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 WASHINGTON- The United States has a moral obligation to protect unaccompanied children and families from persecution in Central America, said Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, October 21. Bishop Seitz is an advisor to the USCCB Committee on Migration and a member of the board of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC).

The humanitarian outflow, driven by organized crime in the northern triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, continues, with nearly 40,000 unaccompanied children and an equal number of mothers with children having arrived in the United States in Fiscal Year 2015.

"If we do not respond justly and humanely to this challenge in our own backyard, then we will relinquish our moral leadership and moral influence globally," Bishop Seitz said.

Bishop Seitz pointed to the human consequences of U.S. policies which are designed to deter migration from the region, including U.S. support for Mexican interdiction efforts which are intercepting children and families in Mexico and sending them back to danger, in violation of international law.

Bishop Seitz recommended an end to these interdictions and the introduction of a regional system which would screen children and families for asylum in Mexico and other parts of the region. He also called for Congress to approve and increase a $1 billion aid package proposed by the Administration.

"If we export enforcement," Bishop Seitz said, "we also must export protection."

Bishop Seitz recalled the words of Pope Francis before Congress in September, when he invoked the golden rule in guiding our nation's actions toward those seeking safety in our land.

Quoting the Holy Father, Bishop Seitz repeated to the committee, "'The yardstick we use for others will be the yardstick which time will use for us.'"

"Mr. Chairman, I pray that time, and history, will conclude that we honored this rule in meeting this humanitarian challenge," Bishop Seitz concluded.

Bishop Seitz' testimony can be found at http://www.usccb.org//about/migration-policy/congressional-testimony/upload/seitz-ongoing-migration.pdf

Keywords: Bishop Mark J. Seitz, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, USCCB, Congress, Senate, Committee on Migration, migration, unaccompanied children, violence, Pope Francis
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Regensburg, Germany, Dec 17, 2015 / 03:15 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Bishop of Regensburg spoke out against “gender theory” in a homily recently made available in English – chastising the German bishops' conference for presenting the idea “as being basically compatible with Catholic belief.”

Celebrating the feast of St. Wolfgang, who was Bishop of Regensburg from 972 to 994, Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer taught in an Oct. 31 homily that gender theory – the idea of separating biological sex from gender – does not contribute to equality, and is ultimately a denial of nature and the goodness of creation. It puts at stake the essence of man and woman, denying their nature as potential fatherhood and motherhood.

A bishop's pastoral ministry, he said, “includes the duty and the responsibility to act as a guardian, to raise his voice, as necessary, to draw attention to discrepancies or errors, however convenient or inconvenient this may be.”

“Recently, just such a necessity has again arisen.”

Bishop Voderholzer noted that the German bishops' conference published a flyer in late October which “was written to declare these theories as being basically compatible with Catholic belief, in contrast to an extreme form of gender mainstream, and it claims to be formulating the Catholic position on this issue.”

“In my opinion, the former appears impossible – finally, there is no such thing as 'gender light'. The concept lowers the drawbridge and opens the gate to positions irreconcilable with the Christian faith. And the flyer not only fails to present the Catholic position, it leaves it out completely.”

The bishop also noted that the publication “was released in the name of the Conference of Bishops, of which I am a member, without my having previously seen its content, much less having approved it.”

He made three points on his opposition to the flyer, saying it “fails to mention the basic opposition between gender theories and the Christian belief in creation”; it pretends that “gender theories were an important contribution in service of the equality of all men, while the hostility such theories express towards divine creation is merely attributable to the exaggerations of a small minority”; and that it “fails to mention to the reader the large number of Church statements regarding gender theories, although there is no shortage of them.”

Bishop Voderholzer stated that “anyone who commits himself to justice between the sexes or to the protection of man’s dignity has me at his side,” and that the Church cares for all human persons “independent of their age, sex, background and sexual orientation. The concern even applies to man prior to birth and in every situation and phase of life.”

“But the gender debate is not about all of that,” he said. “Gender theoreticians use the equality issues in order to introduce in society a notion of man that goes far beyond specific concerns of equality and, finally, paradoxically, leads to the dissolution of that which ought to be protected, specifically the intrinsic value of male and female existence. The gender theory implies a denial of the nature of man and woman and, hence, also the exclusion of the belief in God, the good Creator.”

The bishop distinguished between culturally-assigned roles and the essence of sex differentiation, noting that “of course men can also iron shirts, wash dishes and change diapers. And women can also park cars, become chancellor and change tires. This is not just a question of what is supposed to be 'typically female' and what is considered 'typically male'. This pertains to what is essential.”

“The excessive differentiation, in extreme cases, the separation of biological and social gender, is the basic error of gender theory.”

Bishop Voderholzer taught that “the essence of man and woman is the potential to become a father and the potential to become a mother, respectively. These are not exchangeable roles, but rather gifts from the Creator, and, in the last instance, a calling.”

