Madagascar’s ongoing crisis continues to defy definition. Some call Andry Rajoelina’s taking power in March 2009 a popular uprising. Others say this was a military-supported coup, pure and simple. The legitimacy of the new regime remains in question both internally and externally, and peace agreements mediated by the international community lie in tatters.

Madagascar, one of the world’s poorest countries, has been mired in political crisis, since 2009, when 34-year-old former radio disc jockey Andry Rajoelina toppled President Marc Ravalomanana in a military coup d’état.

Slight miscommunication between OM workers in Israel leads to an unplanned chance to share the Gospel with a railway attendant.

A tribute to OM Guatemala leader Pilar Castro, who died this January 2013

Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala :: Guatemala's First Lady visits Logos Hope and thanks the crewmembers for sharing knowledge, help and hope to the nations.

A story of one OM worker’s struggle, triumph and hope.

The Discipleship course in Malawi challenges students to own their faith and apply it in their daily lives.

Read about how a short term missions trip to a Muslim country changed a US pastor's life! Click to read more!

Rome Newsroom, Apr 30, 2020 / 02:01 pm (CNA).- In the central Italian countryside, at the edge of the Umbrian woods just outside Norcia, a group of Benedictine monks prays and works from well before the sun rises until it sets.

This much has not changed in the monks’ lives during Italy’s coronavirus lockdown; but what has is the visitors they receive at the monastery.

“Usually we have some guests coming from all over the world... visitors coming from Italy or the U.S., friends or retreatants,” Fr. Benedict Nivakoff, O.S.B., told CNA by phone.

“And so, the total absence of those people, of that presence, has just focused our prayer all the more and we try to do what we are called to do more seriously,” he said.

“The main thing is a greater intensity of prayer for all those who are suffering.”

Nivakoff is the prior of the monks living at the site of St. Benedict’s birth. After religious life was suppressed in the area in the 1800s, a group led by Fr. Cassian Folsom was given permission to re-establish the monastery and moved there in 2000.

The prior said when the coronavirus was at its height in Italy, the monks did a traditional procession around the property with relics of the true cross.

“And that’s a way of praying for people, invoking the saints and calling down God’s help and his mercy on the country and on the world,” he said.

St. Benedict himself “experienced plagues, famines, sickness, death, not to mention relentless attacks of the devil on him and on his monks. He saw all of those as occasions for the monks themselves and for him to renew his trust and his faith in God,” Nivakoff said.

There is a “sad and persistent temptation,” he explained, to think “the world can solve these problems, but in fact, this world is passing away and God is the only answer to the suffering that we see.”

“So St. Benedict’s message, if you will, would be that all these things that happen can work for the good, and that is for the good of … each man and woman, each monk, in drawing closer to God.”

The monks in Norcia experienced tragedy first-hand four and a half years ago when several earthquakes, including one of 6.6-magnitude, struck central Italy and Norcia in August and October 2016.

The earthquakes destroyed hundreds of homes and the monk’s own buildings, including the Basilica of St. Benedict.

They have been rebuilding, but construction has been on hold during Italy’s lockdown, Nivakoff said, noting that it may, God willing, be able to start back up in a few weeks.

“The earthquake taught us many things and maybe one of the more relevant lessons for today is to resist the temptation that everything should go back exactly as it was,” he said.

“We thought after the earthquake, ‘well the answer is [to rebuild] everything as good if not better than before.’”

“But at the root of that is a fallacy, that this is a world, and we are men touched by original sin, who will only really have happiness and completion and real restoration in heaven,” the prior said.

He noted, “we can and do and need to work to improve things and to bring order where there is chaos and disorder but not at the risk of making this world into the destination and the goal,” because “it isn’t; it’s our temporary place so that we might get to heaven.”

“The earthquake really helped us to see that in a visible form, because the ground was literally shaking beneath our feet,” he said, “and the buildings we had called home to us and to our neighbors, our families, our friends, all the people here in Italy that we know, in central Italy, as all that fell apart.”

He said this “has called for trust and faith that is hard to muster in these days when the faith is so minimal.”

According to Nivakoff, “there are so many” lessons from monastic life that could help people quarantined in their homes right now, but he emphasized “two principle challenges to solitude.”

The first is for those who are in quarantine with others. As for monks who live with other monks, charity is very important when living in the midst of many people, he said.

“This really calls for lots and lots of patience, [and] to remember that patience with others always begins with patience with ourselves,” he explained. “Accepting our sins, accepting our faults, accepting that God is patient with us, and being patient with ourselves, helps us to be more patient with others.”

He added that silence can be a really useful tool in these circumstances: “Not speaking, not responding to the irritating or difficult or perhaps provocative things … people we live with say.”

“Especially under quarantine, the people we live with are probably going to still be with us in a few hours and maybe our passions will have calmed down by then” to respond in a better way, he said.

The second principle he drew on is for those who are living alone, such as the elderly or the young.

“For them, the quarantine really means an eremitical lifestyle. And for them the hardest temptations are sadness, acedia,” Nivakoff said.

“Sadness, which can be good because it can help us to lament our sins, lament not being with God, but at the same time can be a very inward looking and very self-pitying emotion, that stems from expectations not fulfilled.”

