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Vatican City, Jun 15, 2017 / 11:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis, in a foreword to a work by Cardinal Peter Turkson, has said corruption infects the world like a cancer, and the Church must combat it by working together with society, infusing it with mercy.

“We must all work together, Christians, non-Christians, people of all faiths and non-believers, to combat this form of blasphemy, this cancer that weighs our lives,” the Pope wrote.

“It is urgent to take notice of it, and this is why we need education and a merciful culture, we need cooperation on the part of everyone according to their own possibilities, their talents, their creativity.”

Hi words on corruption were written in a foreword for Corrosion, a book-length interview of Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, published June 15.

The interview was conducted by Vittorio V. Alberti, a member of the Cardinal Turkson's dicastery.

The book was presented at the Vatican during an “International Debate on Corruption.” Italian daily Corriere della Sera published the Pope’s foreword June 14, just ahead of the book’s release.

Corruption, Francis wrote, in its Italian etymological root, means “a tear, break, decomposition, and disintegration.”

The life of a human being can be understood in the context of his many relationships: with God, with his neighbor, with creation, the Pope said.

“This threefold relationship – in which man's self-reflection also falls – gives context and sense to his actions and, in general, to his life,” but these are destroyed by corruption.

When we respect these relationships we are honest, responsible, and work for the common good. But when corruption enters in, they become torn. “Thus, corruption expresses the general form of disordered life of the decayed man,” he said.

And this has an effect on all of society.

What, for example, he asked, is at the root of exploitation, degradation, human trafficking, trafficking of weapons and drugs, social injustice, lack of service for people? What is the origin of slavery, unemployment, carelessness for cities, common goods, and nature?

Corruption “is a profound cultural question that needs to be addressed.”

But in order to address it, we must understand the different forms of corruption, besides merely the political, like those that infect even the average person.

For example, Francis said, our corruption can be a “spiritual worldliness, tepidness, hypocrisy, triumphalism, to make prevail only the spirit of the world in our lives, a sense of indifference.”

In the book, Cardinal Turkson explains the ramifications of these different forms of corruption, he continued, focusing in particular on the origins of corruption: which, “in fact, sprouts in the heart of man and can sprout in the heart of all men.”

“We are, in fact, all very exposed to the temptation of corruption: even when we think it has been defeated, it can be present again,” he said.

Cardinal Turkson explores the different types of corruption, including spiritual, cultural, political, and criminal, as well as the various ways in which they come about and insinuate themselves into our lives. Putting these together, he shows what the Church must do, the Pope said.

“The Church must listen, raise herself and bend herself on the sorrows and hopes of people according to mercy, and must do so without fear of purifying herself, assiduously seeking a way to improve.”

“Henri de Lubac wrote that the greatest danger for the Church is spiritual worldliness – therefore corruption – which is more disastrous than the infamous leprosy.”

“And it is with this awareness that we, men and women of the Church, can accompany ourselves and the suffering humanity, especially those most oppressed by the criminal consequences and degradation created by corruption.”

To fight the many ways we may allow corruption into our lives, we must join together, Francis said. On our own we are like individual pieces of snow, both Christians and non-Christians. But united, we can become like an avalanche, he explained: “a strong and constructive movement.”

“Here is the new humanism, this renaissance, this re-creation against corruption that we can accomplish with prophetic audacity.”

Writing from inside the Vatican, Francis reflected on the ways beauty can transcend sin and corruption.

“This beauty is not a cosmetic accessory, but something that puts the human person in the center so that it can lift the head against all injustices,” he said.

“This beauty should marry with justice. Thus we must speak about corruption, denounce evils, understand it, and show the will to affirm mercy for grief, curiosity and creativity for resigned fatigue, beauty for nothing.”

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Indianapolis, Ind., Jun 15, 2017 / 01:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis’ representative to the United States encouraged the nation’s bishops this week to promote solidarity and listen to those on the margins of society.

“Despite the various advances in technology and social communications, it seems that the mission of evangelization is stifled because often we only speak with those with whom we agree and do not listen enough to those at the margins of the Church and of society,” Archbishop Christophe Pierre, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, told a gathering of the U.S. bishops on Wednesday.

True solidarity, he said, “demands recognizing the common, inherent human dignity of each person” like welcoming the migrant “fleeing persecution or ‘certain death,’ as is the case with so many migrants.”

The nuncio welcomed the bishops at their annual spring general assembly, held in Indianapolis on June 14-15.

