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The Church leaders in India say the Government’s ban on sale of cattle for slaughter across the country is a violation of human rights.

The nationwide ban has alarmed minority groups and led to protests in several states. Beef is a cheap source of protein for Muslims and Christians who together form 20 percent of India's population as well as tribal and Dalit people.

The environment ministry banned the sale of cattle, buffaloes and camels for slaughter through animal markets and banned establishing livestock markets within 50 kilometers of an international border and 25 kilometers of a state border. Livestock markets will only be able to trade cattle for agricultural purposes such as ploughing and dairy production. Taking the animal over state boundaries would also require special approval, the government's May 26 order has said.

To the Hindu religion, cows are sacred animals and killing them is a sin. Orthodox Hindus worship them as "gods" symbolizing peace and prosperity.

According to Father Maria Stephen, public relations officer of the Catholic Church in Madhya Pradesh, the ban is part of the government's "hidden agenda" in appeasing hard-line Hindus.

"If the government is so concerned about animal cruelty, it should ban the killing of all the animals and birds," Father Stephen told ucanews.com.

Food habits are an individual choice and the government's move to restrict it according to its ideological wishes in a democratic country "is blatant violation of individual rights," he said.

The powerful pro-Hindu socio-religious Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) group has been pushing the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) for a countrywide ban on the slaughter of cows. The federal government is led by the pro-Hindu BJP, the political wing of the RSS. (UCAN)

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(Vatican Radio)  Pope Francis on Thursday received in audience Dragan Covic, Croatian Member of the Collegial Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the Vatican Apostolic Palace.

A statement from the Holy See Press Office said, "During the cordial discussions, satisfaction was expressed for the good bilateral relations, consolidated by the Basic Agreement of 2006, and the parties considered the situation of the country, the challenges it finds itself facing and its European aspirations, with an exchange of views on themes of interest such as peace, reconciliation, interreligious dialogue and the presence of the Catholic community in the country."

It went on to say they also spoke about "various situations in currently international political affairs, with special reference to the regional context".

Mr. Covic subsequently met with Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, accompanied by Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States.

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has sent a telegram his condolences on the death of His Beatitude, Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, Major Archbishop emeritus of Kyiv-Halyc. The telegram is addressed to Major Archbishop Sviatoslav (Shevchuk), Cardinal Husar’s successor as head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The UGCC is the largest of the sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches, with more than 4.5 million faithful.

In the telegram, signed by the Pope himself, the Holy Father describes Cardinal Husar as a zealous pastor, and recalled “his tenacious faithfulness to Christ, despite the hardships and persecutions against the Church, as well as his fruitful apostolic activity to promote the organization of Greek Catholic faithful, descendants of families forced to leave western Ukraine, and his efforts to find new ways for dialogue and collaboration with the Orthodox churches.”

Below, please find the full text of Pope Francis’ telegram of condolences for the death of His Beatitude Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, Major Archbishop emeritus of Kyiv-Halyc:

His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk
Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halyc

I have learned of the departure of Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, Major Archbishop emeritus of Kyiv-Halyc, and I raise fervent prayers to God that He may grant eternal repose to this zealous pastor. I unite spiritually with the faithful of this diocesan community where he exercised his pastoral ministry, endeavouring with care to serve the rebirth of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. I remember his tenacious faithfulness to Christ, despite the hardships and persecutions against the Church, as well as his fruitful apostolic activity to promote the organization of Greek Catholic faithful, descendants of families forced to leave western Ukraine, and his efforts to find new ways for dialogue and collaboration with the Orthodox churches. In expressing my condolences to the relatives of the departed cardinal, to the clergy and to those who were aided by his episcopal ministry, I wholeheartedly impart a consoling apostolic blessing, as a sign of faith and Christian hope in the risen Lord.

Franciscus pp.

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Vatican City, Jun 1, 2017 / 08:54 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Thursday Pope Francis spoke with the Vatican department in charge of priests, saying he is always happy when he sees young priests, because they are important for Christ and represent the youthful face of the Church.

“I am always joyful when I meet young priests, because in them I see the youth of the Church,” the Pope said June 1.

He pointed to various young biblical figures, such as David, who was not presented by his father as a potential king because of his young age, and the prophet Jeremiah, who thought that he was too young for the mission the Lord entrusted to him.

Speaking directly to young priests, Francis said “you are chosen, you are dear to the Lord! God looks at you with the tenderness of a Father and, after making your heart fall in love, will not let your steps waver.”

