Category: 2024 News

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Eight people united in their anguish carried into the papal library posters bearing the faces of their loved ones who are held in captivity by Hamas.

The father, mother, aunt, uncle, cousin, brother or twin sister of various Israeli hostages met with Pope Francis for just under an hour April 8, six months after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas in which some 240 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza.

Vatican News reported that among those who met with the pope was Bezalel Shnaider, the aunt of Shiri Bibas – an Israeli mother taken hostage along with her two sons, 4-year-old Ariel and 9-month-old Kfir, the youngest hostage taken in the Oct. 7 attacks.

In an edited video of the meeting posted on X by L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Pope Francis touched his hand to a poster with images of the children to bless them.

The video also showed Amit Nimrodi giving Pope Francis a necklace bearing the image of a house with a heart inside, a symbol of support for the hostages, and he told the pope that he began growing out his now-lengthy white beard when his son was taken hostage since he believes his son, an Israeli soldier, is also growing out his beard in captivity.

Gal Gilboa-Dalal, another member of the delegation, survived the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on a music festival in Re’im, Israel, but his brother, 22-year-old Guy, was taken prisoner by Hamas. Li-Yam Berger attended the audience in support of her twin sister, Agam, a 19-year-old Israeli soldier, who was kidnapped during an attack military base in Nahal Oz, Israel, Oct. 7.

The delegation was scheduled to travel through Italy, meeting with government representatives and members of the Italian Jewish community.

In November Pope Francis had met at the Vatican with 12 relatives of 14 Israelis held hostage by Hamas and, separately, with 10 Palestinians whose family members were suffering under the Israeli siege of Gaza. The Vatican press office insisted the meetings were “of an exclusively humanitarian nature.”

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Being a Christian means defending human dignity and that includes opposing abortion, the death penalty, gender transition surgery, war, sexual abuse and human trafficking, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said in a new document. 

“We cannot separate faith from the defense of human dignity, evangelization from the promotion of a dignified life and spirituality from a commitment to the dignity of every human being,” Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, dicastery prefect, wrote in the document’s opening section.

The declaration, “Dignitas Infinita” (“Infinite Dignity”), was released at the Vatican April 8.

In the opening section, Cardinal Fernández confirmed reports that a declaration on human dignity and bioethical issues — like abortion, euthanasia and surrogacy – was approved by members of the dicastery in mid-2023 but Pope Francis asked the dicastery to make additions to “highlight topics closely connected to the theme of dignity, such as poverty, the situation of migrants, violence against women, human trafficking, war and other themes.”

In February the cardinals and bishops who are members of the dicastery approved the updated draft of the document, and in late March Pope Francis gave his approval and ordered its publication, Cardinal Fernández said.

With its five years of preparation, he wrote, “the document before us reflects the gravity and centrality of the theme of dignity in Christian thought.”

The declaration noted that the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World also listed attacks on human dignity as ranging from abortion and euthanasia to “subhuman living conditions” and “degrading working conditions.”

Members of the doctrinal dicastery included the death penalty among violations of “the inalienable dignity of every person, regardless of the circumstances” and called for the respect of the dignity of people who are incarcerated.

The declaration denounced discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and particularly situations in which people are “imprisoned, tortured and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”

But it also condemned “gender theory” as “extremely dangerous since it cancels differences in its claim to make everyone equal.”

Gender theory, it said, tries “to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference.”

The Catholic Church, the declaration said, teaches that “human life in all its dimensions, both physical and spiritual, is a gift from God. This gift is to be accepted with gratitude and placed at the service of the good.”

Quoting Pope Francis’ exhortation “Amoris Laetitia,” the declaration said gender ideology “envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family.”

Dicastery members said it is true that there is a difference between biological sex and the roles and behaviors that a given society or culture assigns to a male or female, but the fact that some of those notions of what it means to be a woman or a man are culturally influenced, does not mean there are no differences between biological males and biological females.

“Therefore,” they said, “all attempts to obscure reference to the ineliminable sexual difference between man and woman are to be rejected.”

Again quoting Pope Francis’ exhortation, the declaration said, “We cannot separate the masculine and the feminine from God’s work of creation, which is prior to all our decisions and experiences, and where biological elements exist which are impossible to ignore.”

“Any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” it said. However, the declaration clarified that “this is not to exclude the possibility that a person with genital abnormalities that are already evident at birth or that develop later may choose to receive the assistance of healthcare professionals to resolve these abnormalities.”

Members of the dicastery also warned about the implications of changing language about human dignity, citing for example those who propose the expressions “personal dignity” or “the rights of the person” instead of “human dignity.”

In many cases, they said, the proposal understands “a ‘person’ to be only ‘one who is capable of reasoning.’ They then argue that dignity and rights are deduced from the individual’s capacity for knowledge and freedom, which not all humans possess. Thus, according to them, the unborn child would not have personal dignity, nor would the older person who is dependent upon others, nor would an individual with mental disabilities.”

