Category: 2024 News

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis blessed an ambulance filled with medicine and first-aid equipment that will travel some 1,800 miles from the Vatican to support those wounded in Ukraine.

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, papal almoner, will make his eighth trip into Ukraine to donate the ambulance and medical supplies to a hospital in the country’s Ternopil region, the Dicastery for the Charity Services announced June 24. The dicastery’s statement was accompanied by a picture of Pope Francis blessing the ambulance.

In Ternopil, “many convoys arrive every day which transport civilians and soldiers forced to flee the border area with Russia, where the fighting is most fierce,” the dicastery said. It will be the third ambulance the pope has sent to Ukraine, it said, and this one will also be “a valuable tool to support those rescuing injured people.”

During his trip, the cardinal will also inaugurate the St. John Paul II rehabilitation center on Pope Francis’ behalf “for the integral physical and psychological rehabilitation of those who have suffered war trauma,” it added.

The center and others like it, “desired by Pope Francis,” were built with the contribution of some pontifical foundations, such as Aid to the Church in Need and the Papal Foundation, the statement said.

The dicastery noted that the centers “are open to everyone without any distinction of faith, of nationality and without any exclusion.”

Additionally, it said that medicine will be made available not only to those who were injured in battle but also to their families and loved ones.

By donating the ambulance and medical supplies and establishing the rehabilitation center, Pope Francis “reminds us that faith is not disincarnate, but it takes upon itself the difficult situations of the most poor and fragile brothers and sisters,” the dicastery said in its statement. “These concrete gestures of compassion seek to clear the way for mercy to reach the grace of forgiveness.”

(OSV News) – A new study suggests that Catholic belief in the Real Presence may be higher than previous data indicated — but measuring that belief accurately remains a tricky task for researchers.

Regular Mass attendance, however, has emerged as a key factor in determining an individual’s belief in the Real Presence.

On June 3, Vinea Research, a Maryland-based market research firm that focuses on the Catholic Church in the U.S., released “Do Catholics Truly Believe in the Real Presence?” — which concluded that 69% of Mass-going Catholics believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Higher levels of belief correlated with more frequent Mass attendance, Vinea found.

Vinea’s seven-page report revisited a landmark 2019 survey by Pew Research that found only 31% of Catholics in the U.S. believed that “during Catholic Mass, the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus.” Pew reported at the time that among Catholics attending Mass at least once a week, 63% believed in transubstantiation — the theological term used to describe the change of the Eucharistic bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ — but another 37% believed “the bread and wine are symbols.”

Yet the wording of Pew’s question was problematic, as were the response options, said Vinea founder and president Hans Plate, who has extensive experience in conducting market research for pharmaceutical and health care industries.

The Pew study “actually gave (survey participants) two responses that were both partially correct,” Plate told OSV News.

Pew had posed two questions — one knowledge-based, the other belief-oriented — about the Eucharist. In the first, Pew had asked respondents, “Which of the following best describes Catholic teaching about the bread and wine used for Communion?” and asked them to select if the bread and wine “actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ” or “are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” A percentage of the survey takers indicated they were not sure (10%) or had no answer (1%).

In the second question, Pew asked, “Regardless of the official teaching of the Catholic Church, what do you personally believe about the bread and wine used for Communion?” with participants replying that during the Mass, the bread and wine “actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ” or “are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.”

Plate told OSV News that “not only did (Pew) phrase the question wrong … but they actually gave (survey participants) two responses that were both partially correct. They weren’t even mutually exclusive. … I don’t think they had any bad intentions, but they just didn’t know any better.”

Instead, said Plate, the questions needed to be phrased to better align with Catholic teaching, which — as Jesuit Father Thomas Gaunt, executive director of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, told OSV News — holds that the bread and wine are “true Presence and symbol at the same time.”

“All sacraments are symbols,” said Father Gaunt, whose organization teamed up with the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame for a 2023 national survey on Eucharistic belief among adult Catholics in the U.S.

