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(Vatican Radio) As a concrete sign of his closeness to the victims of Italy’s earthquake, Pope Francis has sent a team of six firefighters from the Vatican City State to Amatrice, the city in central Italy that was worst affected by the quake. A statement from the Holy See’s Press Office said the six firefighters would help Italy’s Civil Protection workers search for survivors still under the rubble and assist those already rescued.

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Vatican City, Aug 24, 2016 / 05:09 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican recently rolled out a new sex education course designed to help parents and educators talk to teens about sex and counter messages on social media.

The course, published by the Vatican Council for the Family, and called “The Meeting Point: The Adventure of Love,” aims to promote a dialogue between young people and their parents and teachers regarding sexuality.

The program was developed as one step toward answering the problem of the deterioration of marriage and the family put forward at the Sept. 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia and the Oct. 2015 Vatican Synod on the Family.

“One of the most delicate tasks that parents have to face in the education of their children is their emotional formation, so they can respond to the most decisive vocation for every human being: the vocation to love,” wrote Archbishop Vincent Paglia, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family.

“This vocation to love is the fundamental task of parents in the family. In accomplishing their work, they can count on the help of different moral and educational communities: schools and men and women teachers, as well as on the cooperation of the other members of the church community: the parish priests, the catechists and other Christian faithful,” stated the March 21 letter on the program.

The project was over-viewed in a presentation by Bishop Carlos Simon Vazquez, Undersecretary to the Pontifical Council for the Family and Dr. Anthony and Celia Crespo at press conferences July 26 and 27 at World Youth Day 2016 in Krakow.

The course is available on the website www.affectiveformation.org in five different languages, including English and Spanish. Bishop Simon said they hope to expand the languages offered in the future.

Originally conceived for the classroom, the online program was expanded to be easily accessible to families or other groups. The curriculum consists of six units, with four or five sections each. The student materials include passages from Scripture, elements for discussion and written answers. Each unit section is accompanied by an educator guide and options for supplementary activities, such as film clips with discussion points reinforcing lessons.

“Not only the school program is enriched by this project, but also every home, each parish, and each association will have at its disposal a tool to help young people in the important quest for happiness and meaning in their lives,” stated Bishop Simon.

Developed in large part by the Spanish Bishops' Conference, the materials are meant to be a response to Pope Francis' call for a renewed and urgent attention to education within the family, as presented in his March 19 letter, Amoris Laeticia (The Joy of Love).

“In this context, the Pope clearly speaks in favor of sex education,” said Bishop Simon. He quoted Amoris Laetitia: “It is not easy to approach the issue of sex education in an age when sexuality tends to be trivialized and impoverished. It can only be seen within the broader framework of an education for love, for mutual self-giving.”

Bishop Paglia sees the new Vatican sex education program as a way to counteract the current “cultural, legislative and educational” programs challenging the Christian conception of the body, marriage and sex.

With the increased prevalence of media and social networking, teens “are exposed to a variety of information concerning affectivity in general and the exercise of sexuality in particular,” wrote Bishop Paglia. “In many cases, these same young people have no criteria for discerning the truth of good human sexuality from the emotivism introduced in many of today’s channels of information and formation.”

The project is unfinished, Bishop Simon noted, emphasizing two developments of the program: the attention that needs to be given to the young themselves and the attention that needs to be given to the teachers as well.

“Hopefully the course presented,” the bishop said, “will help young people to experience the joy of love in its full dimension, as the Pope invites those who will form the future families of the world and be the protagonists not only of the adventure of love but of the civilization of love in the coming years.”

 

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Vatican City, Aug 24, 2016 / 11:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Friday a museum dedicated to Pope John Paul I will officially be inaugurated in the hometown of the “Smiling Pope,” whom Pope Francis has often quoted when speaking on the topic of mercy.

Though his papal reign is among the shortest in history, summing up to just 33 days, Pope John Paul I was in office long enough to leave a mark.

Albino Luciani was born Oct. 17, 1912, in Canale d’Agordo, located in Italy’s northern Veneto region and which sits just over 400 miles from Rome.
    
At the age of 65, he was elected Bishop of Rome, taking the name Pope John Paul I. He was the first Pope to take a double-name, honoring his two immediate predecessors St. John XXIII and Bl. Paul VI. However, his reign was short-lived, as he died suddenly after only 33 days in office, presumably from a heart attack.

Despite the fact that John Paul I’s papacy is among the shortest in history, it will now be honored with a museum featuring important documents, personal items and objects used by the Pope.

Although there’s been a temporary photo exhibit in Canale d’Agordo since 1978, the display has been renovated and expanded for the new museum, which is located in the city’s old town hall and will be officially inaugurated by Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin Aug. 26.

Called the “Albino Luciani Museum,” the launch date was chosen to coincide with the 38th anniversary of John Paul I’s election to the papacy.

Cardinal Parolin, who grew up in the same region, will celebrate Mass in the afternoon before the official inauguration ceremony begins. Concelebrating with him will be the Bishop of Belluno-Feltre, Renato Marangoni, as well as the diocese’s Bishop Emeritus Giuseppe Andrich.

