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(Vatican Radio) The Vatican's Permanent Observer to the United Nations has urged the international community to protect and reaffirm woman's dignity in the workplace.

Archbishop Bernadito Auza's statement was addressed to a UN Commission on the Status of Women on the theme of "Women's Economic Empowerment in a Changing World of Work" taking place in New York from 13 to 24 March.

Auza also emphasized the difficulties faced in particular by women and girls fleeing war and poverty and how they are vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and trafficking.

Please find below Archbishop Bernardito Auza's full statement:

Mr. Chair,
The Holy See is pleased to participate in the Sixty-First Commission on the Status of Women, and would like to thank you for your leadership as we address the topic of the empowerment of women in the changing world of work. We also commend the Commission for its efforts to identify, assess and concretely address in its agreed conclusions the many and complex factors affecting the well-being of women in the world of work.

My delegation’s attention was drawn in particular by two themes that run through the many preparatory materials for this meeting and, indeed, are frequently found in the recent body of UN literature treating women and equality in the world of work. First, leaders in public and private institutions treat women with greater fairness when they accept the absolute equality in dignity of woman and man, while respecting also their differences. Second, they treat women fairly when they acknowledge the extraordinary value that women bring as women, not only to the world of work or the family, but to every area of human expression. 

With their gifts and through their work and dedication, women both teach and give witness to the essential interrelatedness of male and female, and the shared responsibility we have to serve one another. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the international community protect and strongly reaffirm woman’s dignity in the workplace, the family and beyond. Along those lines, adequate measures are needed to combat the growing informality and precarious nature of women’s employment, to give them access to skills and training, ownership and control over productive resources and assets, and to put an end to every form of abuse, as well as to exploitation and trafficking in women and girls. In particular, my delegation would like to underline that many of today’s refugees and forced immigrants fleeing war-torn or impoverished cities and countries are women, often with their children, desperate to attain some measure of economic security for their families. Their dignity must be respected, their human rights protected and promoted, and their feminine genius unleashed by giving them the best opportunities for dignified work.

Mr Chair,
My delegation notes the United Nations’ recognition of the unique role and critical contribution that women bring to fields as varied as development and human rights, peace and security, conflict prevention and conflict resolution, and its efforts to integrate them in its policies and programs.

The world of work must not arbitrarily impose fixed roles on women or men, nor should it inflexibly define what women and men can and cannot do in the workplace. In this respect, Pope Francis has identified a certain “rigidity” that would “hinder the development of an individual’s abilities, to the point of leading him or her to think, for example, that it is not really masculine to cultivate art or dance, or not very feminine to exercise leadership.” We are all better off for the work and contributions of both women and men, regardless of whether those contributions are common to both or distinctive to either.

Even as we celebrate women’s contributions to diverse fields, we must also note a tendency to underestimate, and even demean or overlook, women’s expressed preference and gift for “caring for others,” demonstrated by their special capacity for caring in family and society. This tendency is also manifest when women are not given access to basic resources for caring, or when they are left out of social protection and pension schemes, are overlooked for promotions, experience significant pay gaps vis-à-vis men doing equal work, and are discriminated against in hiring, simply because of the prospect of maternity leave or of extended leave to care for children or sick and elderly family members.

A significant feature of the contemporary landscape of women’s economic empowerment lies in the tension women often feel between their desire to work and to raise children and care for the family. Governments and private employers must find creative ways to respond to this challenge, so that working mothers do not feel pressured or forced to sacrifice their maternal capacities and familial desires. Allowing family leave for women to raise children or take care of sick or elderly members of the family is one of the different forms of a response, which may be even more effective when accompanied by social policies and compensation structures favorable to women who care for family at home, with special attention to single mothers, as well as to women refugees and migrants, who are disproportionately among the poorest and the most vulnerable women. At a time when women are increasingly engaged in professional activities, Pope Francis also encourages a better sharing of responsibility within the family: “It is possible, for example, that a husband’s way of being masculine can be flexibly adapted to the wife’s work schedule. Taking on domestic chores or some aspects of raising children does not make him any less masculine or imply failure, irresponsibility or cause for shame. Children have to be helped to accept as normal such healthy ‘exchanges’ which do not diminish the dignity of the father figure.”