That report – which found 64% of respondents expressed belief in the Real Presence, based on collective assessments of both open- and closed-ended questions for each participant, with Mass attendance proving significant in positive responses – used questions that “better expressed the church’s teachings around Real Presence and transubstantiation,” wrote McGrath’s associate director for research Timothy O’Malley in an October 2023 commentary.

Vinea’s rewrite of the Pew questions rendered the options for both the knowledge-based and belief questions as as “Jesus Christ is truly present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist,” “Bread and wine are symbols of Jesus, but Jesus is not truly present,” or “Not sure.”

The Vinea study split its sample of over 2,000 Catholics — defined as age 18 or older, who attended Mass “at least once,” Plate told OSV News, on a basis ranging from “seldom” to “a few times a year” to “more than once a week” — and administered Pew’s language to half, with the remaining half answering Vinea’s revised questions.

Father Gaunt told OSV News the Vinea study “is confirming pretty much what we found” in the McGrath-CARA study.

“They highlighted again that the issue is the way Pew phrased the question was not clear enough,” said Father Gaunt. “And so when you correct for that, you get a very different response rate.”

But Gregory A. Smith, associate director of research at Pew, told OSV News his firm’s question phrasing “has a number of strengths,” as it “gives people two plausible alternatives to choose from.

“That’s really important because of something survey researchers call ‘acquiescence bias,'” whereby respondents, given a choice to either agree or disagree with a statement, “tend to prefer to express agreement rather than disagreement,” explained Smith, who has not studied the Vinea findings.

Smith also said the Pew questioning is “quite neutral,” which is “very important.”

“I am aware that there have been some other surveys that have added a clause to the second statement … modifying the second statement so that it would be (to the effect), ‘The bread and wine symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, but Jesus is not really present.’ We would not ask that kind of question, because you’re asking Christians to deny the real presence of Jesus. … I would be concerned that (phrasing) would cue respondents into a particular kind of answer that they might think the researcher is looking for.”

Smith said that even with Pew’s wording aside, “more crucially, the patterns that we see in our data are meaningful … and they’re what you might expect to see, if you assume that practicing Catholics are going to be the most likely to believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. That is exactly what we see in our data.”

Both he and Plate cautioned their studies were not directly comparable, given the differences in sampling (selecting a subset of a given population for research) and weighting, which ensures the sample accurately reflects the makeup of the larger population.

Vinea noted in its report that Pew’s sampling approach of “probability sampling” is “the gold standard method for obtaining a representative set of survey respondents.” In contrast, Vinea worked with ThinkNow, a consumer panel company.

“However, the magnitude of difference in results does allow us to make inferences between the two approaches,” the Vinea report said.

More broadly, researchers may find themselves increasingly having to account for how Catholics in the U.S. identify themselves as such, given polarization within the church and in society.

More than a decade ago, Brian Starks — a sociologist of religion at Kennesaw State University who specializes in the study of Catholic identity — noted that greater in-depth research was needed on self-identification terms such as “traditional,” “moderate” and “liberal” Catholic, since such identities represent “self-understood divisions within the Catholic Church, and serve to institutionalize intrafaith conflicts.”

ROME (CNS) – The diversity of the Catholic Church in the United States requires that it develop a culturally sensitive approach to preventing abuse, a safeguarding expert said.

Although the U.S. church, like the church in Europe, has structures in place to promote safeguarding to a higher degree than churches with less resources, “there are cultural aspects that need to be taken into account,” Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, president of the Pontifical Gregorian University’s Institute of Anthropology: Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care, said.

“The more diverse a society is and a local church is, the more it needs to respect the different cultures, languages, habits, mentalities that are represented,” he told Catholic News Service June 18 on the sidelines of an international safeguarding conference hosted by the institute.

Given the diversity within the U.S. church, it must “be aware that there are different types of (ways) how you establish relationships, how you interact and express yourself, in different parts of the world,” Father Zollner said.

