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Toronto, Canada, Aug 2, 2016 / 08:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholics need to stop voting for pro-abortion politicians, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson told an international gathering of the Knights of Columbus.

“Pope Francis has emphasized how important it is for Catholics to be engaged in the political process,” Anderson said Aug 2. “His words regarding the importance of Catholics being faithful citizens are especially important for us.”

Anderson’s remarks to the Supreme Convention of the Knights of Columbus meeting in Toronto reiterated his comments to the 2008 Supreme Convention in Quebec.

“We need to end the political manipulation of Catholic voters by abortion advocates,” he said. “It is time to end the entanglement of Catholic people with abortion killing. It is time to stop creating excuses for voting for pro-abortion politicians.”

“Abortion is the killing of the innocent on a massive scale,” he added.

Anderson said politics does not mean partisanship, but a stand for the common good and for moral and religious values that make free, democratic institutions possible.

Foremost among these values, he said, is “the equal dignity of every human life and the right of every person to freely practice their religion.”

“We will never succeed in building a culture of life if we continue to vote for politicians who support a culture of death.”

He reflected on the political question of whether one should support a candidate attractive for many reasons but who supports abortion.

“Some partisan advocates have sought to excuse support for pro-abortion candidates through a complex balancing act. They claim other issues are important enough to offset a candidate’s support for abortion,” he said.

“But the right to abortion is not just another political issue,” Anderson said. “It is in reality a legal regime that has resulted in more than 40 million deaths.”

He noted that 40 million is a figure greater than the entire population of Canada.

“What political issue could possibly outweigh this human devastation?” he asked. “The answer, of course, is that there is none.”

His 2008 remarks urged faithful Catholics to build a new politics not according to the status quo, but according to their dedication to “building up a new culture of life.”

In his latest remarks Anderson said he would add that Catholics need to “think in new ways” to build “a civilization of love.”

His speech discussed legalized euthanasia, threats to religious freedom, the persecution of Middle Eastern Christians and the 2015 racial murders at a black church in South Carolina and new racial violence in the U.S. this year.

Anderson added that about 8 in 10 Americans would significantly restrict abortion, while almost 6 in 10 Canadians would support substantial restrictions.

A significant majority of Americans consider abortion morally wrong and do not want taxpayer funding of abortion, he said.

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New York City, N.Y., Aug 2, 2016 / 01:48 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Today's feast of Our Lady of the Angels of Porziuncola and its associated indulgence is a way to focus on the importance of Mary and the Franciscan tradition in the Church, said one friar.

The Aug. 2 feast is found in the Franciscan tradition, and marks the dedication of the parish church, called Porziuncola or “little portion,” which is one of those Italy's St. Francis of Assisi rebuilt in obedience to Christ's command to “rebuild my church.”

“The Porziuncola is at the heart of the Franciscan journey,” Father David Convertino, the development director for the Holy Name Province of the Observant Franciscans, told CNA.

“For Francis, it was his most beloved place. He lived near it with the early followers … and he loved the Porziuncola, as it was part of his devotion to Our Lady.”

The Catholic Church teaches that after a sin is forgiven, an unhealthy attachment to created things still remains. Indulgences remove that unhealthy attachment, purifying the soul so that it is more fit to enter heaven. Indulgences are either plenary (full) or partial.

A plenary indulgence also requires that the individual be in the state of grace and have complete detachment from sin. The person must also sacramentally confess their sins and receive Communion up to about 20 days before or after the indulgenced act.

Anyone who visits a Catholic church with the intention of honoring Our Lady of the Angels and recites the Creed, the Our Father, and prays for the Pope's intentions, may receive a plenary indulgence on Aug. 2.

“Any kind of a prayer form that helps people come closer to God is obviously a good prayer form, and certainly an indulgence is one way,” Fr. Convertino said.

“It helps us focus on, in this case, the meaning of the Porziuncola and the Franciscan tradition, how it's situated in the greater idea of the Church.”
 


Porziuncola located inside the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli near Assisi. Credit: emmav674 via Flickr (CC BY_NC_SA 2.0)

The Porziuncola was built in honor of Our Lady of the Angels in the fourth century, and by St. Francis' time had fallen into disrepair. The church, which was then located just outside of Assisi, became the “motherhouse” of the Franciscan orders.

