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Washington D.C., Mar 31, 2017 / 07:27 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis’ representative to the U.S. said that Catholics must be “be the soul of this country” in a panel discussion this week.

“We as Catholics – as Christians, and we are in the majority of this country – we should be the soul of this country,” Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, insisted at a panel discussion at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. on Monday.

“This is what the Pope says,” he continued, adding later that “the Church is, again, the soul of the world.”

The nuncio spoke at a Monday panel discussion on Pope Francis’ influence four years into his pontificate. John Carr, director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown, moderated the discussion and began with a one-on-one conversation with the nuncio.

Later, other panel members joined – Kim Daniels, a member of the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications and a founder of Catholic Voices USA; Ken Hackett, former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See from 2013-17; and Maria Teresa Gaston, managing director of the Foundations of Christian Leadership Program at Duke Divinity School.

The conversation ranged from Pope Francis’ priorities for the Church to current affairs, including a tumultuous 2016 presidential election that ended in November.

“I think pro-life issues are central to our politics, and they should be, care for the voiceless and vulnerable, and particularly the unborn,” Kim Daniels commented on the recent election, which she said exposed a “crisis of solidarity” in the country.

“I think Catholics in general were looking for solidarity,” she said. “And I think that it’s a misplaced understanding of solidarity to say that it is ‘us against them’,” she added. “I think the Catholic understanding of solidarity is one that includes everybody.”

When asked what the Pope’s priorities are, Archbishop Pierre replied that it is “first of all, the Gospel” and “to announce the Gospel.”

Then, “if you want to be coherent with the Gospel,” he added, “you need to give priority to the poor, you need to respect life, life in all its dimensions.”

He quoted from Pope Francis’ address to the U.S. bishops during his 2015 visit to the U.S., where the Pope insisted:

“The innocent victim of abortion, children who die of hunger or from bombings, immigrants who drown in the search for a better tomorrow, the elderly or the sick who are considered a burden, the victims of terrorism, wars, violence and drug trafficking, the environment devastated by man’s predatory relationship with nature – at stake in all of this is the gift of God, of which we are noble stewards but not masters. It is wrong, then, to look the other way or to remain silent.”

And to truly respect life – as “the social doctrine of the Church” teaches “that the human person is at the center” of society – the family must be included in any discussion of the human person, the nuncio added.

“When we speak of the human person, we cannot avoid speaking about the family. There is no human person without the family. If you separate the family, you destroy the person,” he said, responding to a reference made by moderator John Carr about the separation of immigrant families through deportation.

True evangelization, however, must begin with receiving the Sacrament of Confession, the nuncio insisted.

The Pope has emphasized that “the people need to be reached in their misery,” and “in their brokenness, in their sinfulness so that they may be evangelized,” he said, adding that “evangelization is forgiveness.”

This was part of the impetus behind the Holy Father’s proclamation of a Jubilee Year of Mercy from December 2015 to November 2016, Archbishop Pierre continued.

People have been warning of a “huge crisis of the Sacrament of Reconciliation” in recent decades, he said, yet “suddenly, it seems that a lot of people are rediscovering” it, “which is absolutely necessary” for discipleship.

One of the challenges to evangelization is “polarization” in the world, noted Daniels, and Catholics must look to establish true unity with each other in order to evangelize today, she added.

“Our first step should be realizing that we can’t sow this kind of division,” she said. Catholics should “focus on the things we share, and that’s serving the voiceless and vulnerable, it’s resisting the throwaway culture, it’s respecting the family and the good that it does in society.”

“And that’s when we start looking at what we share, looking at what makes us distinctive as Catholics – the sacraments, our parish life, our life in community – and drawing on those resources to build unity,” she continued.

Archbishop Pierre suggested that one model for evangelization is Fr. Jacques Hamel, a French priest executed by ISIS terrorists last July at his morning Mass at a Normandy parish.

“It touched me, because he’s a priest, he’s the type of priest I’ve known,” said the nuncio, who is originally from France.

