Catholic News 2

 WASHINGTON-Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York called on everyone "concerned about the tragedy of abortion" to recommit to a "vision of life and love, a vision that excludes no one" on January 14. His statement marks the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Cardinal Dolan chairs the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"Most Americans oppose a policy allowing legal abortion for virtually any reason - though many still do not realize that this is what the Supreme Court gave us," wrote Cardinal Dolan. "Most want to protect unborn children at later stages of pregnancy, to regulate or limit the practice of abortion, and to stop the use of taxpayer dollars for the destruction of unborn children. Yet many who support important goals of the pro-life movement do not identify as 'pro-life,' a fact which should lead us to examine how we present our pro-life vision to others."

"Even as Americans remain troubled by abortion," wrote Cardinal Dolan, a powerful and well-funded lobby holds "that abortion must be celebrated as a positive good for women and society, and those who cannot in conscience provide it are to be condemned for practicing substandard medicine and waging a 'war on women'." He said this trend was seen recently when President Obama and other Democratic leaders prevented passage of the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, "a modest measure to provide for effective enforcement" of conscience laws.

"While this is disturbing," said Cardinal Dolan, "it is also an opportunity." Pro-life Americans should reach out to "the great majority of Americans" who are "open to hearing a message of reverence for life." He added that "we who present the pro-life message must always strive to be better messengers. A cause that teaches the inexpressibly great value of each and every human being cannot show disdain or disrespect for any fellow human being." He encouraged Catholics to take part, through prayer and action, in the upcoming "9 Days for Life" campaign, January 16-24. More information on the campaign is available online: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxJwfcefUiU

He also cited the Year of Mercy called by Pope Francis as a time for women and men to find healing through the Church's Project Rachel post-abortion ministry.

The full text of Cardinal Dolan's message is available online.
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Keywords: Roe v. Wade, anniversary, Pro-Life, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, 9 Days for Life, USCCB, U.S. bishops, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Year of Mercy, Project Rachel, Pope Francis
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Zambia’s Pontifical Mission Society (PMS) National Director Fr. Edwin Mulandu says the task of all PMS diocesan directors in the country is to develop a missionary conscience in God’s people throughout all dioceses of the country.

Speaking at the just ended Pontifical Mission Society (PMS) national council meeting in Lusaka’s Kasisi Retreat Centre, Fr. Mulandu reminded the PMS directors of their responsibility to inform the faithful of the needs of the universal mission of the Church.

The PMS director explained that the meeting was also being conducted to promote close collaboration of the missionary work throughout all dioceses of Zambia and to determine the theme as well as study the strategy to adopt for the annual missionary campaign. Together, the PMS directors would come up with a programme of activities regarding the animation, organisation and fundraising for PMS.   

The Pontifical Mission Society (PMS) national council meeting which started on 1 March ended on the 2 March 2016. Delegates from 10 dioceses in Zambia participated in the gathering.

(Zambia Episcopal Conference)

Email: engafrica@vatiradio.va

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Friday afternoon will begin the "24 hours for the Lord" with a penitential celebration in St. Peter’s Basilica. The initiative now in its third year will place emphasis once again on the importance of prayer, Eucharistic adoration and the sacrament of reconciliation.

The intention for this year, the Jubilee of Mercy, is to draw people around the world to the mercy of God.

The “24 Hours for the Lord” is being promoted by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization.

The English language official at the Council, Fr Eugene Silva told Lydia O’Kane that it is an opportunity once again in this Jubilee Year to place the sacrament of penance and reconciliation back at the centre of ordinary pastoral life.

Listen to this interview with Fr Eugene Silva

He adds, that despite the fact that people can be at times apprehensive about going to confession, “there’s no reason for people to be anxious.”

Putting the 24 hours for the Lord in the context of the Extraordinary Year, Fr Eugene thinks that because the grace of mercy is being talked about more, people will be that much more receptive to immersing themselves in God’s mercy.

Although Rome is a pilgrimage hub, dioceses across the world will be opening their doors to this 24 hour event. But if you happen to be in the Eternal City, there are plenty of opportunities to be part of the initiative.

Pope Francis, on Friday, March 4 in St. Peter's Basilica, will preside over the Penitential Celebration of the 24 Hours for the Lord.

Later at 9pm people will be able to receive the sacrament of confession and Eucharistic adoration in the churches of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (Piazza Navona), Santa Maria in Trastevere (Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere) and the Sacred Stigmata of St. Francis (Largo Argentina).

The next day, Saturday, March 5, the church of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart will remain open with the presence of priests for confessions until 4pm.

To conclude the third edition of the "24 hours for the Lord", a celebration of thanksgiving will take place in the Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia, near the Vatican which is the Sanctuary dedicated to the Divine Mercy. It will be presided over by Archbishop Rino Fisichella.

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(Vatican Radio)  As part of their Lenten preparation for Easter, Pope Francis and members of the Curia have been reflecting on Dei verbum, Word of God, one of the key documents to come out of the Second Vatican Council.

