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By Carol Zimmermann

ORLANDO, Fla. (CNS) -- In the July 3 closing Mass for the Fortnight for Freedom, Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori called on Catholics to thank God for the gift of freedom and to pray that they "use this gift well and wisely."

"It's too easy to let this gift lie dormant or be neglected," he said in his homily at the Mass celebrated during the "Convocation of Catholic Leaders: The Joy of the Gospel in America" in Orlando.

Archbishop Lori, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee for Religious Liberty, had celebrated the fortnight's opening Mass June 21 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore.

This is the sixth year of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Fortnight for Freedom -- a two-week period of prayer, advocacy and education on religious freedom. It starts on the vigil of the shared feast day of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More -- martyrs who fought religious persecution -- and ends on Independence Day.

In his homily, the archbishop urged convocation delegates to advocate for those whose freedoms have been denied and to seek better laws and engage political leaders but he also stressed that nothing is more important that bearing witness to Catholic teaching and "fulfilling our mission to love."

He did not list current challenges to religious freedom but he noted that before "religious liberty is a political or legal issue it is first and foremost a matter of human dignity."

He said for Catholics to fully embrace this understanding of religious freedom they might need to "undergo a process of conversion" not unlike St. Thomas, whose feast was celebrated July 3. The apostle would not believe Christ had risen until he touched his wounds and saw it was true.

The archbishop urged Catholic leaders attending Mass in the hotel ballroom to go back to their dioceses and parish settings with a renewed sense of mission and a deeper understanding of religious freedom which he said is "entangled in the DNA of responsive faith."

When Catholics understand how they are spiritually set free, he said, they are able to "witness to those alienated from their faith or those who are lukewarm or on the cusp of vocation or mission."

Isn't that why we came here and what we are praying for, he asked the convocation delegates.

At the start of his homily he told the congregation delegates of his own "doubting Thomas" experience. When he was about 10 years old, the family TV set in their house broke down and was "pronounced unfixable."

During this time, he was visiting a friend, "allegedly doing homework" but he confessed to the congregation he was watching "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom." While he was there, his parents got a call from the parish that they had won a raffle prize of a portable Zenith TV.

"When I got back my parents told me but I didn't believe it. I thought it was terrible they would make up such a story knowing how I felt," he said.

Only later, when the TV was delivered, did he believe it.

The archbishop then spoke of the experience of disbelief on the grander scale of Thomas, whose lack of faith was described by St. Gregory the Great as doing more than the other apostles to rekindle faith. Tradition holds that he spread the Gospel message to present-day India.

His encounter with the risen Lord "changed him forever" and prompted him to "go far beyond his comfort zone" the archbishop said, echoing a theme of the four-day convocation that all Catholics are called to be missionary disciples.

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Follow Zimmermann on Twitter: @carolmaczim.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Bob Roller

By Carol Zimmermann

ORLANDO, Fla. (CNS) -- Delegates at the "Convocation of Catholic Leaders. The Joy of the Gospel in America" have their work cut out for them but they are equipped to do it, said speakers at the final plenary session July 4.

"The saints always loved a good fight and we should like a good fight too," said keynote speaker Auxiliary Bishop Robert E. Barron of Los Angeles.

The bishop, known by many of the delegates for hosting the documentary series "Catholicism" and the website "Word on Fire," was unable to get to the Orlando hotel where the convocation was taking place because of problems with his flight, so he greeted the crowd through a video hookup.

At the start of his talk, he cited sobering church statistic about the decreasing number of Catholics today that some delegates heard at some of the breakout sessions. For every Catholic who joins the church, six leave, he said, and also the number of "nones" -- those who claim no religious affiliation even if they were Catholic -- is growing.

The bishop let this sink in and then went straight to encouraging delegates to move forward saying: "It's an exciting time to be an evangelist."

