Catholic News 2
VALDOSTA, Ga. (AP) -- A 22-year-old recovering drug addict told investigators he wanted police to kill him when he called 911 to lure an officer to his south Georgia apartment complex and then opened fire, authorities said Saturday....
DALLAS (AP) -- The Latest on the shooting of police officers in Dallas (all times local):...
A look at protests and related events nationwide Saturday following the police shootings of black men in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and suburban St. Paul, Minnesota, and the deadly sniper attack on police officers in Dallas....
New Haven, Conn., Jul 9, 2016 / 02:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In the wake of violence across the nation this week, the Knights of Columbus have issued a campaign encouraging people to join them in praying for peace. “The violent episodes of the past week have shocked the conscience of our country,” said Supreme Knight Carl Anderson. On July 7, five Dallas police officers were killed in what authorities called a “sniper ambush” at the end of a peaceful protest against police shootings of African Americans earlier in the week.Two days earlier, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was shot and killed after an encounter with police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The following day, Philando Castile, a 32-year-old black man, was shot and killed during a traffic stop for a broken tail light in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. His fiancée, Diamond Reynolds, livestreamed the aftermath on Facebook as her four-year-old daughter sat in the car’s back s...
New Haven, Conn., Jul 9, 2016 / 02:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In the wake of violence across the nation this week, the Knights of Columbus have issued a campaign encouraging people to join them in praying for peace.
“The violent episodes of the past week have shocked the conscience of our country,” said Supreme Knight Carl Anderson.
On July 7, five Dallas police officers were killed in what authorities called a “sniper ambush” at the end of a peaceful protest against police shootings of African Americans earlier in the week.
Two days earlier, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was shot and killed after an encounter with police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The following day, Philando Castile, a 32-year-old black man, was shot and killed during a traffic stop for a broken tail light in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. His fiancée, Diamond Reynolds, livestreamed the aftermath on Facebook as her four-year-old daughter sat in the car’s back seat.
In a July 9 announcement, Anderson invited Knights, their families, and all people of goodwill to join in praying a novena for peace by praying St. Francis of Assisi’s “Prayer for Peace” from July 14 to 22.
“Through this prayer, each of us has the opportunity to help transcend hatred and violence by personally committing to the concepts of love of neighbor, peace and forgiveness that are central to an authentic embrace of Christianity,” he said.
“It is our hope that, from coast to coast, those who pray this prayer will become true instruments of peace.”
Supreme Chaplain of the Knights, Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, also encouraged people to join in prayer for “an end to violence and senseless killings.”
“Through our prayers and good works, may we help build a society that is merciful, just, and peaceful.”
St. Francis of Assisi’s prayer for peace can be found below:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Denver, Colo., Jul 9, 2016 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- A few weeks ago, I put out a little blurb on my personal Facebook wall.It went something like this:“Hi friends! I'm working on a story about whether Catholics tend to over-spiritualize psychological problems, and whether there's a stigma in the Church against those with mental health illnesses. If you have had experience with this and would like to comment, feel free to shoot me a personal message!”Normally my friends on social media are actually pretty good at responding to these sorts of requests, but the response I got to this little Facebook post was overwhelming. So many people either messaged me to share their own experiences, or were able to refer me to professionals they knew. Family, close friends, people I haven't talked to in awhile, friends of friends of friends – I heard from people across the board.The topic has been on a to-do list of features that we have at the office, but it was a particula...
Denver, Colo., Jul 9, 2016 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- A few weeks ago, I put out a little blurb on my personal Facebook wall.
It went something like this:
“Hi friends! I'm working on a story about whether Catholics tend to over-spiritualize psychological problems, and whether there's a stigma in the Church against those with mental health illnesses. If you have had experience with this and would like to comment, feel free to shoot me a personal message!”
Normally my friends on social media are actually pretty good at responding to these sorts of requests, but the response I got to this little Facebook post was overwhelming. So many people either messaged me to share their own experiences, or were able to refer me to professionals they knew. Family, close friends, people I haven't talked to in awhile, friends of friends of friends – I heard from people across the board.
The topic has been on a to-do list of features that we have at the office, but it was a particularly personal story for me to work on because depression runs in one side of my family. I also have several close friends who have depression, anxiety and other psychological illnesses.
It’s a topic that’s not easy. It’s a topic that required some extra prayers to Mary and the Holy Spirit, pre-and-post-interviews, so that the peace of Christ would reign over these difficult but necessary conversations.
An article can only be so long, and can only delve into so much (I've seen the analytics on page views – y'all have short attention spans).
So here are some things I learned while working on this piece that couldn't fit into my article.
1. If you’re dealing with psychological illness as a Catholic, you're not a failure, and you're not alone. There are so many people who, at sight of a Facebook post, were willing to share their experiences with me.