At their meeting, the bishops discussed pressing issues like immigration, health care, and international religious persecution, as well as the upcoming synod on young people to be held in 2018.

Archbishop Pierre noted in his address that he has served as Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S. for a year, and that he has been “impressed with the faith of the people” in the midst of “an increasingly secular culture that values efficiency and productivity over spiritual values.”

He referenced the 2007 general conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops which resulted in the concluding Aparecida document, where the bishops conceded that the culture was rapidly changing and secularizing and that they could not “passively and calmly wait in our church buildings.”

Likewise, Catholics in the U.S. cannot wait, but must be “missionaries” and go “to the margins of the Church and society” to listen to those at the peripheries, he said.

He commended the bishops for already doing this, giving examples of the Mass said at the U.S.-Mexico border, their presence at the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., and last November’s Mass at St. Peter Claver Church in West Baltimore, a historic African-American church near where the bishops gathered during their annual fall meeting.

That Mass “sent a powerful message in a time of racial tension that minorities will not be forgotten and that they enrich the whole Church,” he said.

Yet the bishops must continue reaching out to those on the “periphery” of society, including youth, who must be heard at the next synod on young people in 2018, the archbishop insisted. Yesterday, a survey was released on the Vatican website for the synod, reaching out specifically to youth between the ages of 16 and 29 to answer.

“I wish to encourage you to be proactive in ministering to our young people and in learning from them as you listen and evangelize,” the nuncio said.

He gave as an example of solidarity in action Latin American countries, which in recent years “have grown in fraternity” especially through “the collegial working of their bishops, giving rise to a true unity in diversity.”

“Why could the Church in the United States not generate positive results, in the Church and in the world, framing and influencing the direction of dialogue on the fundamental issues of our day?” Archbishop Pierre continued.

However, this solidarity between countries and persons is not “uniformity” that tramples on “the values and priorities of the people,” he insisted, as it rather opposes the “ideological colonization” that Pope Francis has warned of.

Rather, true solidarity can only be achieved “in the Truth, who is a person,” he said.

Earlier Wednesday morning, the bishops sent a greeting to Pope Francis where they mentioned his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in May.

“We pray the seeds sown on the common ground of life and religious freedom will bear much fruit,” they stated, while reaffirming their pledge to find “areas of good collaboration” with elected officials.

“Close to our hearts are the poor, families in need of health care and those immigrating to the United States in search of a safe and secure home,” they stated.

 

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Indianapolis, Ind., Jun 15, 2017 / 01:57 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. bishops voted on Thursday to make their Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty a permanent committee of the national bishops’ conference.

“The very idea of religious freedom and its root in human nature is challenged” today, said Archbishop Lori, chair of the ad hoc committee, at a meeting of the U.S. bishops Thursday.

He added, “how important it is that we remain in the public square through advocacy” for the freedom of religious institutions to fight poverty, provide health care and education, serve immigrants, and protect human life.

In 2011, the ad hoc committee was formed for a period of three years, as the “bishops were deeply concerned about a broad trend” of threats to religious freedom on the local and national level, Archbishop Lori noted, speaking at the annual spring general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Indianapolis.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his address to U.S. bishops in January of 2012 during their “ad limina” visit, warned of “grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism” where there were “certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion.”

“Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices,” the Pope said. “Others have spoken to me of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.

The U.S. bishops voted in 2014 to extend the committee for another three-year period. Then on Thursday, they voted to make the committee permanent by a vote of 132-53, with five bishops abstaining.

Most notably, the committee established the annual Fortnight for Freedom, a two-week campaign of prayer, penance, and advocacy for the Church’s continued freedom to serve in the public square, starting on June 21, the eve of the feasts of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher, and ending on July 4, Independence Day.

One of the most notable threats the ad hoc committee warned of was the contraceptive mandate. The Department of Health and Human Services, interpreting the Affordable Care Act, had issued rules under the Obama administration that employer health plans had to cover sterilizations, contraceptives, and drugs that can cause abortions.

While churches and their immediate auxiliaries were exempt from the mandate, many religious institutions, including hospitals, universities, and charities, were not. Changes to the regulation offered by the Obama administration still violated the religious beliefs of the Catholic organizations, bishops and Church leaders contended.

In May, President Donald Trump promised regulatory relief from the mandate for religious non-profits like the Little Sisters of the Poor.

“The struggle against the HHS mandate is not over,” Archbishop Lori warned on Thursday. “Victory is not assured.”

