Catholic News 2

(Vatican Radio) The Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Gallagher travels to London on Tuesday for an official visit to Britain aimed at highlighting the role of the Holy See on the international stage.

The Liverpool born archbishop, who was appointed as the Vatican’s ‘foreign minister’ in November 2014, will hold talks with officials from Britain’s Foreign Office, Home Office, Department for International Development, and Department for Energy and Climate Change. He’ll also meet with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Holy See, with the incoming Commonwealth secretary general, Baroness Scotland, with the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and with local Catholic leaders.

On the eve of his departure, Archbishop Gallagher sat down with Philippa Hitchen to talk about his hopes and expectations for this three day visit…

Listen: 

Archbishop Gallagher says that while the Holy See already has good relations with the UK, he hopes to help to  ‘put a bit of flesh’ on some aspects that the British Government understands in theory, rather than in practice.

He says there is an increasing awareness that the sort of influence the Holy See can have creates “the conditions on the ground and in the minds and hearts of the people” which will allow them to resolve some of the very big issues that the world faces today.

Asked about concerns that Catholics are still not always trusted to be loyal citizens, the Archbishop says while some still believe this, it is important to recognize the enormous progress that has been made in terms of law and opportunity.

Message of dialouge with the Anglican Communion

Speaking about his meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury, he says he will bring a message of continuing dialogue, and will discuss the ongoing pilgrimage of the Anglican Communion at a time when they are trying to consolidate their unity.

Value the riches of religious diversity

Asked about fears that religious freedom is being undermined in Britain today, Archbishop Gallagher says we must learn to be “very broad in our tolerance of diversity” and to appreciate the  riches of religious, cultural and linguistic differences that have contributed to the building of British society. He says it’s important not to remove all symbols of religious difference from the public square but that we should guard against the “risk of taking ourselves too seriously”.

Cooperation between Britian and the Holy See

Speaking of the possibilities of closer cooperation between Britain and the Holy See, the archbishop highlights the work of the Santa Marta group on combatting human trafficking, an issue which is “very close to the Holy Father’s heart”.  He says there is an infinite number of areas for cooperation, but a lack of resources and a lack of manpower can also be determining factors.

All must play a part in peace building

Commenting on his participation at a recent conference in London on humanitarian aid to Syria, the Archbishop says the British Government is playing an active role in negotiations and anti-ISIS coalitions, adding that the message of the Church is never to point the finger at particular countries but to urge all people to “play our part in these times of conflict”. The Holy See, he says, is in contact with the representatives of the (UN) Secretary General over the ongoing peace effort in Syria and the Holy Father “is following these issues closely”.

Future of European Union

While not wishing to comment directly about the forthcoming referendum on whether or not Britain should remain within the European Union, Archbishop Gallagher says the Holy “hopes that the people of Britain will work to make life better for Europeans”, so that Europe will provide the leadership to the international community. All people must assume their responsibility, he adds in order to ensure many decades of peace, stability and prosperity in Europe.

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African countries with the highest number of refugees and migrants have been urged to cultivate peace and develop their countries as a means of reducing the exodus from their nations.

 In his opening speech during a workshop organised by the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) – Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Seafarers held at Emmaus centre in Nairobi, last week, the Commission’s Vice-Chairman, Bishop Virgilio Pante said that, peace in troubled African countries would contribute greatly to the retention of young citizens and the voluntary repatriation of refugees to their countries of origin. 

On the matter of internally displaced persons due to ethnic violence, Bishop Pante called on governments to empower  its citizens through education and to build more infrastructure in remote areas.  He said that it is only through peace, literacy and equitable development that the problem of refugees, migrants and the internally displaced would be solved.

The workshop brought together about 30 participants from several Kenyan dioceses, the Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS), Don Bosco Fathers and other organisations working with refugees in Kenya.

(By Rose Achiego in Nairobi)

Email: engafrica@vatiradio.va

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Vatican City, Feb 29, 2016 / 09:48 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On the first day of his video testimony to Australia's Royal Commission investigating institutional responses to child sex abuse cases, Cardinal George Pell said that while the Church has made “enormous mistakes” in the handling of abuse cases, he had no role in covering them up.

