Catholic News 2

(Vatican Radio) Nearly one in four of the world’s school-aged children are in desperate need of educational support, with only 2% of funds from humanitarian appeals being directed at education.

This is why the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is launching #EmergencyLessons, a new international campaign, aimed at highlighting the importance of education for children in countries affected by conflict and natural disaster worldwide. The campaign focuses on the real-life experiences of children living in these countries, and the lengths they go to in order to obtain an education.

The global launch took place at the Torquato Tasso high school in Rome, where students heard from a variety of speakers. Georgia Gogarty attended the event and spoke with Marilena Viviani, Director of the Geneva Liason Office for UNICEF;  Samantha Cristoforetti, Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and Italian European Space Agency astronaut; and Laurence Argimon-Pistre, the Ambassador and Head of the Delegation of the European Union in Rome.

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The social media driven campaign aims to reach 20 million young Europeans in order to raise awareness “of children and young people in crisis situations”. It presents an opportunity for growth and for young people to “develop an intelligence that allows you to be open minded to other human beings”, who are very removed from everyday situations in Europe.

Schools in these conflict countries provide a “safe haven”, sheltering children from threats including human trafficking and recruitment from armed forces. In the long term they enable children to have opportunities and to build a life in the future. Without education, “there will be a lost generation”, something that will be tackled at the World Humanitarian Summit next week in Instanbul.

As more than 75 million children worldwide continue to be affected by crises on a daily basis, #EmergencyLessons aims to inspire millions of Europeans to raise their voices on behalf of those children and adolescents whose education has been interrupted.

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Further details have emerged concerning the so called “Vatileaks II” trial, investigating how various confidential documents were leaked to Italian journalists in the year 2015.

The Holy See Press office issued a six page summary of the court proceedings, where particular focus was given to contents of mobile phone messages and emails from Mons. Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, one of the accused parties. At the time of the leaks, Mons. Vallejo was an official working in the Organisation for Ecomonic-Administrative structure of the Holy See (COSEA).

Much of the Monday 16th May’s testimony came from Gianluca Guazzi, Commissioner of the Vatican Gendarmes corps. The Commissioner told the court about 110 thousand Euro being spent on a computer server to hold all of COSEA’s documents. He also pointed out that the computer systems consultant was Corrado Lanino, husband of the accused Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, and that until recently, no superior in the Vatican had known the location of the server.

Accounts were also heard of how the accused believed they were being spied on, and had began to use the “Whatsapp” messaging service on their mobile phones because they believed that the service was immune to phone taping and interception.

Commissioner Guazzi went on to describe how Mons. Vallejo had access to all password protected documents in the server, and that many of these documents were sent to the accused journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi who, in turn, pressured Vallejo for more information and documents.

Other witnesses at the trial included Fabio Schiaff, who was a protocol officer at the Prefecture for the Economy. He told the court of arguments between Mons. Vallejo and the prefecture’s archivist. In particular he told the court of Mons. Vallejo’s “Critical and insulting attitude” towards prefecture staff. And how the work environment at COSEA had become very bad and “not a peaceful one.”

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(Vatican Radio) Anglican and Catholic theologians, meeting in Toronto, Canada this week, have agreed on the publication of their first ARCIC III document on the theme “Towards a Church fully reconciled”. The volume, which is likely to be published in the autumn, uses the ‘Receptive Ecumenism’ approach to look at the limitations within each communion and see how one Church can help the other grow towards the fullness of faith.

The third Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III) is holding its sixth annual meeting from May 11th to 19th, hosted by the Anglican sisters of St John the Divine in Toronto. The 18 members of the Commission have completed work on the first part of their mandate, exploring tensions between the local and Universal Church within the two communions, and are continuing discussions on a second volume, looking at how Anglicans and Catholics make difficult moral and ethical decisions.

To find out more about the meeting, Philippa Hitchen spoke with the two co-chairs, Archbishop David Moxon from New Zealand who heads Rome's Anglican Centre and Catholic Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham in the UK.

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Archbishop David confirms the Commission is set to publish its first book, “Towards a Church fully reconciled” and is now working on its second volume on ecclesiology and ethics. He says it’s been “quite exciting to see already how user-friendly and readable it’ll be”. He notes the group has been very encouraged by feedback from local young Canadians from different cultural backgrounds who’ve helped to make it “a more third millennium book”.

The Anglican co-chair says the book clearly states that we  need to be “converted by each other”, showing each other “our wounds, our limitations, our weaknesses” in order to help each other to grow. He notes that there is still a long journey ahead towards the goal of organic union, but says the group is encouraged by the “inch-by-inch progress that we see around us”.