The Catholic Church, on the contrary, “insists that the dignity of every human person, precisely because it is intrinsic, remains in all circumstances.”

The acceptance of abortion, it said, “is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake.”

“Procured abortion is the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth,” it said.

The document also repeated Pope Francis’ call for a global ban on surrogacy, which, he said, is “a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs.”

Surrogacy, it said, transforms a couple’s legitimate desire to have a child into “a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life.”

Extreme poverty, the marginalization of people with disabilities, violent online attacks and war also violate human dignity, the document said.

While recognizing the right of nations to defend themselves against an aggressor, the document insisted armed conflicts “will not solve problems but only increase them. This point is even more critical in our time when it has become commonplace for so many innocent civilians to perish beyond the confines of a battlefield.”

On the issue of migrants and refugees, the dicastery members said that while “no one will ever openly deny that they are human beings,” many migration policies and popular attitudes toward migrants “can show that we consider them less worthy, less important, less human.”

The promotion of euthanasia and assisted suicide, it said, “utilizes a mistaken understanding of human dignity to turn the concept of dignity against life itself.”

The declaration said, “Certainly, the dignity of those who are critically or terminally ill calls for all suitable and necessary efforts to alleviate their suffering through appropriate palliative care and by avoiding aggressive treatments or disproportionate medical procedures,” but it also insisted, “suffering does not cause the sick to lose their dignity, which is intrinsically and inalienably their own.”

(OSV News) – Wearing scrubs en route to the hospital to begin her day, a health care specialist was asked how much she knew about Caitlin Clark, the University of Iowa basketball superstar who has led her Hawkeye teammates — and by extension, all of “Hawkeye Nation” — to almost unprecedented acclaim in women’s basketball.

Not akin to assessing athletes and their acumen, she quickly and succinctly summarized Clark’s entrenchment in women’s basketball.

“That basketball that she dribbles and shoots and passes serves as a great metaphor for Caitlin Clark,” said the nurse. “The basketball is round, just like the world. And right now, Caitlin Clark has the world by her fingertips.”

That Clark has managed to permeate both the zealous and casual sports fan provides a testament to the level of her national impact at the young age of 22.

At this point, it’s an arduous task to cover new ground when it comes to Clark, a lifelong and reportedly devoted Catholic who attended St. Francis of Assisi parochial school in West Des Moines, Iowa, from kindergarten through eighth grade, and then spent four years at nearby Dowling Catholic High School.

Local reporters from Clark’s hometown have been sharing her exploits since the end of grade school. Clark wasn’t even a high school junior before national publications began pegging her as a can’t-miss collegiate standout. By the time she was a senior, the words “Caitlin Clark” had soared through the internet like an out-of-control locomotive with no definitive destination.

Those who have known Clark, however, said they never noticed any apparent change in her affable, comfortable, confident personality when early daily publicity — and subsequent almost-ridiculous national coverage last year and, in particular, the past few months — threatened to scrutinize every move Clark made both on and off the basketball court.

“She’s handled it as well as any 21- or 22-year-old could,” said Kristin Meyer, her high school basketball coach at Dowling, who somehow manages to cheerfully return countless phone calls from those researching Clark’s star-studded scholastic career.

“Her support system starts with her family. She doesn’t get caught up in fame or the business aspect,” Meyer said. “She was like that in high school. She didn’t look to seek attention. She didn’t spend much time on social media. She’s grounded. Humble.”

When Clark played in grade school, Meyer immediately noticed a “different type” of player. Clark’s improvement quickly skyrocketed, rising to uncommon heights.

To communally celebrate their 2020 alumna, the Dowling Catholic student council rented out a local theater April 1 to watch Clark in the Elite Eight that night. They weren’t disappointed after she scored 41 points and threaded 12 assists in a 94-87 win over Louisiana State University that earned a trip to the Final Four.

“It’s incredible,” said Meyer. “It’s still surreal … the level of notoriety to women’s basketball. It’s not all about Caitlin Clark, of course, but she is a part of it. As terrific a player as she was in high school, I can’t say I expected this level of success.

“Her court vision. Her understanding. I haven’t seen a higher IQ,” Meyer continued. “She’s fun to watch. She’s so consistent. Scores 30 or 40 against great teams. It’s an art. She can make it look effortless.”

Like Meyer, one of Clark’s grade-school mentors at St. Francis — sixth-grade math and science teacher Jill Westholm — recalls Clark’s kind, easygoing disposition as a youngster and has witnessed her former pupil’s ability to remain stable despite unlimited attention from fans, media and even curious bystanders who can’t quite make sense of Caitlin-mania.

“It’s so crazy to me to see her in this superstar world,” Westholm told OSV News. “The same Caitlin you see today is the same Caitlin who walked the halls as a 10-, 12- and 14-year-old. She’s the Caitlin Clark who is very smart. Intelligent. Very driven. The Caitlin Clark who never gave less than her best. The Caitlin Clark who was and is very loyal to her friends. The Caitlin Clark who, even in middle school, had their backs.”