In his third Lenten reflection in the Vatican, Capuchin Fr. Raniero Catalamessa, preacher of the Papal Household, focused on “proclaiming the word,” continuing on from earlier themes examined: “receive the word, meditate on the word and put the word into practice.”

In evangelizing, “actions speak louder than words,” Fr. Cantalamessa suggests, indicating that even “those who spend the majority of their time behind a desk…can contribute…to evangelization.”  Speaking of the Curia, the papal preacher said, “If someone conceives of his work as a service to the Pope and to the Church, if he renews that intention every so often and does not allow concern for his career to take priority in his heart, then that humble employee of a Congregation contributes more to evangelization than a professional preacher who seeks to please people more than God.”

To become an evangelizer, one must “go out,” or “leave,” Fr. Cantalamessa continues.  And the first door we must exit is “the door of our ‘I’,” leaving behind “envies, jealousies, fears of embarrassment, rancors, resentments and antipathies.”   To become effective evangelizers who impact others in a positive way, he stresses, we must not only study and proclaim the word, we must pray over it and assimilate it:  “only what comes from the heart reaches the heart.”

Love and compassion are also marks of the true evangelizer, Fr. Cantalamessa stresses.  “Above all... love for Jesus.  It is the love of Christ that ought to impel us.”  “Shepherding and preaching must come from genuine love for Christ…only the person who is in love with Jesus can proclaim him to the world with deep conviction.”

Below, please find the English translation of Fr. Cantalamessa’s Third Lenten reflection:

Let us continue and conclude today our reflections on the constitution Dei verbum, that is, on the word of God. Last time, I spoke about lectio divina, the reading of Scripture for personal growth. Following the biblical plan outlined by St. James, we distinguished three successive steps: receive the word, meditate on the word, and put the word into practice.

There remains a fourth step, which is the one I would like to reflect on today: proclaim the word. Dei verbum speaks briefly of the privileged place that the word of God should have in the Church’s preaching (see DV, n. 24), but it does not focus directly on preaching the word since the Council dedicated a separate document to this topic, Ad gentes divinitus (“On the Missionary Activity of the Church”).

After this Council text, the discussion was taken up and updated by Blessed Paul VI in Evangelii nuntiandi, by Saint John Paul II in Redemptoris missio, and by Pope Francis in Evangelii gaudium. From the doctrinal and operative point of view, therefore, everything has already been said, and said at the highest level of the magisterium. It would be foolish of me to think that I could add anything to it. However, what it is possible for me to do, in line with the nature of these meditations, is to focus on some important spiritual aspects of the topic. To do that, I will begin with the statement often repeated by Blessed Paul VI that “the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of evangelization.” 

1. The medium is the message

If I want to share some news, the first questions I ask myself is, “How will I transmit it? In the press? On the radio? On television?” The medium is so important that modern science of social communication has coined the slogan “The medium is the message.”  Now, what is the first natural medium by which a word is transmitted? It is breath, a flow of air, the sound of a voice. My breath, so to speak, takes the word that has formed in the hidden recesses of my mind and brings it to the ears of the hearer. All the other means of communication only reinforce and amplify this first medium of the breath and voice. Written words come next and presume a live voice, since the letters of the alphabet are only symbols that represent the sounds.

The word of God also follows this law. It is transmitted by breath. And what is, or who is, the breath or the ruah of God according to the Bible? We know who it is: it is the Holy Spirit! Can my breath animate your words or your breath give life to my words? No, my word can only be articulated with my breath and your words by your breath. In an analogous way, the word of God cannot be articulated except by the breath of God, the Holy Spirit.

This is a very simple and almost obvious truth, but it is of enormous importance. It is the fundamental law of every proclamation and every evangelization. Human news is transmitted in person or via radio, cable, satellite, etc. Divine news, since it is divine, is transmitted by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the genuine, essential means of its communication, and without him we would perceive only the human language in which the message is clothed. The words of God are “Spirit and life” (Jn 6:63), and therefore they cannot be transmitted or received except “in the Spirit.”

This fundamental law is what we see in action concretely in the history of salvation. Jesus began preaching “in the power of the Spirit” (Lk 4:14). He himself declared that “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor” (Lk 4:18). Appearing to the apostles in the upper room the night of Easter, he said, “‘As the Father has sent me, even so I send you!’ And when he had had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (Jn 20:21-22). In commissioning the apostles to go into the whole world, Jesus also conferred on them the means to accomplish that task—the Holy Spirit—and he conferred it, significantly, through the sign of his breathing on them.

According to Mark and Matthew, the last word Jesus said to his apostles before ascending into heaven was “Go!”: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation” (Mk 16:15; Mt 28:19). According to Luke, however, the final command of Jesus seems to be the opposite: Stay! Remain!: “Stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high” (Lk 24:49). There is of course no contradiction here: it means, “go into the whole world but not before receiving the Holy Spirit.”