He recommended lots of humility and accepting that you are not in charge, not placing hope in things one does not have any control over.

“We have a lot more control over whether we say our prayers at noon than whether the government stops the lockdown in one week,” he pointed out. “The ways to combat sadness are this: to make goals that depend on me, and to put our trust and hope in God.”

Nivakoff also noted that there is a lot of talk right now about the importance of regaining the liberties men and women have had and avoiding “overreach of the government.”

“And that might be true, but from a Christian perspective, it is that we men and women need to accept the limitations that this disease brings on us,” he said.

“So even this terrible virus we need to see as permitted by [God] for some good purpose and the most traditional understanding of that is for some kind of purification.”

“So, we ask for God’s mercy because we need it.”

So during the coronavirus pandemic, the monks continue their prayer and their work taking care of the animals, gardening, cooking, cleaning, and managing the nearby forest.

To support themselves the monks also brew beer, and because it is sold through the internet, the coronavirus has not negatively impacted sales.

“And thank God, that model has really been blessed at this time because with so many people not being able to leave their home, many have taken it as an occasion to sample some monastic beer,” Nivakoff said.

“We continue to export from Italy to the United States and beer is available and it seems to delight many hearts there and we are very happy.”

An annual outreach attracts not only children but also two women, who listen attentively and respond to the message.

OM attempts to bring Christ’s love to the darkest corners of Sham Shui Po, and to walk with those neglected by society.

As OM Hong Kong celebrates 25 years, leader Cheuk-chung Lau reflects on the past 19 years and wonders who the next “Joshua” will be.

Every Friday, OM Hong Kong meets Pakistani women and children in neighbourhood parks, in an effort to demonstrate the love of God.

Moner, a third generation believer from Syria, worked as a Christian worker under the protection of a Muslim ambassador from Syria in communist Poland.

By Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie

When Archbishop Jose Gomez was elected to head the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) earlier this month, he tweeted that it was an honor - and not only for him, but for “every Latino Catholic in the country.” He’s right about that. We Latino Catholics feel it a great honor and a point of pride that a fellow Hispanic should take the lead. Not just because he is Latino, but because he’s a man with a sterling character and gentle manner, a man well known both for his sympathetic attitude toward the plight of immigrants and his traditional approach to social issues. This is a powerful and attractive combination to our growing Hispanic Catholic Church.

Gomez, a native of Monterrey, Mexico and a naturalized U.S. citizen, presides over the Los Angeles diocese, the largest and one of the most diverse dioceses in the country. Its parishes encompass more than thirty ethnicities, celebrating masses in languages from Igbo to Hungarian to Tagalog. The catholicity, that is, the universality--of the Catholic Church is a palpable thing in L.A., not simply a doctrinal concept. It’s the result of a constant and varied immigration. 

As leader of the USCCB, Archbishop Gomez will head an American Catholic Church that is about 58% non-Hispanic white and 34% Latino - a church in which most members under 30 are Hispanic. A significant number of the 2.7 million Hispanics that attend mass in Spanish are undocumented, and an even greater number probably know or love someone whose presence here is precarious. Gomez brings a history of heartfelt public support for the undocumented workers that America relies on to farm our crops, tidy our lawns, man our factories, and look after our children. He has been an especially vocal advocate of “dreamers.” “In a special way, I pray for #Dreamers, the day before #Scotus hears oral arguments on the legality of DACA,” he tweeted just after his election.

Archbishop Gomez is the author of the excellent “Immigration and the Next America.” The 2013 book neatly lays out his assessment of our current situation and his vision for a better future. He chronicles the historical background of a nation founded by Puritans searching for freedom but also (and even earlier) colonized by Spanish missionary migrants in a successful quest to evangelize the native population. He assesses a present-day America that lacks moral consensus and is crazed with consumerism, a nation confused about everything from the meaning of sexuality to the value (if any) of human life. He sees a country in which the ties of traditional American values and civic virtues that once bound us to one another are frayed, a country whose uneasy citizenry worries about what the “Next America” will look like. 

Gomez does not downplay the importance of legal norms and the very real toll that the chaos and lawlessness of illegal immigration takes, especially along our southern border. He argues, however, that fear and uncertainty may tempt us to “abandon our commitment to liberty and justice for all, in favor of an insular, racial definition of who can be a true American.” American Catholics, members of an immigrant Church in a country with a long history of anti-Catholic bias have a special responsibility in today’s debates over immigration reform. We bring to the table not only the memory of our ancestor’s experience of discrimination and the Church’s energetic response to the material and spiritual needs of successive waves of migrants, but also its rich tradition of teaching on human dignity and social justice. Catholics are especially suited to envision the face of the “Next America” in a way faithful to the Christian obligation of benevolence to strangers. 

U.S. Hispanics have a lot to be happy about in Archbishop Gomez’s election. He is a man with a tender heart for the vulnerable people in our midst who can also articulate a way forward on immigration that is attractive and optimistic - one based on the highest ideals that are our shared inheritance in this diverse country. He is also a man who bridges the liberal/conservative divide by quietly affirming the traditional mores and values that Hispanics are bent on preserving. But then, I venture to say that his election gives all American Catholics reason to be happy too. 

