Month: April 2023

Editor Note: The Final Document for the Continental Stage in North America, available in English, Spanish and French, can be viewed and downloaded at usccb.org/synod

(OSV News) – The final document for the North American phase of the 2021-2024 Synod on Synodality was released April 12, capturing a process of dialogue and discernment that two participants described as ‘messy,’ ‘joyful’ and unifying – like the synod itself.

“It’s amazing what comes about when … you invoke the Holy Spirit in the conversation,” Julia McStravog, a theologian and co-coordinator of the North American team for the synod’s continental phase, told OSV News.

“The synodal approach provoked a genuine appreciation and joyfulness on the part of the people of God to be able to engage in conversation, even if they were talking about difficult issues,” team co-coordinator Richard Coll told OSV News. Coll also serves as executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development.

Led by Catholic bishops from Canada and the United States, McStravog, Coll and their fellow team members have now synthesized the results of synod listening sessions throughout the two countries, producing a 36-page fInal document available for download at usccb.org/synod. (According to the USCCB, the Catholic Church in Mexico is participating in the global synod with the Latin American Episcopal Council, or CELAM, given its long partnership with that conference.)

The North American synod team — consisting of eight bishops, three laywomen, two priests, two laymen and two women religious — spent time in prayer, silence and discussion to distill responses for inclusion in the text, which forms a response to the Document for the Continental Stage issued by the Holy See’s General Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops in October 2022.

The final document for the continental stage from North America, along with the contributions of the six other continental assemblies, will form the basis of the “Instrumentum Laboris,” the global synod’s working document, to be released by the General Secretariat in June.

Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Doctrine, who leads the North American team with Canadian Bishop Raymond Poisson of Saint-Jérôme-Mont-Laurier, Quebec, presented the document at the Vatican April 12.

Launched by Pope Francis in October 2021, the multi-year synod of bishops — the theme of which is “communion, participation and mission” — seeks to cultivate an ongoing dynamic of discernment, listening, humility and engagement within the Catholic Church.

The North American report highlighted three key themes: the implications of baptism, communion with Christ and one another, and missionary discipleship as a living out of the baptismal calling.

“Our baptismal dignity is inseparable from our baptismal responsibility, which sends us forth on mission,” the document stated. “Every human person possesses the dignity that comes from being created in the image of God. Through baptism, Christians share in an exalted dignity and vocation to holiness, with no inequality based on race, nationality, social condition, or sex, because we are one in Christ Jesus.”

By virtue of their baptism, participants in the synod’s North American phase expressed “a desire for a greater recognition of, and opportunities for, co-responsibility within the church and her mission,” with greater collaboration “among the laity and the clergy, including bishops,” said the document. It stressed “there can be no true co-responsibility in the church without fully honoring the dignity of women.”

An “authentic acknowledgment and respect for the gifts and talents of young people is another vital aspect of a co-responsible church in North America,” said the document.

Amid “polarization and a strong pull towards fragmentation,” synod participants in North America emphasized the need to “maintain the centrality of Christ,” especially in the Eucharist.

The document candidly acknowledged that a “significant threat to communion within the church is a lack of trust, especially between bishops and the laity, but also between the clergy in general and the lay faithful.”

The clergy sexual abuse crisis in particular has caused “major areas of tension in North America,” as have “the historical wrongs found in the residential (and) boarding schools for Indigenous people, which … included abuse of all kinds,” said the document.

In their introduction to the document, Bishop Flores and Bishop Poisson admitted the need to “(make) efforts to listen more effectively to those from whom we have not heard, including many who have been relegated to the margins of our communities, society and church.” They noted their “absence” in the synodal process was “not easily interpreted but was palpably felt.”

Among those often missing from synodal sessions were priests, with bishops acknowledging their responsibility to address that lack “by example and by conveying the transparency and spiritual/pastoral fruitfulness of synodality.”

Synod participants listed women, young people, immigrants, racial or linguistic minorities, LGBTQ+ persons, people who are divorced and civilly remarried without an annulment, and those with varying degrees of physical or mental abilities as marginalized within the church.