“You are important in his eyes and he has confidence that you will be at the height of the mission to which you have been called,” he said, stressing that it’s important for young priests to find pastors and bishops “who encourage them in this perspective, and not only wait for them because there is need for a replacement and to fill empty places!”

Pope Francis spoke to members of the Congregation for Clergy currently participating in their plenary assembly.

The gathering takes place just six months after the promulgation of the congregation’s new “Ratio Fundamentalis,” the Vatican's document on priestly formation, which was released Dec. 7, 2016.

This document, Francis said, “speaks of integral formation, capable of including all aspects of life; and so it indicates the path to form the missionary disciple. A fascinating and demanding path.”

In reflecting on the fascinating and demanding aspects of this path, the Pope said he immediately thought of young priests, who “live the joy of the beginning of ministry and, together, feel the weight.”

A young priest, he said, “lives between the enthusiasm of the first projects and the anxiety of apostolic fatigue, in which they immerse themselves with a certain fear, which is a sign of wisdom.”

While the joy and strength of his recent anointing is acutely felt, the new priest’s shoulders gradually become “burdened” by the weight of the responsibility of his various pastoral commitments and the expectations of his flock, the Pope observed.

“How does a young priest live all this? What does he carry in his heart? What does he need so that his feet, which run to bring the joyful announcement of the Gospel, are not paralyzed in front of the fear of the first difficulties?” the Pope asked.

He noted that young people today are frequently judged “a bit superficially, and are too easily labeled as a ‘liquid’ generation, deprived of passions and ideals.”

While there are certainly youth who are fragile, disoriented and “infected by the culture of consumerism and individualism,” this doesn’t mean that youth capable of generous service and involvement don’t exist, Francis said.

“With all their limits, they are always a resource,” he said, and urged participants to ask themselves how they, in their parishes, view young priests.

Turning again to the new Ratio, which speaks of the priest as “a missionary disciple in permanent formation,” Pope Francis underlined three attitudes he said are key for any priest, but especially those who are just beginning their ministry.

These attitudes, he said, are: to pray without ceasing, to always walk and to share with your heart.  

Consistent prayer is essential in the life of a priest “because we can be fishers of men only if we first recognize that we have been ‘caught’ by the tenderness of the Lord,” he said.

Like the fishermen of Galilee who dropped their nets and followed Jesus, priests have also left behind their own personal plans in order to take up their own nets and “catch” the faithful entrusted to them, the Pope said, adding that “if we are not strictly linked to (the Lord), our fishing will never be successful.”

To live in harmony in prayer, work and rest “represents a precious resource to face apostolic fatigues,” Francis said, stressing that “every day we need to stop ourselves, putting ourselves in a position to listen to the Word of God and to pause in front of the tabernacle.”

He also touched on the need to listen to one’s body, “which is a good doctor,” and which tells us when we’ve reached the limit.

On the need to always keep walking, the Pope said this is important because a priest never really “arrives,” but remains a disciple, a pilgrim “overlooking the threshold of the ministry of God and the holy ground of the people entrusted to him.”

A priest, Pope Francis said, can never “feel satisfied” or let go of a certain “healthy apprehension that makes him stretch out his hands to the Lord” in order to be trained and fulfilled.

He told priests to always “be open to the surprises of God,” adding that with this openness to what is new, young priests especially “can be creative in evangelization, frequenting with discernment the new places of communication, where faces, stories and the questions of people are met, developing the ability to socialize, to relate and to announce the faith.”

Finally, Francis pointed to the need to share with one’s heart, because “priestly life is not a bureaucratic office nor a collection of religious or liturgical practices to get through.”

Priests, he said, carry in their own flesh “the joys and anguish of the people,” spending time with them and listening “in order to heal the wounds of others, and offering the tenderness of the Father to all.”

New priests have a prime opportunity to live this experience by sharing with youth and teens, Francis said, explaining that this means being with them “not only as a friend among others, but as the one who knows how to share their life with his heart, to listen to their questions and participate concretely in the different ups and downs of their lives.”

“Youth don’t need a professional on the sacred or a hero who, from above and from the outside, responds to their questions,” he said. “Rather, they are attracted by whoever sincerely commits their lives, supporting them with respect and listening to them with love.”

To genuinely share their experiences “means having a heart full of passion and compassion, above all toward youth,” the Pope said, adding that these three qualities imply the priestly life is lived by “looking up and thinking big.”

