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Shoo K. Lee
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Graham A. Colditz
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Philip M. Farrell
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Katherine H. Burns
Oct 1, 2010; 126:638-646
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Paul L. Aronson
Oct 1, 2014; 134:667-677
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Douglas K. Richardson
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Julie A. Jaskiewicz
Sep 1, 1994; 94:390-396
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John Penders
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Mary Ellen Avery
Jan 1, 1987; 79:26-30
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Andrew T. Shennan
Oct 1, 1988; 82:527-532
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Jan 1, 1999; 103:6-14
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England won the 2017 Maurice Burlaz Trophy, the prize awarded to the nation that achieved the best results in UEFA's men's youth competitions over the previous two seasons.

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CNA Staff, Mar 31, 2020 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- Local media in Nicaragua are reporting that despite the nation’s bishops’ conference suspending Mass and prohibiting large gatherings, the mayor of Granada is going ahead with an annual pilgrimage that the bishops had canceled.

For more than 150 years, Catholics in Nicaragua have venerated an image of Jesus del Rescate (Jesus of the Rescue) in Popoyuapa, near the city of Rivas. The image represents the crowning of thorns and the flogging of Christ.

Normally there is an annual pilgrimage to the image, which pilgrims make by wagon and on foot, during the "Week of Sorrows" that marks "the final stretch" of the time of Lent, according to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner.

However, the bishops have said that this year it will not be possible to carry it out in the traditional way, given the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Nevertheless, Julia Mena, mayor of Granada, has organized and funded a group of pilgrims to do the pilgrimage, providing them with food and personal hygiene supplies, according to the Nicaraguan news website Confidencial. The priest at the shrine told Confidencial that he has “no plans to receive the pilgrimage.”

The Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference has not commented publicly on the matter.

Nicaragua has five confirmed cases of COVID-19. The government has not yet decreed any kind of alert or emergency regarding the pandemic, nor has it ordered a suspension of classes, Confidencial reports.

The country’s Ministry of Health has maintained that the internal movements of travelers arriving from countries with outbreaks of coronavirus would not be restricted, La Prensa reports.

President Daniel Ortega has been president of Nicaragua since 2007, and oversaw the abolition of presidential term limits in 2014.

The Church had suggested that elections, which are not scheduled until 2021, be held this year, but Ortega has ruled this out.

Ortega was a leader in the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which had ousted the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and fought US-backed right-wing counterrevolutionaries during the 1980s. Ortega was also leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990.

Bogotá, Colombia, Apr 3, 2020 / 04:04 am (CNA).- Diana María Toro Vélez was kidnapped on a September day, as she drove home from Mass in the Colombian city where she lived. She spent 453 days in captivity. And she says that God’s grace kept her hope alive during the ordeal.

“I left Mass one Thursday and was driving home in my car and when I got home they assaulted me. They asked me a few questions and took me away. They sold me to the guerrillas,” Toro told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner.

Toro, the mother of three, told ACI Prensa that during her captivity, she was sometimes forced to march a lot, one time for up to 15 days in a row.

“I clung to God. I cried and prayed a lot. I really held fast to God. I taught the kidnappers how to read and write. We prayed. There was a certain coexistence, and good things came out of the bad,” she said.

Toro, 41, was kidnapped Sept. 27, 2018, in Amagá, about an hour’s drive from Medellin. Her captors were criminals, members of a gang called “The Sorcerers,” who handed her over to Marxist guerrillas from the the National Liberation Army (ELN) for 48M pesos, about $12,000. The ELN reportedly asked 3 billion pesos, about $745,000 for her return.

Toro was released from captivity on Christmas Eve, 2019.

The Catholic Church in Colombia had appealed for her release, and the release appeared to be a goodwill gesture toward achieving some kind of peace agreement between the ELN and the country’s government. Public officials credited the Church with arranging the release.

Speaking to ACI Prensa, the young mom said that she was “very devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe. When I was kidnapped I made a rosary and prayed it every day, praying a lot to the Virgin that she would allow me to be returned to my children. And God heard me, because I was released on Dec. 24, 2019.”

It was difficult, Toro said, to be “separated from my three children, one of them 3, another 4 and one 14 years old. Separated from my husband, my parents, my siblings, my family members, relatives and friends.”

“These were 453 days of anxiety, grief, sadness and despair. 453 days of living in the middle of the jungle, sleeping under a canopy, on branches, with snakes, scorpions, mosquitos and many other animals around,” she said.

Toro told ACI Prensa she subsisted on parrot, pasta, cooked banana, and rice. She had only two sets of clothes and infrequently bathed. 

“These were really hard days without knowing anything about my family, just with the certainty that God was with me, filling me daily with his strength and fortitude and firmly believing that if I woke up okay, my family was okay too,” she said.

“And God brought me out of that really hard situation. I saw that his glory and his mercy are immense.”

Toro said the ordeal has filled her with gratitude.

“I want to tell those people who in these times feel alone or in despair because of the situation we’re going through in Colombia and the entire world, that God is with us, he never has left us alone, especially now.”

“Let’s pray the rosary, let’s pray as a family. The power of prayer is immense,” she added.

 

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

 

Denver Newsroom, Apr 21, 2020 / 03:15 pm (CNA).- An Argentine archbishop has proposed 13 measures that would aim to allow churches to reopen churches during the coronavirus pandemic while reducing the risk of contagion.

The proposal is an effort to balance safety and the need for Catholics to receive the Eucharist, Archbishop Víctor Fernández of La Plata said this week.