By Andrea Picciotti-Bayer

Two years ago, I joined a Catholic women’s symposium that discusses the weighty matters affecting our Church and our culture. One member of our group recently told us that her elderly father was in his last days. She asked for prayers and any resources we might have to guide her and her siblings and mother in navigating weighty end-of-life issues she expected they would face. There was a flurry of supportive responses and commitments to pray, but it took a while before anyone could forward along any helpful material. For my part, I knew of nothing to suggest off-hand.

I won’t face this problem again, thanks to Father Jeffrey Kirby’s We are the Lord’s: A Catholic Guide to Difficult End-of-Life Questions. A copy of this excellent, straight-forward end-of-life book arrived in the mail a few weeks ago, though, alas, a few days after my colleague’s father passed away (a “happy death” with family around, she relayed) and the email thread ended. Kirby sets forth basic principles of discernment for answering some of the hardest – and most common – questions surrounding end-of-life medical care and treatment. He also addresses the challenging practical issues that face the dying and their family members at this time.

Father Kirby begins by confronting the great modern misunderstanding of the human condition and dying. “No person is a burden,” he writes. Yes, this may seem obvious to so many us, but it’s no less important a truth, because we live in a culture that is “intoxicated with utilitarianism” – the notion that “any inconvenience for another person, or any service that makes us uncomfortable, is unmerited.” Christian teaching, however, has “always asserted that the only response to a person is love.” Loving the dying – seeking their good, delighting in them – exposes, Kirby argues, the “selfishness that disguises as compassion.” For children of God, Kirby reminds us, “quality of life” is “matured by love and an openness to live with inconvenience, discomfort, imperfection and suffering.”

Kirby outlines three important principles of discernment to guide bioethical and end-of-life decisions. One, we must recognize God as our Creator and accept the existence of an objective order of moral truth that is beyond us. “Our personal will, or desire for autonomy, are not sovereign,” he writes. “These must be placed within our human dignity and the objective order of moral goodness.” Two, we must understand our particular vocation. That is, we have to consider our duties and responsibilities toward others, our talents and capabilities, as well as the state of our souls. Three, we must appreciate the difference between what is morally obligatory (ordinary care, in the medical context) and what is morally optional (extraordinary care).

My own parents recently told me that they have “all of their affairs in order.” One such affair is the advanced directive, a summary of a person’s wishes in various medical situations. Father Kirby notes, however, that while such planning is prudent, it does not completely resolve end-of-life questions. As bioethicists often say, “When you have one situation, you have one situation.” Advanced directives, therefore, must always should be understood as guidelines and, most importantly, never can betray moral truths in light of the unique set of circumstances a person faces.

On a most practical level, We are the Lord’s includes a chapter that addresses specific medical questions. It’s a quick reference for readers facing urgent decisions. One common medical concern, for instance, is the continued provision of nutrition and hydration. Kirby is unequivocal in explaining that unless a person’s body cannot assimilate them or it becomes harmful, at no point should a sick person be denied food or water.

The overarching lesson of We are the Lord’s is to abide, and encourage our loved ones to abide, in a spirit of abandonment to the will of God. In living. And dying. The book’s title – coming, as it does, from Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans —reminds us how end-of-life decisions for ourselves or others should be faced: “For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.”

I’d not only recommend reading We are the Lord’s, I’d also suggest having a copy or two of Father Jeffrey Kirk’s handy guide available for the next time a friend, family member or colleague faces an end-of-life issue.

By Father Dave Pivonka, TOR

On the afternoon of March 6, I walked around the campus of Franciscan University of Steubenville, saying goodbye to students as they headed off for Spring Break. On that cold afternoon, it was unimaginable that those students wouldn’t come back to campus to finish out the school year. It was even more unimaginable that our University, where the Mass has always been at the center of campus life, would cease the public celebration of the Eucharist.

Tragically, at Franciscan University, like everywhere else, the global spread of the coronavirus quickly made the unimaginable our new reality.

I’ve been living with that new reality for over two weeks now, and I don’t like it. So, last week, I decided to do something about it: I hung a white ribbon on the door of our University chapel.
Let me explain.

It breaks my heart to not celebrate the Mass with students, faculty, staff, and their families. I miss the singing and the filled pews, the cries of babies and the responses of the faithful. Most of all, I miss Holy Communion; I miss giving Jesus to those hungry to receive him.

I understand why our bishops and leaders made the decisions they’ve made. I’m not questioning the necessity of those decisions. Extreme social distancing, for now, is a necessary evil.

Just the same, like my brother priests everywhere, I miss my people. I long for the day we can gather again, to worship, to listen to the Word of God, to preach and to receive Jesus in the Eucharist.

Until that day comes, however, I want the men and women I serve to know that they are always with me in thought and prayer, that I’m not letting a day go by without interceding for them before God, and that I could never forget them.

Even more important, I want them to know that God could never forget them. God didn’t forget his people when they wandered in the desert for 40 years. He didn’t forget them when they worshipped idols, ignored his commands, and found themselves exiled in Babylon. And he hasn’t forgotten us now.
 
Make no mistake: Our Lord does not like being separated from his people in this way. Jesus wants to give himself to us. He wants us to encounter him in the liturgy, in the Church, and in the Eucharist.
And this is where the white ribbons come in.

