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As Pope Francis contemplates an Apostolic Visit to South Sudan together with the head of the Anglican Church with the view of bringing attention to the people of that country reeling from armed conflict and famine, Reuters reported more refugees fleeing the country into Sudan.

Last week, Jesse Kamstra, a representative of the Lutheran World Federation in Uganda, said that the country was struggling to cope with more than 1.5 million asylum seekers that had taken refuge in Uganda, since the conflict erupted in South Sudan, in December 2013.

According to a Reuters report this week, Monday, more than 31,000 South Sudanese refugees - mostly women and children - have crossed the border into Sudan this year, fleeing famine and conflict, the United Nations refugee agency said.

The United Nations declared famine last week in parts of South Sudan's Unity State, with about 5.5 million people expected to have no reliable source of food by July.

"Initial expectations were that 60,000 refugees may arrive through 2017, but in the first two months alone, over 31,000 refugees arrived," a statement from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Khartoum said.

More than a million people have fled South Sudan since a civil war erupted in 2013 after President Salva Kiir' fired Vice President Riek Machar. Fighting between government forces and Machar-led rebels has caused the largest mass exodus of any conflict in central Africa since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Some 328,339 South Sudanese refugees have sought refuge in Sudan, including about 131,000 in 2016, many exhausted, malnourished and ill, having walked for days. More than 80 percent of the latest arrivals were women and children.

The fighting has uprooted more than 3 million people, and the U.N. says continuing displacement presented "heightened risks of prolonged (food) underproduction into 2018."

(Reuters/ additional reporting -Vatican Radio)

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Los Angeles, Calif., Feb 27, 2017 / 09:55 am (CNA).- They came from across the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to stand together, worship side-by-side and honor their shared history: African American Catholics, a small yet faith-filled community, sang God’s praises as one during this year’s Black History Month Mass on Feb. 18 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Downtown L.A., which has hosted the annual Mass every year since 2003.

“Black Catholics have always had a very strong faith,” said Andrew Knox, a parishioner at St. Brigid Church, who spoke to Angelus News during the February meeting of the African American Catholic Center for Evangelization (AACCFE), which serves the local African American Catholic community year-round, and helps organize parish and archdiocesan-wide events like the Black History Mass.

“We’re rooted in a strong spirituality and we are always moving forward,” added Knox, a member of the African American Catholic Center for Evangelization council, which represents 25 parishes and meets monthly September through June. “Our faith never fails us … we believe that Jesus is always going to lead us in the right direction. We’re strong believers.”

And they are strong evangelizers, too, noted Anderson F. Shaw, director of the African American Catholic Center for Evangelization. During the Feb. 18 Mass, participating parishes each presented one individual to be recognized as a Keeper of the Flame, which honors those who have “kept the flame of evangelization alive” in their parish communities.

“We want to evangelize and help bring all people into the fold” – including those on the periphery and fallen-away Catholics of all backgrounds, explained Doris Tims, an African American Catholic Center for Evangelization member who attends St. Eugene Church. “We want to reach out and evangelize the whole community, so we can get them back into the Church.”

And those evangelization efforts are ongoing throughout the year, via parish-based ministries and the African American Catholic Center for Evangelization, including regional evangelization task forces, liturgy committees, ethnic ministry groups, music ministries, prayer groups, pro-life committees, supporting deacon and priestly vocations, and much more.

According to Shaw, groups such as the African American Catholic Center for Evangelization and related observances — the Black History Month Mass, Martin Luther King Jr. Prayer Breakfast, National Black Catholic Congress, Black Catholic History Month and others — are particularly essential within such a small community. Based on national demographics, about 76 percent of African American Catholics across the U.S. attend parishes where they make up a very small minority of the community.

In some parishes, there may be only four or five families, noted Shaw.

In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the total number of African American Catholics is approximately 70,000. By contrast, an estimated 5 million total Catholics — including all races and ethnicities — make up the local archdiocese.

“Among the reasons we conduct special liturgies and events are [because] we seek to bring all African American Catholics together, so they can share in their common culture and to also demonstrate a more visible presence within the archdiocese,” explained Shaw. “Through these visible presentations, the Church of Los Angeles gets a better picture of the contributions and gifts the African American Catholic community brings to the Church, and it gives confidence to African American Catholics to share their gifts with the Church.

“And with visibility comes a greater voice,” he added.

Terry Dicks of St. Jerome Church also emphasized the importance of promoting both unity and confidence, and also stressed the need to “remember” and to educate younger generations about the realities of “our story.”