Archbishop Bernard says that everyone in the Commission is “on board with the approach of this document which contrasts somewhat with the previous agreed statements of ARCIC’s first two phases”. He says the new approach uses the lens of  Receptive Ecumenism, which allows Anglicans and Catholics “to look at the reality of life within each of our two communions, looking with a critical eye too at where we fall short”.

Archbishop David speaks of the forthcoming 50th anniversary of the Anglican Centre and the setting up of the ARCIC group by Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey. He notes that during the October 5th-7th celebration, 36 Anglican and Catholic bishops will pray together with Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin Welby in the Rome church of St Gregorio al Celio. In pairs from different countries, they will be mandated and blessed “to go out and demonstrate partnerships that are possible” in mission and common worship, to show that “no one of us has got it all together, but together each one of us can share it all”.

Archbishop Bernard also speaks of the positive experience of the local Canadian Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission which has helped ensure that the reception process of ARCIC’s work “doesn’t remain there on the shelf” but allows people to engage with it.

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Santiago, Chile, May 17, 2016 / 06:04 am (CNA).- With a Mass celebrated in the chapel where he used to pray, former soccer star Chase Hilgenbrinck was reunited recently with the faithful, friends and fans – not as a soccer star, but as a priest.

An American, Chase Hilgenbrinck was a successful pro soccer player who spent four seasons in Chile before returning to the U.S. He played for the New England Revolution before experiencing a call to the priesthood and leaving behind his soccer career to enter seminary.

In 2014, he was ordained a priest in the diocese of Peoria, Illinois, where he currently serves.

After being away from Chile for nine years, Father Chase returned to the city of Chillán in the southern part of the country, where he played on first division teams for three years.

He thanked the more than 600 faithful who attended the Eucharist he celebrated on May 7 in Santa Ana chapel, “especially the Chillán community that supported me before and who feel part of my soccer experience, and also now that I am a priest.”

After the Mass, Father Chase spoke with the community and fans of Ñublense, the Chillán team where the former left back had been key to achieving first division in 2006.

“Everything I learned in sports – such as the sacrifice of training hard, solidarity, working as a team – are things I also have to do in the Christian life. What I experienced in soccer helped me a lot to have all the virtues to lead a good Christian life,” Father Chase told the daily Crónica Chillán after Mass was over.

“When we make a commitment to something important in life everything is going to change. When you get married, life changes. The change isn't bad, it's something natural; if we're not committed, life has no joy or sacrifice to it,” he said.

In response to the media frenzy caused by the news of his visit to Chile, the priest made it clear that “I didn't come to make news, but I thank the journalists who like the story of what God has created in my life.”

“Hopefully on a national level this will be a beautiful story for the history of the Church and of God,” he added.

Father Luis Rocha, pastor of San Juan de Dios parish, where the Santa Ana chapel is located, told CNA that “although a lot of years have gone by, the people still remember Chase with a lot of affection.”

“The community welcomed him with a lot of joy and gratitude because they had already known him as a lay person, and he actively participated in the Liturgy of the Word at the Sunday Masses,” he said.

During his brief visit to Chile, which Chase described as a “tour to say thanks,” he was accompanied by his parents Mike and Kim, who had educated him in the Catholic faith since he was a child. The priest said he hopes to return to Chile for the 100th anniversary of the Ñublense team in August this year.

 

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By Junno Arocho Esteves

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Those who seek only power and greatness, especially within the church, follow a different path than Jesus, who told his disciples to serve and not to be served, Pope Francis said in a morning homily.

Preaching May 17 during Mass in his residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the pope said Jesus speaks a language of humiliation, death and redemption, while others "speak the language of climbers" who only thinking of rising to the top of the heap.

"The greatest is the one who serves the most, the one who is always at the service of others, not the ones who boast, who seek power, money, vanity and pride," he said, according to Vatican Radio.

The pope focused his homily on the day's Gospel reading (Mk. 9:30-37), in which the disciples argued about who was the greatest among them.

"If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all," Jesus tells them.

The pope said that although the disciples were tempted to think in a worldly way, Jesus teaches them a different path where "service is the rule."

The search for power, he said, "is a story that happens every day in the church, in every community: 'Who is the greatest among us?' 'Who is in charge?' Ambitions; in every community -- in the parish or in institutions -- there is always this desire to climb, to have power," the pope said.

Those who have the "worldly desire" to seek vanity and power "spare no expense to get there (through) gossip" and destroying other people's reputations, he said.

"Envy and jealousy make these paths, and they destroy; we all know this. This happens today in every institution of the church: parishes, colleges and other institutions, even among bishops ... everyone. It is the desire of the spirit of the world which is a spirit of wealth, vanity and pride," the pope said.

This worldly spirit, he continued, is a temptation "to destroy the other in order to rise up," which only "divides and destroys the church."