“He’s a man who’s a victim of the time, but also he’s a martyr,” he continued. “I come from Mexico, I have seen the church of martyrs through these years of persecution. It’s the making of the Church.” Archbishop Pierre was formerly the papal nuncio to Mexico before his move to the U.S. in 2016.

In October, Pope Francis approved the opening of Fr. Hamel’s cause for beatification by the diocese of Rouen, France.

Fr. Hamel “gave his life” under ordinary circumstances, at a daily Mass amidst a small congregation, the nuncio said. He was faithful to his calling.

“I see that person as really the sign of God for today,” he said. “And his death had a huge impact on the whole society.”
 

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Birmingham, Ala., Mar 31, 2017 / 04:31 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A new book released by EWTN Publishing offers spiritual advice and insight on suffering and spiritual burnout from the late Mother Angelica.

The work is composed of six “mini-books” written by Mother Angelica, which had previously been published by Our Lady of Angels Monastery in the 1970s. The reflections were written by Mother Angelica during Adoration.

Entitled “Mother Angelica on Suffering and Burnout,” the book addresses different types of suffering, from preventative and corrective suffering to interior and personal suffering.

In some cases, we are called to suffer as a witness to Christ, Mother Angelica says. In other cases, our suffering can be an act of repentance.

While everyone suffers, she notes, suffering itself does not make us holy. Rather, suffering is “wasted” when it is not united with love to Christ’s Passion. In this way, it is our response to suffering that can make it redemptive for us and for others.

The book also delves into Christ’s own suffering. It discusses the dryness of mind and heart that can sometimes arise in prayer, and how dryness can actually lead to greater humility and patience.

In addition, Mother Angelica talks about what she calls “spiritual hangovers” – the damage caused when one harbors resentment to the point that it begins to gnaw at the soul.

The book concludes with a reflection on the consolation found in Christ’s silent presence and the realization that Christ needs our gratitude and trust.

Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation founded EWTN in 1981, and it has since become the largest religious media network in the world. She died March 27, 2016 after a lengthy struggle with the aftereffects of a stroke. She was 92 years-old.

CNA is part of the EWTN Family.

“Mother Angelica on Suffering and Burnout” can be ordered on the Sophia Institute Press website here.

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Vatican City, Mar 31, 2017 / 04:42 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Members of EWTN’s Rome Bureau on Friday met Benedict XVI in the Vatican Gardens to explain their work and thank him for his service to the Church, while he in turn thanked them for their efforts.

“Thank you for your work,” the emeritus Pope said March 31 to the six persons present at the encounter, who represented the various programs produced at the bureau.

 

Had the immense blessing of mtg Benedict XVI today w some colleagues from @EWTN - I can only be #grateful! pic.twitter.com/Wb0pBgXSsG

— Elise Harris (@eharris_it) March 31, 2017  

EWTN’s Rome bureau has roughly 25 employees, producing both print and television news.

Members who attended audience were selected to represent each of the entities produced in the office, and included bureau chief Alan Holdren; office manager Emanuele Latini; head of production Pilar Piero; EWTN News Nightly producer Mary Shovlain; CNA correspondent Elise Harris; and ACI Prensa correspondent Alvaro de Juana.

The team met Benedict in the Vatican Gardens at 4:30 in the afternoon, when the emeritus Pope prays his daily rosary. He was accompanied by Archbishop Georg Ganswein, prefect of the papal household.

After finishing his prayer, Benedict removed his hat and stood up to greet the team.  

Benedict was clear and alert, and interested in each person as they approched him.

Leading the delegation, Holdren gave a brief introduction to the organization; the emeritus Pope marvelled at the size of the bureau.

Benedict greeted each member of the group individually, learning about their families and their work.

Holdren gave the Bavarian personal letters from some of those present and their families. He in turn offered each of them  a medal and commemorative cards of his 2012 visit to Lebanon, the last he took as Roman Pontiff.

He then gave the group his blessing and departed for his residence in the Vatican's Mater Ecclesiae monastery.

The audience was granted to mark the one-year anniversary of the March 27, 2016 death of Mother Angelica, foundress of EWTN.

