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Vatican City, Apr 14, 2016 / 02:39 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The world continues to be “hostile to the Gospel,” just as it was four centuries ago when St. John Ogilvie was martyred for his faith in Scotland, but continuing to witness to Christ will change the world, Pope Francis said on Thursday.

This was the message of the Holy Father to seminarians studying at the Pontifical Scots College in Rome, which marks its 400th anniversary this year.

“We too are living in a time of martyrdom, and in the midst of a culture so often hostile to the Gospel,” the Holy Father said during his April 14 audience with the seminarians at the Vatican's Consistory Hall.

“I urge you to have that same selfless spirit as your predecessors did. Love Jesus above all things!”

The Scots College in Rome was founded in 1600 by Clement VIII in the wake of the Scottish Reformation, when teaching the Catholic faith at home was illegal, but was still practiced in secret.

On March 10, 1616, just one year after the Scottish Jesuit priest St. John Ogilvie was martyred for celebrating Mass for the few remaining Catholic families in his country, Paul V gave students the option to take the “Mission Oath” to return to Scotland when they became priests, or to leave the college.

Inspired by St. John Ogilvie’s witness, the first 16 students of the seminary took the oath to return home after ordination to serve as priests in Scotland even if it meant facing martyrdom themselves.

Pope Francis said that “The ‘yes’ proclaimed by the sixteen men four hundred years ago was eloquent not simply for their good intentions, but rather because they persevered, and prepared themselves in every way, returning to Scotland to face the hardships that awaited them, even if it meant becoming martyrs themselves.”

He urged the seminarians studying in Rome to “(l)et your ‘yes’ be marked by a firm resolve to give yourselves generously to your priestly formation, so that your years in Rome may prepare you to return to Scotland and to offer your lives completely.”

By doing so, these young men will not only “honor the history and sacrifices” of their predecessors, but they will also become “a sign to the Scottish people,” especially the youth who seem to be “the furthest from Christ.”

“Show them, each and every one, that God is with us and that his mercy endures forever,” the Roman Pontiff said.

Ahead of the audience, Archbishop Philip Tartaglia of Glasgow said the meeting with Pope Francis would “be a huge encouragement to our young men who are preparing for the priesthood,” adding that he was “very pleased” that Pope Francis marked such an important anniversary for the school with his presence.

“The Martyrdom of the Scottish Jesuit priest, John Ogilvie one year earlier certainly inspired for the decision of the young students at that time resident in Rome,” he said during his opening address to the Holy Father.

He added that “together with my brother Archbishop, Leo Cushley, of St Andrews and Edinburgh, and in the name of the Rector and of the whole community of the Pontifical Scots College, I would like to thank your Holiness for receiving us today in this special audience.”

Fr. Daniel Fitzpatrick, vice-rector of the seminary, called the meeting “a great honor for the whole college.”

“Moments like these remind the seminarians of the great tradition they are now a part of,” he said.

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Abuja, Nigeria, Apr 14, 2016 / 04:05 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Two years ago, radical Islamists with the militant group Boko Haram stormed a school in Chibok, Nigeria, kidnapping 276 teen girls. The event initially sparked global outrage, with high-profile personalities taking pictures on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag, #BringBackOurGirls.

The press coverage and social media campaigns eventually died down. But today, two years later, 219 of the girls are still missing.

And experts say that finding the girls, at this point, will require a much broader international effort, aimed at regional stability and combatting military corruption.

“Many are still suffering under their reign of terror, including the abducted schoolgirls of Chibok. The Nigerian government has failed to address the situation accordingly,” said Ewelina Ochab, legal counsel for ADF International.

“In order to try to free the kidnapped schoolgirls and prevent similar crimes in the future, the international community has to be involved in stabilizing the region,” he told CNA. “One country alone cannot solve the problem. It needs a joint global effort.”

The Nigerian government has drawn criticism for its failure to rescue the kidnapped girls. While 57 have escaped capture, the majority of the girls – who were largely ages 16 to 18 at the time of their kidnapping – remain missing.

In addition to the work of Nigeria, Ochab said that international bodies such as the U.N. Security Council will also need to be involved in the effort if it is to succeed.

“And although the International Criminal Court can go after the terrorist leaders on an international level and make sure that the perpetrators are tried and convicted for their crimes, it will take troops on the ground to fight Boko Haram and liberate their captives,” he said.

Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group whose name means “Western education is sinful,” claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

Based in northeastern Nigeria and also active in Chad, Niger and northern Cameroon, Boko Haram launched an uprising in 2009 hoping to impose strict sharia law on Nigeria. It has been responsible for numerous attacks and thousands of deaths, targeting security forces, politicians, Christian minorities, and moderate Muslims in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north. Last March, the group pledged allegiance to ISIS.

Shortly after the kidnapping, Boko Haram released a video of the girls and demanded a prisoner exchange for the release of 16 of its detainees held by the government. Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, appeared in the video, claiming that the girls had converted to Islam. He also threatened to force them into marriage and slavery.