The promised relief could change with another presidential administration who could again enforce the mandate against religious groups, the archbishop said.

And other threats to religious freedom persist, he said, like the legalization of same-sex marriage, which could pose problems for religious institutions that uphold the Church’s teaching on marriage.

The archbishop cited then-Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who admitted during oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states, that there could be an issue with the tax-exempt status of religious universities teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman, if same-sex marriage were the law of the land.

Some bishops voiced their strong support for the committee on Thursday, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, who chaired the USCCB when the committee was formed, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. The most recent president of the USCCB, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, also supported making the committee permanent.

The bishops of the world “look to us,” Cardinal Dolan told his fellow bishops, “to be the real quarterbacks” in “defense of religious freedom.”

A few bishops voiced objections to making the committee permanent in the discussions before the vote on Thursday.

Several were concerned about how it would appear to make the religious liberty committee permanent at the same time that the bishops’ working group on immigration, begun in November, finished its formal work.

However, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, vice president of the conference, clarified later on Thursday at an afternoon press conference that the working group “will continue,” although Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Houston-Galveston, president of the conference who had begun the working group last November, had not specified a timeline for how long it would continue.

Furthermore, Archbishop Lori stressed, the conference already has a standing Committee on Migration. “The important thing is that as the sun sets, there’s a permanent committee in place, because we understand the questions of migration are permanent,” he said.

Bishop Christopher Coyne of Burlington, Vt. also voiced concerns that funding for the religious freedom committee could eventually dry up, while Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark said that domestic religious freedom concerns “can be handled by the domestic policy committee,” referring to the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

“I am not convinced that there is a need at this time for it,” he said of the religious freedom committee.

Bishop Francis Kalabat of the Chaldean Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle in Detroit strongly supported extending the committee, however.

There are “currently 60 million refugees in the world,” he said. “What percentage of them came as a result of a lack of religious freedom?”

“Who you back up, or who backs you up, is who gives you the strength” in the Middle East, he said, noting that if the U.S. shows strong support for religious freedom, it also shows support for persecuted Christians elsewhere.

Religious freedom, Archbishop Lori stressed, covers “a wide spectrum of ministries, a wide spectrum of advocacy,” and there is need for “some consistency for a clearing house and a clear voice.”

“Religious liberty is a concept that really relates to one’s fundamental stance towards God,” he said, “that first and primal relationship towards God.” As Dignitatis Humanae states, he noted, religious freedom is “rooted in human nature” and “granted by God as a fundamental human endowment.

On Thursday, the bishops also voted to approve new guidelines for the celebration of the sacraments of persons with disabilities.

The new guidelines were said to pay deeper attention to allergy problems, for example the gluten intolerance or alcohol intolerance of a communicant. They encouraged parishes to be more aware and accommodating of persons with disabilities in the distribution of the sacraments.

Archbishop Kurtz tweeted on Thursday that the National Catholic Partners on Disability were “excited” about the revised guidelines.

 

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Sean Gallagher, The Criterion

By John Shaughnessy

INDIANAPOLIS (CNS) -- At a time when an estimated 50 percent of Catholics 30 and younger no longer identify with their religion, the U.S. bishops June 14 discussed the need to reverse that trend and why the consultation process for the October 2018 Synod of Bishops on youth and vocations is crucial to that effort.

On the first day of the bishops' spring meeting in Indianapolis, Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, and Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia opened the discussion with a presentation on the consultations and questions for the bishops to consider in preparing for the synod.

"The synod indeed comes at a critical time," Cardinal Tobin told his fellow bishops in his opening remarks. "We know that there are both challenges and opportunities here in the U.S. The increased amount of disconnected millennials is certainly a concern for us, as is the decline and the delay of marriage among young people. Still there are various positive signs to build upon."

Those signs, he said, include "the high interest among millennials during the liturgical seasons of Advent and Lent" and "the continued importance in our ministries and outreach to young people which have a positive effect on vocational discernment."

"The church in the U.S. is poised to engage this conversation for and with young people," he added.

Listening to young people is essential to the conversation, Cardinal Tobin noted.

"This is a time to learn from youth and young adults, to listen to their stories and to engage them in authentic dialogue," he said. "We can also remember that youth and young adults are the agents, not the objects, of this process and of this synod. So they must have as much at stake in this as we do.

"Further, we can involve leaders in youth, campus and young adult ministries, vocations, marriage and family life -- all who connect with youth and young adults in their work."