“Let me just say this as an initial clarification: I'm not here to defend the indefensible,” Cardinal Pell said during the hearing.

The Church “has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those,” he admitted, adding that in many places, and certainly in Australia, the Church “has mucked things up, has let people down.”

However, he also recognized that “there are very few countries in the world who have advanced as far as the Catholic Church has in Australia in putting procedures into place nearly 20 years ago.”

Cardinal Pell is a member of the Council of Cardinals advising Pope Francis and a past archbishop of the Sydney and Melbourne archdioceses. He is also the prefect of the newly formed Secretariat for the Economy which is overseeing Vatican finances.

He is currently testifying before Australia's Royal Commission regarding claims that surfaced last year accusing the cardinal of moving “known pedophile” Gerald Ridsdale, of bribing a victim of the later-defrocked priest, and of ignoring a victim’s complaint.

Established in 2013, the Royal Commission is dedicated to investigating institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

Despite having testified before the commission twice before on the same charges, Pell was again summoned to return to Australia for deposition in December. However, the cardinal’s doctor advised against the long flight, due to health issues.

As a result, Cardinal Pell volunteered to appear by way of video conference from Rome. His proposal for the video conference was accepted.

The cardinal’s third hearing began with a four-hour session at 8 a.m. Feb. 29 local time in Sydney, 10 p.m. Feb. 28 in Rome, where he is giving his testimony from the Verdi Room of the city’s Hotel Quirinale. The hearing is expected to last through Wednesday.

A group of 15 abuse survivors and their family members traveled from Australia to Rome in order to be present for the hearing. They launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise the money to send them, so that Cardinal Pell would have the same sort of public hearing as he would have in Sydney.

The hearing largely focuses on Cardinal Pell’s time as a priest in Ballarat and how the Melbourne archdiocese responded to abuse accusations, including during the time that the cardinal served as auxiliary bishop.

Cardinal Pell was ordained in the diocese of Ballarat in 1966, where he served as a priest and later as a consulter to Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who oversaw the diocese from 1971-1997. Pell was appointed auxiliary bishop for the archdiocese of Melbourne in 1987, and was named archbishop in 1996.

Gail Furness, the lead counsel assisting the commission, questioned Pell about the Vatican’s current efforts to address the scandal of child abuse, and about how he dealt with abuse allegations in his role as educator and adviser to Bishop Mulkearns.

Now 85, the retired Mulkearns is known to have moved Gerald Ridsdale, one of Australia’s most notorious abusers, between parishes for several years while being fully aware of the former-priest’s abuses. Ridsdale is known to have committed more than 130 offenses while chaplain at Ballarat’s St. Alipius school in the 1960s-1980s.

Pell himself lived with Ridsdale in a seminary in the early 1970s, but stressed that at the time, he had been unaware of the priest’s crimes.

He voiced his criticism for the way Bishop Mulkearns had dealt with Ridsdale, saying it was “a catastrophe for the victims and a catastrophe for the Church.”

Mulkearns, he said, “shifted” Ridsdale and gave him “chance after chance after chance, shifted him around, and, initially at least, trusted excessively in the possible benefits of psychological help.”

“If effective action had been taken earlier, an enormous amount of suffering would have been avoided," Cardinal Pell said, and admitted that while he is now aware of Ridsdale's crimes, at the time they lived together he was unaware of both the abuses and Bishop Mulkearns' knowledge of them.

In addition to Risdale, other cases Cardinal Pell was questioned on were those of Fr. Paul David Ryan, who in 2006 was imprisoned for three charges of indecent assault, and on numerous accusations against members of the Christian Brothers who were teaching in Catholic schools at the time.

Pell recognized that there had been “a pattern” of moving known pedophile priests, including Ryan and Ridsdale, under Mulkearns, and said the bishop would be a good candidate for the Vatican's new tribunal in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In June 2015, Pope Francis approved of the establishment of a special tribunal within the congregation to specifically judge bishops accused of protecting priests that had sexually abused children.

