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The Holy Father accepted the resignation of Msgr. Francis Xavier Ahn Myeong-ok  from the pastoral care of the Diocese of Masan, Korea and appointed Fr. Constantine  Bae Ki-Hyen, vicar general and chancellor of the said diocese as the new bishop.      

The Rev.Dr. Constantine Bae Ki-Hyen was born on February 1, 1953 at Masan.  He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Theology and a Masters in Philosophy at the Catholic University of Gwanju.  He was ordained a priest on January 28, 1985 for the diocese of Masan.   

As an ordained priest he has served the diocese of Masan  in different capacities. 

1985-1989: Pastor of Namhye in Kyongnam, Diocese of Masan;

1989-1996: Religious studies in Innsbruck, Austria, and in Monaco, Germany;

1996-1998: Professor at the Major Seminary of Pusan;

1998-2001: Pastoral Ministry in the United States (Denver, Colorado), as chaplain of the local Korean community;

2002-2003: Sabbatical Year;

2003-2005: Pastor of Sachen in Kyongnam, Diocese of Masan;

2005-2008: Pastor of Ducksan in Jinhae, Masan diocese;

2008-2014: Pastoral Ministry in the United States (Los Angeles, California), serving the local Korean community;

2014-2015: Sabbatical Year;

since 2015: Vicar General and Chancellor of the Diocese of Masan

The diocese of Masan (1966), suffragan of the Archdiocese of Daego, has an area of ??9,054 square kilometers and a population of 2,561,683, of whom 172,949 are Catholics. There are 73 parishes, served by 211 priests (162 diocesan and 49 religious), 316 nuns and 40 seminarians.

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Tuesday delivered a video message to the administration, staff, volunteers, and guests of the Centro Astalli welcome centre for refugees in Rome, which is operated by the Society of Jesus through the Jesuit Refugee Service in Italy. The Centro Astalli is marking the 35^th anniversary of its founding.

Below, please find Vatican Radio’s English translation of the Holy Father’s remarks in the video message

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Dear refugees, volunteers, workers  and friends of the Centro Astalli,

During this year of Mercy, we’re marking the 35^th anniversary of Jesuit Service for refugees in Italy, an activity that has been above all a walk together, as one people. And this is beautiful and just!

We must continue with courage: “I was a stranger and you invited me in” cfr Mt 25,35

I was a stranger… Each one of you refugees who knock on our doors has the face of God and is the body of Christ. Your experience of pain and hope reminds us that we are all strangers and pilgrims on this Earth, welcomed by someone with generosity and without any merit. Whosoever has fled his own land due to oppression, war,  nature defaced by pollution and by desertification, or the unjust distribution of the planet’s resources, as you have, is a brother with whom we share bread, homes and life.

Too many times you have not been welcomed: forgive the closure and indifference of our society that fears the change in lifestyle and mentality that your presence asks for. Treated as a burden, a problem, a cost, instead you are a gift. You are the testament to how our gracious and merciful God can transform the pain and injustice that you suffer into a love for all. For, each one of you can be a bridge that unites distant peoples, which makes the meeting of different cultures and religions possible, a road to rediscover our common humanity.

…and you invited me in. I was a stranger and you invited me in. Yes, the Centro Astalli is a concrete, daily example of this welcome, born of the prophetic vision of Father Pedro Arrupe, SJ. It was his dying wish, [expressed] at a refugee center in Asia. Thanks to you all, women and men, lay and religious, workers and volunteers, because in fact you show that if we walk together we are less afraid. I encourage you to continue. 35 years is only the beginning of a journey that is ever more necessary, the only way for a reconciled co-existence. Always be witnesses of the beauty of this encounter. Help our society to listen to the voice of refugees.

Continue to walk with courage by their side, go with them and be guided by them: the refugees know the roads that lead to peace because they know the acrid odor of war. 

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(Vatican Radio) The President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, met on Monday with the President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach.

Meeting at IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, the two men discussed the “Sport at the Service of Humanity” Conference scheduled to take place from 5 to 7 October at the Vatican Synod Hall.

Supported by the IOC and the United Nations, it will be the first global conference on faith and sport. The meeting will gather leaders from all areas of society to look at how faith and sport can use their respective influence to promote positive values.

Pope Francis is expected to open the conference, which will also feature keynote speeches by Mr. Bach and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

“It will be an occasion to come together to face up to the great challenges of contemporary society, which are shared interests for the world’s sporting and religious communities: how to live with respect for all, with increased understanding of each other’s traditions and values, more full and healthy lives, more integrated communities,” Cardinal Ravasi said.

