ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 14, 2023 / 16:20 pm (CNA).
The 108-foot-tall sculpture of Christ the Fisher located in La Concordia in the Mexican state of Chiapas was completely burned down after being struck by lightning Sept. 10.
Hours after the incident, the Secretariat for Civil Protection and the local municipal police went to the scene to assess the damage. “Due to the impact of lightning and combustible material, fire spread in its structure; it collapsed and burned,” Civil Protection reported on Facebook.
Señor de la Misericordia (Lord of Mercy) Parish said in a statement sent to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that the “sacred image” was more than a symbol, because “for years it was representing and strengthening the faith of our people.”
After lamenting the accident, the parish expressed its desire that other “works and projects” be carried out for “the common good” and the “comprehensive growth” of the town.
Consulted by ACI Prensa, the authorities indicated that the decision to replace the statue had not yet been made.
Christ the Fisher was erected by the Peruvian sculptor Pedro Víctor Cuya Ramos. Its construction began in 2014 and six years later the work was completed, financed with various donations.
Inside the statue were stairs that rose to the eyes of Christ, from where visitors could see the city of La Concordia and a large part of the La Angostura Dam, where the residents often fish.
The monument was 33 meters tall (12 at the base and another 21 for the statue), which,according to Cuya Ramos, symbolized the years that Jesus lived on earth.
“For many years it was the tallest [image of Christ] not only in Mexico but also in many parts of the world. Today La Concordia and the people of Concordia remember with nostalgia the image and photographs of it, [all] that remains of its imposing and grand size,” the sculptor told ACI Prensa.
Mexican media Vanguardia reported that the sculpture was made of fiberglass. Although not flammable, it can melt at 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 14, 2023 / 14:00 pm (CNA).
A panel of judges ruled that a California school district must allow a Christian athletic club to return to public schools after the district banned the group over its adherence to Christian teachings on sexuality.
In 2019, the San Jose Unified School District rescinded its recognition of student groups affiliated with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes because the clubs require members to affirm a statement of faith that declares sexual activity is only permissible between a man and a woman within a marriage. The district claimed this mandatory affirmation discriminated against LGBTQ people.
Even though affiliated clubs had operated in the school district for more than a decade, each club was removed from schools in the district. A lower court sided with the school district, but that decision was overturned by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday, which ensured that the clubs can operate in the public schools again.
According to the ruling, the San Jose Unified School District engaged in a “double standard” when it “penalized [the Fellowship of Christian Athletes] based on its religious beliefs.”
The opinion found that the district failed to treat Fellowship of Christian Athletes “like comparable secular student groups whose membership was limited based on criteria including sex, race, ethnicity, and gender identity.” The opinion found that “the Constitution prohibits such a double standard.”
The appellate court ruling grants Fellowship of Christian Athletes temporary relief, which allows it to have equal access to the public schools while the litigation is settled. The ruling does not settle the constitutionality of the issue in the ongoing litigation but indicates that the Fellowship of Christian Athletes is likely to succeed in its claims against the district.
In a concurring opinion, Judge Danielle J. Forrest said that the district discriminated against Christians under the guise of fighting against discrimination.
“The height of irony is that the district excluded [the Fellowship of Christian Athletes] students from fully participating in the [Associated Student Body] program in the name of preventing discrimination to purportedly ensure that all students feel welcome,” the opinion read. “In doing so, the district selectively enforced its nondiscrimination policy to benefit viewpoints that it favors to the detriment of viewpoints that it disfavors.”
Rigo Lopez, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes leader for Bay Area schools, applauded the ruling in a statement.
“[Fellowship of Christian Athletes] is excited to be able to get back to serving our campuses,” Lopez said. “Our FCA teams have long enjoyed strong relationships with teachers and students in the past, and we are looking forward to that again.”
The fellowship received representation from Becket, a nonprofit law firm that specializes in religious freedom cases. Daniel Blomberg, a vice president and senior counsel at Becket, said in a statement that the ruling ensures equal treatment for religious students.
“This is a huge win for these brave kids, who persevered through adversity and never took their eye off the ball: equal access with integrity,” Blomberg said. “Today’s ruling ensures religious students are again treated fairly in San Jose and throughout California.”
The appellate court has jurisdiction over the entirety of California and eight other states: Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
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ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 14, 2023 / 16:00 pm (CNA).
A hospital chapel in the town of Puerto Real, Spain, located in the Diocese of Cádiz and Ceuta, has recently been desecrated twice, with Masses to be offered in reparation already planned.
Sources at the diocese told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that the tabernacle had been profaned on at least two different occasions, as witnessed by the chaplains in charge.
The first time, one of the priests discovered that the door of the tabernacle was “out of joint” and repositioned it. Although there was no major damage and neither the sacred vessels nor the consecrated hosts were missing, the priest noticed in a corner “a dirty glass with remains that look like coffee.”
On the second occasion, another chaplain discovered that “the veil of the tabernacle had been torn off,” and although the door was not pried “they took the lid of the ciborium and the pyx with all the consecrated hosts.”
After removing everything from the tabernacle as a precaution, the chaplains reported the desecrations to the hospital management, which referred the incidents to law enforcement.
A Mass in reparation will be offered in the chapel on Sept. 15 as well as on Sept. 18.
The instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum of the then-Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments explains that the consecrated hosts are principally reserved after Mass so that “the faithful who cannot be present at Mass, above all the sick and those advanced in age, may be united by sacramental Communion to Christ and his sacrifice, which is offered in the Mass.”
This reservation also allows “the practice of adoring this great sacrament and offering it the worship due to God.”
The instruction specifies that “the Most Holy Sacrament is to be reserved in a tabernacle in a part of the church that is noble, prominent, readily visible, and adorned in a dignified manner” and stipulates that “diligent attention should be paid to all the prescriptions of the liturgical books and to the norm of law, especially as regards the avoidance of the danger of profanation” (Nos. 129-130).
“It should also be borne in mind,” the instruction warns, “that removing or retaining the consecrated species for a sacrilegious purpose or casting them away are graviora delicta, the absolution of which is reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” (No. 132).
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Communicating Pope Francis’ efforts to promote dialogue and advance peace efforts in Ukraine is a “great problem” for Catholic clergy and faithful in the country, said the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.
“Due to misunderstandings that we have had recently, I wouldn’t know how many Ukrainians remain that declare their full confidence in the public image of the pope,” Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, major archbishop of Kyiv-Halych, said Sept. 14 at a news conference to close the 10-day synod of Ukraine’s Eastern Catholic bishops in Rome.
“Before the Russian invasion in Ukraine, the Holy Father was the most-respected religious leader in Ukraine,” he said, noting that surveys showed more than half of all Ukrainians considered the pope to be a moral leader. But “at the end of last year, this popularity fell to very low levels, some say 6 or 3 percent.”
The misunderstandings include Francis’ Aug. 25 comments encouraging young Russian Catholics to be proud of their heritage as descendants of the “great, educated Russian Empire.” He clarified on at least two occasions that he was referring to Russia’s cultural and not imperial legacy.
Two weeks later, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in an interview with Ukrainian media that the Vatican has no mediating role in the war because the pope is pro-Russian. Shevchuk said he was told by the Ukrainian ambassadors to the Holy See and to Italy that the comment was not the positions of the Ukrainian government but rather Podolyak’s personal opinion.
“I am not sure that the Ukrainian government has closed all the doors” to collaborating with the Holy See in the name of peace, the archbishop said, citing the example of Cardinal Matteo Zuppi’s peace mission that took him to Kyiv, Moscow, Washington and now Beijing to meet with government and church officials. The cardinal, archbishop of Bologna, went to Beijing Sept. 13-15 to support humanitarian efforts and look for ways to achieve a “just peace,” the Vatican said Sept 12.
Zuppi elaborated on what a “just peace” means in his meeting Sept. 7 with the Ukrainian bishops, underscoring that such a peace must “respect certain moral principles, principles of international law,” and must be designed to “endure through time,” Shevchuk said.
Now, “Cardinal Zuppi’s mission to Beijing will be very important, because we know that China is a large geopolitical player that has always declared itself to be available to look for peace,” the archbishop said.
“What does a Chinese peace mean? We don’t know. What does a Russian peace mean? We know this well,” he said.
The 45 Ukrainian bishops that participated in the synod met with Francis Sept. 6. Shevchuk said that after a bishop recounted the pain of his people, the pope told them, “You have another pain, maybe you doubt who the pope is with.”
“I assure you I am with you,” he said the pope told them. “It is up to us to convince our people of this message, to articulate it well and communicate well,” he added, but noted that “for us bishops, it is a challenge to articulate the message that we have received from the Holy Father.”
Archbishop Borys Gudziak, head of the Ukrainian Archeparchy of Philadelphia, said the 10-day synod demonstrated the link between the church in Kyiv and Rome through meetings with: Cardinals Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state; Kurt Koch, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity; Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches; and Zuppi.
