Month: April 2021

 

WASHINGTON (CNS) – Msgr. Kieran Harrington, vicar of communications for the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, has been named national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States.

The five-year appointment was announced April 14 by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, which oversees the work of more than 120 national mission societies around the world.

Msgr. Harrington succeeds Oblate Father Andrew Small, who is completing his second five-year term as the national director of the four organizations that make up the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States.

“I am humbled by the trust placed in me to serve the church in this most important area of missionary evangelization,” said Msgr. Harrington, who added that he looks forward to “working with the bishops and dioceses to support the pastoral work of the pontifical missions.”

Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio said in a statement the selection of Msgr. Harrington for this position “is the absolute right choice.” He noted that there has “always been an extraordinary desire within him to bring the good news of Jesus Christ, and the Christian faith, to the people not only of his parish, but throughout the world.”

He said the priest brings to the role a “deep faith and motivation to evangelize” and that the church will benefit because of his “devotion to Our Lord, and to the people the Catholic Church is called to serve.”

On July 1, Father Small will officially continue his work as president and CEO of Missio Invest, a group he founded in 2014 to help fund the social service efforts of the Catholic Church in Africa through Missio Invest Social Impact Fund.

He said he has gotten to know Msgr. Harrington in the past 10 years and is “delighted that someone of such ability and passion has been chosen as the next national director of the Holy Father’s mission societies.”

Msgr. Harrington was ordained in 2001 and has been vicar of communications for the Diocese of Brooklyn since 2006.

As vicar, he has been responsible for overseeing the diocesan public information and affairs office and its government affairs and public policy office as well as supervising NET, the diocese’s cable station, and The Tablet, the diocesan newspaper. The priest also is rector of the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph in Brooklyn.

He told Catholic News Service April 13 he was very grateful for the opportunity “to be involved in this important ministry in the life of the church” noting that the “missionary impulse” is at the heart of the baptismal call for all Catholics and that the Pontifical Mission Societies aims to “awaken that missionary spirit.”

His own sense of the missionary role of the church goes back to when he was young and his Irish immigrant parents in New York had visiting Irish Holy Ghost Fathers come to the house, where they would celebrate Mass and take up a collection for the church in Biafra, which at the time was a secessionist state in West Africa and today is part of Nigeria.

He said these priests made a big impression on him just by their “essence of missionary spirit.”

And now, as he prepares to follow a missionary outreach, Msgr. Harrington said he hopes to be able to discuss with the nation’s bishops and diocesan directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies the best ways to continue to tell the story of the church’s outreach around the world.

“Amazing things are being done,” he said, noting the church’s mission work is not just about humanitarian projects but also about communicating the faith.

A key part of continuing this work, he added, is to help Catholics in developing nations or struggling areas to know “they are not alone: The whole church is praying with them, walking with them.”

Father Small similarly stressed the church’s mission work was one of solidarity with the church around the world and said the work of the Pontifical Mission Societies has done just that from its founding in 1916 to now.

“It is as important as ever to lift the voices no one has access to … the church no one sees,” he told CNS.

And over the years, the Pontifical Mission Societies has found new ways to communicate its message, from the television work of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen — who was its national director from 1950 to 1966 and is a sainthood candidate who has been declared “Venerable” — to the digital outreach under Father Small’s direction.

The Oblate priest has overseen the group’s online curriculum in mission theology and its creation of the Missio USA “MassBot” which enabled users to request the offering of a Mass for their intentions and receive messages from the missionary priest who celebrated the Mass as well as online updates of global missionary work.

Father Small said in his 10 years with Pontifical Mission Societies, the organization focused on new ways to communicate the Gospel message by hiring people with backgrounds in youth and young adult ministries and also by providing more bilingual materials.

He is particularly proud of the work of Missio Invest, initially formed under the umbrella of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States until it became separately incorporated in 2018.

He said the group pursues the same goals as the pope’s missionary groups but in different ways which he said was like “the new kid on the missionary block.”

Its peer-to-peer crowd funding platform, which means funds go directly to recipients, has already provided 40 loans of $4.5 million to agriculture, businesses, schools and microfinance institutions owned and operated by the Catholic Church in several African countries.

The Pontifical Mission Societies — www.onefamilyinmission.org — includes the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, the Holy Childhood Association, the Society of St. Peter Apostle, and the Missionary Union of Priests and Religious.

 

WASHINGTON (CNS) – The decision by the acting commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to suspend enforcement of the agency’s in-person prescribing requirement for the abortion drug endangers women’s health and possibly their lives, pro-life leaders said.