The whole account of Pentecost serves to highlight this truth. The Holy Spirit comes, and then Peter and the other apostles begin to speak in loud voices about Christ crucified and risen, and their speech has such anointing and power that 3,000 people feel their hearts pierced. The Holy Spirit, having come upon the apostles, becomes in them an irresistible urge to evangelize.

St. Paul goes so far as to affirm that without the Holy Spirit it is impossible to proclaim that “Jesus is Lord” (1 Cor 12:3), which, according to the New Testament is the beginning and the summation of all Christian proclamation. As for St. Peter, he defines the apostles as “those who preached the good news to you through the Holy Spirit” (1 Pet 1:12). The words “good news,” or gospel, indicates the content, and “through the Holy Spirit” indicates the means or the method of the proclamation.

2. Words and deeds

The first thing to avoid when we speak about evangelization is to think that it is synonymous with preaching and is thus reserved for a particular category of Christians. Speaking of the nature of revelation, Dei verbum says, “This plan of revelation is realized by deeds and words having an inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them.”

This assertion goes back directly to St. Gregory the Great: “Our Lord and Savior instructs us at one time by His words, and at another by His works” (aliquando nos sermonibus, aliquando vero operibus admonet).  This law that applies to revelation at its beginning also applies to its dissemination. In other words, we do not evangelize only with words but prior to that with our works and life, not with what we say but with what we do and who we are.

Marshall McLuhan once applied his slogan “the medium is the message” in a way that, for me, is extremely enlightening. He said that only in Christ Jesus is there “no distance or separation between the medium and the message: it is the one case where we can say that the medium and the message are fully one and the same.”  Such a total identification between the herald and the message could only be found in Christ, but in a derived sense it should also be true of anyone who proclaims the gospel. Here, the messenger is not the message. However, if preachers have given their lives totally to Christ, if they can say with Saint Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20), then it can be truly said of them that the medium is the message, that their very life is their message.

There is a saying in English that takes on a particular significance when applied to evangelization: “Actions speak louder than words.” A statement from Paul VI in Evangelii nuntiandi that is also often repeated says, “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” 

One of the most famous moral philosophers of the last century (whose name need not be mentioned) was seen one evening in a location and in the company of people that were not very edifying. A colleague asked him how he could reconcile that with what he wrote in his books and he answered him calmly, “Have you ever seen a street sign that began to walk in the direction it pointed to?” It was brilliant answer, but it is self-condemning. People despise human “street signs” that point in which direction to go, but they themselves do not move an inch.

I can give a good example from the religious order I belong to of the efficacy of testimony. The major contribution, even if it is hidden, that the Capuchin Order has made to evangelization in the five centuries of its history has not been, I believe, that of its professional preachers but that of the host of “lay brothers”: simple and uneducated doorkeepers of monasteries or mendicants. Entire populations have rediscovered and kept their faith because of contact with them. One of them, Blessed Nicola of Gesturi, spoke so little that the people called him “Brother Silence,” and yet in Sardinia, 58 years after his death, the Capuchin Order is identified with Brother Nicola of Gesturi, or with Brother Ignatius of Laconi, another holy mendicant friar of the past. The words Francis of Assisi addressed one day to the preachers among his brothers have come to pass: “Why do you boast of men converted when my simple brethren have converted them by their prayers?” 

One time during an ecumenical dialogue, a Pentecostal brother—not to argue but to try to understand—asked me why we Catholics called Mary “the star of evangelization.” It was an occasion for me as well to reflect on this title attributed to Mary by Paul VI at the end of Evangelii nuntiandi. I came to the conclusion that Mary is the star of evangelization because she did not carry a particular word to a particular people like the major evangelists in history, but she carried the Word made flesh and carried him (even physically!) to the whole world! She never preached, she said few words, but she was full of Jesus, and wherever she went she gave off such a scent of his presence that John the Baptist could sense it even in his mother’s womb. Who can deny that Our Lady of Guadalupe had a fundamental role in the evangelization and the faith of the Mexican people?

Speaking here in the Curia, I think it is appropriate for me to highlight the contribution that those who spend the majority of their time behind a desk or in dealing with completely different affairs can contribute—and in fact have contributed—to evangelization. If someone conceives of his work as service to the pope and to the Church, if he renews that intention every so often and does not allow concern for his career to take priority in his heart, then that humble employee of a Congregation contributes more to evangelization than a professional preacher who seeks to please people more than God.

3. How to become evangelizers

If the duty to evangelize is for everyone, let us try to understand what premises and conditions are involved for people truly to become evangelizers. The first condition is suggested by a word that God addressed to Abraham: “Leave your country and go” (see Gen 12:1). There is no mission or sending out without a prior leaving. We often speak about a church that “goes out.” We need to realize that the first door we need to exit is not that of the Church, of the community, of the institutions, or of sacristies; it is the door of our “I.”

More demanding than the call addressed to Abraham is the one that Jesus addresses to the person he asks to collaborate with him in proclaiming the kingdom: “Go, leave your ‘I’ behind, deny yourself. Everything belongs to me now. Your life is changing, my face is becoming your face. It is no longer you who live but I who live in you.” This is the only way to overcome the teeming mass of envies, jealousies, fears of embarrassment, rancors, resentments, and antipathies that fill the heart of the old self—in a word we need to be “indwelt” by the gospel and to spread the scent of the gospel.

