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"The Year of Mercy is something real, it is not simply something where we say a prayer or attend a conference. We can answer the call of Pope Francis by generously launching concrete action plans, in favor of the poor and the suffering": says Salesian Fr. Joe Mannath, to Agenzia Fides.

"The need is urgent, the possibilities are big, and we religious are in a better position than most people: our contribution can make a difference", explains Fr. Mannath who is the National Secretary of the "Conference of Religious Indians" (CRI), which unites the congregations and religious orders in India. “This is why the Conference of Religious in India has proposed an action plan to all congregations which suggests over 40 practical commitments to carry out during the Jubilee and also to continue once the special Year of Mercy has finished,” he said.

"There are 40 action plans to choose from: we are already in the month of June and half a year has already gone by. This proposal can also be a good time to check what we are doing personally, as religious communities, as provinces and religious orders", says  the Salesian priest.

The proposed actions encourage works that can be done at a personal level, but also at a community level: promote gestures of forgiveness and reconciliation; donate blood or become organ donors; visit and take care of the sick, the elderly and prisoners on a regular basis; treat workers and employees engaged in religious houses with respect and justice; take care of street children and drug addicts; engage in the work of education, catechism and school help for poor families.

(Agenzia Fides)

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Santiago, Chile, Jun 14, 2016 / 06:39 am (CNA).- In what is being lamented as a heinous act of desecration, an emblematic Catholic church in Santiago de Chile was brutally attacked after a recent student march, with masked individuals stealing and smashing a large crucifix from the building.

“This is not the first time that they've attacked a church in downtown Santiago. Violence leads nowhere, it is very painful for us that they would attack the symbols of our beliefs, the symbols of our faith,” said the Vicar of the Downtown Area of the Archdiocese of Santiago, Father Marek Burzawa.

The attack took place after a student march last week, called by the Confederation of Chilean Students to protest for improvements in the current educational system in the country. The march ended near The Church of National Gratitude.

Masked individuals, who have not been identified, forced open the side door to one of rooms in the church, which is normally used for wakes. They stole various items and took a large statue of Christ crucified out into the middle of Bernardo O'Higgins Avenue. There they raised it up and slammed it against the ground to destroy it. Part of the attack was caught on camera.
 

El mismo odio que lo clavó injustamente en cruz hace 2000 años hoy destruye una d sus imágenes en las calles d Stgo. pic.twitter.com/DVRtD7WvHr

— Cristián Araya (@cristian_arayal) June 9, 2016


 

Father Galvarino Jofré, director of the Alameda Salesian Educational Center located next to the desecrated church, warned that protection for churches is inadequate before such events.

“We hope there'll be better protection and hopefully these demonstrations won't end in the same location. We're looking into legal action,” he said.

Hours after the attack, the new Minister of the Interior Mario Fernández went to The Church of National Gratitude to express his solidarity, and announced that the administration will file a complaint, because “these are very troubling signs and the Government is not going to skirt them.”

“I want to express the government's condemnation of such acts, regardless that it has to do with religious worship, it's a very troubling symptom,” the official told the media.

“I'm not speaking as a Catholic, I'm speaking as the Interior Minister of Chile...in this situation, all Chileans need to work to prevent our young people from going around spreading this kind of behavior,” he said.

The Auxiliary Bishop of Santiago, Fernando Ramos, thanked Fernández for his visit and stressed that “our churches are open, they are places of worship to come and praise God and we don't want to lock ourselves in so those who want to terrorize Chileans with violence achieve a success they don't deserve.”
 

Photo credit: Lars Hallstrom via shutterstock.com

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Vatican City, Jun 14, 2016 / 06:46 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog has issued a new document affirming that while some might be hesitant in the face of new lay movements in the Church, they are a “great gift” in ecclesial life.

However, at the same time the document stressed that these movements must respect the authority of the Church’s hierarchy, both local and universal.

Lay movements “are not to be considered optional in the life of the Church,” but are rather “to be considered as gifts of indispensable importance for the life and mission of the Church,” read document, published June 14.
 
“In the essential work of the new evangelization, it is now more than ever necessary to recognize and value the numerous charisms capable of reawakening and nourishing the life of the faith of the People of God,” it continued.
 
Quoting St. John Paul II, the document said these new movements provide “a providential answer” from the Holy Spirit to the need to communicate the Gospel in a persuasive way.
 
However, it also noted that a time of “ecclesial maturity” is needed for such groups to ensure their “full value and insertion” into the local Church and parish communities. This insertion, he said, must always remain “in communion with the pastors and attentive to their directions.”
 