A few months ago, Westholm and a few friends decided to purchase tickets to the NCAA women’s Final Four April 5-6 in Cleveland.

Figuring — correctly, as it turned out — that ticket prices could become unreasonable as the event approached, Westholm and her buds figured they were in win-win mode. The “worst” possibility would be sitting back and watching four great programs vie for the right to compete in the NCAA final.

The best scenario, however, was obvious.

“We gambled on Caitlin being there,” said Westholm. “We crossed our fingers and said some prayers.”

The prayers were answered. On April 5, Iowa met the University of Connecticut on the court in the Final Four, and Clark led the Hawkeyes’ rally for a 71-69 win over the Huskies. Iowa headed to the NCAA championship April 7 against undefeated South Carolina. The Gamecocks beat Iowa 87-75 for the national championship and completed a perfect season.

In an interview days before the final, Westholm predicted that regardless of Iowa’s fate, Clark would either either emerge eternally grateful for becoming a national champion, or quickly bounce back from any disappointment and recognize that she had been blessed to even be on the precipice of something so unique.

“She will rely on her faith,” said Westholm. “Her faith has always been important to her, and that’s real. Her whole family lives out their faith. Caitlin doesn’t reach her stardom without her family background.”

Westholm was referring to Clark’s parents, Anne and Brent, and her two brothers, Blake and Colin. Along with her siblings, Anne graduated from Dowling Catholic and her father, Bob Nizzi, coached football there.

Before graduating from Dowling in 2019, Blake became and remains involved with a club called Ut Fidem, Latin for “keep the faith.” Having experienced a Kairos retreat as a junior, Caitlin joined Ut Fidem as a senior.

The group’s focus, according to Dowling’s website, “strives to develop high school students into intentional disciples who will keep the faith for the rest of their lives, and especially through college” and supports students via weekly small groups of five or six led by adult faith mentors.

Students learn how to “defend their Catholic faith, and develop deep, personal relationships with Jesus Christ . . . grow their devotion to personal prayer, the sacramental life, understanding of church teachings, and enter into the lifestyle of an on-fire Catholic” and better understand how to discern the question, “Why am I Catholic?”

Using some of the tools she learned in grade school and high school and benefiting from a close, faith-sharing family, Clark recently started the nonprofit Caitlin Clark Foundation — described as a mission to “uplift and improve the lives of youth and their communities through education, nutrition and sport.”

Last November, Caitlin partnered with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Iowa and, with help from Nike, personally donated close to 100 hoodies, winter gloves and hats to help keep youngsters warm this past winter. Along with a sizable personal monetary donation, she also donated 57 basketballs, 15 footballs, 12 soccer balls and 15 jump ropes to the Boys & Girls Club.

“She uses her gifts to give back,” said Meyer. “She’s not bigger than the game of basketball, but she knows she has the capacity to help other people and is enthusiastic about doing as much as she can.”

Although it’s been argued that it’s actually her eye-popping passing ability that has separated her from former and current greats, Clark’s ascent from a consistently great scorer to tallying the most points in the history of college basketball didn’t happen out of nowhere.

From the time Clark decided to attend Iowa, the nation’s top coaches held their breath and readied themselves for a steady dose of nightly wonderment and more-than-occasional ESPN highlights.

No coach watched Clark more intently than Muffet McGraw.

The legendary Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer at the University of Notre Dame who retired in 2020 after an incredible career that included 936 total victories, a .762 winning percentage, nine trips to the Final Four, seven finals and two NCAA championships came within a whisker of coaching Clark.

After a painstaking decision process, however, Clark changed her mind at the last minute and chose Iowa black and gold over Irish blue and gold. Clark has gone on record as describing the phone call to McGraw as excruciating and lauds the coach for how she handled the disappointment with gentleness, compassion and understanding.

Not a person who dishes out unwarranted praise, McGraw, Notre Dame’s women’s basketball coach for 33 years, effusively commended Clark for helping elevate women’s basketball to its highest popularity ever among both the young and old, as indicated by the more than 12 million viewers who tuned in to watch the Iowa-LSU classic.

“I’ve never seen anyone like her,” McGraw told OSV News. “She is a phenomenal offensive player. She has confidence that never wavers. She’s fearless, relentless, competitive, driven … all the things that you want in a basketball player.

“And she’s also unselfish. Yes, she takes a lot of shots, but she also led the nation in assists last year, and I’m sure she’s in the top five this year. So she’s somebody that really knows how to get her team involved. She gets them to play at a higher level. She just has that charisma and that leadership that allows the people around her to thrive.”

Superstars sometimes can’t help but alienate teammates when all of the attention surrounds one person. But that hasn’t happened at Iowa.