“Sport is also of such fundamental importance for education, allowing young people especially to open up to the trials of life, putting themselves to the test, crossing boundaries, meeting opponents on a fair playing field while striving to the best they can be, in some sense aiming for the Transcendent,” the Cardinal added.

President Bach said the role of sport is “always to build bridges, it is never to build walls.”

“Sport stands for dialogue and understanding which transcend all differences. Sport, and the Olympic Movement especially, understands the global diversity of cultures, societies and life designs as a source of richness,” Mr. Bach said.

“The first global conference on faith and sport will be the perfect opportunity to reflect how sport and its values can support social change, community development and the promotion of peace and human rights along with faith principles across all religions,” concluded the IOC President.

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(Vatican Radio) Christians who harden their hearts and refuse to be drawn towards Christ are like orphans, without a father. That was Pope Francis message on Tuesday as he reflected on the daily readings during his homily at Mass in the Vatican’s Santa Marta chapel.

Philippa Hitchen reports: 

Pope Francis began his sermon by recalling the question that the skeptical Jews kept asking Jesus every time he performed a miracle, preached in the temple or pointed the way to the Father:

 “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”

That question, which the Pope said the Scribes and Pharisees repeat in many different ways, springs from a heart that is closed and blind to the faith. As Jesus explains in today’s Gospel reading, “you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep”. Being part of God’s flock, he said, is a grace which requires an open heart.

“My sheep hear my voice”, Jesus says in that reading, “I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand”. Have these sheep studied how to follow Jesus and then believed, the Pope asked? No, he said, citing the words from St John’s Gospel, “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all”. It is the Father who gives the sheep to the shepherd. It is the Father who draws our hearts to Jesus.

The hardness of the Scribes and Pharisees’ hearts, is a drama which continues all the way to Calvary, the Pope said. They see the works that Jesus performs but they refuse to believe he is the Messiah. Even after the Resurrection, the Pope recalled, this drama continues as the soldiers guarding the tomb are told to say they’d fallen asleep in order to give credit to the story that the disciples had stolen the body of Christ. Not even the witness of those who saw the Risen Christ was able to reach those who refused to believe. And this has its consequences, the Pope said, because they are orphans who have denied their Father.

These doctors of the law, he went on, had closed hearts, they thought they were their own masters but in fact they were orphans because they had no relationship with the Father. They talked about their fathers, Abraham and the patriarchs, but these were distant figures and in their hearts they were orphans because they would not let themselves be drawn to the Father.

On the contrary, the Pope said, reflecting on the first reading for the day, the news that reached Jerusalem of the many pagans who heard the disciples preaching in Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch and turned to the faith, shows what it means to have a heart open to God. Like Barnabas, he said, who is sent to Antioch to confirm these rumours and is not scandalized by the conversion of the pagans but accepts this novelty and lets himself be drawn by the Father to Jesus.

Pope Francis concluded by saying Jesus invites us to be his disciples but to be so, we must let ourselves be drawn by the Father towards Him. The humble prayer we can say is: ‘Father, lead me to Jesus, help me to know Jesus’ and the Father will send the Spirit to open our hearts and lead us to Him. A Christian who doesn’t allow himself to be led by the Father is an orphan, but we have a Father who can lead us to Jesus.

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Denver, Colo., Apr 19, 2016 / 03:36 am (CNA).- Clay Olsen speaks to thousands of youth about a subject most people would rather not touch: pornography.

As the founder and CEO of Fight the New Drug, an organization that educates people about pornography addiction, Olsen travels the country giving presentations to young people about how pornography is affecting their brains, their relationships and ultimately the world.

Olsen told CNA that after one particular presentation, a young man asked a question that perfectly illustrates how drastically pornography has changed.

“He asked me very sincerely whether Playboy was pornography or not,” Olsen recalled.

“His definition of pornography had shifted so dramatically...that Playboy doesn’t even make the cut.”

Importantly, this young man is the rule of his generation, not the exception, Olsen said. The effects of constant access to the Internet, made possible by the availability of personal laptops, tablets, and smartphones, has drastically changed how young people consume pornography in a way that many adults dangerously underestimate.

An evolving problem

In the earlier days of the Internet, before the boom of smartphones, a 2004 study from an internet traffic management company saw porn sites grow by 1,800% between 1998 and 2004. At the time, Nielsen/Net ratings estimated that about 34 million people visited adult websites every month.