The Bible offers us an image that holds more truth than entire pastoral treatises about proclamation: that of eating a book, as we read in Ezekiel:

And when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me, and, behold, a written scroll was in it; and he spread it before me; and it had writing on the front and on the back, and there were written on it words of lamentation and mourning and woe. And he said to me, “Son of man, eat what is offered to you; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. And he said to me, “Son of man, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it.” Then I ate it; and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey. (Ez 2:9–3:3; see also Rev 10: 8-10).

There is an enormous difference between the word of God merely studied and then proclaimed and the word of God first “eaten” and assimilated. In the first case the preacher can be said “to sound just like a book,” but he does not succeed in reaching the hearts of the people because only what comes from the heart reaches the heart. Taking up the image in Ezekiel again, the author of Revelation brings us a small but significant variation. He says that the book he swallowed was sweet as honey on his lips but bitter in his stomach (see Rev 10:10). This is the case because before the word can wound the hearers it must wound the preacher, showing him his sin and prompting him to conversion.

This cannot be done in a day. There is, however, one thing that can be done in one day, even this very day: assenting to this perspective, making an irrevocable decision, insofar as we can, not to live for ourselves any more but for the Lord (see Rom 14:7-9). All of this cannot happen merely as the result of a person’s ascetic effort; it is also a work of grace, a fruit of the Holy Spirit. In the liturgy we pray in the Fourth Eucharistic Prayer, “That we might live no longer for ourselves but for him who died and rose again for us, he sent the Holy Spirit from you, Father, as the first fruits for those who believe.”

It is easy to know how to obtain the Holy Spirit with a view to evangelization. We only need to see how Jesus obtained the Holy Spirit and how the Church obtained him on the day of Pentecost. Luke describes the event of Jesus’ baptism this way: “When Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him” (Lk 3:21-22). It was Jesus’ prayer that split open the heavens and made the Holy Spirit come down, and the same thing happened to the apostles. The Holy Spirit came upon the apostles at Pentecost while they “with one accord devoted themselves to prayer” (Acts 1:14).

The effort for a renewed missionary commitment is exposed to two principal dangers. One is inertia, laziness, not doing anything and letting all the others do the work. The second is to launch into feverish and futile activity on a merely human level that results in losing contact little by little with the wellspring of the word and its efficacy. This would be setting oneself up for failure. The more the volume of activity goes up, the more the volume of prayer should go up. Someone could object that this is absurd because there is only so much time. That is true, but cannot the one who multiplied the bread also multiply time? Besides, this is something God is always doing and that we experience every day: after having prayed, we do the same things in less than half the time.

Someone could also say, “But how can you remain calmly praying and not run when the house is on fire?” That is also true. But imagine this scenario: a team of firefighters who hear an alarm rush with sirens blaring to where the fire is. However, once there, they realize they do not have any water in their tanks, not even a drop. That is what we are like when we run to preach without praying. It is not the case that words are lacking; on the contrary, the less one prays the more one speaks, but they are empty words that do not reach anyone.

4. Evangelization and compassion

Alongside prayer, another way to obtain the Holy Spirit is having righteous intentions. A person’s intention in preaching Christ can be contaminated for various reasons. St. Paul lists some of them in the Letter to the Philippians: preaching for one’s own advantage, through envy, through partisanship and rivalry (see Phil 1:15-17). The one cause that encompasses all the others, however, is the lack of love. St. Paul says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor 13:1).

Experience has made me discover one thing: someone can proclaim Jesus Christ for reasons that have nothing to do with love. Someone can proclaim him through proselytism or to legitimize his small church through an increase in the number of members, especially if he founded that church or it was recently founded. Someone can proclaim him—taking literally the gospel injunction to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth (see Mk 13:10)—so as to fill up the number of the elect and thus hasten the return of the Lord.

Some of these motives are not bad in themselves. But if they are the only ones, they are not enough. They lack that genuine love and compassion for people that is the soul of the gospel. The gospel of love can only be proclaimed through love. If we do not strive to love the people we have before us, the words will easily become transformed in our hands into stones that wound and from which the hearers need to take refuge, like people who take cover in a hailstorm.

I always bear in mind the lesson that the Bible implicitly teaches us through the story of Jonah. Jonah was compelled by God to go preach in Nineveh. But the Ninevites were the enemies of Israel, so Jonah did not love them. He is visibly pleased and satisfied when he can cry out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jon 3:4). The prospect of their destruction does not displease him in the least. However, the Ninevites repent and God spares them from punishment. At that point Jonah goes through a crisis. God says to him, almost as though he were defending himself, “You pity the plant. . . . And should I not pity that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left?” (Jon 4:10-11). God has to spend more effort to convert him, the preacher, than to convert all the inhabitants of Nineveh.