A major obstacle challenging Catholics who want to evangelize the modern world is that they are up against as he put it: "a culture of meh," which is akin to a shrug of the shoulders, or an attitude of "whatever" or anything goes.

He said the way to combat this is to show people the beauty of the Catholic Church in its cathedrals and music, the good works of its people and its great intellectual tradition.

The bishop told the delegates who filled the hall for the final session that those who have heard him over the years know how much he hates "dumbed-down Catholicism."

"We need to pick up our game intellectually if we are going to evangelize effectively today," he said, adding that when religion isn't expressed in a smart way people fall away because "superficial Catholicism is not enough to sustain people."

Another speaker, Patrick Lencioni, an author and management consultant, gave the delegates plenty of practical information to take home with them stemming from business models that also can be applied to parishes and dioceses.

He told the delegates that the great ideas they bring home with them from the convocation will only succeed if they are working together with their church, diocesan or ministry groups.

He also said if they don't have holiness or inner peace, "all your efforts to change the world won't work."

The business consultant, who co-founded the apostolate Amazing Parish, also told delegates that they had to be willing to face conflicts and challenges. He urged them to hold others in ministry accountable to do their best work, just as one would of a business employee.

And Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo, New York, similarly urged the group to move forward but not in a rushed way. "Let's take a long view of our work, ourselves, our mission," he said.

He also urged the convocation delegates to remember they are not required to go forth and do the work of spreading the Gospel message alone.

"We're not lone rangers," he said. "We are part of a community. We are there to support each other."

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Follow Zimmermann on Twitter: @carolzim.

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Copyright © 2017 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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PONCA CITY, Okla. (AP) -- An Oklahoma woman is accused of trying to hire someone via Craigslist to travel to Israel and kill her ex-husband using ricin....

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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- Teaching assistant Kelvin Holt watched as a preschool student fell to the back of a cafeteria line during breakfast in Killeen, Texas, as if trying to hide....

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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- The Illinois Senate voted to override Gov. Bruce Rauner's vetoes of a $36 billion budget package Tuesday, including a $5 billion tax increase designed to start digging out of the nation's longest budget crisis since at least the Great Depression....

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LONDON (AP) -- A terminally ill British child has attracted the attention of both the president of the United States and the pope. More than 1.3 million pounds ($1.68 million) has been raised to help 11-month-old Charlie Gard travel to America for treatment....

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(Vatican Radio) Another “milestone” in ecumenical relations takes place in the German town of Wittenberg on Wednesday, as the World Communion of Reformed Churches signs up to the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.

The signing ceremony takes place during an ecumenical prayer service, in the context of the WCRC’s General Council, taking place in Germany from June 29th to July 7th. The WCRC represents some 80 million Christians in Congregational, Presbyterian, Reformed, United, Uniting and Waldensian churches in over a hundred countries around the world.

Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, is heading the Vatican delegation in Wittenberg for the signing ceremony. He told Philippa Hitchen more about the importance of this historic event…

Listen: 

Bishop Farrell recalls that “one of the major problems of 16th century was the theological and spiritual understanding of how the salvation brought by Christ actually takes effect in the life of people”. This “bone of contention” over whether “we are saved by grace, or we are saved by good works” was at the heart of the Reformation. But  in the ecumenical process, he says, we have come to see that we have a common understanding, “that we are saved by grace, but that that requires that we show our changed relationship to God in good works”.

Catholic and Protestant common understanding

The original document was signed by Lutherans and Catholics in 1999, with the Methodists signing up in 2006 and the Anglicans due to formalize their adherence later this year.  Bishop Farrell notes that this means that “Catholics and most of the historical Protestant Churches now agree on the essence of justification, so we have a much stronger basis on which to build our spiritual and ecclesial relationship”.

Bishop Farrell notes that Pope Benedict, who, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was one of the architects of the 1999 document, defined it as “a milestone in ecumenical relations”.