“There could be jealousy and there could be problems in a situation like that when you have a player like that on your team,” said McGraw. “She makes them rise above everything and focus on just wanting to win. That’s, I think, the thing that sets her apart. It’s not all about her.”

McGraw particularly appreciates Clark’s vision that surpasses well beyond points, assists, rebounds, and championships.

“She wants to do something for the women’s game,” said McGraw. “She is certainly the center of attention, yet she always takes time for others. You see her signing autographs for lines and lines of people. She just does a great job in the community and continues to do whatever she can for the fans. She says the right things in public.

“I think she is definitely somebody that is a role model in our sport, and she’s changed the game,” McGraw continued. “I mean, nobody has done what she’s done in terms of the sellouts. The Big Ten sold out every single place. It’s unbelievable … unbelievable.

“The Big Ten tournament sold out for the first time,” she said. “Tickets for the last game were going for, I don’t know, $500 or something. It’s been amazing. I mean, 12 million people watched the Iowa-LSU game. That’s even more than a lot of NBA Finals. So it’s just phenomenal what she’s done for the game.”

Wherever Clark plays as a professional, McGraw will be watching.

“She’s one in a million,” said McGraw. “I think she’s going to do great things for the WNBA next year.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has reaffirmed the requirement that every diocese, Catholic religious order and institution in the world have clear safeguarding guidelines and procedures and that they are publicly accessible.

The commission’s “Universal Guidelines Framework” also insists that “all reports of sexual abuse should be reported to the civil authorities” and that the local church maintain evidence that they have cooperated with civil authorities in investigating and responding to the allegations.

The pontifical commission began drafting the framework in 2022, invited comments on various drafts, including by members of the public through its website, and approved the framework for distribution during its plenary meeting March 5-8.

“Given the vastly different cultural contexts in which safeguarding policies and procedures are required to operate, the Commission will engage in a targeted series of pilot programs to evaluate their effectiveness especially in those parts of the Church that have little experience of implementing and evaluating the effectiveness of safeguarding guidelines,” the commission said in a statement published with the framework April 5.

While being sensitive to local cultural differences, the commission said, “the zero-tolerance approach to abuse” must be maintained.

Many of the guidelines in the framework — like child protection screening and training for all church workers — are standard in many countries that have dealt publicly with the clerical sexual abuse crisis, but they still are not universally followed.

Bishops and religious superiors, it said, should have “professional support in screening candidates for seminary/formation programs and before ordination/profession of vows.”

That responsibility, the commission said, includes asking if “the applicant or candidate has previously withdrawn or been exited from another seminary or formation program.”

Dioceses, seminaries and religious orders must have “a system in place to assess the safeguarding credentials — good standing — and manage the movement of all seminarians, clergy, religious and lay ministers between different seminaries, formation programs, other Church entities — especially across international borders,” it said.

The framework also calls on dioceses and religious orders to assign mentors to all newly ordained clergy and newly professed religious for a period of at least five years and mentors for clergy and religious arriving from other countries for at least two years, particularly to help familiarize them with aspects of the local culture involving respect for another person and what are commonly called “boundary issues.”

“Both physical and online risks” must be “assessed and managed within the provision of ministry,” the framework said, especially considering risks arising from: “one-to-one interactions between an adult and a child; ministries such as counseling, home visits, outreach, one-to-one tuition, the sacrament of reconciliation, spiritual direction and mentoring; potential physical contact between the penitent and the confessor where the sacrament of reconciliation is celebrated; (and) one-to-one interactions with vulnerable adults.”

When hiring personnel, the framework said, each position should be assessed “for the expected level of contact with children and/or vulnerable adults and appropriate safeguarding recruitment procedures are implemented,” including background checks.

As the Catholic Church continues to discuss the definition of “vulnerable adult” and to understand what constitutes abuse versus a consensual sexual relationship, the framework said the policies must acknowledge that when allegations are made, “power imbalances may exist between the complainant and respondent,” and those policies should be sensitive to the imbalance.

The framework includes an eight-page glossary of terms and lists under the heading of “vulnerable adult” not only people with cognitive impairments, but also those who “have suffered previous abuse” or who “in receiving a ministry are subject to a power imbalance.”

The power imbalance, it said, can be a result of the relationship, for example, between an “employer and employee, teacher and student, coach and athlete, parent or guardian and child, clergy/ religious and parishioner.”

 

SCRANTON – The month of April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. It is a time to recognize the importance of families and communities working together to prevent child abuse and neglect.

The month of April gives us all a chance to recommit ourselves to creating safe environments in our parishes, schools and related institutions.

The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, will celebrate the Diocese of Scranton’s annual “Healing Mass for Survivors of Abuse” on Thursday, April 11, at 12:10 p.m. at the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Scranton.

For those unable to attend in person, the Mass will be broadcast live on Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton. A livestream will also be available on the Diocese of Scranton website, YouTube channel and links on Diocesan social media.