According to a 2023 report by the Pew Research Center, 57% of U.S. Catholics are white, non-Hispanic, while 33% are Hispanic, 4% are Asian, 2% are Black and 3% are of another race.

Racial, ethnic and cultural diversity in U.S. churches presents the challenge of communicating the sensitivity around safeguarding in ways that cut through cultural differences, he said.

“When we talk with people from a different background do we really talk the same language in regard to sexuality, to harassment? How do we approach people, how you relate to people, talk about difficult issues?” Father Zollner asked.

He said the church in the United States must make significant effort “so that these ethnicities are more likely to come on board, and so that people don’t get the impression of a sort of ‘neo-colonialism’ by just applying the same type of structure, language, or educational programs to people who have a different outlook.”

“Law and guidelines are important,” he said, “but law does not change the heart. It does not automatically change mentality.”

Father Zollner stressed the need for the church “to learn to tell the intention of guidelines in a narrative way. And the narration needs to come in symbols, in language, that can be understood on the ground. “

In many cultures, for example, sexuality is “a complete taboo in the public debate,” and, as a result, “people don’t have the courage to talk about this and are not educated in family, schools, or religions to do so.”

Still, he maintained that the Catholic Church is still a leader in safeguarding, since “no religion and no denomination have made the same strides in safeguarding activity, which means setting up guidelines for all types of institutions, (and) the training of personnel, full-time or volunteers.”

But still, the church’s implementation of safeguarding practices are “far from perfect and far from consistent,” Father Zollner said.

“In many places, we don’t implement our own law,” for example in addressing cover up of abuse,, he said, which is “an institutional failure of great importance because it undermines the credibility of the Gospel message.”

Additionally, he noted that the church often fails to collaborate on safeguarding with other religions, denominations, the state and non-government organizations.

While Father Zollner praised the extensive work already done by the Catholic Church to prevent abuse, “we are the biggest player in this field, so we have a special obligation.”

SCRANTON – A total of 135 couples who are celebrating milestone anniversaries this year will be recognized at the Cathedral of Saint Peter on Sunday, June 23, 2024.

The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, will serve as principal celebrant and homilist for the Diocese of Scranton’s annual Wedding Anniversary Mass that recognizes married couples who are celebrating their 25th and 50th anniversaries.

The Mass will begin at 2:30 p.m.

In all, the couples registered to attend the Mass will signify 5,914 years of married life.

Two couples who have registered to attend the Mass are each celebrating 67 years of marriage in 2024. The couples are from Nanticoke and Dickson City.

Marriage is a vocation to holiness. All marriages can grow in knowledge, faith, joy, and love. Whether a married couple is just starting or has fifty years (or more) under their belt, the church can always help strengthen and bless your marriage.

CTV: Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton will broadcast the Mass live and provide a livestream on the Diocese of Scranton website and all Diocesan social media platforms.

 

(OSV News) – The number of permanent deacons in America is holding relatively steady, but more than a third of them are also at or approaching the required retirement age for many dioceses. According to experts, the situation may suggest a need for local churches to revisit the Second Vatican Council’s vision for the permanent diaconate and rethink how to invite men to discern the vocation.

On June 17, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations released its annual survey, “A Portrait of the Permanent Diaconate in 2023: A Study for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.”

Since 2005, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate — a national, nonprofit research center at Georgetown University that conducts social scientific studies for and about the Catholic Church — has released the survey, which provides both statistics and forecasts trends for the permanent diaconate in the U.S. Catholic Church.

The estimated number of permanent deacons in active ministry was 13,718 in 2023, roughly 69% of all permanent deacons in the Latin Church.

There were 587 men ordained to the permanent diaconate in 2023, and since 2014, the estimated number of ordinations averaged 613.

However, most active deacons are between 60-69 years old (42%), followed by deacons 70 and older (36%).