There is no such thing as 'gender light'. The concept lowers the drawbridge and opens the gate to positions irreconcilable with the Christian faith.

The potential for motherhood orients a woman's physical existence, her hormones, her physicality, he noted, adding that this remains true even “ if she lives single and remains childless because she has perhaps decided to follow Christ in a religious order, decided in favor of spiritual motherhood.”

Gender theory's “underlying message,” he said, “is the repudiation of the order of creation” and its goodness.

“It is not only an excessive demand but rather a completely senseless endeavor to want to select one's gender instead of accepting and cultivating the sex given to you at birth.”

The bishop emphasized that the Church wishes to help people to live in accordance with their nature. “Nobody is condemned for having difficulties accepting his biological gender,” he said, “but then someone has to help them to accept their masculinity and their femininity. This is not surgically possible, it is only possible with human and pastoral care.”

The process of maturation “can only be successful with nature, not against it!” he reiterated. He quoted Bishop Stefan Oster of Passau, and added that “one can do without the concept 'gender' altogether, because, like a Trojan horse, the concept, finally, opens the door to anti-creation theories, that are related to it everywhere. Again: There is no such thing as a 'gender light' version.”

Bishop Voderholzer concluded by noting the variety of popes and bishops who have spoken out against gender theory, saying the German bishops' conference's flyer “grandiosely claims to present the Catholic position in the question. But it fails to include the many statements on the subject issued by bishops and the Pope.”

He began by noting five separate instances in which Pope Francis has spoken against gender theory, including his June 8 ad limina address to the Puerto Rican bishops, where he said: “Allow me to call your attention to the value and beauty of marriage. The complementarity of man and woman, the pinnacle of divine creation, is being questioned by the so-called gender ideology, in the name of a more free and just society. The differences between man and woman are not for opposition or subordination, but for communion and generation, always in the 'image and likeness' of God. Without mutual self-giving, neither one can understand the other in depth.”

The bishop then quoted from Benedict XVI's 2012 Christmas greetings to the Roman Curia, in which he said that “people dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves … The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned.”

Bishop Voderholzer then referred to the final report of the Synod on the Family, published Oct. 24, which called gender ideology “a very important cultural challenge” to the family and said that “According to our faith, the difference between the sexes bears in itself the image and likeness of God.”

“It is clear words such as these that are absent in the flyer that I have criticized,” said Bishop Voderholzer. “And, indeed, they might have quoted German bishops as well, instead of omitting them.”

His first example was Archbishop Ludwig Schick of Bamberg, who in 2005 said that gender theory “only allows man and woman, fatherliness and motherliness, to be defined as products of education and socialization. Hence, it is fundamentally wrong.”

He also pointed to Bishop Heinz Algermissen of Fulda, who in a July homily “described gender theory as an ideology that completely opposes reality and the integrity of human nature.”

Bishop Voderholzer concluded his homily by saying that “as a bishop who has accepted the torch of belief and pastoral responsibility from his forerunners, including Saint Wolfgang, I cannot, and may not, keep quiet on this subject, and I call upon you to add your voice to mine in this dispute so that the biblical image of man in its entire radiance and depth can also provide orientation to young people of our time in particular.”

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Salt Lake City, Utah, Dec 17, 2015 / 03:25 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Red bread mold, and not a miracle, caused the changed appearance of a Eucharistic host that some said was bleeding, an inquiry by the Diocese of Salt Lake City has confirmed.

The diocese reaffirmed the miraculous nature of every Mass and stressed the need for Catholics to avoid “rash speculation” about miraculous claims.

“In the history of the Church, by Divine Providence, miracles have taken place. The sole purpose of a miracle is to bring about good,” Monsignor M. Francis Mannion said in the diocese’s statement Dec. 16.

“False claims of miracles, on the other hand, cause harm to the faithful and damage the Church’s credibility. While not dismissing the possibility of miracles, understanding the potential harm of hastily jumping to conclusions should cause all the faithful, lay and clergy alike, to act with great prudence.”

The priest, who chaired the diocese’s ad hoc committee investigating the alleged miracle, also emphasized the real miracle at every Mass.

“Catholics should take this opportunity to renew their faith and devotion in the great miracle of the Real Presence which takes place at every Eucharist,” Msgr. Mannion said.

The report concerned a Host at St. Francis Xavier Church in Kearns, a Salt Lake City suburb. During Holy Communion at the church Nov. 8, a member of the congregation returned to the celebrant a consecrated Host that was not consumed because it had been given to a child who had not received her first Holy Communion. The priest then placed the Host in an ablution bowl for it to dissolve.

After several days the Host developed a red color. Some parishioners said the Host appeared to be bleeding.

The diocesan administrator, Msgr. Colin F. Bircumshaw, appointed an ad hoc committee to investigate. Committee members included experts in Catholic theology, canon law, molecular biology, and ministry.