She launched the network in 1981, and it today transmits programming to more than 264 million homes in 144 countries. What began with approximately 20 employees has now grown to nearly 400.

The religious network broadcasts terrestrial and shortwave radio around the world, operates a religious goods catalog and publishes the National Catholic Register and Catholic News Agency, among other publishing ventures.

Among the television coverage produced through the Rome office are EWTN’s 30-minute weekly news program “Vaticano,” as well as a portion of “EWTN News Nightly.”

In addition, there are eight correspondents who write print news for Catholic News Agency and two of her sister-agencies, ACI Prensa and ACI Stampa.

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Cologne, Germany, Mar 31, 2017 / 05:12 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Despite the controversies and abuses following the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic liturgy is ultimately a source of unity that forms Christians in the sacrifice and salvation of the cross, Cardinal Robert Sarah has said.

If Catholics feel they are undergoing a divisive “liturgical war,” the cardinal said, they should see it as “an aberration.” Instead, the liturgy is “the space par excellence where Catholics should experience unity in truth, in faith, and in love.”

“As a result, it is inconceivable to celebrate the liturgy while having sentiments of fratricidal conflict and rancor,” he said. “In this ‘face to face’ with God that is the liturgy, our heart must be pure of all enmity, which requires that everyone must be respected in his own sensibility.”

Cardinal Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, stressed the need to reaffirm that the Second Vatican Council never called for a break from the past. Rather, the council’s vision of liturgical renewal should be promoted.

The cardinal had prepared his remarks for the 18th Cologne International Liturgical Conference, which is focusing on the 10th anniversary of Benedict XVI’s instruction Summorum Pontificum, which gave broad leeway to priests for the celebration of the Roman Catholic liturgy according to the 1962 Latin-language Roman Missal, now known as the extraordinary form.

The cardinal’s speech, which he did not deliver in person due to other commitments, addressed various debates about the liturgy and the direction of the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Council.

After the council, Blessed Paul VI issued a new Roman Missal, now known as the ordinary form, which was widely translated from Latin into local languages.

Cardinal Sarah said both the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the liturgy should bring to the faithful  “the beauty of the liturgy, its sacredness, the silence, the recollection, the mystical dimension, and adoration.”

“The liturgy must put us face to face with God in a personal relationship of intense intimacy. It must plunge us into the intimacy of the Most Holy Trinity,” he said, adding “the liturgy should allow us to attain all together to the unity of faith and to the true knowledge of the Son of God.”

He rejected any efforts to oppose one Roman Missal to the other, or to oppose the Roman liturgy to those of the Eastern Catholic Churches.

“We ought rather to enter into the great silence of the liturgy, allowing ourselves to be enriched by all the liturgical forms, whether they be, incidentally, Latin or Eastern,” he said.

Without mystical silence and a contemplative spirit, the liturgy will remain “ an occasion for hateful divisions, for ideological confrontations, and for public humiliations of the weak by those who claim to hold authority, instead of being a place of our unity and our communion in the Lord.”

Cardinal Sarah spoke of the importance of liturgical formation, which must begin with a proclamation of the faith and a catechesis based in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This formation “protects us from the risk of the more or less learned deviations of certain theologians in need of ‘novelties’.”

For Cardinal Sarah, the heart of all authentic Christian liturgy includes efforts to improve and esteem its beauty and sacredness as well as “maintaining  the right balance between fidelity to the Tradition and legitimate evolution.” This last point means “absolutely and radically” rejecting any interpretation that sees liturgical history as a break with the past.

The cardinal spoke at length of divisions over the liturgy, delivering some strong criticism for some abuses.

While the sense of the sacred is inseparable from the liturgy, some of the faithful have been so mistreated or deeply troubled by superficial celebrations of the liturgy that they have become “liturgically homeless.”

Cardinal Sarah criticized a vision of  liturgical reform that failed to fulfill the authentic restoration envisioned by the Second Vatican Council. This vision was carried out with “a superficial spirit” and wrongly aimed “to eliminate at all cost a heritage perceived to be totally negative and outdated in order to dig an abyss between before and after the council.”