“It’s not an easy task, but one can full trust in the Lord, because He always precedes us on the journey!” he said, and asked for Mary’s intercession and guidance.

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IMAGE: CNS/Bob Roller

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Ukrainian Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, known for his "velvety baritone" when chanting the Divine Liturgy or making one of his regular appearances on television or radio programs, died May 31 near Kiev at the age of 84.

Like many Ukrainian Catholics around the world, he knew what it meant to be a refugee, to spend time in a displaced persons' camp, to immigrate and to start all over again.

But the experience also helped him become fluent in five languages, "and he could joke in all of them," said Ukrainian Bishop Borys Gudziak of Paris.

And in a post-Soviet Ukraine, where leadership often meant "a compulsive passion" for money and power, "he lived in exemplary simplicity," Bishop Gudziak told Catholic News Service June 1.

"In Ukrainian folklore, a blind elder is considered a sage," the bishop said. "He was the wise man of the country, a real father whose embrace, word, warm smile and sense of humor -- often self-deprecating -- gave people a sense of joy and peace."

Cardinal Husar also was an avid blogger and published his last piece May 1, a blog about politicians who show their loyalty to a church only to gain votes.

He saw a lack of ethical behavior and declining moral standards as a major problem at home and abroad, one that required a creative pastoral response.

"Addressing the problem of morality is not a matter of reciting rules, rules, rules, but of helping people to do God's will," he said in an interview with CNS in 2005.

Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, who was only 40 years old in 2011 when he succeeded Cardinal Husar as archbishop of Kiev-Halych and head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, cried as he spoke to reporters June 1 about the cardinal's death.

"He was the spiritual father of the Ukrainian people, and today, in one moment, we became orphans," Archbishop Shevchuk told the press. The cardinal was a "great man, great pastor, great Ukrainian."

One of the first questions reporters asked was when the process for Cardinal Husar's beatification would begin. Archbishop Shevchuk replied that everyone who met the cardinal saw the beauty of his holiness, but the formal sainthood process requires prayer and time. Standard Vatican rules require a waiting period of five years from the time of a person's death before the process can begin.

In a condolence message to Archbishop Shevchuk, Pope Francis recalled the cardinal's "tenacious fidelity to Christ despite the deprivations and persecutions" suffered by the Ukrainian Catholic Church, which was forced into the underground by the communists.

"His fruitful apostolic activity to promote the organization of Greek Catholic faithful who were descendants of those forcibly transferred from Western Ukraine" and, simultaneously, his efforts to promote "dialogue and collaboration" with the Orthodox also were noted by the pope.

The cardinal's body was being driven to Lviv, his hometown, June 1 for two days of memorial services there. His funeral was scheduled for June 5 in Kiev.

Born Feb. 26, 1933, Lubomyr Husar fled Ukraine with his parents in 1944 ahead of the advancing Soviet army. He spent the early post-World War II years among Ukrainian refugees in a displaced persons' camp near Salzburg, Austria. In 1949, he immigrated with his family to the United States, eventually becoming a U.S. citizen.

From 1950 to 1954, he studied at St. Basil's College Seminary in Stamford, Connecticut. He continued his studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington and at Fordham University in New York. He was ordained a priest of the Ukrainian Diocese of Stamford in 1958.

For the next 11 years, he taught at the Ukrainian seminary in Stamford and served in parish ministry. Sent to Rome, he earned a doctorate in dogmatic theology from the Pontifical Urbanian University in 1972 and joined the Ukrainian Studite monastic community.

He was ordained a bishop by Cardinal Josyf Slipyj in 1977 while the church in Ukraine was still illegal and operating from exile in Rome.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, he returned to his native country and served as spiritual director of the newly re-established Holy Spirit Seminary in Lviv.

The synod of Ukrainian bishops elected him exarch of Kiev-Vyshhorod, a position he took up in 1996. Several months later, the synod elected him an auxiliary bishop with special delegated authority to assist Cardinal Myroslav Lubachivsky, the major archbishop of Lviv.

Cardinal Lubachivsky died in December 2000, and in January 2001 the synod elected then-Bishop Husar to succeed him as head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. St. John Paul II made him a cardinal a month later.

Under his leadership and despite strong protests from the Russian Orthodox Church, in August 2005 Cardinal Husar established the major archiepiscopal see of Kiev-Halych and transferred the main church offices to Ukraine's capital.

Cardinal Husar's death leaves the College of Cardinals with 221 members, although Pope Francis is scheduled to create five new cardinals in late June.