“There’s no big change or shift,” said Jesuit Father Tom Gaunt, executive director of CARA. “I think what we see is that we have an increasing number of retired deacons — they’re well into their late 70s, 80s.”

While those deacons often still serve, “we have a few more who are dying each year than are being ordained,” Father Gaunt observed. “The total number of active deacons has gone down just a little bit; very small. Whereas the total number of retired deacons has increased.”

As Catholic News Service reported in 2021, “retirement age differs from diocese to diocese. Forty-two percent of dioceses have no retirement age for deacons. Of the others, no diocese requires deacons to retire until they reach at least age 70, while 88% require retirement at ages 75-79, and 10% mandate retirement at ages 70-74. One percent does not require retirement until at least age 80.”

The CARA survey — which utilized contact information from the National Association of Diaconate Directors, or NADD — was sent to the Office of the Permanent Diaconate in Latin and Eastern (arch)dioceses and eparchies. CARA received responses from 128 of the 185 (arch)dioceses/eparchies whose bishops are members of the USCCB — and have an active Office of Deacons — for a 69% total response rate.

The Archdiocese of Chicago had the most permanent deacons (827), followed by the Archdiocese of New York (357), Archdiocese of San Antonio (346), Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston (308), and Diocese of Joliet in Illinois (307).

“Essentially, it seems about the same as the previous one,” said Deacon Bill Ditewig, former executive director of the USCCB’s Secretariat for the Diaconate. “But there’s still some areas of concern — the major one, in my opinion, being the age situation.”

“One of the things that I think people forget — when you just look at the naked statistics — is that Vatican II’s vision was of a younger diaconate,” noted Deacon Ditewig, who has held multiple academic and diocesan posts.

“In fact, some of the original proposals were that married guys could be ordained deacons at the age of 40 — and then during the debates during the (Second Vatican) Council, that was determined to be too old, and they lowered it to 35,” he said. “Now when you do that — and then look at the statistics — less than 1% of deacons are under the age of 40. You kind of have to say, ‘Has the vision met the reality here?'”

If the diaconate becomes a retired, “second career” vocation, Deacon Ditewig emphasized, “it’s not what the original vision was supposed to be” — which included bringing a diaconal witness to the secular workplace.

Deacon Ditewig also noted the American diaconate’s ethnic makeup.

Most permanent deacons are Caucasian/white (73%); followed by Hispanic/Latino (20%); Asian/Pacific Islander (3%); African American/Black (3%); and Native American/other (1%).

“That’s been a concern of the bishops since 1971,” shared Deacon Ditewig, “because again, a key part of the diaconate was to be with people where they are, where they live and where they work.”

Deacon Ditewig said some dioceses discourage younger vocations to the diaconate, reasoning, “You’re at the beginning of your career; your career is about to go on a different path; you’ve still got young children at home — why don’t you wait awhile.”

Deacon Ditewig, 74, was ordained at 40, with four children at home.

“The fact is, it worked out to be the perfect time for our family. And so what we have found over the years, sometimes, is that dioceses will set standards that if you still have minor age children at home, then don’t apply. It’s almost building in an age situation,” said Deacon Ditewig, who added that some men discerning a diaconal vocation — seeing so many older deacons serving — assume that candidates have to be retired.

“The attitude that many of us have is, let discernment do its thing — if this is the right time for this family, it will be demonstrated,” he stressed. “If it’s the wrong time for this family, that will come up, too. But the bottom line of all this is, that we’re talking about a vocation from God.”

Deacon Dominic Cerrato, director of the Office of the Diaconate for the Diocese of Joliet, and editor of OSV’s The Deacon magazine, agreed. (OSV is the parent company of OSV News.)

“The unfortunate thing is that many priests and many deacons — and I don’t want to be sweeping here, but I think it’s true — discourage young men from becoming deacons,” said Deacon Cerrato, who was ordained a deacon at 35, the youngest canonical age allowed. “We had five children at the time; we eventually had seven children. It is possible — and I think that those years served me and the church well. But many, many were discouraged from coming, and told ‘raise your family.'”