For Cardinal Sarah, the Second Vatican Council was not intended to be “a rupture with the Tradition,” but rather a rediscovery and confirmation of tradition “in its deepest significance.”

“In fact, what is called ‘the reform of the reform,’ and which should perhaps be called with greater precision ‘the mutual enrichment of the rites,’ to adopt an expression of the magisterium of Benedict XVI, is above all a spiritual necessity,” he said.

“Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger tirelessly repeated that the crisis that has been shaking the Church for the past fifty years, principally since the Second Vatican Council, is linked to the crisis of the liturgy, and thus to the disrespect, desacralization, and horizontalization of the essential elements of divine worship.”

As Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in his memoirs, he is convinced that “the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy.”

Cardinal Sarah added: “we cannot close our eyes to the disaster, the devastation, and the schism that the modern promoters of a living liturgy have provoked by remodeling the liturgy of the Church according to their ideas.”

He contended that those who enacted negative changes in the liturgy forgot that it is not only a prayer, but is especially a mystery “that we cannot understand entirely, but which we must accept and receive in faith, love, obedience, and an adoring silence.”

This, he said, is the true meaning of the council’s endorsement of “the active participation of the faithful” in the liturgy.

The “crisis of faith” since the council has affected many Christian faithful, especially many priests and bishops, and has made them incapable of understanding the Eucharistic liturgy as a sacrifice identical to the Sacrifice of the Cross.

Cardinal Sarah emphasized that the Mass is “ the living sacrifice of Christ who died on the cross to free us from sin and death, so as to reveal the love and glory of God the Father.” Every celebration of the Mass aims for “the glory and adoration of God and the salvation and sanctification of men.”

True worshipers of God do not reform the liturgy according to their own ideas and creativity to please the world. Rather, they “reform the world with the Gospel” to help the world access the  liturgy that is “the reflection of the liturgy that is celebrated from all eternity in the heavenly Jerusalem.”

Cardinal Sarah stressed Benedict XVI’s approach. The Pope’s 2007 letter to bishops accompanying Summorum Pontificum said it aimed “to allow for the mutual enriching of the two forms of the same Roman Rite” and opened the possibility of perfecting them “by highlighting the best elements that characterize each.”

The cardinal offered guidelines for Summorum Pontificum, saying it should be applied “with great care” and not as “a negative and regressive measure, turned towards the past.” Neither should it be applied  “as something that builds walls and creates a ghetto.”

Rather, it should be “an important and genuine contribution to the current and future liturgical life of the Church.” It can contribute to the liturgical movement, from which “more and more people, in particular the youth, draw so many true, good, and beautiful things.”

Where the extraordinary form is celebrated, the cardinal said, pastors have reported “greater fervor” among both the faithful and the priests. Where the ordinary form is celebrated, there has been a positive impact on the liturgy, especially in the rediscovery of the postures of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, such as kneeling and genuflection.

Cardinal Sarah said there was a renewed sense of the importance of “sacred silence” at important parts of the Mass that allows priests and the faithful to “interiorize the mystery of the faith that is celebrated.”

Liturgical reform itself has a mystical goal, he said: “The liturgy must therefore always reform itself to be more faithful to its mystical essence.”

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn

By Dennis Sadowski

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Four years ago, Ted Bergh was asking members of Congress to support food programs and comprehensive immigration reform, issues of deep concern to Catholic Charities of Southwestern Ohio, which he serves as CEO.

Bergh was back on Capitol Hill March 29 for Catholic Charities USA's Hill Day with the same concerns and a few more in a time of uncertainty under a new White House administration.

Catholic Charities leaders spent the second day of their two-day meeting pressing support for federally funded social services -- in many cases their lifeblood -- that touch the lives of the millions of people they serve. Their concerns encompassed affordable housing, protections for immigrants and refugees, services for senior citizens, and food programs in schools and rural communities -- all in response to the deep cuts in social services proposed in President Donald Trump's "skinny" budget.

The budget -- a preliminary plan with specifics due in May -- calls for $54 billion in cuts in discretionary spending in nonmilitary programs including many social services. The budget calls for a corresponding boost in military spending.