Ribbons have long been a sign of remembrance. They tell the world that we have not forgotten someone: a prisoner, a soldier, or a sick friend. I’ve tied a white ribbon onto the door of Christ the King Chapel, as well as the Portiuncula Chapel, here at Franciscan University, to remind our community that their priests and their God have not forgotten them. I’ve invited my friends who are priests and bishops to do the same. They, in turn, are inviting more priests and bishops to join us.

My hope is that as Catholics walk or drive past their churches, they will see those white ribbons and know their priests are praying for them and waiting for the day we can fling open those doors to welcome them back inside.

I also hope, when they see those ribbons, they know Jesus is waiting for that day, too. He longs for the day when we can gather together once more, and he can be with all of us, again, in the sacraments.

That day is not yet here. Like the Israelites of old, the Catholic faithful have to wander in exile a little longer. Jesus has not left us orphans, though. He is still with us. He is with us in the Scriptures, which are his Word. He is with us in his people—those we live with, work with, or encounter online. He is with us in prayer and in silence and in the beauty of his creation, which is singing his praises as spring finally comes.

Look for Jesus in all those places. Look for Jesus where you are. And when you see white ribbons hanging from a church door, remember God’s promise in Isaiah 49:15: “I will never forget you.”

In the midst of the chaos and the confusion, and the craziness, let those ribbons be a reminder that your priests are still with you. Let them be a reminder that Jesus is still with you. And let them be a reminder that one day soon, this exile will end, the churches will re-open, and your priests will be standing there, ready and waiting to joyfully welcome you home.

Vatican City, May 8, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- We must learn to let ourselves be consoled by Jesus when we are suffering, Pope Francis said at his morning Mass Friday.

In his homily in the chapel at Casa Santa Marta, May 8, the pope noted it was difficult to accept Christ’s consolation in times of distress. 

Reflecting on the day's Gospel reading, John 14:1-6, which records Jesus’ words to his disciples at the Last Supper, the pope said the Lord recognizes their sadness and seeks to console them.

"It is not easy to allow ourselves to be consoled by the Lord,” he said. “Many times, in bad moments, we are angry with the Lord and we do not let Him come and speak to us like this, with this sweetness, with this closeness, with this meekness, with this truth and with this hope.”

He noted that Jesus’ way of consoling was quite different to telegrams of condolence, which are too formal to console anyone. 

“In this passage of the Gospel we see that the Lord consoles us always in closeness, with the truth and in hope,” he said. “These are the three marks of the Lord's consolation.”

The pope observed that Jesus is always close to us in times of sorrow.

“The Lord consoles in closeness. And He does not use empty words, on the contrary: He prefers silence,” he said, according to a transcript by Vatican News.

He added that Jesus does not offer false comfort:  

“Jesus is true. He doesn't say formal things that are lies: ‘No, don’t worry, everything will pass, nothing will happen, it will pass, things will pass…’ No, it won’t. He is telling the truth. He doesn’t hide the truth.”

The pope explained that Jesus’ consolation always brings hope. 

He said: “He will come and take us by the hand and carry us. He does not say: ‘No, you will not suffer: it is nothing…’ No. He says the truth: ‘I am close to you, this is the truth: it is a bad time, of danger, of death. But do not let your heart be troubled, remain in that peace, that peace which is the basis of all consolation, because I will come and by the hand I will take you where I will be’.”

The pope concluded: “We ask for the grace to learn to let ourselves be consoled by the Lord. The Lord's consolation is true, not deceiving. It is not anesthesia, no. But it is near, it is true and it opens the doors of hope to us.”

After Mass, the pope presided at adoration and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, before leading those watching via livestream in an act of spiritual communion.

The congregation then sang the Easter Marian antiphon “Regina caeli.”

At the start of Mass, the pope noted that World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day falls on May 8, the anniversary of the birth of Henry Dunant, founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross.  

Pope Francis said: “We pray for the people who work in these worthy institutions: may the Lord bless their work which does so much good.”

CNA Staff, May 8, 2020 / 12:30 pm (CNA).- A federal judge in Arkansas on Thursday upheld the state’s requirement that women obtain a negative coronavirus test before having an abortion.

Calling the decision “agonizingly difficult,” Judge Brian Miller for the Eastern District Court of Arkansas said the state’s testing mandate—which applies to all elective surgeries and not just abortions—is “reasonable” during the public health emergency and was not done “with an eye toward limiting abortions.

The judge noted that “it is undisputed that surgical abortions have still taken place.”

The abortion clinic Little Rock Family Planning Services had requested a temporary injunction on the state health department’s requirement that elective surgery patients obtain a negative new coronavirus (COVID-19) test result within 48 hours before the procedure.

Previously, the health department ordered a halt to non-essential surgeries on April 3 to preserve resources for treating COVID-19.

The Little Rock abortion clinic performed abortions while claiming they were offering “essential” procedures, and after the health department ordered them to stop on April 10, the clinic challenged the state in court. The diocese’s Respect Life Office noted that women were traveling to the clinic for abortions from nearby states such as Texas and Louisiana.