Today, those numbers seem almost laughable. PornHub, one of the world’s largest adult sites with explicit video streaming, reports that it averages 2.4 million visitors per hour. In 2015 alone, the number of hours streamed from the site was double the amount of time human beings have populated the Earth, according to TIME Magazine.

The amount of content is not the only thing that has changed either. Because of the constant availability of pornography, many users find themselves seeking more and more extreme forms of content, and the Internet has kept up with the demand.

As reported in the Washington Post, a recent content analysis of some of the most popular porn sites found that 88 percent of analyzed scenes contained physical aggression such as spanking, gagging, choking or slapping, and verbal aggression occurred in 49 percent of the scenes. Men perpetrated 70 percent of the aggressive acts, while women were the targets 94 percent of the time.

Several studies have also shown a correlation between the viewing of pornography and the likelihood of committing, or wanting to commit, rape or sexual assault. Other studies show a correlation between men who consume pornography and experience erectile dysfunction, once thought to mostly be a condition of older men.

“So you combine those two things - the prevalence and then also the nature - and that cocktail is really what has driven individuals like myself and those that work with me, and millions of others, to rise up and say we can do better, we have to do better,” Olsen said.

Fortunately, Olsen added, it seems that society may finally be catching up to the truth about the harmful nature of porn. Last month, Belinda Lascombe for TIME Magazine chronicled the stories of young men who are anti-porn advocates after their experiences of porn addiction and consequential impotence. A follow-up op-ed from the Washington Post declared that regardless of pornography’s morality, it’s a public health issue. Also last month, Utah’s Senate unanimously approved a resolution declaring pornography addiction a public health crisis.

Shortcomings in the Church

But what about the Catholic Church? Is enough being done to make the faithful aware of the danger of pornography – to provide resources both protecting those who have not fallen victim and reaching out to those who have?  

Pope Francis’ most recent papal exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, mentions pornography directly just two times - once to mention that the bishops have expressed concern about it, and once to mention it within the context of age-appropriate sex education.

But that the word made it into the document at all is a significant step, said Fr. Sean Kilcawley, a priest with the Diocese of Lincoln who has spent a significant amount of his priesthood in pornography addiction and educational ministry. He currently serves as the program director and theological advisor for Integrity Restored, a Catholic apostolate that addresses pornography issues and addiction in families, individuals and clergy.

“Pope Francis has talked about pornography more than any other pope in history, I guarantee it,” Fr. Kilcawley told CNA.  

Last June aboard the papal plane, Pope Francis (who does not use the internet or watch TV, and reads just one newspaper) told journalists that parents need to be aware of the “dirty” content, including pornography, that can be found online, and urged them to take preventative steps such as keeping computers in common rooms. He has also mentioned the issue in various homilies and talks, particularly to youth, throughout his pontificate.

The problem in the Church, on a practical and local level, is that pornography addiction treatment programs need to part of a parish’s mainstream ministry and not seen as an obscure ministry needed by the few, Fr. Kilcawley said.

“Anti-pornography ministry is not a peripheral ministry,” he stressed.

“We don’t just need tools to help a few people, we have to take those tools and incorporate them into an evangelization plan that’s trying to evangelize within an entire culture that’s being affected by pornography,” he said.

“Pornography is the biggest obstacle to evangelization that we’re facing as a Church,” Fr. Kilcawley added. “Because the core beliefs of an addict are I’m unlovable, if people really knew me they would reject me, no one can meet my needs not even God.”

Matt Fradd, director of content at Integrity Restored, said the clergy abuse scandal could be part of the reason that clergy are so reticent about addressing pornography.

  The demand is enormous, there are many that are struggling...We get emails from 8-year-olds, 9-year-olds, 10-year-olds.

“If sex plus kids equals lawsuits...is it any wonder that nobody wants to talk to kids about pornography?” Fradd told CNA.

Fr. Kilcawley also said some priests may also feel shame addressing the issue due to their own sexual stories.

“We might be afraid that if we talk about it, people will think that we have a problem with it, and so whether we have a problem or not, we can be afraid of that,” Fr. Kilcawley said.

Reluctance to address the issue publicly could also be because of a priest’s own struggle with pornography. In comments to CNA in October 2015, at the time of the Ordinary Synod on the Family in Rome, Archbishop Charles Chaput said that pornography was a major issue among clergy.

“The number of our Catholic clergy who struggle with this problem is very unsettling, and it has nothing to do with celibacy,” the archbishop said, noting that Protestant ministers and Jewish rabbis contend with the same issue. A 2000 survey by Christianity Today found that clergy and laity reported visiting sexually explicit websites at nearly the same rates.