Have love, then, for people, but also and above all have love for Jesus. It is the love of Christ that ought to impel us. “Do you love me?” Jesus asks Peter. “Feed my sheep” (see Jn 21:15ff). Shepherding and preaching must come from genuine love for Christ. We need to love Jesus because only the person who is in love with Jesus can proclaim him to the world with deep conviction. People speak passionately only about what they are in love with.

Proclaiming the gospel, whether through life or words, we not only give glory to Jesus but we also give him joy. If it is true that “The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus,”  it is also true that the one who spreads the gospel fills the heart of Jesus with joy. The sense of joy and well-being that a person experiences in suddenly feeling life return to a limb that was unable to move or was paralyzed is a small indication of the joy that Christ experiences when he feels the Holy Spirit bring some dead member of his body back to life again.

There is a saying in the Bible that I had never noticed before now: “Like the cold of snow in the time of harvest is a faithful messenger to those who send him; he refreshes the spirit of his masters” (Prov 25:13). The images of heat and coolness during harvest make us think of Jesus on the cross who cries, “I thirst!” He is the great “harvester” who is thirsty for souls, whom we are called to refresh with our humble, devoted service to the gospel. May the Holy Spirit, “the principal agent of evangelization,” grant that we give Jesus this joy through our words and our works, according to the charism and the office that each of us has in the Church.

Translated from Italian by Marsha Daigle Williamson

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(Vatican Radio) Turkey is under growing pressure to consider a major escalation in migrant deportations from Greece. European Council President Donald Tusk said, ``we agree that the refugee flows still remain far too high,'' after meeting Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

Tusk is also due to hold talks on the migrant crisis with the Turkish President which comes ahead of a highly anticipated summit of EU and Turkish leaders next week.

European Council President Tusk ended a six-nation tour of migration crisis countries in Turkey, where 850,000 migrants and refugees left last year for Greek islands.

Idomeni

About a third of migrants trapped in Greece are at the village of Idomeni, on the border with Macedonia.

The conditions at the a sprawling camp there are becoming increasingly difficult with families in need of everything from food and water to decent sanitation facilities.

Christopher Hein is Director of the Italian Council for Refugees. Speaking to Lydia O’Kane about the migrant situation in Europe, he said, ... “clearly there is no real common and comprehensive European response to what is happening.”

He also said, “there is an apparent need an objective need to come to an answer, from the whole of the European Union together with international organisations, an answer which is based on the principle of solidarity as it is enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty…”

Listen: 

Equal distribution

Mr Hein added, that what was also important was the need for a more equal distribution of refugees and asylum seekers, because he said, there are many countries (in the EU) “that have a very low number of refugees and asylum seekers and this cannot be.”

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(Vatican Radio)  Pope Francis on Friday addressed the participants of a course on the internal forum organized by the Apostolic Penitentiary, calling them to become ‘channels of mercy’. 

The yearly week-long course prepares new priests and seminarians for the correct administration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and traditionally concludes in an audience with the Holy Father.

Listen to Devin Watkins' report:

In remarks prepared for the occasion, Pope Francis reminded the priests and seminarians of the importance of “an adequate and updated preparation” for confessors, “so that all who come to confess their sins may ‘touch the grandeur of God’s mercy with their own hands, the source of true inner peace’ (Bull, Misericordiae Vultus, 17)”.

“Mercy”, the Holy Father said, “before being an attitude or human virtue, is a unfailing choice by God in favor of every human being for their eternal salvation, a choice sealed with the blood of the Son of God.”

Pope Francis went on to remind the young priests and seminarians that the door of divine mercy are always wide open. “The mercy of the Father can reach every person in many ways: through the openness of a sincere conscience; by reading the Word of God which converts hearts; through an encounter with a merciful sister or brother; in the experiences of a life lived with wounds, sins, forgiveness, and mercy.”

Of these ways which God’s mercy can reach us, the Pope said the most certain of all is Jesus himself, “who has the power on earth to forgive sins (Luke 5,24) and has entrusted this mission to the Church (John 20,21-23). The Sacrament of Reconciliation is therefore the privileged place to experience the mercy of God.”

For this reason, the Holy Father said, “it is important that the confessor also be a ‘channel of joy’ and that the penitent faithful, after having received absolution, not feel the weight of his or her sins. They need to taste the work of God which freed them, live in thanksgiving, and be ready to repair the damage of their sins, going out to their brothers and sisters with an open and welcoming heart.”

Pope Francis concluded his speech by mentioning two confessors who expressed the love and mercy of God with zeal in the confessional: Sts. Leopold Mandic and Padre Pio of Pietrelcina.

St. Leopold, he said, “often told those who were suffering: ‘We have in heaven the heart of a Mother. The Virgin, our Mother, who at the foot of the Cross experienced all suffering possible for a human being, she understands our difficulties and she consoles us’. May Mary, Refuge of sinners and Mother of Mercy, always guide and sustain the important ministry of Reconciliation.”