The letter, titled “Iuvenescit Ecclesia,” or, “The Church Rejuvenates,” is the first major document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since Pope Francis’ election in March 2013.
 
Addressed to the world’s bishops, the letter was approved by Pope Francis March 14 and officially signed by Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect of the congregation, and Archbishop Luis Ladaria, the congregation’s secretary, May 15.

The main aim of the document, according to the letter itself, is to promote a “fruitful and ordered participation of the new groups in the communion and the mission of the Church,” with both her hierarchical and charismatic gifts in mind.
 
During the June 14 presentation of the document at the Holy See press office, Cardinal Muller said that the document has been in the works for “several years,” with the first studies beginning in 2000.
 
He said a challenge which every institution wanting to last through history must face is how “to stay young with the passage of time, that is, to renew itself, remaining itself without changing identity.”
 
Given this, “it seemed necessary to offer pastors and the faithful a sure and encouraging consideration of the relationship between these gifts that have enlivened the life of the church, especially with the growth of movements and new ecclesial communities in the recent past.”
 
The 32 page document focuses on what it calls “recent realities” in the Church, which it described as “groups of the faithful, ecclesial movements and new communities.”

The majority of these movements typically involve lay Catholics who gather together in groups that promote specific gifts and characteristics, called “charisms,” within the Church, such as Communion and Liberation, Focolare, Regnum Christi and the Neocatecumenal Way. Some live in a way that is similar to religious orders, but don’t take vows.
 
These groups are all part of a wave of new movements and communities which sprung up for the most part after the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council, and tend to place a strong emphasis on lay leadership and missionary zeal.
 
New movements, the document said, “cannot simply be understood as a voluntary association of persons desiring to pursue a particular social or religious goal,” but instead are “powerfully dynamic realities” in the Church.
 
In fact, they are “capable of provoking a particular attraction to the Gospel and offering a proposal of the Christian life which, basically global in outlook, touches every aspect of human existence.”
 
However, the document also stressed that these new charismatic movements are part of the universal Church, and as such are just as much a gift as the Church’s hierarchy.

New lay movements ought to be considered “indispensable” gifts for the life and mission of the Church as a whole, it read.
 
The document pointed the “co-essentiality” between hierarchical and charismatic gifts, stressing that “their opposition, and equally their juxtaposition, would be symptomatic of an error or insufficient comprehension of the action of the Holy Spirit in the life and mission of the Church.”
 
Church hierarchy, it reads, must respect particular nature of each individual charismatic group, “avoiding juridical straitjackets that deaden the novelty which is born from the specific experience.”
 
However, these movements must also honor “the fundamental ecclesial regimen,” which promotes “the effective insertion of the charismatic gifts into the life of both the particular and universal Church.”
 
Bishops, on their part, have the “essential role” of discerning which groups are operating appropriately within ecclesial structures and how they are contributing to the life and mission of the Church.
 
The document points to the apostles Peter and Paul as an example of what the relationship between bishops and movements should look like.
 
Both of the apostles demonstrate an attitude that is “above all, one of favorable welcoming; they are convinced of the divine origin of the charisms,” but “they do not, however, consider these gifts as authorizing one to withdraw the obedience owed towards the ecclesial hierarchy, or as bestowing the right to an autonomous ministry.”
 
Paul, it said, “shows himself to be aware of the drawbacks that a disordered exercise of the charisms can provoke in the Christian community,” so he “intervenes, with authority, to establish precise rules for the exercise of charisms ‘in the Church,’ that is, in the gatherings of the community.”
 
Quoting the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution “Lumen Gentium,” the document maintains that “he who has received the gift to lead the Church has also the responsibility of keeping watch over the good exercise of the other charisms…knowing well that the Holy Spirit distributes the charismatic gifts to whomever he desires.”
 
“The same Spirit gives to the hierarch of the Church the capacity to discern the authenticity of the charisms, to welcome them with joy and gratitude, to promote them generously, and to accompany them with vigilant paternity.”
 
However, the document noted that recognizing the authenticity of a charism isn’t always easy, and provides eight criteria for discerning whether or not a charism is genuine.
 
One of the Criteria is the Profession of the Catholic Faith, which stresses that “every charismatic entity must be a place of education in the faith and its fullness embracing and proclaiming the truth about Christ, the Church and humanity, in obedience to the Church’s Magisterium, as the Church interprets it.”
 
“For this reason they must avoid venturing beyond the doctrine and the ecclesial community. Indeed, if one does not remain within these, one is not united to God and Jesus Christ.”
 