“It’s clear the pope is not an enemy of Ukraine,” he said. “This time, not only what was said, but the opportunity to be together clears up that the pope is with the Ukrainians and that our church is with the successor of Peter.”
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 14, 2023 / 13:30 pm (CNA).
The Vatican this week announced a special opening of the Palace of the Chancellery, a centuries-old building that the Holy See refers to as “one of the most prestigious palaces in Rome.”
The Administration of the Heritage of the Apostolic See (APSA) is opening the building to visitors, according to Vatican News, in part in order to offer what APSA president Bishop Nunzio Galantino described as “a less commercial look at the realities that belong to the Apostolic See.”
The palace was built over a roughly 25-year period at the end of the 15th century and into the 16th. It was originally home to Cardinal Raffaele Riario, a prelate known for having invited Michaelangelo to Rome after being impressed by the latter’s artistic abilities.
Claudia Conforti, a professor of history of architecture at the University of Tor Vergata, told Vatican News that the palazzo is home to “some centuries of the most vivid history of Roman art, painting, and architecture.”
The home was built atop ancient ruins. Conforti told Vatican News that the basement houses “an artificial canal that served the thermal baths of Agrippa” as well as the tomb of Aulus Irtius, “one of the commanders of the Roman army in Gaul of Julius Caesar.”
Engineer Mauro Tomassini, meanwhile, said the structure “is still being studied today” because it “is not fully known.”
Describing the building as “an apparent fortress, with four corner towers,” Tomassini said that it “has so many things to offer to those who visit it,” though he claimed that “unfortunately probably the Romans themselves do not attend it and do not know it as they should.”
At the opening, Galantino indicated the special presentation was motivated by Pope Francis’ repeated calls for a more transparent Church.
“But transparency does not consist only in the publication of the budget,” Galantino said. “It does not stop at the ‘quantity’ but also shows the quality of what is kept. This is a step forward.”
The Vatican lists the building as housing the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, which the Holy See says “ensures that justice in the Church is correctly administered.”
Among its artistic and archeological collections is a 1544 mural by the artist Giorgio Vasari depicting “an episode from the life of Paul III” as well as a series of reliefs that the Vatican Museums say were “part of the decoration of a public monument which can be dated to the reign of Domitian” in the first century.
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Catholic activists called on Congress to ensure funding for migrant services is protected in upcoming appropriations bills at a Sept. 13 event near the U.S. Capitol.
“We’re hoping to call on Congress to invest in our communities,” Sr. EIlis McCulloh, a Humility of Mary sister and Network’s grassroots education and organizing specialist, told OSV News.
“We know that militarization of the border, and of people seeking asylum and all immigrants, is not the way to build up community,” McCulloh said, adding this approach is “not the way to build the common good.”
“And so by investing in communities, they’re investing in the programs that serve our asylum-seekers at the border,” she said.
“These are your neighbors,” she added in a statement directed at lawmakers. “These are the people that are in your community. And to welcome them isn’t something that will only help your community; it will help the people that you are elected to govern.”
At the event, Network, a Catholic social justice lobby, and the Welcome with Dignity Campaign on Capitol Hill delivered a letter signed by 9,000 Catholics from all 50 states, calling on Congress to support communities that welcome asylum-seekers and other migrants. The letter asks lawmakers to ensure that the Shelter and Services Program is fully funded at $800 million for the upcoming fiscal year. That program allocates funds to groups that provide humanitarian aid to noncitizens.
The activists also said those funds should not be limited to groups that receive migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, but equitably distributed to groups that serve migrants in places such as New York, where Southern border states, like Texas, have been busing migrants.
Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., spoke at the event, holding up an image of Pope Francis, calling him “my guy.” He said the pontiff shows what it means to have “faith in humans, faith in kindness” and “what it is to take care of your brothers and sisters in this world.”
Correa called immigration a “political issue that’s only been around for about 250 years,” a reference to the approximate age of the United States.
“I think all of us forget the fact that all of our ancestors, with the exception of the American Indians, were all refugees to this country,” he said. Correa did not mention that African Americans’ ancestors for the most part were brought to the U.S. by force under slavery.
“Economically, politically, you name it. We are refugees of this great country,” he said, referring to Americans with immigrant ancestors. “Our ancestors came not because they were royalty somewhere else, but because they were the people at the bottom of the rung.”
Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, said politicians should not use migrants as “political scarecrows … to engender fear and resentment among the American people.”
He said, “We should remind our fellow Americans, mostly politicians, that America became the strongest nation on earth, not in spite of immigrants but because of immigrants.”
Rome Newsroom, Sep 14, 2023 / 12:55 pm (CNA).
Scandinavia’s top Church leader hopes the role of women in the Church’s mission is a focal point at the upcoming synodal assembly on synodality — and, therefore, that the conversation isn’t bogged down on the settled question of whether the Church can ordain women.
“It would be very frustrating if the discussion was limited to this issue that cannot lead further, as priestly ministry is reserved to men in Catholic and Orthodox doctrine,” Cardinal Anders Arborelius, ordinary of the Archdiocese of Stockholm, told the National Catholic Reporter in an interview published Sept. 13.
Arborelius, who became the first cardinal ever from Scandinavia in 2017 and was made a member of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops in 2022, will be one of the 360-plus voting participants at the October synod. The gathering, which will be held from Oct. 4–29 and followed by a second assembly in October 2024, is focused on how the Church can better incorporate its members into its life and mission.
Although synod organizers have insisted the event is not about changing doctrine, the event’s Instrumentum Laboris, or working document, explicitly asks whether “it is possible to envisage” “the question of women’s inclusion in the diaconate.” Some participants, such as San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy, have actively pushed for women’s ordination to be a focal point of the proceedings, as have outside initiatives such as the Synodal Way in the Catholic Church in Germany.
The Church’s inability to sacramentally ordain women — which is often falsely portrayed as a “ban” in some media accounts — was confirmed in 1994 by Pope John Paul II, who wrote in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”
Pope Francis has also repeatedly affirmed this truth, stating in November 2016 that John Paul’s teaching was the clear and “final word” on the issue. More recently, Pope Francis told America magazine in 2022 that the fact that women cannot enter ordained ministry “is not a deprivation” and that the Church should continue to develop a “theology of women” and expand women’s participation in ecclesial life.
Arborelius made similar comments in his interview with the National Catholic Reporter, which was conducted during his August visit to the United States to participate in an ecumenical dialogue on St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
“It is of the utmost importance to find more possibilities for women to take part in the work of evangelization on various levels,” Arborelius said. “At the same time, it is important to see that there are other ways than ordained ministry.”
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On September 14, 1998, Pope St. John Paul II issued Fides et Ratio (“Faith and Reason,” Latin text, English translation), an encyclical letter on the relationship between faith and reason — or, to translate the Latin more literally, an encyclical letter on the nature of the relationship between the one and the other.
Addressed to the Church’s bishops, Fides et Ratio has an introduction, seven chapters, and a conclusion. It was the thirteenth of John Paul II’s fourteen encyclicals and the last of the 142 papal encyclicals of the 1900s.
The seven chapters are entitled
The encyclical begins with a simile and concludes with an invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
“Faith and reason,” St. John Paul began, “are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2).”
“May Mary, Seat of Wisdom, be a sure haven for all who devote their lives to the search for wisdom,” St John Paul concluded. “May their journey into wisdom, sure and final goal of all true knowing, be freed of every hindrance by the intercession of the one who, in giving birth to the Truth and treasuring it in her heart, has shared it forever with all the world.”
To commemorate the encyclical’s twenty-fifth anniversary, CWR asked bishops and scholars to assess which portions of the encyclical, with the benefit of a quarter century’s hindsight, have proven to be most significant or influential. Some of them also discussed how Fides et Ratio has influenced their own intellectual life, academic work, or ministry.
The ‘Catholic synthesis’ of faith and reason
“The synthesis between faith and reason is the perennially valid achievement of the collective intellectual life of Catholics,” said Msgr. Michael Magee, dean of the School of Theological Studies, chairman of the systematic theology department, and professor of systematic theology and Sacred Scripture at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary in Pennsylvania.
“As one who came to full communion with the Catholic Church from a Protestant background, I have always marveled at the profound respect that the Catholic Church has always had for the human intellect, and at the brilliance of the intellectual heritage that has resulted from the Catholic synthesis between the two, which are not in competition with each other but mutually supportive,” he added.
Msgr. Magee told CWR that
the relationship between faith and reason is articulated nowhere more clearly and beautifully than in Fides et Ratio, n. 42: ‘Faith asks that its object be understood with the help of reason; and at the summit of its searching reason acknowledges that it cannot do without what faith presents.’
The awareness that realities exist that cannot be accessed by reason alone does not stifle reason; on the contrary, it allows reason to be presented with fresh material that it can probe without ever reaching the end.
