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Rome, Italy, Apr 11, 2017 / 02:21 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- At a prayer vigil with youth this weekend, Pope Francis said the Church needs to listen to the voice of young people, and some of them have responded saying they want to let the world know they are not tired of following Christ.

“There are a lot of young people who feel like the Church is difficult, that it is far off, that it’s something for adults and for serious people,” Nicole Espino, 18, told CNA. But the Pope, she said, “helps us to understand that we are important and that we are part of the Church.”

“We feel included and like we are part of the Mass. We feel important, and he makes us feel that the youth count and that we belong to the Church,” she said.

Espino was one of some 300 Panamanian youths who came to Rome to receive the official World Youth Day cross from Polish young people during Pope Francis’ Palm Sunday Mass April 9.

The Mass coincided with the 32nd WYD, themed “The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name,” and is the first step in preparing for the global 2019 WYD in Panama.

The youths were present along with Archbishop José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta of Panama and Cardinal José Luis Lacunza Maestrojuan of David. Their itinerary included not only Mass with the Pope, but a prayer vigil the night before and meetings with the organizers of WYD and the upcoming 2018 synod of bishops on “Faith, Young People and the Discernment of Vocation.”

In a prayer vigil held April 8 in anticipation of this year’s diocesan-level WYD celebration, Pope Francis told the thousands of young people gathered in the Basilica of St. Mary Major to be protagonists in the preparation process for the two events, because the Church needs to hear their voice.

Espino said that for her, what she would tell the Church, particularly priests, is that “the youth are very important and that it’s an honor that the Pope chose Panama (for WYD).” She said she would also tell them that as youth “we are ready to give everything to give the best possible and to give face to our country.”

Similarly, Paul Tijerino, 24, who was present at the prayer vigil along with a number of other Panamanian youth, said his message to the Church would be that “we do not get tired of following God, of always following his example, of being humble in what we do.”

“We are aware of what we can be the only Gospel that a person reads,” he said, and voiced his hope that “our actions reflect this living Christ and when people see us, they see Christ, and not only that they see Christ, but see that we are guided by Mary.”

Tijerino was one of two youths to shake hands with Pope Francis at the prayer vigil as the Roman Pontiff was leaving, and all he could say about it was “wow!”

For him, Pope Francis is “a model of life, an example to follow in humility, simplicity and in everything that he represents.”

“He has turned the Church,” the young man said, explaining that what impacted him most about the Pope’s message to young people at the prayer vigil was “the message he gave on the syond …because it helps us a lot to know what it is that we want to do in our lives.”

“I feel that this is what young people should look for,” he said. “To know what is the plan that God has for us in order to be able to prepare it.”

“We are waiting for them with open arms,” he said, explaining that he plans to prepare with a lot of prayer and community events, by trying to make his life “an example for others” and by trying “to follow the Pope gives us.”

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, said WYD – which will be held in Panama Jan. 22-27, 2019 – needs to be prepared in tandem with the synod on youth “because WYD is for the youth. WYD has a history and a tradition, and now we’re having the first synod on the youth.”

Speaking to journalists during an April 9 meeting on synod and WYD preparations, he said that “We need to prepare with consultation from the youth,” explaining that at nearly 70 years old, “I don’t think like the youth do,” so there is a need to speak with them as well as the priests and bishops who are closer to their reality.

And this means speaking not just with youth who are constant Church-goers, but also those who are perhaps atheists or who no longer go to Church, he said, referring to comments Pope Francis had made on this point during the prayer vigil.

Perhaps the most difficult part of preparing, he said, will be to “enter into contact with the youth, but it needs to be done (and) we need to change the system that we use.” Rather than just sending out letters to bishops, Cardinal Farrell said the dicastery is looking to develop ways for youth to contribute online.

“We need to do what Pope Francis says: go out, go beyond the doors of the Church and of all the organizations” in order to reach especially those who are far off.

For his part on the diocesan level in Panama, Cardinal Lacunza said that at this point, things are already moving forward and “there’s no going back.”

“We remain with the task of raising awareness, to make everyone see that they should participate and that everyone can open their doors to welcome pilgrims so that no one feels like a stranger,” he said, explaining that since the country is so small, part of their preparations involve asking locals to open the doors of their homes to those who come for the global event.