Also emphasized in the criteria is communion with the entire Church, including the recognition of and adherence to the Pope. This criteria requires “a filial relationship to the Pope, in total adherence to the belief that he is the perpetual and visible center of unity of the universal Church and with the local bishop.”
 
The social dimension of evangelization was also listed as “a decisive factor.” Citing Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium,” the document said that this social component “cannot be lacking in authentic ecclesial entity.”
 
Maintaining good relations between the different movements requires “the real integration” of the charismatic group within the pastoral life of the local Church, the document said.
 
In order for this to happen, the different groups must “recognize the authority” of the bishops and “place themselves at the service of the ecclesial mission,” while the bishops, on their part, must “cordially receive that which the Spirit inspires…being mindful thereof in pastoral activities and esteeming their contribution as an authentic resource of the good of all.”

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Local bishops have an obligation to welcome new movements and communities and guide them, while the groups have an obligation to obey the local bishop and avoid the appearance of setting up a parallel church, said a new Vatican document.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's letter to bishops around the world on "the relationship between hierarchical and charismatic gifts in the life and mission of the church" was released June 14.

The hierarchical gifts -- teaching, sanctifying and governing -- are those conferred with ordination. The charismatic gifts refer to those given by the Holy Spirit to groups or individuals to help them live the faith more intensely and to share the faith with others through missionary activity and acts of charity.

At a Vatican news conference, Cardinal Gerhard Muller, doctrinal congregation prefect, and Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, presented the document, which formally is titled "Iuvenescit Ecclesia" ("The Church Rejuvenates").

Faced with the reality of aging and death, men and women always have "looked for something or someone to help them remain young," Cardinal Muller said. "This is the same challenge that every institution that wants to last must face: remaining young with the passing of time, that is, renewing itself while remaining what it is without changing or altering" its basic identity.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit -- raising new movements to face new challenges -- help the church to remain ever young, he said.

Cardinal Ouellet told reporters some suspicion of new, charismatic movements on the part of the institutional church can be traced back centuries: to the second-century Montanist heresy, which claimed new revelations, and the widespread "apocalyptic doctrines" of the Middle Ages. However, he said, the Second Vatican Council insisted the Holy Spirit continues to give Christians gifts to be placed at the service of the entire church to attract believers and help them proclaim their faith.

Still, Cardinal Ouellet said in response to questions, "there have been some problems" throughout church history of new groups arising and setting themselves up as a "counter power to the bishops."

Cardinal Muller added that a vision of the church in which the bishops control everything "is not our vision. Bishops are not the superiors, the commandants of the gifts of the Holy Spirit -- the Holy Spirit is."

The new document insisted that both the hierarchical and charismatic gifts are given by God in order to build up the church. They always must be in harmony and complement one another.

The bishop, "he who has received the gift to lead in the church, has also the responsibility of keeping watch over the good exercise of the other charisms, in such a manner that all contribute to the good of the church and to its evangelizing mission," the document said.

The text focused on a theological explanation of the diverse gifts in the church rather than on practical challenges and steps to meet those challenges. However, one of the footnotes, summarizing the discussion of gifts of the Holy Spirit in St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, warned of "rivalry, disorder and confusion" when an "overabundance" of gifts are expressed in a community, the risk of an "inferiority complex" among "less gifts Christians" and the temptation of "pride and arrogance" on the part of those who receive the gifts.

At the same time, the document insists that faith in God implies welcoming the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are given to individuals and groups to deepen the way they live out their Christian vocation and witness.

The groups, the document said, are called "to a missionary openness, to the necessary obedience to pastors and to maintain ecclesial communion."

Movements and communities present in more than one diocese "must not consider themselves as completely autonomous from the particular church" or diocese, it said, "rather they should enrich and serve her precisely through that particularity which is shared beyond the confines of a single diocese."

The bishops, it said, are called to discern the authenticity of the spiritual gifts and to recognize publicly those movements and communities that can help the faithful grow in faith, hope and charity.

However, it said, they must avoid trying too hard to control the groups, employing "juridical straitjackets that deaden the novelty which is born from the specific experience."

The criteria for determining the authenticity of the gifts or charisms given to a movement or community, the document said, must include: emphasis on every Christian's vocation to holiness; commitment to spreading the Gospel; profession of the Catholic faith; unity with the entire church; respect and esteem for other groups in the church; accepting "moments of trial" as the bishop discerns the group's authenticity; presence of spiritual fruits such as charity, joy, peace; and commitment to justice and peace with charitable, cultural and spiritual works.

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