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 A statement from Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville
President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

WASHINGTON—Waking up to the unspeakable violence in Orlando reminds us of how precious human life is. Our prayers are with the victims, their families and all those affected by this terrible act. The merciful love of Christ calls us to solidarity with the suffering and to ever greater resolve in protecting the life and dignity of every person.

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(Vatican Radio)  U.S. bishops have condemned early Sunday’s mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida and are offering prayers for the victims and their families.

At least 50 people were killed and 53 others wounded when an Afghan American opened fire on club goers with an assault weapon. It was the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

Bishop John Noonan of Orlando issued a statement Sunday in which he said:

“A sword has pierced the heart of our city. Since learning of the tragedy this morning, I have urged all to pray for the victims, the families and first responders. I pray that the Lord’s mercy will be upon us during this time of sadness, shock and confusion. I urge people of faith to turn their hearts and souls to the great physician, our Lord Jesus Christ, who consoles and carries us through suffering with mercy and tenderness. The healing power of Jesus goes beyond our physical wounds but touches every level of our humanity: physical, emotional, social, spiritual. Jesus calls us to remain fervent in our protection of life and human dignity and to pray unceasingly for peace in our world.

Priests, deacons and counselors from the Diocese of Orlando and Catholic Charities of Central Florida are serving at the Aid Center established by the City of Orlando. They are on site helping victims and families on the front lines of this tragedy. Throughout the day, they are offering God’s love and mercy to those who are facing unimaginable sorrow. They will remain vigilant and responsive to the needs of our hurting brothers and sisters.

I have asked all of our parishes to include prayer intentions during the celebration of Sunday Mass today where close to 400,000 registered Catholics participate in nine counties of Central Florida. At our 91 parishes and missions, today’s prayers have been offered for victims of violence and acts of terror...for their families and friends...and all those affected by such acts against God's love. We pray for the people of the city of Orlando that God's mercy and love will be upon us as we seek healing and consolation.

Prayer vigil for victims and families

"Recognizing the affliction brought to our city, our families and our friends," said Bishop Noonan, "we invite the community to join us for a ‘Vigil to Dry Tears’ for all who are affected by this massive assault on the dignity of human life. It will be held on Monday, June 13, at 7:00 p.m. in St. James Cathedral.

I hope this opportunity to join each other in prayer will bring about an outpouring of the mercy of God within the heart of our community."

In a statement, the President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz  said “waking up to the unspeakable violence in Orlando reminds us of how precious human life is. Our prayers are with the victims, their families and all those affected by this terrible act. The merciful love of Christ calls us to solidarity with the suffering and to ever greater resolve in protecting the life and dignity of every person.”

Archbishop Blase J. Cupich of Chicago also issued a statement, saying, “Our prayers and hearts are with the victims of the mass shooting in Orlando, their families and our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.  We are grateful to the first responders and civilians who heroically put themselves in harm’s way, providing an enduring reminder of what compassion and bravery look like--even in the face of such horror and danger. In response to hatred, we are called to sow love. In response to violence, peace. And, in response to intolerance, tolerance.

The people of the Archdiocese of Chicago stand with the victims and their loved ones, and reaffirm our commitment, with Pope Francis, to address the causes of such tragedy, including easy access to deadly weapons. We can no longer stand by and do nothing.”

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(Vatican Radio)  The United States’ Ambassador to the Holy See, Kenneth Hackett, has condemned the mass shooting Sunday 12 June at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida and says he personally, thinks “we have to do something about the access to weapons in our society.”

At least fifty people were killed and 53 wounded by a gunman toting an assault weapon.

Listen: 

Ambassador Hackett told Vatican Radio’s Tracey McClure that “we are all united in grief with the families who have suffered from this horrific massacre.  This is not the first [such shooting]; it seems to be the largest.  We’re just taken [aback] with the violence, the acts of terror and hate that are perpetrated on people and you really have to send your prayers out and hopes that the families will be able to get through this terrible thing.  [I’m] just calling for peoples’ prayers for the families of those people who are suffering so much.”

Asked if the time has come to open up a national debate on the issue of gun control and clamp down on the sale of weapons, Ambassador Hackett says for him personally,

“It’s beyond time for an active national debate.  The debate has been suppressed for years.  Our President has called for greater attention to this issue.  After the shooting of the children [at Newtown, Connecticut] and then again, the shooting in the Church in South Carolina, and again in San Bernardino, California – and now, this horror.  It says to us: we have to do something about the access to weapons in our society.  It’s too easy and people who should not be allowed to have a weapon have some way of getting around the rules.”

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis says it is a “strange paradox” that food often cannot get through to those suffering due to war but weapons can. 

He was speaking on Monday during his first visit to the World Food Program, the Rome-based United Nations agency that fights hunger.

WFP is currently engaged in and committed to the “One Future Zero Hunger” Global Goal set by world leaders for 2030.

Listen to the report by Linda Bordoni:

Reflecting bitterly on the fact that that while the distribution of food supplies are often obstructed in war zones, weapons - Pope Francis said - are trafficked freely.

