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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has joined his voice to those taking part in Brazil’s “Fraternity Campaign,” an annual Lenten Campaign organized by the Brazilian National Conference of Bishops.

This year’s campaign focusses on the theme "Brazilian biomes and the defense of life" with the motto from Genesis: “Cultivate and keep creation.”

Brazil has one of the most significant bio diversities in the world, and its territory is divided into 6 natural biomes, each with its own set of fauna, flora and soil, with specific social and cultural manifestations of its population. The 2017 Fraternity Campaign is dedicated to the appreciation and protection of these biomes. 

In his message addressed to his “dear brothers and sisters in Brazil”, Pope Francis speaks of the generosity of the Creator towards Brazil in giving it “a diversity of ecosystems of extraordinary beauty.”

Unfortunately, the Pope said, the Brazilian land also carries “the signs of aggression towards creation and the deterioration of nature”.

He said the Church in Brazil not only provides a prophetic voice for the care and respect of the environment and attention towards the poor, but highlights the need to tackle the ecological challenges and problems as well as pinpointing their causes and possible solutions.

Pope Francis recalled that amongst the many initiatives promoted by the Church, as far back as 1979, the Lenten Fraternity Campaign shone the spotlight on environmental issues.

He also noted that we cannot not consider the effects environmental degradation, the current model for development and the culture of waste are having on the lives of people.

“This Campaign invites us to contemplate, admire, give thanks and respect the diversity of nature manifested in Brazil’s different ecosystems which are a true gift of God” he said.

Pointing out that environmental degradation is one of the greatest challenges we face because it is always accompanied by social injustice, the Pope pointed to indigenous peoples as an example of “how cohabitation with creation can be respectful, fruitful and merciful”.

It is necessary, he said, to learn from these peoples how to relate to nature in the quest for a sustainable model “that can be a valid alternative to the race for profit that exhausts natural resources and damages the dignity of peoples”.

“Every year, the Pope concluded, the Fraternity Campaign takes place during Lent: it is an invitation to live the spirituality of Easter with deepened awareness”.    

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(Vatican Radio) Bishops in Honduras have condemned corruption ahead of the country’s presidential election.

A message to Catholics by the Honduran Bishops Conference has called for the November 26 poll to be conducted freely without deceit, threats or bribes.

It acknowledges the election is taking place in a climate of “growing violence, corruption and impunity, a lack of trust of the population against certain institutions.”

Catholic voters are advised to reflect carefully on the campaign “so the decision that will be taken in the elections is guided by the principles that are fundamental to the entire democratic society.”

The statement also addresses election candidates, asking them to pursue the common good, be transparent and formulate concrete promises during the upcoming campaign.

Controversy has surrounded current president Juan Orlando Hernández’s attempt to be re-elected after a legal change in the country’s Constitution allowing a premier to serve a second term of office. Part of the population considered the move “unconstitutional” while state authorities upheld the change.

The bishops’ message invites the faithful to participate and have a responsible commitment, favoring dialogue and respect between the different parties while not failing to pray for the country's future.

(Richard Marsden)

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(Vatican Radio) The Vatican announced on Wednesday that a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins, has resigned from her position.

She had been a member of the Commission since it was established by Pope Francis in 2014. In her resignation letter to the Pope, she cited frustration at the lack of cooperation with the Commission by other offices of the Roman Curia.

In a statement, the president of the Commission, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, said Marie’s concerns would be listened to carefully and discussed at next month’s plenary meeting. He said she will continue to work with the Commission on training programmes for new bishops and for other offices of the Holy See.

To find out more, Philippa Hitchen spoke to Marie Collins about her decision and about her hopes for the future work of the Commission

Listen: 

Marie says there have been struggles in the past but the Commission worked to overcome them. Recently, she says, there was “a specific refusal from a department of the Vatican that I felt was just unacceptable”.  She adds that “if there are men still in positions in the Vatican who are not willing to work and cooperate with this Commission”, then as a survivor she felt she had to leave.