Since the papacy of “Papa Luciani” was so short, coupled with the fact that it’s sandwiched between the legacy of giants such as St. John XXII, Bl. Paul VI and St. John Paul II, not many people are familiar with who John Paul I actually was, let alone his homilies and writings.

However, he is someone that has consistently shown up in the speeches of his current successor, Pope Francis, who seems to find a certain resonance with the way in which John Paul I spoke about mercy.

In his recent book-lengthy interview with Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli “The Name of God is Mercy,” Francis quoted each of his predecessors since the Second Vatican Council. However, the one he referred to the most was by far John Paul I.

When asked about who he has in mind when speaking about merciful priests, Pope Francis immediately referenced a homily from then-Cardinal Luciani, who used St. Leopold Mandic’s example of a destitute donkey to illustrate what mercy looks like.

If a donkey is walking along the road and falls on the cobblestones, one must not “go there with a stick to beat it, poor little thing. It’s already unfortunate enough,” the cardinal had said.

Instead, he said a person should take the donkey by the halter and help it up, saying “up, let’s take to the road again…Now we will get back on the road, and we will pay more attention next time.”

In his interview, Pope Francis also quoted a 1958 homily by Luciani when was named bishop of Vittorio Veneto. In it, the future Pope said he had been chosen “because the Lord preferred that certain things not be engraved in bronze or marble but in the dust, so that if the writing had remained it would have been clear that the merit was all and only God’s.”

Francis marveled to his interviewer how Luciani, as bishop and future Pope, had referred to himself as merely “dust.”

He also referred to a general audience given by Luciani after his election as John Paul I, during which the Pope had expressed a strikingly similar opinion to Francis in that true humility comes from the constant awareness of one’s sinfulness.

In the audience, which was quoted by Pope Francis in his interview, Luciani said “the Lord loves humility so much that sometimes he permits serious sins. Why? In order that those who committed these sins may, after repenting, remain humble.”

Francis noted that a few days later, on separate occasion, John Paul I had insisted that “God hates faults because they are faults. On the other hand, however, in a certain sense he loves faults, since they give him an opportunity to show his mercy and us an opportunity to remain humble and to understand and to sympathize with our neighbors’ faults.”

So while Pope John Paul I, declared a “Servant of God” by his successor St. John Paul II in 2003, is likely somewhat unknown to most, it could be said that he was perhaps ahead of his time, and that Pope Francis is carrying his legacy forward.

In fact, John Paul I’s cause for canonization is currently being studied by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and could advance before too long.

During his homily at Mass in the Belluno cathedral July 20, 2014, Emeritus Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone announced that a document, called the “posisio,” advancing the beatification of John Paul I was ready, and would be given to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints that autumn.

The beatification process had been stalled because the “positio” had not been completed. The positio is the document that the postulator prepares, presenting the “pros” and “cons” of a person's possible beatification.

A miracle has already been attributed to the intercession of John Paul I: the 1992 healing of Giuseppe Denora, from the Diocese of Altamura-Gravina-Acquaviva delle Fonti. Denora was suddenly healed from a malignant tumor in the stomach after seeking the late Pope's intercession.

However, the reputed miracle still awaits the approval of both the council of doctors and the council of theologians who work for the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Should John Paul I’s cause advance to the next stage, he would then be called “Venerable.”

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Washington D.C., Aug 24, 2016 / 12:13 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Welfare reform was one of the biggest United States legislative events of the 1990s, but after 20 years what is its legacy from the standpoint of Catholic social teaching?

Catholic policy experts gave differing responses to the program.

“It’s complicated,” said John Carr, director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University.

Meanwhile, John D. Mueller, director of the Economics and Ethics program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., thought it a “success, in general.”

August 22 marked the 20th anniversary of the passage of welfare reform, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.

The new program – Temporary Assistance to Needy Families – was a major overhaul of the previous one, Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Democratic President Bill Clinton signed into law the bill passed by both houses of a Republican Congress.

Among the biggest changes of the 1996 law were the federal government delegating block grants to the states and letting them administer assistance, and the addition of work requirements for families receiving government assistance.

The supposed reason behind the reform was to move Americans from welfare to work, and ensure that people wouldn’t take advantage of the system by staying on it long-term, unnecessarily.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops initially opposed the 1996 law, in large part because it blocked legal immigrants from receiving welfare assistance. After the program was re-authorized in Congress in 2010, the conference released a statement on welfare reform expressing their support of and criticisms of certain aspects of the policy.

One of its successes in the last 20 years was that “in reality and in the public mind, it connected assistance to work, which is a good thing,” John Carr said. “Work is an expression of our dignity.”

However, he added, welfare reform and its work requirements “works a lot better in a booming economy than in a recession,” when good jobs are more scarce and harder to find.

John Médaille, an adjunct professor of theology at the University of Dallas who has authored books on business and economics, argued that welfare reform has not been a success in promoting flourishing two-parent families.