On April 12, Dr. Janet Woodcock said the FDA will “exercise enforcement discretion” regarding its own requirement that is part of the risk management program for mifepristone as long as President Joe Biden’s declaration of a public health emergency for COVID-19 remains in place.

The brand name for mifepristone is Mifeprex. Also called RU-486, it is used to end pregnancies during the first 10 weeks.

Woodcock said making women pick up the drug may increase their risk of contracting COVID-19, FDA said, so it will temporarily allow clinics to distribute the drug via telemedicine, directly by mail or through a mail-order pharmacy.

FDA regulations also required patients to sign a form acknowledging risks associated with the drug before they could receive it in person.

“The FDA’s announcement yesterday that they plan to lift safety restrictions that govern the dispensing of medication abortions makes women’s health simply a pawn in the effort to push for more abortion,” Dr. Christina Francis, chair of the American Association of Pro-Life OB/GYNs, said in an April 13 statement.

Francis said her organization “represents approximately 7,000 women’s health care practitioners who will not allow our patients’ lives to be put in jeopardy in order to appease the abortion industry and their allies.”

“An in-person visit is medically necessary and sound medical practice because it ensures that every woman receives a full evaluation for any contraindications to a medication abortion,” she said.

She said a recent analysis of adverse events submitted to the FDA with the safety regulations in place “shows over 3,000 women suffering with complications, of which 24 of these women died, and another 500 would have died if they had not reached emergency medical care in time.”

These numbers “will only increase” with the current safety regulations removed, she added.

“The Biden administration makes catastrophic loss of life by mail its legacy in choosing to weaken the minimal health and safety in place to protect women from the deadly consequences of chemical abortion pills,” said Students for Life Action, a sister organization of Students for Life of America.

“Sending deadly pills through the mail without any prescreening or follow-up care is convenient and cost effect for corporate abortion, but women will pay the price along with countless preborn infants,” the organization said April 13, adding that the abortion drug now ends over 40% “of preborn life.”

In July 2020, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland agreed to suspend a rule that requires women during the COVID-19 pandemic to visit a hospital, clinic or medical office to obtain an abortion pill.

He concluded that the “in-person requirements” for patients seeking medication abortion care impose a “substantial obstacle” to women seeking an abortion and are likely unconstitutional under the circumstances of the pandemic.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and other groups sued the FDA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in May 2020 to challenge the in-person dispensing rule arguing it infringed on a woman’s lawful right to obtain an abortion.

In his ruling, Chuang said suspending the requirements aligns with public health guidance to eliminate unnecessary travel and in-person contact.

The Trump administration appealed the ruling and on Jan. 12, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the federal requirement that women who are seeking abortion-inducing drugs must do so in person, not by mail.

 

 

Each year, on the Second Sunday of Easter, the Church celebrates the Sunday of Divine Mercy.

Mankind’s need for the message of Divine Mercy took on dire urgency in the 20th century, when civilization began again to lose the understanding of the sanctity and inherent dignity of every human life.

In the 1930s, Jesus chose a humble Polish nun, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, to receive private revelations concerning His Divine Mercy that were recorded in her Diary.

Saint Faustina’s Diary records 14 occasions when Jesus requested that a Feast of Mercy be observed.

On May 5, 2000, five days after the canonization of Saint Faustina, the Vatican decreed that the Second Sunday of Easter would henceforth be known as the Sunday of Divine Mercy.

Divine Mercy Sunday focuses on the gift of mercy and love given through Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. As Pope John Paul II stated, “Divine Mercy reaches human beings through the heart of Christ crucified.”

 

 

Christians are never alone in prayer but instead are accompanied by myriad saints who protect them and seek God’s intercession, Pope Francis said.

Whenever men or women open their hearts to God, they will always be in the “company of anonymous and recognized saints who pray with us and who intercede for us as older brothers and sisters who have preceded us on this same human adventure,” the pope said April 7 during his weekly general audience.

Continuing his series of talks on prayer, the pope reflected on the connection between prayer and the communion of saints who are “not far from us” and are a reminder of Jesus Christ because they have also “walked the path of life” as Christians.

“In the church, there is no mourning that remains solitary, no tear that is shed in oblivion, because everything breathes and participates in a common grace,” he said.

The tradition of having graveyards around churches is a sign of that sharing, he said. It is “as if to say that every Eucharist is attended in some way by those who have preceded us. There are our parents and grandparents, our godfathers and godmothers, our catechists and other educators,” who have not only transmitted faith but also “the way of praying.”

The saints, he explained, are “witnesses that we do not adore — that is understood, we do not worship these saints -– but whom we venerate and who in thousands of different ways bring us to Jesus Christ, the only Lord and mediator between God and human beings.”