Marie insists that she still supports her colleagues who are “working very sincerely and very hard”, as well as Pope Francis who “has been behind the Commission all the way”.  

Asked about the specific difficulty which motivated her decision, she said it was in regard to developing safeguarding policies which bishops conferences around the world can use as a template for drawing up their own policy documents.

Marie says a way needs to be found to show those who are resisting "that the Commission is not coming in from the outside to interfere, or to take over their work”. The Commission’s objective, she insists, is “to work together and go forward, using resources of both groups to move forward for the protection of children”.  

She finds it “heartbreaking” that some people “find that difficult, in 2017, when we know the history that is there, and we don't want to repeat it”. But she stresses she trusts her colleagues: “I know the Commission will succeed and maybe anyone who has been resisting will open their minds and realise that we’re all working for the same thing”.

Survivors’ voices must continue to be heard, Marie believes, whether by adding new members to the Commission or by inviting others to talk to the group. She notes that last year she worked on training sessions with bishops, and with some Curia departments. She hopes to continue with this work because it’s very important that men who are “open to learning and open to trying to understand more about abuse” are able to hear and to share the experience of a survivor.

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis celebrated Holy Mass for Ash Wednesday at the Basilica of Santa Sabina on the Aventine hill in Rome.

In his homily, the Holy Father said Lent is a path that "leads to the triumph of mercy over all that would crush us or reduce us to something unworthy of our dignity as God's children."

Click here to see a report on the Pope's Mass.

Please find below the official English translation of the Pope's homily:

“Return to me with all your heart… return to the Lord” (Jl 2:12, 13).  The prophet Joel makes this plea to the people in the Lord’s name.  No one should feel excluded: “Assemble the aged, gather the children, even infants at the breast, the bridegroom… and the bride” (v. 16).  All the faithful people are summoned to come and worship their God, “for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (v. 13).

We too want to take up this appeal; we want to return to the merciful heart of the Father.  In this season of grace that begins today, we once again turn our eyes to his mercy.  Lent is a path: it leads to the triumph of mercy over all that would crush us or reduce us to something unworthy of our dignity as God’s children.  Lent is the road leading from slavery to freedom, from suffering to joy, from death to life.  The mark of the ashes with which we set out reminds us of our origin: we were taken from the earth, we are made of dust.  True, yet we are dust in the loving hands of God, who has breathed his spirit of life upon each one of us, and still wants to do so.  He wants to keep giving us that breath of life that saves us from every other type of breath: the stifling asphyxia brought on by our selfishness, the stifling asphyxia generated by petty ambition and silent indifference – an asphyxia that smothers the spirit, narrows our horizons and slows the beating of our hearts.  The breath of God’s life saves us from this asphyxia that dampens our faith, cools our charity and strangles every hope. To experience Lent is to yearn for this breath of life that our Father unceasingly offers us amid the mire of our history.

The breath of God’s life sets us free from the asphyxia that so often we fail to notice, or become so used to that it seems normal, even when its effects are felt.  We think it is normal because we have grown so accustomed to breathing air in which hope has dissipated, the air of glumness and resignation, the stifling air of panic and hostility.

Lent is the time for saying no.  No to the spiritual asphyxia born of the pollution caused by indifference, by thinking that other people’s lives are not my concern, and by every attempt to trivialize life, especially the lives of those whose flesh is burdened by so much superficiality.  Lent means saying no to the toxic pollution of empty and meaningless words, of harsh and hasty criticism, of simplistic analyses that fail to grasp the complexity of problems, especially the problems of those who suffer the most.  Lent is the time to say no to the asphyxia of a prayer that soothes our conscience, of an almsgiving that leaves us self-satisfied, of a fasting that makes us feel good.  Lent is the time to say no to the asphyxia born of relationships that exclude, that try to find God while avoiding the wounds of Christ present in the wounds of his brothers and sisters: in a word, all those forms of spirituality that reduce the faith to a ghetto culture, a culture of exclusion.

