never be cured – for example, she was born without eyes, and therefore has no chance of ever being able to see – there are other areas in which she has developed significantly. 

Despite autism and mental retardation, Rekha was able to start speaking at age 15. Once she started speaking, she began picking up more and more words, and now has a basic vocabulary.

But the transition was not easy. For years after she was taken away from India, Rehka had frequent, violent fits. 

“During these fits, she would bite herself, rip off her clothes, throw herself on the floor…and she also physically hurt me,” Pollak said, recalling times that her daughter would bite her or tear out her hair.

Pollak believes that these fits were caused by Rekha’s inability to communicate her needs, combined with insecurity at being transported to a new and unknown life, as well as hormonal changes as she went through puberty.

Thanks to medication and a great deal of devotion and time, Pollak said that “Rekha is today a much calmer individual - the fits still occur but they are much less intense and much less frequent.”

“Rekha has helped me to become a more patient person!” she added. 

Many of Pollak’s friends and family were not initially supportive, with some of them believing that she was making a serious mistake. A dear friend told her that she was ruining her life.

Her younger sister was married to an adoptee and was sympathetic and supportive, she recalled. But her older sister made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with the adoption, including assuming any responsibility if anything were to happen Pollak. 

But over time, Pollak said she seen how her daughter has brought out the best in humanity.

“Over the almost 16 years that she's been with me, I have witnessed the graciousness, kindness and love of other human beings, from people whom we've met maybe only on a bus ride to people who have become a part of our life,” she said, pointing specifically to the caregivers they had worked with over the years.

“People frequently stare at us in public because we are sort of an ‘odd couple’ and because Rekha is often very boisterous, but those stares are so often accompanied by smiles.”

On Sept. 4, Pollak and Rehka were both able to attend Mother Teresa’s canonization, an opportunity that Pollak considers incredibly special. 

“Today, I believe that my mission to meet Mother Teresa indirectly led me to Rekha,” she said, reflecting on her own journey to adoption. While there were many factors in her decision, which unfolded over several years, she said that watching the saint’s work more than 20 years ago was part of the inspiration that led to her become more deeply involved in the life of the girl she would go on to adopt.

“Seeing Mother Teresa's work in Calcutta and in other places in the word has a strong impact, and can turn a casual observer into a protagonist,” she said. 

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Washington D.C., Sep 5, 2016 / 04:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Young Catholics are leaving the faith at an early age – sometimes before the age of 10 – and their reasons are deeper than being “bored at Mass,” the author of a new report claims.

“Those that are leaving for no religion – and a pretty big component of them saying they are atheist or agnostic – it turns out that when you probe a bit more deeply and you allow them to talk in their own words, that they are bringing up things that are related to science and a need for evidence and a need for proof,” said Dr. Mark Gray, a senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

“It’s almost a crisis in faith,” he told CNA. “In the whole concept of faith, this is a generation that is struggling with faith in ways that we haven’t seen in previous generations.”

Gray recently published the results of two national studies by CARA – which conducts social science research about the Church -- in the publication Our Sunday Visitor. One of the surveys was of those who were raised Catholic but no longer identified as Catholic, ages 15 to 25. The second survey was of self-identified Catholics age 18 and over.

In exploring why young Catholics were choosing to leave the faith, he noted “an emerging profile” of youth who say they find the faith “incompatible with what they are learning in high school or at the university level.” In a perceived battle between the Catholic Church and science, the Church is losing.

And it is losing Catholics at a young age. “The interviews with youth and young adults who had left the Catholic Faith revealed that the typical age for this decision to leave was made at 13,” Gray wrote. “Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed, 63 percent, said they stopped being Catholic between the ages of 10 and 17. Another 23 percent say they left the Faith before the age of 10.”

Of those who had left the faith, “only 13 percent said they were ever likely to return to the Catholic Church,” Gray wrote. And “absent any big changes in their life,” he said to CNA, they “are probably not coming back.”

The most common reason given for leaving the Catholic faith, by one in five respondents, was they stopped believing in God or religion. This was evidence of a “desire among some of them for proof, for evidence of what they’re learning about their religion and about God,” Gray said.

It’s a trend in the popular culture to see atheism as “smart” and the faith as “a fairy tale,” he said.

“And I think the Church needs to come to terms with this as an issue of popular culture,” he continued. “I think the Church perhaps needs to better address its history and its relationship to science.”

One reason for this might be the compartmentalization of faith and education, where youth may go to Mass once a week but spend the rest of their week learning how the faith is “dumb,” he noted.

In contrast, if students are taught evolution and the Big Bang theory at the same school where they learn religion, and they are taught by people with religious convictions, then “you’re kind of shown that there’s not conflicts between those, and you understand the Church and Church history and its relationship to science,” he said.

With previous generations who learned about both faith and science as part of a curriculum, that education “helped them a lot in dealing with these bigger questions,” he explained, “and not seeing conflict between religion and science.”

Fr. Matthew Schneider, LC, who worked in youth ministry for four years, emphasized that faith and science must be presented to young people in harmony with each other.

A challenge, he explained, is teaching how “faith and science relate” through philosophy and theology. While science deals only with “what is observable and measurable,” he said, “the world needs something non-physical as its origin, and that’s how to understand God along with science.”

“It was the Christian faith that was the birthplace of science,” he continued. “There’s not a contradiction” between faith and science, “but it’s understanding each one in their own realms.”

How can parents raise their children to stay in the faith? Fr. Schneider cited research by Christian Smith, a professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, who concluded that a combination of three factors produces an 80 percent retention rate among young Catholics.

If they have a “weekly activity” like catechesis, Bible study or youth group; if they have adults at the parish who are not their parents and who they can talk to about the faith; and if they have “deep spiritual experiences,” they have a much higher likelihood of remaining Catholic, Fr. Schneider said.

More parents need to be aware of their children’s’ beliefs, Dr. Gray noted, as many parents don’t even know that their children may not profess to be Catholic.

The Church is “very open” to science, he emphasized, noting the affiliation of non-Catholic scientists with the Pontifical Academy of Science, including physicist Stephen Hawking.

There is “no real conflict” between faith and science, Gray said.

“The Church has been steadily balancing matters of faith and reason since St. Augustine’s work in the fifth century,” he wrote.

“Yet, the Church has a chance to keep more of the young Catholics being baptized now if it can do more to correct the historical myths about the Church in regards to science,” he added, “and continue to highlight its support for the sciences, which were, for the most part, an initial product of the work done in Catholic universities hundreds of years ago.”

 

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