The compatibility and continuity of Fides et Ratio with the whole Catholic intellectual tradition is also illustrated beautifully with the tribute that St. John Paul II pays to St. Thomas Aquinas as an example for all Catholic teachers (n. 43) … Also an important contribution for the present age is the section in which John Paul mentions various philosophical currents that are incompatible with Catholic thought and that need therefore to be rejected or sifted so as not to lead Catholic thinkers astray; these include rationalism, fideism, and historicism (n. 55) as well as relativism, scientism, eclecticism, pragmatism, and nihilism (nn. 80-91).
“I find no better guide for my theological research and teaching — not only in terms of methodology but also of attitude — than St. John Paul’s description of the lessons Israel learned along its journey with God” (n. 18), he continued. “The encyclical has helped me to unfold to seminarians the truly scientific character of theology and, at the same time, its close relationship to contemplation and to the wonder that we experience before the majesty of God and his revelation.”
“I think this particular encyclical will never be out of date, however much it may be supplemented in times to come by further reflections along similar lines,” Msgr. Magee added.
Faith and science
Bishop James Conley of Lincoln (Nebraska) and Father John Kartje, the rector/president of the University of Saint Mary of the Lake and Mundelein Seminary in Illinois, each reflected on the encyclical’s teaching on faith and science.
Describing Fides et Ratio as a “monumental encyclical,” Bishop Conley told CWR that “as a believer, you believe that everything comes from God, the Creator. And so there is nothing that we can discover or that science can bring to us that would contradict the faith, because if it’s from God and part of His creation, then it’s part of the harmony and the order of things.”
“There can never be a contradiction between faith and reason,” he continued. “There might be things in science we can’t explain, but that’s simply because it goes beyond the realm of being able to be proven” and “because reality is a mystery. We don’t know everything about reality, and we never will, because we’re dealing with God, God’s creation, and God is infinite, and we’re never going to unravel all the mysteries of the universe.”
Similarly, Father Kartje said that “in the broadest sense, the encyclical has proven to be a great encouragement to Catholic scientists, for it honors the centrality of the encounter with mystery which underlies the passion of both the scientist and the theologian. The gaze of both is directed toward the ‘sapiential horizon’ that John Paul II identifies so persuasively and eloquently” (n. 106).
“I had just finished a post-doc in astrophysics and was in my first year of seminary when the encyclical was released,” Father Kartje recalled. “I recall the joy at knowing our Pontiff was so concerned about offering such a clear, in-depth, and contemporary discussion of the relationship between faith and reason.”
“As a Catholic scientist, I had never felt conflicted by the pairing of these ‘two wings’ [of faith and reason,” but I was often frustrated by not having a definitive magisterial document to which I could refer skeptics” — a document “that treated the topic as comprehensively and deeply as is warranted by serious thinkers. Overall, it was a great encouragement to my vocational discernment, as it affirmed for me that I was traveling consistently down the one path God had called me to follow and not veering off it.”
Father Kartje said that “JP II’s warning against the inroads of ‘scientism’ (n. 88) has turned out to be especially prescient, insofar as claims for the hegemony of scientific research over the need for divine revelation has continued to make significant inroads throughout popular culture, particularly among the young.”
In a similar vein, Bishop Conley said that “unfortunately, young people are taught in secular education that the things of religion, faith, those things that are of the spiritual realm, are not as important or significant as science. And therefore, a lot of young people have become atheists, because they believe that the truths that religion presents are somehow less important because they cannot be proved scientifically. And that’s just a very shallow way to look at the world.”
“If we pursue an education which is void or devoid of any dimension of faith, or revelation, or philosophy, then we’ve kind of truncated knowledge, and it really limits our horizons,” said Bishop Conley. “If we separate faith and reason, we are left in a murky haze … For a Christian, learning is an adventure of faith seeking understanding, as St. Anselm describes it.”
Bishop Conley described Veritatis Splendor, St. John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical on moral theology, and Fides et Ratio as “the pillars of the monumental pontificate of John Paul II” and expressed sadness that “twenty-five and thirty years later, both of them are being called into question.”
“There’s a certain givenness, there’s a certain reality objectively that is given to us, and we have to discover what that is,” he said. “We may be confused about it, but the fact is, it’s absolute, it’s objective, and can’t be changed. And we can’t impose or create a reality on our own, through our own mind.”
Bishop Conley added:
And for my own life, Fides et Ratio has helped me understand that unity of faith and reason, and to see faith and reason, theology and philosophy, religion and science as something that can mutually enrich each other …
So, with this anniversary of Fides et Ratio, we need to revisit this. There’s so much more that can be understood about it. John Paul II has given us this wonderful body of teaching that still hasn’t been plumbed to its depths, but needs more and more study. And people need to read it more often, and more people need to read it, because it really is so relevant today, even more so, I think, than it was twenty-five years ago when it was promulgated.
An encyclical for a post-Christian society
Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester (Massachusetts), a former chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Catholic Education and Committee on Religious Liberty and a current member of the Committee on Doctrine, told CWR that “since the publication of the encyclical in 1998, Western culture has unfortunately continued to unravel intellectually and morally as it has embraced intellectual and moral relativism. One instance of such relativism is the toxic ideology of wokeism that is spreading through our American society like a cancer.”
“Since the human person is created in the image and likeness of God with gifts of intelligence and freedom, he or she has a natural desire to know God, which is to say, to know Truth itself,” he continued. “In a post-Christian culture, faith in Divine Revelation is often marginalized if not completely dismissed as incapable of making any absolute truth claims about human reality generally and human morality specifically. Such a culture thus eliminates a source of truth that is salvific but that cannot be completely known by human reason. In a word, the encyclical consistently argues that when faith and reason are separated, the human project is hindered significantly in its pursuit of truth.”
Bishop McManus continued:
That is why we should celebrate the 25th anniversary of Fides et Ratio by an ecclesial re-reading of this prophetic text in the light of “the signs of the times.”
Especially today as so much theological reflection has surrendered rigorous intellectual reflection for an emotivist and popular psychological perspective, I also believe that the fundamental teaching of the encyclical needs to be recalled repeatedly. That teaching is found in the conclusion of paragraph 42 of the encyclical: “The fundamental harmony between the teaching is knowledge of faith and the knowledge of philosophy is once again confirmed. Faith asks that its object be understood with the help of reason; and at the summit of its searching, reason acknowledges that it cannot do without what faith presents.”
Bishop McManus, who described Fides et Ratio as “extraordinarily helpful” to his episcopal ministry, added that “in the rapid unfolding of a post-Christian society, many members of such a secularized culture try to eliminate the voice of the Catholic Church in the public square, especially in the case of neuralgic social and moral issues such as abortion, contraception, and euthanasia. They do this by framing the Church’s social teaching as ‘sectarian’ or ‘faith-based’ only.”
“This is simply not true,” he said. “Because of the preeminent place that natural moral law reasoning has played and should play today in the Church’s moral reflection on these social and moral issues, bishops as moral teachers have not only a biblical or theological language to present reasonably the moral and social teachings of the Church, they also have the language of natural moral law reasoning. So, briefly stated, the contribution of Fides et Ratio to my pastoral ministry as a bishop and teacher of the Church’s moral doctrine has been highly significant.”
A providential encyclical on human nature
“It is not difficult to see the providential character of the saint’s encyclical coming ever more into view with each passing day,” said Mary Bolan, Ph.D., M.D., professor of philosophy at St. Joseph’s Seminary and College in New York. “For these days are ones during which we witness an all-out assault on the nature that is human; and it is St. John Paul II in Fides et Ratio who indeed highlights nature, as the proper object of the study of philosophy” (cf. n. 43).
Pope John Paul’s “insistence on the importance of philosophy in the life of the Church is an insistence on the importance of nature in the life of the Church – in particular, the nature that is human, following the Catholic axiom that ‘grace builds on nature,’” she continued. “The Catholic Church uniquely advocates what John Paul II calls an ‘intense interest in philosophy’ (n. 63), because the life the Catholic Church promulgates is one that never leaves nature behind: it is precisely our human nature that is redeemed.”
Dr. Bolan added:
From the point of view of a seminary professor, I note in particular that at the conclusion of the encyclical, John Paul II’s thoughts turn to philosophy’s role in the formation of priests (cf. n. 105). In my experience, there is nothing, at least academically speaking, that contributes more to the solidity and groundedness of a Catholic seminarian’s education than does proper formation in philosophy, educed in the way the Church has in mind, and as the saint lays out in Fides et Ratio.
This is because it is precisely nature – philosophy’s proper object – that is the foundation upon which the life of grace is built, and indeed endures upon. It is not accidental, then, that it is nature that is under assault today, for what better way to attack anything then to target its foundation. There is no surer way to undermine the Church’s mission than to undermine that which is the enduring object of that mission; namely, our human nature.