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Contributing to this story was Mariana Karapinka in Lviv, Ukraine.

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Copyright © 2017 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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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The United States has an obligation to honor the Paris climate agreement to protect "our people and our planet" and "mitigate the worst impacts of climate change," said the chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops "is on record supporting prudent action to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change," Bishop Oscar Cantu of Las Cruces, New Mexico, said in a June 1 statement.

Pope Francis' encyclical letter "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home" was timed, he said, "to urge the nations of the world to work together in Paris for an agreement that protects our people and our planet. We hope the United States will honor the commitment it made there."

Trump was expected to announce his decision about exiting the Parish climate accord later in the afternoon of June 1.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect of the Vatican's Dicastery for the Integral Development of People, told reporters in Washington May 31 that "the decision to possibly pull out for us is something we hoped would not have happened."

"Certain issues should be taken out of the political discussion and not be politicized. ... The truth is, climate is a global public good and not limited to any country, not limited to any nation," the cardinal said.

"The Vatican would always respect the decision of a sovereign state," Cardinal Turkson added."We will continue to still talk about climate change and all of that, and hope that some change can occur midstream."

News reports said that members of Trump's administration had differing opinions about the pact, with some siding with the president's earlier expressed opinion that the United States should not be party to the agreement, which was ratified by President Barack Obama on his own, bypassing the U.S. Senate. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was among those said to disagree with any decision to exit the accord.

Bishop Cantu's statement was released by the USCCB along with copies of letters sent weeks earlier to Tillerson, Treasure Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster. The letters were signed by Bishop Cantu; Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Florida, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development; and Sean L. Callahan, president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops' overseas relief and development agency.

"Today, we write about our shared obligation to care for the environment. The Judeo-Christian tradition has always understood 'the environment' to be a gift from God," they wrote in the letters urging the Trump administration officials in their respective capacities to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to the Paris accord.

"Pope Francis called on the world's leaders to come together to protect the gift of our common home. ... We have one common home, and we must protect it," they said.

"We want to reaffirm the importance of U.S. leadership and urge continued commitment to the Paris agreement," the Catholic leaders said, noting that in 2015 the USCCB "affirmed that funding for climate change related adaptation and mitigation programs as part of the Paris agreement is urgently needed if we are to meet our common and differentiated responsibilities for the effects of climate change."

The Paris accord has been ratified by 134 of the 197 countries that approved it in December 2015 under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. The agreement went into force in October after enough countries ratified it.

"If Donald Trump really decides to withdraw the United States from the Paris accords, it will be a disaster for everyone," said Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

The bishop and the academies are at the forefront of promoting scientific studies on climate change and implementation of the recommendations in Pope Francis' encyclical "Laudato Si'" on care for the environment. The pope gave Trump a copy of the document when they met May 24 at the Vatican.

In an interview June 1 with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Bishop Sanchez said he did not think Trump and Pope Francis discussed climate change in any depth when they met, however climate change was a significant part of the discussions the president and top staff members had with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state.

"In that sense, if he really does what the leaks suggest, for us it will be a huge slap in the face," the bishop said.

Obama deserves some of the blame, the bishop said, because "he took decisions on climate only through presidential orders, leaving open the possibility that his successor would change everything. That's the problem. Today, in just one day, Trump could change all the cards on the table to the disadvantage of many and to the advantage of the oil lobby."

Tillerson participated in Trump's meeting with Cardinal Parolin and told reporters that while climate change did not come up in Trump's meeting with the pope, they had "a good exchange on the climate change issue" with the cardinal.

"The cardinal was expressing their view that they think it's an important issue," Tillerson said shortly after the meeting. "I think they were encouraging continued participation in the Paris accord. But we had a good exchange on the difficulty of balancing addressing climate change, responses to climate change, and ensuring that you still have a thriving economy and you can still offer people jobs so they can feed their families and have a prosperous economy."

Asked how Trump responded to Cardinal Parolin's encouragement to stick with the Paris climate agreement, Tillerson said: "The president indicated we're still thinking about that, that he hasn't made a final decision. He, I think, told both Cardinal Parolin and also told Prime Minister (Paolo) Gentiloni that this is something that he would be taking up for a decision when we return from this trip. It's an opportunity to hear from people. We're developing our own recommendation on that. So it'll be something that will probably be decided after we get home."

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Dennis Sadowski in Washington and Cindy Wooden in Rome contributed to this story.

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Copyright © 2017 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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