Archbishop Chaput announced that a Vatican web survey has now been launched for youth and young adults in preparation for the synod: http://youth.synod2018.va.

He then shared two main questions for bishops to consider:

-- How can bishops most effectively accompany youth and young adults in their baptismal call to missionary discipleship and in their vocational discernment -- whether marriage, ordained ministry or consecrated life?

-- How is The U.S. Catholic Church listening to youth and young adults, and what are the best practices in the ministry of accompaniment that are worth sharing with the universal church at the synod?

The number of bishops who wanted to respond publicly went beyond the allotted time in the morning session and continued into the afternoon session.

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio shared his insights as head of the U.S. Archdiocese of the Military Services, noting what he has learned from young adults serving their country.

"Young people are not particularly opposed to the practice of their faith, but it is very important to invite them and preferably that they be invited by their peers," Archbishop Broglio said. "We have to find ways to extend the invitation to living the faith -- and also animating those people who do participate in the life of faith to bring their fellows with them."

Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, encouraged his fellow bishops to "buy in" to listening to young people.

"Mutually, we all should be buying into a vision of church," Archbishop Kurtz said.

That approach was also emphasized -- and extended -- Auxiliary Bishop Fernand J. Cheri III of New Orleans.

"Young people have an enthusiasm that is just crazy, and you got to let that craziness take you where it's going to take you," Bishop Cheri said. "I hope and pray we're open to receive that as we work with young people and make room for them in our Church. The vocations we want to achieve and make real for them will come alive if we allow them to creatively discover the journey to that."

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, shared some of the challenges of young adults that he has learned from conversations he has had with them.

"Some at least have this insight of experiencing this tremendous apparent freedom they have, that is actually another form of enslavement -- this freedom from moral norms," Archbishop Naumann noted. "They were actually seen as something that paralyzes them."

As part of their increased efforts to connect the Catholic faith to young people, bishops also should keep in mind -- and reach out to -- members of this generation whose lives are affected by racism, immigration and incarceration, said Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, California.

"The topics of the synod are very relevant to many of the youths who find themselves in the uncertainty of their own immigration status or that of their parents or family members -- and who are looking for hope," Bishop Soto said.

Auxiliary Bishop Robert E. Barron of Los Angeles shared his insights from his knowledge of a significant part of this young age group, a segment known as "nones" -- because they don't identify with any particular religion.

"The statistics as we all know are pretty troubling," said Bishop Barron. "One of them is that of Catholics 30 and younger, fully 50 percent identify as 'nones.' And when you ask them their objections, they're often intellectual problems dealing with God, dealing with religion and violence, and especially religion and science.

"What strikes me as a danger is if we come at our young people with language of 'baptismal call,' 'vocational discernment,' 'missionary discipleship.' For a lot of our young people, that's just opaque language. We have to clear the ground in a significant way by what I think is a new apologetics," he said.

"I hope that maybe as we approach this synod we can think through this issue of addressing some of these real intellectual difficulties young people have, before we can plant the seed of effective evangelization," he added.

The conversation about young people and faith among the bishops started after a presentation by John Cavadini, a theology professor from the University of Notre Dame.

Cavadini, who also is director of the university's Institute for Church Life, shared a talk with the bishops that he called, "The Baptismal Vocation in the Light of Vocational Discernment of Young People."

"Apart from the problem of evil, perhaps the hardest thing for young people to negotiate is the church itself," Cavadini noted. "Why the church? Why is it worth belonging? What's the point of that vocation? Aren't there other ways to become exclamation points for goodness? Can't I just be a good person?'"

Cavadini stressed that by virtue of baptism people are called to something deeper in their lives -- a connection to Christ, the Eucharist and the Catholic Church.

"The person baptized no longer belongs to him or herself, but to him who died and rose for us," Cavadini told the bishops. "Baptism configures us to the paschal mystery of Christ's passion, death and resurrection. Our being has an essential and irreducible reference to that mystery."

That connection makes all the difference for all people, including the young, he said.

"The discussion of vocation and of the baptismal vocation is incomplete, misleading and ultimately impossible the more distant it becomes from a proper sense of the mystery of the church into which baptism indelibly fixes us," he said. "To be a baptized Christian means to be awesomely aware of this mystery in one's own person and thus to find oneself called further.

"The closer you get to the wounds of Christ -- the result of his baptismal solidarity with sinners -- the closer you get to everyone."

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Shaughnessy is assistant editor of The Criterion, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.

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