When questioned about the Vatican’s current stance in terms of reporting child abuse, Cardinal Pell stressed that “the law of the land should be followed.”

In a Feb. 28 statement released by his office, the cardinal emphasized his support for the commission’s work, and said he would be available to meet with the abuse survivors who have come to Rome for the hearing.

He expressed his hope that the coming days “will eventually lead to healing for everyone,” and said he had tied a yellow ribbon to the fence of the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes inside the Vatican Gardens as a sign of solidarity with the “Loud Fence” initiative, which was launched in Ballarat to support abuse survivors.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/David Gray, Reuters

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SYDNEY (CNS) -- The Vatican's prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, Cardinal George Pell, told a special hearing of Australia's Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that he was not trying "to defend the indefensible."

Commencing the morning of Feb. 29 -- 10 p.m. Feb. 28 in Rome -- Cardinal Pell gave evidence at a special session convened in Rome's Hotel Quirinale via video link to the Commission in Australia, from where he was questioned for four hours by Gail Furness, senior counsel assisting the commission.

"The church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those," he said. "The church in many places, including Australia, has mucked things up and let people down, and I'm not here to defend the indefensible."

A heart condition prevented the cardinal from making the flight back to Sydney for the hearing, with the commissioners agreeing to his request to give evidence via video link.

The Royal Commission also ruled that Australian survivors of abuse, their supporters and media from Australia would be permitted to be in the room while the cardinal testified, and the Verdi room at Hotel Quirinale was filled to capacity for his evidence.

It is the third time Cardinal Pell has testified before the commission; he appeared in person in March 2014 and again later that year via video link from Rome. He answered questions for four hours and was expected to repeat those hours for two-three more nights as the hearings continue.

The cardinal met privately with Pope Francis Feb. 29.

The Royal Commission was announced by then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard in November 2012 and was tasked with making recommendations on issues relating to child protection in institutions and government. It is empowered to employ a combination of public and private hearings, roundtable discussions and research projects, but has no ability to make findings in relation to criminal conduct.

Cardinal Pell arrived at the Rome hotel about three hours before he was due to testify.

Furness began her questioning by asking Cardinal Pell about his role and authority within the Holy See, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and the new judicial section set up within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to judge bishops on matters of abuse of office connected to the abuse of minors.

He confirmed that his advice was sought on the establishment of the pontifical commission, that he fully supported it, and that while he did not control the resources made available to it, had made it clear that anything it wanted should be provided.

Focus then turned to the cardinal's early years as an assistant pastor in the Diocese of Ballarat, a large diocese spanning some 22,000 square miles in western Victoria. Cardinal Pell spent the initial years following his 1966 ordination studying in Rome and the United Kingdom and did not take up his first appointment as an assistant pastor until mid-1971.

He told the commission that during the early 1970s there was a predisposition to not believe children and that, too many times, complaints were dismissed in sometimes "scandalous" circumstances.

He said that reasonable complaints were dealt with poorly by church authorities and that the instinct was to protect the institution and community of the church from shame. He also commented that there was a well-intended overestimate of what could be treated by psychiatry and psychology.

Quizzed at length about his knowledge of complaints against Msgr. John Day, a priest who died in 1978 before any charges could be laid against him, Cardinal Pell said that while he could recall some discussions at the time incidents were reported in a newspaper in 1972, Msgr. Day's parish in the town of Mildura was 120 miles from his own parish in Swan Hill; the distance meant that the gossip from one town did not necessarily reach another.

Asked about his next appointment as assistant priest at St. Alipius, Ballarat East, he said he had heard unspecified reports of harsh discipline being inflicted on children at a local Catholic school and possible other infractions of a sexual nature by Brother Edward Dowlan.

The schools connected to the parish were run by the Christian Brothers, several of whom would later be convicted of numerous sexual offenses against children. Cardinal Pell told the commission he had discussed the matter with the school chaplain, who assured him the Brothers were aware and dealing with the matter. Brother Dowlan left the school shortly thereafter.