That mindset, Deacon Cerrato said, can largely be traced to a faulty understanding of the nature of vocation that proposes “God calls you in one ear for marriage, and then calls you in the other ear for the diaconate — and you’re split,” he explained. “No — because God doesn’t speak out of both sides of his mouth. It’s one single call — of which the two are integrated in.”

Still, given the persistence of that outlook, “It’s very possible that there are many more people who are younger,” observed Deacon Cerrato. “We just haven’t called them.”

That is not, however, the case in the Diocese of Joliet, where there are 307 permanent deacons, and many younger candidates are being called. “We’re seeing a rise in our numbers,” Deacon Cerrato reported.

“The single most vital development regarding the state of the diaconate in the U.S.,” said Deacon James Keating, a professor of spiritual theology at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis and a member of the Academy of Catholic Theology, “will be if diocesan seminaries begin to form seminarians in a mature theology of their own impending diaconate, and that this formation extends to a thorough appreciation for the vocation of the permanent diaconate.”

“Further,” Deacon Keating continued, “priest-deacon fraternity will only reach a place of abiding respect if the quality of diaconal formation in dioceses deepens in the areas of scriptural knowledge, liturgical competency, homiletical giftedness, ministerial wisdom to and for married couples, prudent leadership in the works of charity, and the unleashing of desire for contemplative prayer.”

The divergence between a secular and spiritual outlook also must be addressed, said Deacon Keating.

“Deacon formation programs should be encouraged to instill within the deacon an ecclesial imagination to replace a very stubborn cultural one,” he suggested. “Possessing an ecclesial imagination will go a long way in securing a true brotherhood of clerics within the ranks of priests and deacons.”

Reflecting on the survey results, Deacon Cerrato offered both an inquiry and a suggestion.

“There’s a larger question here. Why is God calling men to the diaconate? Why is it arguably the largest growing segment in the church today, certainly in the West? What is God saying?” he asked. “And I suspect he’s saying that the reason for this is that Christ the Servant needs to be made present in a world that is so turned in on itself that it fails to see that service is the way you discover yourself.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – There is a prayer for every state of mind and spiritual need in the Book of Psalms, Pope Francis said.

“There are many psalms that help us forge ahead. Get into the habit of praying the psalms. I assure you that you will be happy in the end,” the pope said during his June 19 general audience.

The pope also reminded people that June 20 marks World Refugee Day, established by the United Nations to focus on solidarity with refugees. “We are all called to welcome, promote, accompany and integrate those who knock on our doors,” he said.

“I pray that nations will work to ensure humane conditions for refugees and facilitate processes for integration,” he said.

During his main catechesis, the pope continued his series on the Holy Spirit and highlighted the importance of prayer, especially in preparation for Holy Year 2025.

All the books of the Bible are inspired by the Holy Spirit, he said, “but the Book of Psalms is also so in the sense that it is full of poetic inspiration.”

The psalms were the prayer of Jesus, Mary, the Apostles and all previous Christian generations, he said. Jesus enters into the world with a verse from a psalm in his heart, “I delight to do your will, my God (Ps 40:9), and he leaves the world with another verse, “Into your hands I commend my spirit” (Ps 31:6).

“Do you pray with the psalms sometimes?” the pope asked, reminding people that there are special editions that contain the New Testament and the psalms together.

“I have on my desk a Ukrainian edition” of the New Testament and the psalms that belonged to a soldier who died in the war, he said. “He used to pray at the front with this book,” referring to the 23-year-old soldier named Oleksandr.

“If there are psalms, or just verses, that speak to our heart, it is good to repeat them and pray them during the day. The psalms are prayers ‘for all seasons’: There is no state of mind or need that does not find in them the best words to be transformed into prayer,” the pope said.