Outreach and inclusion of these groups is ultimately driven at the local level by the faithful actively living out their baptism, McStravog told OSV News.

At the same time, “the bishops really took to heart the call … to reach out to the periphery,” Coll told OSV News, who added that virtual synod sessions enabled broader participation.

Synod participants consistently articulated a longing for better formation in the faith and in Catholic social teaching, the document said.

As the synod process moves into its next phase, Coll and McStravog pointed to the need for humility and openness to God’s will.

“We don’t have all the answers, and none of this is pre-packaged,” said Coll. “You have to trust that the Spirit will be there to guide us despite the messiness — or maybe because of it.”

(OSV News) – At least 52,250 people have been killed over the last 14 years in Nigeria just for being Christian, a new report published April 10 revealed.

The report, titled “Martyred Christians in Nigeria” and published by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), which is headquartered in Eastern Nigeria, says 30,250 of those have been killed since 2015, when President Muhhamadu Buhari came to power. The report blames what it calls Buhari’s radical Islamism for those killings. Approximately 34,000 moderate Muslims were also butchered or hacked to death within the same period.

At this point, 2023 is not looking any better, with the report revealing that 1,041 “defenseless Christians” were slaughtered in the first 100 days — that is from Jan. 1 to April 10. Within the same period, at least 707 Christians were kidnapped.

The report further indicates that under President Buhari, 18,000 Christian Churches and 2,200 Christian schools were incinerated.

The attacks on Christians have also led to significant problems with regard to people being forced to flee from their homes. While more than 50 million Christians, mostly in Northern Nigeria, face “serious jihadist threats for being professed Christians,” no fewer than “14 million have been uprooted and 8 million forced to flee their homes to avoid being hacked to death,” the report says.

About “5 million have been displaced and forced into Internally Displaced Peoples’ (IDP) camps within Nigeria and refugee camps at regional and sub-regional borders.”

The sheer number of Christians and moderate Muslims killed or displaced has sent chills down the spines of many, including Andrew Boyd, spokesman for Release International, which serves the persecuted church in some 30 countries. He described the report’s finding as “a staggering death toll.”

“It is absolutely appalling that so many Christians are being targeted for their faith and killed in Nigeria, while the Nigerian government seems to stand by and let it happen. It is no less appalling that the international community appears content to stay on the sidelines and watch,” he told OSV News.

Meanwhile, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), in its own report, has given voice to the thousands of Christians persecuted for their faith in Nigeria.

Maryamu Joseph was just 7 years old when Boko Haram, a violent jihadi extremist organization, attacked her Bazza community and forcefully took her and 21 others to the Sambisa Forest, where she spent nine years. She only escaped in July 2022, and she told her story to ACN.

“Nine years of living in bondage! Nine years of torture! Nine years of agony! We suffered so much at the hands of these heartless, ruthless people,” she told ACN. “For nine years, we saw the shedding of the innocent blood of my fellow Christians, killed by people who do not value life. They murdered without remorse, like it’s a normal thing to do. These nine wasted years in the Sambisa Forest cannot be forgotten in a blink of an eye. Words cannot do justice to what I’ve gone through.”

Andrew Boyd said his organization has identified Nigeria as “a country of particular concern.” But the figures of those being killed in the tens of thousands, and the disheartening testimonies of survivors like Maryamu Joseph, “cry out more clearly than we ever could,” Boyd said. He said the statistics were no doubt appalling, but they weren’t surprising.

“Release International has been reporting year in and year out of the targeting of Christians in Nigeria by Islamist militants. Not only do Nigeria’s Christians face slaughter at the hands of Boko Haram and Islamic State, they are being killed daily by well-armed Fulani extremists,” Boyd told OSV News, referring to Fulani pastoralist people who have joined Islamist extremist groups.

He warned that there could be “a mass exodus of Christians from Africa’s most populous country unless the incoming Nigerian president takes urgent steps to protect Christians from the violence of these jihadists.”