To have the synod on youth happen just before WYD, he said, “is another blessing from God.” On the journey from Krakow to Panama “you pass through the synod,” he said, explaining that for him, the synod will be an opportunity for WYD to be “even more meaningful and impactful.”

While there are only a few months in between the October synod and the WYD gathering in January, Cardinal Lacunza said that “if the Pope proposed it and insists, it can be done and it will be a wonderful opportunity to deliver to WYD the result of the synod.”

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Vatican City, Apr 11, 2017 / 03:33 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis chose French biblical scholar, Anne-Marie Pelletier, to write the meditations for this year's annual Good Friday Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum.

A recipient of the Ratzinger Prize in 2014, as well as a wife and mother, Pelletier’s meditations follow her own scripturally-based Stations of the Cross, or Via Crucis, based on the 14 biblical stations used by St. John Paul II in 1991.

Because the Stations of the Cross do not have a “binding form,” Pelletier told Vatican Radio, “I chose those moments that seemed particularly significant.”

Her stations are not significantly different from the traditional 14 stations followed by pilgrims walking the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, though the biblical stations don’t include the three falls of Jesus or Veronica wiping the face of Jesus as in the traditional devotion.

She also begins with Jesus’ condemnation, rather than his prayer in the garden of Gethsemane.

Using more than just the accounts of Christ’s Passion in the Gospels, Pelletier’s reflection weaves in Scripture and biblical references from both the Old and New Testaments as she reflects on how the entire life of Christ has been leading him, and us, to his ultimate sacrifice.

Pelletier’s meditations also reflect significantly on the perspective of the women along Jesus’ path, especially his mother, Mary.

An important scholar of contemporary French Catholicism, Pelletier has taught biblical studies at the European Institute of Religious Sciences and served as vice-president of the Jewish-Christian Documentation Information Service in Paris. She is the first woman to win the Ratzinger Prize.

The Ratzinger Prize was begun in 2011 to recognize scholars whose work demonstrates a meaningful contribution to theology in the spirit of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Bavarian theologian who became Benedict XVI.

The prize is awarded by the Ratzinger Foundation, which was founded in 2010 with Benedict XVI’s approval to study and promote his writings as a theologian, as a cardinal in charge of the Vatican’s Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, and as Pope.

Pelletier opens the stations with Jesus’ condemnation before the members of the Sanhedrin, who “did not need a lengthy discussion to come to a decision,” she wrote. “The matter had long been settled. Jesus must die!”

Showing how at each point of his life Jesus faced enemies, she wrote that “our recollection must go back even further,” to Bethlehem, to Jesus’ very birth, when “Herod had decreed that he must die.”

Jesus escaped that time, but “already his life hung in the balance. In the sobbing of Rachel mourning her children who are no more, we hear a prophecy of the sorrow that Simeon will foretell to Mary (cf. Mt 2:16-18; Lk 2:34-35),” she writes.

In the fourth station, when Jesus is crowned with a crown of thorns, draped in a purple cloth and mocked with the words, “Hail, King of the Jews!” the paradox of Jesus’ kingship is revealed to us “as a love that seeks only the will of his Father and his desire that all should be saved.”

In this station she prays, “Lord our God, on this holy day that brings your revelation to fulfillment, we ask you to tear down every idol in us and in our world. You know the sway they have over our minds and our hearts. Tear down in us every deceitful illusion of success and of glory.”

When Jesus meets the mourning women of the daughters of Jerusalem, at the seventh station, Pelletier reflects on the gift of tears Jesus bestows upon them, asking them not to weep for him, but for the world.

The tears “fall silently down their cheeks. And undoubtedly, even more often, they fall unseen in the heart, like the tears of blood spoken of by Catherine of Siena,” she writes. “Not that women alone should weep…” she emphasizes, though it is their grief that “embraces all those tears shed quietly and without fanfare in a world where there is much to weep for.”

The eleventh station is devoted to Jesus and his mother Mary. Throughout her son’s life, Pelletier writes, Mary had entrusted each event “to the great patience of her faith” and today, the day of his crucifixion “is the day of fulfilment.”