Further, without a proper understanding of this nature, it is impossible that a Catholic theologian would have a proper understanding of grace. Most theological errors are at base philosophical ones, owing to this ever-presence of foundational nature in all things Catholic. John Paul II’s advocacy of the Church’s “intense interest in philosophy” indicates his deep mindfulness of these things.
“On a personal note, at the time of John Paul II’s publication of Fides et Ratio, I was at a crossroad in my studies,” she recalled. “I had completed graduate degrees in both philosophy and theology and was discerning which of the two disciplines I would do my doctoral studies in. It was John Paul’s Fides et Ratio that made the decision for me, so much did his emphasis on the importance of philosophy in the life of the Church impress me, as well as did his laments on the consequences of its neglect.”
“I enrolled in a pontifical university in Rome for doctoral studies in philosophy,” Dr. Bolan added. “Significantly, I there observed that doctoral students in philosophy, as compared to those in theology, were vastly underrepresented. And I suspect that this situation may continue to the present day; for it is fairly commonplace, for example, that a young, academically prominent priest would be sent to Rome or elsewhere for doctoral studies in theology, but rarely for doctoral studies in philosophy.”
She cautioned:
Yet this might be the continued neglect of the foundation that John Paul warned us against, at a time when we need it most – at a time when nature, the proper object of philosophy, is so relentlessly attacked: “The grave responsibility to provide for the appropriate training of those charged with teaching philosophy both in seminaries and ecclesiastical faculties must not be neglected” (n. 105).
We need Catholics – Catholics gifted intellectually – to take up the study of philosophy in whole-hearted service of the Church’s mission. The good news is that John Paul II saw this twenty-five years ago, and offered us the key – the key to the solidity and stability that paying attention to the foundation provides, and that the saint promoted in Fides et Ratio.
A ‘broadside toward secularism’
“Pope St. John Paul’s magnificent Fides et Ratio casts a veritable broadside toward secularism,” said Patrick Lee, president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. “Secularists would have us believe that concern for the eternal detracts from concern for the temporal, and that religious belief is a blind leap, either opposed to, or at best, an end run around reason and science.”
“The encyclical boldly and confidently explains how Catholic faith—far from competing with reason and science—encourages the use of reason and the pursuit of science,” added Dr. Lee, a professor of philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville and director of the Center for Bioethics there. “The Catholic Church and [her] teaching have abundant signs of credibility which indicate that the act of faith is a morally responsible and reasonable act.”
Dr. Lee continued:
The encyclical teaches that all of us have a duty to seek the truth about the fundamental meaning of life and live in accord with the truth we find. The eternal does not negate the specific and personal goods in this life, grace does not supplant nature, and faith does not oppose reason. The encyclical makes an urgent call to Catholic intellectuals—philosophers, theologians, scientists, historians, and so on—to make their specific contributions to handing on God’s truth and love.
‘Required reading’ amid a ‘crisis of reason’
Father Anthony Giampietro, C.S.B., president of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, told CWR that “it is my sense that [the] widespread influence of Fides et Ratio is yet to come. The same can be said about Pope Benedict’s Regensburg Lecture (2006), exploring as it does the providential relationship between Athens and Jerusalem, and the confidence that reason can provide an adequate critique of some claims made by religious believers.”
“As many have said, there is today a crisis of reason,’ Father Giampietro said. “We see more and more cases of brute power and censorship, all exercised by people irrationally claiming to be using reason to justify imposing their will.”
“Fides et Ratio and the Regensburg Lecture are tremendous resources for those who begin to see that openness and tolerance simply cannot coexist with such irrationality,” he continued. “Both John Paul II and Benedict XVI (along with many others in our tradition) highlight the fact that the Catholic faith is constantly being purified by reason and is capable of facing contemporary challenges. This is a consolation of immense value especially for those who have a sense of the precariousness of our political order (along with many other orders).”
Father Giampietro added:
If you think there is a conflict between the Catholic faith and reason, then either your reasoning is faulty, or your theology is inadequate. Fides et Ratio explores in great depth how to understand this statement, and it provides answers to numerous questions that flow from it. This simple but profound fact has positively affected my teaching and preaching, as well as my everyday interactions.
Fides et Ratio should be required reading for “modern intellectuals.” Many of them have settled for answers whose inadequacy will become more and more clear as greater light penetrates their intellects. I note also that many philosophical traditions are represented in the encyclical, presenting a variety of “mentors” to those seeking to understand all that is.
Father Giampietro cited selections from the second paragraph of n. 1 and the fourth paragraph of n. 16 as particularly significant passages of the encyclical. “I would not say that these passages have been influential; rather, taken together, they should be influential,” he said.
An “essential encyclical”
Father John Cush, director of seminarian admissions and professor of dogmatic theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary and College, recalled that “studying theology in Rome as a seminarian [in the 1990s] was like living through Pope St. John Paul II’s ‘greatest hits,’ if you will.”
“I began my seminary studies right after the Catechism of the Catholic Church was translated into English, and I ended my time in the seminary with the release of Fides et Ratio,” he said. “Reading that encyclical, especially in light of the prevailing attitudes of ‘my truth,’ as opposed to objective truth, is absolutely essential.”
Father Cush said that
Fides et Ratio n. 5 speaks of “undifferentiated pluralism,” and that seems to sadly be the lived experience of too many today. Fides et Ratio n. 13 has been a tremendous boon to my own Eucharistic spirituality, namely the fact that “the knowledge proper to faith does not destroy the mystery.”
As a professor of dogmatic and fundamental theology, I have used this essential encyclical in almost all of my classes. In particular, chapter 6 of Fides et Ratio, on the interaction between theology and philosophy, has become a major part of my own teaching. Watching the seminarians in the first year of their theological studies transition from the study of philosophy to the study of theology, which, of course differs in its object and its end, has been a joy in fundamental theology classes.
A ‘harmonious interplay’
Dr. Grattan Brown, vice president of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, told CWR that St. John Paul’s insistence on the “harmonious interplay of faith and reason, even when it is difficult to see, has made a powerful impact on those willing to consider the validity of both.”
“Understanding that interplay is a great help when reason without faith runs aground in the impossible contradictions of practices like transgender surgeries and embryo-destructive research,” he continued. “But those contradictions are so well-ingrained that it is difficult for many people to think their way out of them. ‘Credo ut Intelligam’ [the title of the encyclical’s third chapter] blazes a path.”
Brown added that the encyclical’s discussion of “the search for wisdom has most influenced my life and work. After charity, nothing beats wisdom for a happy life.”
“Fides et Ratio teaches all the back-and-forth ‘movements’ to gain wisdom,” he said. “Sometimes you start with faith and end up with knowledge, other times with knowledge and end with faith; sometimes you accept and wonder about particular teachings and how the Magisterium has articulated them; other times you examine the outcomes of Church events and movements, see how the Spirit has worked, or wonder how Christians could have failed so badly, and what there is to learn from the past.”
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CNA Staff, Sep 14, 2023 / 12:22 pm (CNA).
All nine members of the Ulma family, who were murdered by the Nazi regime for sheltering two Jewish families in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II, were beatified on Sunday, marking the first time an entire family was beatified at once.
In December 2022, Pope Francis declared the family martyrs, including the youngest of the seven children, an unnamed baby who was born at the moment of its mother Wiktoria’s execution by Nazi officers.
Some news reports incorrectly reported that the baby was the first unborn child to be beatified. The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints clarified Sept. 5 that the child was a newborn, adding that it received a “baptism of blood” and was therefore included among the martyrs.
So, what exactly is a “baptism of blood?” And what exactly is a martyr?
CNA spoke with two theologians, Father Anthony R. Lusvardi, SJ, professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and Father Thomas Petri, OP, president of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., to shed some light on the topics.
Following the Nazi regime’s occupation of Poland during World War II, it sought mass extermination of the Jewish people, including those in the Ulma family’s small town of Markowa in southeastern Poland, which, today, is near the border of Ukraine.
In 1941, the Nazis made harboring Jews a crime punishable by death in occupied Poland. Despite the danger, the Ulmas hid two Jewish families on its farm. In the middle of the night of March 23-24, 1944, the Ulmas’ tiny home was surrounded by the Nazi patrol.
The German officers discovered and killed the eight Jews: Saul Goldman and his sons Baruch, Mechel, Joachim, and Moses, along with the Ulmas’ neighbors, Gołda Grünfeld and Lea Didner, and their young daughter, Reszla.
Then the Nazis forced 44-year-old Józef and 31-year-old Wiktoria Ulma out in front of their home and shot and killed the entire family.
Along with the unnamed newborn baby, the children’s names are Stanisława, 7; Barbara, 6; Władysław, 5; Franciszek, almost 4; Antoni, 2; and Maria, 1.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that martyrdom “is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith: It means bearing witness even unto death.”
