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Los Angeles, Calif., Jun 9, 2016 / 02:49 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Assisted suicide will change California for the worse, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles said on Wednesday, adding that Catholics and others must take action to show they will care for the ailing, not aid in killing them.

“With the new ‘End of Life Options’ law we are crossing a line – from being a society that cares for those who are aging and sick to a society that kills those whose suffering we can no longer tolerate,” the archbishop said June 8.

“Our government leaders tell us that granting the right to choose a doctor-prescribed death is compassionate and will comfort the elderly and persons facing terminal and chronic illness,” he said.

“But killing is not caring. True compassion means walking with those who are suffering, sharing their pain, helping them bear their burdens. Loving your neighbor as yourself is not a duty we fulfill by giving our neighbor a lethal dose of pills.”

On June 9 California became the fifth state to allow doctors to prescribe lethal medications, when a law passed in 2015 was implemented. Lethal prescriptions may be given to adults who are able to make medical decisions if their attending physician and a consulting physician have diagnosed a terminal disease expected to end in death within six months.

The state’s proposed law was defeated in committee during the legislature’s 2015 ordinary session, but then passed in a special session later that year.
 
The push for assisted suicide drew significant media attention in 2014, when 29-year-old Brittany Maynard moved from California to Oregon in order to take advantage of legal physician-assisted suicide. Maynard had been given six months to live due to an aggressive brain tumor.

Archbishop Gomez exhorted Californians to pray and work to “rebuild a culture of human dignity in the face of this unjust law.”

“We need to proclaim and demonstrate by our actions that all human life is precious and sacred and is worthy of our care and protection, from conception to natural death,” he said.

“A person does not stop being a person, does not lose his or her dignity or right to life, just because he or she loses certain physical or mental capacities. Indeed, it is when people are most vulnerable that they are most in need of our compassion and love.”

The archbishop challenged the foundations of the law and warned of its consequences.

“Giving doctors a license to kill is not leadership on health care,” he said. “Let us pray for our great State of California as we enter this new moment.”

He asked whether there will soon be efforts to offer “compassionate choices” to those with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia.

“The logic of assisted suicide leads inevitably to the government and corporate administrators essentially deciding which lives are worth saving and caring for and who would be better off dead,” he warned. He said these decisions will follow arbitrary criteria and favor the strong and the powerful over the weak and less influential.

“This is the beginning of tyranny,” he said, adding: “With this new law, we are abandoning our most vulnerable and frail neighbors – dismissing them as ‘not worthy’ of our care and as a ‘drain’ on our limited social resources.”

Archbishop Gomez said assisted suicide “represents a failure of solidarity.” He predicted it will increase isolation and loneliness in society, and will worsen health care inequalities, given that the poor and elderly have fewer options and worse access to palliative care.

“In a state where millions are forced to rely on government-subsidized care, who can imagine the government will continue paying for months and perhaps years of costly treatments rather than prescribing a cheap bottle of suicide pills?” Archbishop Gomez asked.

The archbishop reminded doctors, nurses, health administrators, hospitals, and health care facilities that the law protects their consciences and does not compel cooperation.

“The proper response to an unjust law is conscientious objection. And this is an unjust law,” he said. “Helping patients to kill themselves denies patients their dignity and diminishes the humanity of those entrusted to care for them. Medical professionals are called to be servants of life, not dispensers of death.”

He said there will be continued problems in California health care that make people afraid to grow old or become disabled. Nursing home workers will still be “overworked and underpaid” with working conditions that impede quality medical care, and medical schools will still fail to provide proper training in palliative care and end-of-life treatment.

“These are the real issues that make the prospect of terminal illness and dying so frightening to people in California,” he said, appealing for political and medical leaders to address these concerns.

The archbishop prayed that God will give the courage “to do what is right” and that the Virgin Mary will help us see “that we are all brothers and sisters called to love and care for one another.”

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Vatican City, Jun 9, 2016 / 03:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The sick and disabled have always held a special place in Pope Francis’ heart, and have been the recipients of some of his most tender acts as Bishop of Rome. Now they will take on the prominent roles at a Mass for the Year of Mercy at the Vatican.

Thousands of sick and disabled persons will journey to Rome with their families and caregivers this week for a special jubilee in their honor, culminating with a June 12 Mass said by Pope Francis in which the sick and disabled will conduct all of the readings, do the singing, and serve at the altar.

“I would like to highlight the importance of this jubilee of the sick and disabled because we know that many times in our ceremonies a small group of them are present, but in this opportunity they will be the protagonists,” Archbishop Jose Octavio Ruiz Arenas said June 9.

Secretary of Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, Archbishop Ruiz spoke to journalists during the presentation of the activities for the June 10-12 Jubilee for Sick and Disabled Persons.

“We know that all sick and disabled people suffer, normally a lot. And at times also due to the indifference of those beside them,” the archbishop said, explaining that the jubilee is a time to remember all that the Church does and has done for people in this category throughout history.