POPE: CHURCH MUST STOP PROTECTING ABUSERS ‘WHO HIDE BEHIND THEIR POSITION’

The work of protecting minors and other vulnerable people in the Catholic Church involves holding those in positions of power accountable for the abuse they commit, Pope Francis said.

The church’s safeguarding efforts “must undoubtedly aim at eradicating situations that protect those who hide behind their positions to impose themselves on others in a perverse way,” the pope wrote in a message to participants in a safeguarding conference.

In the message, released March 12, he also said the church must try to understand why such people are “unable to relate to others in a healthy way.”

PAPAL COMMISSION TO SUBMIT FIRST SAFEGUARDING REPORT

The pope’s commission for advancing the Catholic Church’s efforts to prevent the abuse of vulnerable persons is due to submit its first annual report on the state of safeguarding in the church this summer.

The commission also announced the approval of a study group “to examine the reality of vulnerable persons in the context of the Church’s ministry and how this informs safeguarding efforts.”

The goal of the study group is to “adopt a multi-disciplinary approach to the questions around vulnerability to provide concrete recommendations on how the Church might better combat the harms committed against non-minors by the Church’s ministers in a variety of pastoral settings,” the statement added.

(OSV News) – Catholic aid workers in Gaza are determined to continue their mission after a deadly strike killed colleagues from a fellow organization.

Seven staff members of World Central Kitchen died April 1 when their three-vehicle convoy was hit in an Israeli air attack. The group — comprised of Australian, British, Polish and Palestinian nationals, as well as a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen — had just dropped off more than 100 tons of food stocks to a warehouse in central Gaza.

Israel has admitted responsibility for the internationally condemned deaths, which Israel Defense Forces chief of general staff Herzi Halevi called a “grave mistake” resulting from misidentification of the group. WCK founder José Andrés has said his team was targeted “systematically, car by car.”

Now, “the overall humanitarian community is … reeling from the news of the WCK incident,” said Jason Knapp, country representative for Catholic Relief Services in Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza.

CRS, the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States, provides a range of assistance programs in more than 100 nations. The organization is also a member of Caritas Internationalis, a confederation of over 160 Catholic relief organizations in more than 140 countries that form the official humanitarian arm of the universal Catholic Church.

Founded by the U.S. Catholic bishops in the wake of World War II, CRS is now working to alleviate suffering caused by the Israel-Hamas war, which was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 ambush — coinciding with a Sabbath and Jewish holiday — on some 22 locations in Israel.

Hamas members gunned down civilians and took 253 hostages, according to Israel, including infants, the elderly and people with disabilities. Following several releases and rescues, some 130 hostages are believed to remain in captivity, with at least 34 believed dead, according to the Israeli Defence Forces.

A New York Times investigation found at least seven locations along the Hamas attack front where Israeli women and girls had been sexually assaulted and mutilated Oct. 7. Returned female hostages have reported sexual abuse while being held by Hamas.

Israel declared war on Hamas Oct. 8, placing Gaza under siege and pounding the region with airstrikes as Hamas returned fire. To date, more than 1,200 in Israel, including at least 30 U.S. citizens, and more than 32,900 in Gaza have been killed, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials respectively. The ensuing humanitarian crisis has left the Middle East “on the verge of the abyss,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

That crisis is set to be compounded as WCK and other aid agencies have now suspended operations in Gaza after the April 1 strike. U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that more than 200 aid workers have died so far during the war in Gaza.

Knapp, speaking to OSV News from Jerusalem, said that none of CRS’s 45-member Gaza staff have been killed “to date, thankfully.”

One female staffer, a Gaza native and mother of two young children, remains injured within the Holy Family Catholic Church complex in Gaza City, having been wounded during a Dec. 16, 2023 attack on the compound that killed an elderly woman and her daughter. A second CRS staffer is also sheltering at Holy Family, while a third is staying at the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius, said Knapp. The latter church was struck by an Israeli strike in October 2023.

Aid workers are protected under international humanitarian law, and Knapp explained that his team participates in a “humanitarian notification system” to advise the warring parties of CRS Gaza movements.

“There is the ability to notify the Israeli authorities directly or to use a centralized system where basically all humanitarian notifications can go through to the IDF,” Knapp said. “So as CRS, we do use the humanitarian notification system.”

“And then at times, especially if we feel like there are increased risks, we can also notify the Israeli Defense Forces directly through what’s called COGAT (the agency for Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories) to make sure that they’re very aware of our operations and taking appropriate precautions around our staff and our operations,” he said.

Knapp told OSV News he is “amazed every single day by the CRS colleagues who are providing assistance in Gaza.

“The vast majority of our team is Gazan themselves and they are displaced,” he said. “Many of them have had family members lost. They have gone through really immense suffering and yet are finding quite significant hope in being able to serve those who are in need around them, even as they’re in need themselves.”

