Catholic News 2

(Vatican Radio) At his daily Mass on Thursday, Pope Francis said it is “the saints of ordinary life, and the martyrs of today that carry the Church forward.” They do so, he said, “with their consistent and courageous witness to the Risen Christ, thanks to the working of the Holy Spirit.”

The Christian “puts his life on the line” by giving a true witness

The first Reading taken from the Acts of Acts of the Apostles, speaks of the courage of Peter, who, after the healing of the crippled man, preached the Gospel before the leaders of the Sanhedrin. Enraged at his boldness, they wanted to put Peter to death. They had already forbidden the Apostles to preach in the Name of Jesus, but Peter continued to proclaim the Gospel – because, as he said, “We must obey God rather than men.” This “courageous” Peter, the Pope said, has nothing in common with “Peter the coward” who denied Christ three times on the night of Holy Thursday. Now Peter is strong in his testimony. Christian witness, Pope Francis continued, follows the path of Jesus, even to the point of giving one’s life. In one way or another, he said, the Christian “puts his life on the line” by giving true witness:

“Consistency between our life and what we have seen and heard is indeed the beginning of witness. But there’s something else to Christian witness; it’s not just giving it. Christian witness always has two parts: ‘We are witnesses of these things, as is the Holy Spirit.’ Without the Holy Spirit, there is no Christian witness – because Christian witness, the Christian life, is a grace, it is a grace that the Lord gives us with the Holy Spirit.”

The martyrs of today

Without the Holy Spirit, Pope Francis continued, “we cannot be witnesses.” The true witness is the person who is consistent “in what he says, what he does, and what he has received,” namely the Holy Spirit. “This is Christian courage, this is the witness”:

“It is the witness of our martyrs of today – so many! – chased out of their homeland, driven away, having their throats cut, persecuted: they have the courage to confess Jesus even to the point of death. It is the witness of those Christians who live their life seriously, and who say: ‘I can’t do this; I cannot do evil to another; I cannot cheat; I cannot lead life halfway, I have to give my witness.’ And the witness consists in saying what has been seen and heard in faith, namely, the Risen Jesus, with the Holy Spirit that has been received as a gift.”

Everyday saints

In difficult moments in history, Pope Francis said, we hear it said that “our country needs heroes – and this is true, this is right.” But, he asked, “what does the Church need today? It needs witnesses, martyrs”:

“These are the witnesses, that is, the saints, the saints of everyday, of ordinary life, but life [lived with] consistency; and also the witness ‘to the end,’ even to death. These are the life blood of the Church; these are the ones that carry the Church forward, the witnesses, who attest that Jesus is Risen, that Jesus is alive, and they bear witness through the consistency of their life, with the Holy Spirit they have received as a gift.”

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(Vatican Radio) The national vocations commission in Scotland has launched a new novena as the Church prepares for Good Shepherd Sunday.

Priests for Scotland in association with the Pontifical Scots College in Rome have asked Catholics throughout the country to join with the bishops, clergy and seminarians as they pray for an increase in vocations to the priesthood in all dioceses of Scotland.

Vatican Radio’s Ryan Black spoke with the President of Priests for Scotland, Bishop John Keenan.

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The President of the commission, Bishop John Keenan of the Diocese of Paisley, explained that Good Shepherd Sunday provides all members of the Church with an opportunity to reflect on the gift and the mystery of the priesthood.

The commission has decided to retrieve the medieval tradition of praying a novena, in which the faithful are asked to pray a specific series of prayers over nine consecutive days. The commission has written particular prayers for each of the nine days, related to the eight Sees and to the prayer for vocations in general around Scotland.

To promote the campaign, the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland has asked the community of the Pontifical Scots College in Rome to publicize the prayers. Each day, a video of a seminarian or member of staff from each diocese reading the prayers will be posted on the College Facebook page.

Bishop Keenan believes that it is important to reflect on the gift of the priesthood. He believes that people are seeking the fatherly guidance of priests, who will guide and shepherd them to “the green pastures of the sacraments.”