The committee considered the events at the parish, including hearing from numerous parishioners.

Msgr. Mannion said it was crucial that the Host was left “unprotected and unattended in a dish of water” for about a week.

The committee had a capable scientist perform controlled tests on the Host, taking great care to ensure its reverent treatment. The scientist concluded that the change could be satisfactorily explained by natural causes such as the growth of red bread mold. The committee unanimously concluded the same.

The diocese said the Host was disposed of in a reverent manner.

Msgr. Mannion said the investigating committee was appointed “in the wake of excitement generated by the premature and imprudent display and veneration of the Host.” The public display of the Host generated a number of local and national media reports, including digital photographs and videos.

“Predictably, these reports led to rash speculation about what caused the change in the color of the host,” the monsignor said.

He explained that the Church “presumes that most situations appearing to be extraordinary phenomena are actually the result of natural causes.” The evidence standard for proving a miracle is “quite high” and if a thorough investigation finds a satisfying and conclusive natural explanation then “a directly supernatural cause is ruled out.”

The committee found a need to determine proper protocols for clergy dealing with similar situations in the future.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Chaz Muth

By Chaz Muth

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Frank Chambers was looking for a peaceful moment as he strolled through the noisy holiday exhibits at the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library on a recent December afternoon.

"I love the antique trains that are running through the first floor of the museum and the bells and whistles of Christmas, but I think I was getting a little overstimulated," Chambers told Catholic News Service.

"Then, as I reached the second floor, I noticed this dark and quiet exhibit room that looked like it had some religious art in it," the native New Yorker said. "I thought, 'Perfect,' and I went in and stumbled onto this totally cool piece of sacred art and found out that it had been restored recently. It really helped me bring my faith into the holidays."

The museum patron is referring to the exhibit of Italian painter Taddeo Gaddi's early Renaissance triptych "Madonna and Child Enthroned with Ten Saints: Maesta."

"Maesta" means Madonna and majesty.

It's being shown for the first time with two double-sided wings, said Roberta J.M. Olson, curator of the exhibit, during a recent interview with CNS at the New York museum, across from Central Park.

The central panel of the 14th-century Florentine triptych -- the "Maesta" has been on display in the past.

However, the exhibit at the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library is the first time it has been shown with two double-sided wings, in which Olson's research strongly suggests belonged to Gaddi's devotional triptych, painted 1330-34, which is why the exhibit is entitled "Maesta: Gaddi's Triptych Reunited."

The wings had been in storage in a private collection and Olson, along with researchers from the J. Paul Getty Museum, were able to connect them to the Gaddi "Maesta" through physical features, iconography and other details.

"The 'Maesta's central panel has wonderful punch marks," Olson told CNS. "It has two different types. One Gaddi used on a lot of paintings and one he only used on our 'Maesta,' the two shutters that are now shown with it for the first time and one other painting in the world. Which was sort of the final nail in the proof."

The 13-by-9-inch triptych would have been used in a private home by a Florentine family for their devotional practices and the side panels would have been folded up when it was transported to a country home or on other travels, she said.

Gaddi worked during the early part of the Renaissance, a time in which there was a more secular approach to religion, Olson said, "when St. Francis and St. Dominic and Dominican orders were reaching out to the people and there were not private chapels in palaces. Instead they had diptychs and triptychs ' that would be set up usually in the bedroom and would make sort of a mini-chapel."

The exhibit of this newly reunited work is set up to simulate a private devotional space in a Florentine home.

The triptych is painted in tempera, gesso and gold leaf featuring Mary and Jesus flanked by 10 figures, including St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Agnes and St. John the Baptist, patron saint of Florence.

The shutters feature scenes of the Annunciation, Nativity and Crucifixion.

"We are so pleased that our Renaissance jewel is home after conservation, with the added thrill that we can now imagine it as the artist originally intended," said Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of the New-York Historical Society. "As New York's first museum, we are proud stewards of works gifted by pioneering connoisseurs like Thomas Jefferson Bryan, whose foresight allowed such masterworks to be seen in New York."

Bryan was a renowned 19th-century art collector and left much of his collection to the New-York Historical Society upon his death in 1870.

Other works from the Bryan collection are featured in the "Maesta: Gaddi's Triptych Reunited" exhibit, which will be displayed at the museum until March 20. The museum's website is.www.nyhistory.org.

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Follow Chaz Muth on Twitter: @Chazmaniandevyl.

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A video to accompany this story can be found at https://youtu.be/mD_sfTFVKsI.

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Copyright © 2015 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When Pope Francis established the Year of Mercy, a full slate of Jubilee events were slotted into his already packed calendar for 2016.

A typical "business as usual" year for a pope is already full with meetings, liturgies and foreign trips.