The CRS Gaza team has “reached about three quarters of a million people since the beginning of the war,” providing “food, cash-based assistance or market-based assistance, blankets and shelter and other types of items to families who need it,” said Knapp.

Most of CRS Gaza’s operations have been forced out of the northern half of Gaza and reestablished in the south, he said.

“We’re working with other actors who are trying to coordinate for the movement of goods into the north, and then basically trying to link them with our partners who are active (there),” so as to ensure “some regularity and sustainability … (in) aid to the north,” Knapp said.

At the same time, a looming invasion of Rafah in the south presents CRS Gaza with another set of challenges, he said.

Along with the “huge, huge concern (of) the protection of civilians,” Knapp said he is troubled by a lack of “plans on the table” about ensuring a steady flow of aid into the area, since the current “pipelines of goods into Gaza … almost all go through areas that would be (within) active military operations.”

Another issue is “the safe and predictable movement of humanitarians in and out of Gaza,” he said. “A lot of NGOs, the U.N. and others are using the Rafah pedestrian crossing to rotate staff into Gaza and out of Gaza.”

Sea and air routes are not viable alternatives for providing “significant amounts of aid,” said Knapp. “We need as many land routes as possible to be functioning at scale.”

Food and emergency shelter are the top aid priorities — and above all, a cessation of hostilities, he said.

“Anytime I talk to a Gazan, they say, ‘Please make the bombs stop. That is by far the most important thing that we need, so we can start building a new life and a future for ourselves,'” said Knapp.

(OSV News) – A new video series featuring several U.S. Catholic bishops will offer what organizers call a “deep dive into the sacred mysteries of the Mass.”

“Beautiful Light: A Paschal Mystagogy,” produced by the National Eucharistic Revival, will be livestreamed on seven consecutive Thursdays from April 4-May 16 at 8 p.m. ET on the revival’s Facebook, YouTube and Instagram channels.

Launched in June 2022, the revival is a three-year grassroots initiative sponsored by the nation’s Catholic bishops to enkindle devotion to the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. The various events and programs of the revival will be capped by the National Eucharistic Congress, which will take place July 17-21 in Indianapolis.

The upcoming video series will be hosted by Sister Alicia Torres, a member of the Franciscans of the Eucharist of Chicago and part of the revival’s executive team, and National Eucharistic Revival missionary Tanner Kalina.

The episodes, led by various bishops, will survey the central aspects of the Mass as part of what the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1075) calls “liturgical catechesis,” or “mystagogy.”

Derived from the Greek for “being led (or initiated) into the mysteries,” mystagogy has since the early church enabled newly initiated Christians to better understand the sacred mysteries they have just embraced.

The video series is intended for both viewers who are “cradle Catholics” as well as those who “have just entered the church at Easter,” Sister Alicia said in a blog post announcing the series — and the participating bishops will also share their responses to “questions that are pressing on our hearts,” she added.

Along with a better understanding of the Mass, the series aims to help the faithful lead Eucharistic lives, Sister Alicia wrote.

The schedule for the series is as follows:

— Episode 1 (April 4), “Sacrifice” with Archbishop Charles C. Thompson of Indianapolis, who will focus on the offertory of the Mass, explaining how the faithful can unite their own offerings to the total self-gift of Jesus to the Father for the salvation of the world.

— Episode 2 (April 11), “Praise and Thanksgiving” with Bishop Robert J. Brennan of Brooklyn, New York, mystical Body of Christ while offering praise and thanksgiving to God.

— Episode 3 (April 18), “Called to Holiness” with Auxiliary Bishop Gregory W. Gordon of Las Vegas, who will consider the epiclesis prayer, through which the Holy Spirit is invoked to consecrate the bread and the wine — and the faithful.

— Episode 4 (April 25), “Jesus, Lord and Lover of Souls” with Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, and leader of the National Eucharistic Revival on behalf of the U.S. bishops, who will explain the institution narrative, during which the bread and wine are transformed into Christ’s body and blood as the priest speaks Jesus’ words from the Last Supper.

— Episode 5 (May 2), “Paschal Mystery” with Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer of Atlanta, who will speak about the “anamnesis” (Greek for “calling to mind”), also known as the memorial acclamation, and how that sacred remembrance once again makes present the paschal mystery.

— Episode 6 (May 9), “The Body of Christ, the Church” with Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory of Washington, who will explain how the entire mystical body of Christ — those in heaven, on earth and in purgatory — is present at every Mass.

— Episode 7 (May 16), “The Joy of Trinitarian Adoration” with Auxiliary Bishop Joseph L. Coffey of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, who will examine the significance of the Doxology and Great Amen, during which the priest elevates the consecrated host and chalice while proclaiming praise for the Triune God.

More information about the video series, along with links to the platforms on which it will be livestreamed, can be found at the website of the National Eucharistic Revival (https://www.eucharisticrevival.org/post/beautiful-light-a-paschal-mystagogy-live)

(OSV News) – Have you got your glasses?