“The sword that pierced her Son’s side pierces her own heart. Mary too plunges into that bottomless trust whereby Jesus lives to the full his obedience to the Father. Standing there, she does not desert him. Stabat Mater. In the darkness, but with certainty, she knows that God keeps his promises.”

The reflection on the tender faithfulness of women continues in the final station, as Jesus is laid in the tomb and the women prepare to anoint his body the following morning at daybreak, after the Sabbath has ended.

“Grant too that we, who have accompanied you along this path of love to the very end, together with the women of the Gospel, may remain in expectant prayer,” Pelletier concludes.

“For we know that our prayers will be answered by the resurrection of Jesus, which your Church now prepares to celebrate in the joy of Easter night.”

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London, England, Apr 11, 2017 / 03:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Charlie Gard is an 8 month old in the United Kingdom who has been fighting for his life against a rare disease.

His parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, wanted to keep him on life support and transport him to the United States in order to try an experimental treatment.

But on Tuesday, a High Court judge ruled that it was in the child’s best interest for doctors to withdraw life support from Charlie and place him strictly on palliative care, in spite of his parents’ wishes.

In his decision, Justice Francis praised Charlie’s parents for “their absolute dedication to their wonderful boy, from the day that he was born,” but ultimately ruled that it was in the child’s best interest to withdraw life support.

“Some people may ask why the court has any function in this process; why can the parents not make this decision on their own?” Francis wrote.

“The answer is that, although the parents have parental responsibility, overriding control is vested in the court exercising its independent and objective judgment in the child’s best interests. The Great Ormond Street Hospital has made an application and it is my duty to rule on it, given that the parents and the hospital cannot agree on the best way forward.”

Charlie has a rare disorder called mitochondrial depletion syndrome which causes progressive muscle weakness, believed to affect fewer than 20 children worldwide. He has suffered significant brain damage due to the disease and is currently fed through a tube, breathes with an artificial ventilator, and is unable to move.

Hospital experts from Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) argued in court that long-term life support should be withdrawn from Charlie because his quality of life was “so poor”. Charlie’s state-appointed counsel argued that the treatments available in the United States were only experimental and that long-term life support would only “prolong the process of dying” for Charlie.

However, Charlie’s parents’ legal representative argued that traveling to the U.S. for treatments would not have cause Charlie significant suffering or harm and could have given him another chance. She also argued that the parent’s wishes should carry “great weight” in the decision.

Yates, Charlie’s mother, previously told the BBC: “We just want to have our chance. It would never be a cure but it could help him live. If it saves him, amazing. I want to save others. Even if Charlie doesn’t make it through this, I don’t ever want another mum and their child to go through this.”

Yates and Gard had set up a public GoFundMe account for Charlie’s treatment in the U.S., which had raised nearly all of its £1.3 million ($1.6 million) goal.

However, the case was not about funding, but about what was in the best interest of Charlie, Francis said in his decision.

“There is unanimity among the experts from whom I have heard that nucleoside therapy cannot reverse structural brain damage. I dare say that medical science may benefit, objectively, from the experiment, but experimentation cannot be in Charlie’s best interests unless there is a prospect of benefit for him,” he said.

“It is with the heaviest of hearts, but with complete conviction for Charlie’s best interests, that I find it is in Charlie’s best interests that I accede to these applications and rule that GOSH may lawfully withdraw all treatment save for palliative care to permit Charlie to die with dignity.”

Upon hearing the ruling, the BBC reports that Charlie’s parents were visibly distressed, and that his father shouted “No” and burst into tears, as did other family members present.

The parents’ representative said that they would be taking their time considering their next steps, but their first priority right now is spending time with Charlie. Charlie’s life support will not be immediately withdrawn as Yates and Gard consider appealing the ruling.

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Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast, Apr 11, 2017 / 05:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The regional conference of West African bishops has commended a regional economic union for its efforts to promote peaceful transfers of power, while also noting areas of concern, including religious intolerance and youth unemployment.

The bishops of the Regional Episcopal Conference of West Africa met March 28-31 in Ivory Coast to discuss their role in the prevention, mediation, resolution, and transformation of conflicts.

The conference includes the bishops of 15 countries, covering the Atlantic coast from Mauritania to Nigeria, as well as Cape Verde, Mali, and Burkina Faso.