The Church in Scotland has been rocked by scandal in recent years. This has had an impact on vocations and the participation of the lay faithful in the liturgy. Bishop Keenan believes that the situation is changing. “There have been dark days in the Church; the scandals are well-rehearsed, but there is a sense that this chapter is closing. There is a rebirth in a love for the Church in young people, which expresses itself in a desire for vocations. There is a desire to live their lives not on the basis of careers, but on vocations, not just to marriage and family life, but also to religious life and the priesthood.”

To provide focus for the prayers, the commission has focused on the word, ‘shepherds’. It believes that every letter of the word provides an insight into the nature of the priesthood. The faithful will be asked to reflect on the fact that their shepherds are called to Serve, Heal, Evangelize, Pray, Hope, Educate, Reconcile, Dedicate themselves, and Search.

The faithful are asked to enter into the novena, which is called ‘Following the Shepherd’, on Saturday 9th April. They should then continue with the series of prayers for nine days, ending on Good Shepherd Sunday.

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(Vatican Radio) A rare copy of a first edition of William Shakespeare's collected plays has been found at a stately home on the Isle of Bute in Scotland. Experts consider the First Folio, as such editions are known, the definitive text for 36 plays written by the playwright.

They include "Macbeth" and "Twelfth Night".

The nearly 400-year-old edition found at Mount Stuart was authenticated by Emma Smith, professor of Shakespeare Studies at Oxford University.

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Speaking to Lydia O’Kane, she gave her reaction to this rare find saying, “These are amazing charismatic books, I’ve seen quite a number of them, but to see one we didn’t know we had and to be involved in authenticating it was a real thrill.”

She also said that without this folio half of Shakespeare’s work would have been lost.

“We wouldn’t have Macbeth, or The Tempest, or Antony and Cleopatra or Twelfth Night; lots of plays would have been lost and in fact the majority of plays by all writers not just Shakespeare from this period haven’t survived because they were never printed.”

The discovery is especially significant as this year marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death on 23rd April 1616.

The three leather-bound volumes, bring the total of known surviving copies in the world to 234.

According to the British Library, they were arranged and first published in 1623, seven years after the playwright’s death.

The folio will be on display for the first time at the Mount Stuart stately home in Scotland from Thursday 7th April as part of an exhibition that will run until 30th October.

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis will travel to the Greek island of Lesbos on Saturday, April 16.

A communiqué from the Vatican Press Office has confirmed next week’s papal visit which aims to show support and solidarity for refugees in the front line of Europe’s migrant crisis.

The press release says the Pope has accepted the invitations of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His Holiness Bartholomew, and of the Greek President.

It says Pope Francis will meet with the refugees on the island together with the Ecumenical Patriarch and with His Holiness Jerome II, Archbishop of Athens and all Greece. 
 
Hundreds of thousands of refugees, many fleeing the war in Syria, have poured onto the Aegean island over the past year.
This is a particularly delicate moment for them as, under a contested plan, the European Union started returning newcomers to neighbouring Turkey this month.

Pope Francis has repeatedly appealed for support for migrants and refugees.

His first journey, after having been elected Pope in 2013, was to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, which, like Lesbos, has received hundreds of thousands of migrants.

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis received the Republic of Croatia’s head of government, Prime Minister Tihomir Oreškovic, on Thursday morning at the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The Prime Minister subsequently met with the Secretary of State of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin,  who was accompanied by Msgr. Antoine Camilleri, Under-Secretary for Relations with States.

A communiqué from the Press Office of the Holy See informs that the Pope and the Prime Minister held cordial talks, in which they remarked the good relations existing between the Holy See and the Republic of Croatia, of which the Thursday visit was “a significant expression”. They confirmed their shared desire to continue constructive dialogue on bilateral issues arising in relations between the ecclesial and civil community, and focused on the prominent place the Croat faithful assigned to the figure of Blessed Aloysius Stepinac (the great Archbishop of Zagreb from 1937 until 1960, who was martyred under Communism in the country and beatified by Pope St. John Paul II in 1998), as well as the situation of the Croatian minority in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Communiqué also says Pope Francis and Prime Minister Oreškovic  touched in their conversation upon a broad range of international and regional issues: concern was expressed, in particular, for the humanitarian crisis of refugees from the Middle East, for the conflicts that affect different regions of the world, and for attempts to weaken base of civil society (Croatia held a nationwide referendum in which participating citizens voted overwhelmingly in favor of a constitutional amendment enshrining the traditional understanding of marriage in the nation’s fundamental law).