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India’s Dalit Catholics complained last week to the visiting Jesuit superior general about discrimination within the Catholic Church.  Jesuit Father Adolfo Nicolas, head of the Society of Jesus, who was on a visit to India, received their memorandum on Feb. 27 when he met a delegation from the Dalit Christian Liberation Movement in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.  M. Mary John, president of the movement, said they handed Father Nicolas the memorandum explaining the Jesuits are the Catholic Church’s largest congregation and that the pope himself is a Jesuit.  

Dalit in Sanskrit means "broken" or “downtrodden” and denotes former "untouchables" wo low in social status that they were considered outside the caste system of Hindu society. The ‎Indian Constitution has given special privileges to dalit, tribal groups and scheduled castes to ‎help them advance in socioeconomic areas.  A presidential notification limiting the privileges to ‎Hindus was twice amended to add Sikh and Buddhist dalit after they protested being ‎excluded.  But Christians and Muslims of low caste origin were excluded.  

Dalit Christians have repeatedly accused the Catholic Church in India of caste-based discrimination in terms of separate cemeteries and seating arrangements in churches.  John said that it is easy for the Jesuits to understand their plight because in Tamil Nadu they implemented policies that include providing equal opportunities to dalits in both education and employment.

In the memorandum, the delegation appealed for a strengthening of policies for dalits across the entire country.  The Dalit Christian Liberation Movement submitted a complaint last year to the United Nations, accusing the Vatican of not doing enough to curb caste-based discrimination within the Catholic Church in India.

Father Nicolas visited India Feb. 18 visiting the southern Indian Jesuit province of Andhra Pradesh and moved on to Madurai province in neighboring Tamil Nadu state Feb. 26.  In Andhra Pradesh, he met superiors of 18 Jesuit provinces and two regions in South Asia, that include India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan. The meetings are part of the general’s biennial visitation.  (Source: UCAN) 

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(Vatican Radio) The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors issued a statement on Friday in response to Cardinal George Pell’s hearings via video link with Australia’s Royal Commission investigating institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

The statement notes that a member of the Pontifical Commission, Jesuit Fr Hans Zollner, has met with survivors of clerical sex abuse who have come over from Australia for the hearings.  The survivors requested the meeting in order to share ideas about healing and about how to protect children from abuse in the future.

While acknowledging that the problem is not limited to the Catholic Church, the survivors spoke especially about models of educating children, parents and teachers to effect structural change within the Church and to safeguard vulnerable people.

Please see below the full statement from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors

Over the past two days, Fr. Hans Zollner SJ, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, met in two occasions with Mr David Ridsdale, Mr Andrew Collins and Mr Peter Blenkiron, victims/survivors of clergy sexual abuse from Ballarat, Australia, who have come to Rome for Cardinal George Pell's hearing by the Royal Commission. Cardinal Pell had asked to arrange this meeting after these gentlemen requested to meet with a member of the Pontifical Commission. These gentlemen explained the reason for wanting to meet with a member of the Pontifical Commission is that, “We would like to discuss ideas we have had about healing and the future to protect children from institutional abuse. We know this problem had been wider than the Catholic Church but our experiences have been in this environment. We are keen to develop links with your group as it is a world-wide issue.”

The victims/survivors spoke of models of educating children, parents and teachers so as to effect structural change within the Church and society concerning the effective safeguarding of children and adolescents. This discussion comes at a time when the Pontifical Commission decided at their 2016 February Plenary Assembly to have one strategic focus on safeguarding of minors in Catholic schools at their September 2016 Assembly.

Fr. Hans appreciated very much the victims’/survivors’ concerns and their proposals for preventive measures, and he will report back to the other members of the Pontifical Commission, so that all can learn from the victims’/survivors’ experience to improve the Commission’s work in healing in the present, and better understand how to prevent sexual abuse by those in service to the Church from happening again in the future.

During the meeting, Fr. Hans explained to the victims/survivors the purpose of the Commission and also talked, in particular, about his work and initiatives in prevention from abuse within and outside the Church as President of the “Centre for Child Protection” of the Institute of Psychology of the Pontifical Gregorian University. The Ballarat survivors met also with some of the students of the Diploma-programme in Safeguarding of Minors, offered at the Gregorian University.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors was created by Pope Francis in March of 2014. The Chirograph of His Holiness Pope Francis states specifically, “The Commission’s specific task is to propose to me the most opportune initiatives for protecting minors and vulnerable adults, in order that we may do everything possible to ensure that crimes such as those which have occurred are no longer repeated in the Church. The Commission is to promote local responsibility in the particular Churches, uniting their efforts to those of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, for the protection of all children and vulnerable adults.”

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Washington D.C., Mar 4, 2016 / 03:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- For decades, there's been concern in many corners of the Church that Catholic music is in crisis.

The 1992 book “Why Catholics Can't Sing” outlined a history of modern Catholic Liturgical music and a rapid shift away from traditional chants and hymns in the later part of the 20th Century. Writer Damian Thompson decried “Bad Catholic Music,” such as folk-and-jazz-inspired “worship songs” in a 2015 essay in the British publication the Catholic Herald. Most recently, in a February column for Aleteia, Tommy Tighe raises concerns that some common Catholic hymns are not only musically lacking, but doctrinally questionable.

