Catholic News 2

Full Article

Full Article

(Vatican Radio) Father Christopher Clohessy, a professor at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies said it’s crucial that Egypt’s suffering Christian minority feel the pastoral closeness of Pope Francis during his 24 hour visit to Cairo. The priest, who spent years living and working in the Egyptian capital, also said that the Pope’s “tireless” work for good interfaith relations and his meetings with other religious leaders represent another important aspect of the papal visit. He was interviewed by Linda Bordoni.

Listen to the interview with Father Christopher Clohessy:  

Speaking ahead of Pope Francis’ departure for Cairo, Father Clohessy outlined what he saw as the key issues shaping the ongoing dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Islamic world and what he hopes this papal visit to Egypt will achieve.

The priest stressed the importance of the Vatican maintaining a theological relationship with the Al-Azhar institution in Cairo that is widely seen as the leading centre of learning of Sunni Islam, saying he he hoped this relationship “will be strengthened by the Pope’s visit.”

Father Clohessy spoke of how Egypt’s Christian minority have been suffering from discrimination and often actual persecution for many decades. They need, said he, to hear the Pope speak to them and offer “words of hope and comfort……. and speak what has to be said.”

In conclusion, Father Clohessy said he hoped that the Pope’s words during his apostolic visit to Egypt will “resonate in all hearts, not just in Christian ones but in Muslim ones as well.”

Full Article

Sacramento, Calif., Apr 27, 2017 / 12:33 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A lawsuit has been filed against a Catholic hospital in California for refusing an elective hysterectomy to a female who identifies as a man and who sought the procedure as part of their sex reassignment.

The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Evan Minton, who had a hysterectomy scheduled for August 2016 with the Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael, Calif., in the Sacramento metro area.

Minton claims the procedure was cancelled once the hospital learned that Minton was transgender, and asked to be referred to as “he”. The hospital offered to send Minton to a different medical center.

"We feel very clearly that they discriminated against me because I’m transgender – and that is against the law," Minton told local media.

The ACLU alleges in the suit that the hospital’s actions amount to "sex discrimination in violation of California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act" which prohibits businesses from discriminating against patrons on the basis of one’s gender. The group is seeking a court order that would force the hospital to perform elective hysterectomies in the future.

Dignity Health, the group that owns Mercy San Juan, was able to transfer Minton to one of its Methodist hospitals a few days after the initial procedure was denied.

Following Catholic teaching, Mercy San Juan does not perform elective sterilization procedures on anyone.

Dignity Health said in a statement that it cannot reply to the allegations because they have not yet been served with the complaint.

"What we can share is that at Dignity Health Mercy San Juan Medical Center, the services we provide are available to all members of the communities we serve without discrimination. We understand how important this surgery is for transgender individuals, and were happy to provide Mr. Minton and his surgeon the use of another Dignity Health hospital for his surgery within a few days.”

"We do not provide elective sterilizations at Dignity Health’s Catholic facilities in accordance with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs) and the medical staff bylaws."

The ACLU has long opposed Catholic hospitals operating according to Catholic teaching.

The ACLU and the group the MergerWatch Project co-authored a 2013 report that claimed the growth of Catholic hospitals was a “miscarriage of medicine.”

In 2015, the ACLU sued the Detroit area's Trinity Health Corporations, one of the largest Catholic health care operations in the United States, for their refusal to perform abortions and tubal ligations. The lawsuit was dismissed.

In 2016, an ACLU report alleged that Catholic hospitals put women at risk for following Catholic teaching regarding abortion and reproductive health.

Also in 2016, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against a Catholic hospital in Chicago, claiming it had denied IUD removal to Melanie Jones. However, a representative from Mercy Hospital told CNA that the doctors at Mercy Hospital had offered to remove the woman’s IUD — the removal is an entirely ethical procedure from the Catholic moral standpoint — but Jones declined.

All Catholic hospitals in the United States operate under the U.S. Bishops' Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, which ban abortion, sterilization, emergency contraception, and tubal ligations.

Full Article

By Keanine Griggs

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis' unique approach to teaching the faithful combines speaking clearly and simply with showing people what steps -- even small steps -- they can take to make a difference, a Vatican official said.

"He is showing us a practical agenda for being a Catholic and being a Christian in the 21st century," said Jesuit Father Michael Czerny, whom Pope Francis chose as one of two undersecretaries of the Migrants and Refugee Section of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

"We need programs and possibilities of action in order to live our faith," Father Czerny said. The conversion Pope Francis wants people to undergo involves getting them to ask, "What is the next step that I could take to help our church and people to respond" to the needs of people and the demands of the Gospel?

"He's not proposing a program or organization," the Jesuit said, but he is asking "how can you contribute to people being a little less marginalized and a little more integrated?"

Father Czerny knows something about the experience of being a refugee and integrating into a new land. Born in 1946 in the former Czechoslovakia, he immigrated with his family to Canada. He entered the Jesuits in 1963 and in 1979 co-founded the Jesuit Center for Social Faith and Justice in Toronto. He directed the center until 1989 when he moved to El Salvador to help continue the work of six Jesuits murdered at the Central American University there.