Lent is a time for remembering.  It is the time to reflect and ask ourselves what we would be if God had closed his doors to us.  What would we be without his mercy that never tires of forgiving us and always gives us the chance to begin anew?  Lent is the time to ask ourselves where we would be without the help of so many people who in a thousand quiet ways have stretched out their hands and in very concrete ways given us hope and enabled us to make a new beginning.

Lent is the time to start breathing again.  It is the time to open our hearts to the breath of the One capable of turning our dust into humanity.  It is not the time to rend our garments before the evil all around us, but instead to make room in our life for all the good we are able to do.  It is a time to set aside everything that isolates us, encloses us and paralyzes us.  Lent is a time of compassion, when, with the Psalmist, we can say: “Restore to us the joy of your salvation, sustain in us a willing spirit”, so that by our lives we may declare your praise (cf. Ps 51:12.15), and our dust – by the power of your breath of life - may become a “dust of love”. 

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(Vatican Radio) Continuing a long-standing tradition, Pope Francis celebrated the Holy Mass for Ash Wednesday at the Basilica of Santa Sabina on the Aventine hill in Rome.

Listen to Chrisopher Wells' report:

The Holy Father began his homily for the beginning of Lent with the words of the prophet Joel, from the first Reading: “Return to me with all your heart… Return to the Lord.” These words, the Pope said, apply to everyone, and exclude no one; “we all want to return to the merciful heart of the Father.”

Lent, the Pope said, is a path that “leads to the triumph of mercy over all that would crush us or reduce us to something unworthy of our dignity as God’s children.” The mark of ashes, received during the ceremony, reminds us of our origins, that we are dust – but, he said, it also reminds us that God breathed life into each of us. “The breath of God’s life,” he said, “saves us from this asphyxia that dampens our faith, cools our charity, and strangles every hope”

Pope Francis said Lent is a time for saying no: no to “spiritual asphyxia” caused by indifference; no to “the toxic pollution of empty and meaningless words”; no to “a prayer that soothes our conscience, an almsgiving that leaves us self-satisfied, a fasting that makes us feel good”, no to all forms of exclusion.”

But Lent is also a time for remembering, a time “to reflect and ask ourselves what we would be if God had closed His doors to us.” It is a time, too, the Pope said, to ask where we would be without so many people who have helped us along our journey.

And so, Pope Francis concluded, “Lent is a time to start breathing again… the time to open our hearts to the breath of the One capable of turning our dust to humanity.” 

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Denver, Colo., Mar 1, 2017 / 06:24 am (Denver Catholic).- St. Bernadette Parish, the pioneer Catholic church of Lakewood, Colorado, outgrew its first worship space just 18 years after being founded in 1947. Today, the half-century-old church remains large enough but needs updating to better serve its exceptionally diverse congregation.

In addition to ministering to the faithful of central Lakewood, the parish heads Colorado Catholic Deaf Ministry, is home to St. Kateri Native American Community, runs a school and soon will be host to Marisol Home, which will provide transitional housing to homeless women with children.

“One holy, Catholic and apostolic church is a pretty good description for our parish,” said the pastor, Father Tom Coyte.

“Catholic means universal,” added pastoral associate Julie Plouffe, “and there is so much diversity represented in this one worship space: the deaf, Native Americans, service to the poor and the homeless, and to our school.”

Deaf ministry

When Father Coyte was named pastor of St. Bernadette’s two and a half years ago, he quickly realized his handsome church was in need of repairs and renovations – from the essentials of updating the heating, cooling and electricity, to improving the sanctuary for comfort and hospitality.

He wants all of his parishioners, including the deaf, to be able to enjoy full, active participation in the church liturgies. When Father Coyte arrived to St. Bernadette’s, the deaf community, which he’s led for 45 years, came with him.

“We became aware of how difficult it is to participate visually in our liturgies here,” Father Coyte said.

Because it’s essential for the deaf to see what’s being signed, the parish plans, among other improvements, to elevate the altar platform to increase visibility for the congregation. (The change will also aid seeing the schoolchildren when they take part in liturgies.)

Deaf ministry enables the hard of hearing to serve as lectors, ushers and extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist. It offers interpretive services for weddings, funerals and religious education classes, and organizes retreats.