"It would do us well to think of the many times we have seen this in the church and the many times that we have done this, and ask the Lord to enlighten us, to understand that love for the world -- that is, for this worldly spirit -- is the enemy of God," Pope Francis said.

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By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Governments work best when they are secular, not confessional, but they must give ample space for people to express their religious beliefs, including by respecting the right of conscientious objection, Pope Francis told the French Catholic newspaper La Croix.

While legislatures must "discuss, argue, explain (and) reason" about legal solutions to complex issues, including euthanasia and same-sex marriage, "once a law has been adopted, the state must also respect consciences," the pope said in the interview published May 16. "The right to conscientious objection must be recognized within each legal structure because it is a human right -- including for a government official, who is a human person."

National governments, he said, "must be secular. Confessional states end badly."

But a truly secular democracy fully respects the religious freedom of its citizens, including their right to publicly express their faith, the pope said. "Everyone must have the freedom to externalize his or her own faith. If a Muslim woman wishes to wear a veil, she must be able to do so. Similarly, if a Catholic wishes to wear a cross. People must be free to profess their faith at the heart of their own culture not merely at its margins."

Pope Francis said he thinks that in some ways, France has exaggerated its secular character, particularly by "considering religions as sub-cultures rather than as fully-fledged cultures in their own right."

Respect for religious belief in Europe must extend to Islam, as well, he said. "In this sense, when I hear talk of the Christian roots of Europe, I sometimes dread the tone, which can seem triumphalist or even vengeful. It then takes on colonialist overtones. John Paul II, however, spoke about it in a tranquil manner.

"Yes, Europe has Christian roots and it is Christianity's responsibility to water those roots. But this must be done in a spirit of service as in the washing of the feet," he said.

Interviewed by La Croix's director and by its Vatican correspondent, Pope Francis agreed that nations have a right and obligation to control their borders and regulate immigration. But, he said, when immigrants are accepted "the worst form of welcome is to 'ghettoize' them. On the contrary, it's necessary to integrate them."

Those held responsible for the Brussels terrorist bombings in March, he said, "were Belgians, children of migrants, but they grew up in a ghetto," while London has sworn in a new mayor, Sadiq Khan, who is the son of Pakistani Muslims. "This illustrates the need for Europe to rediscover its capacity to integrate," the pope said.

Asked about a perceived fear of Muslims in Europe, Pope Francis responded, "I don't think that there is a fear of Islam as such but of ISIS and its war of conquest, which is partly drawn from Islam. It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam. However, it is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew's Gospel, where Jesus sends his disciples to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest."

The journalists also asked Pope Francis about a case of clerical sexual abuse that has "shattered" Catholics in the Archdiocese of Lyon where a priest, who ran a large Catholic school, has been charged with "sexual aggression and rape of minors" between 1986 and 1991.

"It is not easy to judge the facts decades later in a different context," Pope Francis said, but "there can be no statute of limitations for the church in this field. ... As Benedict XVI said, there must be zero tolerance."

An association of the priest's victims have filed a lawsuit against Lyon Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, accusing him of failing to act to stop the abusive priest. "Based on the information that I have, I believe that Cardinal Barbarin in Lyon took the necessary measures and that he has matters under control," Pope Francis said.

The pope said he believed that Cardinal Barbarin resigning would be "a contradiction, imprudent" while the case is still under study because "would amount to an admission of guilt."

Asked about the Vatican's ongoing discussions with the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X and his meeting April 1 with Bishop Bernard Fellay, the society's superior general, the pope said, "They say they are Catholic. They love the church."

"Bishop Fellay is a man with whom one can dialogue," Pope Francis said. "That is not the case for other elements who are a little strange, such as Bishop (Richard) Williamson or others who have been radicalized. Leaving this aside, I believe, as I said in Argentina, that they are Catholics on the way to full communion."

"Good dialogue and good work are taking place" to bring the society and its members back to a fully normal position within the church, the pope said. Establishing a "personal prelature," a sort of non-territorial diocese, for them "would be a possible solution but beforehand it will be necessary to establish a fundamental agreement with them. The Second Vatican Council has its value. We will advance slowly and patiently."

Members of the society have objected to some of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and to mainstream interpretations of it, especially the council documents on religious liberty, ecumenism, liturgy and relations with other religions.

Pope Francis also told La Croix that the process of study, reflection and discussion surrounding the 2014 and 2015 meetings of the Synod of Bishops on the family had an impact on church leaders. "I think that we all came out of the various processes different from the way that we entered. Including me."

In the postsynodal apostolic exhortation, "Amoris Laetitia," the pope said, "I sought to respect the synod to the maximum. You won't find canonical prescriptions there about what one may or may not do."

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Copyright © 2016 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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