Much of the critique of contemporary liturgical music lies in the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and how they were carried out. Critics attest that when interpreting the changes of Vatican II, many dioceses and parishes cut out important parts of the Church’s liturgical heritage, displaced the rich history of chant with other forms of music, and substituted suggested sung prayers with hymns resembling popular performance songs.

While this may certainly be the case in many places, other musical scholars affirm that it is actually the reforms of Vatican II that not only preserve the rich liturgical history the Roman Catholic Church has used for centuries, but allow that tradition to grow.

While they may share many of the same critiques of some popular works and trends in certain kinds of liturgical music, they also say that Mass music is getting better – and that it is getting better because the Church has preserved what is good from centuries past and is also providing avenues for worthwhile contributions from other traditions and the modern day. Rather than detract from the Church’s musical heritage, the Church is now in a place to restore and add to it.

“The abundance of music composed over the centuries and still apt for the liturgy is staggering,” Catholic University director of Sacred Music, Leo Nestor, told CNA. “It is a sign of the Holy Spirit's continuing inspiration to artists throughout human history.”

In the tradition and with the help of guidelines laid down in the Second Vatican Council, the Church has all it needs for beautiful liturgical music. New music, scholars say, is an important part of this revival of musical traditions the Church has saved.  

“The Church admits all worthy art into Her liturgy and the Second Vatican Council makes that clear,”  said Fr. Vincent Ferrer Bagan, OP, Choir Director for the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. “New compositions have always come into the Church.”

But in order to see where liturgical music is going, it's important to understand where it came from.

The roots of sacred music

Music isn't just an important addition to the liturgy, added as an extension of praise and worship. For much of the Church’s history, music has been an essential part of the liturgy itself.

The inclusion goes back to the very earliest days of the Church – to the Last Supper, Nestor said.

“We know that Christ and his disciples sang a hymn at the Last Supper,” he told CNA. Singing quickly was “mandated” during many parts of early Church celebrations.

Over the centuries, Catholic theology developed to explain why the union of sacred music and text was such an important element of worship that arose from these early traditions. The Roman Catholic Church also continued to intertwine music and prayer into nearly every part of its liturgy.

Within the Roman Catholic Church, there are sung elements that change to reflect both daily prayers and readings and set elements of the liturgy that remains steady throughout the year, Nestor said. The parts that change daily are called the “Proper,” and the elements which remain the same are called “the Ordinary.”

Yet, within recent decades, some of these elements are rarely heard because their use is highly suggested, but not mandatory. While the parts of the Mass Ordinary, such as the Kyrie, Sanctus or Agnus Dei, remain largely constant and cannot be omitted from the Liturgy except under specific circumstances, many parts of the proper have fallen from daily use. 

When these elements from the propers are dropped, parishes leave out important music that has special relevance to the prayers of the day. And these propers are “the words the Church wants us to hear sung today,” Nestor said. “The specificity and messages of these texts and their accompanying psalms is mirrored in every other proper text of the liturgy.”

While many parishes neglected the propers after the reforms of Vatican II, many churches are starting to bring them back into popular use. “In our day, the propers, specifically the Entrance and Communion Antiphons, are making a very strong return, not only in the major churches, but in many parishes.”

Evolving Traditions

While the Church proscribes that some parts of the liturgy should be sung when possible, how a congregation places these parts to music can vary by a parish's cultural and its own liturgical traditions.

“The Church in her rites accommodates the languages and select elements specific to individual cultures, a custom extending back to the early Church,” Nestor said.

The practice of incorporating appropriate cultural elements into the liturgy, also called “inculturation,” is “a two-way street,” he said.

In the process, authentic cultural values and traditions are integrated into Christianity and Christianity impacts culture.

Authentic accommodation of culture and tradition must respect the essential unity of the liturgy, and the balance between culture and liturgy must be done carefully Nestor cautioned. When this respect for both liturgy and culture takes root, however, it “can be a manifestation of the Church's universality.”

Nestor recalled the example of a friend who was active both at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and at a local African-American parish, St. Augustine's Church, in Washington D.C. Her advice, he said, encapsulated the Church's guidance on the integration and respect for various cultural traditions.

“In her maternal wisdom, she said, 'I want my son to be comfortable at St. Augustine's, here at the Shrine, at Notre Dame in Paris and at St. Peter's in Rome,'” Nestor relayed. This attitude, he said, strikes at the heart of the universality of the Church.

Various cultures and peoples are no the only ones with their distinct traditions within the Church; many religious orders also have their own liturgical and musical traditions.

Fr. Bagan directs the choir at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., where student brothers prepare for religious vocations with the Dominican order. He told CNA that in the brothers' latest musical album seeks to illuminate the unique musical tradition of their religious order.  

When the Dominican order was founded and its liturgy formed, there was no standard liturgy for the whole Church, Fr. Bagan explained. When the order organized its own liturgy, the Dominicans began their own independent liturgical tradition that is “slightly different” from the Mass and liturgy prayed in the rest of the Roman Catholic Church.

