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Rome, Italy, Mar 6, 2016 / 11:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After a recent attack at a Missionaries of Charity convent in Yemen claimed the lives of four of the sisters there, the bishop overseeing the area said he has no doubt they died as martyrs.

“For me there is no doubt that the sisters have been victims of hatred – hatred against our faith,” Bishop Paul Hinder told CNA March 6.

“The Missionaries of Charity died as martyrs: as martyrs of charity, as martyrs because they witnessed Christ and shared the lot of Jesus on the Cross,” he said, pointing to one of the prayers they recited daily.

The short prayer asks that “Lord, teach me to be generous. Teach me to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to ask for reward.”

Recited after their morning Mass and before breakfast, the prayer is one of the last that the sisters would have prayed before being killed.

Although he doesn't like to speak of reasons “for an unreasonable act,” Bishop Hinder would be difficult not to see that the event was motivated by “a misled religious mind.”

The bishop, who serves as apostolic vicar of the Arabian Peninsula, said that he believes the sisters were a target because certain radical groups in the country “simply do not support the presence of Christians who serve the poorest of the poor.”

While so far no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, it is believed that carried out by members of either Al-Qaeda or ISIS.

He said the attitude obviously goes against the mainstream thought of the Yemen people, the majority of whom appreciate the presence of the Missionaries of Charity as well as their “dedicated service” to the poor.

The bishop reiterated that “there is no reason for such an act unless people, who deliberately or not knowingly, are the devil's agents.”

Bishop Hinder’s comments follow a March 4 attack at a Missionaries of Charity convent and nursing home for the elderly and disabled persons in Aden, the provisional capital of Yemen, which left 16 dead.

Four of the victims were sisters of the Missionaries of Charity, the community founded by Blessed Mother Teresa. They have been identified by the Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia as Sr. Anselm from India, Sr. Margherite from Rwanda, Sr. Reginette from Rwanda, and Sr. Judith from Kenya.

Other victims of the attack included volunteers at the home, at least five of whom were Ethiopian. Many were Yemenis. The nursing home had around 80 residents, who were unharmed.

The Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia said the Missionaries of Charity have been present in Yemen since 1973 after the then Government of North Yemen formally invited them to care for the sick and elderly. The home in Aden has been open since 1992.

The attack comes as Yemen is embroiled in a civil war that killed more than 6,000 people, according to the United Nations.

In March 2015 Houthi rebels, who are Shia Muslims, took over portions of Yemen seeking to oust its Sunni-led government.

Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen's north, has led a coalition backing the government. Both Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have set up strongholds in the country amid the power vacuum.

Bishop Hinder said the attack on the Missionaries of Charity convent is proof that the war rages on, despite all attempts for negotiation.

“There are groups, especially in Aden region, who are not under control of the regular government and try to destabilize the country and to terrorize the people,” he said, noting that the few remaining Catholics will soon “have no other choice than to remain as discreet as possible” and try to wait for peace to be reinstalled.

The bishop said that currently its “impossible” to give an exact number of the Catholics left in Yemen because the war makes it difficult to obtain reliable statistics.

Many of the Catholics who haven’t left the country could be working in hospitals, but are unable able to reach their places of worship, which at present “are working only in a reduced way,” he said.

He blamed this on “the nationwide insecurity,” adding that before the war, he the estimated number of Catholics that he sent to Rome was 4,000 in all of Yemen.

However, Bishop Hinder said that he is sure “that in the meantime the number has essentially dropped.”

Although the effects won’t be seen immediately, the bishop said that both the sisters’ sacrifice as well as our prayers “will work.”

“As Christians we believe that Golgotha is not the end, but the Risen Lord who will have the final word at the last judgment.”

The bishop also said that he currently has no information on the whereabouts of Fr. Tom Uzhunnalil, a Salesian priest from India who had been staying with the sisters since his church was attacked and burned last September, and who has been missing since the Aden attack.