He said his organization was working with partners on the ground in Nigeria “to provide support for suffering Christians.” This includes trauma counseling. “So many have lost members of their families and their homes. We are working with trusted partners to bring some comfort and support. We are raising their voices and their concerns around the world. And we will continue to do so,” Boyd stressed.

According to the Open Doors Watch List 2023, released on Jan. 17, Nigeria is one of the most dangerous places “to follow Jesus.” According to the report, Nigeria accounts for 89% of Christians martyred worldwide.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Sharing the Gospel requires literally “going out,” witnessing to the joy of faith in person and not just sitting at home, being “keyboard warriors” who argue with others online, Pope Francis said.

“One does not proclaim the Gospel standing still, locked in an office, at one’s desk or at one’s computer, arguing like ‘keyboard warriors’ and replacing the creativity of proclamation with copy-and-paste ideas taken from here and there,” the pope said April 12 during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.

Holding the audience during the Octave of Easter, with tens of thousands of daffodils and tulips still decorating the square, the pope continued his series of audience talks about “evangelical zeal,” looking at how that differs from pretending to share the Gospel while really just seeking attention or pushing one’s own ideas.

At the end of the audience, before leading prayers for peace in Ukraine, Pope Francis noted that April 11 was the 60th anniversary of St. John XXIII’s encyclical, “Pacem in Terris” (“Peace on Earth”).

The encyclical, he said, offered humanity “a glimpse of serenity in the midst of dark clouds” of high tension between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The document, published in 1963, is as relevant as ever, Pope Francis said, reading one line as an example: “Relations between states, as between individuals, must be regulated not by armed force, but in accordance with the principles of right reason: the principles, that is, of truth, justice and vigorous and sincere co-operation.”

In his main talk, the pope focused on the need for missionary disciples to be ready to set out and to be open to exploring new paths as they seek to share the Gospel through word and deed.

Departing from his prepared text, Pope Francis told people in the square, “I exhort you to be evangelizers who move, without fear, who go forward to share the beauty of Jesus, the newness of Jesus, who changes everything.”

The pope imagined someone replying to him that, “Yes, father, he changed the calendar because now we count years as ‘before Jesus'” and after.

But, even more, the pope said, Jesus “changes one’s heart.”

“Are you willing to let Jesus change your heart?” he asked those in the crowd. “Or are you a lukewarm Christian, who doesn’t move? Think about it a bit. Are you enthusiastic about Jesus and go forward? Think about it.”

“A herald is ready to go and knows that the Lord passes by in a surprising way,” the pope said, so one cannot be “fossilized” by human calculations about what is likely to be successful or by thoughts that “it has always been done this way.”

Being a missionary disciple means “not letting pass by the opportunities to promulgate the Gospel of peace, that peace that Christ knows how to give more and better than the world gives.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The women disciples, who were the first to meet the risen Jesus, offer a lesson to all Christians: “We encounter Jesus by giving witness to him,” Pope Francis said.

The entire city of Jerusalem had seen Jesus crucified on the cross, yet the women who find his tomb empty, run to share the good news that he is alive, the pope said before reciting the “Regina Coeli” prayer with visitors gathered in St. Peter’s Square April 10, Easter Monday, a public holiday in Rome.

The experience of the women disciples is a reminder, the pope said, that “when one encounters Jesus, no obstacle can prevent us from proclaiming him.”

“If instead we keep his joy for ourselves,” he said, “perhaps it is because we have not yet truly encountered him.”

Pope Francis also used the midday appointment to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended some 30 years of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.

“With a grateful spirit, I pray to the God of peace that what was achieved in that historic passage may be consolidated for the benefit of all men and women of the island of Ireland,” the pope said.

Pope Francis began his main talk, a commentary on the day’s Gospel reading, by asking people to think about why the risen Jesus appeared to the women disciples first.

It is simple, he said, the women were the first to go to Jesus’ tomb.