It's also important to remember that despite appearance, nobody has it all together. As Dr. Jim Langley told me:
“The most common thing I see is the families that are at the church, and everybody thinks they're just the most wonderful, put together family that’s out there. And I'm seeing half of them in therapy probably because no family is perfect. The problem is when families are so focused on appearances or coming across as this wonderful catholic family that they just don’t want to deal with it.”
2. The intention of my first piece was not to de-emphasize the power of prayer. On the contrary, prayer is a very powerful and necessary part of psychological healing. What I meant to emphasize was that just as you wouldn't tell a cancer patient to “just pray it away,” you also should not tell someone with mental illness to “just pray it away.”
That said, there are powerful forms of healing and deliverance prayers that I didn't get a chance to mention in my article, but that I have personally seen work small miracles in people's lives – including my own.
One of the women that I spoke to for my article shared with me that it was soon after praying a deliverance prayer that she was hospitalized for her depression. She doesn't consider this a coincidence – she considers it the moment when she finally allowed Jesus to enter those places of her life that she hadn't let him enter yet, and through that prayer he led her to the miracle of modern medicine and psychological help that she needed to begin to fully heal.
A great source for healing and deliverance prayers is the book “Unbound: A practical guide to deliverance” by Neal Lozano. This is the book (and corresponding ministry) that I have seen most often endorsed by reliable, holy priests. (There are likely other healing books and ministries available as well, but I would ask a trusted priest to review them before engaging with any of them.)
Some parishes are also starting to offer healing Masses specifically for intentions of healing of various kinds, where there are often priests and lay faithful available to pray very intentionally with you, and it seems like the Church is just starting to unlock the power and graces available through these particular Masses.
3. If a friend or family member reaches out to you about mental illness, don't dismiss them, love them. Listen to their concerns, talk with them when they are lonely, reach out frequently even if your friend might not always respond or want to go out.
“People don't enjoy time spent with depressed and anxious people. Yet we need people to sit with us, to pull us out of the dark mess that is our minds,” one interviewee told me.
“That can mean sitting silently during a movie, or reading in the same room, or trying to take me out for a walk and understanding I'm not being a jerk if I don't respond much or seem surly – I'm sick. I need accountability to do the most basic human activities.”
Help them get connected to sources – priests and psychologists – that can offer them expert help. If you're looking for Catholic psychologists, your local diocesan office or Catholic Charities office is a good place to start.
But it's also ok to recognize your limits. One person I interviewed said she appreciated it when her friends established clear boundaries for the sake of their own peace of mind and for the sake of the friendship. Being up front about boundaries and establishing them early is the best approach, rather than realizing after the fact that you've crossed a line.
It's also important to remember that God, through both prayer and mental professionals, is the ultimate healer. While it's so very important to be like Christ to them, it's ok to recognize that you are not Christ, and will not be their ultimate source of healing or happiness. As a friend with depression once told me, it's not worth dragging other people down with you, so it's perfectly ok to recognize your limits.
4. Someone in a comment box asked about whether priests are given sufficient training to deal with these situations. While the psychologists I spoke with had, for the most part, excellent relationships with many local priests, I also spoke with several lay faithful who had less than desirable responses from priests when it comes to mental illness.
When I spoke with a recently-ordained friend of mine, he said that most seminaries in his experience have a house counselor who speaks with every seminarian at some point, and does ongoing work with seminarians. He also said that everything in his training has taught him to not overstep his bounds when it comes to psychological issues.
So it seems that while the training is there, in practice it does not always play out perfectly. Perhaps ongoing training throughout the priesthood is necessary, as well as more open relationships between Catholic psychologists and priests.
5. The prayer life of someone struggling with mental illness might look rather different than someone without mental illness. It's probably going to be rather difficult for someone with severe anxiety to meditate in front of the Blessed Sacrament for long periods of time. Those who have been hurt by the Church may find going to Mass difficult, or sometimes impossible, and the best way that they can love God in their circumstances is to follow what their psychologists have told them.
“Sometimes one of the most spiritual things I do in a day is take my anxiety medicine,” an interviewee told me.
6. This is an important topic and conversation that needs to continue. Someone I spoke to for this article put it best:
“We are so comfortable as Catholics talking about theology of the body and human dignity, but what about theology of the mind? I think Catholics with mental health problems can pave a way to balancing the spiritual and the practical by being vulnerable. The problem I have seen is that we lean one way or the other in our world, and we need both.”
Vatican City, Jul 9, 2016 / 05:52 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has established a tech-savvy track record as Pope, and now in addition to breaking records on Instagram and becoming the first Pope to use Google Hangouts, he will give World Youth Day pilgrims a new electronic app.From the creators of 2011’s “YouCat” youth catechism, a new version of the book called the “DoCat” has been developed, which intends to present the Church's social teaching in a creative style more attractive and comprehensible to youth. The new book will be launched during World Youth Day in Krakow and given to young pilgrims by Pope Francis in the form of an app.The YouCat was first distributed at World Youth Day in Madrid in 2011 as a way to help extend the experience and knowledge of the faith into young pilgrims’ homes.Why a new version of a book on social doctrine?Christian Lermer, CEO of the YouCat Foundation, told CNA in an interview that they wanted to crea...