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(Vatican Radio) An international Catholic-Jewish conference focusing on issues related to refugees has just wrapped up in Warsaw, Poland.

The agenda of the meeting focused on the theme “The ‘Other’ in Jewish and Catholic Tradition: Refugees in Today’s World.” 

It aimed to provide a religious and academic basis for discussions and in-depth analyses of how both the Jewish and Roman Catholic traditions and sources view “the other.” 

Speaking during the event, Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference pointed out that the biblical approach to exile is more flexible than contemporary law.

He said exile is a matter much more serious than leaving one's country in search of a better life: "It is linked not just to leaving one's homeland but also leaving it in connection with threats to one's life, health or freedom."

Participants reflected on the fact that anti-Semitism, in both speech and action, has resurfaced in Europe and elsewhere, and persecution of Christians, most notably in much of the Middle East and parts of Africa, has reached levels not seen in a long time.  

At the conclusion of the 4-day event a joint declaration was released.

Please find below the full text of that declaration:
 
THE 23rd INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC-JEWISH
LIAISON COMMITTEE MEETING
Warsaw, April 4-7, 2016

JOINT DECLARATION

The 23rd meeting of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee (ILC) took place in Warsaw, 4-7 April 2016.  The ILC is the entity, created in 1971, formalizing the establishment of the official relationship between the Holy See and the worldwide Jewish community.  The ILC is the official forum for ongoing dialogue between the Holy See´s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC). Jewish and Catholic representatives from five continents attended the gathering. Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, and Mr. Martin Budd, Esq., Chair of IJCIC, co-chaired the meeting.
This meeting was convened at an important time in history.  The ILC emerged directly out of the Second Vatican Council and its profound transformative document, Nostra Aetate, the 50th anniversary of which has been celebrated and commemorated throughout the world.  At the same time, there are challenges to interreligious and intercultural relations being felt by many millions in the world, not excepting Roman Catholics and Jews in many lands.  

Poland was an appropriate setting for this meeting.  It has been a venue for some of the most important and productive developments in both Catholic and Jewish culture and self-understanding, and also, in the 20th century, the scene of some of the most abhorrent events in world history.  The ILC participants and the institutions they represent are fully cognizant of the dynamic tension that these two extremes represent and the noble challenge involved in developing contemporary understandings built on the lessons of the past.  The participants are no less aware of how contemporary political dynamics have a direct impact on the human and social weal of both Catholics and Jews in Poland and elsewhere in the world.

The meeting opened with a public event attended by leaders of both communities, civic and government leaders from Warsaw and Poland, and representatives of the Vatican, the Polish Church, and the State of Israel.

The co-chairs of this ILC meeting, Cardinal Kurt Koch and Mr. Martin Budd, each gave a presentation establishing both the historic context and the emerging challenges.  Cardinal Koch stressed that over the years one of the welcome products of these meetings has been the development of real friendships between the participants and a genuine sense of partnership between the communities they represent. Mr. Budd underscored the symbolic significance of meeting in this place, Warsaw, with its freighted history, and at this time, in the aftermath of the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate and in this moment of moral challenge for people of faith.  The evening culminated with a presentation by the Ambassador of Israel to Poland. On behalf of Yad Vashem, three Polish Catholics were posthumously recognized by the ambassador as “Righteous Among the Nations” for saving Jewish lives during the Shoah, embodying the noblest realization of Catholic-Jewish relations.

The agenda of the biennial dialogue had as its theme “The ‘Other’ in Jewish and Catholic Tradition: Refugees in Today’s World.” To provide a religious and academic basis for subsequent discussions, the sessions began with in-depth analyses of how both the Jewish and Roman Catholic traditions and sources view “the other.”    In keeping with the scholarly nature of these presentations, each speaker acknowledged the internal dialectic tension of the particular vs. the universal in each tradition, and emphasized the importance and moral integrity of accepting“the other” as an essential component of each tradition’s self-understanding. The presentations and the discussion that followed pointed out that our respective Scriptures provide us with a framework for addressing pressing social issues such as the refugee crisis of today. Responding to religious imperatives of Christians and Jews, the conference assessed the current refugee crisis overwhelming much of Europe, recognize the tensions between the obligations of love of strangers and the dignity of their creation in God’s image, with concerns for security and fear of change.