Justice and Justification

The secretary of the PCPCU also highlights the particular emphasis that the Reformed Churches wish to bring to the table, underlining the fact that “when we are justified by grace, we have an immediate responsibility to bring this grace into the real world through the struggle for justice”. The result, he adds, is that we will have “a stronger basis for collaborating among all Christians in this work of transforming the world” and serving those in need.

Walking and working together

The Reformed Churches, Bishop Farrell says, articulate their commitment to justice under the heading of economic justice, eco-justice and gender justice.  The Catholic Church, he says, agrees with practically all of it, as it “has been part of our Catholic social doctrine for so long”. The hope is, he said, that “we will be in a position at every local and regional level” to walk more fully together and to work better together in these fields.

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Young girls from India's remote northeast are lured with promises of good jobs and trafficked to Southeast Asia and the Middle East on Nepalese passports, campaigners say, amid fears traffickers are finding new ways to escape checks. "Over a 100 girls from the northeast and northern part of West Bengal state were trafficked in the last two years, nearly 50 to 60 percent of them on passports issued by Nepal," said Hasina Kharbhih, founder of anti-trafficking charity Impulse NGO Network.  "Obtaining visas for Middle East countries is difficult on Indian passports, so recruitment agents are getting them from Nepal. They are doing the paperwork for both passports and visas in Kathmandu," Kharbhih told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Shillong, capital of northeastern state of Meghalaya. 

Traffickers dodging checks

Traffickers have been trying new ways, including transporting women on tourist visas to Gulf nations to get round Indian emigration checks. They are also trying routes through neighbouring countries including Nepal where collusion of officials with traffickers is suspected. Campaigners said traffickers are flying the girls from Kathmandu airport and in some cases crisscrossing through Indian airports with them before flying to a Gulf nation such as Kuwait or Oman.

For destinations in Southeast Asia, such as Singapore and Malaysia, the girls are trafficked through Myanmar. India's underdeveloped northeast, a region marred by ethnic violence and armed conflicts, is bordered by China, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan and is a hub for sex traffickers to source girls for brothels in Mumbai and Delhi.  But cases of trafficking for labour to other countries are being increasingly reported.

Selling dreams - slavery

Recruitment agents peddle dreams to college graduates of well-paid jobs in hotels and spas in Gulf nations or the frozen fish packaging industry of Malaysia. They target illiterate girls for jobs as domestic helps. "The agencies are focusing on these areas because they find many girls are happy to go to Middle East countries as they find they can earn more there," Kharbhih said. But when they arrive they often find themselves trapped in bonded labour, having to pay off debts to traffickers. "Their passports are taken by the employers. They are not paid, as promised," she said.

The police in Sikkim - considered prosperous among northeastern states - is currently investigating the case of a 25-year-old who flew to Kuwait to work as a housemaid in 2010 and went missing after that. Her family lodged a complaint with police last year. "She had flown on a passport issued by Nepal. This is our first such case," an official with the Sikkim anti-human trafficking unit said.  A similar case three years ago put campaigners on the Nepal passport trail when a woman trafficked to Lebanon committed suicide.  "We found during the investigation that she was among a bunch of others who was taken there on Nepalese passports for housemaid jobs. That one case was our entry point into the issue," Kharbhih said.

Cases have been trickling in since then - a recent one of a girl taken through Chennai on her Indian passport to Malaysia to work in a beauty parlour. Her passport was seized by her employer and she couldn't renew her visa when it expired.  "It was a complex case as she was legally detained for overstaying in Malaysia. It was very difficult to get her back," Kharbhih said.

Impulse NGO has police from India's northeastern states and campaigners logged on to its trafficking alert software. It is now training border forces on how to send alerts on the system in an effort to curb the numbers of trafficked girls and women. "These girls want a good job, and some mortgage assets and take loans with the hope of returning home with money. In some cases, they do send money back home, but these happy stories are short-lived," Kharbhih said.  (‎Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation) ‎

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