In response to the pandemic, Argentina has been under lockdown since March 20. According to John Hopkins University, there are 3,031 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 145 deaths in the country.

Fernández said that although the Church is providing material sustenance to those hardest hit by the pandemic “when we think about sustaining the interior life of the faithful and encouraging its growth, we find ourselves in the serious difficulty of seeing them deprived of the Eucharist for a long time, and we can also foresee that this situation could last for several months.”

In a letter dated April 19 and addressed to the conference’s executive committee, the bishop said the Second Vatican Council teaches that “no Christian community is built up if it is not rooted and centered on the celebration of the Holy Eucharist,” and that Saint John Paul II emphasized that the Mass “rather than an obligation, should be felt as a requisite deeply inscribed in Christian existence.”

Fernández said the letter he sent puts together the suggestions of several bishops and that it is understandable “that many of the faithful are calling on us to find some way to make the Eucharist accessible again.”

“We tell them that they can experience other forms of prayer, and they do, but as Saint John Chrysostom has said “’You can also pray in your home, however, you cannot pray the same way you do in church where the brethren are gathered together.’”

Fernández noted that Pope Francis “teaches that God ‘in the culmination of the mystery of the Incarnation, chose to reach our intimate depths through a fragment of matter.’ It’s good that our faithful have learned that and so it’s not the same thing for them,” he said, adding that Catholics are eager “the food of the love that is the source of supernatural life.”

“It won’t be easy to prove that this situation is lasting too long, nor can we simply wait till the pandemic is completely over,” the prelate noted.

“We know that exposing yourself to infection is irresponsible especially because it involves exposing others to infection and indirectly could lead to a public health crisis that we don’t want to see in our country,” he said.

Aiming to send “a clear message to our People of God to show that we’re truly concerned and that we intend to take some steps that would allow us to resolve this situation as soon as possible,” without neglecting “the health concerns of the authorities” Fernández proposed a series of obligatory measures to celebrate the Eucharist publicly:
1) Keep a distance of two meters between people to the side, front and back. This will require removing or closing off half the pews in the church.
2) No more than two people per pew.
3) Once the pews are occupied in that manner, no more people are to be allowed to enter the church.
4) In the churches where there is usually a lot of people in attendance, the number of Masses should be increased so the faithful can spread themselves out over Saturday and Sunday at different times. Given the prevalence and closeness of churches this will not involve using transportation.
5) Mass should not be celebrated publicly at the most frequently visited shrines due to the difficulty of establishing appropriate controls.
6) There should be no line for communion, instead the Eucharistic ministers should go to the people positioned at the ends of the pews and place the Eucharist in the hand.
7) Every Eucharistic minister should wash his hands with soap before and after and apply alcohol gel.
8) The sign of peace and any physical contact should be omitted.
9) Mass should last no more than 40 minutes.
10) People should leave the church progressively, not all at once, and avoid greeting each other.
11) No intentions should be taken at Mass time, only those previously received by phone, mail or messages.
12) Those people who because of their age are prevented from attending may receive Communion at home.
13) The dispensation from the Sunday obligation should be temporarily maintained so that people who prefer to exercise extreme caution don’t feel obliged to attend.

The archbishop also pointed out in his letter that “if the economic impact has to be foreseen, it’s also appropriate to place a value on those things that provide consolation and strength to people during hard times.”

 

A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Lima, Peru, Apr 23, 2020 / 10:02 am (CNA).- As the ongoing coronavirus lockdown in Peru leaves the working poor in a vulnerable situation, one priest has been working to ensure that thousands in need have access to food.

Fr. Omar Sánchez Portillo is the secretary general of Caritas Lurín, on metro Lima’s south side.

Sánchez has distributed more than 15,000 food baskets, with the help of donors and volunteers at the Beatitudes Association, which he founded, since the nationwide quarantine was declared March 15. Peru’s Ministry of Health has confirmed 19,000 cases of coronavirus with 530 deaths.

Recently, Sánchez also received a donation of 5,000 live chickens from a poultry farm. He found himself needing to quickly process the chickens for distribution.

Sánchez turned to his fellow priests in the diocese of Lurín with an appeal on Whatsapp. To his surprise, almost 30 priests showed up to volunteer, including Bishop-elect Cristobal Mejía, who was recently named bishop of Chulucanas.

The priests and other volunteers worked all day, plucking, cleaning and preparing the birds for distribution.

“Today has been a long day,” Sánchez commented on his Facebook page. “Thank you dear priests! Thank you for your example, your work, and your joy. I feel proud to belong to a such an active, alive diocese so full of God, and to be part of a presbyterate full of holiness and enthusiasm for our priestly mission.”

In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner, Sánchez noted that in the Diocese of Lurín, which is comprised of 55 parishes, there are many poor people who do not have access to electricity or running water.

The priest estimates about 60% of the people in the diocese live in extreme poverty. Southern Lima, where his diocese is located, contains the third and fourth most COVID-infected areas in the country.

Sánchez also pointed out that most Peruvians lack the ability to save money, which leaves vulnerable populations even more at risk during the quarantine.

“A lot of people are out of work and out on the street, a lot of them are temporary workers, many of them earn a living day-to-day,” he said.

So far, volunteers have distributed 75,000 food baskets throughout the South Lima area. However, the needs remain great.

“Every day in the parishes there are people out looking, knocking on doors, that haven’t gotten any food, or what they have gotten isn’t enough and has already run out,” he explained.