The bishops sent a message to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) April 4 highlighting ways in which the two organizations can collaborate.

They noted positively the “democratic transfer of power in many of our countries and the relative peace we are witnessing in our region.”

Noting that economic growth has been a boon to their citizens, the bishops added that nevertheless, “we are at pains to observe some significant challenges within our region which need to be addressed.”

The bishops first listed political transition and instability as a concern; several of the nations in West Africa have experienced coups d'etat or civil war in recent years.

“Political transitions of power in some countries are characterised by the disregard for the rule of law, weak institutions, shrinking space for political participation by all, frequent human rights violations and tortures,” the bishops observed.

“We are also worried about political leaders who employ extra-democratic means to remain in power for life, we appeal to our political authorities to respect the democratic tenets of their countries.”

A dangerous level of unemployment for the youth has also raised concern from the bishops. They said a majority of youths in the region are unemployed “and therefore highly exposed to trafficking, drug abuse, violence and forced migrations. As long as they remain without jobs after their graduation and move about in our sub-region, they are easy preys to warlords and political criminals, who may recruit them for violent crimes and terrorism.”

They urged “putting in place appropriate measures and incentives to create gainful employment opportunities for our youth” to reverse this trend.

Turning to religious intolerance and extremism, the bishops stated that “the desire of religious extremist groups to forcefully 'islamise' countries in our region poses a serious threat to the right of every citizen to freely choose and practise the religion of his or her choice.”

Most of the nations in the West African bishops' conference have a majority- or plurality-Muslim population, and some governments or extremist groups have turned to persecution of Christians and other religious groups.

The bishops commended ECOWAS for its recent intervention in The Gambia, whose president of 22 years, Yahya Jammeh, refused to accept the results of a December 2016 election in which he was defeated.

This resulted in a constitutional crisis and a military intervention by ECOWAS to install the newly-elected president.

“We also wish to express our heartfelt gratitude for the efficiency with which you managed the situation in The Gambia,” the bishops wrote. “We congratulate you on the firm position you took … which led to the constitutional transfer of power to the rightfully elected President. With this, you sent a strong and clear signal to all political actors and leaders in our region.”

The bishops also noted that The Gambia had been declared an Islamic Republic by Jammeh in December 2015, but that the new president, Adama Barrow, had reversed this: “we are happy that this matter has been reversed with the current leadership,” they commented. “We strongly appeal that this situation should not be repeated in any country in our region.”

“Whenever government adopts a particular religion as a state religion, the rights of other citizens to freedom of conscience and worship is infringed upon,” the West African bishops wrote.

The bishops also expressed their concern over the herdsmen who have menaced local communities – particularly the Fulani in Nigeria.

“The recurrence of natural and man-made disasters such as floods, storms, desertification, food insecurity, forced migration, and other humanitarian crises related to climate change have become a serious threat to human and animal survival. Of particular concern is the environmental and social havocs wrecked by the herdsmen who move their cattle across communities and national borders in the region,” they wrote.

“These herdsmen, often armed with dangerous weapons, are associated with rape, murder, destruction of farms, kidnaping and conflicts. While there is freedom of movement of people and goods in our region, we appeal to our authorities to effectively address this particularly destructive activity.”

The bishops concluded by reminding ECOWAS that they are willing to mediate in “governance and political issues” that may arise in the region.

They have created liaison offices with national parliaments, and “monitor public policies and their implementation in order to promote good governance and the common good in public affairs.”

 

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Stephen Brashear, Northwest Catholic

By Anna Weaver

SHORELINE, Wash. (CNS) -- Among Mary Larson's Shoreline living-room pictures is a small photo of a man with furrowed eyebrows and a full white beard. His name is James, but when Larson knew him, he was better known as "The Professor."

The two met in 1995 when Larson was a volunteer nurse at Christ House in Washington, D.C., a medical respite center for the homeless.

James was a patient there, tall, quiet and always carrying around a large duffel bag stuffed with sheet music. At lunchtime, he'd sit down at the center's piano and make it come alive with exquisite music, Larson told Northwest Catholic, the news magazine of the Archdiocese of Seattle.

The Professor, the story went, had once been an instructor at a prestigious college before a life event left him homeless.