Fr. Uzhunnalil belongs to the Province of the Salesians of Bangalore and has been a missionary in Yemen since 2012, first in Taiz, and later in Aden at a church dedicated to St. Francis.

The Salesians have been present in Yemen for 29 years and are the only Catholic ministers in the country. Fr. Uzhunnalil was the only one left in Aden, and so collaborated closely with the Missionaries of Charity, who are the only religious congregation in the city.

Although the whereabouts of Fr. Uzhunnalil are still unclear, the Secretary of the Province of Bangalore, Fr. Valarkote Matthew, said in a March 6 communique that it seems as if Fr. Uzhunnalil “was taken away.”

However, he stressed that “this still needs to be confirmed. We are trying to ascertain the facts from different sources, but we only know for sure that around half past 8:30 in the morning several members of Al-Qaeda or Daesh (ISIS) broke into the convent.”

In the communique, it was noted that the vicar of the Major Rector of the Salesians, Fr. Francesco Cereda, is in constant contact with local authorities.

“The situation is still uncertain and we are unable to provide more specific details on what might have happened to our brother and where he is right now,” he said, but assured that the “profound and heartfelt prayer” of the community is being offered.

Fr. Cereda expressed his hope that Fr. Uzhunnalil “can be among us quickly and continue the precious service he held at his mission; our remembrance is for the four missionaries of charity.”

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Baltimore, Md., Mar 7, 2016 / 03:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The latest push to legalize assisted suicide for the terminally ill has failed in Maryland, but opponents are well aware that this isn't the end of the fight.

When it was clear that it didn't have enough support to pass, the sponsor of the End-of-Life Option Act, Sen. Robert Young (D-Frederick), pulled the bill March 3 ahead of the Senate Judiciary Proceedings Committee.

“It is a relief that this very dangerous legislation is not moving forward,” Executive Director of Maryland Catholic Conference, Mary Ellen Russell said in a statement provided to CNA.

However, she added, “I think it's important to remain vigilant and to know the proponents of this bill here in Maryland and around the country are very aggressive in pushing regardless of how much opposition there is against the bill.”

The Denver, Colorado-based assisted suicide advocacy group, Compassion & Choices, said that it will continue to push for the passage in Maryland and other states.

For her part, Russell is hopeful that “the very strong coalition of opponents” against the bill “will become engaged and involved.”

She and other opponents of the bill said that legalizing assisted-suicide would have a negative impact on vulnerable patients, “in multiple ways that can’t be fixed by amending the bill.”

In their pastoral letter “Comfort and Consolation: Care for the Sick and Dying” the Maryland Catholic bishops urged respect for the dignity of each person, regardless of the state of their health.

Even if a person is terminally ill and suffering greatly, “euthanasia is always an attack on human life and a false compassion that is unable to see the abiding dignity of the human person in all conditions and circumstances.”

The Maryland bill would have allowed terminally ill patients who have been deemed mentally sound to obtain a lethal prescription drug from a physician. Similar legislation passed in California in 2015 after the highly publicized case of a terminally ill woman, Brittany Maynard, moved to Oregon to legally obtain life-ending drugs. Assisted suicide has also been legalized in Washington, Vermont, and Montana.

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Washington D.C., Mar 8, 2016 / 03:36 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Georgetown University is facing strong criticism from Catholic leaders for defending a student group's invite of Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards to speak at the school.

“The Jesuit community on campus clearly has its work cut out for it and a long way to go as it tries to instill at Georgetown some of the values of Pope Francis,” the Archdiocese of Washington said in a statement Monday.

In its withering critique, the archdiocese lamented the “unawareness of those pushing the violence of abortion” and said that the invite “lends credence to the perception of the 'ivory tower'” at the university.

“This unfortunately does not speak well for the future,” the statement read. “One would hope to see this generation of Georgetown graduates have a far less self-absorbed attitude when facing neighbors and those in need, especially the most vulnerable among us.”