Another priest resident at the St. Alipius presbytery during the period in question was Father Gerald Ridsdale, who has been in prison since 1994 for these crimes and has been liaicized. Cardinal Pell told the commission that the way Ridsdale was dealt with by Bishop Ronald Mulkearns -- who gave testimony via video link from a nursing home where he is receiving palliative care for cancer -- was a "catastrophe" for the victims and the church.

"If effective action had been taken earlier, an enormous amount of suffering would have been avoided," the cardinal said.

The hearing adjourned shortly after the questions about Ridsdale began, but Cardinal Pell's relationship with and knowledge of the offenses committed by Ridsdale are expected to be the focus of more analysis in the coming days.

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Junno Arocho Esteves

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican released Pope Francis' liturgical schedule for March and April, including Holy Week and Easter.

The pope's schedule includes a penitential celebration and a consistory for several causes of canonization. However, the schedule does not say where he will celebrate the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper.

Greg Burke, vice director of the Vatican press office, told journalists the location will be announced at a later date. Since the start of his pontificate, the pope has celebrated the Holy Thursday Mass in places that highlight a pastoral need.

Last year, the pope celebrated the Mass and foot-washing ritual at Rome's Rebibbia prison where he washed the feet of 12 male and female inmates.

The Vatican issued a decree Jan. 21 specifying that the Holy Thursday foot-washing ritual can include "all members of the people of God," including women -- a practice observed for some time by Pope Francis and many priests around the world.

The calendar released by the Vatican Feb. 29 included:

-- March 4: Penitential liturgy in St. Peter's Basilica.

-- March 6-11: Lenten retreat with officials from the Roman Curia in Ariccia, a town outside Rome.

-- March 15: Consistory for several causes of canonization

-- March 20: Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square.

-- March 24: Holy Thursday, morning chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

-- March 25: Good Friday afternoon liturgy of the Lord's Passion in St. Peter's Basilica. Nighttime Way of the Cross in Rome's Colosseum.

-- March 26: Easter vigil at 8:30 p.m. in St. Peter's Basilica.

-- March 27: Easter morning Mass in St. Peter's Square, followed by the papal blessing "urbi et orbi" (to the city and the world).

-- April 2: Jubilee Prayer Vigil in St. Peter's Square for those devoted to the spirituality of Divine Mercy.

-- April 3: Divine Mercy Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Kim Ludbrook, EPA

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Salvation is not found through extraordinary things or powerful people and alliances, Pope Francis said at his morning Mass. God offers it freely in response to "simple" acts of faith, like helping those in need, he said.

"In our minds, salvation must come from something big, from something grandiose," the pope said Feb. 29 during the Mass in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

People think that "only the powerful are saved, those who have strength, money, power, they can be saved. (But) God's plan is something else," he said.

The pope's homily looked at the day's reading from the Second Book of Kings (5:1-15) in which the army commander, Naaman, doubted the prophet Elisha's simple instructions that washing in the Jordan River would cure his leprosy.

Jesus also tells the story of Elisha and Naaman in the day's Gospel reading from Luke (4:24-30), which triggers fury in his listeners -- in "the doctors of the law who were seeking salvation in moral casuistry" and in many laws, the pope said, according to Vatican Radio.

The doctors of the law and "the Sadducees, who sought salvation in compromises with the powerful of the world, with the (Roman) Empire -- the one group with the network of clerics, the others with political networks -- they sought salvation that way," he said.

The people had little confidence in these leaders and instead "believed in Jesus because he spoke with authority." However many leaders were indignant "because they cannot understand that salvation only comes from little things, from the simplicity of the things of God," the pope said.

Jesus never spoke about the path of salvation being linked to "great things" but rather, he said, to the "little things" expressed in the Beatitudes and the "Judgment of the Nations," which refers to feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger and the other actions mentioned in Matthew 25:31-46.

Pope Francis asked that people prepare for Easter by reading the Beatitudes and the "Judgment of the Nations" and reflecting on what things caused any discomfort or feelings of disdain in them. Contempt is "a luxury that only the vain, the proud can afford," he said.

If something in either text stirs up any feelings of disdain, he said, then "ask for the Lord's grace to understand that the only path of salvation is the 'foolishness of the cross,'" Jesus emptying himself and making himself small.

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