Although the last 50 years have largely seen unprecedented openness between our two communities in many places, not least on the international level, the last few years have witnessed a surge of problematic developments impacting both.  After addressing how our respective traditions encourage us to help the other, we focused on how our two communities now find themselves in the position of being “other.” Anti-Semitism in both speech and action has resurfaced in Europe and elsewhere, and persecution of Christians, most notably in much of the Middle East and parts of Africa, has reached levels not seen in a long time.  

Participants emphasized that antisemitism is real and takes many forms. It is a danger not only to Jews but also to democratic ideals. Improved and revitalized educational programs are necessary to combat it.

The participants noted that the persecution of Christians has increased every year between 2012 and 2015. They recognized the obligation to raise the consciousness across the world regarding this problem and acknowledged the moral responsibility to be a voice for the voiceless.

In recognition of the indisputable historic significance of the Shoah, the participants visited the Treblinka death camp.  In a commemorative memorial, the leaders affirmed their commitment never to allow the tragedy to be forgotten, nor to allow the world ever again to permit such negation of the humanity or dignity of any human being, no matter his or her race, religion, or ethnicity.

Their visits to a Catholic social service agency and to the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews underscored the critical role of Jewish and Catholic communities in contemporary Polish life. The meeting celebrated the Polish experience of transition from Communism, with its repressions, to the freedom of study and expression of religious faith in a new society.

In keeping with the significance of the ILC since its inception 45 years ago, the representatives reiterated their continuing commitment to open and constructive dialogue as a model for interreligious and intercultural understanding in the world, most especially with religious leaders of the Muslim community. They also reiterated the commitment to collaborate in addressing the emerging needs of their communities wherever they may be, and to convey their transcendent messages to a world so much in need of authentic and caring affirmation represented by their two religious traditions.

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Canberra, Australia, Apr 7, 2016 / 03:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Exposure to pornography harms children to such an extent it should be considered child abuse, Australia’s Catholic bishops said in a recent call for action.

“Children have a right to be children, away from the pressures applied by advertising and other images on television and the internet for them to dress and act as mini-adults. Bombarding children with sexualized images can hurt their normal development,” a commission of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference said in a statement to the Australian Senate committee last month.

The committee was making an inquiry into the harm of internet pornography.

Australia’s Catholic bishops said there is an obligation to protect families from pornography. They said that pornography has become mainstream and is now “the wallpaper of young people’s lives.” They lamented sexualized images in advertising, music videos and computer games.

“Allowing children to be exposed to pornography is a form of abuse,” the bishops said. “The Church has its own shameful history of child abuse and, particularly because of that terrible experience for victims, does not want to see other forms of abuse of children such as the harms from the increased availability of pornography.”

They cited a link between children’s exposure to pornography and their likelihood of becoming victims of sexual violence.

Many children are first exposed to pornography before the age of 13, according to the studies the bishops cited.

Children exposed to pornography are more likely to agree with sexual relations before marriage, more likely to have sexual relations before their peers, and more likely to adopt risky sexual behavior. They are more likely to regard women as sex objects and to molest other children.
 
“There is compelling evidence of the need for the Australian community to act to save children from this harm, but also to save the broader community from the harms of adults damaged in their childhood,” the bishops said.

They also noted the Christian case against pornography, citing Jesus Christ’s words from Matthew 5: “everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

The bishops said pornography “harms the fabric of our community” and makes it more difficult for men and women to relate to each other in a mutually respectful and loving way. Pornography “objectifies people as less than real persons and offers a distorted view of relationships.”
 
Where parents can’t or won’t act to protect children, the community has a duty to do so, they said.

The bishops suggested an internet filtering system, with an opt-out for adults, possibly inspired by the model in the U.K. They advocated research on parental awareness of pornography’s dangers for children and a public education program for parents on how to prevent pornography exposure.

The bishops’ statement to Parliament was prepared by the Bishops Commission for Family, Youth and Life. The commission’s acting chair, Bishop Peter Comensoli of Broken Bay, signed the statement.


Photo credit: Dubova via www.shutterstock.com.

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