From this quirk of liturgical history, Dominican chant also evolved into its own distinct tradition. Like the relationship between the Roman rite and the Dominican rite of the liturgy, the Dominican chants for Mass parts and prayers are only “slightly different” from other chants used within the Roman Catholic Church, like Gregorian chant, even though they developed separately.

While the Dominicans now use of the Roman Rite for the ordinary celebration of the Mass and Liturgy of the Hours after the Second Vatican Council, the order still maintains the right to celebrate its own rite and incorporate elements of its own tradition  – such as some of its unique chants and propers –  into its celebrations.

“The Church, I think, was happy to say, 'Yes, Dominicans, you have these traditions and they are beautiful. Yes, let’s keep them alive,'” Fr. Bagan said.

The brothers' projects, like its album, are opportunities for the Dominicans to share both the richness of the tradition as well as the message of the Gospel with others, said Fr. Bagan.

“In the end, we’re really happy to be able to do this because it’s very important to get all of these treasures from the Church’s musical tradition into people’s hands.”

Moving Music Forward

While eight hundred years old, the Dominican musical tradition is still an evolving one. This fact is an element which the student brothers recording tried to bring forward through new compositions on the album, Fr. Bagan said.

Among the older works are new pieces written by brothers, which range in style. Among the new works are more traditional hymn-like settings as well as pieces that include “wilder” harmonies and musical tension and other elements from 20th century music.

In his view, Fr. Bagan says that modern liturgical pieces, such as the ones the brothers sing, “take what’s best in the music in our own time and what can be made fitting for the Temple of God and Divine Worship.”

“Generally of course, music for Church needs to be a bit more stylistically timeless than music for the secular sphere,” he stipulated, “not to say that good things can’t be brought in.”

In addition, he clarified, music intended for the liturgy should remain focused on its purpose and role. “They can be challenging of course, but should never be jarring or distract from the meaning of the divine text or from the purpose of worship for which music is made.”

Chris Mueller, a contemporary Catholic composer, also seeks to incorporate modern musical elements into appropriate liturgical settings. Mueller, who has a background in jazz music, has written numerous liturgical pieces, including his “Missa pro editione tertia,” a setting of the 2011 English translation of the Mass, which has been used by parishes around the world.

In writing his Mass for the 2011 translation, his goal was to create a piece that was singable and was clearly liturgical, and yet was in conversation with he current state of the musical world.  

“I was trying to write in a way that was modern and contemporary, but also liturgically appropriate,” Mueller reflected.

While he's “not trying to write music that sounds like Mozart or Bach, I'm trying to write music that sounds modern,” he also doesn't want his music to sound just like secular jazz or modern music played in concert halls or jazz clubs.

Finding the “balance” between modern elements and liturgical music, Mueller said, is “an interesting challenge.”

The key in writing the “Missa pro editione tertia” and other liturgical pieces has been using modern elements and tones as “part of my palette of approaches,” he commented. For Mueller, drawing on jazz music for inspiration means using “surprising” turns and harmonies that don’t “really sound like anything else”

It’s important, Mueller said, for Mass music to sound different from other kinds of music we may hear.

“What happens at the Mass when God becomes present at the altar is not something that happens in any part of the rest of your life. The truth of what’s happening at Mass is so different than everything else that the music needs to be reflect that somehow.”

For Mueller, creating these works is ultimately about giving his gifts back to God.

“In Vatican II it says that sacred music is the most valuable treasure of all the artistic treasures the Church has, then if I can be a small part of that, then what better use of my skills could there be?”

But as Church music moves forward in the third millennium, how does all of this translate for the average parish?

For Thomas Stehle, how to choose good liturgical music is not only a theoretical issue but a practical one.

As director of music for St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington D.C, Stehle is in charge of planning liturgies for six English and Latin-language Masses for a diverse community within the Archdiocese.

For him, Stehle told CNA, the challenge – as it would be at any parish – is balancing music that is both of quality and liturgically appropriate as well as easily accessible for prayer.

He said there's a “legitimate question” not only about a given piece’s quality but also its style. Not every pleasant piece is appropriate for Mass, he cautioned, and this guideline cuts across genres of music.

On the other hand, he noted, many pieces that are not considered “high art” are worthy of being sung at Mass.

“Does it get beyond, 'oh I love this' to 'I can pray with this?'” Steel said. The approach he's settled on when searching for music is to look for “really legitimate things that come from people's culture, but do it very carefully and as high-quality as possible, within the style,” he said.

Stehle also added that music directors should consider both the liturgical season and the Church’s daily readings, propers and prayers in order to create the “highest degree” of unity between liturgy, prayer and music.

“It’s important when we’re asking people to embody that prayer in song that it’s coming from very informed choices.”

“(T)hat is the goal; that what you put in people’s mouths is worthy, is appropriate, is liturgically appropriate, is pastorally appropriate and is musically appropriate.”

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