“Deaf ministry is an archdiocesan outreach to all deaf persons and their families to be fully involved in parish and Church life,” Father Coyte said.

Services include religious education and interpretive outreach, and signed weekly Masses at two other parishes – one in the Colorado Springs Diocese.

“We also go to Pueblo and have been to other states,” Father Coyte said.

St. Kateri Community

The St. Kateri ministry, in which some 60 people from across the archdiocese representing about 10 Native American tribes celebrate a weekly Mass incorporating Indian traditions, has been at St. Bernadette’s since 1985.

“They’ve been embraced by the St. Bernadette community,” Father Coyte said. “They have a beautiful spirituality.”

Kateri ministry exists to evangelize and serve the archdiocese’s Native American community and provides religious education and community building.

Aid to the poor, homeless

Last fall, the Kateri community, which had turned the parish’s old convent into a chapel, moved their weekly Mass into the church proper. Catholic Charities is leasing and transforming Kateri’s former home for worship into a home for single-parent mothers with children. Marisol Home, set to open this year, will be able to shelter up to 18 families at once.

“St. Bernadette’s will be providing a lot of meal support and volunteer hours,” Plouffe said of the Marisol ministry.

Ministry to the poor and homeless has long been a cherished activity of the parish, which helps a near daily stream of indigent from Lakewood’s Colfax corridor with food, rent assistance and resource referrals.

“We reach out to many needy families in our school as well,” Father Coyte said.

Vast outreach

This spring the parish is launching a three-year, $1.5 million capital campaign to fund necessary improvements to make St. Bernadette’s more beautiful, functional and welcoming for its diverse congregation.

Just as the church’s unique ministries stretch beyond its parish boundaries, Father Coyte said so, too, does its need for donations.

“Our outreach is much larger than St. Bernadette Parish,” he said. “We’re a relatively small parish of 700 to 800 families, yet our ministries are quite ambitious.”

 

Reprinted from the Denver Catholic.

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Vatican City, Mar 1, 2017 / 06:42 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday, the decision of clerical abuse survivor Marie Collins to resign from her post on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors was announced, citing frustrations with “a lack of cooperation” by the Curia as leading factor.

In a March 1 statement coinciding with the announcement of Collins’ resignation, Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, who heads the commission, voiced “our most sincere thanks for the extraordinary contributions she has made as a founding member of the commission.”

“We will certainly listen carefully to all that Marie wishes to share with us about her concerns and we will greatly miss her important contributions as a member of the commission,” he said.

A laywoman from Ireland, Collins had been one of two clerical abuse survivors tapped to join the commission when it was established in March 2014. Plans to found the commission had been announced shortly before, in December 2013.

Of the original nine founding members of the commission, Collins was one of two clerical sex abuse survivors, alongside Peter Saunders from the UK.

However, Sanders was asked to take “a leave of absence” by the other members in February 2016, making Collins the only active abuse survivor serving on the commission until her resignation.

In a March 1 communique announcing her decision, the commission praised Collins as someone who has “consistently and tirelessly championed for the voices of the victims/survivors to be heard, and for the healing of the victims/survivors to be a priority for the Church.”

The communique said that in her resignation letter to Pope Francis, she cited her “frustration at a lack of cooperation with the commission by other offices in the Roman Curia” as a reason for stepping down.

However, she has agreed to continue working with the commission “in an educational role” given her “exceptional teaching skills” and the impact of her testimony as an abuse survivor.

Pope Francis, the communique read, accepted her resignation “with deep appreciation for her work” on behalf of other survivors.

In his personal statement, Cardinal O’Malley said that when the commission gathers for their plenary meeting next month, they will discuss the concerns that Collins brought up.

He voiced his gratitude to her for her willingness to continue working with the commission, specifically “in the education of church leaders,” including upcoming courses for new bishops and departments of the Holy See.

In comments to CNA, Fr. Hans Zollner SJ, who heads the Center for Child Protection (CCP) at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is a fellow of member of the commission, said he “can understand and I certainly respect” Collins’ frustration.