But then add the extraordinary Jubilee Year, which will run until Nov. 20, and the pope will now preside over at least one major public ceremony or event each month. He will carry out a personal "work of mercy" in Rome one Friday a month and lead an extra general audience one Saturday a month in addition to his weekly Wednesday gatherings.

And being the "impromptu" pope who likes to do things that aren't marked in press office bulletins, 2016 looks like it will keep this 79-year-old pontiff busier than usual.

The only load that has been lightened, at least one that has been announced ahead of time by the Vatican, is there will be no pastoral visits to Italian parishes for the year.

"Due to the intensified commitments for the Jubilee, it is the intention of the Holy Father to postpone pastoral visits in Italy," the Vatican press office said early December.

But that does not mean he's putting away his passport, since he still plans pastoral journeys across the globe.

A six-day, six-city trip to Mexico in February has been finalized with almost daily flights out of Mexico City to the "peripheries" to meet with indigenous communities, young people, prisoners and the poor. This will be his fourth visit to Latin America and his 12th trip abroad in his three years as pope.

Pope Francis will take a short flight to Poland for World Youth Day in Krakow in July. So far the unofficial, tentative schedule has the pope attending the last four days of events during the week-long gathering, including a Way of the Cross, a prayer vigil, and the closing Mass where, traditionally, he will announce the next World Youth Day host country.

The Vatican never makes an official announcement of future papal trips until a few months closer to the departure date but, looking at past practice, he took five trips abroad each year, trying to hit more marginalized nations and countries with a Catholic minority -- especially places where Christians had suffered persecution.

For 2016, one possible stop might be Armenia. He celebrated a special Mass at the Vatican in April 2015 to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1915-18 genocide of up to 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman-Turkish empire.

The pope told journalists in November he had already promised the Armenian Catholic and Orthodox patriarchs he would visit their country.

"I don't know if this can be done, but the promise has been made," he said.

When asked about other trips planned, especially for Latin America, he said, "You know, traveling at my age isn't good for you. You can do it, but it takes its toll."

However, he will invite the world come to Rome for a dozen major "jubilees" planned for the Year of Mercy, dedicated to: catechists; deacons; priests; religious; the Roman Curia and those administering offices connected with the Vatican; children; the ill; prisoners; and those in need of consolation, to name a few.

He will start the new year with opening the last of the four Holy Doors in Rome -- the Basilica of St. Mary Major -- on the feast of Mary, Mother of God.

He will send out more than 800 missionaries of mercy on Ash Wednesday to go to different parts of the world to be "preachers and confessors of mercy."

That event will coincide with the relics of St. Padre Pio, a Capuchin priest who bore the stigmata of Jesus, being shown in Rome for the first time. The pope requested the saint's corpse be exposed for veneration in St. Peter's Basilica, according to jubilee organizers, to be a sign for the missionaries of how God welcomes those who seek forgiveness.

Pope Francis is expected to canonize Blessed Teresa of Kolkata in early September as the church celebrates the Jubilee for workers and volunteers of mercy.

Beyond the Jubilee, the pope will preside over major traditional liturgical events throughout the year, meet with ambassadors, papal nuncios, Vatican officials and groups from all over the world.

He will also visit Rome's synagogue Jan. 17 and meet with the city's Jewish community, making it the third time a pope has visited the city's place of worship.

He gave more than 200 speeches in 2015, and it's quite likely a similar stream of encounters will continue with scripted or off-the-cuff talks to kids, teachers, religious men and women, Catholic associations and experts attending Vatican-sponsored conferences. It is in these addresses that the pope often outlines what needs to be done in the world -- as a disciple of Christ or a man or woman of good will.

Observers expect him to issue his second apostolic exhortation in 2016, following the conclusion of two gatherings of the Synod of Bishops on the family in 2014 and 2015.

As far as major meetings, he will probably convene the world's cardinals in February as he did the last two years. Such consistories offer the pope a chance hold working meetings on some of his most urgent priorities and tap into the College of Cardinals as an advisory body as well as vote on upcoming saints' causes.

The pope's smaller consultative body, the Council of Cardinals or the C9, will come together in February, too, beginning their cycle of five scheduled gatherings for the year dealing with internal issues of reforming the Vatican's structures and processes.

Their next working sessions, which will last for three days instead of two starting in April, will be dedicated to drawing up details for a new Vatican congregation merging offices dealing with justice, peace, migration and charity. The pope is also expected to release further details about the already announced establishment of a new office for laity, family and life.

As far as time off? Pope Francis does staycations. Almost all audiences and meetings will be suspended for a few weeks in the summer. But he'll be busy nonetheless, as he uses the short lull to play catch-up on paperwork, upcoming documents and personally responding to letters, especially from friends and acquaintances -- a habit he had as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and tries to stay true to as pope.

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Follow Glatz on Twitter: @carolglatz.

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Copyright © 2015 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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