In any case, even though women’s unpaid work is not officially recognized by the formal economy, it not only contributes to every country’s economic development, but it also sustains the fundamental pillars that govern a society and a nation. This is certainly the case in the unpaid work of caring for children and the elderly, considering how much the State would otherwise have to spend for social services. More than all these considerations, however, the work of raising a family and caring for needy family members has enormous value in and of itself, as “the beauty of this mutual, gratuitous gift, the joy which comes from a life that is born and the loving care of all family members – from toddlers to seniors – are just a few of the fruits which make the response to the vocation of the family unique and irreplaceable […] for society as a whole.”

Mr. Chair,
Building a better future involves the complementary collaboration of men and women. The empowerment of women, in every area of life and work, will not only strengthen women, but will strengthen and empower us all.
Thank you Mr. Chair.

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(Vatican Radio) It was one year ago that Pope Francis launched his Instagram account. To mark the occasion, we spoke with the Secretary of the Secretariat for Communications, Msgr. Lucio Adrian Ruiz, who recalled the origins of the Holy Father’s vision for evangelizing the “digital continent”.

“[T]he best thing of all was the meeting with the Holy Father, when Kevin [Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, ed.] came and presented the idea to the Holy Father, with the main objective being to communicate a message through the [use of] an image,” Msgr. Ruiz recounted to Alessandro Gisotti.

“The Holy Father responded,” Msgr. Ruiz explained, “talking about the theology of the image, as the Church has always experienced pictures as a way to be close to the people and even to do catechesis: [Pope Francis] told of church paintings, and recounted an important experience.”

Ruiz went on to say that, for Pope Francis, images are enormously important, and that the Pope in his conversation with Systrom said that, when he approaches children, and the children do not want to talk because they are shy, he shows them a picture and then asks them what it is, and then they loosen up a bit – and even need to be stopped and reined in because they become so enthusiastic in their talk about themselves.

Msgr. Ruiz said Pope Francis sees images as “The access point to a dialogue.”

Asked what lessons communicators – especially Catholic communicators – can learn from the communications style of Pope Francis, Msgr. Ruiz responded, “We are in the digital culture: in the words of Pope Benedict, there is a ‘digital continent’, a reality into which we must enter and live, because, if man is there, the Church cannot fail to be there, too – and must be there in the same dynamic with which the missionaries approached things when they discovered another continent, another reality.”

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Denver, Colo., Mar 17, 2017 / 02:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- They’re Irish, they’re Catholic, and they’re proud. But you maybe haven’t heard of them.

They’re the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Lady’s Ancient Order of Hibernians, the oldest and largest Irish Catholic organizations in the United States.

Non-Irish need not apply to the orders – membership is reserved for those who can prove that at least some Irish blood flows through their veins. The word ‘Hibernian’ is another word for Irishmen, taken from ‘Hibernia’, the classical Latin term for Ireland.

Members also must be practicing Catholics willing to stand up for and support the Catholic Church.

Today, the order functions similarly to other Catholic charitable organizations, such as the Knights of Columbus, but with an Irish twist. They support many Catholic causes such as vocations and pro-life work, but they also promote Irish culture and education on Irish history, and help modern-day Irish immigrants to the U.S. and support a free and united Ireland.

“If you had a group of us in a room you’d have twice as many opinions as you’d have people,” Danny O’Connell, National Vice President for the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America, told CNA.

“But the thing that pulls us all together is our culture, our music, our traditions, many of which came from the immigrants.”

Why the Ancient Order?

The orders come from a time when secret societies were in vogue, and the stakes were much higher.

After the Protestant Reformation, the English, who had conquered Ireland, tried fiercely to convert the stubborn Irish Catholics, to little avail. Irish Catholics soon became accustomed to “Mass rocks”, where a priest would say Mass outside on a rock and quickly be able to hide the altar cloth and feign a picnic if they were found out.

At this time, secret groups with names like the Whiteboys, Ribbonmen, and Defenders supported rights for Catholics, but their first job was to protect their clergy. Despite persecution, the Catholics clung fiercely to their faith.

As Catholic oppression continued and crop failures struck Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Irish began to move, and their secret societies, now a learned defense mechanism, came with them. It was around this time that the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Ireland and the UK was born.