“Although Francis realized that the kingdom of heaven is found in every dwelling on earth … he had learned nevertheless that the church of Saint Mary at Portiuncula was filled with more abundant grace and visited more frequently by heavenly spirits,” says the life of St. Francis written by Friar Thomas of Celano, read today by Franciscans.

“Consequently he used to say to his friars: 'See to it, my sons, that you never leave this place. If you are driven out by one door return by the other for this is truly a holy place and God’s dwelling.'”

Fr. Convertino added that the Porziuncola “was the place he chose to lie next to on his deathbed, and at that time of course you could have looked up to the city of Assisi, which he also loved so well.”

The Porziuncola, a rather small chapel, is now located inside a large basilica which was built around it, to enclose and protect it.

“You have this large basilica built over this teeny tiny little chapel,” Fr. Convertino reflected. “If that chapel wasn't there then the basilica wouldn't be there, but if the basilica wasn't there, the chapel probably wouldn't be there either, given 800 years of war, weather, and turmoil.”

For Fr. Convertino, the duality of the big church and the little church is a reflection of the relationship between the world-wide Catholic Church and the smaller communities which make it up.

“We feel the Franciscans kind of convey, we're the ones at the heart of the Church, the little church there.”

He said that each time he visits Assisi, the “experience” of the Porziuncola is “compounded more and more,” and added that “it's such a magnificent place, and the friars there are wonderful.”

Fr. Convertino also discussed the fresco now painted around the entrance of the Porziuncola, which shows St. Francis, together with some of his followers, receiving the indulgence from Christ and Our Lady.

“The idea behind the story is that Francis is asking Jesus for a Porziuncola indulgence, and Jesus is saying to Francis, 'Well, you really better ask Mary, ask my mother.'”

This article was originally published Aug. 2, 2013.

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Santiago, Chile, Aug 2, 2016 / 04:03 pm (CNA).- A prison inmate in Chile was surprised when she received a letter last week from Pope Francis, whom she had written a year ago asking for prayers.

On July 27, local bishop Luis Infanti came to the prison in Coyhaique, located in the Aysén Region in southern Chile. He gave the letter to Nicol, a young mother who is being held there.

The story began last year, when the inmates at Coyhaique prison were visited by the Apostolic Nuncio, Ivo Scapolo, who proposed that she write a letter to the Pope that he would personally deliver to him.  

The young woman told the Holy Father about her conditions in prison and her sentence. She asked “that you pray a lot for me and for the people living here with me,” she told the diocese of Aysén's communications office.

The letter was immediately sent to the Holy See and eventually, a reply came to the Nunciature. Due to what the diocese described as unavoidable circumstances, the delivery of the message to Nicol was delayed for a year.

In his letter, Pope Francis expressed his thanks to Nicol for “the trust you have shown me as well as for the prayers you are lifting up for me from your solitude, and that I need so much.”

“For my part, I assure you that I am keeping you in my prayers, as well as your son Fernando, and I ask God to grant you the light of faith and the strength that comes from hope, and that you can experience the consolation of our merciful God in the closeness of the people you love,” the Holy Father wrote.

“Once again, I thank you for your letter. And, please, I ask you to keep praying for me. May Jesus bless you and the Holy Virgin care for you. Affectionately, Francisco,” the letter ends.

“I didn't think he was going to reply,” Nicol said, adding, “I would now like to tell him that I have my family, that I got married and I have a little two-month-old girl.”

 

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Jacky Naegelen, Reuters

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ROUEN, France (CNS) -- During the Aug. 2 funeral Mass for Father Jacques Hamel, killed a week earlier by men claiming allegiance to the Islamic State, Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen stressed the need for forgiveness.

"As brutal and unfair and horrible as (Father) Jacques' death was, we have to look deep into our hearts to find the light," he told the congregation of more than 1,500 at the Notre Dame Cathedral, while hundreds more watched the ceremony on a big screen outside in the rain.

In his homily, the archbishop said the beloved 85-year-old parish priest tried to push away his attackers with his feet, saying "go away, Satan" twice.

With those words, the archbishop said the priest expressed "faith in the goodness of humans that the devil put his claws in."

Roselyne Hamel, the priest's sister, urged the congregation to "learn to live together" and be "workers for peace."

The archbishop thanked everyone, including "believers of other religious faiths, in particular the Jewish community and the Muslim community," for attending the Mass.

He also urged the congregation to go to their churches on Aug. 15, feast of the Assumption of Mary, to pray for an end to violence.

Father Hamel's burial after the Mass was private.

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