Georgetown University is the country's oldest Catholic university. The university’s Lecture Fund, the “non-partisan student-run” group sponsoring Richards, has confirmed that they will host her to speak in April though they did not announce the topic of the speech.

The group stated on its website that they “bring speakers to Georgetown's campus to enlighten, educate and, occasionally, entertain,” and that they “extend invitations to any and all speakers.” The speech will only be open to those with a university ID and will feature a 30-minute question and answer session with Richards, the Cardinal Newman Society reported.  

In a March 3 statement, the university defended the group’s right to invite the abortion advocate, though it said the invitation does not represent an endorsement on behalf of Georgetown.

“We respect our students’ right to express their personal views and are committed to sustaining a forum for the free exchange of ideas, even when those ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable to some,” the statement said.

“Ms. Richards is not being paid to speak. Student groups may invite any outside speakers and guests to campus. An appearance of any speaker or guest on campus is not an endorsement by the university.”  

Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider, performing over 300,000 abortions annually. All affiliates across the country are required to offer abortions. The affiliates receive over $500 million in federal, state, and local taxpayer dollars yearly.

Calls to strip the organization of its taxpayer funding surged nationally after the release of undercover videos from the advocacy group Center for Medical Progress showed Planned Parenthood employees callously discussing reimbursement for fetal parts of aborted babies offered to tissue harvesters.

Subsequent public outcry prompted Congress to launch a special investigation of Planned Parenthood. Several states have since voted to strip the business of taxpayer funding, and Planned Parenthood has stopped accepting reimbursement for fetal parts used in medical research.  

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has denounced Planned Parenthood on numerous occasions, saying the organization performs almost 17 times as many abortions as birth services.

If there's a crisis in the Catholic Church today, it’s the disjuncture between the imperative to live and teach the Gospel and the obsession to be fair and broad minded on moral and critical life issues.

Richards has been the head of Planned Parenthood Federation of America since 2006, and said in 2009 that the U.S. Bishops’ efforts to remove abortion services from universal health care “would make American women second-class citizens and deny them access to benefits they currently have.”

The Archdiocese of Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., and Cardinal Wilfred Napier of Durban, South Africa have all either explicitly or implicitly spoken against the invite of Richards as hosting a speaker who contradicts the teaching of the Church.

“If there's a crisis in the Catholic Church today, it’s the disjuncture between the imperative to live and teach the Gospel and the obsession to be fair and broad minded on moral and critical life issues. Georgetown’s hosting Cecile Richards is an obvious case!” Cardinal Napier tweeted in response to the invite.

Persecuted Christians in the Middle East are standing by their faith as part of their very identity, Cardinal Wuerl observed in a Mar. 8 blog post, and Catholic institutions must likewise “offer this testimony of their Catholic identity.”

“A Catholic university brings to the discussion a vision rooted in the Gospel that necessarily challenges other ways of life,” he wrote.

However, he added, quoting from his 2015 pastoral letter “Being Catholic Today,” that the world as a whole “benefits” when a Catholic university maintains its faithfulness to Church teaching “because the richness of Catholic teaching can engage the secular culture in a way that the light of the wisdom of God is brought to bear on the issues of the day.”

Abortion is contrary to an authentically human society, he wrote, and “thus, it is neither authentically Catholic nor within the Catholic tradition for a university to provide a special platform to those voices that promote or support such counter values.”

The Archdiocese of Washington suggested that the student group should have invited a speaker to focus instead on “the lives and ministry, focus and values of people like Blessed Óscar Romero, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and Pope Francis in place of that group’s seemingly constant preoccupation with sexual activity, contraception and abortion.”

Georgetown University also came under fire in 2012 for inviting then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to speak at graduation. The HHS had months before required many Catholic institutions to provide birth control to employees, and Cardinal Wuerl pointed to “the selection of a featured speaker whose actions as a public official present the most direct challenge to religious liberty in recent history.”