If a person is martyred, it means he or she is among the saints in heaven, Father Petri told CNA.
Why is the Ulma family considered martyrs if they weren’t told to deny their faith?
Father Lusvardi said someone is considered a martyr when killed out of hatred for the faith. It is not necessary that the perpetrator demand that a martyr deny the faith at the time of his or her death.
“Other martyrs, like St. Thomas Becket or St. Oscar Romero, come to mind who were ambushed by assassins and not asked to deny the faith; but they were killed out of hatred for the faith and they continued to be faithful right up until the end, to bear witness up to the moment of death,” he said.
At the Ulmas’ beatification Mass in Markowa on Sunday, Father Witold Burda, postulator of the cause of beatification, said the family’s martyrdom resulted from the Nazis’ motive.
Those who called for the massacre, the commander Eilert Dieken and the gendarme Józef Kokott, “were moved — we read in the postulation — by anti-Semitic hatred and an even prevalent anti-Christian aversion,” Burda said.
The Vatican’s note said that the child received a “baptism of blood” as a result of being murdered.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that although baptism is necessary for salvation, God is not “bound” by the sacrament of baptism.
Baptism of blood is a term used when referring to the martyrdom of a Christian who has not yet been baptized, according to Lusvardi.
The catechism says: “The Church has always held the firm conviction that those who suffer death for the sake of the faith without having received Baptism are baptized by their death for and with Christ. This Baptism of blood, like the desire for Baptism, brings about the fruits of Baptism without being a sacrament” (No. 1258).
Petri said that St. Augustine taught in his book “City of God” that “anyone who dies for Christ without baptism is freed from their sins just as if they had been baptized in water.”
Petri pointed to the Holy Innocents as an example, when King Herod the Great of Judea attempted to kill the newborn baby Jesus by ordering the slaughter of “all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under,” as Matthew 2:16 records.
“The Holy Innocents are revered as martyrs for the infant Jesus,” he added.
Lusvardi said that both the Ulma newborn and the Holy Innocents are “very special cases” because “most of the time when we talk about bearing witness, we think of someone who professes belief explicitly and sticks to that belief even in the face of violence.”
“But I think that by recognizing such little ones as martyrs, we’re recognizing that even if they didn’t give testimony to Christ with their words, their brief lives in some way still pointed the way to him,” he added.
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Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi meets with China’s Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs to discuss the war in Ukraine and to underscore the need to work together to encourage dialogue in the search for peace.
By Vatican News
The Holy See has announced that Cardinal Matteo Zuppi has met with Li Hui, China’s Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Beijing.
In a statement published on Thursday afternoon, the Holy See said the Pope’s envoy to seek peace in Ukraine met with the Chinese special representative in an “open and cordial atmosphere”.
The pair discussed “the war in Ukraine and its dramatic consequences, emphasizing the need to combine efforts to encourage dialogue and find paths that lead to peace.”
The Holy See’s statement added that the two representatives also addressed the problem of food safety, “with the hope that the export of grain can soon be guaranteed, especially to the countries most at risk.”
Ahead of Cardinal Zuppi’s mission to China, the Holy See Press Office explained that his visit “represents another step of the mission desired by the Pope to sustain humanitarian initiatives and to seek paths that may lead to a just peace.”
The Italian-born Cardinal and Archbishop of Bologna has previously traveled to Kyiv on 5-6 June, Moscow on 28-29 June, and Washington on 17-19 July.
During his visits, the Cardinal has met with various leaders, emphasizing the humanitarian aspects of the mission and the importance of achieving peace.
Rome Newsroom, Sep 14, 2023 / 10:15 am (CNA).
Queen Mathilde of Belgium is one of only a few women in the world who can wear white, rather than the customary black, when meeting the pope for an official private audience at the Vatican.
As a Catholic queen, she has the “privilège du blanc,” a papal privilege currently granted only to the Catholic royalty from Spain, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Monaco, as well as the House of Savoy.
The traditional Vatican protocol required women to wear a black mantilla and a black dress with long sleeves for official papal audiences, although this custom has been made optional in recent decades.
Queen Mathilde arrived at the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace with her husband, King Philippe of the Belgians, on Thursday morning wearing a white mantilla veil and a white dress.
Philippe, who ascended the Belgian throne 10 years ago, holds the title “Rex Catholicissimus,” or “(Most) Catholic Majesty.”
King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium arrive at the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace for their audience with Pope Francis today.
As a Catholic queen, Queen Mathilde has the “privilège du blanc” and can wear white during a private papal audience rather than the usual black. pic.twitter.com/xhIQyQrIlw
— Courtney Mares (@catholicourtney) September 14, 2023
The Belgian royals and the pope discussed the war in Ukraine and a shared commitment to peace during the 20-minute meeting, according to a statement released by the Vatican.
It was the monarch’s second visit to the Vatican this year, as King Philippe and Queen Mathilde also traveled to Rome for the funeral of Benedict XVI in January.
Nearly 50% of Belgians identify as Catholic, according to the Pew Research Center. The members of the Belgian Royal Family are Catholic but do not have an official role within the Catholic Church in the country.
King Philippe and Queen Mathilde were married in 1999 in Belgium’s 11th-century Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula in Brussels and have four children. Their eldest daughter, Princess Elisabeth, is first in the line of succession.
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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 14, 2023 / 09:56 am (CNA).
Pope Francis and former President Bill Clinton will discuss pressing issues facing the world next week at the annual meeting of the Clinton Foundation’s global humanitarian effort, the Clinton Foundation revealed on Thursday.
The foundation said in a press release that the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) 2023 meeting would open on Monday, Sept. 18, with “a special conversation between President Clinton and His Holiness Pope Francis” via remote link.
The discussion is expected to focus on “what it takes to keep going on the most pressing global challenges of our time,” the release said, including “climate change, the refugee crisis, the welfare of children, and the mission and projects of the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital.”
Bambino Gesù is a Vatican-owned pediatric hospital located in the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the Holy See. Pope Francis has visited the hospital several times and spoken warmly of it, calling it a “family” that offers “human witness” through its medical services.
The hospital said in its press release on Thursday that representatives of the facility would also be “tak[ing] part” in the symposium. The hospital said it requires “great financial support” to run its medical undertakings; it said it would “bring these needs to the attention of the international audience” at the initiative meeting.
Francis already met with Bill Clinton earlier this year at the Casa Santa Marta papal residence, though details of that meeting have not been released.
Two years ago Chelsea Clinton — the vice chair of the Clinton Foundation — appeared at a virtual Vatican symposium on health.
On its website, the Clinton Foundation touts its global initiative as “creating a community of doers who are taking action on the world’s most pressing challenges, together.”
Among the other guests at the symposium next week will be U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
The Clinton Foundation says the Global Initiative has helped “more than 9,000 organizations [launch] more than 3,900 Commitments to Action,” which it described as “new, specific, and measurable projects and programs.”
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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 14, 2023 / 09:36 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Thursday announced the appointment of Father Antonio Spadaro as the undersecretary for the Dicastery for Culture and Education, a position the Jesuit priest will take after over a decade leading an influential Catholic journal in Rome.
Spadaro will assume office on Jan. 1, 2024, the Vatican said in an announcement. The priest had previously served as the editor of the Jesuit-run La Civiltà Cattolica for 12 years.
Spadaro, known popularly as “the pope’s mouthpiece” for his regular outspoken defense of the Holy Father, had announced early on Thursday that he was leaving La Civiltà, a decision he said came about from his “Jesuit superiors” that had been “agreed upon one year ago.”
As editor, the priest has sometimes generated controversy such as with his co-authorship of a 2017 article in which the writers criticized so-called “value voters” in the United States who traffic in an “ecumenism of hate.”
The Dicastery for Culture and Education was formed last year after the merger of two other departments, the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Congregation for Catholic Education.
The Vatican says that the cultural wing of the dicastery is “dedicated to the promotion of culture, pastoral activity, and the enhancement of cultural heritage.”
The educational division, meanwhile, works worldwide with bishops and Church authorities to ensure that “the fundamental principles of education, especially Catholic education, may be welcomed and better understood, enabling them to be implemented contextually and culturally.”
The dicastery as a whole “works for the development of people’s human values in the context of Christian anthropology, contributing to the full realization of Christian discipleship,” the Holy See says.
The Italian-born priest said his tenure at the magazine “has been a challenging responsibility that I have lived with enthusiasm since 2011.”
He thanked the Jesuit leaders and contributors to the periodical who “have collaborated to build the network of a magazine that is now fully international.” He described them as “a solid foundation for the future.”
The Vatican in its announcement noted that Spadaro was already a “consultor” of the dicastery as well as “an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts and Letters of the Virtuosi al Pantheon.”
Spadaro in his resignation announcement indicated he was ready to leave his long-held post at the magazine. “Twelve years is the right time to give the best without repeating yourself,” he said.