Many Irish also immigrated to the United States, with more than 1 million doing so around the time of the Irish potato famine between 1845-1852. So many sick Irish died on the trip that the boats that brought them over began to be referred to as “coffin ships.”

“When people refer to the famine, most of the Irish see it as a genocide,” O’Connell explained. “It was the Great Hunger. They were exporting more food from Ireland than they are today, yet the Irish Catholics were dying and their teeth would be stained green because the only thing they could even try and eat was the grass. It was the British government starving the people who weren’t allowed to eat the food on their land except for the potatoes, and it was land that the British stole from us.”

But despite promises of religious freedom, the Irish found that United States was also hostile to Catholicism, under the guise of patriotism.

Since colonial times, Americans had been suspect of Catholics from all immigrant groups, suspicious that their allegiances to the Pope would trump their loyalty to the U.S.

“Like any immigrant group, when you were new in the U.S., you were low on the totem pole, you were the ones abused and beaten and robbed and not given good jobs,” O’Connell said.

“And people didn’t understand Catholicism, so they would prevent you from practicing your religion. So if you were having a Mass, they would beat up or often kill the priest … so the Hibernians would stay outside or wherever they were, and stand guard. Back in those days that’s what you did, you stood outside and protected the life of your priest, and that was the only way you could continue practicing your religion,” he said.

The Hibernians also helped their own to overcome discrimination when they were looking for housing and employment. In 1894, the Daughters of Erin, which eventually became the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians, was founded in order to protect young Irish immigrant women in the United States.

The Hibernians today

A strong Irish Catholic identity, forged in the overcoming of numerous adversities, can still be felt strongly in many parts of the United States, and is what bonds the Hibernians together today.

Marilyn Madigan, the National Treasurer for the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians, said the camaraderie among the early Hibernians can still be felt strongly in the organization today.

“It’s the best organization I’ve ever belonged to, we’re like a second family,” she said.

Madigan said one of the most important things the orders do today, besides their Catholic charitable work, is to help undocumented Irish immigrants in the United States, of whom there are an estimated 50,000. Most of them entered the country legally, but are now here on overstayed visas.

Fears and anxiety are even higher among this group after the election of President Donald Trump, who promised to crack down on illegal immigration.

“There are a lot of undocumented Irish in this country, and most of the Irish organizations do work to try to document those Irish, so we haven’t forgotten where we came from, we hold that country dear to our hearts, as well as our religion,” Madigan said. In fact, the two are really inextricably linked.

“Most of the famine Irish were Catholic, their religion was taken away from them, they had to go to Masses behind rocks, so our Irish and Catholic heritage is very important,” she said.

Because the orders are non-profit groups, they do not engage in any kind of lobbying for Irish immigration, and they also declined to comment politically on the immigration situation of other undocumented immigrants in the United States.

A completely free and independent Ireland is another cause near and dear to the Hibernian heart, and the group hopes to see a peaceful and legal reunification of the country soon, though Brexit has raised some doubts.

“We’re very involved with Brexit, the fear is that we could see a return to a hard border between the North and the Republic,” O’Connell explained. Ireland and Northern Ireland (the six northern counties that still belong to the U.K.) have enjoyed relatively open borders since the 1990s, to the benefit of both countries’ economies, he added. Several members of the order will be travelling to Europe to voice their support for an open border.

The diversity of causes that the order supports and the faith that undergirds it continues to tie them together, O’Connell said.

“The culture, the music, the song, that brings us all together, and it’s kind of like with a family … and it’s driven by being Catholic. There’s not another Irish group in the country that has that diversity, and that’s why we’re so strong.”

But membership is waning. The women’s and men’s orders combined have a membership of about 80,000 in the U.S., at a generous estimate. It’s something that has both O’Connell and Madigan concerned.

“It seems like the younger generations do not join organizations like we have in the past,” Madigan said. “It seems like the younger generation, while they’re proud of their heritage, they don’t join, or they may join or not be as active.”

“We’re trying to do a better job of welcoming people who are younger than 60,” O’Connell said.

“We’re in the process of really kicking off what’s going to be a several-year membership campaign. We’ve never really done that before, and we realize how many people say, ‘I don’t know anything about this, why don’t I?’”