“As a result, wars are fed, not persons” and he continued: “In some cases hunger itself is used as a weapon of war” as  the number of people dying of hunger and thirst  is added to that of battlefield casualties and the civilian victims of conflicts and attacks.

“We are fully aware of this – he said – yet we allow our conscience to be anesthetized”.

The Pope  also lamented that the speed and volume of information in today's world has led to what he called the “naturalization” of extreme poverty.

In other words – he said – little by little we are growing immune to other people’s tragedies, seeing them as something “natural”: “we are bombarded by so many images that we see pain, but do not touch it; we hear weeping, but do not comfort it; we see thirst but do not satisfy it”. 

Urging us to stop to seeing extreme poverty as a statistic rather than a reality he said “poverty has a face! It has the face of a child; the face of a family, the face of people young and old. It has the face of widespread unemployment and lack of opportunity. It has the face of forced migrants and of empty or destroyed home”.

As long as poverty has no face the Pope pointed out: “we run the risk of bureaucratizing the suffering of others.”

Noting yet another paradox of our culture, Francis said that hunger persists despite a surplus of food, and global waste. 

The cause of  food shortage – the Pope said – is to be found in a selfish and wrong distribution of resources and in the “merchandising” of food. “we – he said - have made the fruits of the earth – a gift to humanity – ‘commodities’ for a few. We need to be reminded  that food discarded is food stolen from the table of the poor and the starving.

Pope Francis concluded his address to a packed auditorium of WFP officials referring to one of the axioms of Christianity: "I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink". It is a principle – he said - which is independent of creeds and convictions and it can serve as a golden rule and as a measure of our humanity as we continue to seek creative solutions of change and transformation.    

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A group of Pakistani clerics has issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, declaring "honour killing" over perceived damage to a family's reputation against the teaching of Islam, and anyone who carries out such an attack a heretic.  Hundreds of Pakistanis, the vast majority women and girls, are murdered every year by relatives after being accused of damaging a family's honour. Most cases involve young women trying to chose partners against a family's wishes.  The ruling by the Sunni Ittehad Council, which includes more than 100 prominent clerics, comes after a string of particularly shocking killings including the burning to death by a mother of a 16 year-old girl who eloped with a young man.

"It seems were are moving towards an age of barbarism," the council said in its fatwa issued on Sunday, a rare edict on the problem in the Muslim majority country of 190 million people. "Burning women alive for marrying by their choice is against the teachings of Islam."  The council is affiliated with the Barelvi sect of Sunni Islam, the largest sect in Pakistan, and it holds significant influence in Punjab province, where half of Pakistanis live.  "Considering any killing in the name of honour to be justified is heresy," the council said in a press release.

Last year, more than 500 men and women were murdered in such, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. The toll this year, as of Monday, was 233, the group said. Most suspects in honour killings are never prosecuted.  (Source: Reuters)

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Vatican City, Jun 13, 2016 / 05:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a world where information is brought instantly to our fingertips, society is becoming increasingly anesthetized to the suffering brought about by poverty, Pope Francis told the United Nations' World Food Programme on Monday.

“We are bombarded by so many images that we see pain, but do not touch it; we hear weeping, but do not comfort it; we see thirst but do not satisfy it,” the Pope said during the visit to the WFP Rome headquarters. “All those human lives turn into one more news story.”

In prepared remarks delivered in his native Spanish, the pontiff said the global interconnectedness created by modern communications technologies has led to an “information overload” which is increasingly making us “immune to other people's tragedies.”  

“It is not enough to offer broad reflections or engage in endless discussion, constantly repeating things everyone knows.”  

Francis' June 13 visit to the Rome headquarters of the WFP marked his first ever as pontiff. The Pope delivered two addresses during his time at the headquarters, the first during the Annual Session of WFP’s Executive Board.

The visit comes in the first year of the UN agency's 17 Sustainable Development Goals to eradicate the root causes of poverty and hunger, and its aim of achieving Zero Hunger by 2030.

In his address, Francis called for concrete action on the part of institutions like the WFP to “de-naturalize” extreme poverty in the public consciousness.

“Why? Because poverty has a face! It has the face of a child; it has the face of a family; it has the face of people, young and old.” This “face,” he said, is also seen in those who are unemployed, migrants, etc.

When poverty “no longer has a face,” it becomes easy to look at hunger, food, and violence as concepts which are separated from the real people asking for help, the Pope said.

“Without faces and stories, human lives become statistics and we run the risk of bureaucratizing the sufferings of others,” he said. “Bureaucracies shuffle papers; compassion deals with people.”

Francis emphasized the need to “denaturalize” poverty, and criticized the consumerism which leads to food waste in a world where people are starving.

“We have made the fruits of the earth – a gift to humanity – commodities for a few, thus engendering exclusion,” he said. “The consumerism in which our societies are immersed has made us grow accustomed to excess and to the daily waste of food.”

“We need to be reminded that food discarded is, in a certain sense stolen, from the table of poor and the starving.”

The Pope went on to stress the urgent need to “Debureaucratize” hunger in the face of armed conflicts which have sidelined “other ways of resolving the issues at hand.”