“We can only be grateful that she has been with the commission for almost three years now. I think the commission will certainly cherish all that she has done for us and with us,” he said, but noted that “what she describes as resistance within the Curia” was perhaps “too testing” for her.

The message that everyone needs to be on the same page regarding abuse prevention and best practices is something that “has not happened instantaneously, and, honestly, I do not expect it to happen, especially if you look around at the global reality represented in the Catholic Church.”

“(So) I can understand that she is frustrated about that,” he said, and pointed to different perspectives on the issue taken by various cultures throughout the world.

“Canonically we're on the same page, but we are not on the same page in regards to attitudes” regarding “with how much energy, with how much determination we deal with cases of abuse that have happened, and with prevention,” he said.

“If you look into the Church worldwide there are differences that are culturally bound, and, in the wider sense, also politically bound. So this is what is difficult to bear for a survivor.”

Zollner acknowledged that part of this difference in approach is also found within Curia, as mentioned by Collins in her letter of resignation.

“There are, as you can expect in any organization and in any institution, there are pushbacks, there are setbacks,” he said, but clarified that “this is not the Curia” as a whole.

He said they have had invitations to speak at different dicasteries and "we have already received new invitations." Collins herself "says in her statement that she will continue to work with us, so if she thought it was the whole Curia then she would not work in this effort to educate those in the Curia,” the priest added. 

He said part of the “pushback” Collins referred to was likely coming from specific offices or “the persons in the offices.” He stressed that he has “no idea” as to the specific cases she is referring to, but it could be along these lines.

Regardless of Collins’ resignation, Zollner said that “we need to continue working steadily as we have done.”

“The voice of survivors at the moment is not represented by persons, but certainly by all of the members’ experiences,” he said, noting that all of the members, including O’Malley, have met with survivors on several occasions, “so it’s not that the voice of survivors is not present anymore.”

When asked if the commission was planning to look for more survivor members to join, Zollner said he doubts there will be any changes to the commission’s current composition before the end of their term at the close of 2017, but the topic will likely come up during their plenary meeting next month.

Even before Collins decided to resign, the commission had planned to discuss “the future form and composition of this commission” during the plenary, he said, adding that they will likely have a proposal by March 24, when the plenary begins.

He referred to the testimonies given Thursday by commission members Kathleen McCormack and Sheila Hollins before Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse saying the Pontifical commission is underfunded, having the resources of a diocese rather than an organization that operates throughout the globe.

While funding has “always” been a topic of discussion, Zollner said this will likely also be on the table for discussion during their upcoming plenary.

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Vatican City, Mar 1, 2017 / 09:43 am (CNA/EWTN News).- At Ash Wednesday Mass, Pope Francis spoke about the bad habits, negativity, and sin present in our lives which cause us to be choked off from the life-giving breath of God – supernatural grace.

“The breath of God’s life saves us from this asphyxia that dampens our faith, cools our charity and strangles every hope,” he said March 1. “To experience Lent is to yearn for this breath of life that our Father unceasingly offers us amid the mire of our history.”

Marking the start of the Lenten season, Pope Francis prayed the Stations of the Cross at St. Anselm Church in Rome before processing the short way to the Basilica of Santa Sabina for the celebration of Mass, benediction, and the imposition of ashes.

Francis said that as we set out from the church, the mark of the ashes reminds us of our origin: “we were taken from the earth, we are made of dust.”

“True,” he said, “yet we are dust in the loving hands of God, who has breathed his spirit of life upon each one of us, and still wants to do so.”

“He wants to keep giving us that breath of life that saves us from every other type of breath: the stifling asphyxia brought on by our selfishness, the stifling asphyxia generated by petty ambition and silent indifference – an asphyxia that smothers the spirit, narrows our horizons and slows the beating of our hearts.”

We get so accustomed to this strangulation, the Pope said, that it becomes normal for us, and we fail to notice that we are breathing air “in which hope has dissipated,” and only “the air of glumness and resignation, the stifling air of panic and hostility,” remain.