In many cases today, he said, both parents are working during the day thus inflicting a “split” on the family life.  

“It doesn’t seem to encourage, economically, the formation of strong families, and [it] forces mothers into the workplace,” he said.

A key question, he asked, is “are families at the bottom end of the scale stronger or weaker than they were before welfare reform?”

“I certainly see no evidence that they’re stronger and a lot of evidence that they’re weaker,” he said.

Carr agreed that welfare reform “works less well for those at the very bottom, who have the most problems, obstacles, in their path to the workforce, and for children in those situations.”

A good economy must be built around work, a decent safety net, and opportunity, he insisted, adding that moving forward the conversation must especially focus on work, like job training and the creation of jobs that can sustain families.

“Those who can work, should work, and they ought to be able to make a living that supports a family,” he said, “and those who can’t work for a variety of reasons ought to be able to live in dignity, and that’s where a safety net comes in.”

From the standpoint of Catholic teaching on subsidiarity, welfare reform was indeed a success, John D. Mueller, director of the Economics and Ethics program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., told CNA.

Mueller defined subsidiarity as “the notion that each function of society should be undertaken by the social unit which is best suited to answer” a particular problem. Welfare reform, he said, “did encourage the sorts of hierarchy of ways of meeting needs” rather than a simple top-down federal approach.

“It got people off welfare into jobs, which had been doubted,” he added, because the Earned Income Tax Credit also came along at the same time. This tax credit was contingent upon people working and so was a way of “helping people help themselves” rather than something that would “make them less employable.”

Carr agreed that the reform “has been carried out in more flexible ways at the state level,” which is a “good thing.”

Both Médaille and Mueller agreed that welfare alone is not the best long-term solution for poverty. It makes “disadvantaged” persons “less employable,” Mueller said, while according to Médaille, “welfare creates dependency.”

In that sense of avoiding large-scale dependency on the government, Médaille said, “the motives were good” for enacting welfare reform.

Its flaw, however, was that it did not address the big questions of whether there are “enough jobs for all” and whether existing jobs “allow for the formation of families,” he said, which would involve true solutions to the problem of increasing welfare rolls.

“On both of those counts, the system we have fails,” he said. Jobs in areas of real need – infrastructure, social, cultural – are not being created “to bring the unemployment rate down to its frictional levels,” he said, and it is here that government could intervene and be the “employer of last resort” by creating jobs to build infrastructure, for example.

Instead, businesses are content to create low-wage jobs where workers receive government assistance on the side, he continued. Thus, the available jobs in the economy do not pay the income and benefits necessary to sustain a family, and welfare becomes a “subsidy to the rich,” he said.

“Those are the kind of issues I think reform ought to be dealing with,” Médaille insisted. “Instead of being the consumer of last resort, let [government] be the employer of last resort.”

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Michael Kelly

DUBLIN (CNS) -- The trustees of Ireland's national seminary have agreed to bring in a specific policy to protect whistleblowers after serious allegations were made about life in the college.

The Aug. 23 announcement also followed a decision by Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin to pull his students from St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, after publicly raising misgivings about the life and governance of the 221-year old institution.

The archbishop referred to claims of what he described as a "gay culture" in the seminary and further allegations that some seminarians have been using a gay dating app. Archbishop Martin said some of the allegations had been shown to be true.

The seminary trustees -- 13 senior Irish bishops, including Archbishop Martin -- said in a statement that "there is no place in a seminary community for any sort of behavior or attitude which contradicts the teaching and example of Jesus Christ."

The statement said the trustees "share the concerns about the unhealthy atmosphere created by anonymous accusations, together with some social media comments which can be speculative or even malicious."

The trustees agreed to "review current policies and procedures for reporting complaints with a view to adopting best practice procedures for 'protected disclosures' (whistle-blowing)."

They said they would ask the Irish bishops' conference to conduct an independent audit and report of governance and statutes in the three Irish seminaries: Maynooth, the Pontifical Irish College in Rome and St. Malachy's College in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They also agreed to reassess future personnel and resource needs for the seminary.

The statement said "the trustees accept their responsibility for ensuring that the national seminary adheres to best practice in all areas of training for priesthood and that college staff are trained to the highest level in accordance with requisite professional standards and the requirements of the Holy See."

Archbishop Martin first raised concerns publicly in early August when he said "there seems to an atmosphere of strange goings-on there (Maynooth); it seems like a quarrelsome place with anonymous letters being sent around.

"There are people saying that anyone who tries to go to the authorities with an allegation are being dismissed from the seminary," the archbishop said.

"I don't think this is a good place for students," he added.

There was no immediate reaction from Archbishop Martin to the trustees' meeting and no indication as to whether he would change his mind as a result of the trustees' intervention.

In early August, he said he had offered to provide an independent person for whistleblowers to approach, but the response to this offer was the publication of more anonymous letters. At the time, the archbishop said authorities in Maynooth "have to find a way to let people come forward with solid evidence to substantiate the allegations."

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