The proposed reapportioning of the federal budget did not sit well with Robert McCann, president and CEO of Catholic Charities Spokane in Washington state. He said he wanted to stress to Congress that a budget is a values-based document that answers the question, "What is most important to us?"

"In my mind, being able to solve homelessness in our country is more important than spending $582 billion on defense." McCann said. "I'm a patriot and I want to defend America, but I also want to take care of the dignity of every human being. That they deserve a bed and a shower and a place to eat and place to have a normal life. We can solve homelessness in the country, but it's going to take an intentional effort."

Bergh and colleagues made similar pitches.

"Food pantries cannot do it all. We run some food pantries. We have some mobile food pantries in rural areas. There's a lot of hunger. There's a lot of despair there," Bergh told Catholic News Service on the way to a meeting with an aide to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

"If SNAP benefits decline, the pressure on the charitable organizations that are doing all this feeding work is just going to increase. I don't think you can expect the charitable organizations to do it all," Bergh added.

In the meeting, Bergh turned to the lack of affordable housing in Cincinnati and beyond. He and others pressed for affordable housing projects to be included in Trump's call for $1 trillion in infrastructure improvements. It was an idea they said was mentioned during a private meeting with Ben Carson, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the day before.

Bergh was backed by Laura Jordan Roesch, CEO of Catholic Charities Social Services of the Miami Valley in Dayton, Ohio, who said housing support for low-income families and immigrant communities in particular can help grow the economy.

Dayton, Roesch told CNS afterward, has undertaken a policy of welcoming immigrants in the wake of the loss of tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. The newcomers have refurbished houses, opened business and created a burgeoning economy in the city's Old North Dayton neighborhood, she said.

Across Capitol Hill, agency leaders repeated calls to protect the social safety net, fearing programs that benefit poor people were being targeted by the president's budget proposal. The officials also made sure to point out that any change in the Affordable Care Act must ensure that people do not lose the health coverage they now have.

They cited examples from their communities of how low-income families are faced with spending an ever-growing percentage of their limited incomes for rent. Families especially have turned to Catholic Charities for rental assistance to avoid eviction and the resulting upheaval of family life.

Their point: Keeping people in a stable setting saves money in the long run because they are not having to turn to more costly emergency services. Stable housing reduces crime, drug abuse and school dropout rates, they said.

Terry Walsh, president and chief executive office of Catholic Charities Hawaii, said he wanted to respond to the "senior tsunami" affecting the state in which the senior population is rising at five times the rate of the rest of the country, stressing the affordable housing market on the islands.

"Per capita, Hawaii has the highest homeless rate in the country," Walsh said. HUD in 2016 counted 7,921 people as homeless in Hawaii, whose population totals 1.4 million. "It's going beyond the chronically homeless. It affects children. It affects seniors. It affects families," he said.

In meetings with staff of the House and Senate committees on agriculture, Kim Brabits, vice president, program operations for Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas, cited the need for strengthening food programs because of growing "food deserts" in rural areas of the 21 counties her agency serves. She said locally owned grocery stores in small towns and at crossroads have been forced to close as mega-supermarkets that are up to an hour away from some residents have opened.

"Our mission is to increase the summer meal programs," Brabits said. "Cutting the program would be detrimental to the kids we serve."

Brabits said meal programs are effective, despite what some government officials have said publicly. "We're feeding people," she said. "That's the main goal: how many people are being fed."

Funding for disaster response was on the mind of Sister Marjorie Hebert, a member of Marianites of the Holy Cross and president and CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Making her visit for Hill Day, she said the area had experienced weather-related disasters in the last year that forced people from their homes.

"We need to find a faster way to get the money to the recipients. FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) is there quickly enough. We sometimes have to front money for almost nine to 12 months before we (the region) get the federal assistance," she said.

Most importantly, she said, her visit to Congress was to serve as a reminder of the value of the front line services her agency provides and "the number of people we serve."

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Follow Sadowski on Twitter: @DennisSadowski.

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