From 1992 to 2002, he served as the social justice secretary at the Jesuit headquarters in Rome before moving to Africa as founding director of the African Jesuit AIDS Network. In 2010, he came back to Rome to serve as an official of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. In January, the council became the foundation of the new Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

The statutes for the new office specify that, at least temporarily, Pope Francis will lead the Section for Migrants and Refugees with the assistance of the undersecretaries, Father Czerny and Italian Scalabrinian Father Fabio Baggio.

In an interview with Catholic News Service, Father Czerny said it is always tempting to look at big political and social problems like the refugee crisis and try to find "a formula or pattern that solves everything."

But Pope Francis' personal style and his insistence on the importance of encounters between individuals send a strong message that human problems require human solutions.

"Small steps do add up and they are the ones that touch us and transform us," so that individuals who set out to help a person in need end up realizing they were given an opportunity to grow in their faith, Father Czerny said.

Pope Francis does not hesitate to name the issues and causes that individuals should place on their "moral agenda," he added. The pope's commitment to the poor and to the pressing migration and refugee scenario highlights his pastoral style, which shows us "how God is calling us to live the Gospel," Father Czerny said.

Pope Francis' impact is so great because his approach speaks to the individual, the Jesuit said. The pope's words and actions focus on the "human element," speaking to and interacting with people "personally and individually."

"Human problems don't seem to respond well to huge solutions," he added. Individuals, parishes and dioceses need to look for small steps they can take to promote "a real encounter and real integration" of anyone in need.

Ultimately, those little steps help Christians "to rediscover our faith and to live it with greater joy."

While Pope Francis is innovative in many ways, it is important to note the continuity of between Pope Francis and his predecessors, Father Czerny said. "All you have to do is visit the footnotes, and you'll see that some of his most striking phrases are quotations from Pope Benedict XVI and St. John Paul II."

Father Czerny said he hopes the legacy of Pope Francis will be that he "found a way of helping the church be both worldwide and very local" by using an approach that inspires individuals to live their faith "intensely and practically in a real way in so many different places."

- - -

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.

Full Article

By Junno Arocho Esteves

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Catholic Church needs laypeople with a missionary spirit, which means Catholics do not have to try to force members into a vocation that is the Holy Spirit's to give, Pope Francis said.

The temptation to impose a vocation on laypeople as some kind of validation of their service in the church "worries me," the pope said April 27 during a meeting with members of Catholic Action.

"What has happened many times in dioceses?" the pope asked. "A priest comes and says, 'I have a phenomenal layman who does this, this and that; he is a good organizer. What if we make him a deacon?' Stop! Don't give him a vocation that is up to the Holy Spirit to give him. Do not clericalize!"

Catholic Action's meeting with Pope Francis kicked off a three-day forum designed to reflect on the theme "Catholic Action in mission with all and for all."

Warmly greeted by some 300 participants from around the world, Pope Francis was presented with several meaningful gifts. Two members from Lampedusa, Italy, where thousands of refugees arrive each year, gave the pope an English copy of the Psalms and the New Testament found in one of the fishing boats used by migrants.

After being told that the book was found with a folded page marking Psalm 55, a song of supplication in times of need, the pope reverently took the gift and kissed it.

He was also greeted by a family from Bethlehem. The children, the pope was told, wanted to teach Pope Francis the Sign of the Cross in Arabic to prepare him for his visit to Egypt the following day.

Bending over and attentively listening to the instruction of the twin siblings, Pope Francis placed his hands above their heads and thanked them.

In his speech, the pope told members that a true missionary apostolate involves "going out" to those in need or who are far away from the church.

However, in calling others to conversion, the pope said Christians must avoid the practice of proselytism or coercion, "which goes against the Gospel."

"It makes me really sad to see people who are in ministry -- lay, consecrated, priests, bishops -- who are still playing the proselytism card. No! It is done through attraction. That is the genius phrase of Pope Benedict XVI," he said.

The pope also called on laymen and laywomen to be agents of mercy to those who are far from the church rather than acting like "border control" agents.

"You cannot be more restrictive than the church nor more papist than the pope," he said. "Please, open the doors, don't administer Christian perfection tests because you will only promote a hypocritical phariseeism."

Prayer, formation and sacrifice are also crucial in preparing laypeople to become missionaries, otherwise, "there is no fruit," the pope added.

Groups and movements like Catholic Action, he continued, must "take flesh" and be willing to serve within their dioceses while avoiding the temptation to become self-serving, which would otherwise remove them from their true calling.  

"A Catholic Action that only pretends and does not take flesh isn't Catholic. It is action, but it is not Catholic. To take flesh doesn't mean what I want, it means what the church wants," Pope Francis said.

Instead, he said, members of the international lay organization must continue to make their presence known in all areas of life, from the world of politics and business to prisons, hospitals and factories.

"Do not become an institution of exclusives that doesn't say anything to anyone nor to the church. Everyone has a right to be evangelized," the pope said.

- - -

Follow Arocho on Twitter: @arochoju.

- - -

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.

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article