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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 14, 2023 / 08:55 am (CNA).
A foundation that is raising money for the descendants of people who were enslaved by Jesuits announced $27 million in new contributions, more than doubling the total fund, which has now reached $42 million.
The new money came from two large donations: a $10 million contribution from Georgetown University and an estimated $17 million from the Jesuits. The Jesuit funding includes the estimated value of a former plantation that is owned by Jesuits and another $10 million.
With the additional funding, the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation’s fund has now reached 42% of its five-year goal of $100 million. The organization’s final goal is to ultimately reach $1 billion.
Monique Trusclair Maddox, a fourth- and fifth-generation descendant and CEO of the foundation, said in a statement that the contributions are a meaningful step.
“These contributions from Georgetown University and the Jesuits are a clear indication of the role Jesuits and other institutions of higher education can play in supporting our mission to heal the wounds of racism in the United States, as well as a call to action for all of the Catholic Church to take meaningful steps to address the harm done through centuries of slaveholding,” Maddox said.
Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation was established to support funding for programs that will help descendants of those who were enslaved by the Jesuits with a focus on three main areas. This includes education from early childhood to postsecondary education funding, support for elderly and infirm descendants, and racial healing and reconciliation in communities and organizations throughout the country.
Jesuits participated in the slave trade in North America since colonial times to support missionary efforts and establish educational institutions, including Georgetown. In 1838, the university sold more than 272 enslaved people from their plantations to southern Louisiana to support its financial needs.
“The work of reconciliation — grounded in a deep reckoning with the pain and injustice of slavery and its legacies — is an expression of hope,” Georgetown President John J. DeGioia said in a statement.
“The Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation has put forth an extraordinary vision to uplift Descendant communities, support the educational aspirations of Descendants, and promote racial healing in our nation,” DeGioia added. “It is an honor for our university to have the opportunity to contribute to their efforts. The difficult truths of our past guide us in the urgent work of seeking and supporting reconciliation in our present and future.”
Father Tim Kesicki, SJ, who chairs the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Trust, said in a statement that it is important to right past wrongs.
“As a Catholic community, it is imperative that we don’t turn away from our sinful history of slaveholding and instead look inward at how we can right past wrongs with justice, healing, and compassion,” Kesicki said. “I am thrilled to see other Catholic and Jesuit institutions step up by investing in the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation’s mission to foster racial healing and uplift current and future Descendants.”
Georgetown University had previously contributed $1 million to the fund. The Jesuits have previously contributed $15 million to the fund when the foundation was first established.
According to the foundation, there are about 10,000 living and deceased descendants of Jesuit enslavement.
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As the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church concludes its Holy Synod, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk expresses his gratitude for Pope Francis’ closeness to the people of Ukraine and reflects on the Church’s pastoral care of people wounded in war.
By Sr. Nina Benedikta Krapić, VMZ
The bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) concluded their annual Holy Synod on Thursday, which took place in Rome and included an audience with Pope Francis.
The UGCC Synod focused on the Church’s pastoral care for people wounded in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
On the sidelines of a press conference, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, spoke to Vatican News about the work of the Synod and about the support shown by the Pope for Ukraine.
Q: From the audience you had with Pope Francis, what is the most important for you?
The Holy Father is with us, and we manifested our Catholicity, our full and visible communion with the successor of Peter. And with that communion, with that good news, we are coming back home.
I admired the humility of Pope Francis. He was well aware of his own faults, his own not very clear expressions. And he corrected himself. To be able to correct yourself in the presence of your brother bishops – that is a sign of deep humility.
And among other things, he wished to listen to us, not only to myself, to the head of the Church, but he gave a possibility, an open floor, for each one of 45 bishops to speak out in behalf of the simple, wounded, disappointed people of Ukraine.
And this mutual dialogue, a capability to listen to, ministry of listening, was something which for us, wounded by the war, was a healing moment.
Q: What are your expectations from the visit of Cardinal Zuppi to China?
I have expectations, and wish that the visit will be a baby step toward an authentic, just and secure peace.
Q: The focus of the Synod was on the pastoral care for wounded people. What is exactly that you hope to do?
First of all, we are emphasizing on the formation of priests, religious and bishops as well, because we have to change our methods.
We have to understand better what is going on with the psychological and emotional part of the human being, but also spiritual one, to be more empathic with the people and to be more helpful to them. Because if you would simply say to a wounded soldier without legs in the hospital, I do understand you, you would be wrong.
And I think that the pastoral care of wounded people is a big challenge, especially for the pastoral activity of the Church.
Q: Your country is in the state of war. What is happening in Ukraine with the Church, and with lay people and consecrated people on the other hand?
Many things, but first of all in such a dramatic circumstances all of us Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Jews, Muslims, we learn how to discern what is the most important things for you right now today.
And I learned that for me most important things, which is a source of my personal resilience, is faith.
To be faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ, to believe in the grace of the Holy Spirit, to sanctify the holy name of the Holy Trinity among the atrocities of war. That is the source of the resilience and resistance of the people of Ukraine.
When Pope Francis said he wanted the focus of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to be “something very different” from the dicastery’s reputation as a stringent watchdog, he was not saying anything goes, Cardinal-designate Víctor Fernández, the dicastery’s new prefect, said in an interview.
“It is clear that at no time does the pope say that the function of refuting errors should disappear,” he told the Rome-based Jesuit journal, La Civiltà Cattolica, in an interview published Sept. 14.
When Francis named the Argentine theologian to the post in July, he released a public letter saying the dicastery’s “central purpose is to guard the teaching that flows from the faith in order to give reasons for our hope, but not as an enemy who critiques and condemns.”
Fernández said the dicastery’s approach is key.
“Clearly, if someone says that Jesus was not really human or that all immigrants should be killed, a decisive intervention will be necessary,” he said. “But at the same time this will provide an opportunity to grow, to enrich our understanding.”
As an example, he said, a person who denies Jesus’ humanity may have a “legitimate intention to better show the divinity of Jesus Christ,” and one who is against immigrants may be trying to draw attention to flawed laws and policies.
“A fundamental criterion to be preserved is that ‘any theological conception that ultimately questions God’s omnipotence and, especially, his mercy’ must be considered inadequate,” Fernández said, quoting Francis’ letter to him.
The pope also asked him “to bring theological knowledge into dialogue with the life of the holy people of God,” responding to new challenges and questions.
For that dialogue to work and for the church to effectively communicate the response of Christian faith, the cardinal-designate said, Catholics must be willing to embrace “an asceticism: to tolerate with charity the recurring aggressiveness that assails us.”
“Might society’s questioning be a mediation that God himself uses to disarm us, to open us to something else?” he asked.
The Catholic Church, he said, cannot “ignore the fact that the verbal violence of some groups is an understandable outburst after many centuries of our own verbal violence,” for example, by using “insulting, very offensive language, or of manipulating women as if they were second-class.”
Francis is a model of the kind of patience needed, he said, a patience that “comes from his heart as a father” and hopes that “with time a better balance will be found.”
The church also insists on “the value of reason and the need for dialogue between faith and reason, which are not contradictory,” Fernández said.
However, there is a danger that an individual or group of individuals espousing what they claim is reason propose “a set of principles that govern everything, even if it is ultimately a ‘forma mentis’ (mindset), more philosophical than theological,” he said. Their way of thinking “ultimately takes the place of revelation!”
Such a group, he said, believes “they alone are ‘serious,’ ‘intelligent,’ ‘faithful.’ This explains the power that some churchmen arrogate to themselves, going so far as to determine what the pope can or cannot say, and presenting themselves as guarantors of the legitimacy and unity of the faith. After all, the ‘forma mentis’ of which they consider themselves absolute guardians is a source of power that they want to safeguard.”
But, he said, “it is not reason, it is power.”
Francis “asked me to safeguard the teaching that flows from faith,” he said. “The words ‘guard’ and ‘care’ are among Francis’ favorite words. It’s no accident that he is especially devoted to St. Joseph. Care, for him, is a fundamental attitude that flows from the Gospel. Just as one cares for people, one must do the same with the doctrine that emerges from faith.”
The first step, he said, must be “a deep appreciation of what is to be cared for, that is, it implies that one loves doctrine as a precious treasure and that one is rightly proud of that divine gift.”
The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, travels to the EU nation of Slovakia for a three-day, official visit at the invitation of the local Bishops’ Conference.
By Martin Jarábek
Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin’s trip to Slovakia, from 14 to 16 September, will include visits to four cities: Bratislava, Šaštín, Košice and Klokočov, and will coincide with three important anniversaries: the 30th anniversary of the renewal of diplomatic relations between the Slovak Republic and the Holy See; the 1,160th anniversary of the arrival of Saints Cyril and Methodius in the country, and the 20th anniversary of the beatification of two Slovak martyrs, victims of atheist persecution, in 2003 by John Paul II. Also, two years ago Pope Francis visited the nation.