Vatican City, Jul 9, 2016 / 05:52 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has established a tech-savvy track record as Pope, and now in addition to breaking records on Instagram and becoming the first Pope to use Google Hangouts, he will give World Youth Day pilgrims a new electronic app.
From the creators of 2011’s “YouCat” youth catechism, a new version of the book called the “DoCat” has been developed, which intends to present the Church's social teaching in a creative style more attractive and comprehensible to youth. The new book will be launched during World Youth Day in Krakow and given to young pilgrims by Pope Francis in the form of an app.
The YouCat was first distributed at World Youth Day in Madrid in 2011 as a way to help extend the experience and knowledge of the faith into young pilgrims’ homes.
Why a new version of a book on social doctrine?
Christian Lermer, CEO of the YouCat Foundation, told CNA in an interview that they wanted to create something that would “make the teaching of the Church readable and attractive, without changing the content.”
Bernhard Meuser, founder of the YouCat Foundation, said that following the YouCat’s publication they received several emails from youth in the United States saying, “now we know what our faith is. What do we do? Please, do a Do-Cat!”
The idea of publishing a new book on how to practically put faith into action initially began with those emails, he said, explaining that the concept was also supported by Vatican officials.
Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, had suggested that if the YouCat organization wanted to create a new book for Pope Francis, to do it on either the Bible or the Church’s social doctrine, Meuser explained.
Pope Francis himself wrote the preface for the book, which will be launched in Krakow July 23, three days before the July 26-31 youth encounter.
Rather than having a typical news conference for the book’s release, the YouCat Foundation set up an event with 200 youth from across the world who will study the DoCat and lead discussions on social teaching.
Bishops and speakers from around the world “will set them on fire for social teaching as the fruit of the Gospel.” The event will be led by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna, and will also include a preparation workshop, outreach, and information spots for catechesis.
According to Meuser, while Pope Francis’ preface for the YouCat provided a strong message about work, his preface for the DoCat focuses on the Roman Pontiff’s dream of “a new generation.”
With many youth too lax when it comes to living the Church’s social doctrine, Francis “dreamed of young people who know everything about justice and peace, the Gospel and the love of God, and mercy.”
“We should be very deep-rooted experts (in social teaching),” Meuser said, explaining that the Pope will share this “strong message” with the youth through a special video on the DoCat book and app that will be played during World Youth Day.
Both Meuser and Lermer met with Pope Francis in the Vatican June 17, where they presented him with the DoCat and recorded the video that will be played during the WYD encounter.
Lermer said the process of creating the DoCat has been “a blessing” for the foundation, because they didn’t know that the Pope wanted to write a preface or that he would be willing to record a video for it.
“There’s a lot of things that could be very different,” he said, “so we have to be thankful … somehow it seems to be led from above.”
World Youth Day participants will see the Pope’s video and will receive pamphlets describing the app and encouraging them to download it.
According to Lermer, the app will have not only the content of the book, but also “some fancy motivation tools to study” it.
While as of now the printed copy of the book is only available in two languages, the app is available in several, including English, Croatian, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, Polish, Slovak, Czech, and German.
Meuser explained that one of their main desires from the beginning was the direct participation of youth in the project.
Divided into 12 chapters on everything from family and work life to protecting creation and promoting peace, the book was designed with the help of youth and contains direct content from projects and initiatives begun by youth themselves.
Meuser and Lermer specifically looked for content that was “scientific and social material” from youth, as well as youth doing photo projects about social content such as justice and peace.
Inside the book a main text is visible on the side with questions and answers, some of which are accompanied by “funny illustrations,” Meuser said.
Supporting quotations from Blessed John Henry Newman, Benedict XVI, and the Bible are also included, he said, noting that after each chapter short quotations from social doctrine from Leo XIII to Pope Francis can be found.
The youth “gave us a lot of pictures and advice, so we produced the book in a process of participation with young people,” Meuser said, noting that the idea is to engage young people with the world around them, guided by Catholic teaching.
Meuser said his hope for the DoCat is that it will be “a learning moment in social doctrine.”
“We are living in the ruins of two great ideologies: of capitalism and of communism. Both destroyed the world,” he said, explaining that now “we have to change the world.”
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- In another nod to primary rival Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton is proposing to increase federal money for community health centers and outlining steps to expand access to health care across the nation....
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- The Dallas shooting that killed five officers has spurred an outpouring of support for police, not only in Texas but hundreds of miles away....
DALLAS (AP) -- The Latest on the shooting of police officers in Dallas (all times local):...
DALLAS (AP) -- The memorial to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was a closed crime scene to the usual hordes of weekend tourists Saturday....