"I think his photograph is out with all of our family photos because he will forever be special in my life," Larson said.

"It's just a reminder to me that you never know what's going on in somebody's life and you never know what can happen in your own life."

The Professor eventually became one of Larson's first portrait painting subjects.

Larson has become known in the Seattle area and beyond for creating vivid portraits of her patients at Harborview Medical Center's Pioneer Square Clinic.

All of her portrait subjects have been touched by homelessness, said Larson, the clinic's assistant nurse manager.

The parishioner at St. Luke Catholic Church in Shoreline, Washington, said her faith has taught her "that we are in this life together. And a big part of it is helping each other and doing whatever little thing we can to make our world a better place. I'm hopeful that with my art that's one of the ways that I am able to try and make it a better place."

Larson grew up in an active Catholic family with a service mentality. Her uncle, Father Jan Larson, is a senior priest for the Archdiocese of Seattle.

Her parents were involved at Our Lady of the Lake Parish in North Seattle, and she attended the parish school before going to nearby Bishop Blanchet High School.

Her Catholic upbringing taught her to incorporate Gospel values into everyday life, she said. A particularly influential experience for her was when Bishop Blanchet's campus ministry program made cheese sandwiches and took them to the St. Martin de Porres Shelter, which serves homeless men 50 and older.

"That was one of my first big experiences with homelessness and probably one of the most important in determining my trajectory," she said.

While Larson was in high school, her family started attending Seattle's St. James Cathedral, where they got to know Archbishop Raymond G. Hunthausen, who headed the Seattle Archdiocese from 1975 to 1991. Larson said the archbishop and his focus on service, is one of her inspirations. Larson's portrait of the archbishop hangs in Cathedral Hall today.

Archbishop Hunthausen encouraged Larson to attend his alma mater, Carroll College in Helena, Montana, where she earned a nursing degree and decided to focus on working with the poor and homeless.

But Larson also has been artistic since she was young, doing illustrations, cartoons and eventually photography. In college, she would call home and debate her career path with her parents, who told her that she would figure out how to blend her art with nursing.

Larson eventually did a volunteer year at Christ House in the District of Columbia, where she used her family's graduation gift of a camera to take photographs of homeless people, like The Professor.

After moving back to Seattle in 1996, she started nursing work at the Pioneer Square Clinic and various shelter sites.

On a rainy day in Seattle several years after college, Larson passed an art supply store, went in and bought some paints to try out. The first paintings she did were portraits based on the photos of homeless people she'd taken in the nation's capital.

After Larson hung some of those portraits in the Pioneer Square Clinic, she'd find her patients staring at them. Without knowing the stories of the portrait subjects, the patients would tell her, "I was homeless once and I can tell that they are homeless."

Then some of the patients asked her to paint them. She has since completed more than 300 such portraits.

When Larson was getting ready to hang her first series of portraits at a Starbucks in Seattle, it didn't feel right to list them for sale for money. At the same time, the Pioneer Square Clinic needed new socks for its clients.

So, Larson listed the portrait prices as several hundred pairs of socks. They quickly sold and she has maintained this charitable bartering system for her work ever since.

Paintings have sold for hundreds of cans of food, sandwiches, gloves, hats and other items needed at the clinic, area shelters, food banks and charities.

Larson asks each of her subjects to tell her one thing they want people to know about them and bases the painting's backdrop on that detail.

She often works on a series of portraits all at once. The work goes in stops and starts around her full-time nursing job and life with her husband, Joe Mahar, and their 9-year-old son, Paddy.

Larson said she wants people to smile when they look at her work. Each subject should invite you in. Take Felton, a regular client and a former boxer. He casually grins at the viewer in front of a Wheaties logo, like the cereal box on which Muhammad Ali once appeared.

"He has the patience of a saint, he's been waiting so long for me to finish," Larson said of Felton's portrait.

"I think that Felton, like so many people I paint, is a champion," she said. "He's gone through some of life's most difficult times and still keeps his smile. He still keeps hope and happiness no matter how hard times have gotten. He knows that with this art he's able to help people by lending his face to this project."

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Weaver is multimedia editor at Northwest Catholic, the news magazine and website of the Archdiocese of Seattle.

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