The clinic won its case for a temporary restraining order at the district court level, but the Eighth Circuit appeals court subsequently overruled that decision and sided with the state.

The April 3 directive was updated April 24 to allow for some elective surgeries provided certain conditions were met. Elective abortions were included in the “non-essential” surgeries that were allowed to continue on April 24.

These conditions included no overnight stays, no contact with COVID-19 patients in the previous 14 days, and a negative COVID-19 test for patients within 48 hours of the surgery.

According to the clinic, which asked for a temporary injunction, three women were seeking to obtain “dilation and evacuation” abortions but were prevented from meeting the state’s testing requirmenet. One woman said she was unable to get a COVID-19 test; another said the lab could not guarantee she would receive results in 48 hours. The third woman was unable to get an abortion in Texas, and drove to the Little Rock clinic; she was told the results of her test would not be available for several days.

In response, the state’s health department said that four surgical abortions had still been performed at the clinic between April 27 and May 1, with COVID-19 test results having been obtained within 48 hours of the abortions, and thus the directive was not an “undue burden” on women seeking abortion.

In his decision on Thursday, Judge Miller said that the pandemic is a serious threat, noting that at the time of the opinion more than 70,000 people had died in the U.S. from the virus including more than 3,500 people in Arkansas.

He said the case “presents the tug-of-war between individual liberty and the state’s police power to protect the public during the existing, grave health crisis,” and noted that the three women as well as others “are very troubled. There is a strong urge to rule for them because they are extremely sympathetic figures, but that would be unjust.”

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 8, 2020 / 03:10 pm (CNA).- The Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, said that the Church must return to “normal life” after the governor announced plans to ban large gatherings until a COVID-19 vaccine or treatment is available.

Earlier in the week, the state’s Governor JB Pritzker unveiled a five-phase “Restore Illinois” plan that bans gatherings of more than 50 people until a vaccine or treatment is available, or the virus has stopped spreading for a sustained period of time. Health officials have said that a vaccine for the new coronavirus (COVID-19) might not be available for 12 to 18 months. 

Currently, people in the state are allowed to attend religious services of 10 or fewer people, but no gatherings of more than 10 people are permitted until phase 4 of Pritzker’s plan, and the state wouldn’t even be able to “advance” to phase 3 until May 29.

“The Church has certainly done her part in making great sacrifices to slow the spread of this virus,” Andrew Hansen, director of communications for the diocese of Springfield, Illinois, told CNA on Friday.

“That said, the Church must return to her normal life of liturgy and communal worship,” Hansen said, while emphasizing precautions such as social distancing “will likely be the appropriate path longer term for the return to some version of normalcy for the Church.”

Previously, in-person or drive-in religious services were banned in the state. The Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit on behalf of a church in Lena, Ill., on April 30. Later that evening a paragraph was added to the governor’s executive order allowing for people to leave their homes to attend religious services of ten or fewer people, the society’s president Peter Breen told CNA.

The next day, May 1, the archdiocese of Chicago announced it would be resuming public Masses with 10 or fewer people.

According to the “Restore Illinois” plan, there could not be any gathering of between 11 and 50 people in size until phase 4 of the plan—“Revitalization.”

That phase can start only when certain conditions have been met: the positivity rate of COVID tests is at or under 20% and doesn’t rise by more than 10 points over 14 days; hospital admissions don’t increase for 28 days; and hospitals have at least 14% “surge capacity” in ICU beds, medical and surgical beds, and ventilators.

Pitzker clarified in a Wednesday press conference that religious services would be part of this 50-person limit in phase 4, and schools would not be allowed to reopen until then, raising questions of how tuition-dependent Catholic schools might fare in the fall if remote learning is still widely utilized.

The state’s superintendent of education has said that at least some schools might have to begin the new school year with remote learning, or with students attending classes in-person only on certain days.

“So we continue to hope and pray schools will reopen next school year. Certainly, when our schools reopen, new measures and precautions will be in place,” Hansen told CNA.

The president of DePaul University, located in Chicago, announced earlier this week that the university already plans to “minimize our footprint on campus this fall,” and that an announcement of the fall plans could happen by June 15.

OM worker discovers unlikely friendships among a group of 'misfit toys' in North Africa.

In the 1980s, two babies were named after OM’s second ship. Both young men are now living out the ethos of the ministry, as servants of Christ.

Vatican City, May 4, 2020 / 07:29 am (CNA).- Jesus died for everyone, but disordered attachment to one’s own ideas can cause divisions which break the unity of God’s people, Pope Francis said at Mass on Monday.

“There are ideas, positions that create division, to the point that the division is more important than unity,” the pope said May 4. People think “my idea is more important than the Holy Spirit who guides us.”

Francis called division a “disease of the Church, a disease which arises from ideologies or religious factions…”

Throughout the Church’s history there has always been a spirit of thinking one’s self to be righteous and others to be sinners, he said, describing it as an “us and the others” attitude, which says others are already condemned, while “we have the right position before God.”

Speaking from the chapel of his Vatican residence, the Casa Santa Marta, Francis emphasized that Jesus died for everyone.

Imagining a dialogue with someone questioning the statement, he said, “‘But did [Jesus] also die for that low-life who made my life impossible?’ He died for him too. ‘And for that crook?’ He died for him.”