Departing from his prepared remarks, the pope said the lives of saints also serve as a reminder that “even in our lives, though weak and marked by sin, holiness can blossom.”

“In the Gospels, we read that the first ‘canonized’ saint was a thief and he was ‘canonized’ not by a pope, but by Jesus himself,” he said. “Holiness is a path of life, of encounter with Jesus, whether long or short, or in an instant, but always a witness” of God’s love.

The pope also highlighted the need for Christians to pray for one another, which is “the first way of loving” others.

In times of tension, he said, “one way to dissolve the conflict, to soften it, is to pray for the person with whom I am in conflict. Something changes with prayer; the first thing that changes is my heart, my attitude. The Lord changes it to make an encounter possible, a new encounter, and prevents the conflict from becoming a war without end.”

Pope Francis said the first thing people must do in times of anguish is to ask “our brothers and sisters, the saints above all, to pray for us” because they will “give us hand to obtain from God the graces we need most.”

Christians who “have not reached the breaking point” and persevere in times of trial perhaps owe it to the intercession of the saints who are not only in heaven, but also the holy men and women here on earth, the pope added.

“They don’t know it, neither do we, but there are saints, everyday saints, hidden saints or as I like to say the ‘saints next door,’ those who live in life with us, who work with us, and lead a life of holiness,” he said.

 

WASHINGTON (CNS) — On World Health Day, April 7, a new group of 31 U.S. Catholic organizations encouraged people to get the COVID-19 vaccine as an act of charity and solidarity with others.

The group also emphasized the need for vaccine equity in the United States and around the world.

“This is a clarion call for us to act,” said Mercy Sister Mary Haddad, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, noting the significance of announcing formation of the group on World Health Day and stressing the role faith-based providers can play as the world makes initial steps to recover from the global pandemic.

She said the pandemic has shown us that “we are so interconnected as a global community; we can’t just act in isolation.”

Sister Haddad said this new coalition represents all social ministries of the church coming together and is a chance to elevate the work they do and to show how they serve everyone, not just the Catholic population.

She also said it is a way for ministries to respond to this ongoing pandemic at a time when people, other than those in health care ministries, are looking for ways they can help.

“Our faith propels us to act and here is our chance to do that,” she told Catholic News Service April 7.

The coalition includes the CHA, Catholic Charities USA, Catholic Relief Services and Jesuit Refugee Service along with religious orders and groups representing church ministries in education, chaplaincy, advocacy and mission work.

It aims to spread the word about the importance of the COVID-19 vaccine through each group’s social media platforms and also on the coalition’s website: www.catholiccares.com, which has resources from Catholic social teaching, words of Pope Francis and statements from the U.S. Catholic bishops about the moral responsibility to get vaccinated.

The group also is emphasizing the need to make sure the vaccine gets to everyone, particularly communities of color, those in rural areas and places with limited vaccine availability. It also is stressing the urgency of vaccine access in developing countries and among refugees and displaced persons.

Leaders of Catholic organizations that are part of this coalition issued statements about its importance in press materials issued April 7.

Sean Callahan, president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services, said the pandemic and its “shadow pandemics of hunger and poverty are ravishing many countries around the world” and said the most vulnerable “deserve the same access to life saving vaccines that we have.”

He also said the common good “requires that we make vaccine access equitable globally since we can only defeat this virus here if we defeat it everywhere.”

CRS is the U.S. bishops’ overseas relief and development agency.

Dominican Sister Donna Markham, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, noted the early Christians demonstrated a “profound sense of community and concern for those in need,” which are just as important today “especially during this challenging moment as we seek to emerge from the pandemic.”

“Each of us plays a part by getting vaccinated and practicing safety measures for the good of all, and by doing everything we can to ensure that those who are most in need have access to the vaccine and protective equipment,” she said.

Sister Haddad pointed out that early on, even in the previous White House administration, she had been involved in Zoom calls about how faith groups could respond with the expected vaccine rollout amid a reported vaccine hesitancy.

Now, further in the vaccine rollout, she noted there is not just hesitancy about the COVID-19 vaccine, “but downright resistance.”

Looking at how to break through that and change behaviors, she said, often means tapping into belief systems and asking: “What does our faith call us to do? How do we care for others?”

The Mercy sister at the helm of an organization with more than 2,200 Catholic hospitals, nursing homes, long-term care facilities, systems, sponsors and related organizations in the United States, was part of a roundtable discussion on this very topic March 31 with faith leaders and Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Everyone is talking about this, not just Catholics, but this is our opportunity to rise to the occasion,” she said.