Ahead of his departure, the Vatican Secretary of State spoke to Vatican News about his visit to the EU nation.
Q: Your Eminence, what do you expect from this visit to Slovakia?
This visit had been planned for three years. For various reasons it was postponed and could only be realised now. But, providentially, it coincides with three anniversaries, namely the 20th anniversary of the beatification of Bishop Vasil’ Hopko and Sister Zdenka Schelingova (John Paul II on 14 September 2003 ed.); the 30th anniversary of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the Slovak Republic; and the 1160th anniversary of the arrival of the Holy Brothers Cyril and Methodius in Great Moravia.
It also marks the second anniversary of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Journey to the country, which took place in this very month, from 12 to 15 September 2021. This is another reason why this date was chosen, even though it is close to the unexpected calling of elections in Slovakia on 30 September.
The main objectives are those of sharing the faith of the ecclesial communities, strengthening their communion, relaunching the message that the Holy Father left during the apostolic visit, praying together to Our Lady, on the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, the national Patroness, for the country and for the great intentions that are close to the Pope’s heart, first and foremost peace.
The trip also includes moments of dialogue with the country’s authorities and interaction with civil society to strengthen cooperation between the Holy See and Slovakia in order to promote values such as social justice, solidarity, fraternity and peace.
Q: Slovakia is a small country; what can it offer the world?
It seems to me that Pope Francis’ recent trip to Mongolia showed us clearly that we should not limit ourselves to numbers or the size of a reality to assess its importance and influence.
The same applies to Slovakia. Its small size does not prevent it from making a particularly significant contribution to the world and its transformation, linked to its rich history, its culture, its Christian heritage, its commitment to spiritual values and the promotion of mutual respect and civil and religious coexistence.
Q: Saints Cyril and Methodius are a great example of inculturation and synodality. How can we embody their message today?
The mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius, known as the ‘Fathers of the Slavic peoples’, and of St. Gorazd, their first disciple and St. Methodius’ successor in the episcopate, offers us an extraordinary testimony of how Christianity can successfully integrate into different cultures – a concept known, precisely, as ‘inculturation’.
It seems to me that relevant aspects for our times emerge from such a testimony, such as the appreciation of diversity in unity, mutual respect, the need for intercultural and interreligious dialogue, etc. These are the pillars on which a peaceful and inclusive society can be built.
But I would emphasise above all the effort to translate the contents of our faith into language accessible to our contemporaries and, above all, to the younger generations. All this requires a great capacity to listen to one another, which is the path of synodality in which Pope Francis has set us on.
Q: In Bratislava, Sastin and Klokocov there will be various celebrations, how important is it for the life of the Church to come together in prayer and then act in the world?
I already experienced the joy of participating in the liturgical celebrations during the Holy Father’s trip to Slovakia. It was a powerful and spiritually involving experience!
It will be very nice to repeat it: numerous, lively, prayerful, devout assemblies, celebrating their faith and nourishing it with listening to the Word of God, participation in the Sacraments, first and foremost the Eucharist, and devotion to the Virgin Mary, who has a special place in the religiosity of the Slovak people.
I truly hope that there will be many of us in Bratislava, in Sastin and in Klokocov to pray, and I extend an invitation to all to participate, to strengthen our adherence to the Lord, our love for Him, and to find the profound reasons for our commitment in the world, charity towards our neighbour, social justice and service to others, so that the Church can truly be a light for all and transform society with the leaven of the Gospel.
A federal judge declared unlawful a revised version of a program that offers protection from deportation to certain immigrants brought to the country as children. The program has been in place for more than a decade and has nearly 600,000 recipients.
In his Sept. 13 ruling, Texas-based U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen found that despite President Joe Biden’s administration taking measures to strengthen the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the deficiencies that led him to declare DACA unlawful in 2021 remain.
“While sympathetic to the predicament of DACA recipients and their families, this Court has expressed its concerns about the legality of the program for some time,” Hanen wrote. “The solution for these deficiencies lies with the legislature, not the executive or judicial branches.”
First implemented in 2012, the DACA program allows certain undocumented individuals who were brought to the United States as children — commonly known as “dreamers” — to be protected from deportation and be eligible to apply for work authorization.
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data published at the end of March, the current DACA population included 578,680 recipients. DACA recipients must apply for renewal every two years.
With his decision, Hanen blocked new enrollments to the program, but said the order does not affect those enrolled before the judge’s 2021 ruling.
“To be clear, neither this order nor the accompanying supplemental injunction requires the DHS or the Department of Justice to take any immigration, deportation or criminal action against any DACA recipient, applicant, or any other individual that would otherwise not be taken,” he wrote.
In the lawsuit that brought about this ruling, Texas and eight other states asked for the program to be stopped and argued that former President Barack Obama — who created the program by executive order — did not have the authority to do so.
Hanen stated that DACA is unlawful and that the rule violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how agencies can make regulations. The Biden administration appealed the judge’s decision in July 2021.
In October 2022, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Hanen’s 2021 ruling against DACA, but asked him to review the new regulations published by the Department of Homeland Security. The Sept. 13 decision follows that judgment.
In response to the October 2022 decision, Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville, then chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, issued a statement calling the development “troubling.”
He also reaffirmed the committee’s “solidarity with the Dreamers of this country whose lives and futures once again hang in the balance.”
“We implore Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, to provide a permanent solution for all Dreamers out of respect for their God-given dignity,” he said. “Until we have that solution, each new challenge to the DACA program creates further uncertainty and anguish for hundreds of thousands of people and their families.
“Dreamers are integral members of our communities,” he continued. “For many, the United States is the only home they know. But despite their daily contributions to the welfare of our nation, Dreamers are not afforded the same liberties as their native-born neighbors. This is a grave injustice unbefitting a moral society, and it must be remedied without further delay.”
The Sept. 13 ruling is expected to be appealed and, ultimately, go to the U.S. Supreme Court — which would mark the third time the program’s fate is before the high court.
Pope Francis will discuss how to address the world’s pressing issues with former President Bill Clinton to open this year’s Clinton Global Initiative, organizers announced Thursday.
The pontiff will discuss broad issues — including climate change, the refugee crisis, the welfare of children — during an onstage videoconference with Clinton Monday morning, while also telling attendees about specific projects like the work of Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Italy. The two-day conference will take place in New York on Monday and Tuesday, as leaders in politics, business and philanthropy gather to work on potential solutions to global concerns.
A conversation between U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was also added to the conference Thursday, along with panels featuring Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, Alphabet and Google President Ruth Porat, and NBA Hall of Famer and philanthropist Dwyane Wade.
They join previously announced “leaders, innovators and dreamers” including World Bank President Ajay Banga, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres and Ford Foundation CEO Darren Walker, as well as A-list actors and philanthropists Orlando Bloom, Matt Damon and Ashley Judd. The annual conference, which returned last year after a six-year hiatus, is focused on securing commitments to address climate change, health care issues, gender-based violence, the war in Ukraine and other issues.
“Every day, billions of people around the world, even in the face of the most dire circumstances, make a profound decision to choose hope and keep going,” former President Bill Clinton told The Associated Press in an emailed statement last month. “At CGI, we’re focusing on how to move forward in the face of daunting challenges—to act now, find new partners, and stick with it to make a positive difference in people’s lives.”
Pope Francis is set to speak via remote link at the 2023 Clinton Global Initiative in New York, which will be attended by Patrons of the Bambino Gesu Hospital.
By Vatican News
The Holy See Press Office informed journalists on Thursday that Pope Francis will take part in the 2023 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), taking place on 18-19 September in New York.
The Pope will address participants via remote link at the start of the event on Monday, at 9:15 ET or 3:15 PM Rome time (GMT+2).
He is expected to speak about several global topics, including climate change, the refugee crisis, the welfare of children, and the mission and projects of the Bambino Gesu Children’s Hospital.
Former US President Bill Clinton will kick off the CGI meeting, which will also be attended by Irfaan Ali, the President of Guyana, and Tony Blair, the former UK Prime Minister, among a host of other high-level international dignitaries.
Representatives of the Patrons of Bambino Gesu Hospital will take part in the CGI event.
The non-profit organization seeks to support the hospital’s humanitarian projects in the United States, including the Pediatric Palliative Care Center dedicated to incurable children.
According to a press release, the Bambino Gesu Hospital offers care free-of-charge to hundreds of children from all over the world, many of whom suffer from very severe health conditions.
“In the last 18 months, over two thousand Ukrainian patients, forced to leave their country to escape war, have been treated and hosted, together with their families,” read the statement.
The Vatican-owned pediatric hospital also runs healthcare training programs in 16 countries that seek to contribute to the human and professional growth of the local healthcare professionals.
The Patrons group also carries out fundraising to support the new Pediatric Palliative Care Center, inaugurated in 2022 in Passoscuro, on the coast of Lazio region, near Rome.