“For everyone,” Francis underlined. “And also for people who do not believe in him or are of other religions: he died for everyone.”

Without using a name, the pope referenced a retired cardinal living inside the Vatican, who, he said, likes to say “the Church is like a river,” with different people being like different parts of the river.

“But the important thing is that everyone is inside the river,” the pope said. “This is the unity of the Church.”

The Church is a wide river, “because the Lord wants it so.”

Pope Francis quoted a verse from the day’s Gospel reading, John 10:11-18, when Jesus says: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

Jesus is saying “I am Shepherd of everyone,” the pope explained. “Everyone: Big and small, rich and poor, good and bad.”

Pointing to the divisions in the Church after the Second Vatican Council, he said it is permissible to think differently from one another, but always “in the unity of the Church, under Jesus the Shepherd.”

He prayed that the Lord would free Catholics from the illness of division and help them to see “this great thing from Jesus, that in him we are all brothers and he is the Shepherd of all.”

Pope Francis offered the day’s Mass for families, that in this time of quarantine because of the coronavirus pandemic they will continue to try new and creative things together and with their children.

He also acknowledged the reality of domestic violence, asking for prayers for families “to continue in peace with creativity and patience in this quarantine.”

After Mass the pope led those following the Mass via livestream in an act of spiritual communion. He concluded with Eucharistic adoration and benediction.

 

CNA Staff, May 4, 2020 / 11:45 am (CNA).- Modern society is formulating an “anti-Christian creed” and punishing those who resist it with “social excommunication,” Benedict XVI has said in a new biography, published in Germany May 4.

In a wide-ranging interview at the end of the 1,184-page book, written by German author Peter Seewald, the pope emeritus said the greatest threat facing the Church was a “worldwide dictatorship of seemingly humanistic ideologies.”

Benedict XVI, who resigned as pope in 2013, made the comment in response to a question about what he had meant at his 2005 inauguration, when he urged Catholics to pray for him “that I may not flee for fear of the wolves.”

He told Seewald that he was not referring to internal Church matters, such as the "Vatileaks" scandal, which led to the conviction of his personal butler, Paolo Gabriele, for stealing confidential Vatican documents. 

In an advanced copy of “Benedikt XVI - Ein Leben” (A Life), seen by CNA, the pope emeritus said: “Of course, issues such as ‘Vatileaks’ are exasperating and, above all, incomprehensible and highly disturbing to people in the world at large.”

“But the real threat to the Church and thus to the ministry of St. Peter consists not in these things, but in the worldwide dictatorship of seemingly humanistic ideologies, and to contradict them constitutes exclusion from the basic social consensus.”

He continued: “A hundred years ago, everyone would have thought it absurd to speak of homosexual marriage. Today whoever opposes it is socially excommunicated. The same applies to abortion and the production of human beings in the laboratory.”

“Modern society is in the process of formulating an ‘anti-Christian creed,’ and resisting it is punishable by social excommunication. The fear of this spiritual power of the Antichrist is therefore only too natural, and it truly takes the prayers of a whole diocese and the universal Church to resist it.”

The biography, issued by Munich-based publisher Droemer Knaur, is available only in German. An English translation, “Benedict XVI, The Biography: Volume One,” will be published in the U.S. on Nov. 17.

In the interview, the 93-year-old former pope confirmed that he had written a spiritual testament, which could be published after his death, as did Pope St. John Paul II.

Benedict said that he had fast-tracked the cause of John Paul II because of “the obvious desire of the faithful” as well as the example of the Polish pope, with whom he had worked closely for more than two decades in Rome.

He insisted that his resignation had “absolutely nothing” to do with the episode involving Paolo Gabriele, and explained that his 2010 visit to the tomb of Celestine V, the last pope to resign before Benedict XVI, was “rather coincidental.” He also defended the title “emeritus” for a retired pope.

Benedict XVI lamented the reaction to his various public comments since his resignation, citing criticism of his tribute read at the funeral of Cardinal Joachim Meisner in 2017, in which he said that God would prevent the ship of the Church from capsizing. He explained that his words were “taken almost literally from the sermons of St. Gregory the Great.”

Seewald asked the pope emeritus to comment on the “dubia” submitted by four cardinals, including Cardinal Meisner, to Pope Francis in 2016 regarding the interpretation of his apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia.

Benedict said that he did not want to comment directly, but referred to his last general audience, on Feb. 27, 2013.

Summing up his message that day, he  said: “In the Church, amid all the toils of humanity and the confusing power of the evil spirit, one will always be able to discern the subtle power of God's goodness.”

“But the darkness of successive historical periods will never allow the unadulterated joy of being a Christian ... There are always moments in the Church and in the life of the individual Christian in which one feels profoundly that the Lord loves us, and this love is joy, is ‘happiness’.”

Benedict said that he treasured the memory of his first meeting with the newly elected Pope Francis at Castel Gandolfo and that his personal friendship with his successor has continued to grow.

Author Peter Seewald has conducted four book-length interviews with Benedict XVI. The first, “Salt of the Earth,” was published in 1997, when the future pope was prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was followed by “God and the World” in 2002, and “Light of the World” in 2010.