Last July, another video was released by Boko Haram with the same request. However, all negotiations with the Nigerian government have failed.

As the situation in Nigeria remains dangerous, Ochab warned that Boko Haram is still “as powerful as ever.”
 
“Thousands of Christians have been killed over the last few years,” he said. “More than a million people have fled the shocking violence and have become refugees in their own country. As a result, 13,000 churches have been closed or destroyed altogether.”

On Wednesday, ADF International filed a report with the International Criminal Court, urging it to start prosecuting members of Boko Haram who have been persecuting Christians in Nigeria. The International Criminal Court has been investigating the situation since 2010.

“Open Doors estimated that 11,500 Christians were killed in the region between 2006 and 2014,” the report states. “It was assessed that over half a million Christians in Northern Nigeria were displaced because of targeting by the respective Islamic extremist groups.”

But Katrina Lantos Swett, president of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, told CNA that Boko Haram is not only targeting Christians.

“At USCIRF, we are careful to point out that moderate Muslims and Muslims who favor education, like so many Christians, are also being attacked,” she said. “Muslims and Christians who support tolerance and coexistence within Nigeria have equally been subject to the brutality of Boko Haram.”

In 2012, the Pew Research Center reported that 49.3 percent of Nigeria's population was Christian, 48.8 percent was Muslim, and 1.9 percent followed other indigenous religions or were unaffiliated.

Swett said that the unique demographics of Nigeria make it prime for fostering tolerance.

“The government has to start supporting policies that robustly protect religious freedom for all its citizens. Nigeria is one of the few countries where you have almost equal numbers of Muslims and Christians,” she explained.  

“In most places in the world, one group or another dominates and the other is in clear minority status. That is not the case in Nigeria,” Swett said. “If Nigeria could get its act together, it could be a real example for the rest of the world in how a country can build a society of tolerance and mutual respect.”

She added that Nigeria cannot effectively respond to the threat of Boko Haram “as long as it continues to be plagued by endemic corruption.”

“When the Nigerian military engages in brutality against targeted segments of the population, it loses the moral high ground,” she said. “The government must reign in abuses by the military and enforce a robust rule of law so that this climate of impunity is addressed. This is an important step to push back against the voices of extremism.”

According to a report by Amnesty International Report June 2015, the Nigerian military has committed many human rights violations, including executing more than 1,200 people and arbitrarily arresting at least 20,000 people. Hundreds of civilians are also believed to be missing because of military action.

Swett encouraged the United States to help Nigeria in combating the terrorist group, but also said the nation must be held accountable.  

“We need to support the government of Nigeria in terms of resources and guidance in their efforts to take on Boko Haram,” she said. “But we also have to use all diplomatic levers at our disposal and lean on the government when it abuses its power.”

On Wednesday, CNN released a video showing 15 of the girls still alive. The girls wore black robes and identified themselves. “We are well,” one of the victims said. The video was reportedly filmed last December.

“As a mother of four daughters, it is heartbreaking to see so many women and girls become victims in of this evil terrorist organization,” Swett reflected. “As then-First Lady Hilary Clinton said many years ago at a women’s conference, ‘women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights.’”

Swett called for further action to rescue the kidnapped girls and to protect the rights of all women.

“We cannot consider our work done on behalf of human rights until in every part of the world, in every culture, religion and faith, women’s rights are protected and they are respected and treated as equal members of every community,” she said.

 

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IMAGE: CNS photo/courtesy of NASA

By Dennis Sadowski

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A wave of courses connecting branches of science with Catholic teaching is emerging in seminaries across the country.

The goal is to raise "the scientific literacy of clergy," said Doris Donnelly, retired professor of religion at John Carroll University in suburban Cleveland, who is administering a three-year, $1.5 million grant funding the Science and Faith in Seminary Formation program for the school.

The courses are not just limited to clergy, but also have seminarians, lay ministers and anyone interested in the intersection of Catholicism and the sciences in mind, Donnelly told Catholic News Service.

In all, staff at 15 seminaries received grants of $10,000 each in the program's first year. Faculty and administrative staff are introducing courses that address topics as diverse as human genetics and biotechnology, Christian anthropology, Darwin's theory of evolution, marriage and human sexuality, and brain science as it relates to Catholic ritual and mysticism. Except in one case, the courses will roll out in the 2016-2017 academic year.

For some instructors, the emphasis on science and religion is a key component of the new evangelization. Others see science education as crucial in a world where science is usually portrayed as contradicting faith.

Most importantly, however, instructors said, the courses can help students find new ways of understanding God and share that understanding with people in the pews trying to make sense of the information they are bombarded with daily.

"We want to be able to integrate science and religion so people in the pews don't have to check their critical mind at the church door," said Dominican Sister Linda Gibler, associate academic dean at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, a grant recipient.