The psalms also allow the faithful to expand on the nature of their prayers, he said, so prayers are not just a series of requests and a continuous “give me, give us.”

“The psalms help us to open ourselves to a prayer that is less focused on ourselves: a prayer of praise, of blessing, of thanksgiving; and they also help us give voice to all creation, involving it in our praise,” he said.

At the end of his main talk, the pope greeted an Italian association supporting the late Cardinal Celso Costantini, a former apostolic delegate in China who led the Council of the Chinese Catholic Church 100 years ago with the aim of revitalizing the mission of the church in China.

The pope greeted “the dear Chinese people” and asked Catholics to always pray “for this noble people, so brave, who have such a beautiful culture.”

In greeting Polish-speaking visitors, the pope gave God thanks for a new blessed: Father Michal Rapacz, a martyr of communism, who was beatified in Kraków June 15.

Blessed Rapacz was an early victim of Poland’s communist regime as he refused to abandon his parishioners and his pastoral work. The pope prayed “his example (may) teach us to be faithful to God, to respond to evil with good, to contribute in the building of a fraternal and peaceful world.”

“We pray that his witness may become a sign of consolation from God in these times marked by wars,” he said, praying that the new blessed “intercede for Poland and to obtain peace in the world!”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis and his international Council of Cardinals continued their discussions about the role of women in the church, listening to women experts and discussing the possibilities according to canon law.

This is the fourth time the pope and his nine-member Council of Cardinals have invited women to make presentations at their meetings. Women experts, including an Anglican bishop, attended the December, February and April meetings.

The council met June 17-18 in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the pope’s residence, the Vatican press office said.

Salesian Sister Linda Pocher, a professor of Christology and Mariology at Rome’s Pontifical Faculty of Educational Sciences “Auxilium,” introduced the speakers on the first day, which was dedicated to the women’s talks and the group’s reflections.

Valentina Rotondi, a professor and researcher specializing in social sciences, spoke about seeing “the economy as care and good management in the context of a profound intergenerational relationship,” the press office said.

Donata Horak, a professor of canon law in Italy, reflected on canon law by making several contrasts, “such as justice and mercy, consultative power and deliberative power, hierarchical principle and ecclesiology of communion, democratization and the monarchical model,” the press office said.

Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, India, a member of the council, told Vatican News June 18, that he agreed with the importance of increasing the role of women in the church.

“I come from India and in some areas women have little importance, they are ‘second class,’ and for this reason the church is working” to give them “the right position in the family, in society, in politics,” he said.

In the church’s Code of Canon Law, “there are many possibilities” for women’s leadership in the church, he said. Experience has shown him “many times” that women were able to address issues with “a point of view that men had not considered. And I have great hope that this will be developed.”

Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu of Kinshasa, Congo, told Vatican News that, “here in the churches, more than half of the people who participate in the celebrations are women,” but when we see the responsibilities they hold, “they are few.”

The cardinal said it has become clear that these responsibilities have to grow, but not in a “militant” sense. The reason their responsibilities should increase, he said, is, like the pope says, because “the church is a woman” and there is a “motherhood” that must be valued in the Catholic community.

The Vatican press office said the second day of the meeting began with a report about safeguarding and the work of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors by Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston, who is the commission’s president and a council member. Cardinal Gracias then focused on the work of the bishops’ conferences.

The meeting concluded with discussions about the situation in each cardinal’s home region with special attention to current conflicts, the press office said.

The council will meet again in December 2024.

The members of the council are: Cardinals Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state; Seán P. O’Malley of Boston; Sérgio da Rocha of São Salvador da Bahia, Brazil; Gracias; Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, president of the commission governing Vatican City State; Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg; Gérald C. Lacroix of Québec; Juan José Omella Omella of Barcelona; and Fridolin Ambongo Besungu of Kinshasa, Congo. Bishop Marco Mellino serves as the council’s secretary.