“I would say that Black History Month really is more needed now than ever — we have to encourage each other to remember our story,” said Dicks. “Black History Month is a time to not just … remember [our story] and to remember whose shoulders we’re standing on — people suffered and died, and so it’s important to keep reminding ourselves that we’ve come a long way, although there’s always room for improvement — but Black History Month to me is also an opportunity to, as a people, say, ‘This is who we are, this is where we have been.’

“I was raised in New Orleans, where there were ‘colored’ signs and ‘whites’ signs, so it’s important for me to tell my story to my kids and to my parish, so they understand why we’re singing ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing,’” she added. “A lot of times, many teenagers don’t really know our story and they need to know it.”

But, continued Dicks, it’s not enough to just celebrate black history.

“At our parish we have many cultures, so we celebrate each other,” said Dicks. “You have to go to the Filipino celebrations, to the Nigerian, to the Mexican American — you have to go to all of the celebrations. It’s not about dividing [to celebrate different races and cultures]; it’s actually unifying, because we learn to be hospitable to each other.

“What’s the point of being Catholic if it isn’t to support each other?” she asked.

Harry L. Wiley Jr., a knight of Peter Claver and parishioner at St. Raphael Church, shared similar thoughts.

“Pope Francis is a gift to this world. [He] has allowed the Church itself to say that it is with all people who are disrespected, downtrodden, impoverished,” said Wiley. “The leadership of this Church does not want to see people divided.”

Speaking of divisions, he pointed to the recent marches and demonstrations, expressing solidarity with those marching against inhumane policies and in support of safeguarding civil liberties for people of all religions, races and ethnicities.

“As Catholics we can’t stay back; we’ve got to know that Christ gave us an opportunity to see our value as humans, and to recognize that value in others, and to realize that we are no better than anyone else,” said Wiley. “Liberties can be taken away from us, just like they can be taken away from you or anyone else. … As black Catholics, as black [Americans] — from Frederick Douglass to Martin Luther King — we have never supported just black issues; we have been inclusive. … Martin Luther King did not work for black rights; he worked for civil rights, for all.”

Tims agreed wholeheartedly.

“We can’t stand alone, we have to stand together, whether it’s for Black Lives Matter or for immigration, we have to come together,” she said, recounting the despair she felt upon learning about the undocumented Arizona mother of two who was recently deported despite having resided in the United States for decades.

“No one group can do it alone; we need to be unified, otherwise there’s no way we’ll be able to stop this division that’s going on,” said Tims. “We have to love one another.”

 

Republished with permission from Angelus News.

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Vatican City, Feb 27, 2017 / 11:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis recognized on Monday the heroic virtue of eight persons on the path to canonization, including an Italian surgeon and father of eight who suffered from several painful diseases throughout his life.

The Pope met Feb. 27 with the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato, giving his approval for the causes to move forward.

Among them is Italian Victor Trancanelli. Born in 1944, he studied and became a talented surgeon before marrying his wife Lia. Together they had one natural son and adopted seven more children over the course of their marriage.

One month before the birth of their son, Diego, Victor developed ulcerative colitis and widespread peritonitis, which created the need for a permanent ileostomy. Only his wife and a few medical colleagues were aware of the ileostomy, which he bore with patience and without complaining.

Always thinking of the sick, after a year he was healthy enough to return to his work as a surgeon.

In the 1980s, he fell in love with Holy Scripture and with the Jewish roots of the Faith, working at the St. Martin Ecumenical Center. During that time, Victor, his wife, and a few friends started the association which is still running, “Alle Querce di Mamre,” to help women and children in difficult situations.

After another serious illness, he died June 24, 1998, at the age of 54. It is said that shortly before his death he gathered his wife and children around him, and said: “For this it is worth living.”

“Even if I had become, who knows who, if I had money in the bank, owned many houses, what would I bring with me now? What have I brought before God? Now I bring the love that we have given.”

Another cause moving forward is that of Fr. Titus Zeman, a priest of the Salesian order who was born in 1915 in Bratislava, Slovakia. He moved to Rome to study at the Pontifical Gregorian University for a period before being ordained in 1940.

He returned to his home country, but in 1950 the Communist regime in then-Czechoslovakia prohibited religious orders, deporting religious men and women to concentration camps. Fr. Zeman organized for young men in the Salesians to travel secretly to Turin, Italy to complete their studies for the priesthood.