Lent is a time of saying ‘no’ to all of this, he said: “No to the spiritual asphyxia” of indifference, of trivializing life, of excluding people, and of looking for God while ignoring the “wounds of Christ present in the wounds” of others.

“Lent means saying no to the toxic pollution of empty and meaningless words, of harsh and hasty criticism, of simplistic analyses that fail to grasp the complexity of problems, especially the problems of those who suffer the most,” he said.

It is also a time to examine our manner of praying, giving alms, and fasting, he said, to be sure that we aren’t doing it for the wrong reason, like to feel good about ourselves.

Instead, Francis said, “Lent is a time for remembering. It is the time to reflect and ask ourselves what we would be if God had closed his doors to us. What would we be without his mercy that never tires of forgiving us and always gives us the chance to begin anew?”

Moreover, it is “the time to start breathing again. It is the time to open our hearts to the breath of the One capable of turning our dust into humanity,” he said.

It isn’t a time to “rend our garments before the evil all around us,” he continued. Instead, we are called to “make room” in our lives “for all the good we are able to do.”

“Lent is a time of compassion,” the Pope concluded, “when, with the Psalmist, we can say: ‘Restore to us the joy of your salvation, sustain in us a willing spirit,’ so that by our lives we may declare your praise, and our dust – by the power of your breath of life – may become a ‘dust of love.’”

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IMAGE: CNS/Carol Glatz

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- One of the founding members and the last remaining abuse survivor on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has quit over what she described as resistance coming from Vatican offices against implementing recommendations.

Marie Collins, who joined the commission when it was established in 2014, said: "The reluctance of some in the Vatican Curia to implement recommendations or cooperate with the work of a commission when the purpose is to improve the safety of children and vulnerable adults around the world is unacceptable."

"It is devastating in 2017 to see that these men still can put other concerns before the safety of children and vulnerable adults," she said in an editorial published online March 1 by the National Catholic Reporter.

Pope Francis created the commission to be an independent body of experts, including survivors of clerical sexual abuse, to advise him with recommendations on best practices for protecting minors and vulnerable adults in the church. The commission is also charged with promoting responsibility in local churches by "uniting their efforts to those of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, for the protection of all children and vulnerable adults," according to the commission's statutes.

"However, despite the Holy Father approving all the recommendations made to him by the commission, there have been constant setbacks," Collins said in a statement published on her website, mariecollins.net.

"This has been directly due to the resistance by some members of the Vatican Curia to the work of the commission. The lack of cooperation, particularly by the dicastery most closely involved in dealing with cases of abuse, has been shameful," she said.

While Collins did not specifically name which dicastery, the Vatican's doctrinal congregation is charged with investigating verified crimes the church defines as "more grave delicts," which includes the sexual abuse of minors. The office, through its promoter of justice, also monitors the procedures that national bishops' conferences have in place for dealing with abuse accusations and handling the dismissal from the priesthood of those guilty of sexual abuse.

In her NCR editorial, Collins said the commission's template of safeguarding guidelines was never sent out to the world's bishops' conferences for helping them craft or improve their own policies and "the dicastery, which has the responsibility for reviewing existing bishops' conference policy documents and which has its own template, is refusing to cooperate with the commission on the combining of the work."

The commission had recommended a new judicial section be added within the doctrinal congregation to judge crimes of "abuse of office" by bishops alleged to have failed in fulfilling responsibilities linked to handling suspected and known cases of sex abuse. Even though the pope and his nine-member council of cardinals approved the new section in mid-2015, Collins confirmed in her editorial that it was never implemented.

Another papal directive promoting accountability of negligent bishops and religious superiors -- "As a Loving Mother" -- was also meant to begin in the fall of 2016, but "it is impossible to know if it has actually begun work or not," Collins said.

She said the "last straw" that led to her handing in her letter of resignation was when she learned that the same dicastery that refused to cooperate on the safeguarding guidelines had also refused "to implement one of the simplest recommendations the commission has put forward to date."