“Pornography’s always been a problem. Ancient Rome was famous for it. Sex is powerful and fascinating, and people have always abused its appeal. … It’s an epidemic, or more accurately, a pandemic. Anyone with an Internet connection anywhere in the world can find all the (pornography) he or she wants,” Archbishop Chaput noted.

But given the prevalence of pornography and its damaging effects, Olsen said, adults can no longer afford to avoid addressing this issue with the children in their lives.

“For many adults, the inclination is to not discuss it. In their opinion, it's hard, it’s gross, it’s I don’t even want to go there, let’s not focus on it. And although I totally and completely respect their intent and their desires, I have to respectfully come back and say we no longer have the luxury as a society, to sit idly by and watch things continue to progress in a very harmful and societally damaging way.”

Pornography is also important for priests to address with their parishioners in order for them to feel comfortable enough to seek healing, Fr. Kilcawley said.

“It’s just giving people permission to be wounded, which I think is what Pope Francis has been trying to do,” Fr. Kilcawley said. “You have permission to be wounded, and so it’s ok to come and tell your priest that you have this problem in your life. He’s not going to run away from you, he’s not going to scold you, he’s not going to condemn you, he just wants to help you heal.”

“The most shameful sins in our life, we need permission to talk about them,” he said.

Finding solutions

Part of what Fr. Kilcawley does for his anti-pornography ministry is to talk to the parents of his first communicants at a retreat about motherhood and fatherhood within the context of the Church’s teaching on the Theology of the Body. He also spends an hour on internet safety and sex education.

“Pastorally speaking, the best approach is to focus on prevention and focus on relationships within the family, evangelization within the family, and protecting kids from pornography, and the more we talk about it in that way, it’s both bold and less threatening, and then it gives people the freedom to come to the Church to look for healing.”

Once he started talking about the issue of pornography with families, Fr. Kilcawley had so many adults approach him about pornography addiction that he decided to form support groups as well. He now is in charge of a group for men addicted to pornography, as well as a group for women whose husbands are addicted to pornography.

Fr. Kilcawley said he also encourages people who are addicted to abstain from receiving the Eucharist unless they have gone to confession. Even though they may not be in a state of mortal sin due to the compulsive nature of the behavior, not being able to receive the Eucharist unless having gone to confession is an added incentive in the recovery process.

Fradd said talking to kids about pornography in an age-appropriate way is one of the best means to prevent future pornography use and addiction. And the younger parents start, the better, since some researchers estimate the average age of pornography exposure today is 8 years-old.

“I feel like we’re guinea pigs, because parenting in the 8th century and the 13th and the 19th - it was relatively similar compared to parenting in the 21st century,” Fradd said. “The internet really has changed everything.”  

Integrity Restored provides parents with free resources about the best ways to talk to their children about pornography. There’s also a children’s book called “Good Pictures Bad Pictures” by Kristen Jenson (available on Amazon), for broaching the subject with the youngest of audiences in an age appropriate way.

Integrity Restored also provides free resources to priests looking for the best ways to broach the subject with their congregations, and hosts symposiums in dioceses in order to educate priests, catechists and the general public on the issue.

Fradd also founded The Porn Effect, which is the youth outreach branch of Integrity Restored that educates youth and provides resources for them about pornography use and addiction. Another important aspect of prevention is internet filters and accountability systems, for which Fradd said he recommends Covenant Eyes.

Olsen said he thinks the best approach to combat a culture of pornography is three-tiered: prevention in children, research on the subject, and recovery therapy programs. Fight the New Drug has spent several years working with neuroscientists and psychologists to develop the Fortified Program, a free and anonymous online recovery program for youth. It currently has over 35,000 users in over 155 countries, and Olsen said he didn’t even put “a penny into marketing or advertising.”

“So the demand is enormous, there are many that are struggling,” he said. “We get emails from 8-year-olds, 9-year-olds, 10-year-olds.”

That the program is free and anonymous is key, Olsen said, because many of these children seeking help will stop once they see either a credit card or parental consent is required, “both of which are a Mount Everest that they are unwilling or unable to climb,” he said.

“We have created a solution that they can jump into that will help them overcome that, so recovery is a big part of how we will heal society.”

Fradd said that in many ways, the resources that the Church needs in order to better address this issue already exist - they just need to be utilized.

“We’re all kind of playing catch up to honest,” he said. “There are beautiful things happening, we just need to know about them.”

Photo credit: nito via www.shutterstock.com.

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