In the fall of 2013, a Georgetown University law class required students to work with an abortion advocacy group.

In their “Regulatory Advocacy: Women and the Affordable Care Act” course, which debuted in the spring 2014 semester, students were required to work with the National Women's Law Center, a D.C.-based advocacy group whose healthcare platform pushes for abortion, sterilization and contraceptive provision as health care.

In their recent statement, Georgetown asserted that its Catholic values continue to “maintain a privileged place in our community while at the same time providing a forum that does not limit speech either in the content of the view being expressed or the speaker expressing the view.”

Mary Rezac contributed to this report.

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Vatican City, Mar 8, 2016 / 04:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The concept of mercy is not easy for Cecilia Flores-Oebanda, a Filipina activist who has suffered a series of trials through her life, including imprisonment with her own children.

Yet she believes the courage to go on amid adversity – and her ability to forgive – begin with mercy.

“Mercy is really about going beyond your own struggle, and your own pains, and your own disappointment,” Flores-Oebanda told CNA.

At times, God prepares us for adversities for a “bigger purpose: to give mercy to others,” she said. “You cannot give mercy without forgiveness, and processing that within yourself.”

“After I embrace mercy, then I’m more effective to give love, compassion to others, because you are able to manifest it.”

Flores-Oebanda, one of the speakers at this week's Vatican-hosted Voices of Faith woman's conference, is founder and president of Visayan Forum Foundation, Inc. The initiative, which addresses modern-day slavery, especially human trafficking and the exploitation of workers, has served 18,000 victims and potential victims of exploitation.

Born into poverty, Flores-Oebanda herself had been a child laborer. When she grew older, she fought against the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, during which time she watched as two comrades were killed as the government attempted to intimidate her.

The Filipina activist was eventually imprisoned with her family, giving birth to her second child while incarcerated, and was released after four years.

“Mercy is not an easy thing for me after all,” Flores-Oebanda added, citing the difficulties she has experienced. “But, I believe that courage always began at mercy. And mercy and forgiveness always go hand in hand.”

“There are some times I lost my faith,” she admitted. “You’re only a person.”

“But, at the end of the day, you will know that [God] is always there,” she said. “I just always go back on him, and know and realize that he’s always on my side, and surrender everything to him.”

Flores-Oebanda shared her story at the March 8 conference, a gathering held on International Woman's Day to showcase the achievements of women in the Church throughout the world.

Acknowledging Pope Francis' contribution to the fight against human slavery, she expressed her hope to CNA that the Church could take greater advantage of its leadership in the cause.

“The Church could actually influence the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich,” she said. “And it can create a new mindset of sympathy, compassion to the poor.”

Flores-Oebanda went on to call leaders to “go beyond just a commitment or words,” but to implement action on the ground.

“I just want them to know that we're already there. Women, Catholic like us, are already on the ground, and are waiting for them to support us.”

Hosted at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the event brought together women from various fields to give witness to their work, such as in areas of poverty and the defense of human dignity and equality. This year's gathering is also co-sponered by the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS).

Chantal Götz, executive director of Fidel Götz Foundation which sponsors the conference, spoke with CNA March 4 about the influence of the Jubilee of Mercy on this year's gathering.   

“Mercy is a difficult topic,” she said. “I would say all the speakers” work with so-called “with fallen women, or fallen girls.”

“They all try to empower girls and these women,” she added. “This is the way I see they give mercy,” in helping them restore their dignity.  

For instance, Sr. Mary Doris of the Sisters of Saint Dominic, a speaker at the conference, has worked with more than 2,500 homeless mothers over the last 26 years. She works in helping them find dignity through various programs, including one which gives mothers the opportunity to create a lullaby for their children, which is then performed at Carnegie Hall.

“Mercy comes in so many forms,” Götz said.

First held in 2014, the conference was established in response to Pope Francis' call to “broaden the space within the Church for a more incisive feminine presence.”

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