Edward Kaczuk, professor of liturgical-sacramental theology at St. Mary Seminary & Graduate School of Theology in the Diocese of Cleveland, sees a close intersection between science and religion.

"Both theology and science are in search of the truth and in that sense both can inform each other. Scientists and theologians are seekers and there are things we can offer each other in both disciplines," said Kaczuk, who has developed a course with Father Michael G. Woost, another liturgical-sacramental theology faculty member, with the help of a grant.

The intersection of faith and science enticed Donnelly to pursue the grant and distribute funds to encourage science education at seminaries nationwide. The funding allows faculty to arrange for guest speakers to appear in classes and present public lectures as well.

"The legacy of the Catholic Church is a legacy of appreciating the advances of science and the relationship between scientists and theologians in pursing the truth," Donnelly said. "There is one truth, two different ways to get at the truth.

"The legacy was sort of fractured, or as some people say, divorced, at the time of the Enlightenment (in the 17th and 18th centuries) when science was ranked as superior. However, with our recent popes and recent church documents ... there's been a resuscitation of this," she said.

At the Oblate school, Sister Linda will teach "Catholicism in an Evolving World" with R. Scott Woodward, vice president for academic affairs. The course will examine Catholic theology and spirituality, which emerged long before recent understanding of cosmology or the idea of evolution developed, and the change in thinking required in moving from a static world to one that is continuously emerging.

The Bible, she explained, tells of Adam being made from the dust of Earth. Astronomical discoveries indicate that Earth is made of material blown off of novae, stars exploding at the end of their life cycle, which makes humans made of "the stuff of stars," Sister Linda said.

Such an understanding can help people respect God's creation as they begin to identify and connect the suffering of Earth, personal suffering and the suffering Jesus, she added.

While most of the courses will begin this fall, Father Joseph R. Laracy at Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, is nearing the completion of his course, "Creation and Science." He will offer it again this fall.

The systematic theology course was developed to deepen students' relationship between Catholic theology in creation and contemporary empirical science, explained the priest, who holds a master's degree in engineering systems from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and once worked at Ball Aerospace & Technologies on NASA's Deep Impact mission to a comet.

"It's important for the new evangelization. A lot of people, particularly in the U.S. and Europe, are presented at a very young age with the false conflict that Christian faith and modern science are incompatible. Whether it's future priests (or) lay ministers in church, we need to equip people to confront that lie," Father Laracy said.

The course developed by Dominican Father Christopher J. Renz, academic dean at the Dominican School of School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California, is designed to help seminarians make connections between Catholic worship and contemporary science. His course can be traced to his natural inquisitiveness.

"I've spent 10 years reflecting on Catholic worship as a priest. As a scientist I've always been interested in why. I always like to say when I got a toy as a child the way to play with it was to take it apart and figure out how it worked," he said.

"As a priest, that's what I've been doing from a scientific perspective. Not what are we doing but why are we doing it," explained Father Renz, who holds a doctorate in microbiology-immunology from Northwestern University.

Faculty at Cleveland's two seminaries, St. Mary, which is the graduate school, and Borromeo Seminary, the undergraduate school, each received a grant.

Beth Rath, assistant professor of philosophy at Borromeo, told CNS she hopes to "relieve the false dilemmas" between science and religion in her course.

"The new evangelization is for priests and for laypeople involved in the parishes to become scientifically literate so they can reach out to those people in the pews," she said.

Rath plans to address topics related to neuroscience and biology as well as issues that might arise in the news.

Kaczuk and Father Woost, are preparing to explore the emerging field of neurotheology -- also known as spiritual neuroscience -- and how the brain may be hardwired for spirituality in their course. Father Woost, who has led retreats on the Christian mystical tradition and researched the topic, said the course should give students insight into how people experience religion and grace.

"A number of people are studying this who are supportive that God and human beings interact and the brain is the primary locus for this interaction," Father Woost explained.

Father Mark A. Latcovich, president-rector of the Cleveland seminaries, said the courses will help present the Gospel to a world that "values science more than anything else."

"With everything being said today from the church's perspective about the new evangelization or even Pope Francis in the "Joy of the Gospel," we really have to learn to talk with the culture and embrace it and be able to transform it," he told CNS.

Donnelly said last year's request for proposals drew interest from 41 seminaries. A second round of funding, for courses during the 2017-2018 academic year, was announced in March. Donnelly said the program plans to fund another 15 seminary courses. Some funding is available for courses that will be taught again.

Pre-proposals are due May 3. From those submitted, a committee will invite finalists to submit full proposals by Aug. 22. Awards will be announced Sept. 20.

Another component of the grant provides seeks to encourage writing on science and faith. In the first year, four seminarians and three seminary faculty received cash awards for their writing.

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Editor's Note: Information on the grant program is available at http://sites.jcu.edu/semscience.

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Follow Sadowski on Twitter: @DennisSadowski.

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