He was joined in the presentation by the president of the council, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, who gave an overview of the jubilee activities, the climax of which is Sunday’s Mass with the Pope.

So far 20,000 sick and disabled persons and their caregivers have registered for jubilee events, and 50,000 tickets have already been printed for the Pope’s Mass, which is set to begin at 10:30 a.m. in St. Peter’s Square.

Altar servers for the liturgy will include several youths with Down syndrome and other intellectual disabilities; a German deacon who is deaf will assist the celebrants.

The first reading will be proclaimed by a disabled person in Spanish, while the day’s second reading will be done in English by a blind girl, who will read aloud from Braille.

The Gospel will be read, and for the first time dramatized by a group of intellectually disabled people, so that the text will be more easily understood by pilgrims with mental and intellectual disabilities who learn better through visual means.

Each of the readings, including the Gospel, will be translated into International Sign Language for the deaf pilgrims present, while the intentions of the faithful will be translated into sign languages specific to individual nations.

One of the sign language interpreters present at Thursday’s presentation of the jubilee explained to journalists that just as in spoken languages, there are different sign languages from country to country, as well as different dialects.

However, she noted that the only sign word that’s the same across the board in every variation is “Jesus.”

Before Mass begins Sunday, pilgrims already in St. Peter’s Square will participate in a 9 a.m. event titled “When I am weak I am strong,” featuring testimonies from various disabled individuals, including a couple affected by a degenerative neurological illness and a woman named Maria Grazia Fiore, who has two disabled children.

Enrico Petrillo, the husband of Chiara Corbella, who died at age 28 after choosing to reject treatment and save her unborn baby after a tumor was discovered during their third pregnancy, will also speak.

A well-known Italian image called “Our Lady Health of the Sick” will also be displayed during the Mass.

Normally residing in the church of St. Mary Magdalene in Rome’s Campo Marzio neighborhood, the painting dates back to the 16th century and was given to the church by a nobleman in 1619 after he was miraculously healed from an illness when he prayed in front of the image.

The jubilee will kick off Friday with a round of catechesis given by blind and deaf Redemptorist priest Fr. Ciryl Axelrod, as well as a walking pilgrimage from Castel Sant’Angelo to the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica.

On Saturday pilgrims will be able to attend another catechesis titled “Mercy, source of joy” in different churches in the historical center of Rome. In the evening they will participate in a special welcome ceremony titled “Over the limit” in the gardens of Castel Sant’Angelo, which sits on the other end of Via della Conciliazione, the main road leading up to St. Peter’s Basilica.

During the event, sick and disabled pilgrims will be serenaded by the official band of the Italian police force, called the Carabinieri, and they will also be able to perform with professional singers and dancers. Two songs will also be performed in sign language

As of 2 p.m. Saturday, seven “Tents of Mercy” will be set up where various pastoral organizations and volunteer associations such as U.N.I.T.A.L.S.I., Onlus, the Sant’Egidio Community, and the Health Ministry of the Italian Bishops Conference will be available to share their experiences with the world of illness and disability.

As a concrete sign of mercy for the less fortunate, the Med Tag Foundation will set up four “Health Points” Friday afternoon, where Rome’s homeless can come to receive services free of charge.

Roughly 350 volunteers, including women religious, Red Cross nurses, military staff and healthcare workers, will offer free examinations to some 700 homeless individuals in the fields of general medicine, dermatology, oncology, pediatrics, and gynecology. Vaccines for pneumonia will also be available, as well as PAP tests for women.

Archbishop Ruiz in his comments to journalists stressed that “we can't forget that the caring for the sick is one of the corporal works of mercy to which we all are called.”

“It’s a reality that underlines what the Pope frequently tells us: that we must touch the flesh of Christ - in these sick people we can find the place to truly touch the flesh of the Lord.”

Mercy, he said, can’t be reduced to a deep feeling that moves us, but instead “mercy must be active, something concrete.”

One concrete sign of mercy is precisely the Jubilee for sick and disabled persons, he said, explaining that the event provides each person with the opportunity to put the Holy Year of Mercy’s motto into action, and be “merciful like the Father.”

“So it will be a strong moment in this jubilee and a opportunity that can help many sick people to have a bit of hope and joy.”

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Washington D.C., Jun 9, 2016 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- There is a young and vital presence of religious sisters, novices and postulants in U.S. Catholic life, a new survey has found.

The Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious has released its latest survey of its 120 member communities in 137 U.S. dioceses.

Mother Mary Agnes Donovan, S.V., council chairperson and superior general of the Sisters of Life, said the council is “blessed” to have both older and younger institutes in its membership.

“The presence of the well-established communities lends a wisdom and guiding presence to the newer communities,” she said. “I am sure that without the mentoring support and generosity of these superiors, communities such as ours would never have come to fruition.”