He was eventually captured and endured a severe trial, where they called him a traitor and a spy of the Vatican. Narrowly missing the death penalty, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was released in 1964 after 12 years, enduring torture and other deprivation.

Severely weakened by the treatment during his imprisonment, he died only five years later on Jan. 8, 1969. He is considered to have died a martyr for the faith.

Fr. Zeman is known to have said: “Even if I lost my life, I would not consider it wasted, knowing that at least one of those that I helped has become a priest in my place.”

Following an increasing number of canonizations of laypeople in the last few years, another lay person whose cause has moved forward is Pietro Herrero Rubio, who lived 1904-1978.

The other causes are of the Bishop Ottavio Ortiz Arrieta of Chachapoyas (1878-1958); Jesuit priest Antonio Repiso Martínez de Orbe, founder of the Congregation of Sisters of the Divine Pastor (1856-1929); Antonio Provolo, a diocesan priest and founder of both the Society and the Congregation of Mary for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb (1801-1842); Maria of Mercy Cabezas Terrero, foundress of the Religious Institute of the Missionary Workers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1911-1993); and Sr. Lucia of the Immaculate (Maria Ripamonti), a member of the Congregation of the Handmaids of Charity (1909-1954).  

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz

By Carol Zimmermann

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- When St. Patrick's Day falls on a Friday, as it does about every seven years, the Lenten rule requiring Catholics to abstain from meat on Fridays collides with the long-held tradition of eating corned beef and cabbage.

The two occasions meet this year. March 17 marks the celebration of St. Patrick -- known as the Apostle of Ireland for his years of missionary work there -- and it also is a celebration of all things Irish and even green. This March 17, since it falls on a Friday in Lenten, also is a time of penitence.

The timing has not gone unnoticed by some U.S. bishops. Before Lent even started, many of them issued dispensations for Catholics in their dioceses allowing them to eat meat on St. Patrick's Day.

The dispensation does not take Catholics totally off the hook. Many bishops advised Catholics over age 14, who are required to abstain from meat on Friday, to do an extra act of charity or penance in exchange for eating meat.

Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin, took it a step further. In a statement, he said Catholics should also "exercise due moderation and temperance in festivities and celebrations of the memorial of St. Patrick, in keeping with the solemnity and honor that is due to so great a saint and his tireless efforts to inspire holiness in the Christian faithful."

He tempered that by also saying the day should "foster a joyful and reverent devotion to that great saint" and should also "honor the patrimony of the Irish people to whom he first preached the good news of salvation."

As of Feb. 27, the following dioceses or archdioceses had announced giving the clear for Catholics to eat meat March 17: Baltimore; New York; Milwaukee; St. Paul and Minneapolis; Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia; Omaha, Nebraska; and Jefferson City, Missouri.

The bishops primarily announced the one-day lifting of the church rule in statements posted on their diocesan websites.

Omaha Archbishop George J. Lucas granted a dispensation from the meat observance but those who eat meat on St. Patrick's Day must abstain the next day, March 18.

New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan sent archdiocesan pastors a letter in late January notifying them of the dispensation and asking them to let their parishioners know about it.

Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki noted that abstaining from meat on Fridays in Lent is an "important dimension of the penitential nature of the season," but he said Catholics in the archdiocese that day would not be required to give up meat "given the many celebrations that occur on this day," which in the archdiocese also includes the ordination of two auxiliary bishops that afternoon.

Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis received a letter in late February from Susan Mulheron, chancellor of canonical affairs, saying the dispensation for St. Patrick's Day had been issued by Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda after consulting archdiocesan leaders.

She said the archbishop considered past practice and present circumstances and decided the dispensation "would serve the common spiritual good."

"As a general rule, a request for a dispensation from the obligation of abstinence on Fridays of Lent will not be considered unless some serious reason is present," she wrote, adding that St. Patrick's Day has "traditionally been an occasion for joy-filled celebrations in this archdiocese."

Archbishop Hebda hinted he might grant the dispensation when he spoke at a Theology on Tap gathering Feb. 8 in St. Paul. When someone in the crowd asked him about the possibility of eating meat on St. Patrick's Day, the archbishop asked for a show of hands of those who wanted to eat corned beef to honor St. Patrick.

"When you get a dispensation -- and I think it's coming -- you should do penance on another occasion," he told the crowd. "So, it's like a get-out-of-jail-free card, but you have to pay sometime."

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Contributing to this report was Maria Wiering in St. Paul, Minnesota. Follow Zimmermann on Twitter: @carolmaczim.

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