“This approach is so deeply engrained and taken for granted that it prevents food supplies from being distributed in war zones, in violation of the most fundamental and age-old principles and rules of international law,” he said.

Francis criticized the sale of arms worldwide, and its contribution to poverty. “As a result, wars are fed, not persons. In some cases, hunger itself is used as a weapon of war.”

The death toll from hunger is added to the other casualties of war, he said.

“We are fully aware of this, yet we allow our conscience to be anesthetized. We become desensitized. Force then becomes our one way of acting, and power becomes our only goal.”

The pontiff acknowledged the WFP's role in mobilizing initiatives which are concerned with the “faces” of people who suffer.

“The WFP is an excellent example of how one can work throughout the world to eradicate hunger through a better allotment of human and material resources, strengthening the local community,” he said.

Francis explained that it is in fidelity to the mission of the Catholic Church to wish “to cooperate with every initiative that defends and protects the dignity of persons, especially of those whose rights are violated.”

He cited the words of Jesus, “I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.”

“A people plays out its future by its ability to respond to the hunger and thirst of its brothers and sisters. In that ability to come to the aid of the hungry and thirsty, we can measure the pulse of our humanity.”

After addressing the WFP assembly, Pope Francis delivered a second address to the agency's employees and their families, this time entirely off-the-cuff and in Italian.

Although a speech had been prepared, the Pope joked that “speeches are boring,” and said he would rather speak “spontaneously from the heart” in the language of the country.

The pontiff thanked those present for their “hidden” work and sacrifices behind the scenes which make the fight against hunger possible.

“You are the feet, hands, supporting the the courage of all those who go forward, who also supported the courage of the 'martyrs', so to speak, of your witnesses.”

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By Junno Arocho Esteves

ROME (CNS) -- The key to ending extreme poverty and hunger is to recognize that behind every statistic, there is the face of a person who is suffering, Pope Francis said.

"Poverty has a face! It has the face of a child; it has the face of a family; it has the face of people, young and old. It has the face of widespread unemployment and lack of opportunity. It has the face of forced migrations, and of empty or destroyed homes," the pope said June 13 during a visit to the Rome headquarters of the U.N.'s World Food Program.

Advanced communications, while informing the world of the tragedy of poverty, has also resulted in a desensitized culture that has turned the real suffering of people into statistics, the pope told WFP executive board members.

The world is gradually "growing immune to other people's tragedies, seeing them as something 'natural,'" he said. "Without faces and stories, human lives become statistics and we run the risk of bureaucratizing the sufferings of others."

According to the WFP website, the organization provides food assistance to an estimated 80 million people in 82 countries.

Arriving at the headquarters, the pope greeted employees and took a moment to pray in front of a plaque commemorating those who died in the line of duty. The pope praised their sacrifice, saying that far from a "cold and anonymous institution," the WFP is "an effective means for the international community" to carry out the work of feeding the hungry.

"The credibility of an institution is not based on its declarations, but on the work accomplished by its members," he said.

While noting the potential of an "interconnected world marked by instant communications," the pope also lamented a situation in which extreme poverty is considered "natural" and the tragic circumstances of the hungry "turn into one more news story."

If the people behind the statistics are not recognized, he said, the world "can yield to the temptation of discussing 'hunger,' 'food,' and 'violence' as concepts without reference to the real people knocking on our doors today."

"We are bombarded by so many images that we see pain, but do not touch it; we hear weeping, but do not comfort it; we see thirst but do not satisfy it," he said. "While the headlines may change, the pain, the hunger and the thirst remain; they do not go away."

Pope Francis told the members of the WFP executive board that the first step in fighting poverty is to "de-naturalize" it and shed light on the causes of poverty due to "a selfish and wrong distribution of resources" as well as the abuse and exploitation of the earth.

"We have made the fruits of the earth -- a gift to humanity -- commodities for a few, thus engendering exclusion. The consumerism in which our societies are immersed has made us grow accustomed to excess and to the daily waste of food," he said.

The pope also brought attention to the resources and priority given to the production and purchase of weapons at the same time that efforts to distribute food supplies to hungry people suffering in war zones are used as a "weapon of war."

"We thus find ourselves faced with a strange paradox. Whereas forms of aid and development projects are obstructed by complicated and incomprehensible political decisions, skewed ideological visions and impenetrable customs barriers, weaponry is not," he said.

Praising the World Food Program's dedication to eradicating world hunger, the pope affirmed the church's commitment and cooperation to defend and protect the dignity of those who suffer.

"'I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.' These words embody one of the axioms of Christianity. Independent of creeds and convictions, they can serve as a golden rule for our peoples," the pope said.

After delivering his address, Pope Francis greeted WFP employees, telling them he preferred to speak off the cuff rather than reading his prepared remarks because "speeches are a bit boring."

Thanking the employees for their "hidden work behind the scenes" in eradicating poverty, the pope called on them to never forget the lives of the program's employees who died while serving others.

"They were able to do that not only because of the courage they had (and) the faith they had in their work, but also because they were sustained by your work. Thank you so much and I ask you to pray for me so that I, too, can be able to do something against hunger," he said.

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Follow Arocho on Twitter: @arochoju.

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