In 2016, Seewald published “Last Testament,” in which Benedict XVI reflected on his decision to step down as pope.

Publisher Droemer Knaur said that Seewald had spent many hours talking to Benedict for the new book, as well as speaking to his brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger and his personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein.

In an interview with Die Tagespost April 30, Seewald said that he had shown the Pope Emeritus a few chapters of the book before publication. Benedict XVI, he added, had praised the chapter on Pope Pius XI’s 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge.
 

 

Vatican City, May 5, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said that he has looked up to St. John Paul II throughout his priesthood in a book foreword he wrote ahead of the 100-year anniversary of the Polish pope’s birth. 

“St. John Paul II was a great witness of faith … Many times, in the course of my life as a priest and bishop I have looked to him, asking in my prayers for the gift of being faithful to the Gospel as he witnessed to us,” Pope Francis wrote in the forward of a recently published Italian book.

The book, “St. John Paul II: 100 Years. Words and images”, is being issued by the Vatican Publishing House to mark the centenary of Karol Wojtyła’s birth on May 18, 1920.

In his five-page foreword, Pope Francis wrote that St. John Paul II was “a great man of prayer who lived completely immersed in his time and constantly in contact with God, a sure guide for the Church in times of great change.”

“He was a great witness of mercy and throughout his pontificate he called us to this characteristic of God,” Francis said.

When Wojtyła became Pope John Paul II in 1978, a 41-year-old Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was serving as the provincial superior of the Jesuits in Argentina. 

Pope John Paul II appointed Bergoglio an auxiliary bishop in 1992, elevating him to become Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998, and creating him a cardinal in 2001. Pope Francis canonized St. John Paul II in 2014.

“Fifteen years now separate us from his death,” Pope Francis said.

The pope pointed out that there are children and young people today who have not known or only have a vague memory of St. John Paul II.

“For this reason, on the centenary of his birth, it was right to remember this great holy witness of the faith that God has given to his Church and to humanity,” he said.

“I hope that this text will reach the hands of many, above all young people. Let us remember his faith. He is an example for us to live our witness today,” the pope said.

Pope Francis wrote that many may not realize how much St. John Paul II suffered in his life. He experienced the death of his mother, brother, and father by the age of 21, and then lived through World War II.

“The suffering that he experienced relying totally on the Lord forged him, and made even stronger the Christian faith in which he had been educated,” Francis said.

“St. John Paul suffered as pope. He suffered a terrible attack in 1981, offered his life, shed his blood for the Church. He testified that even in the difficult trial of disease, shared daily with God made man and crucified for our salvation, we can remain happy. We can remain ourselves,” he continued. 

Pope Francis also commented on John Paul II’s “great passion for the human person” and his openness to dialogue. 

Earlier this year, Pope Francis co-authored a book of reflections on the life of St. John Paul II entitled “St. John Paul the Great.” In this book, Pope Francis said he learned the importance of joy and mercy from the Polish pope.

“It is enough to look at his life” to see that John Paul II had “the smell of the sheep,” Francis said. “He was a pastor who loved people and the people returned it with an immense love.”

Vatican City, May 6, 2020 / 09:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis Wednesday advanced the sainthood causes of five men and women, including an Italian teenager who died of a brain tumor in 2009, declaring them “venerable.”

After a May 5 meeting with Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the pope approved the heroic virtue of Italian priests Francesco Caruso (1879-1951) and Carmelo De Palma (1876-1961), as well as the Spanish Redemptorist priest Francisco Barrecheguren Montagut (1881-1957).

Before becoming a priest, Barrecheguren Montagut was married (he was later widowed) and had a daughter, Maria de la Concepción Barrecheguren García (1905-1927), who was also declared venerable by the pope May 6.

The fifth sainthood cause to move a step toward canonization was that of Italian teenager Matteo Farina, who lived from 1990 to 2009. 

Farina grew up in a strong Christian family in the southern Italian town of Brindisi. He was very close to his sister, Erika.

The parish where he received the sacraments was under the care of Capuchin friars, from whom he gained a devotion to St. Francis and St. Padre Pio. 

The postulator of Farina’s cause for sainthood said that from a young age Farina had the desire to learn new things, always undertaking his activities with diligence, whether it was school or sports or his passion for music.

Starting at eight years old, he would receive the sacrament of reconciliation often. He was also devoted to the Word of God. At nine years old, he read the entire Gospel of St. Matthew as a Lenten practice. Farina also prayed the rosary every day.

When he was nine years old, he had a dream in which he heard St. Padre Pio tell him that if he understood that “who is without sin is happy,” he must help others to understand this, “so that we can all go together, happy, to the kingdom of heaven.”

From that point onward, Farina felt a strong desire to evangelize, especially among his peers, which he did politely and without presumption.

He once wrote about this desire, saying “I hope to succeed in my mission to ‘infiltrate’ among young people, speaking to them about God (illuminated by God himself); I observe those around me, to enter among them as silent as a virus and infect them with an incurable disease, Love!”

In September 2003, a month before his 13th birthday, Farina began to have symptoms of what would later be diagnosed as a brain tumor. As he was undergoing medical tests, he began to keep a journal. He called the experience of the bad headaches and pain “one of those adventures that change your life and that of others. It helps you to be stronger and to grow, above all in faith.”