For those in the path of the April 8 astronomical event dubbed “the Great North American Eclipse” – the total solar eclipse that will occur when the moon passes between the sun and Earth, completely blocking the sun – it’s a question of both practicality and safety. As NASA notes, “When watching the partial phases of the solar eclipse directly with your eyes … you must look through safe solar viewing glasses (‘eclipse glasses’) or a safe handheld viewer at all times.”

The total solar eclipse will be visible only along a slim corridor stretching from Texas to Maine, but a partial eclipse will be visible in other U.S. states. On average, NASA — which will hold a live online broadcast — says about 375 years elapse between the appearance of two total eclipses in the same place.

Father John Kartje – rector and president of the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary in Illinois, who also holds a doctorate in astrophysics from the University of Chicago – has been fielding a multitude of eclipse inquiries from fellow Catholics.

Those questions, he told OSV News, are sometimes informed by an underlying anxiety, “almost asking about, is there some portent to this or is this a sign – the way a question might have been asked centuries ago.”

Father Kartje stressed that he nonetheless treats such questions with reverence, although none of his petitioners have yet suggested “that we’ve been cursed or something like that.”

Still, dramatic celestial events are easily capable of both unsettling and exhilarating the public, even if they don’t believe an eclipse is an advent of the apocalyptic.

There are at least a couple of ways to think about a solar eclipse, Father Kartje suggested — the physical and the spiritual.

“There’s just the basic astronomical reality,” Father Kartje told OSV News. “The Earth goes around the sun, and there happens to be a large rock that goes around the Earth, we call the moon.” The moon takes about one month — 27.3 days — to orbit Earth. “And so it’s inevitable that every so often, that rock — the moon — is going to get in between our view and the sun.”

“From a physical standpoint, we shouldn’t look at that and say, ‘Oh my goodness — there’s a one in 10 trillion chance that this would ever happen,'” Father Kartje added. “No — it’s exactly the sort of thing that should happen when any one object blocks the view of another object.”

While Father Kartje’s astrophysics training has unquestionably demystified the phenomenon for him, he still admits “it’s an incredibly cool thing, and really just awe-inspiring to see.”

And on a spiritual level?

“We can know, scientifically, that the sun is not particularly extraordinary as stars go,” explained Father Kartje, “but it’s one thing to read that in an astronomy book; it’s another thing to be a little human being on the surface of the Earth in the presence of this extraordinary ball of burning gas, and when that ‘goes out’ — when it’s completely blocked — in a total eclipse, there’s that humbling sense of, these are truly things of cosmic proportion.”

It also can remind us of who put those things in motion in the first place.

“As extraordinary as an eclipse is, it’s simply the natural world behaving in the way the one and only God who created it set it up to behave,” Father Kartje said. “But I think anything that can give us a little jaw-dropping awe and wonder to stop us in our tracks — to quiet and silence the din and buzz of everyday busyness — can be a great opportunity to reflect on God’s grandeur.”

Father Kartje suggests the eclipse is a chance to “spend a little time in quiet contemplation. And if someone is stumped where to start, I’d say go to Psalm 8. Psalm 8 is my favorite psalm about just beholding the wonder of the natural sky — and the psalmist literally says that.”

In Mundelein, he and his St. Mary of the Lake colleagues will experience a deep partial solar eclipse with a 92.7% magnitude. In a solar eclipse, the magnitude is the fraction of the sun’s diameter that is covered by the moon.

“I was just down at NASA headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama,” shared Father Kartje, referring to the Marshall Space Flight Center. “NASA manufactures these little disposable eclipse viewing glasses by the millions, so I came back with an armful of them that I’ll give out.”

In Rochester, New York, the House of Mercy — a homeless shelter and advocacy center founded in 1985 by Sister Grace Miller with help from her order, the Sisters of Mercy — is ensuring their guests and clients can also take part in the landmark astronomical event.

Rochester was named by National Geographic as one of the best cities in which to watch the 2024 eclipse.

“We work with an awful lot of people that don’t have access to many of the things the average person that reads the newspaper and listens to the radio in their car has,” explained Brian Keene, House of Mercy’s building and grounds manager.

Keene – with representatives from 52 other local organizations – is an official Rochester Museum and Science Center-designated “Eclipse Ambassador.”

The museum gave House of Mercy a solar filter-equipped telescope, and staff have distributed more than 70 “eclipse backpacks” stuffed with a commemorative water bottle; two pairs of eclipse glasses; basic scientific information; a blanket; bagged lunch; hygiene supplies; and more.

“Not only is it a great way to include people in the festivities, it’s also a great conversation starter for a street outreach person,” said Keene. “You only have so many introductions — especially if you’re walking up to someone in a tent encampment, or somebody that’s sleeping in the street,” he added. “In our work, that’s our opportunity. Every one of those connections is a chance to get somebody inside and into a program. So these eclipse backpacks are great for that.”