The council membership survey report, released in May, drew on 106 responses from the major superiors of the 120 member communities.
 
There are about 6,000 women religious among the council’s member communities. This is only a section of the 48,546 religious sisters in the U.S. in 2015, according to figures from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, based at Georgetown University.

Among the council’s member communities, the average age of the sisters is 57 years old. The council said this is “well below” lower than the average age of women religious in the U.S.

The postulants’ average age is 27, while novices have an average age of 29. Temporary professed sisters have an average age of 32.

About 16 percent of women religious are in the age cohort of 30-39. It is the largest cohort, but just slightly larger than in the cohorts aged 60-69 or 70-79.

Almost 1,000 sisters are in initial formation, making up about 15 percent of the membership of the council’s member communities.

Over 80 percent of professed religious are engaged in active ministry. 19 percent are engaged in education, 17 percent in health care and 11 percent in evangelization, catechesis and religious education.

About one-third of the council’s 120 member communities were founded in the last 50 years.

The Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious was founded in 1992 with the approval of Pope John Paul II.

Photo credit: Anneka via www.shutterstock.com.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Jessica Able, The Record

By Jessica Able

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (CNS) -- It may seem improbable that the late boxing legend Muhammad Ali, a devout Muslim, would be closely connected with a Catholic religious order.

As a young teen, Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, worked at the library of Nazareth College, now-Spalding University. He cleaned and tended the front desk while the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, founders of the school, had dinner.

"He would leave Central High School at 2 p.m. and work in the library until about 6 p.m. Then, he would go to the Columbia Gym and work out," said Tori Murden McClure, Spalding's president and an athlete who worked with Ali in years past.

Ali, who was raised in a Christian household, learned to box at the Columbia Gym, located in the basement of Columbia Auditorium, which is now the Spalding University Center. He was invited by Joe Martin, a police officer who also worked as a boxing coach. Ali met Martin when the young teen reported his red bike stolen. He never recovered the bike, but his fate was sealed with that encounter. The gym, where Ali first practiced his cutting jabs and fast footwork, is still used by Spalding athletes today.

McClure worked closely with Ali as the first development director of the Muhammad Ali Center. And she spoke of her relationship with the world-renowned sports figure at Spalding's graduation June 4.

To begin the commencement, McClure read a piece of poetry from the "Louisville Lip."

"Stay in college, get the knowledge, stay there until you're through," she read. "If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you."

McClure, who was the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean, said she worked with Ali between her two attempts to cross the Atlantic.

"I had just failed on a worldwide stage. Muhammad Ali was one of the few people who understood what I felt like," she told The Record, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Louisville.

Over a period of a few months, McClure said, Ali gently prodded her, saying, "It's time to get up now."

"I said to the students (who graduated) on Saturday, that the time between the two rows was the darkest period in my life. Muhammad Ali reached out to me and picked me up.

"Our graduates do that every day," she added. "When you do that and reach out and pick someone up, you're following in the footsteps of Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali touched billions of lives. Muhammad Ali touched my life and Spalding University touched Muhammad Ali's life."

McClure noted that the Columbia Gym was integrated, a rarity in the 1950s.

"The South Broadway neighborhood and Nazareth were integrated as well. That didn't exist in many parts of Louisville," McClure said.

The self-proclaimed greatest boxer of all time died June 3 in a Scottsdale, Arizona, hospital. He was 74.

He was known the world over as a three-time heavyweight champion and for his unabashed boasting.

Outside the ring, he was a champion of a different sort. His philanthropic, humanitarian and charitable efforts were a visible and important part of his life. Also important was his Muslim faith and his desire for interfaith dialogue and inclusiveness.

In his early 20s, he had joined the Nation of Islam and taken the name Muhammad Ali.

In an interview at the Ali Center June 7, Louisville Metro Mayor Greg Fischer praised Ali as an "interfaith leader before people knew what interfaith was."

Fischer said despite the sadness of Ali's passing, he finds beauty in the "human values that bind us together," especially Ali's six core principles -- confidence, conviction, dedication, giving, respect and spirituality.

"That's what we should be talking about, not about building walls and hatred," he said.

In Ali's final years, Fischer said, his life was not about the titles but about making the world a better place.

"Imagine if every athlete or person of fame just focused on the values he shared (when he said), 'Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.'

"Imagine if that was the dialogue. It's within our grasp," Fischer added.

Stories about chance meetings with the champ and his impromptu magic shows that have circulated around Louisville and across the world these last six days sketch a portrait of a man who loved people -- of every stripe and of every faith. These stories depict a man who loved to delight children and adults alike -- offering tricks and sometimes a faux jab or two at a star-struck jaw.

He maintained a decades-long correspondence with members of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, including Sister James Ellen Huff, whom he honored with a bouquet of roses at her funeral in 2001.

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Able is staff writer for The Record, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Louisville.

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