Even though they were mourning like all the disciples and frightened as well, “they do not stay home paralyzed by sadness and fear,” the pope said. They go to the tomb to anoint his body and “that gesture of love prevails over everything.”

The Gospel of Matthew says an angel tells the women that Christ has risen and, as the women are running to tell the disciples the news, “Jesus met them on their way and greeted them.”

Too often, the pope said, Christians seem to think they will keep Jesus closer to them if they don’t tell anyone about him. Or, at least, they will not have to face judgment, criticism or questions they don’t know how to answer.

But “this won’t do,” the pope said. Good news is meant to be shared.

Thinking of the women disciples, Pope Francis asked people in the square, “When was the last time you witnessed to Jesus?” and he prayed that Mary would “help us be joyful proclaimers of the Gospel.”

ROME (CNS) – Jesus never abandons anyone; he has come to save, serve and accompany everyone, Pope Francis told young inmates.

“If we listened to these (lessons) from Jesus, life would be so wonderful because we would rush to help one another instead of ripping off each other, taking advantage of each other like wise guys teach us,” he said in his homily during Mass at Rome’s Casal del Marmo prison for minors.

Helping others and lending a hand are “human, universal gestures, but they come from a noble heart. And Jesus today with this celebration wants to teach us this: nobility of the heart,” he said during the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper April 6.

Less than one week after he was discharged from the hospital for a respiratory infection, Pope Francis presided over the Mass and washed the feet of 12 young people of different nationalities, ethnicities and faiths, including a Muslim and two women, who are housed at the juvenile detention facility.

He entered and exited the chapel in a wheelchair and the pope’s master of liturgical ceremonies, Msgr. Diego Giovanni Ravelli, was the main celebrant at the altar.

However, during the rite of the foot washing, the pope stood and moved before the 12 inmates who were seated on a raised platform, like other years, so the pope did not have to kneel or stoop to gently wash, dry and kiss each foot.

The ceremony of washing another’s feet “is not something folkloric,” he said, explaining the ritual. It is a gesture that shows “how we are to be with one another.”

The pope talked about the worry or fear of not being worthy of such a gesture since “each of us can say, ‘But if the pope knew the things I have inside me…’. But Jesus knows about it, and he loves us as we are, and he washes the feet of each one of us.”

“Jesus is never frightened by our weaknesses, he is never frightened because he has already paid (for our sins),” Pope Francis said. “He only wants to accompany us, he wants to take us by the hand so that life will not be so hard for us.”

It is hard to see so many people in the world taking advantage of others, to see how many people are trapped in a situation with no way out, to see so many injustices and broken families, he said.

If anyone has avoided serious hardship, it is not because they are better than others, he said, “it’s because of God’s grace!”

“Every one of us can slip, each one of us. And this awareness, this certainty that each one of us can slip is what gives us the ‘dignity’ — listen to this word — the ‘dignity’ of being sinners,” the pope told the inmates. “And Jesus wants us that way and that’s why he wanted to wash our feet an say, ‘I have come to save you, to serve you.'”

Held in the prison’s small chapel, the Mass was the second of two Holy Thursday liturgies over which the pope presided, the first being a morning chrism Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The Casal del Marmo prison for minors was the same facility the pope visited 10 years ago, just 15 days after his election, when he broke with a papal Holy Week tradition of celebrating the evening Mass at a Rome basilica. The prison holds inmates who are between the ages of 15 and 25, although all were minors at the time of their sentencing.

Since becoming pope, he has chosen other prisons and different places for the ritual, like a rehabilitation center for people with severe physical disabilities and a center for migrants and refugees.

After the Mass, the pope blessed a plaque for the chapel that was dedicated to Blessed Pino Puglisi, an outspoken anti-Mafia priest in Palermo, Sicily, who was assassinated in 1993.

The pope greeted a number of young inmates who also gave him several gifts made in the prison: a wooden cross, cookies and pasta. The pope also distributed rosaries and chocolate eggs to some of the nearly 100 people at the Mass, including inmates, corrections officers and prison staff.