The recommendation, which the pope instructed that all Vatican departments follow, asked that every Vatican office "ensure all correspondence from victims/survivors receives a response. I learned in a letter from this particular dicastery last month that they are refusing to do so," she said.

"I find it impossible to listen to public statements about the deep concern in the church for the care of those whose lives have been blighted by abuse, yet to watch privately as a congregation in the Vatican refuses to even acknowledge their letters!"

"It is a reflection of how this whole abuse crisis in the church has been handled: with fine words in public and contrary actions behind closed doors," she said.

She said she had pledged when she joined the commission that she would quit the moment she felt "what was happening behind closed doors was in conflict with what was being said to the public. This point has come. I feel I have no choice but to resign if I am to retain my integrity."

Collins was the last remaining survivor who was active in the commission's work after Peter Saunders, a British survivor advocate, was asked by the commission to take a leave of absence a year ago. He had been outspoken in expressing his opinion on sanctioning particular church leaders for alleged abuse cover-ups and his frustrations over a lack of action on key issues.

The commission will be meeting in Rome March 20-26, and it is expected members will discuss what to do next about participation by other survivors since its mission includes reaching out to and including victims, a source told Catholic News Service.

U.S. Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston, a member of the pope's group of cardinal advisers and president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, thanked Collins "for the extraordinary contributions she has made as a founding member of the commission." He said he and the entire commission "will greatly miss her."

Collins accepted, at the cardinal's invitation, to continue to help the commission "in an educational role" because of her "exceptional teaching skills and impact of her testimony as a survivor."

"I am deeply grateful for Marie's willingness to continue to work with us in the education of church leaders, including the upcoming programs for new bishops and for the dicasteries of the Holy See. Our prayers will remain with Marie and with all victims and survivors of sexual abuse," the cardinal wrote.

In its own press release, the commission praised Collins for having "consistently and tirelessly championed for the voices of the victims-survivors to be heard, and for the healing of victims/survivors to be a priority of the church."

It said Pope Francis accepted Collins' resignation "with deep appreciation for her work on behalf of the victims/survivors of clergy abuse."

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Junno Arocho Esteves

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Like the people of Israel freed from the bondage of slavery, Christians are called to experience the path toward hope and new life during the Lenten season, Pope Francis said.

Through his passion, death and resurrection, Jesus "has opened up for us a way that leads to a full, eternal and blessed life," the pope said at his weekly general audience March 1, Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent for Latin-rite Catholics.

"Lent lives within this dynamic: Christ precedes us with his exodus and we cross the desert, thanks to him and behind him," he said.

On a warm and sunny morning, the pope held his audience in St. Peter's Square. Arriving in the popemobile, he immediately spotted a group of children and signaled several of them to come aboard for a ride. One by one, the three girls and one boy climbed into the popemobile and warmly embraced the pope.

In his main audience talk, the pope said that while Lent is a time of "penance and even mortification," it is also "a time of hope" for Christians awaiting Christ's resurrection to "renew our baptismal identity."

The story of the Israelites' journey toward the Promised Land and God's faithfulness during times of trial and suffering helps Christians "better understand" the Lenten experience, he said.

"This whole path is fulfilled in hope, the hope of reaching the (Promised) Land and precisely in this sense it is an 'exodus,' a way out from slavery to freedom," the pope said. "Every step, every effort, every trial, every fall and every renewal has meaning only within the saving plan of God, who wants for his people life and not death, joy and not sorrow."

To open this path toward the freedom of eternal life, he continued, Jesus gave up the trappings of his glory, choosing humility and obedience.

However, the pope said that Christ's sacrifice on the cross doesn't mean "he has done everything" and "we go to heaven in a carriage."

"It isn't like that. Our salvation is surely his gift, but because it is a love story, it requires our 'yes' and our participation, as shown to us by our mother Mary and after her, all the saints," he said.

Lent, he added, is lived through the dynamic that "Christ precedes us through his exodus," and that through his victory Christians are called to "nourish this small flame that was entrusted to us on the day of our baptism."

"It is certainly a challenging path as it should be, because love is challenging, but it is a path full of hope," Pope Francis said.

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