What a Hibernian wants you to know about St. Patrick's Day

While you might think you’d find a Hibernian dressed in green and drinking steadily like the stereotypical St. Patrick’s Day celebrant, there are a few things the Hibernians wish the general population understood about the holiday.

“First and foremost, to a true Irishman, St. Patrick’s Day is a feast day,” Madigan said.

“We start out with Mass, with the majority of us participating in parades prior to or on the day itself, where we highlight our Irish heritage.”

Getting drunk, she said, is not part of the plan.

“The things that upset me the most is that people think it’s just a day to go out and celebrate and imbibe in alcoholic beverages, and maybe be overserved,” she said.

“They wear shirts that are very denigrating to the Irish, making us look like we’re a race of drunks. We’re not, we’re a proud irish race that has spread Christianity throughout the world through our missionaries. And I don’t think that the general public really sees what we do.”

O’Connell said that he is also “very disturbed” by the T-shirts and decorations that denigrate the Irish.

“What I try to tell people when I talk to them about it, is I say change it to a different nationality, change it to a different race … can you imagine?”

St. Patrick's Day is also an Irish-American holiday, he added. We eat corned beef and cabbage because that’s what the Irish immigrants in America ate because they couldn’t afford other cuts of meat. They wanted to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in a big way because they wanted to feel close to their Irish heritage. It wasn’t until recently that the holiday became anything more than any other feast day in Ireland, and they only started holding big celebrations for tourism purposes.

Still, he said, it’s hard to completely blame those who want to be Irish for a day.

“Being Irish is just so much fun.”

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Vatican City, Mar 17, 2017 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- With Easter only a month away, plans have already been set in the Vatican for the celebrations surrounding the big day, and the lead-up to Holy Week will be filled with several papal daytrips, Masses, and liturgies.

The Pope began Lent with his March 5-10 spiritual exercises alongside members of the Curia in Ariccia, a small town just outside of Rome.

Next on the schedule is a March 17 penitential service in St. Peter’s Basilica, during which several individuals will go to confession with the Pope as part of his annual “24 Hours for the Lord” event, which this year takes place the third Friday and Saturday of Lent.

A worldwide initiative led by Pope Francis, the event was launched in 2014 under the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization and points to confession as the primary way to experience God's mercy.

On March 25, the feast of the Annunciation of the Lord, Francis will make a daylong pastoral visit to Milan, where he is scheduled to say Mass, meet with youth who recently received Confirmation, and visit the city’s cathedral and a prison.

After his visit to Milan, the Pope will start the month of April by making another daylong visit to the northern Italian town of Carpi, during which he will commemorate the nearly 20 people who died when an earthquake struck the region in 2012.

One week later Pope Francis will say Mass for Palm Sunday at 10 a.m. in St. Peter’s Square April 9, during which he will process with palms from the obelisk in the middle of the square to the main altar, as is tradition.

During the Mass, the World Youth Day Cross will be handed over from Poland to Panama, signaling the location of the next international encounter in 2019. As is customary, the Pope will also deliver his message for WYD at a local level, which this year holds the theme “The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name,” taken from Lk 1:49.

On April 13, Pope Francis will offer the Chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at 9:30 a.m., which will be concelebrated with the cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, and priests present in Rome.

Then in the afternoon he will say the Mass of the Lord’s Supper with the traditional washing of feet. The location of this year’s Holy Thursday liturgy has yet to be announced, but Francis has typically chosen to hold it either in prisons or centers for the sick and disabled. Last year the celebration was held at a refugee welcoming center on the outskirts of Rome.

On Good Friday the Pope will preside over an afternoon liturgy commemorating the Lord's Passion in St. Peter's Basilica at 5 p.m., with the papal preacher Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap., delivering the homily, as usual.

Later that night he will make his way to the Colosseum to pray the Via Crucis with the faithful at 9:15 p.m., extending his blessing to all present. The name of person writing this year’s meditations has yet to be announced.

The following night, Holy Saturday, Francis will celebrate the Easter Vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica at 8:30 p.m. In previous years he has baptized and confirmed several individuals during the celebration, and is expected to do so again this year.

On April 16, Easter Sunday, the Pope will hold a public Mass in St. Peter's Square at 10 a.m. Immediately after, he will give his special “urbi et orbi” blessing, “to the city and to the world.”

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