Over the next six years, Farina would experience several brain operations and undergo chemotherapy and other treatments for the tumor.

His love for Mary strengthened during this time and he consecrated himself to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

In between hospitalizations, he continued to live the ordinary life of a teenager: he attended school, hung out with his friends, formed a band, and fell in love with a girl. 

He later called the chaste relationship he had with Serena during his last two years of life “the most beautiful gift" the Lord could give him.

When he was 15, he reflected on friendship, saying “I would like to be able to integrate with my peers without being forced to imitate them in mistakes. I would like to feel more involved in the group, without having to renounce my Christian principles. It’s difficult. Difficult but not impossible.”

Eventually, the teenager’s condition worsened and after a third surgery he became paralyzed in his left arm and leg. He would often repeat that “we must live every day as if it were the last, but not in the sadness of death, but rather in the joy of being ready to meet the Lord!”

Farina died surrounded by his friends and family on April 24, 2009. 

Francesca Consolini, the postulator of Farina’s cause, wrote on a website dedicated to the young venerable that in him emerged “a deep inner commitment oriented toward purifying his heart from every sin” and he experienced this spirituality “not with heaviness, effort or pessimism; indeed, from his words there emerges constant trust in God, a tenacious, determined and serene gaze turned to the future...”

Farina often thought about the faith and the “difficulty of going against the current.” Concerned about a lack of good faith education for young people, he undertook this task among his own peers. 

He once wrote in his journal: “When you feel that you can’t do it, when the world falls on you, when every choice is a critical decision, when every action is a failure ... and you would like to throw everything away, when intense work reduces you to the limit of strength ... take time to take care of your soul, love God with your whole being and reflect his love for others.”

Vatican City, May 8, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- We must learn to let ourselves be consoled by Jesus when we are suffering, Pope Francis said at his morning Mass Friday.

In his homily in the chapel at Casa Santa Marta, May 8, the pope noted it was difficult to accept Christ’s consolation in times of distress. 

Reflecting on the day's Gospel reading, John 14:1-6, which records Jesus’ words to his disciples at the Last Supper, the pope said the Lord recognizes their sadness and seeks to console them.

"It is not easy to allow ourselves to be consoled by the Lord,” he said. “Many times, in bad moments, we are angry with the Lord and we do not let Him come and speak to us like this, with this sweetness, with this closeness, with this meekness, with this truth and with this hope.”

He noted that Jesus’ way of consoling was quite different to telegrams of condolence, which are too formal to console anyone. 

“In this passage of the Gospel we see that the Lord consoles us always in closeness, with the truth and in hope,” he said. “These are the three marks of the Lord's consolation.”

The pope observed that Jesus is always close to us in times of sorrow.

“The Lord consoles in closeness. And He does not use empty words, on the contrary: He prefers silence,” he said, according to a transcript by Vatican News.

He added that Jesus does not offer false comfort:  

“Jesus is true. He doesn't say formal things that are lies: ‘No, don’t worry, everything will pass, nothing will happen, it will pass, things will pass…’ No, it won’t. He is telling the truth. He doesn’t hide the truth.”

The pope explained that Jesus’ consolation always brings hope. 

He said: “He will come and take us by the hand and carry us. He does not say: ‘No, you will not suffer: it is nothing…’ No. He says the truth: ‘I am close to you, this is the truth: it is a bad time, of danger, of death. But do not let your heart be troubled, remain in that peace, that peace which is the basis of all consolation, because I will come and by the hand I will take you where I will be’.”

The pope concluded: “We ask for the grace to learn to let ourselves be consoled by the Lord. The Lord's consolation is true, not deceiving. It is not anesthesia, no. But it is near, it is true and it opens the doors of hope to us.”

After Mass, the pope presided at adoration and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, before leading those watching via livestream in an act of spiritual communion.

The congregation then sang the Easter Marian antiphon “Regina caeli.”

At the start of Mass, the pope noted that World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day falls on May 8, the anniversary of the birth of Henry Dunant, founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross.  

Pope Francis said: “We pray for the people who work in these worthy institutions: may the Lord bless their work which does so much good.”

A previously healthy 9-year-old immigrant girl from Mexico was evaluated in the emergency department (ED) with one week of fatigue, fevers, rhinorrhea, and cough. She initially presented to her primary pediatrician, where a complete blood count revealed neutropenia, prompting referral to the ED. In the ED, she was found to be influenza A–positive. Because of dehydration, she received intravenous fluids and was admitted to the pediatric hospital medicine service. After 2 days, influenza symptoms improved, and oral intake increased. However, she was noted to have decreased bilateral lower-extremity strength, absent Achilles reflexes, decreased lower-extremity sensation and proprioception, a positive result on the Romberg sign, and abnormal heel-to-shin testing results. These findings prompted an urgent neurology consultation. After extensive imaging, laboratory evaluation, and further consultations, a diagnosis was established.

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Founded by Wendy H Gilmour in 2011, Thankfifi began as a fashion blog and has since grown to cover lifestyle, travel and interiors.

Compiled by: Antigoni Markitani

Compiled by: Antigoni Markitani

Compiled by Antigoni Markitani