At St. Cecilia Catholic School in Houston — where the sun should appear to be about 93%-95% covered — it’s “Eclipse 2.0,” with more activities planned than the last occurrence.

John Aylor, assistant principal, has been telling St. Cecilia’s 616 pre-Kindergarten through eighth-grade students, “This is your opportunity to see God’s creation in action.”

Mary Margaret Leavitt — St. Cecilia’s STREAM (Science, Technology, Religion, Engineering, Arts and Math) Integration Teacher — assembled a compendium of different activities recommended by NASA and other institutions, providing a set of resources to teachers.

Eclipse viewing will take place both outdoors and via indoor livestream. Younger grades are learning about physical science to understand the process of what’s happening, while more advanced grades are studying the physics of the phenomenon through shadow and light waves.

“This is a chance for them to see what sort of design, what sort of beauty, is within the world — and just to help incorporate a better understanding of the science behind it all,” said Aylor. “And then, just the historical perspective of it — ‘I was there.’ We took time to learn; we took time to think — and stop and wonder.”

Brother Guy Consolmagno — the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory — told OSV News the April 8 solar eclipse “might be more spectacular than the one in 2017 because the sun is more active right now.”

That said, it’s uncertain if the heavens will cooperate with clear skies.

“What I find particularly spiritual in an eclipse is that we can predict precisely when it will happen — and plan accordingly — but we cannot predict just what it will look like or how we will react,” said Brother Guy. “In that way, it reminds me how God is forever reliable but still always able to surprise us.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Multiple states will have measures to expand access to abortion on their ballots in November, a key challenge for pro-life groups in the fall after their losses on similar contests in post-Dobbs elections.

The Florida Supreme Court on April 1 simultaneously ruled that the state’s Constitution does not protect abortion access and allowed a proposed amendment seeking to do so to qualify for the state’s November ballot.

Kelsey Pritchard, state public affairs director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told OSV News in an interview that while her group celebrates that the Florida Supreme Court upheld abortion restrictions in that state, “at the same time, we recognize that Florida is in real jeopardy of losing those protections through the ballot measure that they also upheld and said would be on the ballot in November.”

“And we really call on Gov. Ron DeSantis, on people in Florida who are pro-life and GOP leaders there to step up, and especially for the governor because he signed both of those bills into law and he needs to be at the forefront of protecting Florida from big abortion’s agenda,” she added in reference to laws limiting abortion signed by DeSantis, a Republican who unsuccessfully sought his party’s nomination for president in 2024.

Maryland and New York also will have efforts to enshrine abortion protections in their state constitutions on the ballot, while efforts for similar amendments to qualify for the ballot are still underway in several states including Arizona and Montana, where closely watched races for the U.S. Senate also will take place.

Ballot measures on abortion proved elusive for the pro-life movement in 2022 and 2023, despite achieving their long-held goal of reversing Roe v. Wade when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision, which overturned the 1973 Roe decision and related precedent establishing abortion as a constitutional right, as well as the passage of legislation limiting the procedure in several states as well as new revenue streams of support in some states for women and families facing unplanned pregnancies.

Ohio voters on Nov. 7, 2023, approved a measure to codify abortion access in the state’s constitution, legalizing abortion up to the point of fetal viability — the gestational point at which a baby may be capable of living outside the uterus — and beyond, if a physician decided an abortion was necessary for the sake of the mother’s life or health. The Ohio results were not an outlier, as they followed losses for the pro-life movement when voters in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Vermont and Kansas either rejected new limitations on abortion or expanded legal protections for it.

Pritchard said, “In addition to Florida, we are involved with Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, and South Dakota,” other states where advocates of expanding abortion access also are seeking the requisite number of signatures to qualify for similar ballot measures to amend those states’ constitutions.

Some Democratic strategists have argued those measures could help their efforts in battleground states, as voters even in Republican-leaning states have adopted them.

Asked how the group plans to shift its strategy on abortion ballot measures in the next election cycle, Pritchard said, “What has to be different this time is the level of engagement from GOP leaders, they have to be willing to get into these fights now, and help by raising money and vocally standing in opposition and to really unveil what these measures actually do.”

Pritchard added that opponents of such constitutional amendments need “to expose that the abortion industry is lying in their ads when they say that, if you don’t pass this constitutional amendment women are going to die in your state.”

“That’s a complete lie, because it’s just an obvious truth that every state has a life of the mother provision,” she said.

Although supporters of state-level abortion restrictions note each of those laws passed in the wake of Dobbs contains an exception for circumstances where a pregnancy presents a risk to a woman’s life, critics have pointed to cases where women alleged that the laws in their states forced them to continue pregnancies despite grave risks to their health.

The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred and must be respected from conception to natural death. As such, the church opposes direct abortion as an act of violence that takes the life of the unborn child.

After the Dobbs decision, church officials in the U.S. have reiterated the church’s concern for both mother and child, as well as about social issues that push women toward having an abortion.