The care center is dedicated to children and adolescents with rare and incurable diseases, and with complex care needs.
Fr. Antonio Spadaro, S.J., will conclude his service as director of the Jesuit journal “La Civiltà Cattolica”, a position he has held since 2011. On October 1st, Fr. Nuno da Silva Gonçalves, S.J., will take on the role as new director. Pope Francis appoints Fr. Spadaro as a new undersecretary at the Dicastery for Culture and Education.
By Alessandro De Carolis
Pope Francis has described La Civiltà Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal founded in 1850, as “one-of-a-kind” that has lived through “an extremely complex and eventful epoch in the life of the world.” In words he noted last June, he describes how the journal aims to speak to everyone in “a world divided, wounded and in need of healing, peace and reconciliation.”
With this mission and hope in mind came the announcement on 14 September of the new director, Fr. Nuno da Silva Gonçalves, S.J., who will take over on October 1st from Fr. Antonio Spadaro, S.J., who has headed the journal since 2011. Pope Francis today also appointed Fr. Spadaro as a new undersecretary at the Dicastery for Culture and Education.
Fr. Antonio Spadaro, S.J.
The new editor-in-chief of the journal, appointed today by the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Fr. Arturo Sosa Abascal, immediately sent a note to subscribers and readers saying they are at the centre of their daily work and form a community with whom the journal wishes to strengthen ties and deepen mutual knowledge. La Civiltà Cattolica, Fr. Da Silva Gonçalves assures, wishes to offer everyone “a message of hope, engaging in a Christian reading of today’s world and with an eye to the future.”
In issue 4,158 of La Civiltà Cattolica, which comes out on 16 September, Fr. Spadaro offers his farewell. Under his direction the Jesuit jounral has crossed various historical milestones, such as the publication of issue 4,000 and the celebration of the journal’s 170th anniversary. Father Spadaro writes: “I conclude my service with enormous gratitude for the experience I have experienced and I pass on my responsibility with a certain amount of relief, but also with a touch of nostalgia for a task carried out with passion that has allowed me to experience wonderful years and working together with my Jesuit brethren in the editorial staff and around the world – more than 200 people – who have worked hard to make La Civiltà Cattolica a truly special publication.”
La Civiltà Cattolica was originlly published only in Italian. Fr. Spadaro expanded the journal’s outreach by launching its publication in other languages over the years that now number eight: Chinese, Korean, English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese.
The role of the Christian faith and Catholic Church, and the war in Ukraine, were among the items discussed during Pope Francis’ encounter with King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium in the Vatican on Thursday.
By Deborah Castellano Lubov
Pope Francis received King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium on Thursday morning in the Vatican, according to a statement from the Holy See Press Office.
Following the audience with the Pope, the Belgian King and Queen met with Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, in the offices of the Secretariat of State.
During the meeting, the statement noted, “satisfaction was expressed at the good relations between the Holy See and Belgium, highlighting the role of Christian faith and the Catholic Church.”
The discussions, the communiqué concluded, primarily focused on matters of common interest and some issues of an international nature, with special reference to Africa, the war in Ukraine, and commitment to peace among peoples.
The Belgian royals had traveled to the Vatican in early January to attend the funeral Mass of late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who passed away 31 December 2022.
The importance of Christians working together to promote goodness in a world facing constant challenges has been highlighted by speakers at the 13th Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation underway in Krakow, Poland, on 13-19 September.
By Deborah Castellano Lubov
The Thirteenth Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) is underway in Krakow, Poland, on 13-19 September 2023, and has highlighted the great value in Christians working together.
Alastair Dutton, Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis, offered the Assembly warm regards and assured the prayers of the whole Confederation of the Catholic Church’s humanitarian organization, and its 162 national Caritas Members, working in more than 200 territories.
Mr. Dutton expressed how important it was to him to be at the LWF assembly in person “to emphasise the importance of our ecumenical relationships in our service of the poorest and most marginalised,” and “our quest to build a just world where everyone experiences and knows the love of God in the practical realities of their daily lives.”
While recalling there is one body of Christ, he said, “as Christians we jointly manifest the love of Christ in the world today. We are His eyes, His ears and His hands. Together, we are the people of God building the Kingdom of God.”
Recognizing the great inequality, increasing conflict and war, and the climate emergency, among other “colossal challenges,” said Mr. Dutton, we must not become despondent, but as “people of faith, “find an unquenchable hope that a better world is possible.”
“And by working together, we can contribute more effectively to making this world better,” he said.
The President of the Lutheran World Federation, Archbishop Dr. Panti Filibus Musa, urged delegates at the Assembly’s opening to hold on to unity and hope in their common journey.
Dr. Musa, who is the Archbishop of the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria, acknowledged that in this world “crowded with diverse voices and the risk of division,” Churches must continue to practice “respectful listening” to remain beacons “of hope amidst complexity, uncertainty and changing ideologies.”
Keynote speaker Monsignor Tomáš Halík urged participants to embrace greater ecumenism, saying “the ecumenism of the 21st century, he continued, must go much further than the ecumenism of the previous one.”
Christianity today, suggested the Czech-born Catholic theologian, needs “to transcend existing mental and institutional, confessional, cultural and social boundaries in order to fulfil its universal mission.”
Christians, he said, must be “witnesses to the ongoing resurrection of the Giver of Hope,” by working for a spiritual renewal that goes beyond national, religious, social or cultural boundaries.
He also warned against corruption, and called for high moral standing.
Msgr. Halík said that where countries suffered “the dark night of communist persecution,” in central and eastern Europe, Churches have an important role to play in the process of reconciliation.
“Democracy cannot be established and sustained merely by changing political and economic conditions,” but require “a certain moral and spiritual climate,” he said.
The Apostolic Nuncio to India is set to dedicate St. Michael’s Shrine in Andhra Pradesh, as the parish celebrates 80 years of service to the Roman Catholic community in Guntur Diocese.
By Sr. Prasanthi Mandapati, SCN
St. Michael’s Church in Pedavadlapudi is commemorating 80 years of service to the Roman Catholic faithful in the village. The church is part of the Guntur Diocese in the Southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
The existence of the Catholic Church in Pedavadlapudi began in 1902. It was a mission church under a nearby parish. In the early years, the faithful gathered in a little hut for the Eucharistic celebration.
Then, in 1940, the mission was designated as a parish and called St. Michael’s Church. As the parish’s population increased, the foundation for the new church was laid in 1942.
The old Church of St. Michael’s in Pedavadlapudi, Guntur, India
Many priests and religious worked tirelessly to make the parish a home of faith. The church celebrated its golden jubilee in 1992 and its platinum jubilee in 2016. At present, St. Michael’s Church serves around 4,000 parishioners.
In addition to parish activities, the church administers four parish institutions: three parish schools and an orphanage. The parish had 16 mission churches adjoining Pedavadlapudi. However, two of those have been classified as parishes.
Despite its historical significance, St. Michael’s Church lacked any notable amenities. It is the diocese’s only church named after St. Michael.
Since the church building built in the 1942 was in need of extensive repairs, Fr. Kiran Kumar Vunam, the parish priest at the time, worked relentlessly to fulfil the dream of building an international shrine dedicated to St. Michael in Pedavadlapudi.
After conferring with the bishop, Fr. Kiran set to work with the help of local parishioners.
Bishop Bhagyaiah Chinnabathini, of Guntur Diocese, laid the foundation for the new church in 2018. As a result of Fr. Kiran’s international fundraising endeavors, the small Catholic community became well-known in many parts of the world.
In an interview with the Vatican, Fr. Kiran said “Bishop Chinnabathini was the source of the idea of building a shrine in the parish. Along with his proposals, he directed us in every step of the construction of the magnificent church dedicated to St. Michael in the diocese. The church’s faithful are ever grateful to the bishop for his efforts in support of the Church’s prosperity.”
St. Michael’s Shrine is almost finished with its construction.
On 18 September 2023, the Apostolic Nuncio to India, Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli, will dedicate and bless St. Michael’s Church. The bishops of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh will join in the Eucharistic celebration on that day.
The diocese of Guntur looks forward to welcoming the Apostolic Nuncio, along with 13 bishops and priests, religious, and faithful from the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, for the celebration.
File photo of Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli
Fr. Nallapati Showry, the current parish priest of St. Michael’s Church, also spoke to Vatican News about the importance of this moment in the life of the local Church.
“I feel privileged to be here at this historic moment for the parish and Guntur diocese,” he said. “I have witnessed difficulties and problems in completing the church. My heart overflows with gratitude to God for his grace on all the people who labored for the Church. I have faith that anyone who comes to the place will experience God’s presence as they seek comfort. May St. Michael protect the diocese, families, and parish.”
Fr. Nallapati Showry, the parish priest of St. Michael’s Church,Pedavadlapudi
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